Catapult

Catapult
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action - Attack
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Empires
Illustrator(s)	Matthias Catrein
Card text
+ Trash a card from your hand. If it costs or more, each other player gains a Curse. If it's a Treasure, each other player discards down to 3 cards in hand.

Catapult is an Action-Attack card from Empires. It is a trasher that can function as a handsize attack or a curser; which Attack effects happen (or both) depend on the card being trashed. It is a split pile card, with 5 copies of Catapult sitting on top of Rocks; Rocks are designed to be the optimal trashing target to get the most Attack value out of Catapult.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• If the card you trash is a treasure, each other player discards down to 3 cards in hand; if the card you trash costs or more, each other player gains a Curse; if it is both (e.g. Silver), both things happen; if it is neither, neither thing happens.
• If you have no cards in hand left to trash, neither thing happens.

Other Rules clarifications

• Unlike Followers (where one player gains the Curse and discards before the next player does so), the other players first gain the Curse in turn order, and then the other players discard cards in turn order.

Strategy

Catapult is a cheap and useful card that combines thinning with a strong Attack. It’s often an essential choice in the opening, especially when building an engine in a Kingdom without stronger trashing options, and can remain helpful throughout the game. In two-player games, the Rocks in the bottom half of this pile see play only rarely, but they function as excellent Catapult fodder in the few games in which they’re uncovered.

Catapult’s primary effect is typically to slow down progress in the early game significantly. This is partly because all players are likely to be attacking with Catapult, so everyone is operating with reduced hand sizes. Additionally, Catapult is a terminal stop card that reduces your own hand size by two when played, is slow at trashing, and is best used to get rid of Coppers rather than Estates (in order to attack). Thus, unless Catapult can be paired with a better Estate trasher (e.g. Raze), the overall effect is to reduce your total purchasing power without getting rid of your most useless cards. Missing an opportunity to attack your opponent by trashing an Estate instead might give them an opening to afford more expensive cards and begin to improve their deck more quickly than you can, but may still be worth it in some situations (e.g. if it lets you afford an important card that turn, or you know through careful tracking of your opponent’s deck that the attack will have minimal impact). Obtaining a second Catapult in the early game is unusual, but can be viable if there’s strong draw and your terminal space allows, especially if you have additional non-Treasure junk to trash too.

Once you have deck control and your Coppers are gone, you might consider Cursing your opponent by Catapulting more expensive cards, if you can spare them. Although your opponent is likely to be close to deck control too, and therefore able to deal with the Curses easily, this can be an attractive plan if it will tie up their own Catapult in doing so, thus preventing them from attacking, or if you have cards that have outlived their usefulness in any case. In the absence of such targets, Silvers are usually the best option, especially if you gained some during the early game but now have better sources of in your deck. Occasionally you can make use of a Silver-gainer, e.g. Lucky Coin, to repeat the attack every turn without spending a Buy on fodder.

Even better than Silver, in theory, would be Rocks — this is an ideal candidate for trashing, since it activates both components of Catapult’s attack while replenishing your economy and/or your Catapult fodder by gaining Silvers. In practice, outside multiplayer games, it’s very unlikely that Rocks will have been uncovered, nor is it likely to be worth gaining several more Catapults in order to get to them. In the occasional game where the Rocks do get revealed, however, they’re usually very attractive, especially since this probably means you have multiple Catapults in your deck to make use of them and the Silvers they gain. Although Rocks are tailored to complement Catapult’s abilities particularly well, they can be very useful with other trash-for-benefit effects too, e.g. Upgrade.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		+ Trash a card from your hand. If it costs or more, each other player gains a Curse. If it's a Treasure, each other player discards down to 3 cards in hand.	Empires Empires (2021 printing)	June 2016

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Dutch	Katapult			+ Vernietig een kaart uit je hand. Is deze of meer waard, dan pakt iedere andere speler een Vloek. Is het een geldkaart, dan legt iedere andere speler zoveel kaarten af dat hij 3 haadkaarten overhoudt.	(2016)
Finnish	Katapultti
French	Catapulte			+ Écartez une carte de votre main. Si elle coûte ou plus, tous vos adversaires reçoivent une Malédiction. Si c'est une carte Trésor, tous vos adversaires défaussent jusqu'à avoir 3 cartes en main.
German	Katapult			+ Entsorge eine Handkarte. Wenn diese oder mehr kostet, muss sich jeder Mitspieler einen Fluch nehmen. Wenn es eine Geldkarte ist, muss jeder Mitspieler Karten ablegen, bis er nur noch 3 Karten auf der Hand hat.	(2016)
German	Katapult			+ Entsorge eine deiner Handkarten. Wenn sie oder mehr kostet, nimmt jeder Mitspieler einen Fluch. Wenn es eine Geldkarte ist, legt jeder Mitspieler Handkarten ab, bis er nur noch 3 hat.	2. Edition (2021)
Japanese	投石機 (pron. tōseki-ki)			+ 手札1枚を廃棄する。それがコスト以上の場合、他のプレイヤーは全員、呪い1枚を獲得する。財宝カードの場合、他のプレイヤーは全員、手札が3枚になるように捨て札にする。(両方に該当する場合、全買が獲得した後に、全買が捨て札にする)。
Polish	Katapulta			+ Wyrzuć na śmietnisko kartę z ręki. Jeżeli kosztuje lub więcej, każdy z pozostałych graczy dodaje Klątwę; jeżeli jest to karta Skarbu, każdy z pozostałych graczy odrzuca karty, aż pozostaną mu 3 na ręce.	(2017)
Russian	Катапульта (pron. katapul'ta)

Trivia

Official card art.

Preview

At long last, we have the Dominion Catapult. Well it's been a great run guys. And it doesn't even let you throw something at the board. Catapult hurts the other players based on what you throw I mean trash; if you trash a Treasure they discard, if you trash a card for + they get Cursed, and if a card has both attributes they both discard and get a Curse, yeeha. It's like a rodeo in here.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Empires Previews #2: Split Piles

Secret History

I tried to come up with flavor that would be good for split piles. The main thing to do was one thing that leads to another thing somehow (rather than one card changing into another, like some cards in the past). But one idea on the list was a Catapult and Rocks and well, who can resist naming a card Rocks. Catapult initially gave the Cursing bonus on cards costing or more, but at one point I lowered the cards to costing and , and then kept Catapult working on 's when I switched it back to costing itself.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Secret History of the Empires Cards

Is it too hard to get to Rocks?

It was a concern for all split piles, that the 2nd card be reached in enough games. Not necessarily every game but sure not never. 2-player was a concern too although I am trying to support 2-4 well, and 5 at least somewhat, and that means I aim more for perfection for 3 players, in the middle. In the end reports from players suggest that Rocks is harder than an ideal amount to get to, though sometimes the 2 players get to it. I'm happy with it with more players.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Interview with Donald X.