Villa

Villa
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Empires
Illustrator(s)	Harald Lieske
Card text
+2 Actions +1 Buy + When you gain this, put it into your hand, +1 Action, and if it's your Buy phase return to your Action phase.

Villa is an Action card from Empires. It is a village that allows you to use it immediately when you gain it, even returning to your Action phase from your Buy phase, which has a large number of repercussions.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• If you gain this during your Action phase, such as with Engineer, you will put the Villa into your hand and get +1 Action (letting you, for example, play the Villa).
• If you gain this during your Buy phase (such as by buying it), you will put the Villa into your hand, get +1 Action, and return to your Action phase.
• This will let you play more Action cards (such as the Villa); when you are done with that you will return to your Buy phase, from the beginning - you can play more Treasures (and Arena will trigger again).
• If you buy Villa, that uses up your default Buy for the turn, however playing Villa will give you +1 Buy and so let you buy another card in your second Buy phase.
• If you gain this during another player's turn, you will put the Villa into your hand and get +1 Action, but will have no way to use that Action, since it is not your turn.
• It is possible to return to your Action phase multiple times in a turn via buying multiple Villas.
• Returning to your Action phase does not cause "start of turn" abilities to repeat; they only happen at the start of your turn.

Other Rules clarifications

• Unlike Ghost Town, Villa visits the place it is gained to before it moves itself to your hand. This means that when you gain it onto your deck (with e.g. Artificer), Villa will visit the top of your deck before going into your hand.
• Normally, when you gain a Villa while under a Gatekeeper attack, you can choose to put Villa into your hand first, and Gatekeeper will fail to exile Villa. But if you gain it to your hand (with e.g. Transmogrify), Gatekeeper will be able to exile it.
• If Villa can't put itself into your hand (e.g. because you set it aside with Cargo Ship), you'll still get +1 Action, and you still return to your Action phase.
• Because Replace and Summon try to move Villa after it is gained and then put into your hand, they will fail to move it.
• If you buy a Villa, but you don't play it, you can enter your next Buy phase with 0 Buys. You can still play Treasures, but unless you get +Buy from them, you can't buy anything.
• Villa only returns you to your Action phase if gained in your Buy phase. If you gain it at Night (with e.g. Devil's Workshop) or Clean-up (with e.g. Improve), it goes to your hand, but you can't play it.
• Gaining a Villa during your Buy phase counts as ending it (for cards like Wine Merchant and Pageant). If you take multiple Buy phases, those cards will trigger multiple times.

Strategy

Villa is a game-warping card that often restructures the way you build in a given Kingdom. As a village and source of +Buy, it provides two important engine components in a single card, but its primary power lies in its on-gain effect, for two reasons:

1. Gaining a Villa effectively allows you to generate terminal space on demand. This means that you can add terminals (especially terminal draw) to your deck much more aggressively than you normally would, ignoring the need for village support until it arises through terminal collision or drawing a card dead. For example, if you play a Smithy and draw another Smithy, you can buy a Villa, play it, and continue your turn. Additionally, gainers that are normally terminal can be used to generate terminal space: for example, if you have three Inventors in hand and only one Action remaining, you can gain a Villa, play it, and then play the other two Inventors.
2. Villa’s effect of returning you to the Action phase from the Buy phase enables a host of tactical tricks, but most critically, it greatly increases the speed at which you can play the cards that you buy. Gain-and-play is a powerful move that is typically only available for cards gained during your Action phase, but if you have overdraw and multiple Buys, you can buy several cards, ending with a Villa, draw on, and play the cards you bought immediately. The benefits of this might include playing an important Duration card such as Wharf to set up your next turn or enabling a rapid pileout.

While the rewards for using Villa effectively can be high, there are a few pitfalls to be aware of. First, Villa is a stop card, so adding copies to your deck can negatively affect your deck control and increase your need for draw. In other words, while Villa may act as a significant accelerant on your current shuffle, it is important to be aware of its effect on your future shuffles. Second, your deck may stall if you have terminal Actions you want to use but are unable to afford Villa. This can happen if you trash your Coppers and gain terminal Actions too aggressively, or if you take on too much . Third, the Villa pile is limited and prone to empty quickly, both because of its tendency to accelerate games and because buying and playing a Villa is Buy-neutral. Planning for this is generally important, for two reasons:

1. You should be aware of how functional your deck will be without the ability to gain more Villas. For example, it will be significantly more likely to dud if you were relying on Villa’s on-gain effect as a way to play Treasures before your draw-to-X cards. Occasionally, it can be worthwhile to empty the Villa pile to create this type of problem for your opponents.
2. Pileouts can happen very rapidly in Kingdoms with Villa, both because it provides +Buy and more specifically because it can autopile with enough or cost reduction, especially given that each copy you buy refunds you from its price. Thus, it is very important to make sure your use of the on-gain effect does not leave your opponent an opportunity to pile out for a win.

While it is relatively rare to skip Villa entirely, there are situations in which it may be less useful. Weak Kingdoms without draw, strong terminals, or a synergy to exploit make it difficult to take advantage of its strengths, and may render it a stop card that provides only weak payload. For similar reasons, Villa is generally less desirable in the early game as you are less able to take advantage of it, and buying or gaining Villa has a somewhat high opportunity cost. For example, if you are trying to thin your deck, it may be a better idea to open with or gain another Priest. Similarly, if you are trying to spike for a Province for Tournament, adding another Tournament may be more useful than adding a Villa.

In addition to its primary benefits, the fact that Villa is gained to your hand and returns you to the Action phase enables three general classes of tactical tricks:

• Villa allows you to play cards in an unusual order, as you can play Action cards after putting Treasures into play. The most notable consequence is the ability to remove Treasures from your hand by playing them before drawing on with a draw-to-X effect, with Way of the Owl being a particularly strong synergy, since you can use it to draw many cards by playing the Villa itself. However, there are several other scenarios in which similar tricks can be applicable: you can play Treasures before playing Tactician, gain a free Villa via Alms before playing your Treasures, or take advantage of Quarry with a gainer such as Ironworks.
• Villa can allow you to put an Action card in your hand when you wouldn’t have one otherwise. This is most often useful in the opening, where it might give you early access to a Way such as Way of the Squirrel or Way of the Butterfly, or provide fodder for an effect such as Woodworkers' Guild.
• Villa also allows you to have multiple Buy phases. This means you can use effects that trigger at the start of your Buy phase multiple times in a single turn (e.g. Treasure Chest or League of Bankers), or benefit from effects that trigger at the end of your Buy phase earlier than you could otherwise (e.g. Merchant Guild).

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		+2 Actions +1 Buy + When you gain this, put it into your hand, +1 Action, and if it's your Buy phase return to your Action phase.	Empires	June 2016
		+2 Actions +1 Buy + When you gain this, put it into your hand, +1 Action, and if it's your Buy phase return to your Action phase.	Empires (2021 printing)

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Dutch	Villa			+2 Acties +1 Aanschaf + Als je deze kaart pakt, neem je die in je hand, +1 Actie, en als het je aanschaffase is, ga terug naar je actiefase.	(2016)
Finnish	Huvila
French	Villa			+2 Actions +1 Achat + Quand vous recevez cette carte, prenez-la en main, +1 Action, et si c'est votre phase Achat, retournez à la phase Action.
German	Villa			+2 Aktionen +1 Kauf + Wenn du diese Karte nimmst: Nimm sie auf die Hand sowie +1 Aktion. Wenn du in deiner Kaufphase bist, kehre zur Aktionsphase zurück.	(2016) "...Wenn du diese Karte nimmst: Lege sie…"
	Villa			+2 Aktionen +1 Kauf + Wenn du diese Karte nimmst, nimm sie auf deine Hand und +1 Aktion; wenn es deine Kaufphase ist, kehre in die Aktionsphase zurück.	2. Edition (2021) "...Wenn du diese Karte nimmst, lege sie…"
Japanese	ヴィラ (pron. vira)			+2 アクション +1 購入 + これを獲得するとき、手札に加え、+1 アクション、あなたの購入フェイズ中の場合、アクションフェイズに戻る。
Polish	Willa			+2 akcje +1 zakup + Kiedy dodajesz tę kartę, weź ją na rękę, +1 akcja, a jeśli trwa twoja faza zakupu, wróć do fazy akcji.
Russian	Вилла (pron. villa)

Trivia

Official card art.

Preview

It happens to the best of us. You play that Smithy with no action left, thinking "what could possibly go wrong?" and curse your rotten luck when two Action cards pop into your hand. "If only I could turn back time," you say. Well, buckle your seatbelt because where we're going, we don't need Villages. A Villa will do nicely enough.

Villa is a brand new type of Village to populate your empire with. The natives are restless, and they simply don't want your turns to end. Maybe the other players do, but you don't care; you're impressing them with your fancy action chain. Aside from being able to continue your turn, you of course gain the Villa itself, and maybe you needed one of those. I'm not judging. With Villa, the possibilities are endless. Or perhaps only tenfold, as the pile has to empty at some point.

As long as there are Villas left in the pile, you always have that shot at continuing your turn. And you can do it more than once in the same turn! Wow! The rulebook can't actually cover all possible turn order acronyms now. ABCD... ABABACD... ABABABABABABABCD... the list goes on, and that would have been valuable ink. Of course, as an emperor, you've begun to develop some higher-order critical thinking skills. I'm sure you can come up with your own mnemonic devices, or defer to your Mnemonic Advisor.

—jsh357, Empires Bonus Preview #1: Villa

Secret History

Originally this just gave +1 Buy when you bought it. One day I thought of having a card that let you play an Action when you bought it, and after a few quick iterations it landed here, as the Village you buy to help out that same turn. For a while it was played when you bought it, but that has some tricky interactions, which were resolved by putting it into your hand instead, and giving you +1 Action to play it with.

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

Relevant outtakes

A couple attacks played around with playing cards you bought that turn; then I had a village that let you play a card from your hand when you gained it, and then I figured out how to do Villa.

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

Further development history

Villa got nerfed, then returned to its pre-nerfed form. The nerf being, only the first Villa each turn sent you back to the action phase. I think it was more like, I nerfed it because of the ability to run out the pile instantly, and people missed the old version. It goes back to Furrier - a in Hinterlands that said "when you buy this, +1 buy." Some people hated that you could play two Highways and empty the pile. Other people found it funny. It wasn't funny enough for how hated it was. I was worried about that for Villa and then stopped worrying about it.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Dominion Discord, 2019

Other thoughts by Donald X.

To me, Villa is that card that was some people's favorite Dominion card ever, that was nothing but endless good times; and Crown is that card people adored despite it mostly being Throne Room, that never caused any confusion whatsoever. And they were both novel, which people love. I have no interest in making expansions that are all cards that already exist; no-one needs them. If those two adored cards that never messed up our games are too gimmicky or complex then I mean there's no possibility for making more expansions. I desperately need cards just like those cards, every time out, for there to be any point to the products.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Empires Bonus Preview #2: Crown