Three Dynasties Primer: Rules Changes
Part One — Dynasty

That's right! With Three Dynasties, we're announcing the return of the Cavalry Maneuvers segment of battle assignment. For those of you who are newer to L5R, the Cavalry Maneuvers segment comes after the normal assignment period, now called the Infantry Maneuvers segment. So it goes like so :

Assign attacking Infantry units---> Assign defending Infantry units---> Assign attacking Cavalry units---> Assign defending Cavalry Units.

A key difference from original Cavalry, as we released into the wild with Kimiono Sensei, is that you are no longer able to assign Cavalry units to 'empty Provinces' (Provinces in which no units are already present, yours or theirs) unless the Defender does assigns no defenders to any Provinces. This is to prevent the bad old days of "Unicorn sleaze", where Unicorn players often got risk-free attacks for much of the early and mid-games.

That being said, the Shinjo rule the Unicorn for the first time in centuries, and bring their own battlefield tactics to bear as well.

You may note a few other things going on here unrelated to Cavalry, and let's go ahead and address those here. First, yes, that is a new font: More precisely, it is the font L5R used for many years, and we hope people enjoy the new-yet-retro look.

Secondly, the return of Recon actions. Scouts are themes across multiple Clans in 3D, and we wanted to bring this mechanic back, but perhaps a little polished from its initial version (much like we did with Yu). We dropped the clunky 'You have Reconnaissance' for the shorter 'have Recon', and we've made another key adjustment. Recon actions now target Provinces, and grant you Recon at those Provinces.

One other thing you probably noticed: the Far Traveler Castle Stronghold previewed above is not double-sided. While the concept of double-sided Strongholds was innovative and interesting, from a Design perspective, balancing the bonuses for each Clan's 'Going 2nd' side proved to be a daunting task in Shattered Empire, and was proving to be even more so in Three Dynasties, given that we have also opted to move largely away from Sensei-driven deckbuilding options in favor of a return to multiple Strongholds. Normalizing the 'Going 2nd' bonus proved to be the easiest route, but once we made that decision, the reason for having double-sided Strongholds evaporated. Instead, we pulled an old friend out of retirement: Bamboo Harvesters. It functions exactly as it did in previous versions, entering play only if you are the player going second. Its partner, Border Keep, however, remains consigned to the bin of history.

The subject of the Conqueror Rulebook Reaction is as good a time as any to address one of the major points of 'change' in 3D: the return of Reactions. For those unaware, Interrupts and Responses were introduced into L5R in the Ivory (and Onyx) era in an attempt to more rigidly set timing windows, specifically with an eye toward developing a MTG Arena-like online client. Since this client ultimately never materialized, and because Interrupts and Responses were almost always inevitably worded confusingly, we have retired them in favor of a return to the (in our opinion) cleaner functionality Reactions provide. This also allows us to consider returning other cards without forcing us to reprint them with having to force in Interrupt and Response wording.

Another key point that you may start noticing is that not all Events will have an action on them. This is your key to know that Events will now resolve at the beginning of the turn, before the normal Action Phase. This is actually a return to form, and allows us to treat Events as one-time happenings, and not necessarily just another point in the Action Phase.

Events resolve after your turn begins, after they are revealed (or if they are already face-up) in your Provinces. If an Event is revealed in your Provinces outside of the start of your turn, it will not resolve until after your next turn begins. After an Event resolves, its Province is refilled face down.

Some Events will now have the Enduring keyword. Enduring Events are put into play, and will remain in play until a card effect removes them (or unless the card text of the Event specifies otherwise). While an Enduring Event is in play, any traits on the card remain active, and any actions on the card may be used once per turn, just like any other card in play. If multiple Events turn (or are) face-up in your Provinces at the start of your turn, you choose the order in which they resolve.

Aside from the streamlining involved in the Terrain keyword, we've also done some other 'streamlining' regarding other frequently used or referenced effects, such as Wealth tokens, by codifying in the rules that a Wealth token always gives +1GP, rather than writing "+1GP Wealth Token" every time.

We have one last major Rules change to address: Limited Actions. While the Ivory-era decision to have a single phase designator, Open, for the Action Phase is something we like, and intend to stick with, having to write out things like "If it is your turn" or "if it is not your turn" felt clunky and, frankly, annoying. So, we came up with a solution that still keeps Open as the Action Phase designator, and also pays homage to the main way players enjoy L5R these days: Sun and Moon timing designators.

You can see the triangle mon of the MCA on the left side of the title bar, an homage to the original three minor clans that founded it. On the right side, mostly for flavor purposes, we have included the mons of each Minor Clan. However, in the case of clans that are recognized alignments in other formats, it functions like our dual Clan alignment Personalities during ShE. 

Lastly, to help address questions that kept cropping up during Onyx and ShE, and for general clarity, we are also reviving the constraints block, albeit slightly modified. We've removed required targeting from them, but they still contain "If requirements" and Reaction triggers in addition to non-self-bowing, non-Gold, non-Favor costs. We also believe this will reduce the need for sometimes-confusing conditional "to" effects ("do X to do Y"), and also allow us the flexibility to add costs other than the three currently only described by icons.

You see the traditional format here - Action Designator: Constraints Block: Effect.

That's all for this week's article. As you can see, several of the rules changes we plan to enact are more like modified reversions to older systems from other L5R formats. Next time, we'll address some of the changes and tweaks that tend to affect the Fate side of things, as well as lay out general plans for the preview and release schedules for Three Dynasties.

Thank you all for your continued support as we look towards the next chapter in the L5R CCG.