Ok, so I just got the game and we are trying to figure out how it is supposed to be played...1.) In a 2 player game when the first player does his challenges and and the second player has exhausted his characters in defending the attacks and it becomes his turn and now all of his characters are exhausted do you just go on to the dominance phase since all your characters are exhausted and you cant make any attacks!?....2.) also...when a character who has a military, intrigue or power symbol on their character card and the other player doesnt have the same symbol can you attack that person with that particular challenge!?...or can you only attack a player that has those symbols available and how do you defend against an attack if your character doesnt have that certain symbol! Please help me cause that is the only 2 things that I am completely lost about and I cant find the answers anywhere!

shanefurrow1979 said:

But yeah, if you have no standing character, you're not going to be able to declare and attacks, so you pass and the phase is over.

Just to be sure, though, because some people make this mistake early on. If Player #1 attacks Player #2, Player #2 can choose to not declare defenders, even if he has characters that are eligible to defend. For example, in the first round, when there is no power on your House, if the First Player does a power challenge against you, you may just choose to let it go unopposed, even though you have character who could defend and even win, because you're not losing anything when you lose that challenge and the 1 free power he gets for unopposed is now there for you to take with your own power challenge.

Just wanted to mention that because a lot of new players think that if they can defend, they MUST defend, but a lot of the strategy in this game is figuring out when it is a good idea to lose a challenge on purpose.

shanefurrow1979 said:

The attacker is under no obligation to only attack in challenges that the player can defend. Or, to say it another way, I cannot shut down your ability to attack with intrigue challenges just by not playing any characters with the intrigue icon. If I have no characters on the table with an intrigue icon and you attack me in an intrigue challenge, that's my own problem. Otherwise, take that further: if my ability to defend limited your ability to attack, all I have to do to stop you from attacking me at all is to not play any characters, right?

When you attack, the only thing that matters is whether or not you have a standing character with the right challenge icon. What your opponent can do to defend has absolutely nothing to do with your ability to attack. This, by the way, goes hand in hand with the point made above that just because the opponent could defend, they are under no obligation to actually do so if it makes more sense to them to lose the challenge. For example, let's say you attack me for an intrigue challenge. The only character I have with an intrigue icon is also the only character I have with a military icon and happens to be 5 STR. So rather than kneel him to defend, even though I could win the intrigue challenge on defense, I might prefer to let you win the intrigue challenge unopposed and lose the card so that I still have the option of attacking with a military challenge when my turn comes.

Awesome!!! Thanks man!!! Makes absolute perfect sense!!! I appreciate your very well thought out explanation!!!