Strategy Cards

## Overview

 Strategy Cards are modifiers which can affect almost all areas of the game; for example, a card may affect a building's production rate, the strength of its walls etc. The period for which a card's effect lasts differs on a card-by-card basis. You will notice that the icon to the left appears on the majority of in-game screens - clicking on it will enable you to put your cards into play.

Strategy Cards may be played on the following screens:

When you click on the cards icon, only the cards relavent to the screen you are in will be shown. For example, if you want to play the card shown below, *Woodsmanship*, you would need to go to the Village screen, where *wood* is produced.

***TIP:*** It is possible to search for specific cards in your deck by using the Card Search Bar. This can be found by clicking on the Magnifying glass Icon in the top right corner of the Cards Inventory Screen.

## Card Types

There are two different types of card used in **Stronghold Kingdoms™**:

The first type is the *Timed* card. The effects of these cards apply to in all of your Villages for the amount of time displayed in the card's details.

Examples include :

* Food Production
* Ale Production
* Castle Production
* Buildings Production
* Resource Production
* Increased honour or popularity from certain actions

The second type are the instant cards. The effects of these cards apply only to the currently-selected village, and once used, the cards are discarded. If the card would give you more of something than your current limit allows, you will receive all that you are able to hold and the rest will be lost.

Examples include :

* Food/Resource/Weapons/Banquet Goods hauls
* Mercenaries (Troops/Scouts/Merchants)
* Villagers
* Partial completions for Castles
* Research

**Tip**: Cards that increase army travel speed apply to armies from Capitals you control too.

## Cards in Play

Any cards in play will appear as circular icons next to the cards icon at the top of the relevant screen. Hover over this icon to see more information, such as *time remaining*, *effect* etc.

It is possible to cancel the effect of any card in play, by clicking on the Icon for the card in play and confirming the cancellation in the window that pops up.

## Attributes

Each card has certain attributes:

* + At the top of the card is its name - in this example, 'Woodsmanship'.

* + To the right of its name is the *grade* of the card - in this example, bronze (the advanced woodsmanship card has a silver coin).

Cards come in four (5) grades; bronze, silver, gold, diamond and Sapphire. Higher Grade cards cost more *card points* to buy but give a larger modifier. Cards may be bought from the *Manage Cards* screen (please see below).

* + The writing across the bottom of the card is the description of what the card does - in this example, a small increase to wood production.

* + The number in the bottom right indicates which rank a player must be in order to play the card; if the player's rank is too low, the entire card will appear in black and white, with the rank symbol highlighted.

## Purchasing Cards

Cards are purchased with Firefly crowns, which can be bought by clicking on *Buy crowns* in the card management screen.

Firefly crowns may be used to purchase Premium Tokens and packs of cards. There are seven (7) different types of packs:

Click on the *Buy Cards* screen to purchase the pack(s) of your choice. The pack of cards you bought will appear at the bottom of the panel. To view the cards, click on the pack. You may play the cards straight away from this view by clicking on them.

## Swap Cards

**Swap cards** - found on the card management screen - allows you to trade in unwanted cards in exchange for *card points*, which can then be spent on individual cards. You must make a set of five (5) cards in order to swap them (they do not have to match). For each set, you will receive a minimum of 25 card points, with a a chance of receiving bonus points. Matching three to five (3-5) symbols when swapping sets of cards for carpoints will award the following bonuses: