Prince

Prince
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action - Duration - Command
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Promo
Illustrator(s)	Eric J Carter
Card text
You may set aside (on this) a non-Duration, non-Command Action card from your hand costing up to . At the start of each of your turns, play that card, leaving it set aside.

Prince is a promotional Action–Duration–Command card. It is a one-shot that turns a (cheap) Action card from your hand into a permanent effect that gets played every turn for the rest of the game.

When originally released in 2014, Prince's only type was Action; it received the Duration and Command types as part of a series of revisions and rule changes in 2022 to make it work in a more intuitive way and avoid infinite loops.

FAQ

Unofficial FAQ (2022)

• Prince has you play the same cheap Action every turn for the rest of the game.
• The turn you play Prince, you may set aside a non-Duration, non-Command Action card from your hand costing or less; then every turn after that you play the Action at the start of the turn. Command is a type that appears on cards like this; it has no meaning beyond stopping these cards from playing each other.
• If you don't set aside an Action card, you'll discard the Prince from play during Clean-up. Otherwise, Prince will stay in play for the rest of the game.
• When playing the set-aside card, normally this means that you follow its instructions.
• For example, if you set aside a Village, you will get +1 Card and +2 Actions at the start of each of your turns.
• The Action card stays set aside. If the card tries to move itself (e.g. Mining Village), it stays set aside and it fails to move. If the card has a bonus that is conditional on moving itself (such as Pixie, which gives Boons only if it trashes itself), you won't get its bonus. But if the bonus is not phrased so as to be conditional on the card moving (such as Acting Troupe, which trashes itself and gives you Villagers), you'll get its bonus.
• With cost reduction, you can set aside a card that normally costs more than .
• Cards costing or can never be set aside with Prince.
• Playing the card each turn doesn't use up your normal Action play, and is mandatory.
• At the end of the game, both Prince and the set-aside card are returned to your deck before scoring.
• Prince plays its Action on extra turns from Outpost, Possession, etc.
• If you play this with Throne Room, you can set aside 2 cards on this. You will play both of them at the start of each of your turns. Both the Throne Room and the Prince will stay in play for the rest of the game.
• If you play a Necromancer that plays a Throne Room that plays a Prince twice, the Necromancer will stay in play for the rest of the game.

Other rules clarifications

• You ordinarily don't get to play the set-aside card on the turn when you set it aside.
  • However, if you play a Prince via an effect triggered by the start of your turn (e.g. with Piazza) and set aside a card, you'll play the set-aside card on the same turn.
• The start of your turn is part of your Action phase. This matters if you use Prince to play Crown.

Deprecated official FAQ (2014)

Prince has you play the same cheap action every turn for the rest of the game. The turn you play Prince, you set it aside with an Action from your hand costing or less; then every turn after that you play the Action at the start of the turn, and then set it aside again when you discard it from play. If you don't discard the Action then you stop playing it with Prince; Prince at that point is just set aside doing nothing for the rest of the game. That won't normally happen but will happen for example if the Action is a Feast or Mining Village and you trashed it, or if it's a Duration card and so it stayed in play, or if it's a Madman and was returned to its pile, or if it's an Island and was set aside, or if it's a card you put back on your deck with Scheme. In practice you will probably not choose to set aside Prince with a card that won't work well with it, and so will play the Action you set aside every turn from that point on. The set aside Action technically goes back and forth from being in play to being set aside each turn, but in practice it's easier to leave it sitting on the Prince and just announce resolving it each turn. Prince has to be set aside to do anything; using Throne Room on Prince won't let you set aside two cards. The Action card you set aside has to cost up to at the time you play Prince, but can normally cost more; for example you could play a Highway, then use Prince on a Laboratory. You do not play the set aside Action the turn you first set it aside with Prince. Playing the card each turn doesn't use up your normal Action play, and is mandatory; setting aside the Action when you discard it from play is also mandatory, you only fail to do it if the card isn't in play at that point. At the end of the game, Prince and the set aside card are returned to your deck before scoring. When you have multiple effects to resolve at the start of the turn - such as multiple Princes and certain Duration cards from Seaside - resolve them in any order, and that order may vary from turn to turn; choose one to resolve, resolve it, then move on to another one, until they are all resolved. Cards which cost such as Mercenary and the Cornucopia Prizes can be set aside with a Prince, as can cards from Guilds that cost or or . Cards with a in the cost cannot be set aside with Prince. Prince plays its Action on extra turns from Outpost and Possession. The Action card that Prince plays is in play after it's played each turn, so it will count for things like Peddler; Prince however remains set aside.

Deprecated rules clarifications (2014 2021)

Cards with or in the cost cannot be set aside with Prince. If you set aside a Band of Misfits, you choose each turn which card to emulate. The start of your turn is part of your Action phase. This matters if you use Prince to play Crown (either directly using cost reduction or indirectly through cards like Throne Room or Herald). If a card leaves play other than by being discarded during Clean-Up, then by the stop-moving rule, Prince loses track of it and cannot set it aside again. Even though you can set aside any played card with Way of the Turtle, it is not set aside by Prince, so Prince will lose track of it and will do nothing for the rest of the game. Setting aside a 2nd Prince will mean that your first Prince will do nothing for the rest of the game. Although certain Reserve cards can be called back into play from the Tavern mat on the same turn, Prince cannot set them aside again, so Prince will do nothing for the rest of the game.

Strategy

Prince is a very expensive card with an effect that would in principle be powerful in many Kingdoms, but in practice is rarely worth setting up. Unlike most other cards that help your deck starting from the turn after you gain them, Prince is a terminal stop card that has no benefit on the turn you play it, and delays playing another card that would help you this turn. The high price and this lengthy setup process make Prince extremely slow.

The major use case for Prince is in a slow Kingdom with good alt-VP or a tendency towards a slog. In these situations, Prince competes less directly with Province and is more likely to have time to pay off. A Kingdom that can exploit Prince well also has the following attributes:

• An engine that without Prince has no good deck control, and therefore no assurance of being able to reliably find your payload: this may mean terminal draw with no villages besides Prince, or very little draw at all. In this deck, Prince is typically used to set aside a terminal draw card to ensure reliability, or a non-terminal card to act as a village enabling multiple terminal payload plays.
• No good money strategy as an alternative.
• Some way to easily gain Prince or ensure it lines up with its intended target (e.g. topdecking, or gain-and-play such as with March or Innovation). Transport is especially powerful here, as it allows you to topdeck a Prince more cheaply than you can usually buy one.

The strength of the available targets is also a factor when considering whether to use Prince. Good targets may include:

• one-shots such as Horse, which you can repeatedly benefit from and are not set aside or trashed by their own effects
• terminal draw, especially if you’re facing a handsize attack
• Throne Room, which provides two start-of-turn plays and can be put to flexible use with whichever Action card from your hand will provide the most benefit on each turn
• strong Attacks like Militia, especially if there’s a way to achieve this early in the game.

If cost reduction is present, the set of potential Prince targets is wider and contains stronger cards. However, it is usually difficult to achieve this while also colliding your Prince with its best target.

Prince's high and unique cost of has several implications. For instance, it has a strong synergy with Charm: playing multiple Charms and then buying one Prince enables you to gain multiple Provinces, offering the possibility of a game-ending megaturn. Alternatively, Swindler can convert your opponents’ Provinces into Princes. Particularly when there is a way to obtain Prince more cheaply than usual (e.g. with Lurker or Transport), it can provide especially potent fuel for certain Trash for benefit cards such as Bishop.

External strategy articles

Note: Article(s) below are by individual authors and may not represent the community's views on cards, but may provide more in-depth information. Caveat emptor.

• faust's 2014 article

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		You may set this aside. If you do, set aside an Action card from your hand costing up to . At the start of each of your turns, play that Action, setting it aside again when you discard it from play. (Stop playing it if you fail to set it aside on a turn you play it.)	Prince	June 2014
		You may set this aside. If you do, set aside an Action card from your hand costing up to . At the start of each of your turns, play that Action, setting it aside again when you discard it from play. (Stop playing it if you fail to set it aside on a turn you play it.)	Prince (2017 printing)	February 2017
		You may set aside (on this) a non-Duration Action card from your hand costing up to . At the start of each of your turns, play that card, leaving it set aside.	Preventing the movement of the Princed card	February 21, 2022
		You may set aside (on this) a non-Duration, non-Command Action card from your hand costing up to . At the start of each of your turns, play that card, leaving it set aside.	Preventing Command card loops, as a precaution	March 9, 2022 / June 29, 2022

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Dutch	Prins
Finnish	Prinssi
French	Prince			Vous pouvez mettre cette carte de côté. Dans ce cas, mettez de côté une carte Action de votre main coûtant jusqu'à . Au début de tous vos prochains tours, jouez cette action, en la mettant à nouveau de côté quand vous la défaussez de votre zone de jeu. (Cessez de la jouer si vous échouez à la mettre de côté.)
German	Prinz			Du darfst diese Karte zur Seite legen. Wenn du das tust: Lege eine Aktionskarte aus deiner Hand zur Seite, die bis zu kostet. Zu Beginn deines Zuges: Spiele die zur Seite gelegte Aktionskarte. Sobald du sie ablegen musst, legst du sie stattdessen wieder zur Seite. Solltest du sie nicht ablegen müssen, legst du sie nicht wieder zur Seite. Die Wirkung der Karte „Prinz“ wird sofort aufgehoben. Sie bleibt bis zum Spielende beiseitegelegt und kommt nicht mehr zum Einsatz.	(2014) This version is listed here
	Prinz			Du darfst diese Karte zur Seite legen. Wenn du das tust, lege eine Aktionskarte aus deiner Hand zur Seite, die bis zu kostet. Zu Beginn von jedem deiner Züge, spiele jene Aktionskarte und lege sie wieder zur Seite, wenn du sie aus dem Spiel ablegst. (Höre auf, sie zu spielen, wenn du sie in einem Zug, in dem du sie gespielt hast, nicht zur Seite legen kannst.)	(2019)
	Prinz			Du darfst eine Aktionskarte, die keine Dauerkarte ist und bis zu kostet, von deiner Hand zur Seite legen (auf diese Karte). Spiele sie zu Beginn jedes deiner Züge, aber lasse sie beiseite liegen.
	Prinz			Du darfst eine Aktionskarte, die keine Befehls- oder Dauer­karte ist und bis zu kostet, von deiner Hand zur Seite legen (auf diese Karte). Spiele sie zu Beginn jedes deiner Züge, aber lasse sie beiseite liegen.
Japanese	王子 (pron. ōji)			これを脇に置いてもよい。脇に置いた場合、手札のコスト以下のアクションカード1枚を脇に置く。あなたの各ターンの開始時にそれを使用し、捨て札にするときに再度脇に置く (そのターンに脇に置かない場合、使用をやめる)。
Polish	Książę			Możesz odłożyć tę kartę na bok. Jeśli to zrobisz, odłóż z ręki na bok kartę Akcji kosztującą nie więcej niż . Na początku każdej swojej tury zagraj tę kartę Akcji i odłóż ją ponownie na bok gdy odrzucasz ją z gry (jeśli nie odłożysz jej na bok w turze, w której ją zagrywasz, to w następnej turze już jej nie zagrywasz).	(2014)
	Książę			Możesz odłożyć z ręki na bok (na tę kartę) kartę Akcji kosztującą do , niebędącą kartą Następstwa ani Rozkazu. Na początku każdej twojej tury: zagraj ją, pozostawiając ją odłożoną na bok.	(2022)
Russian	Принц (pron. prints)
Spanish	Príncipe

Trivia

The card was leaked on BoardGameGeek[1] after debuting at Origins 2014.

Official card art.

The Prince and Peddler Supply piles are the only piles of Kingdom cards costing .

Card Art

The expansion symbol on the First Edition of the card was the logo for the Origins Game Fair.

Theme

Well you're a king, conquering lands and doing stuff (it's true, check the flavor paragraph for the main game). The prince is like a miniature version of you; he does one thing each turn. This helps him prepare to replace you someday. It's the circle of life.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Interview with Donald x.

Secret History

Jay wanted a Dominion promo sometime. No rush. I eventually got around to it. I wanted something that felt like a promo; something exotic. I tried out a few ideas I had in the file; the one that played a card every turn was easily the highlight. So I worked on that one. It was an old idea, predating the original game being published. Back then I had decided maybe I would someday do it as a unique card, to get around the issue of using Prince on Prince; then I made unique cards for Tournament but didn't do it there. There were other ways to solve the problems though; as usual it just took lots of tiny text.

The first modern version cost and set aside a cheaper card. And there were whatever issues with one-shots and duration cards and Throne Room. Gradually I weakened it until it cost and only got cards costing or less (barring Bridge etc.). That was just how good playing the same card every turn turned out to be. And you can't get two cards set aside via Throne Room and you don't get to go nuts with one-shots; we had those experiences and they were worth excising, even if it took a weird wording. Setting aside a duration card was too confusing, and anyway I needed one wording that handled every bad case, including Thrones on duration cards and Scheme'd cards. The key thing is looking for cards being discarded from play; those are the normal cards.

Some versions of Prince were duration cards, because hey, it keeps doing stuff, right? But that didn't make sense because Prince wasn't in play, and what "duration" really means is, leave this in play until it stops doing stuff (and it was better to have Prince not be in play).

As always I expect you will be able to get Prince if you want it, probably from BGG though I don't know for sure. Today Origins, tomorrow the world.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Secret History of the Dominion Promos

Wording

It was a combination of duration cards being confusing, one-shots being powerful and confusing, and needing a wording that handled everything as tersely as possible. For stuff involving duration cards there's always the complication of Thrones on them to consider (since Thrones stay out with the duration cards for tracking).

Always having the card sitting there seems like a good safety net even if there's no known case where things gets messed up if you don't. Let's see, I Prince Sir Martin, he dies to another Knight, someone Graverobbers him, I'm still playing him every turn, wait he's the +Buys one right?

I did briefly playtest using Prince on one-shots and durations. And cards costing $5, and being able to get two cards a turn from a Throned Prince.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Interview with Donald X., 2014

Did Prince need a mat?

If it had been in an expansion, I would have looked at how a mat could work, if it would be better. It wasn't so it was never going to have one. At the start I had to decide, can I do this with no mat; I decided that I could, and that was that.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Interview with Donald X.