If three of a player’s non-stronghold provinces are broken, attacks may be declared against that player’s stronghold. If a player’s stronghold province is broken, that player loses the game.

Is the stronghold province the province in which the stronghold sits, or the province above your Dynasty deck (not one of the four between your two decks)?


Just want to make sure I'm not missing something critical before taking it upstairs.

As written, can Borderlands Fortification switch with your stronghold?

Stronghold is definitely listed as a 'card', and I cannot find anything that says it cannot be targetted/moved.
Just that a stronghold cannot leave play or change control.

I would immediately knee-jerk reaction to assume NO, you cannot move your stronghold. It is not "in" your province. I bet if I crawl through the rules book I'd find it detailed that way.

9 minutes ago, shosuko said:

I would immediately knee-jerk reaction to assume NO, you cannot move your stronghold. It is not "in" your province. I bet if I crawl through the rules book I'd find it detailed that way.

But was your first reaction to Yokuni going to hand also NO?

A simple update to the Rules Reference can fix this, but for now, this interaction is available.
(Whether it provides anything other than shenanigans is up in the air).

It's not directly clarified, but in the setup the provinces between your dynasty and conflict decks are designated the non-stronghold provinces. As far as I can see, the only time the stronghold province is referenced is when you select a province to place under your stronghold, otherwise just the stronghold itself is referred to. While the card as written just says provinces, the Crab preview article specifies using it to swap with other non-stronghold provinces (I know, that's not the most reliable or definite source). It definitely feels like there's something obvious we're missing to clarify WHY the stronghold can't be moved around, just can't seem to find it in the L2P or RR.

44 minutes ago, Bayushi Shunsuke said:

If three of a player’s non-stronghold provinces are broken, attacks may be declared against that player’s stronghold. If a player’s stronghold province is broken, that player loses the game.

Is the stronghold province the province in which the stronghold sits, or the province above your Dynasty deck (not one of the four between your two decks)?


Just want to make sure I'm not missing something critical before taking it upstairs.

The stronghold province is separate from your 4 Dynasty provinces, does not hold Dynasty cards and it sits above you deck.

Because it does not hold Dynasty cards it can't hold a borderlands fortification. There's simply no slot.

I do not know that it is available. In order for a Switch to happen pg15 - In order to use a switch you must have something on both sides to switch. For this rules leap you would need to assume the Stronghold is "in" the province like any other Dynasty card. I do not see that this is so. You put the Stronghold "onto" a selected province during set up, but you do not "fill" the province in the same way. It states in Setup that you fill "empty non-stronghold" provinces. This definition leaves a reasonable presumption that the Stronghold province is "Empty" or else it would not be available to be filled. I don't see any supporting evidence that a Stronghold is "in" a province.

I'm certain your post is simply to point out some flaw in the rules - and certainly they can clarify it better, but I don't think this is in any way available by the rules of the game.

25 minutes ago, Bayushi Shunsuke said:

But was your first reaction to Yokuni going to hand also NO?

A simple update to the Rules Reference can fix this, but for now, this interaction is available.
(Whether it provides anything other than shenanigans is up in the air).

I didn't consider Yokuno copying the Adept's ability, but I don't see anything game-breaking about that. It would certainly demand a die test for "random" discard tho lol

I asked Nate French, co-lead designer of L5R, about the Borderlands Fortifications swapping with your stronghold. The answer is:

Of course it can. As per the Rules Reference, your stronghold is a card, and it is in a province, so Borderlands Fortifications can indeed change places with it. However, the province your opponent has to break to win the game is the province "slot" that your stronghold started the game in.

For what it's worth, if your stronghold was moved to a broken province, it then sits in the broken province but is not automatically discarded, because your stronghold cannot leave play.

5 minutes ago, Gaffa said:

I asked Nate French, co-lead designer of L5R, about the Borderlands Fortifications swapping with your stronghold. The answer is:

Of course it can. As per the Rules Reference, your stronghold is a card, and it is in a province, so Borderlands Fortifications can indeed change places with it. However, the province your opponent has to break to win the game is the province "slot" that your stronghold started the game in.

For what it's worth, if your stronghold was moved to a broken province, it then sits in the broken province but is not automatically discarded, because your stronghold cannot leave play.

Wow... faith in game design plummets... "Of course it can"? Are you serious? Or is there some sarcasm that isn't being conveyed in the text...

Just now, shosuko said:

Wow... faith in game design plummets... "Of course it can"? Are you serious? Or is there some sarcasm that isn't being conveyed in the text...

Why couldn't it? The Rules Reference defines your stronghold as a card. It is in a province. Borderlands Fortifications lets you swap its position for a card in another province.

Can you find a reason it shouldn't be able to?

Realistically, the only *possible* advantage I can see is if you are moving Borderlands Fortifications from a broken province, then sacrifice it from the stronghold province so that it refills with a dynasty card. Basically swapping the better defense bonus from your stronghold to keep an extra unbroken province slot for refilling with dynasty cards.

So basically there's no good reason to ever do this.

Firstly I would say - tight game design that is safe from effects used in unusually, counter-intuitive, game breaking ways...

Secondly:

In setup it says to fill every "empty non-stronghold" province. If the Stronghold "fills" this province, why explicitly state empty + non-stronghold instead of just empty?

He states "the condition for victory is still to break the province above your dynasty deck" but in victory conditions it states "The first player to break the province protecting their opponent's stronghold" which fails to make sense if the Stronghold moves since the province then "protecting" it isn't the one above the dynasty deck. Nothing denotes that province as special except 1) it has the stronghold, 2) it isn't "filled" in setup. Break those two things by swapping the stronghold and refilling the one above it (when you discard a dynasty card the game refills that province) and there is no clarity about the game winning objective.

God help us this doesn't become a "bug turned feature b/c we're either too lazy to fix it or think its cool to have game mechanics that have absolutely no purpose but to leave a rule cravat open for game exploiting meta that we later have to errata or ban to fix." Lord knows I've seen some really really really idiotic interactions that need to be sorted through because the L5R designers weren't clear and concise enough with their rules and game structure...

25 minutes ago, Gaffa said:

I asked Nate French, co-lead designer of L5R, about the Borderlands Fortifications swapping with your stronghold. The answer is:

Of course it can. As per the Rules Reference, your stronghold is a card, and it is in a province, so Borderlands Fortifications can indeed change places with it. However, the province your opponent has to break to win the game is the province "slot" that your stronghold started the game in.

For what it's worth, if your stronghold was moved to a broken province, it then sits in the broken province but is not automatically discarded, because your stronghold cannot leave play.

Cheers.

It all came down to that definition of "Stronghold province".

29 minutes ago, Gaffa said:

I asked Nate French, co-lead designer of L5R,

For reference, was this a PM?

6 minutes ago, Bayushi Shunsuke said:

Cheers.

It all came down to that definition of "Stronghold province".

@shosuko makes a good point though, this answer contradicts the RAW win condition definition. At a minimum that should probably be updated to clarify that the stronghold province needs to be broken, rather than the province protecting your stronghold.

EDIT: I checked and L2P states "stronghold province" rather than "province protecting the stronghold" so at least there it is "correct". The issue is that the RR uses the latter definition, and per The Jade Rule, RR trumps L2P. The good news at least is, the printed rules that will be coming in the core sets (L2P) will be correct, they just need to fix the online RR.

43 minutes ago, Gaffa said:

I asked Nate French, co-lead designer of L5R, about the Borderlands Fortifications swapping with your stronghold. The answer is:

Of course it can. As per the Rules Reference, your stronghold is a card, and it is in a province, so Borderlands Fortifications can indeed change places with it. However, the province your opponent has to break to win the game is the province "slot" that your stronghold started the game in.

For what it's worth, if your stronghold was moved to a broken province, it then sits in the broken province but is not automatically discarded, because your stronghold cannot leave play.

Thank you Gaffa, and Nate, for the answer. It does not make Borderlands Fortifications all that much stronger however it shows how far they thought out the game design.

13 minutes ago, Zesu Shadaban said:

they just need to fix the online RR.

And a feature of the RR is their ability to evolve, so I think we're good.

42 minutes ago, Gaffa said:

However, the province your opponent has to break to win the game is the province "slot" that your stronghold started the game in.

For what it's worth, if your stronghold was moved to a broken province, it then sits in the broken province but is not automatically discarded, because your stronghold cannot leave play.

Okay, I have a real problem with this.

Per the Rules Reference: "If a player’s stronghold province is broken, that player loses the game" (3). Additionally, "The first player to break the province protecting his or her opponent’s stronghold wins the game" (17).

While the Card Anatomy Key on page 24 does make note of the fact that strongholds can receive bonus strength from holdings, nowhere is the concept of moving a stronghold to a province (broken or otherwise) brought up. More to the point, if a player has already broken a province, and their opponent moves their stronghold to that broken province, why wouldn't they automatically lose the game? Nowhere in the Rules Reference does it say, or even make allusion to, the idea that it's the original "province slot" your stronghold sits in that you need to break in order to win; we're hearing that for the first time from Nate, and it doesn't make a lot of sense.

Why would someone ever assume that "the province protecting his or her opponent's stronghold" is a province that the stronghold no longer sits in , and is therefore physically unprotected by that province? Why would this (seemingly senseless) function of the game, which can be exploited by a card found in the Core Set, not have clarification anywhere in the game's rules document?

I have to agree with Shosuko here and say that this gets erratad, or at the very least that we get a proper definition for what constitutes a "stronghold province".

No errata is necessary. The Rules Reference can be updated to clear up the wording (specifically Page 17).

Or they can update the Stronghold section of the RR, saying something along the lines of "a stronghold cannot leave play, change control, or move/switch".

42 minutes ago, Bayushi Shunsuke said:

For reference, was this a PM?

Actually, personal email.

16 minutes ago, Sometimes Y said:

I have to agree with Shosuko here and say that this gets erratad, or at the very least that we get a proper definition for what constitutes a "stronghold province".

While "Winning the Game" section of RR should probably be updated to use the same wording used elsewhere, the rules do designate the provinces between your dynasty and conflict decks as "non-stronghold provinces". It's definitely a bit confusing to think of your stronghold on a non-stronghold province, though. Silly, really.

Yeak ok stronghold can move from its original province, why not. But do you refill the slot if you choose to discard Borderland Fortifications for whatever reason?

From the Rules Reference:

Refill a Province
After a card is removed from a province for any reason (and after all reaction opportunities to that card leaving the province are passed), a player automatically refills the province from which the card was removed if that province is still empty (i.e., if there is no dynasty card there).

7 hours ago, Bayushi Shunsuke said:

No errata is necessary. The Rules Reference can be updated to clear up the wording (specifically Page 17).

Or they can update the Stronghold section of the RR, saying something along the lines of "a stronghold cannot leave play, change control, or move/switch".

Wouldn't that technically be an errata?

I love pedantry!