Card types

The **card types** are classifications which exist for the various cards in Age of Rivals. There are currently nine main card types listed in the cards view, as well as two special card types.

## Main card types

### Artistic

 This is one of the first card types a new player is introduced to in the tutorial. These cards focus on generating culture points for your city. Their primary resource is crafts.

### Holy

 Similarly to Artistic cards, these cards are primarily used to generate culture for your city. Holy cards tend to have less culture than Artistic cards, instead having more useful abilities to interact with other cards. Their primary resource is learning.

### Infantry

 Infantry are the main combat force used by your city to generate attack points for conquest and war. They tend to be slightly weaker than Mounted units (see below) but are cheaper. Their primary resource is iron.

### Mounted

 Mounted units are a stronger but more expensive combat force than Infantry. They tend to have a slightly better defence than Infantry, though their attack is often the same. Their primary resource is horses.

### Ranged

 Ranged units are a specialist combat type of cards. They have weaker attack than the above two types and much weaker defence, but have abilities which allow them to target specific enemy cards immediately or before war. Their primary resource is wood.

### Civic

 Civic cards focus on improving the statistics of other cards in your city. They generally reward a small number of culture points and have medium defence, but can be very effective if their abilities are triggered. Their primary resource is gems.

### Fortified

 Fortified cards have a very high defence score, but often do little else. Their function is to prevent damage to the highest scoring (but often weak) cards during war. Their primary resource is stone.

### Underworld

 Underworld cards are those which utilise the criminal underworld to perform unique actions. They tend to have very low scores and sometimes even have negative culture points. To make up for this weakness they have some of the strongest abilities of any cards in the game, including swapping the enemy's card for one which hinders them or gaining from ruined cards (see below). Their primary resource is training.

### Economic

 Economic cards provide control of resources and income for the player who plays them. They provide a permanent bonus of either both or one of the above, which is only lost if the relevant Economic card is knocked out or blocked. However, once an economic card has been KO'd or blocked in this way, the player who owns it will not be able to regain its bonuses unless they play it again or have it dealt to them at the beginning of rounds 2 or 3. Uniquely for a main card type, they have no primary resource.

## Special card types

Certain card types are not listed in the cards view, and are not counted as card types for the purposes of abilities such as that of the Great Council. However, their icon is still present where the normal icon for a card type would be.

### Waste

 Waste cards are generated when a player attempts to buy a card which they cannot afford. Upon purchasing a waste card, the purchasing player will receive 3 gold. However, after that, the waste card simply wastes space, having no defence or any other score. It is advisable to save gold to avoid having to purchase waste cards.

### Ruined cards

 If at least one card on a player's side is knocked out by the time the end phase is reached, a card will be randomly chosen to become ruined. Ruined cards will be reduced to 2 defence, 0 attack and will only retain 1 culture if they had culture points to begin with - though cards which originally had only 1 defence will not be given another 1 defence when they are ruined.

## References

1. ↑ http://www.kongregate.com/forums/715754-age-of-rivals/topics/695830-question-and-answer-topic?page=1#posts-10937269 Developer confirms rules for ruined cards