1st:

how many building can produce the Egyptians? one for free and one with production?

can Egyptians devote to the arts and build the free building?

I think that "build an unlocked building for free" replaces any action in City Management, so they cannot do anything else while building for free..

They still have to use a city action to build the building. "For free" refers to the construction cost.

Of course, if you can build 2 buildings with one action with Engineering ...

Doc, the Weasel said:

Though that would be two normal build actions and you'd have to be able to pay for both buildings, you can't use Engineering and the Free build action from the Egyptians.

scimon said:

I don't have the Engineering card in front of me, but I believe that it says that you "split" the production, rather than it allowing you to take 2 actions to build. That allows you to use both (you would have to pay for the other building, as only one is free).

Doc, the Weasel said:

Sorry Doc, the wording is 'Once per turn, when spending [hammer] from a city, you may split the [hammer] however you wish to purchase two items instead of only one'

The Egyptian ability takes a city action it ISN'T spending production so you can't use it with engineering. Nice idea though.

scimon said:

I'm not completely convinced that "by using an action" means an action separate from "Produce a Building." I read it as clarifying what "free" means rather than creating a whole new action a player can do.

This is a good one to get clarification on from FFG.

I have to agree with Scimon:

Egytians: "Once per turn, during City Management, the Egyptians may build an unlocked building for free by using an action "
Engineering: "Once per turn, when spending [hammer] from a city, you may [...]"

I put the emphasis in the Egyptian ability. That part tells me it is a separate - fourth - type of action to perform with cities. And the engineering ability is also very clear, since you don't spent [hammer] with the Egyptian action.

I played the game with quite a few hardcore gamers so far, and we all agreed it would be overpowered to let those two abilities combine. Since the wording is clear as well this was never an issue.

I have an email out to FFG. I'll post the response when I get it.

Doc, have you ever gotten a response previously when sending an email to FFG? If this is your first such attempt, you may want to go into suspended animation for a couple of aeons while you await the response.. Hopefully they will prove me wrong, in which case it will be appreciated across the board, but if that happens it will be an aberration on the order of a unicorn sighting. At least that is my experience and I have heard similar comments.

No response yet.

The last time I got a response fairly quickly, actually.