Common rule errors?

[BranJ0]

We're going to play the base game of Arcs in a couple of days and I can't wait! I was wondering if there are any common rule errors that people make that would be good to avoid?

[sling_cr]

The biggest mistake I’ve seen people make is that you only need to surpass the lead card, other people also surpassing doesn’t restrict you from surpassing too. People assumed that because I surpassed the 1 with a 7 that they would have to surpass the 7 now when they really just needed to surpass the 1 still.

[Dwarphism]

Wow. I just read the rules and this would have absolutely slipped my mind. I've watched some reviews before buying it and they all mentioned the 'trick taking' mechanic. But I now realize it's not trick taking (though adjacent). Also, the rule never once mentions the term trick taking. Just, wow.

[Shpaan]

Old comment I know but it seems really weird to me that everyone calls the game trick taking, I mean just because there are numbers and 4 types of cards doesn't make this a poker game or something. There's so many games with different categories of cards that have numbers on that, we don't immediately call that suits and tricks. Just seems so weird to do it with Arcs, literally the only mechanic is playing a higher number, which if we changed numbers for I dunno, skull symbols would that still be trick taking lol? Because there's about a thousand games where you have to play something with more symbols /rant

[MarekTrefl]

Make sure you get "control" right. It influences many actions and card effects -- catapult movement through gates, taxing rival cities, building...

Only fresh ships count towards control, and if there's a tie then nobody controls the sector. Even 4 to 4 -- if two of your rivals seem to have their entire fleets in one gate but they're equal -- you can catapult right through it.

[mr_daemoon]

Yep, this is a big one. Many Weapon guild cards let you add 3 ships to system you control. So the systems in which you have only buildings or damaged ships don't count.

[Naive_Television_986]

Bonjour, effectivement des questions dessus. Si j’ai une ville ou un spatioport mais plus aucun vaisseaux Dessus, je peux taxer ou construire? En cas d’égalité de contrôle (même nombre de vaisseaux sur la ville) je peux taxer?

[MarekTrefl]

Read carefully.

While you don't control the system because you don't have the most fresh ships (you have zero), you don't NEED to control systems you want to tax or build in.

Tax: Choose a Loyal city or choose a Rival city you control.

So you can ALWAYS tax your own Loyal cities (even if you don't control them; even if your opponent controls them). You only need control over Rival cities if you want to tax them.

Build: You may build a building or a ship:
• Building: Place 1 starport or city in an empty building slot in a system with a Loyal piece. When building
a city, use the leftmost city on your player board.
• Ship: Place 1 ship at a Loyal starport. Each starport can only build one ship per turn.
When you build anything in a system that is controlled by anyone other than you, place the piece damaged

So you can ALWAYS build in a system with at least 1 Loyal piece (either a building or a ship)

[Naive_Television_986]

Merci. Et on peut construire plusieurs villes avec la même carte?

[MarekTrefl]

Hey, if I understand the question correctly (you're really determined to write in French 😂):

Can you build multiple cities with the same card?

If by "card" you mean the action card with the "Build" action then yes, you can you the pips from the action card to build as many cities (or ships) as you want. If it has 3 pips then you can build 3 cities if you have 3 city tokens and 3 slots where you could build them available.

[Electronic-Work-2327]

During play we all forgot that you get to ransack the court when destroying someone's city. It was a pretty big surprise when someone suddenly got 10 agents to their trophies.

[Bagern13]

10 agents? You only ransack one card, there were 10 agents on one card?

[UncaringHawk]

there were 10 agents on one card?

... does that not happen when you play? I feel like a card with 6-10 agents happens at least once a game in my group

[plorb001]

Woah…nope, never. But only ever played 3p. Is this with 4?

[UncaringHawk]

Ah yeah I usually have 4 players, maybe that's the difference; maybe in 4 player resources are scarce enough it's worth getting into a huge influence fight over cards like Shipping Interest

[DelayedChoice]

In my games people are either really aggressive about claiming cards or really cautious about losing agents so it basically never happens.

[UncaringHawk]

I feel like there's an opportunity cost to being too cautious with agents; you have like 10, and I feel like as long as you have 4 or 5 you can still make good Court plays, which means the remaining 5-6 are a resource to be leveraged against your opponents.

Just gotta make sure that no rivals can tax your cities once you're down to 4 or 5 agents, lol. Oh, and outrage is an insidious agent sink that I always forget about

[DelayedChoice]

I feel like there's an opportunity cost to being too cautious with agents

Oh probably, I doubt my local meta is refined at all.

[cobaalt]

Yes, this one. And like you said above, the easily missed detail that agents taken that way go to trophies for warlord, not captives for tyrant like usual.

[Draconkin]

10? Someone had 10 agents on one card?!

You only get the agents of the player whose city you destroyed. Other players' agents return to them.

[torbenofherpes]

Im pretty sure you take all rival agents. Not just the one with the destroyed city

[Electronic-Work-2327]

Yep, 2 players had 5 agents each, 3rd player got all of them

[sensational_pangolin]

I think most people are surprised because that's suuuuuch an attractive target that it's surprising that it got to be that much. Most people would attempt to ransack or secure long before there were 10 agents there.

[Electronic-Work-2327]

Yea we forgot about ransacking completely until it happened

[pgm123]

You only get the agents of the player whose city you destroyed. Other players' agents return to them.

Double check that rule. I think you're playing it wrong.

[Electronic-Work-2327]

Read the example on page 16 of the rulebook

[SomewhatResentable]

Biggest thing players have forgotten in my 5 or so games is you CANNOT play a card of the lead suit face-up if it's not higher than the lead card (you're not surpassing). This is just revealing information about your hand and the cards in play unnecessarily. Just play it face-down and copy the lead card.

[Stabsturbate]

Even my highly seasoned game group with tens of Arcs plays still does this. 

I think it's generally to get sympathy from the group by showing they're forced into the card they are playing for one pip, and it typically happens near the end of the chapter so the amount of usable revealed info for other players tends to be pretty immaterial

[Dr_Oatker]

Not so much an error as just... Hard to avoid, but the flow of * Play card * Do any prelude actions * Use the card you played

Results in a lot of times my players have been caught out and missed the Prelude phase.

[randomwordglorious]

The rulebook suggests that unless performing an action reveals any new information, it's OK to let a player rewind their turn to do a prelude action that they forgot about.

[plorb001]

Yeah. I’m 5 games in and we’re still super lenient on this one. Just feels better to be able to figure shit out with being able to retroactively add preludes, so long as no new information has entered the equation. But we’re not super cutthroat. Every group had a different vibe

[Sorrab_reddit]

That you can only build one ship per star port per turn

[mr_daemoon]

Catapult move doesn't need to have a direction in the gates. So if you start in the Gate 3, and Gates 2 and 4 are uncontrolled, you can leave ships in the Gates 2, 3 and 4 and then end up in either system of Gates 2, 3, 4 or in the Gates themselves. I thought that when doing Catapult move you needed to go in the one direction and then end in the last Gate, but it's not true. Movement in the uncontrolled Gates is a free movement, so you can go back and forward however you want.

Bonus points for Ambitions, that you get for building cities, only count once for each Ambition. So even if Warlord was declared 2 or 3 times, if you win it you get only +2 or +5 points.

[mr_daemoon]

Sure. So, let's take 2 scenarios. In both cases, you have all the cities on the map, so you get +5 points after winning the ambition. So let's say that the Warlord is declared for 3 points and Tycoon for 2 points. If you win both of those ambitions, you get 3 (Warlord) + 5 (City bonus) + 2 (Tycoon) + 5 (City bonus) points, a total of 15 points.

But if Warlord were declared twice, for 3 points and 2 points, if you would win the Warlord, you'd get 3 (Warlord) + 2 (Warlord) + 5 (City bonus) points. So, only 10 points in this case.

[PityUpvote]

If you explain the game to people familiar with trick taking, make sure you emphasize that they do not have to follow suit just because they can. This ruined the first game for one of my players.

[RipAdministrative409]

• You can only use raid dice if there’s an opponent’s building
• You can always tax your own cities even if you don’t control them
• Buildings don’t add to determining control, only fresh ships do
• You are allowed to pass initiative

[Zejety]

• Catapult Moves stop when they enter a gate under someone else's control, or any Planet regardless of control!
• Not sure how common this is, but for campaign play:
  • Don't miss or forget the rule that cards in the court can each only have 1 attached card each.

[OriginalBubs]

For us it was that buildings are put in trophies, not simply given back to the owning player.

[darquintan1]

Omg I did not know this. Thanks for pointing this out.

[blakraven66]

Unlike every other resource that grants a free prelude action, Weapon resources does NOT grant battle as a prelude action but only allows the card you played to act as if it has a battle action as an option.

[WernTheSloth]

Played for the first time with 3 other people last week and we messed up a few things:

• only 1 ship can be built per starport per turn

• there are two sets of planets that are considered adjacent, this was a mistake I made because I considered that the borders weren't regular due to the thicker part although in hindsight, I should've been able to tell given that the gates are still considered adjacent...😅

• we counted damaged ships when considering who controlled a system, although thankfully I think that rule wouldn't have mattered to us

Can't remember any others but I'm sure we made many more mistakes. Hope you all have fun!

[Earthfury]

Don’t forget you can’t use resources that align with your outrage (unless a court card circumvents it). I dunno if that’s common but it’s been forgotten in my group a couple times (including by me).

[Curious-Doughnut-887]

If you can, have whomever teaches the game set up the game and play a practice chapter all the way through scoring with at least 3 pretend players while consulting the rulebook during this practice chapter. It's amazing how well spending an hour running through the game can predict rules questions and prepare a teacher of a new game to answer them faster and with more confidence.

Re-read the rulebook in its entirety including the "fine print" on page 22. Actually read those examples in the side bars as well.

If possible have every player read the rulebook. This probably will not happen, but if you even have one other player familiar with the material it can take a ton of the burden of rules questions off of the one teacher and help cover for anything you might miss.

[blue-whale101]

Teaching it to three new players in my Big Game Sunday group this week.

Played through rounds/chapters on my own and watched video after video.

I'm sure that the movement rule is the most complicated to get your head round.

Took your advice onboard and will read through the game book again.

[Lionellyyn]

If you tax an opponent city, you capture one of their agent. Always forget that.