Interaction Between Song of Freedom/ Golem Worship and Flagships, re: "Building Checks"

[yggdrasilsYeoman]

There is some dispute over whether Song of Freedom replaces Flagship Upgrades/Armor, as well as whether it should be any different for Golem Worship simply removing the Upgrade/Armor.

Before the 9/7/24 extension of the "Building Checks" rule to all cards, not just Lore, it was clear that none of these Vox cards affect Upgrades/Armor, largely because they are not Lore. The question is whether the "Building Checks" rule on p. 25, Campaign Rulebook, independently precludes resolving these effects on Flagships.

• The thinking of some is that despite the 9/7 change, "Building Checks" never applies to card effects that actually interact with the buildings. Instead, it only applies to effects that first check whether a building exists, but ultimately affect other pieces besides buildings. All the listed effects so far follow this pattern. Under this view, Upgrades/Armor are immune to Song of Freedom and Golem Worship.

• The thinking of others seems to be either that "Building Checks" is broad enough to include effects that interact with buildings, or that Upgrades/Armor are simply always affected by card effects that interact with buildings regardless of "Building Checks."

Discord discussion:
https://discord.com/channels/476234833572397056/963112189802201108/1306987087492284587

[turmoilbyrd]

Just my personal opinion, I don't see too many weird interactions if we allow freeing a city Upgrade/Armor. Repair can just work.

Benefit in game play

If we do allow it, this basically allows Song of Freedom to affect a leading player who is Flagship (they now lose a Loyal city that denies them bonus/resource slot). This is IMO more interesting than saying "The SoF does nothing now".

Plus, Free buildings on Flagship are much easier to remove. All they need to do is roll some self-hit in battles, and they can remove those. Rival attack and Blight attack can also remove them.

Some interactions with Founder

Since Upgrade/Armor buildings don't behave as buildings for most part, Commonwealth Membership doesn't have weird interactions with them for the most part.

However, if Armistice is in play, it becomes a bit unclear if self-hit can still hit Free Upgrade/Armor. But perhaps since they are "hit like ship" in battle, this can be rationalized as not harming Free "buildings"? (also related: #82)

We should also be careful to not let Flagship with Free building become untouchable for Commonwealth members. Perhaps analogous to destroying cities on Flagship, we can perhaps also say this is not harming Free bulidings. But this is more of a stretch.

A sidenote, careful reading of this rule shows a Flagship player who somehow gets Book of Liberation cannot build Free buildings as Upgrade/Armor (the rule only allows Loyal buildings). So Song of Freedom would be the only way for this to happen, if we allow it.

[jdyearsley]

Golem Worship should definitely work. That's fine.

However, Song of Freedom is much trickier, since there are so many thorny issues that come up with putting Free buildings on Flagships. My inclination is to take a cue from the Summit rule that restricts replacing Flagship Upgrades and Armor with Rival pieces, replacing it with a broader Flagship rule:

Flagship Upgrades and Armor cannot be replaced with non-Loyal pieces.

Thoughts?

[turmoilbyrd]

Golem Worship should definitely work. That's fine.

The problem of Golem Worshiper is that it can return an Upgrade while an Armor is above it

[turmoilbyrd]

Flagship Upgrades and Armor cannot be replaced with non-Loyal pieces.

I think I am fine with this rule. I kind of wished Song of Freedom would affect the Flagship players instead of just doing nothing. But I see it has weird interactions with Founder fate.

[jdyearsley]

The problem of Golem Worshiper is that it can return an Upgrade while an Armor is above it

I will slightly extend the bounds of the Flagship's pre-existing rules about Armor taking hits before Upgrades to something like:

Upgrades cannot be returned or hit while it has Armor.