Stronghold

This page is awaiting large-scale edits by the community to meet quality and format standards. The information on this page may be outdated. Join the #wiki-general channel on the Dominion Discord server to participate.

Stronghold
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action - Victory - Duration - Fort
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Allies
Illustrator(s)	Garret DeChellis
Card text
Choose one: +; or at the start of your next turn, +3 Cards. 2

Stronghold is an Action-Duration-Victory-Fort card from Allies. It gives you a choice between terminal now, or duration draw for your next turn, and is worth 2  as well.

It is part of a split pile that it shares with the other Forts: Tent, Garrison, and Hill Fort.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• If you choose +, Stronghold will be discarded that turn; if you choose the +3 Cards next turn, Stronghold will stay out until that turn's Clean-up (and if you choose both via Elder, it will stay out).

Strategy

Stronghold plays surprisingly differently from other superficially-similar hybrid treasure cards such as Nobles or Farm, both of which also cost and are worth 2 , and not just because it is a fort and thus less straightforward or reliable to obtain. The choice given here tends to be more useful than the choice given by Nobles, where one of the choices (+2 Actions) is markedly weaker than the other. In this case, both choices are relatively strong, and the choice of taking a benefit now or delaying it until next turn tends to make this card even more beneficial than if either choice had to be taken on the same turn. Unlike Farm, however, this card requires a spare action to play.

Stronghold is an attractive late-game buy in engines with excess actions to spare, where it adds almost as much VP as a Duchy but while tending to increase the deck's power. The possibility of delaying draw until next turn can often guarantee a successful subsequent turn if the current turn is a dud, and for this reason it can somewhat counter handsize attacks.

It is weak, however, when Villages are scarce or actions are otherwise at a premium. If it is consistently drawn dead, it is worse than a Duchy and much worse than a Gold. It tends not to fit well into money strategies for this reason, especially if they already have an optimal density of terminal draw around the time this card would be purchased. However, occasionally this card can make an okay purchase if the timing of it becoming available and you having enough money to buy it falls right when you want to buy a second terminal action.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		Choose one: +; or at the start of your next turn, +3 Cards. 2	Allies	March 2022

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Dutch	Ridderkasteel			Kies 1 van de volgende: +; of aan het begin van je volgende beurt: +3 Kaarten. 2	(2022)
German	Burg			Wähle eins: +; oder zu Beginn deines nächsten Zuges: +3 Karten. 2

Trivia

Official card art.

Stronghold is one of the few cards with four types.

Under Capitalism, Stronghold is the only card that can have five types.

Secret History

And there was a Moat, because, aren't Forts things that keep attacks out? But the pile didn't have an attack. Stronghold started out dividing tokens between this turn and next, with them giving + this turn and +Cards next turn. You did not tend to finagle this so much, and it was way simpler to just offer up + this turn or +4 Cards next turn. I mean + this turn or +3 Cards next turn. This one also tried giving +Cards at end of turn when gained/trashed, before just getting 2 . It's nice to have   on some of the bottom cards for the split piles, since sometimes you don't see them for a while.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Secret History of Dominion: Allies