I am puzzled by the wording of the Supremacy rule. I may be nuking this out a little, but still, I can't help but feel confused.

The supremacy rule reads "when resolving an order card, if it is the current players highest numbered card used this year, then he may use the supremacy bonus ability on his card in addition to blah blah blah"

What puzzles me, is, practically speaking, won't every spring turn basically resolve as a supremacy turn for players? It is the first turn of the year, and the order card being layed down will not have any other cards to compare too. So, won't you pretty much always use the supremacy rule in a spring turn? If I got this right, why the convuluted explanantion regarding supremacy rules?

Without having all the pieces and parts, I can't say I can understand the reasoning. The Order cards specifiy that the default order ability always happens first, then the supremacy rule, so maybe players need to be careful on which order card is used in spring. Still, it seems rather complicated way of stating that "In spring, all players receive the surpremacy ability of any played order card" Or something similiar.

"What puzzles me, is, practically speaking, won't every spring turn basically resolve as a supremacy turn for players?"
That's correct.

"If I got this right, why the convuluted explanantion regarding supremacy rules?"
Well... because that's only true for the Spring season. For other seasons, you will benefit from the supremacy ability of your order card only if it's the highest numbered compared to the cards you played in previous seasons. Thus, you could benefit from supremacy every season if you play your order cards in ascending order.

So, for example, if I played an order card with the value of 1 in spring, then 2 summer, 3 fall etc, I could benefit from Supremacy each season?

It makes sense now.

Thanks

It seems like the idea is to encourage players to follow a certain order order (awkward) without forcing them to do so.

Indeed, and playing out of order can be strategically sound (like playing Mobilize in Winter to benefit from water movement) but denies you other interesting benefits. This bring a whole lot of interesting options.

Agreed, but also, stealing a march early when people wont see it coming can have some great advantages. It might be worth giving up supremesy if you re sure you re about to be attacked to fortify a region for example. I really like the rule

I was at the sneak peek event last night and played the game. This mechanic does indeed make for interesting strategy and decisions! One year, you'll be playing strategize, mobilize and conquer moving your units all over the board, but then the next year, you'll need to recruit and muster your forces to regain the strength you lost in the previous year.

So, if you want to harvest, recruit and then mobilize in one year, sorry! No mobilize supremacy bonus for you! I found myself mustering forces one year, then moving and conquering the next so I could gain the advantages of those supremacy bonuses. Of course, there's always a monkey wrench thrown in when an opponent threatens and you have to recruit to defend yourself as mention earlier.

simpatikool said:

Yep and the rules even specifically point this out