Two weeks ago we tackled ‘Why can’t we be friends’ expansion for Amazons, now it’s time to go for their fierce set collections within the next expansion: 3 is a magic number. Harmonia will be watching over our deck to make sure, that we’ve prepared our cards properly to get the most out of Amazons when we decide to use it when building our deck. We could say that with this expansion blue is the new black.  

Like before we present some unique options in our opinion, but those are not the ultimate choices, and you are more than welcome to create your set scoring configurations and share them. So what options do we have when we want to include 3 is a magic number expansion into our Amazon deck to have optimal choices and use set tactics to its best?

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First comes a single card with three copies called Harmonia’s Fountain and the cards to replace it with.

Harmonia’s Fountain is a base of this expansion, most cards focus on its set collection effect and since it gives lots of Victory Points its best to replace it for the Flea Market and keep the Mythic Tree card, that provides wood production which is much needed to build other constructions that come within this expansion. The Recon Team is always good to keep that manipulation options, but its also a great alternative to consider, having two scoring options both from Flea Market and Harmonia’s Fountain might be great in the long run.

Blessing of the trees and Tree of wishes are the two cards with two copies each, and here we have some options to include those in Amazon’s deck, but keep in mind blue is the key here!

Tree of wishes

Free Building bonus effect from the top three cards and an extra option to get rid of the cards that aren’t blue and won’t combine with Harmonia’s Fountain effect is a no brainer. We recommend replacing the Statue of Midas with it, sure maybe the statue brings a nice building bonus that Tree of Wishes could use, but since most of the other two copies cards are blue or black and will take advantage from other cards, it’s just safer to go for the only gold one in the main deck.

Blessing of the trees

The Blessing is a fantastic card to be played with Harmonia’s Fountain. Other players tend to raze common scoring cards almost right away when those appear in front of us, but with the Blessing of the trees, we don’t have to worry, it allows us to get something extra from all the Foundations left over inside our Empire. We recommend replacing either Young Warriors or Ambush with it since we don’t need pink cards that much right now.

Single copy cards include: Little War; Temple of Ares; and Outpost Network, these cards will take most of its advantage from the Black cards and the ones with building bonuses.

Little War

Great card in combination with our black color cards, we gain resources every time we built black cards. That’s why we’ve left most of the blue and black cards in our deck, and we want to have great combinations between those cards. Our first pick to include the Little War card would be to remove The Capital. Sure it’s storage feature is neat, and its a three-color card, but its neither blue or black, so let’s just remove it.

Temple of Ares

Another card that favors blue and black cards in sets and will let us get that snowball effect momentum. Gaining a card and sword for each new set of two blue and a single black card will push forward the game at a fast pace. So what we should give up for this card? We would recommend Secured Garner, another not needed color in our set collection tactic.

Outpost Network

The last card in this expansion will allow us to score some extra Victory Points at the end of the game, for each card with Building bonus in our empire. Here, even though we have some more cards of unwanted color in our deck left, we would recommend Rear Guard to be removed from our deck. Yeah, it’s a black card that works well with the two cards mentioned above, but the effect of it, which strikes our opponents and doesn’t give much of strategy options to us, makes it an optional choice.

So here it is, another Amazon expansion another set of choices delivered to you, to try and have fun with the deck building mechanism in Imperial Settlers. Give us your feedback for those Strategy and Tactics posts and if you would like to see more of those including other factions.

Matt Dembek

When playing as Amazons, we have a great portion of control over our faction deck. We’re building our strategy throughout the entire game, shuffling back some cards, discarding the others quicker, so that we hit that sweet-spot of what we have planned at the start of the game.

So let’s move back to planning out part, in particular, choosing expansion cards that we would want to include in our deck. There are three different expansion sets in the box for the Amazons and let’s take a closer look at one of them – Why can’t we be friends. If we want to grab this expansion, we should know our options up front, and how these card replacement will affect our game tactics. With this, we hope it will be easier to choose and build your deck to check all strategies.

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First, let’s take a look at a single card with three copies, New Roots, and all the cards from the base deck that can be replaced with it.

Amazon cards with a building bonus are great especially when they need only a Foundation to build. We can quickly burn a Faction card for it since it goes back to our deck. New Roots card is an alternative choice for a Mythic Tree card, instead of three woods, you get wood, a coin and a worker, which will give you more flexibility throughout the game. Another interesting choice would be to replace Flea Market with it. You lose some scoring options but more Resource income. However, I wouldn’t go overboard and leave the Recon Team at all cost. We need their deck manipulation options.

Next, let’s take a look at the two cards with two copies, Haunted Ruins and Takeover, and the best options for them.

Haunted Ruins
The core of this expansion, which your opponents will gladly take advantage off, Open Foundation production. If you decided to replace Flea Market with New Roots, then go and replace Statue Of Midas with Haunted Ruins, since you already have more then enough Building bonus resource options. Alternatively, you might be a peace-loving Amazon, that isn’t looking for a fight, then a better choice would be their Chamber of Treasures which give you a feature that push you towards Razing.

Takeover
For those peace-loving Amazons mentioned earlier, we have a Takeover card, which doesn’t sound peaceful but your opponents won’t hate you for it. You spend a sword and gain resources, and they get a worker, everyone’s happy. If you still didn’t discard the Statue Of Midas, you can do it now, or the other choice would be Young Warriors, both of them provides resources, but you might be okay already. Whatever you do when you take this card, don’t remove an Ambush card. You might need it to activate both the Takeover and the next card that we will discuss – New Allies.

So the last but not least, one copy cards from the expansion and their purpose in your deck.

New Allies
I mean, let’s face it, the expansion is called Why can’t we be friends, so New Allies card fits here perfectly. You basically give your opponent a sword and get three victory points and one wood for it. However, choose allies carefully, you don’t want to find that sword in your back a second later. Here we recommend either a Rear Guard or Encounter, both aggressive play-style cards, because like I said, you don’t want to provoke them a second after you give them a sword.

Greek Jewellery
Another card manipulation option, which your opponents will love. Open production that allows drawing 2 faction cards, keep one and discard the other. That’s a fine alternative for the Council card, you get a steady production, instead of a building bonus option that would need to be cycled to work best, and works excellent with Sage card.

Reconstructions
Works amazingly in combination with Haunted Ruins, and you want to get this combination in front of you as fast as possible. You remove Foundation and gain two victory points, and you can do it twice per round. However, what should you sacrifice for it? Here not lose any other good options, we recommend The Capital, its the safest exchange for its feature that allows you to store some Resource. Alternatively, remove either a Rear Guard or Encounter mentioned earlier if you haven’t already.

So here it is, all of the strategies, and the propositions of how to build your deck with the use of Why can’t we be friends expansion, you can try and exchange all of them, some of them or create your own strategy with the use of those cards. Whatever you do, don’t be afraid to explore the options and let us know how your Amazon peace-loving strategy worked.

Matt Dembek

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