Bug? Cannot Use Owned Commodities when no City Owned?

[CivMeister]

I was playing the 3-4 player Fog scenario with Cities and Knights and Seafarers.

I believe the following is a bug, as I don't believe it follows the regular C&K rules.

I lost my city via barbarian, leaving me with 0 cities. Fine. I gained a Commercial Harbor card prior to that. On my next turn, I decide to use it and gain a paper from an opponent. The game will not allow me to use said paper to advance my Science Building from 0 to 1. Funny! I didn't see a reason for this. Is it because I have no cities, and the game is made that way? I don't believe original C&K works like that. I know I cannot gain commodities without cities, but I already OWNED this card and gained the commodity paper via a development card, not through a city.

A couple turns later, I roll a 7 and rob an opponent. I gain a coin. Once again, I cannot use the coin to advance my Politics Building from 0 to 1.

What is even more frustrating is that both the paper, and coin are sitting in my hand, useless, yet count towards my 7 card limit. So naturally, a seven rolls and voila, now I get double penalized.

Eventually, I build back a city and can once again advance all my Trade/Science/Politics building via commodities. So this cannon use commodities whatsoever when no-city owned rule is really badly implemented. Did anyone else experience this and can we agree that this is a bad rule?

[Gin]

No bug.

Commodities are used to improve a city, so it's logical that you need a city.
You can still receive and use progress cards if you made any improvements to a city
prior to losing the city.

Eventhough you can still steal commodities via certain cards (Bishop,, Trade Monopoly, Master Merchant, Wedding)
or in your case, by sending the robber to an opponent with a 7 roll.

You shouldn't trade for commodities with Commercial Harbor either
when you don't have a city. (unless you can build a city in that same turn)
In my opinion, you've wasted that progress card and resource(s)

With bad luck, like a 7 roll , you may be forced to give up commodities anyway.

[CivMeister]

Alright. Good to know. I've played Cities and Knights tabletop version. We always played that you can use commodities if you have them. I'm wondering where that rule would be found in the rule book. Guess I will have a look when time allows.

[Floydian]

On the bottom right, second to last paragraph on Page 7 of the official Cities & Knights rulebook, it states the following:

"There is one restriction on the purchase of improvements, however. If you have no cities on the board (because the barbarians have pillaged your last city), you may not purchase any city improvements until you have built at least 1 city. (See "Attack of the Barbarians" on Page 11.)"

[CivMeister]

But on page 12 it states...

"Losing Your Last City
If you are unfortunate enough to have your last city pillaged by the barbarians, you are allowed to keep any city improvements that you may have built before the attack. You also keep all of your progress cards. You may continue to draw and play progress cards normally."

"Normally" seems to me that regular rules of progress cards apply, even though I lost my last city.

I realize this was a month ago, but I have not bothered to re-read the rules, until now.

[Gin]

You can never lose city improvements or progress cards when a barbarian attack occurs.
In fact, they can be useful to rebuild a city (faster and / or cheaper)

It would be unfair to lose it all and then invest resources or commodities all over again for city improvements when you've already lost the city.
It's almost impossible to recover from that.

Not to mention, it can take a while to rebuild if you're unlucky with the dice rolls on top of that.

Think of it like this :
A pillaged city temporarily becomes a village again but it is actually still a city (potentially)

[CivMeister]

Gin, this does not address my original point. Why coudn't I use my Commerical Harbor card if the rules on page 12 say "You may continue to draw and play progress cards normally"?

[Argus]

Originally posted by CivMeister:

Why coudn't I use my Commerical Harbor card

Your original post says you DID use it. "On my next turn, I decide to use it and gain a paper from an opponent." That's separate from the process of spending commodities for city improvements.