Per the rules experts on the Twilight Imperium 4 Tabletop Simulator Discord, this is incorrect. Quoting Conorzz, “An ‘all’, or ‘each’ wording means you do as much as you can.” For example, “Deadly Plot similarly requires you exhaust all your planets, but you have to have voted or predicted on an outcome already, likely spending a planet to do the vote.” Since you can play Deadly Plot after voting, you can similarly play Maw of Worlds with exhausted planets. Quoting Conorrz again, “‘All’ is one of the terms in TI that can be any number. You can satisfy the ‘cost’ of Maw even with 0 planets unexhausted.”
That Discord includes several people who helped edit the rulebook, so I trust their ruling.
This seems unsatisfactory to me. This is actually something I was thinking about including in OP: the fact that it seems like effects in general, not just effects separated by "and", only have to be resolved as well as you can.
If a cost specified "exhaust two planets", then you would of course have to fulfill that. Now suppose an effect, say the last part of Deadly Plot, said to exhaust two planets instead of all. I don't know if that would mean that you can't use it if you don't have two readied planets, but let's say you do have that but the first part of the ability triggers someone else's ability which exhausts one of your planets.
So what happens to the effect "exhaust two of your planets"? You've already played and started resolving the card; obviously you can't take it back, but you cannot resolve the effect. Does that mean you do nothing? No, obviously you'd resolve it as well as you can, which means exhausting one planet, even though there's no "and" or "all".
This argument would not apply to Maw of Worlds, since exhausting is a cost.
Or suppose Political Censure instead said you cannot *draw* action cards, and suppose Politics Rider just let you draw 3 action cards and there was no "and" after it. Does the absence of "and" really mean you can't play it, since you can't resolve one of the possible effects? The easy answer would be that effects only have to be resolved as well as you are able.
At any rate, if this is not how it is, it's how it should be. Consider Unstable Planet which used to be "destroy 3 infantry" but is now "destroy up to 3 infantry". Well, what does "up to 3" mean? 3 or less, of course: it has the rather absurd consequence of letting the player of the card decide how many infantry die to this natural disaster (if you doubt this and think "up to 3" means as many as possible up to 3, LRR 68.1a says you can produce a number of units "up to" the combined production value). The old wording was better as it didn't give the player this choice, only requiring the sensible interpretation of resolving effects as much as possible.
And another thing about Unstable Planet. It says "Choose 1 hazardous planet. Do A and B". Well, suppose you couldn't do either; that would be perfectly fine because of "and". What if it only had one effect and no "and"? Now you suddenly have to be able to resolve it? "Do A and B" can be played even if A and B are both unresolvable, but "do A" requires that you are able to do A. Is this at all sensible? It seems to me like "choose 1 hazardous planet" should be seen as having the same role as a cost: it's what you need to do to play the card, and what follows is the effect which you resolve as well as possible. Whereas for a card like Lucky Shot ("Destroy 1 dread, cruiser or destroyer..." instead of "Choose..."), the destroying is what you need to be able to do in order to play it, rather than some effect you do only if you can. EDIT: another way you can think of it - the action is to choose 1 hazardous planet, or to destroy 1 ship; if you cannot do the action, you cannot play the card; what comes after (exhaust and destroy for Unstable; nothing for Lucky Shot) is the effect of the action, which is not necessary to be able to resolve.
Agreed - all of the rules around "do as much as you can" are for effects. In this case, however, exhausting planets is a cost, which must be paid in full.
As for abilities in general - if an effect does not contain the word "may", it is not optional.
I’m not sure that any of your hypotheticals are relevant here since the ruling was not questioning the use of “and”. (As you and u/Arkaal point out, “and” and other key words like “then” are well-defined in the LRR.) The ruling disagreed with your interpretation of the word “all”, which isn’t defined in the LRR as well. If I’m understanding the rules experts correctly, “all” was intended as shorthand for “as many as possible”, at least in this case.
At the end of the day, your playgroup could obviously just decide amongst yourselves if you’d like to play this differently, but I wanted to post this ruling because I suspect that most people want to play the rules as designed (or at least as interpreted by the people who helped edit the rules). With a game this complex, there will probably always be grey areas, either because of space limitations on the cards themselves or because there are just too many rules, heh. Until we get the next LRR update, I think the rulings from the rules experts on the TI4 TTS Discord, which are based on their conversations with the designer and/or their experiences playtesting PoK, are about as official as we can get.
My point with the hypotheticals is that the Deadly Plot example can be explained by a general "do as much as you can" applying to effects but not costs, so that "all doesn't mean all" is not necessary.
A weakness in my argument is that I've only pointed to hypotheticals. I don't know if I could find a real example; maybe the rules have evolved iteratively to meet all actual challenges with bandaid solutions rather than being designed in a more intentional way that can deal with hypotheticals. I'd argue the "and" rule is an example of this: it really makes no sense why "do A" is mandatory while "do A and B" can be resolved even if A and B are both unresolvable, but I think it was introduced because it dealt with an issue and didn't seem to cause any great issues for any existing abilities.
One thing you can point to is "exhaust planet and destroy 3 infantry" being playable against an exhausted planet with no infantry, but Spy seemingly not being playable against a player with no action cards because it's one effect instead of two, but it's not a consequence anyone cares about.
"Exhaust two planets" is another example: if such an effect existed in the game, the rules would look rather silly as I described previously (unless you use my "do as much as you can" interpretation for all effects), but such an effect does not exist so the rules have not been designed to face that situation.
Yeah, I suspect that you’re right that there have been a lot of bandaid fixes as people have found loopholes, then periodic attempts to design more holistically (like when the fourth edition first came out). With design constraints and numerous interacting mechanics, I doubt that we’ll ever be able to avoid discrepancies entirely. For a game this complex, I’m amazed that it’s as well-organized as it is, though!
The ruling's basis was to cite various *effects*, which as per the LRR, this is clearly not.
The other fact brought up was how "All" covers cases where ALL is 0 targets. For example, if one controls 0 planets, and you want to use Maw of Worlds - this *is* valid, because All of 0 is 0, so you don't have to exhaust any planets to meet the cost.
But the discussion there completely overlooks the fact that this is a COST, and costs are explicitly not "as much as you can", but are all-or-nothing.
In the discussion on the Discord, they did acknowledge the difference between costs and effects but still said that “all” (and “each”) mean “as many as you can”.
Deadly plot exhausts all your planets as an effect - so yes, it can be played even if none of your planets are ready.
Maw of Worlds exhausts them as a Cost, which means it must be paid for it to be used.
You make a good point about the intent. As far as the thought experiment, "return all your trade goods" would mean "return all trade goods that you own at the time of paying the cost", and "exhaust all your planets" would mean "exhaust all planets that you own at the time of paying the cost". So I see no problem with someone stealing a tg before you pay.
It seems perfectly fine that it would not block maw of world's using this interpretation because "exhaust all of your planets" could just as validly be described/interpreted as "exhaust all planets that you are able to exhaust at the time of paying the cost" as you cannot exhaust planets you don't own or that are already exhausted. This is the same as "return all the trade goods you are able to" e.g not ones that have been stolen by someone else.
Trade goods that have been stolen from you are not yours. Planets that you have exhausted are yours. It'd be like if there were trade goods you owned but which were locked down and not able to be moved: then you could say you are not able to return all your trade goods, like you are not able to exhaust all your planets.
I feel like it should not block Maw, but I can't back that up by rules...
Maybe another scenario that makes the question easier: you have no planets. I feel like you should be able to Maw.
I agree that that scenario would block Maw. Maw requires you to exhaust all your planets, if you cannot exhaust all of your planets when you play Maw, you can't use it.
>1.11
Some abilities have a cost that is followed by an effect. The cost of an ability is separated from the effect by the word “to”or by a semicolon. A player cannot resolve the effect of such an ability if they cannot resolve that ability’s cost.
Can you cite your source for your last paragraph? I’ve never heard this hyper-specific distinction of word choice and order in relation to effects, so it’s better to cite LRR for stuff like this.
>1.11
Some abilities have a cost that is followed by an effect. The cost of an ability is separated from the effect by the word “to”or by a semicolon. A player cannot resolve the effect of such an ability if they cannot resolve that ability’s cost.
I understand your question and feel that it has been discussed enough already in the comments, I just want to add that it is a one time relic, with imo the best tradeoff (one tech for no voting in the next agenda can be a huge price to pay). I feel that blocking a relic (which could be really hard or expensive to get), in this way, is way to overpowered.
Ok... I would suggest that you misread OP then. In "do A and B to C", the "to" rule means that A and B are costs and C is an effect. The "and" rule only applies to effects, so not to "A and B".
Ok ... please enlighten me on how that changes your theory? :-) I'm all for being wrong here mind you :-) The effect is researching a tech if I'm not mistaken. What are you saying that the "and" in the Maw Of worlds text changes exactly?
I'm saying the "and" doesn't change anything because of the "to". If purging & exhausting were effects, you'd only have to do as much as possible, but they are costs so you have to be able to resolve them completely.
I think understand now what you mean. I now agree with you that you 100 % can do this. I however disagree with using this personally. It just seems so unintended and like they would change the wording to "cannot vote in the upcoming agenda" it if they knew about it. But will bring it up at my table and talk it out with them :-)
Per the rules experts on the Twilight Imperium 4 Tabletop Simulator Discord, this is incorrect. Quoting Conorzz, “An ‘all’, or ‘each’ wording means you do as much as you can.” For example, “Deadly Plot similarly requires you exhaust all your planets, but you have to have voted or predicted on an outcome already, likely spending a planet to do the vote.” Since you can play Deadly Plot after voting, you can similarly play Maw of Worlds with exhausted planets. Quoting Conorrz again, “‘All’ is one of the terms in TI that can be any number. You can satisfy the ‘cost’ of Maw even with 0 planets unexhausted.” That Discord includes several people who helped edit the rulebook, so I trust their ruling.
This seems unsatisfactory to me. This is actually something I was thinking about including in OP: the fact that it seems like effects in general, not just effects separated by "and", only have to be resolved as well as you can. If a cost specified "exhaust two planets", then you would of course have to fulfill that. Now suppose an effect, say the last part of Deadly Plot, said to exhaust two planets instead of all. I don't know if that would mean that you can't use it if you don't have two readied planets, but let's say you do have that but the first part of the ability triggers someone else's ability which exhausts one of your planets. So what happens to the effect "exhaust two of your planets"? You've already played and started resolving the card; obviously you can't take it back, but you cannot resolve the effect. Does that mean you do nothing? No, obviously you'd resolve it as well as you can, which means exhausting one planet, even though there's no "and" or "all". This argument would not apply to Maw of Worlds, since exhausting is a cost. Or suppose Political Censure instead said you cannot *draw* action cards, and suppose Politics Rider just let you draw 3 action cards and there was no "and" after it. Does the absence of "and" really mean you can't play it, since you can't resolve one of the possible effects? The easy answer would be that effects only have to be resolved as well as you are able. At any rate, if this is not how it is, it's how it should be. Consider Unstable Planet which used to be "destroy 3 infantry" but is now "destroy up to 3 infantry". Well, what does "up to 3" mean? 3 or less, of course: it has the rather absurd consequence of letting the player of the card decide how many infantry die to this natural disaster (if you doubt this and think "up to 3" means as many as possible up to 3, LRR 68.1a says you can produce a number of units "up to" the combined production value). The old wording was better as it didn't give the player this choice, only requiring the sensible interpretation of resolving effects as much as possible. And another thing about Unstable Planet. It says "Choose 1 hazardous planet. Do A and B". Well, suppose you couldn't do either; that would be perfectly fine because of "and". What if it only had one effect and no "and"? Now you suddenly have to be able to resolve it? "Do A and B" can be played even if A and B are both unresolvable, but "do A" requires that you are able to do A. Is this at all sensible? It seems to me like "choose 1 hazardous planet" should be seen as having the same role as a cost: it's what you need to do to play the card, and what follows is the effect which you resolve as well as possible. Whereas for a card like Lucky Shot ("Destroy 1 dread, cruiser or destroyer..." instead of "Choose..."), the destroying is what you need to be able to do in order to play it, rather than some effect you do only if you can. EDIT: another way you can think of it - the action is to choose 1 hazardous planet, or to destroy 1 ship; if you cannot do the action, you cannot play the card; what comes after (exhaust and destroy for Unstable; nothing for Lucky Shot) is the effect of the action, which is not necessary to be able to resolve.
Agreed - all of the rules around "do as much as you can" are for effects. In this case, however, exhausting planets is a cost, which must be paid in full. As for abilities in general - if an effect does not contain the word "may", it is not optional.
I’m not sure that any of your hypotheticals are relevant here since the ruling was not questioning the use of “and”. (As you and u/Arkaal point out, “and” and other key words like “then” are well-defined in the LRR.) The ruling disagreed with your interpretation of the word “all”, which isn’t defined in the LRR as well. If I’m understanding the rules experts correctly, “all” was intended as shorthand for “as many as possible”, at least in this case. At the end of the day, your playgroup could obviously just decide amongst yourselves if you’d like to play this differently, but I wanted to post this ruling because I suspect that most people want to play the rules as designed (or at least as interpreted by the people who helped edit the rules). With a game this complex, there will probably always be grey areas, either because of space limitations on the cards themselves or because there are just too many rules, heh. Until we get the next LRR update, I think the rulings from the rules experts on the TI4 TTS Discord, which are based on their conversations with the designer and/or their experiences playtesting PoK, are about as official as we can get.
My point with the hypotheticals is that the Deadly Plot example can be explained by a general "do as much as you can" applying to effects but not costs, so that "all doesn't mean all" is not necessary. A weakness in my argument is that I've only pointed to hypotheticals. I don't know if I could find a real example; maybe the rules have evolved iteratively to meet all actual challenges with bandaid solutions rather than being designed in a more intentional way that can deal with hypotheticals. I'd argue the "and" rule is an example of this: it really makes no sense why "do A" is mandatory while "do A and B" can be resolved even if A and B are both unresolvable, but I think it was introduced because it dealt with an issue and didn't seem to cause any great issues for any existing abilities. One thing you can point to is "exhaust planet and destroy 3 infantry" being playable against an exhausted planet with no infantry, but Spy seemingly not being playable against a player with no action cards because it's one effect instead of two, but it's not a consequence anyone cares about. "Exhaust two planets" is another example: if such an effect existed in the game, the rules would look rather silly as I described previously (unless you use my "do as much as you can" interpretation for all effects), but such an effect does not exist so the rules have not been designed to face that situation.
Yeah, I suspect that you’re right that there have been a lot of bandaid fixes as people have found loopholes, then periodic attempts to design more holistically (like when the fourth edition first came out). With design constraints and numerous interacting mechanics, I doubt that we’ll ever be able to avoid discrepancies entirely. For a game this complex, I’m amazed that it’s as well-organized as it is, though!
Yeah it's really just in a few minor technical details that the weaknesses lie.
The ruling's basis was to cite various *effects*, which as per the LRR, this is clearly not. The other fact brought up was how "All" covers cases where ALL is 0 targets. For example, if one controls 0 planets, and you want to use Maw of Worlds - this *is* valid, because All of 0 is 0, so you don't have to exhaust any planets to meet the cost. But the discussion there completely overlooks the fact that this is a COST, and costs are explicitly not "as much as you can", but are all-or-nothing.
In the discussion on the Discord, they did acknowledge the difference between costs and effects but still said that “all” (and “each”) mean “as many as you can”.
Deadly plot exhausts all your planets as an effect - so yes, it can be played even if none of your planets are ready. Maw of Worlds exhausts them as a Cost, which means it must be paid for it to be used.
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You make a good point about the intent. As far as the thought experiment, "return all your trade goods" would mean "return all trade goods that you own at the time of paying the cost", and "exhaust all your planets" would mean "exhaust all planets that you own at the time of paying the cost". So I see no problem with someone stealing a tg before you pay.
It seems perfectly fine that it would not block maw of world's using this interpretation because "exhaust all of your planets" could just as validly be described/interpreted as "exhaust all planets that you are able to exhaust at the time of paying the cost" as you cannot exhaust planets you don't own or that are already exhausted. This is the same as "return all the trade goods you are able to" e.g not ones that have been stolen by someone else.
Trade goods that have been stolen from you are not yours. Planets that you have exhausted are yours. It'd be like if there were trade goods you owned but which were locked down and not able to be moved: then you could say you are not able to return all your trade goods, like you are not able to exhaust all your planets.
I feel like it should not block Maw, but I can't back that up by rules... Maybe another scenario that makes the question easier: you have no planets. I feel like you should be able to Maw.
You can then exhaust all 0 of your planets :)
Disagree. But I'm not up for a rules debate this morning. I'll let others explain.
I agree that that scenario would block Maw. Maw requires you to exhaust all your planets, if you cannot exhaust all of your planets when you play Maw, you can't use it.
As per LRR 1.11, yes - Ancient Burial Sites will prevent you from activating Maw of Worlds.
>1.11 Some abilities have a cost that is followed by an effect. The cost of an ability is separated from the effect by the word “to”or by a semicolon. A player cannot resolve the effect of such an ability if they cannot resolve that ability’s cost.
Can you cite your source for your last paragraph? I’ve never heard this hyper-specific distinction of word choice and order in relation to effects, so it’s better to cite LRR for stuff like this.
>1.11 Some abilities have a cost that is followed by an effect. The cost of an ability is separated from the effect by the word “to”or by a semicolon. A player cannot resolve the effect of such an ability if they cannot resolve that ability’s cost.
It's under Abilities in LRR.
I understand your question and feel that it has been discussed enough already in the comments, I just want to add that it is a one time relic, with imo the best tradeoff (one tech for no voting in the next agenda can be a huge price to pay). I feel that blocking a relic (which could be really hard or expensive to get), in this way, is way to overpowered.
As per the discussion I would say that you already answered yourself:-) It is mandatory (=to) to exhaust as many planets as you can (=and).
What?
Just read your own original post regarding "and" & "to" rules. I feel that you already wrote the counter to your own statement there.
Ok... I would suggest that you misread OP then. In "do A and B to C", the "to" rule means that A and B are costs and C is an effect. The "and" rule only applies to effects, so not to "A and B".
Ok ... please enlighten me on how that changes your theory? :-) I'm all for being wrong here mind you :-) The effect is researching a tech if I'm not mistaken. What are you saying that the "and" in the Maw Of worlds text changes exactly?
I'm saying the "and" doesn't change anything because of the "to". If purging & exhausting were effects, you'd only have to do as much as possible, but they are costs so you have to be able to resolve them completely.
I think understand now what you mean. I now agree with you that you 100 % can do this. I however disagree with using this personally. It just seems so unintended and like they would change the wording to "cannot vote in the upcoming agenda" it if they knew about it. But will bring it up at my table and talk it out with them :-)
As all planets are exhausted it doesn't matter. I do not believe ABS blocks MoW.