Harem

Harem
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Treasure - Victory
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Intrigue
Illustrator(s)	Maura Kalusky
Card text
2

Harem is a Treasure-Victory card from Intrigue. Its price is that of Gold (more expensive than a Duchy) but the cost output is that of Silver and the   output is lower than that of Duchy.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• This can be played in your Buy phase like other Treasures, and is worth 2  at the end of the game.
• Use 8 Harems for games with 2 players, 12 for games with 3 or more players.

Strategy

Harem suffers from many of the same problems as Gold—chiefly that it’s an expensive stop card that usually has a high opportunity cost—while generating even less , which makes it usually undesirable in an engine. At the same time, it is also worse than a cheaper Duchy at scoring  . However, the combination of both these effects in a single card does make it occasionally relevant, most often in money strategies.

Like Duchy, Harem can be a useful option when you’re employing a money strategy if you want to add   but cannot afford Province; its advantage over Duchy is that it allows you to continue increasing (rather than decreasing) your money density at the same time. This is especially relevant if you want to start greening early, for example with Hoard or Battlefield. However, you’ll still sometimes prefer Gold over Harem when using a money strategy, especially if it’s early in the game or if money density is even more important than usual, e.g. because Colony is present or you’re facing a discarding attack.

In an engine context, Harem is occasionally useful as a supplementary source of alt-VP that can allow you to score while building, in a fashion similar to Nobles. It can be a reasonable target for Treasure gainers such as Hero or Mint—although gaining these specifically for this purpose is unlikely to be the focal point of an efficient build, the ability to use a Treasure gainer to score may be important if there are no other sources of additional gains. Harem can also be useful as a Victory card that can be put into play, with effects such as Storyteller (where it functions as both   and draw) or gainers such as Kiln and Changeling (which cannot usually be used to score). Finally, the fact that Harem costs means it can be relevant with Displace, which allows you to alternate between Exiling Harem and Province to gain a copy of the other card, thus scoring   with every play of Displace.

External strategy articles

Note: Article(s) below are by individual authors and may not represent the community's current views on cards, but may provide more in-depth information or give historical perspective. Caveat emptor.

• theory's 2010 article

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		2	Intrigue 1st Edition	July 2009
		2	Intrigue 2nd Edition	October 2016

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Chinese	後宮 (pron. hòugōng)
Czech	Harém
Dutch	Harem
Finnish	Haaremi
French	Harem
German	Harem			2	(2009)
	Harem			2	2. Edition  (2021)
Hungarian	Hárem
Italian	Harem
Japanese	ハーレム (pron. hāremu)			2
Korean	하렘 (pron. halem)
Norwegian	Harem
Polish	Harem			2	(2016)
Russian	Гарем (pron. garyem)			2
Spanish	Harén

Trivia

Official card art.

Until Empires, Harem was the only Treasure–Victory card. Donald X. Vaccarino designed and playtested one or two other such cards, including a card that gave , 1 , and +Buy, but that turned out to be too weak to be usable.

Theme

I originally referred to the game as Castle Builder. The cards were things in castles. Harems are such a thing. So I had a Harem card. I personally have questioned why it's called that, repeatedly, but it's not something that came up while working on the set, and it's not something people send in letters about.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Interview with Donald X.

Card Art

The author of the drawing (Maura Kalusky) said there is no man in the picture, all the characters are women.

The art depicts developer Valerie Putman. She's in the back, between the giant half face and the man.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, 'Art Trivia'

Secret History

Another of the oldest cards. Originally there were just some cards. One day I decided, okay, these ones are the main set, these are the first expansion, these are the second expansion. Great Hall / Harem / Nobles date back to then. They could have been in the main set, but they seemed like a cool simple thing to save for the first expansion, and have been there since 2006.

I tried a few different mixes of victory points and before settling on two of each as the best version.

My version of Harem had no art - just a big 2 crown . I used a crown for the   symbol you see. Anyway I liked that way of doing it and it seemed funny that Harem had no art. Just the card you want art for! I fully expected that the card name would get changed during development. Wouldn't someone complain that it was sexist, or un-European, or wait a minute, why does this make money? No-one complained though. Harem, there it is. We didn't specifically ask for cartoony art btw, that's just what came in.

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

Retrospective

It's a bummer I couldn't replace Harem though. I should have asked Valerie myself at the time. Coppersmith would have survived, and it's the one people miss the most. [Harem] is redundant with Farmland, but also, it's called "Harem." They are different all the ways they are different, but similar enough to not miss Harem.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Dominion Discord, 2020

New name and art

This isn't a secret, but isn't widely known: Altenburger did a poll, which cards would players like to see with new art, and Harem won. They didn't ask us (me and Jay) first, and we said, okay, but we'll be renaming it too. So at some point a promo will come out that's Harem but with new art and a new name (still depicting Valerie). And then probably eventually it will find its way into Intrigue.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Dominion Reddit, 2023

Altenburger is doing an alternate art version of Harem, renamed to Farm, only whatever that is in their German translation. We will have it in English too, at some point. And someday it may replace Harem in Intrigue, but man that won't be labelled 3E. Besides that, at some random point there might be a promo; I don't have any information there currently, but I have a promo waiting for if it's needed.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Dominion Discord, 2023