Ruined Village

Ruined Village
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action - Ruins
Kingdom card?	No
Set	Dark Ages
Illustrator(s)	Doris Matthäus
Card text
+1 Action

Ruined Village is an Action-Ruins from Dark Ages. It is typically given out by Looters, but can be bought if it is the top card of the Ruins pile. When played, it has no effect, just giving you back the Action it took to play it.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• When you play this, you just get +1 Action.
• This is a Ruins; see Additional Rules for Dark Ages and Preparation.

Strategy

Refer to the Ruins strategy section.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		+1 Action	Dark Ages	August 2012
		+1 Action	Dark Ages (2017 printing)	September 2017

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Chinese	荒蕪村莊			+1 行動
Czech	Vypálená vesnice (lit. burned village)			+1 akce
Dutch	Vernield Dorp (lit. destroyed village)			+1 Actie	(2012)
Finnish	Raunioitunut kylä
French	Ville en ruines
German	Zerstörtes Dorf			+1 Aktion
Japanese	廃村 (pron. haison, lit. ghost town)			+1 アクション
Korean	폐허가 된 마을 (pron. pyeheoga doen ma-eul)
Russian	Разрушенная Деревня (pron. razrushyennaya dyeryevnya)
Spanish	Pueblo en Ruinas

Trivia

Official card art.

Card Art

The art shows a ruined version of the art for Walled Village.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, 'Art Trivia'

Regarding why Walled Village was the basis for the art, Donald X. said:

That was something Jay did. Note though that Village does appear on Pillage in the same set (and on Scrying Pool). So he may have just been avoiding doing two callbacks to Village at once.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Interview with Donald X.

Secret History

Back when, the main set had Confusion—a blank card—and an attack that gave it out. Confusion just wasn't worth the 30 or 50 extra cards it required. It plays so much like Curse. When I decided to make Dark Ages 500 cards, I of course thought of Confusion. Confusion still wasn't worth doing though. But what about more interesting penalty cards? They wouldn't need to be all the same even. And well there they are, the Ruins. It was always those five. Some people argued that Ruined Village was more funny than worth printing; it's easily the worst one, and in a multiplayer game someone just randomly got handed it while someone else got Abandoned Mine. But I thought that wasn't so bad, and felt that it was important that it be very easy to learn the Ruins. Four are +1's and then there's Survivors. Bam.

I needed a rule for putting out the pile, and so put "Looter" on the bottom of the relevant kingdom cards. It seemed like it would be confusing if the Ruins pile wasn't in the supply, so it is; that meant the top card had to be visible, so that for example if I name it for Contraband we know that that's what you'd be buying (and you can't). This means you have to carefully deal them out in turn order and well that was as good as it got.

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

Further development comments from Donald X.

I considered "Play up to two Ruins cards" - the village for Ruinses - but as you can see went with the classic.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Interview with Donald X.