Card Types

Cards in the Factions CCG belong either in a Build Order or a Discipline Deck. There are other cards, like Locations, Factions, Capitals, and the like, but those have been covered in the Starting Cards post. Here I will be talking about more mundane breeds of card. I'll just jump right in.

Cards that fit into your Build Order include Buildings, Fortifications, and Technologies. Buildings are the staple of your progression in a game. You start play with a Builder card that constructs a building on each of your turns.

Builder
Kingdom Builder
Each turn you may build the top building in your build order as long as it costs only riches and or wood.
3: This is level 2. It may build the top building in your build order regardless of the resources in its cost.

Buildings are permanent additions to your civilization. They have a variety of roles, including gathering resources, training military units, and advancing your technology more quickly than normal:

Lumber Camp
Economic Building
Cost: 0
You may move workers here.
At the start of each of your turns produce 1 wood for each worker on this.
Worker limit: 5

Mahout Lines
Military Building – Stable
Cost: 2 and 4 wood
-4 support
Requires: A noble
War Elephant: 5, T: 5/5/2, -3 support, after assigning lethal damage to a unit, further damage dealt by this may be reassigned to another unit in the same battle.

Blacksmith
Economic Building
Cost: 1, 1 stone and 1 wood
When this comes into play, search your deck for up to 2 technologies that require blacksmith and put them under this.
T: Pay for and put into play a technology under this.

A Building might also be a Fortification. These count as Buildings and still require you use your turn's build to construct them, but they work a little differently. Fortifications are discussed in the post on combat.

Buildings have costs and requirements that need to be met in order to build them. Every turn, you flip the top card of your Build Order over, and if it is a building, you may pay for it and put it into play. Buildings can make resources and units, and use any other abilities that they might have. They can do this right away, but if they make a unit, it cannot be used until the start of your next turn. When a Building is built, you put it in an area with your other buildings. You may arrange them by function, the order in which they were built, or any criterion you judge useful.

If when you flip the top card of your Build Order over, there is one other type of card it can be other than a Building. If you reveal a Technology before your Building, you may pay for it and put it into play. If the next card is another Technology, you are doing something wrong. You ordinarily get a maximum of one technology from your Build Order on each of your turns.

Technologies are cards that either upgrade existing cards or provide new abilities. The most notable Technologies are those with the subtype “unit,” meaning they allow you to train a new type of unit.

Crossbowman
Military Technology – Unit
Cost: 4 and 1 wood
Build at foot archery range
Requires: Blacksmith
Crossbowman: 3, T: 2/1/2, -1 support, range 3.4

Unit Technologies, while the most prolific, are hardly alone. Technologies might unlock an ability for a unit.

Puncture Bolt
Military Technology
Cost: 4 and 1 wood
Your crossbowmen may do a ranged attack at -0.1 that also deals 2 damage to another unit of the same type.

They might also help you economically.

In-Shaft Housing
Economic Technology
Cost: 3
The worker limit on each of your mines is 1 higher.

Buildings and Technologies are either Military or Economic. This has no inherent effect, but these attributes may be meaningful to other cards.

These card types are tied to your faction. Each of these example cards is part of the Kingdom Faction's technology tree. Sometimes Buildings, Technologies, and Fortifications are also tied to your Discipline. You still create them from your Build Order, but they require that you have access to the appropriate Discipline in order to use them. Other Discipline cards are not found in your Build Order, but your Discipline Decks. These include Characters, Actions, and Assets.

Characters are like special units or heroes. They sometimes have a unit type, which serves as a requirement for playing them. If a Character enters combat, it does so with a particular unit type. These rules relating to Characters are covered in the post on combat. In essence, Characters are units that are not tied to a specific Building. They have all of the attributes of a unit: Cost, Attack/Defense/Speed, and a support requirement. You may play them from your hand on your turn while you are not attacking and while no other card is yet to resolve. They cannot attack the turn you play them, but may use other abilities.

Ndaow, Lethal Sniper
Espionage Character
Cost: 5
Set 0 (You may play this card upside down for 0. You may flip it at any time by paying the card’s cost minus the 0. When you flip it, it is as though you just played the card.)
Range X.6 (Instead of fighting normally in combat, this may attack dealing X damage at 6 speed. It cannot hit locations.)
X is the D of the targeted unit.
When this uses its ranged attack, set it.

Actions are single-use cards that provide an effect. Actions can be played at any time and resolve before any card already in play, regardless of whether that card has resolved or not. They are put in your discard pile after use.

Tamale Break
Martial Action
Cost: 2
Any number of your units cannot attack this turn. They get +1A +1D on your next turn.
Use this only on your turn.

Assets are cards that stay in play after you play them. In fact, they behave largely like Buildings and Technologies in this respect, though you play them from your hand instead of your Build Order. Assets sometimes have lifespans, but often stay in play until removed by another card or ability.

Maphack
Cost: 11
Set 1 (You may play this card upside down for 1. You may flip it at any time by paying the card’s cost minus the 1. When you flip it, it is as though you just played the card.)
You may look at any hidden card: set cards, hands, even decks, just don’t reorder them.

There is another, little-used card type that has been created so far, and that is the Add-On. Add-Ons can be put onto a card type specified on their typeline, and are then treated as though they are part of that card. What I mean is that an Add-On's text is considered to be part of the text of the card it is attached to.

Reactor
Development Add-On – Building
Cost: 2
1, T: Ready this, use this only once per turn.

(Note: I sometimes erroneously use “ready” to represent “untapping.” Like I have mentioned, there are symbols that represent the actions of “tapping” and “untapping” in Factions.)