Tips and Strategy
The full base game rulebook is available for download as a PDF.
The Fatesworn Expansion Rules are here.
Hand-building for Temple and Raiding parties
It's usually a good idea to build up your economy early; this means purchasing Faithful that produce more gold for you, and upgrading your Temple to have more Stations; the more stations you have, the more cards you can have in your hand next turn!
1 Station symbol = 1 card in your Temple hand. A player with 6 stations will usually generate at least 7 gold per turn. You can use this to help predict what your opponents are doing on their turns.
You can do crazy things like putting all of your Faithful into your raiding party at end of any turn; but remember that leaves you with no gold and no defense for your next turn! Having an empty Temple hand rarely pays off.
If someone attacks you in a raid, you get to pick up all of your discarded Faithful at the end of battle!
Thus, raids usually won't affect how you earn gold on your next Marketplace step unless you are hoarding gold that they could steal.
At your end step, the Temple and Raiding hands that you create at the will set up your next turn.
If you plan to raid someone next turn, put your most aggressive cards into the raiding hand.
If you expect to be attacked, put your highest defenders in your Temple hand.
if you don't think your opponents have it in for you yet, go for the gold!
If you have a hand full of Devotees aimed at earning gold, you're going to be vulnerable to attack.
Your opponents don't know which cards you put where, so there is an element of secrecy that can help you out!
Playing each Fate Deck
Each Fate is modeled after a Greek god, but also a unique play style! Gold hoarders (Prosperity), Defensive turtles (Grace), Aggressive, reckless players (Chaos), and sneaky combo players (Wisdom). Play to your strengths the first time you play Foretold and you'll be rewarded! But it doesn't hurt to know a bit about the other decks and play style...
Which fate do you pick first? Drawing Prosperity cards early may seem like the right strategy because they could earn you free gold - but many of the cards can't be played unless you own a matching Prosperity Relic - it's also OK to take a chance on the other faiths!
You can only play Fate Cards that have a cost equal to (or less than) the number of matching Fate Relics you own; this means drawing a Fate Card with 3 Wisdom symbols on your first turn is pretty bad luck - There are only 2 of them! But the good news: half of the cards in each Fate Deck have a cost of 0 or 1, so if you acquire a single Fate Relic, there's a 50/50 chance that the cards you draw will be playable immediately.
Fate Relics don't play nice together - if you own 1 or more Prosperity Relics but want to buy the Chaos Relic in the Marketplace to thwart your opponent, it means you'll be "sacrificing" those Prosperity Relics in the process! Doing so means you put them on the bottom of the Relic deck - and they'll reappear eventually!
If you get stuck holding the bag on cards you can't use, Wisdom is great at discarding some unusable cards for a nice effect! Wisdom also access at card draw, and has some very powerful finishers.
20 Hit Points is the MAX you can have at any given time. This prevents people from going too crazy with life gain - but it also makes players that stock up on Grace cards very hard to kill! Be careful if the Grace player has 5-10 cards in hand - they're going to heal very quickly after taking a big hit! ou c
Chaos cards have the most effect on raids, but their most powerful asset is often directly damaging the opponent's life total. If you can stock up on damage, it's just as effective as that Grace player holding a bunch of life gain cards!
With the Fatesworn expansion, it's possible to get a Relic that lets you play 1-symbol cards of every fate. If you get this Relic, the Fate decks are suddenly more flexible and open for more unpredictable play!
Tiles and Temple Arrangement
Most tiles can be flipped at any time, even on an opponent's turn, so you can save your gold and upgrade your Entrance Tile if an opponent raids you for a quick (and permanent) defensive boost.
You don't have to spend all of your gold each turn! Extra gold gets saved on your Treasury Tile.
You can only rearrange your Temple layout on your turn when you buy a Tile. Remember that:
Your doorways have to align. You can't have any dead-ends.
There always has to be a path that leads from your Entrance to the Temple's Heart Tile.
Buying Tiles is important for more than just upgrading your gold production. If you want to win the game by capturing all 4 of any Relic, you need to acquire at least 2 more Tiles that have an Altar symbol on them. Without it, you may be stuck with 3 Altars, and no space to snag that game-winning 4th Fate Relic!
Trap Tiles are great for saving you from a raiding party - but sometimes they have a Station on them, and you'd rather just have the extra money from your Temple hand next turn - that's fine!
Raiding
Raiding is usually a numbers game; the more Faithful you have, the greater your chance of succeeding. The trick is to commit just the right amount of raiders per Tile so that you maximize the damage you do when Smiting.
If you use too few Faithful to attack on a given tile, you risk getting blown out by a Fate card.
Take into account any potential combat bonuses you see from Tiles or Relics when planning your attack.
It might help to ask your opponents for help ahead of raiding if the game is at stake!
Sometimes you need to raid in order to draw out a player's tricks! Even if you fail, that could soften the opponent up for the next time they're attacked - whether it's by you or another player.
If you see a player picking up no defense early game, you can pretty easily sneak in 4-6 early raid damage and put them on the defensive! But, doing so might make other players consider you a threat.
If you go all out aggro, consider choosing Fate cards that help keep you alive - this is why Grace can sometimes be a strong ally even though its cards tend to favor defense. You can leave yourself open to attacks and then just heal HP afterward.
If your opponent is buying up a lot of Tiles and placing them between his Entrance and Heart, then you can bet one of them may be a trap. Traps can have minor effects on a raid - or they can be devastating! There are even a few Fate cards that let opponents reset Traps by flipping the Tile back over. To play around a trap card, don't bring your best Faithful into the battle - they could get sacrificed!