Hovel
| Hovel | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Info | |
| Cost |
 |
| Type(s) | Reaction - Shelter |
| Kingdom card? | No |
| Set |
Dark Ages |
| Illustrator(s) | Eric J Carter |
| Card text | |
| When you gain a Victory card, you may trash this from your hand. | |
Hovel is one of the three Shelter cards that players start with instead of Estates in their decks in Dark Ages games. It is a Reaction; when you gain a Victory card, you can trash your Hovel if you have it in hand at the time.
Contents |
FAQ
Unofficial FAQ
- When you gain a Victory card, if Hovel is in your hand, you may trash it.
- You don't get anything for trashing Hovel; you just get to get rid of it.
Other rules clarifications
- When a Hovel is revealed when playing Ambassador, it is not returned to the Supply (since it is not in the Supply) and opponents do not gain a copy of it.
- Hovel got errata in 2022 to trigger when you gain a Victory card, even if you didn't buy it. So if you gain a Province with Rebuild, you may trash your Hovel.
Deprecated official FAQ (2020) |
|
Strategy
Refer to the Shelter strategy section for overall discussion of strategy for the three Shelters collectively.
Hovel not only provides no 
but lacks the Victory card type entirely, meaning that it lacks even the minor advantages of Estates in e.g. providing draw when revealed by Ironmonger. The fact that it can be trashed when you buy a Victory card is its most useful feature: for example, its presence in your hand may slightly increase the attraction of gaining an alt-VP card that is useful for your deck in any case, such as Mill. When considering whether to buy a Victory card to trash Hovel, it is important to assess the long-term effect on the number of stop cards in your deck. For example, if you buy your first Province and trash a Hovel, you’ve added zero stop cards on net. If, on the other hand, you were to buy an Estate in the early game to trash Hovel, the number of stop cards would not immediately change, but once you start greening and buy your first Province the number of stop cards increases by one, meaning you effectively have bought an extra Estate for no particular benefit. Occasionally, however, it can be worth trashing Hovel by buying an Estate when you have 
and nothing better to buy if the Estate can be put to use in some way that Hovel couldn't (perhaps in feeding a trash-for-benefit effect or using it for draw with Crop Rotation).
Versions
English versions
| Digital | Text | Release | Date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
 |
When you buy a Victory card, you may trash this from your hand. | Dark Ages | August 2012 |
 |
When you buy a Victory card, you may trash this from your hand. | Dark Ages (2017 printing) | September 2017 | |
 |
When you gain a Victory card, you may trash this from your hand. | June 29, 2022 |
Other language versions
| Language | Name | Digital | Text | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Czech | Chýše (lit. hut) |
 |
Když si koupíš kartu vítězných bodů, můžeš zahodit Chýši z ruky na smetiště. | ||
| Dutch | Hutje (lit. cabin) | ||||
| Finnish | Röttelö (lit. shack) | ||||
| French | Cabane | Quand vous achetez une carte Victoire, vous pouvez écarter cette carte de votre main. | |||
| German | Hütte |  |
 |
Wenn du eine Punktekarte kaufst, darfst du diese Karte aus deiner Hand entsorgen. | (2019) one or more other versions listed here |
| Hütte |  |
Wenn du eine Punktekarte nimmst, darfst du diese Karte aus deiner Hand entsorgen. | |||
| Japanese | 納屋 (pron. naya, lit. barn) |
勝利点カード1枚を購入するとき、これを手札から廃棄してもよい。 | |||
| Korean | 초가집 (pron. chogajib, lit. thatch house) | ||||
| Russian | Лачуга (pron. lachuga) | ||||
| Spanish | Casucha |
Trivia
Hovel is the only Dominion card to date that is not an Action, Night, Treasure, Victory, or Curse.
Secret History
Shelters: Tom Lehmann suggested replacing starting Estates with something else, to make the environment feel more Dark Ages-y. I thought this was a great idea. Ruins obv. doesn't work, because some people would make out, unless we picked specific ones. And Curse isn't very interesting. But I could just make up three new cards, which is what I did. Necropolis shakes up early turns, since you can stomach more in the way of terminal actions; Overgrown Estate gives you a little prize if you crack it open eventually; and Hovel tempts you into buying a victory card when you might not have.
Hovel is the only one that changed. Originally it was an action you could trash by discarding your hand. It turned out that trashing it turn 1-2 usually seemed like the correct play, even if you drew it with four Coppers. So that was no good. Hovel as printed has nice flavor going for it; you move out of your old Hovel and into a nice Duchy.
