Here's something i've been thinking about

A province is a massive piece of land and can hold many villages, cities, etc.........
But in the game a province generates a holding or a character but this doesn't make sense to me. A province with a holding should still be able to generate anther card, either another holding or a character, A province is huge!!!!

Having too many holdings in the deck seems too risky as you run the risk of this happening and locking your provinces!

I know you can discard the face up cards and must discard cards on broken provinces, but discarding cards that you want to keep to try and get better cards, er, what,? this doesn't make sense, why have them in the deck at all???

In my mind it makes more sense to allow holdings to stay in play and also to allow a province unlimited holdings all stacked up.
lets look at an extreme situation that should cover everything i'm thinking. And see what you think.

Many Holdings
Ok lets focus in on a single province.
Here he is, and he has a face down dynasty card waiting to go.

We flip the card and its a holding... great stuff, Hidden Moon Dojo!

Now instead of it sitting there and clogging up the province and me building up resources, I think it should be instantly slipped under the province and a new face down card dealt on top.

Next time we get to flip the card we find...........Another holding, this is great, Back-Alley Hideaway.

slip this card under everything and deal a new card face down, I'm building up a resource of actions and reactions I can use in the game.

Next flip and would you believe it another holding. This time City Of Lies

Same thing slip it under everything and deal a new card

We flip again and unbelievable. Favorable Ground, Another holding

Again we add it underneath with the rest and deal a new card

We flip the card to reveal..................Anther holding, this time we got The Imperial Palace.

We add it to the rest and deal another card face down, as always!

Ok so far so good.
if a card is a character card then its played like normal but if its a holding then its added to the province on a more permanent basis adding to the score to break the province but also providing lots of actions etc...

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Lets look at what would happen if someone attacks a province full of holdings
For this i've got 2 ideas, one of them is pretty clean and the other maybe not so much. see what you think.

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First Idea.

They other player decides to attack this province at last, and it reveals...Shameful Display
Adding all the holdings together its going to take a win of 8 or higher to break the province.

Lets suppose that they end score is tied at 4 each.
The attacking player wins on the tie so he can now discard any holdings that equal to how much he won by.
both players tied at 4 so it's a difference of 0, the Hidden Moon Dojo has 0 so is moved to the discard pile.

What if the attacking player wins with a higher score maybe 7 to 6
In this case the player could choose any holding worth 1 and discard it
Of coarse discarding any 0 holding too, So maybe City Of Lies and Hidden Moon Dojo.



Lets look at another example
this time the attacking player wins by 2 with a score of 5 to 3. of coarse not breaking the province but can choose to discard holdings up to the value of 2
So maybe City of Lies and Favorable Ground with any other 0 cards so Bye Bye Hidden moon Dojo


Or alternatively with the same win of 2 he could choose to discard, The Imperial Palace and Hidden Moon Dojo

I think you should get the idea
With a win difference of 4 for example 6 to 2, the attacking player could remove holding totalling up to 4.


This for me makes more sense, as a player you break down the holdings before breaking the province.

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The Second Idea
Now lets look at an idea that I think is better but maybe not as clean

Lets go back to the province being under attack and revealing Shameful Display


Lets run through some examples like before but this time we are not discarding any cards
The First example the attacking players tie on 4
The attacking player wins with a difference of 0
The attacking player can discard or take control of any holdings with a value of 0, the holdings are turned 180 and slipped under the province, this holding and all its actions and reactions are now under the attacking players control.
It is still a score of 8 to break the province

If the attacking player wins with a higher score of 2 then they can discard or take control of any holdings up to the value of 2 and any values of 0 as well.
Note here that the next time an attack is made at this province that its only 4 to break the province, the 2 holdings that have been taken over reduce the total score. I think of it as an invading army taking over the villages as the take over the province.
For Example like this

Or This
Still A score of 4 to break the province next time.

With win of a difference of 4 the attacking player could take over the holdings like this
here the province strength is reduced to 0, A tie at this province on the next attack would be enough to break it.

And A win with a difference of 5. the attacking player can discard or take control of all the holdings.
In this example an attacking player can now break this province with a -2 score.
I would suggest in such a situation that the attacking player still needs to win the battle with at least a tie. to break the province.

So thats pretty much the idea of how I think provinces and holding should work
It stops provinces being clogged up with holdings, and it allows players to build up a formidable army of actions and reactions

The Take Back.
This could also allow players to attack their own 'provinces' well not really they would be fighting to recover lost holdings
So lets look at the last picture as an example.
When its the players turn to declare a conflict he choses to attack his own province "Shameful Display' as the opponent has taken control of 5 holdings
If the attack against the holdings is successful then the player can either take back control of any of the holdings up to the amount he won by or discard holdings up to the same value, or both. note that when attacking your own province the province strength itself isn't counted.
Players would back and forth till both passed and if the attacking player has a high enough score then he recovers any holdings up to that value.

When a province breaks all holdings get discarded then from now on any card on a broken province must be discarded when play reaches the regroup phase.

I think this could make for some great deck building opportunities.

Anyway thats what i've been thinking.
What do you think?
Do you think this could work?

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Edit:

Please note I'm not suggesting you keep flipping cards and adding holding to your province until you find a character card and then stop.

I'm suggesting that when you flip a card when the rules dictate and if that card happens to be a holding then add it to the province and deal a card face down. That's it. You can only flip this face down card when the rules let you flip the card.

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Imagine controlling your opponents Hidden Moon Dojo

You could play all his characters as though they were your own.

Honestly seems overly complex and just serves to slow the game down further by making super provinces that will take multiple attacks to break. Maybe as a multiplayer variant but in regular play seems like a bad idea.

It's not that complex really. I just went over the top to try to explain it.

Basically provinces can hold multiple holdings.

If an attacking player doesn't break the province then they can still take control over the holdings up to the value they won the conflict by.

And a player having lost a holding can win it back by attacking their own "province"

That pretty much sums the entire post up

31 minutes ago, Maffster said:

It's not that complex really. I just went over the top to try to explain it.

Basically provinces can hold multiple holdings.

If an attacking player doesn't break the province then they can still take control over the holdings up to the value they won the conflict by.

And a player having lost a holding can win it back by attacking their own "province"

That pretty much sums the entire post up

Thus my comment that all it is really doing is slowing the game down for minimal gain on the part of the attacker, especially if they are taking control of break for effect provinces.

9 hours ago, Maffster said:

But in the game a province generates a holding or a character but this doesn't make sense to me. A province with a holding should still be able to generate anther card, either another holding or a character, A province is huge!!!!

A province does generate many characters and potentially many holdings -- it does so in the span of a whole game. In my mind, every turn represents a single moment in the "game narrative" during which one resource out of many is put forward, from each province, for this turn's upcoming conflicts. Sure, there's an artificial limit of one resource per province, but that limitation is constitutive of the game itself (forcing you to make strategic choices), and actually is not set in stone (see Yurt, or Staging Ground, etc.).

Seems rather too reminiscent of Doomtown when it comes to controlling deeds.

You're absolutely free to experiment with any sort of house rules you wish, I just don't think this idea adds any value to the game.

It's not a complex concept, however, the exchange of your cards back and forth with provinces potentially getting loaded up with holdings and being unbreakable, or cards with "holdings matter" abilities becoming ridiculously powerful are not something this game was designed around and ultimately the overall game experience would suffer as a result.

It was somewhat difficult for me to separate the old game mechanics in which holdings provided your gold to buy stuff, and when they sit in your provinces in the new game, they can clog up your ability to purchase dynasty characters. However, with the new design they are more like the regions and/or events of the old game. You can still discard your holdings at the end of the turn if you need to dig for more characters, but, if you have a particularly strong holding like Kanjo District, then it needs to be balanced somehow by limiting your ability to grow your board presence behind a strong effect that can only be removed if destroyed/discarded.

There are areas this game could certainly improve upon, but, I don't think this is one of them.

After playing against the Kuni Laboratory for the first time, I really don't want holdings to stick around as long as they already do.

3 hours ago, Duciris said:

After playing against the Kuni Laboratory for the first time, I really don't want holdings to stick around as long as they already do.

But it wouldn't be so bad

Kuni laboratory is has a score of 0

That means you'd only have to win a conflict at that province and you'd take over control of it. Even a tied score would be enough to win

All it effects would become yours. Until the province is broken or the other player wins it back.

I like your idea of holdings but I don't want the conga stile for provinces

I'll try something like the regions of the old card game, each province can hold one holding and still have another card, if another holding is revealed ,chose between them.

And broken provinces will be like rules now

?