We played a multiplayer game a couple of days ago. We print the rules and went reading along the way so there could be some stuff that we did wrong. It was fun. The most confusing thing was the multiple ring pools. In that regard I have a question about the mechanics. Imagine I have both Earth and Fire rings in one of my unbroken provinces. An opponent attacks this province and chooses Water ring. He breaks the province. He does not have any of those 3 rings claimed at the mom ent.

I understand he would take Water, Earth and Fire rings and take them to their unbroken provinces. Does that mean he takes my Earth and Fire rings along with "his" Water ring? Does that mean I can no longer start those types of conflicts?

Having each player with his own set of rings that can be claimed or not seems a bit confusing.

From the rules...

Taking Rings from Other Players

If a player has one or more rings on one of their unbroken provinces, when that province is broken, the opponent that broke it takes all ring tokens from the province and places the rings onto their own unbroken provinces (they may be divided among several provices). If this would cause the attacking player to have duplicates of a particular ring claimed, duplicate rings are returned to the defending player’s personal unclaimed ring pool and any remaining rings (from the broken province) are claimed by the attacking player. (See Duplicate Rings on page 3)

Hi,

We've played some already and we played it that way as well. He would take all three rings. If the Earth and Fire rings are yours then they wouldn't be in your unclaimed pool and you can't declare conflicts with them. But you could declare Water conflicts because you'd still have that in your unclaimed pool.

Also remember that if the attacker doesn't win then the contested rings returns to unclaimed. Defenders don't claim rings when they win.

Hope that helps.

-tpl

Almost.

Let's suppose I have a Fire ring on my first province, and that you have a Fire, Air & Earth ring on your province. Further suppose, that through some game effect, I have in my unclaimed pool my Air, Void, & Water ring, but not my Earth ring. Now suppose that I use my Water ring to declare a conflict on your juiciest province and that I win the conflict.

1. I take all of your rings.
2. As I am the attacking player and I have a Fire ring on one of my provinces, the Fire ring I just claimed is immediately returned to your unclaimed pool, as I cannot have more than one physical copy of each ring claimed on my provinces.
3. I can now place my Water ring and your Air & Earth rings, distributed as I wish, among my unbroken provinces. I cannot place any of them on my Stronghold province, unless that is the only unbroken province I have.
4. Now, I have 2 copies of the Air ring, one in my unclaimed pool and one on my unbroken provinces. My unclaimed Air ring is moved from my unclaimed pool to your unclaimed pool.

Quote

Taking Rings from Other Players

If a player has one or more rings on one of their unbroken provinces, when that province is broken, the opponent that broke it takes all ring tokens from the province and places the rings onto their own unbroken provinces (they may be divided among several provinces). If this would cause the attacking player to have duplicates of a particular ring claimed, duplicate rings are returned to the defending player’s personal unclaimed ring pool and any remaining rings (from the broken province) are claimed by the attacking player. (See Duplicate Rings on page 3)

Quote

Duplicate Rings

A player may never have more than one physical copy of each ring token (by element) claimed on their provinces at the same time. If a card or game effect would cause a player to claim a copy of a ring token that is already on one of their unbroken provinces, one of two things occurs depending on the status of the ring to be claimed. If the ring to be claimed is the contested ring, that ring token is returned to the attacking player’s personal unclaimed ring pool. If the ring token to be claimed is on the defending player’s province, the ring is moved to the personal unclaimed ring pool of the defending player.

I think there are probably ways to not have a complete set of rings among your claimed & unclaimed pools, but I'm not sure how. I believe the rules are allowing for it to happen by some other means, but then they immediately rectify it with the other rules.

I'm not sure when you actually give the duplicate ring(s) from unclaimed to unclaimed. The timing isn't particularly well laid out in the document, so while I believe it should actually happen before you place the copy on your province, it isn't explicitly stated either way.

I also believe - although it is another grey area - that as you are moving the ring from your unclaimed pool to your opponent's unclaimed pool, all fate on that ring are moved too. This leads me to wonder, if I am able to decline taking the your claimed ring as my own. If so, because the attacked province would be broken, your claimed ring would be returned to your unclaimed pool, and I would keep my unclaimed ring.

This last point makes little sense, as the primary win condition of the game is to claim all 5 rings, however, there are reasons I would want to keep the ring.

Suppose I were playing Dragon at the time of the above attack. Suppose also that I had a seeker of Enlightenment in play, but not in the conflict. Suppose I also have 5 fate on my Air ring. There are now 2 really good reason I don't want to give you my unclaimed Air ring: the 6/6 character, and I'd be giving you 5 fate.

I believe that the rules will eventually contain that clause (or explicitly state that you cannot do it), but as they don't now I think it is up to the group as to what they agree should happen it that situation. However, as they are written now, "when that province is broken, the opponent that broke it takes all ring tokens from the province," that option does not exist.

You only claim fate on a ring when you declare the attack. If there is fate on a ring on a province it stays there until it is able to be picked when you declare an attack from your unclaimed ring pool.

Ex: opponent has 3 fate on ring of water in his province. You bake the province and move the ring to one of your provinces with the 3 fate still on it. If you had the water ring already claimed it would go back to the unclaimed ring pool with the fate on it until the opponent declared a water attack .

17 minutes ago, player540346 said:

You only claim fate on a ring when you declare the attack. If there is fate on a ring on a province it stays there until it is able to be picked when you declare an attack from your unclaimed ring pool.

Ex: opponent has 3 fate on ring of water in his province. You bake the province and move the ring to one of your provinces with the 3 fate still on it. If you had the water ring already claimed it would go back to the unclaimed ring pool with the fate on it until the opponent declared a water attack .

You shouldn't ever encounter this though as you only place fate on rings in the unclaimed pool not on provinces.

16 hours ago, Duciris said:

Now, I have 2 copies of the Air ring, one in my unclaimed pool and one on my unbroken provinces. My unclaimed Air ring is moved from my unclaimed pool to your unclaimed pool.

This last part is incorrect. The rules for duplicates only applies to claimed rings, so you cannot have two rings of the same element in your provinces.

But nothing stops you from having, let’s say, a claimed Fire ring in one of your provinces and another one in your unclaimed ring pool. Next time you declare a Fire conflict, if you win, you return that ring to your unclaimed ring pool.

Another example: You have a claimed Water ring, you declare a Fire conflict against a province with a Water ring. You break the province, so you claim the Fire ring and the Water ring. But, as you already have the Water ring, the copy you just claimed returns to the defending player’s unclaimed ring pool. Bear in mind this can cause a player to have duplicates in his/her unclaimed ring pool. Nothing wrong with that.

7 hours ago, Tabris2k said:

This last part is incorrect. The rules for duplicates only applies to claimed rings, so you cannot have two rings of the same element in your provinces.

But nothing stops you from having, let’s say, a claimed Fire ring in one of your provinces and another one in your unclaimed ring pool. Next time you declare a Fire conflict, if you win, you return that ring to your unclaimed ring pool.

Another example: You have a claimed Water ring, you declare a Fire conflict against a province with a Water ring. You break the province, so you claim the Fire ring and the Water ring. But, as you already have the Water ring, the copy you just claimed returns to the defending player’s unclaimed ring pool. Bear in mind this can cause a player to have duplicates in his/her unclaimed ring pool. Nothing wrong with that.

Good catch. I missed that. You are correct.

21 hours ago, Schmoozies said:

You shouldn't ever encounter this though as you only place fate on rings in the unclaimed pool not on provinces.

False and true. You cannot put fate on claimed rings (unless I've missed something else), but you can claim a ring but not its fate, if you opponent has played The Stone of Sorrows.

I pretty much only play Dragon, so I'm more up to date on their bag of tricks.