Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Hey,

Your number 2 is incorrect.

Writ is not a triggered ability.  It is an "at any time" ability (much like a dominant), with a restriction on who it can target (a hero in battle).

Tschow,

Tim "Sir Nobody" Maly

Here is the normal precedence of initiative in this case.

1) Micah enters battle.
2) Hidden Treasures and Unholy Writ trigger simultaneously.
3) HT goes first because get to respond to your own actions in a tie situation.
4) Unholy Writ goes off.

As I think of the current rules, I don't believe that the order above is correct. I believe that it is this:

1) Micah enters battle.
2) Hidden Treasures and Unholy Writ trigger simultaneously, Unholy Writ goes first because it was activated first (not really relevant) it grants player A the option to choose at any time during the battle to capture a Human hero if in battle, then Hidden Treasures immediately grants Player B the option to play an enhancement. These triggers and granting of options all happened so fast that neither player could take an action in between so they are essentially all simultaneous.
3) At this point, all special abilities are complete and both players have a few things they MAY do before an initiative check. (You might not initially think of Unholy Writ and Hidden Tresaures special abilities as having completed, but they were both activated in a previous phase or turn and if their special abilities hadn't already completed Micah wouldn't have been able to enter battle because he couldn't be played until their abilities had completed.)
So now, either player MAY choose to play any dominant or player A can declare a capture of a human hero in battle or player B can play an enhancement or discard an evil enhancement from opponent's deck. Whoever clearly takes one of these actions first would get to use that ability first. Either one of them could be thinking about what strategy they want to employ at this point and if the other player decides first and exercises one of their available options, then that option would begin first. However, if they both take action at the same time (or dispute who was first), then a judge would select player B as having been first because (theoretically) he knew he was putting Micah into battle and would have been able to respond quicker to his own action because he knew sooner that it was coming. This tie scenario is the only one where "responding to your own action" is relevant (it's just a convention for dealing with the unknowable answer of who really was first when the players can't agree). It has nothing to do with whether the second action is logically related to the first. Just that someone thinking of doing two actions and then doing them in succession would probably be faster than someone else watching the person take the first action and then having to think what to do in response and then taking their action.
4) Once all of the options from Step 3 that either player wants to use are completed, in the order chosen (by either playing a card or declaring intent to use an option), then the defending player would have initiative to present a blocker if a Hero still remained in battle.
5) Battle proceeds as normal.

The differences in a lot of the opinions in this thread come from the slapjack nature of step 3. We don't currently have any rules that say that we specifically have to ask the players in a given order to make a yes/no decision on their use of the (possibly many) options that they have available to them within step 3. If we did, it would give a distinct advantage to one or other of the players in that scenario. Many think that it should be a fair playing field and the swiftest of mind (and hand) should get the advantage. All we have in the rules is that the players have to be given the opportunity to perform the actions of step 3 before step 4 can be performed.

Mike

oh yes, make dominants more powerful than they already are.

Bryon, I assume this ruling extends to the case where HT is not in the equation--am I correct?  If I push a hero into battle when my opponent has UW active, do I get the right to play DoN on my opponent's UW after initiating battle but prior to my opponent utilizing UW?

2) Auto-triggered abilities activate: Hidden Treasures activates

I would also like to know why HT is considered "auto-triggered" since it says "may".

It is in a tie with CM.

Did you consider that UW was already down on the table before CM when deciding that they were in a tie?

RDT is correct.  Here are a couple more details:

Unholy Writ is a manually-triggered ability because:
a) you don't use it the moment it activates (how could you?  There are no heroes in battle during your prep phase.), and
b) you may use it at any time during the entire battle phase.  As long as a hero is in battle, you may use it.  It does NOT automatically trigger at ANY point during the battle.

Hidden Treasures is auto triggered because:
a) you don't use it the moment it activates (no hero begins a battle as you are activating an artifact).
b) There is a specified moment when HT can activate (when a lone green prophet begins a battle).  It cannot be activated whenever you want in that phase.  Only at one specific time.  That time happened the moment the lone green prophet entered battle.

When an action is completed (such as presenting a hero into battle and completing its abilities), we:
1) complete all abilities that are automatically triggered by that action (optional or not)
THEN
2) use dominants and manually-triggered abilities that are available

Yes.  You are responding to your own action before your opponent does.  Remember that the special ability on the hero(es) must complete first.  Second, auto-triggered abilities.  Third, dominants and manually-triggered abilities.  Destruction and Unholy Writ are in that third step.

I think that the biggest hang-up most people have with this whole thing is that they treat Unholy Writ as an auto-triggered ability.  They treat it as if it said "If a human hero enters battle, you may capture it."  But it does not say that.  It is a manually-triggered ability, which puts it on equal footing with dominants and other manually-triggered abilities.

Only in the case of a tie is what I would say - We do have special initiative for things like Doms VS enhancements (Aotl V Zed+Dungeon for instance) But I don't think that extends to things with the same level of priority (since I think we're all agreed that UW has the same level of priority as a Dom)

Get rid of all cues in favor of queues. Give a couple of seconds when it's your instant initiative, then give your opponents a couple of seconds for doms or UW or whatnot. Then determine battle initiative and repeat. If slow players cry about it, they can just learn to play faster, tournament rounds won't take as long, speed will have less of an edge, and the whole game is improved.

I'd rather avoid a hierarchy.

It is much simpler to let a player respond to his own last action.

Hey,

Just so that I'm clear, does the "responding to your own action" rule that allows CM to be played before UW only apply in the event of a "tie" (both players use CM and UW at approximately the same time) or does it mean that we now have a type of "initiative" to use abilities like CM, UW, etc?

I prefer the idea of an "initiative".  If this only applies in the event of a "tie" then it's still slapjack, because I still have to get my card down fast enough to qualify as a "tie."  If we consider it a new type of initiative then I don't have to rush to play my cards, I still have to act promptly, but the speed at which I manipulate my cards has no bearing on the game.  For what it's worth, I've been treating it as a sort of "initiative" for several years now.

You know as well as I do that once a hero is pushed into battle certain (maybe all) players with DoN in the hand are going to wait until their opponent goes towards UW before flashing the dominant.

This gets back to the Angel of the Lord issue.  If you start to play Angel of the Lord immediately upon seeing the Evil Character I've chosen to block with then you get to use it before I can play an enhancement.  But if you stall on playing Angel of the Lord wondering if my block is a decoy or not sure if you want to use it, and then try to slap your Angel of the Lord down after you see me moving to play an enhancement, then it's too late you missed your chance and my enhancement happens before you can use Angel of the Lord.

This is the same type of thing, if you play DoN as an immediate response to entering battle, then you get to use it.  But if you are waiting to see how I will respond to your attack before using DoN, then you're no longer responding to your own action, and you no longer get the "tie goes to me because I'm responding to my own action" benefit of the doubt.  You have the right to respond to your own action.  You do not have a right to abuse your right to respond to your own action.

Tschow,

Tim "Sir Nobody" Maly

...which is why its common courtesy to ask for initiative, even if you currently have it.