Small Castle

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Small Castle
Info
Cost $5
Type(s) Action - Victory - Castle
Kingdom card? Yes
Set Empires
Illustrator(s) Julien Delval
Card text
Trash this or a Castle from your hand. If you do, gain a Castle.
2 VP

Small Castle is an Action-Victory-Castle card from Empires. It allows you to trash a Castle you already have to gain a more powerful Castle.

FAQ

Official FAQ

  • Small Castle gains you the top Castle, whichever one that is.

Other Rules clarifications

  • You are allowed to choose to trash a Castle from your hand, even if you don't have any Castles in your hand, though this means you will not gain a Castle.

Strategy

Refer to the Castle strategy section.

Versions

English versions

Print Digital Text Release Date
Small Castle Small Castle from Shuffle iT Trash this or a Castle from your hand.
If you do, gain a Castle.
2 VP
Empires June 2016

Other language versions

Language Name Print Digital Text
Chinese 迷你的城堡
(pron. mínǐ de chéngbǎo)
移除此卡或是你手中的一張城堡,如果你移除了,獲得一張城堡。
2 VP
Dutch Klein Kasteel Vernietig deze kaart of een
Kasteel uit je hand. Doe je
dat, pak dan een Kasteel.
2 VP
(2016)
Finnish Pieni linna
French Petit château French language Small Castle 2021 from Shuffle iT Écartez cette carte ou un Château de votre main.
Dans ces cas, recevez un Château.
2 VP
German Kleines Schloss German language Small Castle 2021 by ASS German language Small Castle 2021 from Shuffle iT Entsorge diese Karte oder ein Schloss aus deiner Hand. Wenn du das tust, nimm ein Schloss.
2 VP
Japanese 小さい城
(pron. chīsai shiro)
手札の城カード1枚か、これを廃棄する。廃棄した場合、城カード1枚を獲得する。
2 VP
Polish Mały zamek Polish language Small Castle Wyrzuć na śmietnisko tę kartę lub Zamek z ręki.
Jeśli to zrobisz, dodaj Zamek.
2 VP
Russian Маленький Замок
(pron. malyen'kiy zamok)

Trivia

Official card art.

Preview

Trash a card to gain another card from its pile; there’s a proposition that’s not usually attractive. But with Small Castle, it means that you can potentially pick up a very powerful Castle later in the game for a fraction of the price.

Secret History by LastFootnote

The very first version in my prototype just had the "trash another Castle from your hand" part, but it became apparent pretty quickly that it needed the Feast option for all the times that it didn't collide (a.k.a. most of the time). So that ability got added before I handed it over to Donald.

Wording

For Small Castle, the "if" is so that one Small Castle doesn't turn into multiple Castles. I still want to do that; it affects how powerful the card is, and better matches intuition. I might reword it today though, because these days I don't like mandatory things to say "if you do." I don't need to rule it out completely but don't like it. It looks weird. I prefer a "you may" typically, though the "you may" is annoying online, where it has to ask you but you sure wanted to do the thing. Here as noted you might be able to say "to" instead. I guess the jury is still out on "to," is that really good enough for casual players.


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