Card System FAQ

[Earthshine]

Since there are lots of questions/concerns about the card system, I am putting the related questions/answers here :)

Why the card system?
In Kingdoms Reborn, players use cards to build and take actions. Every round (two and a half minutes), players get a selection of cards that can be bought and used. There are several reasons the card system is there:

• Regulate the pace of multiplayer games. Having a limited number of actions players can take, over time, prevents the game from turning into fast-clicking mayhem. It promotes and encourages strategic thinking and planning.
• Cards allow the addition of more content (buildings, actions, bonuses) without overwhelming and cluttering the UI.
• Cards also act as a soft tutorial, with the short card description helper telling players what they can do with each card.

How did you arrived at the card system?
The city-builder genre so far has been single-player focused, hence why the old menu system works. Pacing was never a problem. People can always speed up and slow down the game.
On another end, mainstream RTS solved the multiplayer pacing problem by forcing everyone to be fast and lubricating the action executions with hotkeys.
Now with this game, we don't want RTS-style high APM play for multiplayer. So it makes sense to throttle the number of actions people can take. Board games have been doing this forever with card system, so why not just put that here :)
Card system from mobile seems to have left bad taste in the mouth for many of us. But rest assured, the card system here follows board game's inspiration (I don't even play mobile game :D).

Does every building need cards to be built?
Common buildings like Houses/Farms/Road/Bridges etc. do not require cards to be built.

Other worries about the card system:
If you are worried about RNG issues related to the card system, I do try my best to mitigate RNG issues with things like card rerolls and Wild Card.
Most beta-testers have no issue with the card system. Some even love it :)

If you are worried about the card system feeling like Mobile Games, rest assured, I don't play mobile games myself. The card system designs here are heavily influenced by Board Games which I love (and I hope you do too :) )

[McLofty]

Originally posted by Anhigen:

Happy Holidays Earthshine

I, for one, think that while they card system has its kinks it is still novel and very fun--it definitely reminded me of playing board games, in a good way, when I first played with it. I did find that it also came off as arbitrary as there is no thematic, or in game, reason for there to be a card system. The game is very literal or realistic in some places, like managing warmth during a seasonal cycle, so a feature with nothing grounding it or tying it into the game world feels even more out of place than I think it would in other games. A little lore or in game reasoning would go a long way here, I think.

Mechanically, I think there's room to improve on the costs of re-rolls and the wild cards. Money is just too easy to make in later stages of the game and the trivial cost of re-rolling means that a player just has to mindlessly cycle through rolls until they get what they're after.

I'd also like to add that it still seems strange that the player has a huge incentive to remove as many cards as possible from the deck--and only leave the wild and support cards. That doesn't SEEM like the meta the game would want to encourage. Like it makes more sense that we're adding to a system instead power gaming one.

There's fun stuff to think about, like special cards that come with built in productivity or sustainability cards that can only be drawn from the deck or even tying the deck size to population so you can't endlessly cycle, and I look forward to how you'll continue to develop this fun feature.

second that.

[buds]

You can build scholars office and it produces unlimited productivity card only. If you have all the technology especially deep embark you can just choose sustainability or frugality cards if you buy lands with tribes or shrines.

[Problem Solver]

I like the card system. It took a couple hours when i first starting playing to figure it out. Now i buy a bunch of the wild cards and just keep them until i need a certain building.

[iwanPlays]

Some buildings can accept cards they should probably reject :D
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2338943994

It'd be also nice to be able to highlight or select from a list all buildings that have no card yet (or sort by card in a list...)

[Hellenic Born]

How do i disable the cards enterely so i can play the game? i refuse to pla it as long as the word "cards" exists.

[Monza]

I really like this card system.
Your description of "Why this card system" could not be more on point.
It's not an additive feature, it's an UI system and it add rythm without removing freedom (which can be fun as the point of a deck building game, but i like the parallel thinking here and it works well in my opinion).

I think you could favor the "remove card" card past a certain threshold to help "personalize your toolbar" in a dynamic way. There are a LOT of late game buildings that you don't need in quantity.
It does take quite a bit of space on the screen.

[Hellenic Born]

Originally posted by Monza:

I really like this card system.
Your description of "Why this card system" could not be more on point.
It's not an additive feature, it's an UI system and it add rythm without removing freedom (which can be fun as the point of a deck building game, but i like the parallel thinking here and it works well in my opinion).

I think you could favor the "remove card" card past a certain threshold to help "personalize your toolbar" in a dynamic way. There are a LOT of late game buildings that you don't need in quantity.
It does take quite a bit of space on the screen.

I asked how i can disable it entirely and not if you like it or not.

[McLofty]

Originally posted by END_EU_NOW:

Originally posted by Monza:

I really like this card system.
Your description of "Why this card system" could not be more on point.
It's not an additive feature, it's an UI system and it add rythm without removing freedom (which can be fun as the point of a deck building game, but i like the parallel thinking here and it works well in my opinion).

I think you could favor the "remove card" card past a certain threshold to help "personalize your toolbar" in a dynamic way. There are a LOT of late game buildings that you don't need in quantity.
It does take quite a bit of space on the screen.

I asked how i can disable it entirely and not if you like it or not.

Well, it's part of the very core game system. This is how the game was designed. I very much doubt this is possible. It's somewhat like disabling weapons in a shooter. You'd disable a key function of the game.

[Hellenic Born]

Originally posted by McLofty:

Originally posted by END_EU_NOW:

I asked how i can disable it entirely and not if you like it or not.

Well, it's part of the very core game system. This is how the game was designed. I very much doubt this is possible. It's somewhat like disabling weapons in a shooter. You'd disable a key function of the game.

Okey, thank your for the explanation i apprechiate it. bought the wrong game than, nevver mind.

[Sparky]

I'm also not a fan of the card system, especially in singleplayer games. I think it's a great option for a mode, but I'd love to have a setting when you start a game to allow "free build" or some way to opt out of the card mechanic (either a traditional building menu, or perhaps an option to only draw Wild Card-s, something to this effect).

[luisedgm]

I only played a bit so far, but I think the card system is quite interesting, are the cards randomized every time for each player or are the cards on the same round the same for all players?
If they are all random there could be an option at the start to sync the card draws to the world seed and have all players receive the same card list, so everyone gets the same cards and no one can blame RNG.

[sirania27]

i like the Card system till now, some new unique :)

[Nerdchacho]

So, my thoughts on this, for what it is worth... The card system is great to an extent. It serves its purpose in the early game, but by late game it is a problem. Your city is rapidly going down hill and you need to build specific things? Nope, you've unlocked that much that you need to spend money to cycle through a tonne of decks to just collect the wild-cards or the ones you need. It becomes counter-productive and is essentially redundant because you'll have the money to just keep cycling until you get what you want. Also, the number of slots you have is too few in late game. Maybe the number of slots for cards you can hold should increase as you progress as well as the number of cards that are offered?

I hope it isn't something that is coded out, but I literally cycle through decks picking up 100 wildcards so I can just build in freedom.

The "extra" cards like steal etc are also useless. I've never once had a need to buy and use one. And the seeds card... Why? Who doesn't automatically just click it and activate it? What is the purpose of holding onto it? And the town cards.. There are too many to hold vs can be used until you have multiple cities.

Personally (and it does pain me to say because I do think the card system is very well executed overall), I'd get rid of the cards in favour of a build UI. They're a really nice touch, really well executed; so bravo for this... But in this kind of game they are obsolete and obstructive in late game. If you insist on keeping them, then use them for more perk actions as opposed to build actions or re-work it so that you can semi-control the deck by selecting what cards you want by type: Food producer, heavy industry, mining, city services etc; so that you cycle through fewer cards. I say this, by the way, without any consideration for how easy it would be to just "change it out" because it is a core mechanic.. You just know that there will eventually be a mod that swaps the deck for wildcards on each hand because the players will take this decision out of your hands...

[Townsendvol]

The idea of a card system is the main reason I have not bought this game yet. Trying to watch some reviews to see if I can stomach it. Personally hate the idea of it but since I haven’t played it yet can’t say if it’s good or bad. But it is a barrier for me to overcome to buy it. Have you considered having an option to turn it off, especially in single player?

[Lisarli]

Love the game, at last a combo of Civ and settlers. I don't mind the card system and understand the concept for multiplayer. For single player I would like to move the buildings rather than destroy and rebuild. When my city is getting bigger I don't want the sheep in the middle :) Can this option be added for single player?