After reading the threat about destroying units exploit, I thought of this. Must you use the supremcy bonus from an order card if you don't want to? Or must you use it if you quailify for it?

The recuit supremcy bonus lets you get more units from another resource. But what if all the units of a type you are recriting from are already in play and you don't want to destroy any of them because you like where they are?

Rules, page 12, under "Supremacy Bonus": "When resolving an Order card, if it is the current player's highest numbered card used this year, then he may use the Supremacy Bonus ability on the card in addition to the primary ability."

It says "may", not "must", so we play the decision to use or not use the Supremacy Bonus rests with the player.

TK

+1 for Tim's response. The supremacy bonus is always optional.

Even if the supremacy bonus were mandatory, destroying units already on the board in order to recruit them elsewhere is most certainly a voluntary action, so you could simply choose not to destroy the units you want to keep and short-change yourself on new recruits instead.

I also agree with the above. The Supremancy bonus is optional.

one thing to realize, that while the supremacy bonus is option, you can not use the supremacy bonus if you have not used the main order.

IE, if you play the Harvest Order, but for some reason dont want to harvest (maybe you lost a lot of territory that turn), you can not build a development

this is confirmed

mateooo said:

Is this meant to imply that the primary ability is NOT mandatory? I guess I never really questioned that part of the card.

I was pretty sure that it was mentioned either in the Core or FAQ that the primary ability is not mandatory, although I can only see a few cases were that would be relevant.

It was an email ruling from Corey (which was included in my compiled document) that the primary is NOT mandatory.

However, Harvest is really the only one I can see as a situation where you wouldn't "want" to do it for some reason.

The PRIMARY is only MANDATORY if you want the use the SUPREMACY BONUS

you dont have to use the PRIMARY, but then you dont get the SUPREMACY BONUS

mateooo said:

Why would you play an order card if you don't want to use its main function?

Ken on Cape said:

Really, the only time i can see this happening is if you play Harvest, but other players played Conquer or Mobilize orders and took some of your areas, which would mean that the Harvest order would cause you to LOSE resources.

Ken on Cape said:

Granted the situations where this might occur are exceedingly few, which is why the question of it not being mandatory never occurred to me. I'm pretty much always going to want to use the primary of an order I pick, so whether I HAVE to use it or not is really a moot point.

Aside from the harvest issue that has already been mentioned, I suppose it's theoretically possible that I might find myself in a situation (probably in Winter) where I don't want to play any of my remaining Orders. This would, of course, be highly dependent on the position of pretty much everything else in the game coming together to create a situation where none of my remaining options are desirable, so it's a one in a million chance that it would ever even matter.

I mostly just asked for clarification since the issue was raised.

Just pick up the game. love it!

Question on Supremcy. So is it save to asume that if I play My cards in counted up fashion I will get my Supremcy bonus each time? Exp. 3-4-5-6 or something like that..

PBnJ said:

Yes, as long as each one is the highest you've played so far that year, you'll get the Supremacy bonus.

Thus, unless a Tactics card comes in to affect things:

- Strategize can ONLY get the Supremacy in Spring

- Mobilze can ONLY get the Supremacy in Spring or Summer

- Conquer doesn't get the Supremacy in Winter

sweet it good to know for sure.

wished they would have had each race with differnt #orders. so that #1-7 were differnt cards for each race but # 8 was the same for all races. I would be cool to see the strategies that take place becuase one persons conqure card is quicker then another persons harvest card. just a thought.

It would be cool if they could find a way to do it that was "balanced". I have a feeling doing so would make some races more powerful than others, with the other races having very little to counter the warlike races with.

PBnJ said:

That is correct. Of course, you will notice that all of the orders related to moving armies are the low numbers and all the orders related to gaining resources, units, influence, etc are higher. Thus if you want to build lots of stuff and then move them quickly after, you'll need to break sequence and you won't get many supremacy bonuses. If you stick to sequence for supremacy bonuses, you'll have to move what you already have and then build more. So you're progressing slower, but getting more out of it. I think it's a nifty balancing act that keeps the practice of picking which order to use first fresh and exciting throughout the game.

I also agree that it would be interesting to see some races with the orders in a different sequence. It would probably be a balancing nightmare, but it would allow some races to naturally build power faster than others and reflect different racial attitudes to conquest. It's not something I would be willing to attempt by myself as a house rule, and I can't really blame the designers for leaving that idea alone, but it would be... interesting... to see what happened.