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What happens if you play:

  • Throne room, choosing a Throne room, each time choosing a Caravan?
  • King's Court, choosing a King's Court, each time choosing a Caravan?

Specifically, what will your play area look like at the start of your next turn? How many cards will you draw at the start of your next turn?

This is different from this question; it is more complex than that!

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  • Can you clarify the order of cards being played? I'm confused and not understanding the issue here. How do you play cards on a caravan?
    – Pat Ludwig
    Mar 5, 2011 at 4:15
  • @Pat By "on" I meant "choose." Changed wording for clarity!
    – Mag Roader
    Mar 5, 2011 at 5:19

3 Answers 3

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The basic rule is given in the Seaside Rules, pg4

If you play or modify a Duration card with another card, that other card also stays in your play area until it is no longer doing anything.

If you have a chain of Throne Rooms or King's Court, you need to retain the cards necessary to correctly process everything on the next turn.

For your examples, discard the initial card (whether Throne Room or King's Court). The remaining Throne Room is sufficient to indicate that each Caravan needs to be played twice at the beginning of your next turn.

On the next turn, each Caravan would be played twice for a total of +4 cards.

Two more examples should clarify the remaining edge cases here.

Example 1:

  • Throne Room (1)
    • Chose Throne Room(2), doubled by (1)
      • Chose Throne Room(3), doubled by (2)
        • Chose Caravan(A), doubled by (3)
        • Chose Caravan(B), doubled by (3)
      • Chose Throne Room(4), doubled by (2)
        • Chose Caravan(C), doubled by (4)
        • Chose Caravan(D), doubled by (4)

In this case, you will retain

  • All 4 Caravans obviously (ABCD)
  • Throne Rooms (3) and (4) as they directly modify the Caravans
  • Throne Room (2) as it will indicate that Throne Rooms (3) and (4) need to be doubled, subsequently doubling the Caravans again.

Throne Room (1) can be discarded as it is has no effect on the Caravans next turn.

Example 2:

  • Throne Room (1)
    • Throne Room (2), doubled by (1)
      • Throne Room (3), doubled by (2)
        • Caravan (A), doubled by (3)
        • Caravan (B), doubled by (3)
      • Caravan (C), doubled by (2)

In this case, all cards will be retained. Throne Room (1) is needed to indicate that Caravan (C) needs to be doubled next turn.

King's Court will work the same general way, it just makes for even messier examples.

I've distilled this answer from a BoardGameGeek thread where the answers were provided by Donald X. Vaccarino, the designer of Dominion.

He recommends (as do I, for what it's worth) that you use some sort of tree format to help lay everything out as I've done above. It will help remind you which cards are affecting which in these tricky situations.

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  • So in my examples and your additional 2 examples, how many cards would be drawn on the next turn?
    – Mag Roader
    Mar 5, 2011 at 23:13
  • @Mag - a bunch :) I added one answer, on my way out the door, will have do the remaining math later.
    – Pat Ludwig
    Mar 5, 2011 at 23:18
  • In your example 1, I can see arguments for keeping both 1&2 or neither, but keeping one and not the other makes absolutely no sense. Also in example 2, NO caravan is EVER quadrupled -- that's not possible -- doubling a throne room allows you to double two cards, not quadruple a single card.
    – Chris Dodd
    Mar 8, 2011 at 17:42
  • Right, in example 1, TR1 and TR2 have no effect on Caravans. TR1 allows you play TR2 twice, which in turn allows you to play TR3 and TR4 twice. In the end, you are playing Caravan A, B, C, and D twice each.
    – David
    Mar 9, 2011 at 19:54
  • @David, @Chris, @Mag - sorry, work has been too busy and I haven't gotten back to give this answer the work it deserves. Please feel free to edit away and make the answer perfect. I'm turning it Community Wiki.
    – Pat Ludwig
    Mar 9, 2011 at 20:08
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Donald (the game designer) answers this question in an extended thread on BoardGameGeek; here is his algorithm for what you do:

If you TR or KC a duration card, leave out the TR or KC with the duration card. [It's tracking that you doubled or tripled that card]

If you TR or KC a TR-or-KC used on a single duration card (and up to 2 non-duration cards), don't leave it out. [It's not tracking anything.] [You still leave out the one that hit the duration card though.]

If you TR or KC a TR-or-KC used on two or three duration cards, leave it out. [It's tracking the extra doubling/tripling done by the latter TR or KC, which also stays out.]

Therefore I am going to go back on my ruling from yesterday for what happens if you KC a KC a KC used on 3 duration cards. The 3rd KC stays out obv. The 2nd one stays out; it's indicating that the 3rd one hits 3 things. The first KC is doing nothing and so goes.

If instead you KC a KC, and that one KC's 1) a KC for 3 duration cards, 2) a duration card, 3) a non-duration, then you would keep the first KC out, as now it's indicating that the 2nd KC got to hit 3 cards, necessary for that 4th duration card to be tripled.

In short, the rule is to leave in play as many TR/KC as are necessary to track what is happening, but no more.

The full thread is here; my quote from Donald is on page 3.

So, in response to your specific scenarios:

  • TR-TR-Caravan x 2: All four cards stay out; Donald recommends placing the cards in branching format so it is clear that the Caravans were both played by the second TR. All four stay out because the first TR is what allows the second TR to play both duration cards twice. If you played one Caravan and one non-duration card with the second TR, then the first TR would be discarded at the end of the turn.

  • KC-KC-Caravan x 3: Same deal; all five stay out. If you only played one Caravan with the tripled KC and played two non-duration cards, then the first KC would not stay in play.

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The answer is still answered on page 4 here: http://www.riograndegames.com/uploads/Game/Game_326_gameRules.pdf

You would only need to keep out whichever card(s) directly affected a Duration card. For example, if you TR a TR, then play 2 Caravans on that second TR, you only need to keep out the second TR, and I would probably arrange it and the 2 Caravans in sort of an inverted tree format, with the Throne Room above and between the Caravans.

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  • Contradicted by Donald X at BGG (see philosophyguy's answer) May 29, 2012 at 0:42
  • Excellent point, although I feel like pointing out he actually changed his answer during the thread, so I'm not totally crazy. :) May 29, 2012 at 19:51
  • Yeah, I was half way through editing the community wiki answer before I decided I had better look at the next couple pages of the BGG discussion. May 29, 2012 at 19:53

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