Necropolis

Necropolis
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action - Shelter
Kingdom card?	No
Set	Dark Ages
Illustrator(s)	Brian Brinlee
Card text
+2 Actions

Necropolis is one of the three Shelter cards that players start with instead of Estates in their decks in Dark Ages games. It is the only Shelter that is an Action card.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• This is an Action card; when you play it, you get +2 Actions.

Other Rules clarifications

• When a Necropolis 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.
• When Necropolis is played according to Way of the Horse or Way of the Butterfly, it has no pile to return to and remains in your play area. (This is an advantage for Way of the Horse, but means Butterfly has no effect at all.)

Strategy

Refer to the Shelter strategy section for overall discussion of strategy for the three Shelters collectively.

As an Action card that starts the game in your deck, Necropolis sometimes has a major impact on what you can do in the opening, even though its village effect is irrelevant at first. Necropolis is a prime target for effects that require you to trash an Action card, and in cases like Advance and Animal Fair, it's often worth activating this ability immediately. The presence of a Way can also be important: for example, Way of the Sheep guarantees you can buy a card costing in the opening. Later in the game, many Ways continue to be situationally more useful than Necropolis's effect, making it worth keeping in your deck. Way of the Horse is especially noteworthy: because Necropolis has no pile to return to, this Way makes it equivalent to a Laboratory that you start out with for free. In some games, Necropolis can eventually become useful for its village effect, although this is weak, coming in the form of a stop card with no other bonus. Its presence sometimes enables you to somewhat delay the purchase of other villages, and can occasionally resolve early terminal collision, although it's still often better to thin it if you can. Alternatively, if the Kingdom offers strong deck control but no other villages, keeping your Necropolis can be worthwhile, as it will allow you to consistently play an extra terminal each turn once you are drawing your deck.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		+2 Actions	Dark Ages 1st Edition	August 2012
		+2 Actions	Dark Ages 2nd Edition	September 2017

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Czech	Vylidněné město (lit. empty city)			+2 akce
Dutch	Necropolis
Finnish	Kuolleiden kaupunki (lit. city of the dead)
French	Nécropole			+2 Actions
German	Totenstadt			+2 Aktionen	(2012)
Japanese	共同墓地 (pron. kyōdō bochi, lit. public cemetery)			+2 アクション
Korean	공동묘지 (pron. gongdongmyoji, lit. cemetery)
Russian	Некрополь (pron. nyekropol')
Spanish	Necrópolis

Trivia

Official card art.

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.

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