Dominion Strategy Forum
Archive => Archive => Dominion: Empires Previews => Topic started by: ThetaSigma12 on June 08, 2016, 03:53:50 pm
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This is the thread where you can make completely hypothetical strength predictions. I'll start it off with mine:
The Amazing (8-10): You'll probably get these about every game they come up.
Overlord: 9/10
This is a amazing card, and the fact that you can pick it up in your first turn means you'll be able to play power 5s by turn 3, even on a 3/4 opening.
Bustling Village: 8/10
+3 Actions is great, and if there's a settlers in your discard then this is better than Lost City.
Castles: 9/10
A strategy on their own, these are, IMO, by far the hardest cards in empires to play right.
Catapult: 8/10
I love this card. Activating both attacks at once is so killer.
Enchantress: 8/10
This card gives good draw, and it will wreck most starting engines.
Gladiator: 8/10
Terminal golds are amazing, and terminal silvers are always good, and anything getting you closer to that sweet fortune is good.
Fortune: 9/10
It's a high cost, but one play should repay all of your money.
Villa: 8/10
Yeah yeah, people will overbuy this, but with all the crazy combo wombos, It's probably gonna be a great card.
The Good (5-7): Good cards, not much to say.
Chariot Race: 7/10
This seems like an amazing card. If it hits you get a card that's worth about $5! I'd pick it up on most boards.
Engineer: 7/10
Quality card, but workshop variants aren't that high in demand.
City Quarter: 6/10
A good village for when you need one, but I don't like how this draws more cards the more cards you have drawn, that's a little counter-intuitive IMO.
Royal Blacksmith: 6/10
It's a great card, when there is trashing. +5 cards is insane but you won't want this on boards with no trashing.
Encampment: 6/10
One-shot engine piece seems good.
Plunder: 7/10
Monument with +1 Action. Monument's a good card so I expect this will be too. The only downfall is the chance that it will never come up. By the time this comes up it might not be able to give you enough points to make a difference.
Emporium: 7/10
A peddler is good, but +2 VP is great, and the fact that it's on gain makes this a decent target for TfB.
Settlers: 5/10
Same problem as counting house, if you get this in the first hand it will be a simple cantrip. My guess is it will be better to trash the copper away. I like the combo with Royal Blacksmith though
Rocks: 5/10
Great for picking up silver if you need some, but this is only good if you bought catapults. Masterpiece seems better.
Farmer's Market: 5/10
Seems weak. It needs village support to make sure other players don't snatch the VP from you.
Sacrifice: 5/10
As an only trasher it seems good. However estates/coppers are not much of a benefit to trash, curses/hovel do nothing, and ruins/squire are not usually included.
Temple: 6/10
Good trasher, good vp source, not much to say.
The Bad (1-4): Niche cards that you won't use very much.
Patrician: Seems worse than vagrant. Vagrant isn't that good so I expect the main reason people pick this up is for emporium.
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I like how nobody rates anything two or ten ever.
Legionary 10/10
Probably the harshest discard attack in the game when you activate it.
Kicking off with olny knowing two cards you have is really hard.
Overlord 8/10
Good early game when you can afford debt
Castles 7/10
That is potentially a ton of vp
Fortune 7/10
Pretty good payload, probably not worth it in bm.
Wild hunt 7/10
If you're opponent doesn't go for it you can keep on stacking up the vp chips until near the end of the game.
Enchantress 7/10
This is countered by cheap cantrips and doesn't work with marauder and cultist. It is still quite a strong attack that totally crushes terminal bm.
Catapult 6/10
The attack is as strong as followers if you trash a silver
Olny good in engines.
Encampment 6/10
Lost city is a solid 5 cost and this is kinda like a one shot lost city. Solid for costing two.
Engineer 6/10
A decent gainer. It's trashing ability is a nice way to win a important split. You can use this if you olny want two or three of a cheap engine component aswell because you can trash it after the first or second play. In terms of workshop variants this is second to Ironworks.
Villa 6/10
People will probably overbuy villa just like they overbuy Squire. Nonetheless it is pretty good at continuing your turn especially when use cost reduction to buy more things to play on your turn.
City quarter 6/10
It's sheer drawing power is mitigated by the fact that you have to buy it for 8 debt.
Bustling village 6/10
3 actions is a lot but by the time this is on top it is probably time to start greening.
Forum6/10
A good support card. Good with doctor,highway,and Chariot race
Temple 6/10
Interesting early game trasher.
sacrifice6/10
Decent early trasher.
Chariot race 5/10
A great card after you don't want silver.
People buy caravan gaurds after all.
Royal blacksmith 5/10
5 cards is a whole lot. Because you discard coppers it seems much stronger in a engine than in bm.
Crown 5/10
Expensive throne room that you aren't sad drawing it dead.
Plunder 5/10
Not a bad card except it costs 5 and it is very hard to buy early.
Emporium 5/10
Seems kind of like distant lands except it's worth 2 vp olny. 5 Peddlers aren't great especially late game.
Patrician 5/10
A much better vagrant. If scout drew me 5+ cards it would be solid non terminal draw.
Settlers 5/10
Seems like a worse peddler.
Charm 4/10
Situationally good. Great with prince.
Gladiator 4/10
Terminal silver now terminal gold later
Silver isn't great
Farmers market 4/10
Weird card. One thing with gathering cards is you want control over who gets the tokens.
Archive 4/10
Good for reliability in a good stuff deck
Capital 3/10
Maybe I am underestimating this but it seems olny situational good for high costs. Good with crown, counterfeight, fortune,herbalist
Rocks 2/10
Why would you ever buy this peice of trash that gains more trash.
No idea how good this card is
Groundskeeper
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I think City Quarter is really solid. Like Scrying Pool, it doesn't take a whole lot to make it viable. The cost is a lot more, of course, but the payoff is really good. Having your actions and card draw all in one is so so huge. I expect this to be a pretty important card a decent amount of the time.
Legionary is super scary; that discard to 2 then draw is really brutal if you can make it hit every turn. Not sure how strong this is exactly, but there will be plenty of boards where you can use it to punish a non engine player.
Groundskeeper seems really fun, it might rival Chariot Race for my favorite card of the set. I feel like it's the Highway to Goons's Bridge, in a way. Maybe less powerful overall, but still super potent, especially if you can win the split in a significant way.
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Rocks 2/10
Why would you ever buy this piece of trash ammo that gains more trash ammo.
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FTFY
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Archive: 3/10. The main problem is that you get to play it only every third turn. And those cards you're setting aside, they are gone for a while too. Also, at $5, it seems fairly weak. Gear does that effect better and cheaper.
Bustling Village: 7/10. It's good, but will you get it? Will you spend your precious buys on Settlers? Once you do get it, it's already fairly late, and in that sense Bustling Village suffers from the same problem as Champion, but is not as amazeballs.
Capital: 7/10. Good for spiking Pathfinding/Inheritance/etc., and for its various remove-from-play combos, but not otherwise.
Castles: 8/10. Very hard to assess, but you should probably factor them into your strategy on most boards, if only to deny your opponent that key castle.
Catapult: 7/10. Trashing and attacking is good, says Mercenary. Making that Cursing work is probably only possible in games where there are also ways to deal with Curses, so as a Curser, it's pretty bad. And unlike Militia, it doesn't help your economy. Trashing Estate vs trashing Copper early on will be a difficult decision, and require deck-tracking your opponent pretty well.
Chariot Race: 8/10. No major impact, but it's going to be good on most boards.
Charm: 7/10. One of the better kingdom trashers, but its use is very board-dependent, kinda like Procession.
City Quarter: 9/10. Madman megaturns are good? Well, have one every turn!
Crown: 7/10. Always solid, but $5 is just a bit too much.
Emporium: 5/10. Probably a must-buy for engines... if it's possible to buy. Which it won't be usually until late.
Encampment: 9/10. Very decent 1-shot. Remember how you open Shanty Town just for accelerated draw on T3/T4? This is that, but on any turn.
Enchantress: 6/10. I love the attack, but it's going to be very situational.
Engineer: 7/10. Gainers are good.
Farmers' Market: 6/10. Hard to assess.
Fortune: 6/10. Good payload, but you have to get there first. If you can already produce $8, this might be too slow.
Forum: 7/10. Good, but unexciting.
Gladiator: 3/10. It's a terminal Silver early on (worse than Chancellor), and later it might get better. Performance in the early game improves a lot when using Shelters.
Groundskeeper: 10/10. So so good for engines. 3 of these and the engine player can compete the opponent buying Provinces by buying Duchies.
Legionary: 10/10. Brutal attack, and the worst thing is, once you're attacked once, it gets much harder to counterattack.
Royal Blacksmith: 8/10. Great draw if you can trash Coppers. Otherwise not so much, but look out for that Counting House combo.
Overlord: 6/10. Will be overrated a lot. The debt will hurt more than people think. Opening this on 3/4 means forfeiting all your buys the next shuffle.
Patrician: 7/10. Among the better $2s. Never hurts, and it will feel so good when it hits.
Plunder: 9/10. Nonterminal VP is good. Good enough that you might want to strategically return Encampments.
Rocks: 2/10. Provides Cursing for Catapult, but you know, if you can reliably draw Catapult/Rocks, then your opponent can probably trash a Curse.
Sacrifice: 5/10. Mediocre trashing, great counter to Looters.
Settlers: 8/10. Solid.
Temple: 7/10. Good opener for trashing, but hard to use later on.
Villa: 6/10. It's better as a universal puzzle solver than it is in a standard game.
Wild Hunt: 6/10. Smithy+ is always decent, but it this case, the + is pretty weak.
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Charm: 7/10. One of the better kingdom trashers, but its use is very board-dependent, kinda like Procession.
Overlord: 6/10. Will be overrated a lot. The debt will hurt more than people think. Opening this on 3/4 means forfeiting all your buys the next shuffle.
I disagree with a few of your ratings, but I want to point out the two that you are just wrong about:
Charm is a gainer, I suppose you meant that? Or did you confuse Charm with another card.
Overlord is cheaper than that: If you open it on 3/4, you will pay off 4 debt on T2 and the rest on T3, so you will definitely be able to buy another card on turn 4. (Except if you opened Trade Route/Overlord and play Overlord as Trade Route or something like that)
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Overlord: 6/10. Will be overrated a lot. The debt will hurt more than people think. Opening this on 3/4 means forfeiting all your buys the next shuffle.
Well, the great thing about overlord is if you open with it you'll be able to play it to rid you of some debt too.
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I think Patrician/Emporium are both solid cards. 2 points on a Peddler variant are not to be sneered at. Patrician looks very good, much better than Vagrant.
I still don't see the crazy power in Castles, at least for 2p games. They can be a lot of points, true, but:
- the most expensive one costs a lot, and you absolutely want it, meaning that if you want to reliabily get it you'll have to build a good engine (able to field 19 coins or to field 10 and trash Small Castle on that turn), which is hard since you have to green early to secure a good Castle split, because...
- the low price of the first Castles makes them easy to pick up just to deny them to the opponent.
- the total value of the pile decreases significantly if you split them more evenly.
- emptying the pile doesn't end the game, giving a small edge to Provinces. (Royal castle might never be bought)
So, maybe I'm misunderstanding what people are saying, but I don't really see a "Castle strategy" happening to the same level as we see Duke, Gardens, Silk Road, and Vineyards strategies. Probably Castles will often be a game decider, and rarely left unbought, but I doubt they'll be the kind of alt-vp that "replaces provinces", because the opportunity cost of stopping them long before they get to God-power is so low.
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Overlord is cheaper than that: If you open it on 3/4, you will pay off 4 debt on T2 and the rest on T3, so you will definitely be able to buy another card on turn 4.
Am I missing some reason why one wouldn't buy it on T1, pay off almost all the remaining debt on T2 and start T3 with only 1 more debt to pay off plus a 45% chance of drawing Overlord? With a 4/3 split, it might even be the quickest route to playing an important $5 card.
OK, it might not be the best move, but it's at least intriguing enough to try!
And, gosh! I've only just noticed: cost reducers work with Overlord in a way they don't with Band of Misfits. Though frankly Overlord can already be played as 90% of the things you'd choose, anyway.
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Overlord is cheaper than that: If you open it on 3/4, you will pay off 4 debt on T2 and the rest on T3, so you will definitely be able to buy another card on turn 4.
Am I missing some reason why one wouldn't buy it on T1, pay off almost all the remaining debt on T2 and start T3 with only 1 more debt to pay off plus a 45% chance of drawing Overlord? With a 4/3 split, it might even be the quickest route to playing an important $5 card.
OK, it might not be the best move, but it's at least intriguing enough to try!
And, gosh! I've only just noticed: cost reducers work with Overlord in a way they don't with Band of Misfits. Though frankly Overlord can already be played as 90% of the things you'd choose, anyway.
I'm not sure what the meta will be on a 4/3 opening, but buying Overloard on turn1 with a 3/4 opening looks pretty much strictly worse than buying something and getting Overloard T2. Why would you want to trade a T1 buy for a T3 buy?
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Charm: 7/10. One of the better kingdom trashers, but its use is very board-dependent, kinda like Procession.
I disagree with a few of your ratings, but I want to point out the two that you are just wrong about:
Charm is a gainer, I suppose you meant that?
It's a typo: the post meant to say "kingdom treasure".
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I think some players might be missing the boat on Settlers. Everyone seems to think it's a Peddler variant, but there's another way to think about it. In many kingdoms, the most important thing it's going to do for you is not give you +$1, but +2 cards! It puts the copper in your hand, making it a handsize increaser.
Put that together with any sifter (Warehouse, Inn, even Cellar) or any draw card that also makes you discard (Embassy, Stables) and Settlers mitigates their drawback dramatically, as well as giving you a reliable way to ensure copper in the discard. In a deck-drawing engine with these cards, that makes Settlers a $2 Lab. We've all played Stables engines that draw the deck despite no trashing at all in the kingdom. Settlers increases your handsize by 1, just like Stables does. For $2.
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Why would you want to trade a T1 buy for a T3 buy?
Because of the aforementioned 45% chance you'd have Overlord to help with your T3 buy?
Because it gives you a 45% chance of getting in an early attack against your opponents?
It could be a really powerful move in a kingdom with Ghost Ship, Minion, Jester, Margrave, etc.
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The 45% chance of getting it on Turn 3 is not reduced significantly if you buy it on T1 or T2 (or at all if you buy a cantrip).
I mean, it is a bit like getting a 5/2 with no good 2's, but you can do it on any opening, and you get a really flexible "5 cost" but have 1 debt left over.
If there is something good to get on turn 1 that is probably better since you get that in a shuffle earlier too. Even if it is just a Silver, it can help you pay that debt off if nothing else, so it seems good assuming you want it at all.
Getting a 5/2 and being able to open 5/Overlord will probably be really good if there are good 5s around.
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Rocks 2/10
Why would you ever buy this piece of trash ammo that gains more trash ammo.
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FTFY
I think Rocks is actually a really bad card, and I'm guessing that people who buy it with the intention of using it and the silvers it gains as ammo will be disappointed. It's a lot like Treasure Map: 1. you have to have a way to connect them, and 2. you have to have a good reason to want to connect them. If you can't connect Catapult and Rocks, then you're just junking up your deck with a $4 Masterpiece, which is rarely good. When you do connect them, your payoff is a combined discard+cursing attack, which sounds nice, but I don't think it's usually going to be worth whatever effort you had to put in to make them connect in the first place.
Actually, Death Cart is a much better comparison. Death Cart is awful because it junks up your deck with Ruins that either severely slow you down (if you can't connect them with Death Cart), or else slow you down a little in exchange for $5 (but even the "slowing you down" in this case still isn't usually worth $5). Catapult is not as bad because it does other stuff without Rocks, and it gives you the option to buy Rocks (you're not forced to take the ammo like with Death Cart). I think most of the time you will opt not to take the Rocks, because Catapult is already doing stuff without them, and I just don't see it almost ever being worth $4 to junk your deck in the hopes that you can do a strong attack once; unless, of course, you wanted that Silver/Copper anyway, which I think will be the main use for Rocks (though it's also not very good).
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The 45% chance of getting it on Turn 3 is not reduced significantly if you buy it on T1 or T2 (or at all if you buy a cantrip).
My point wasn't that the chance was higher of drawing your Overlord on T3 than if you'd diluted it with a T1 purchase. I agree that's a minor consideration.
Rather, I was suggesting that the combination of drawing Overlord on T3 and having only $1 of debt left could be more powerful than buying something on T1 then drawing Overlord on T3 when you've still got $3-$6 of outstanding debt.
You prefer one good turn to two mediocre turns, as Tactician proves.
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City Quarter and Wild Hunt both seem situationally completely dominant and I think people are really underestimating them. City Quarter seems kind of like Scrying Pool in that it takes a bit of help to make it work--You need some trashing-- but with that help it's going to be really easy to draw your deck. The big drawback is the cost. I don't know how much 8 debt is going to effectively be, but it seems like a fair amount.
Wild Hunt is the big one that I think people are underestimating. My bold prediction is that a Village/Wild Hunt stack will be better than any Village/5-cost Smithy variant except for Torturer, and maybe Wharf. Consider it against Wild Hunt/ Big Money on a board with no buys or gainers: if you're the only person building that sort of deck, you can feasibly play 5 Wild Hunts and buy a Province every turn (actually you can play more of them than that uncontested, but this is plenty). Add a chip to the pile with the first four and gain the estate with the last one. That estate is basically an alt-vp card worth 5 points, and you just got it for free. That's really strong. If you can trash the estate later, it's even better.
This card seems really fun to play and really powerful. I'll give it an 8/10 because Wild Hunt/Big Money seems really bad and because the only immediate benefit to your deck is the +3 cards, but I think it will be one of those strategies that you always look for on a board with it. The Wild Hunt split will be also often be pretty important.
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Archive: 9/10-It basicly turns the next three cards in your deck into reserve cards for three turns that you can pull out one at a time, but I think this card has a lot potential to build some strong turns especially with legionary or encampment as far as matching gold.
Bustling Village: 8/10- This has the potential to be a mega-encampment with an extra action and copper without the drawback but even if there's no settlers in the discard, I'd still prefer this over a bazaar just to play that extra action. Although it will take some time to dig it out.
Capital: 8/10- A really strong treasure. It helps you get those expensive cards early on. It reminds me of tactician but in reverse so you can have a mega money turn now and most likely forgo your next turn depending on how you use it.
Catapult: 6/10- I think it's pretty decent possibly situational but I could see this working well with silver decks cause you’re really getting a follower attack for each silver you trash.
Castles: 8/10- Just getting the humble castle for 3$ itself could be worth up to 9 victory points and with all the castles is more all the provinces alone I think. Although I think this will be a bit weaker with colonies out, it's still a good alt to victory.
Charm: 8/10- A really cool treasure that suits to any situation. If you don't have enough money or buys pick the 2$ plus buy or get another 5 $ card since you bought emporium which is like using a platinum right there so good all around.
Chariots: 5/10- It has a fun interaction. It’s still very situational, I think I'd still prefer an oasis just to skip the luck though. That's not to say you can't make your own luck and it's definitely a grade up from wishing well.
City Quarter: 7/10- I feel like I'd have to get a lot of terminals or trashes to be comfortable enough to buy this so kind of unsure cause right now I see it as an 8$ village most of the time and I think it's going to take while to really stack all those terminals in your hand.
Crown: 8/10- it's good all around obviously cause it works with any hand except for an extreme case of all victories, but yeah not much to say.
Emporium: 6/10- I'm sure you could get 5 actions easily for that 2vp as long as there's enough non-terminal actions to so it's a decent reward but I don't know if it's quite worth digging out the patrician to get it.
Encampment: 6/10- It's obviously a powerful 2$ card but most likely a one-shot. I could see people buying this early and not even using it just to wait until they have more gold or so. At least that's what I’m going try.
Enchantress: 8/10- Even though personally I hate this card, it is pretty strong for the most part. You’re already setting up a better next turn of plus 2 cards and you could potentially make those lonewolf debt invested actions such as overlord into cantrips which is insidious but good x).
Engineer: 7/10- I think it's one of the best workshop variants next to armory. I think it's really cool that you can get rid of it when you don't need it anymore. I would probably even buy this with an extra buy for 1 or 2$ down. Then possibly gain cards as you’re paying off the debt
Farmer's Market: 7/10- I can see it having some potential with villages and engines but the money you get out of it and the points at the end of the cycle are worth the investment.
Fortune: 10/10- I think for the most powerful treasure in the game this is going to be more accessible than people think b/c of gladiator’s ability to trash itself in the supply early on assuming it wins the challenge even once. I mean a 16 dollar treasure is not something you can just ignore I think on any board. So I think it will be OP
Forum: 7/10- I appreciate an improved variant of warehouse. The plus buy could be useful maybe if I got 7 I could go for a combo with settlers. Discard copper and then pick it back up. Nice engine card in general.
Gladiator: 7/10- It’s a pretty decent card in the sense you can get a terminal 3 if you mix your deck with different cards and if you do you can also get to the fortune faster so that’s a nice ability in general.
Groundkeeper: 8/10- This seems like a nice mid to late game card for when your engine is ready. It will be even more powerful with plus buy cards to dish out the extra points per groundkeeper.
Legionary: 9/10- A really amazing attack but with the catch of matching the gold. The terminal gold though is still pretty handy considering it has minor backlash as with Mandarin, horse traders, and etc.
Royal Blacksmith: 5/10- Don’t give me wrong plus 5 cards is always nice to cycle through your deck quicker but is it really going to be worth discarding 3 to 5$ worth of on average to get those cards. I mean you can trash most of the coppers then this will be amazing. But it really comes down to your ability to get rid of copper. Until then I’ll stick with an embassy instead.
Overlord: 9/10- Very convenient considering that you can get it turn one no matter what and use most of whatever action you want on the board so it will help fill that niche your missing on your turn most of the time unless you have really bad cards out but overall really strong card.
Patrician: 4/10- it has a nice reward if you’re lucky but stacking a good ratio of 5$ or more can be challenging without good trashers but it could act like a vagrant as you get more provinces.
Plunder: 7/10- It’s basicly a monument that’s not limited to actions anymore. It also has another role in preserving your encampments if you don’t have much gold around already so pretty useful.
Rocks: 3/10- To be blunt, the worse card in this set and it’s just not worth digging. I appreciate the humorous interaction though.
Sacrifice: 6/10- It’s an okay trasher. It’s convenient that it gives you different rewards for trashing certain cards but the rewards seem just average in general and I probably wouldn’t think about trashing action until it got closer to the end game with the exception of ruins but other than that just average.
Settlers: 7/10- I think settlers is pretty solid for 2$. I mean I can’t imagine a game where you just never have copper in your discard unless you’ve trashed most of them and it combos really nicely with Bustling village. So two/third or 75 percent of the time it’s going to be a peddler.
Temple: 6/10- It seems like a good opening trasher for trashing estate and copper. I think its secondary effect though is going to encourage players to plog up their deck with useless temples and essentially slow them down in the long run so I’d personally prefer bishop but that’s just my take for now.
Villa: 9/10- Has quite a bit of potential to build the perfect turn to cash out your deck. Although you still gotta pay up for that mega turn however long you may want it to last. Great for Smithy like cards.
Wild Hunt: 7/10- Speaking of smithys, For now I can’t see Wild Hunt as anything else but a smithy that your opponents can potentially take advantage of if you let them. It does have a useful effect but I can’t see myself wanting to stop the plus 3 cards just to get an estate and a few points (maybe if was 4). But also I think it’s a card that’s dependent on villages to work with that point advantage.
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I still don't see the crazy power in Castles, at least for 2p games. They can be a lot of points, true, but:
- the most expensive one costs a lot, and you absolutely want it, meaning that if you want to reliabily get it you'll have to build a good engine (able to field 19 coins or to field 10 and trash Small Castle on that turn), which is hard since you have to green early to secure a good Castle split, because...
- the low price of the first Castles makes them easy to pick up just to deny them to the opponent.
- the total value of the pile decreases significantly if you split them more evenly.
- emptying the pile doesn't end the game, giving a small edge to Provinces. (Royal castle might never be bought)
So, maybe I'm misunderstanding what people are saying, but I don't really see a "Castle strategy" happening to the same level as we see Duke, Gardens, Silk Road, and Vineyards strategies. Probably Castles will often be a game decider, and rarely left unbought, but I doubt they'll be the kind of alt-vp that "replaces provinces", because the opportunity cost of stopping them long before they get to God-power is so low.
I think you're on the money here - they seem very telegraphed. I think they're going to be very interesting in low-medium level games, but I don't see them making that seismic shift of Gardens or such; precisely because they're not game enders.
I'm still excited to play them (because my games are always low level), but.
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City Quarter is a 10/10 draw card. You all have no idea. It's basically a Madman that isn't a one shot. Just think about how powerful that is for a minute.
Consider how much you'd pay for 2 cards 2 actions on so many boards. Lost City is $5 with a huge drawback. Would you pay $6, $7 for one? How about however much you happen to have? It gives you debt, but the card is so good you'll draw twice as much of your deck on the next shuffle anyway, because drawing just two cards with it is a pretty rare scenario. City Quarter makes an engine possible with no other draw OR villages on the board.
Like if you have zero trashing it's not stellar, sure, but it's seriously dominant with even weak trashing.
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City Quarter is a 10/10 draw card. You all have no idea.
I have an idea. It's not crazy good unless you have trashing.
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City Quarter is a 10/10 draw card. You all have no idea.
I have an idea. It's not crazy good unless you have trashing.
Even just being able to gain a bunch of cantrips, or some good sifting, will support it. It's like Scrying Pool, sort of. I dunno. I played a game with a weak single card trasher and my deck exploded with it, and I was like "whoa". Expert analysis, I know.
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some good sifting, will support it
Wait a minute. Most sifters reduce handsize. How many Cellars, Warehouses and Inns do you want to play in order to draw your City Quarter so that you can draw one card with it?
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some good sifting, will support it
Wait a minute. Most sifters reduce handsize. How many Cellars, Warehouses and Inns do you want to play in order to draw your City Quarter so that you can draw one card with it?
It's quite situational, you need to track your deck and know the expected number of actions in your hand on play. But if you have a flood of cantrips you can generally bet a Warehouse will land on two of them.
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Overlord: 6/10. Will be overrated a lot. The debt will hurt more than people think. Opening this on 3/4 means forfeiting all your buys the next shuffle.
Well, the great thing about overlord is if you open with it you'll be able to play it to rid you of some debt too.
But... You forgo the extra Silver to get Overlord. I feel like when Overlord is worth opening, it is fantastic, but passable until a little later otherwise?
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Overlord: 6/10. Will be overrated a lot. The debt will hurt more than people think. Opening this on 3/4 means forfeiting all your buys the next shuffle.
Well, the great thing about overlord is if you open with it you'll be able to play it to rid you of some debt too.
But... You forgo the extra Silver to get Overlord. I feel like when Overlord is worth opening, it is fantastic, but passable until a little later otherwise?
When I open 5/2, I frequently open with a $5 and nothing I just have that $5 going into my second shuffle. If you open Overlord/Nothing, you end up with just an Overlord and 1 debt left going into your second shuffle.
On boards where opening 5/- would be better than opening 4/3 without the presence of Overlord, it is almost certainly going to be worth doing this. The question about whether it is better to buy a card on turn 1 and then get Overlord on turn 2 (having more debt left going into the second shuffle) seems like a much harder question.
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Archive: 3/10. The main problem is that you get to play it only every third turn. And those cards you're setting aside, they are gone for a while too. Also, at $5, it seems fairly weak. Gear does that effect better and cheaper.
Maybe it can be a good thing that you don't see some of the Archived cards as much. Like maybe sometimes one of the cards you set aside is a Province and you get to keep it out of your way for a couple of turns. Sorta like a temporary Island.
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Just played some irl games. Donate is as broken as it looks.
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Archive: 3/10. The main problem is that you get to play it only every third turn. And those cards you're setting aside, they are gone for a while too. Also, at $5, it seems fairly weak. Gear does that effect better and cheaper.
Maybe it can be a good thing that you don't see some of the Archived cards as much. Like maybe sometimes one of the cards you set aside is a Province and you get to keep it out of your way for a couple of turns. Sorta like a temporary Island.
Maybe... but if you already have a Province, it's already later in the game. And if I really want that temporary Island, Native Village does that effect for a fraction of the price. Archive isn't awful, but at $5, it competes with cards that are a lot better.
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Capital is pretty good. I don't think people have a good grasp of how much better debt is than cost. You can open Capital / nothing and potentially get 2 $5 costs on turn 3. Like whoa. Though Capital gets obviously better with Crown.
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Played a few games with Beyond Awesome yesterday. Really enjoyed playing with the cards.
Adventures introduced a lot of powerful mechanics to the game, like travelers and events, which really change the way the game is played.
Empires, on the other hand, introduces a lot of new cards with interesting mechanics, without being over the top on power. Most of them you can read at a single glance, and figure out how they slot into the usual decks. Most of them have a bit of hidden synergy that makes them more powerful than they look at first glance.
Debt smooths out money draws in the sense that you can buy a couple of cards with $, and then finish off with a debt card. You are never $1 short or $1 over, as all the extra money goes to debt. Getting debt cards a turn or two before you pay the full cost makes them a bit cheaper than they appear. A debt card that costs 8 feels roughly as expensive as a regular card that costs 5, with the caveat that you want to buy 1 debt card per turn (so you can buy them on interest).
The Landmarks are certainly interesting, and players will need to develop new methods for counting points (it's certainly not just a province game anymore!), and the split cards were at an interesting power level.
Overall, a well designed expansion full of cards that give interesting options without being so strong that they dominate the game. I look forward to playing more with empires.
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I think gaining Archive is comparable to two caravans.
If you play two caravans, it's like two labs with the downside of delaying 4 cards - the two you would have drawn with labs, and the two caravans.
If you play Archive, it's like two labs, with the downside that one card is delayed by one turn, and two cards (Archive and the third) are delayed by two turns.
There's a little more total delay with Archive, but the fact that you can make a choice lets you delay the worst card out of three, which is likely weaker than average, and therefore it's good for you. Also, you can avoid terminal collisions.
Summed up, I believe that Archive is even slightly better than two caravans at 5$, which is a good deal: I'd rate it 8/10 or even 9/10.
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Archive seems to be a little bit like other support cards such as Scheme and Cartographer. It doesn't do much for you right now, but it does make your future hands more reliable. I think it's going to be best in engines that really depend on the order in which you draw the cards, so Village/Smithy-type engines over Lab-type engines. If you just have a stack of Labs, you don't need to add an Archive to it, I think.
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I've played mostly the recommended Kingdoms so far, and really I'm just surprised how many games I completely ignore Provinces. I think half the games I've played I've just not gone for Provinces, instead doing some engine-y way to score points every turn (Wild Hunt + Temple, or Tomb + Rats, or Castles, or the Feodum set). The VP gaining cards are all better than I expected and just warp the game in a way you couldn't have seen coming.
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I've played mostly the recommended Kingdoms so far, and really I'm just surprised how many games I completely ignore Provinces. I think half the games I've played I've just not gone for Provinces, instead doing some engine-y way to score points every turn (Wild Hunt + Temple, or Tomb + Rats, or Castles, or the Feodum set). The VP gaining cards are all better than I expected and just warp the game in a way you couldn't have seen coming.
I kinda did see it coming, but most people were skeptical or completely ignored it. :P
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=15517.0
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Okay, so I'm going to do this in three parts. I've been pretty busy which is why I have not done it yet. Right now, I'm just going to focus on the Events and later predict Kingdom cards and Landmarks.
Advance: I think this will be an average Event most of the time. It does combo with cards like Rats and Fortress and also you can trash ruins. Maybe it is better than slightly average. When I first saw it, I thought it was crazy strong. Although, I was thinking of a Chapel/Chapel opening where you trash your deck and then Advance for two powerful action cards. So, final verdict, probably on the same power level as Alms or Borrow, maybe slightly better
Annex: It seems to have its uses, but I think this card is fairly weak. I guess you can do neat tricks when Duchy dancing. I suppose it is likely to get bought at least once in most games, and a lot of times you end up getting Duchy for $8 when doing the dance, so yah. I will just say it's average since you are likely to buy it at least once per game.
Banquet: Seems strong if you really need a certain $5. I'm not sure how much it is worth it though to put two coppers in your deck. Compared to other $3 Events, I would say it's better than Expedition, but weaker than Plan, Bonfire, and Ferry. I guess that would make this also an average card. Maybe, I'm wrong though, and this card is really strong, but for now, I will just say it's average.
Conquest: Seems really weak. I guess if you're playing BM, it might be worth getting this over Gold. But, man, this card seems weak, like Raid weak.
Delve: Seems reasonably strong. On 5/2 openings, it lets you open Silver. You can also open triple silver. I think it will have its uses, but I don't think it is game-warping or anything. Probably average to slightly above average, but not too much so above average. In BM or Feodum games though this will be really strong.
Dominate: I think Engines want to eat this up. I mean, this is more or less a victory card, so it's hard to rank, but yah, this seems like only a good thing for Engines. It's bigger an better than Colony, so I will say on most Engine boards, you can't really ignore this. Obviously, junking games or BM games will make this impossible to obtain. Also meagturns might outpace it, but overall I will say Dominate is strong, above average, but not crazy strong like say Inheritance or Lost Arts or even Bonfire or Ferry.
Donate: I played one game with this. This is a 10 power level card. I believe this is stronger than Chapel since it never misses a shuffle, and you don't end up hitting coppers while the opponent hits estates. Yah. I think this is the strongest Event in Dominion, period.
Ritual: What? Umm.... Yah. I don't know. I think it's okay. I guess if you need the VP boost because you're behind in points, it's okay, but you're still adding a junk card to your deck. I will say I think it's average since sometimes you just need the points.
Salt the Earth: Crazy, crazy strong. Okay, between this and Donate, I think we have our two strongest Events in all of Dominion. For $16 you can wipe out 4 Provinces if you're ahead on points and just end the game. It's crazy. I think this card is of comparable power level to the strongest cards like Rebuild, Cultist, and Chapel. Another 10 power level card.
Tax: I got a chance to play with this card. It's actually more fun than I thought it would be. This card is arguably better than Embargo. You can really make it difficult for your opponent to get key pieces. With that said, I think this is just slightly better than average. I do like that it favors player 2 though.
Triumph: Seems reasonable. If you have a lot of gains, this will likely be better than a Province and you don't even have to pay $5 upfront. I think this is slightly above average, but not too strong. This is another card I feel I might be off on, and it might actually be strong. But, for now, I will stick with slightly above average.
Wedding: Well, if you want to open Gold on a $3/$4 opening, now you can. I guess this card is decent. But, really, how often do you want Gold. I feel this is another slightly above average Event.
Windfall: In some engines this will be nice payload, otherwise, I don't think this will get bought a lot. I think this card is on the bottom tier of Events. Sometimes, it will be strong though, which is nice. Not as weak as Raid, but just slightly better in power level.
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Ritual can easily be used on Provinces and other vp, netting you (in Province's case) +1 point and later +1 when you trash the Curse, and poof the junk card is gone. I can see Engines going for it in the midgame/early lategame in the same way as we like Distant Lands.
It compares fairly well to Bishop, it's a bit more unwieldy and doesn't thin your deck (but it doesn't help your opponent either), but the vp gains are so much better when you trash biggies. It can't go on forever, so it won't be as central to some strategies.
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Having played a bunch of games over the weekend, I mostly agree with a lot of the predictions. Here are a few things that I think were wrong though:
Legionary - the attack did not hurt as much as I thought it would. If you really need to collide two cards, it can actually help, similar to Margrave. It's still solid, but not 10/10.
Catapult/Rocks - I think Catapult was overrated, Rocks underrated. Catapult is a very weak trasher, and the attack only hits hardest when you trash the cards you least want to trash. Catapult is a poor defense against itself. In three games, we only emptied catapult once, and the person who bought several performed poorly. In that game, Rocks were great, especially when I could gain them midturn (with Engineer and Graverobber), or trash them midturn (with Catapult).
Archive - Archive is fine. Choosing the order of cards you draw really helps even out turns and reliably collide cards.
Gladiator - This turns into a terminal gold really quickly. It helps you hit high numbers, which is good for both buying and using Fortune.
Encampment - I still don't know how good this is. Once I reveal Plunder, either I lose Encampments right when I want them the most, or else everybody gets access to Plunder. It seems so terrible, but I keep on buying them, what am I doing with my life?
My general impression of Empires is that we played a lot of sloggy games. Part of this is that trashing seems weaker on average. But also, I think my group might be overreacting to landmarks, ruining our decks for points. We sure had some high-scoring games.
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Comparing Catapult with Militia it looks really strong. Catapult gives one less coin, but trashes a copper in the process and costs one less, and it can trash silver for a stronger attack.
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I wasn't so high on Catapult before with my video reaction, but I am thinking it is stronger now, possibly even a must open on a lot of boards.
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Having played a bunch of games over the weekend, I mostly agree with a lot of the predictions. Here are a few things that I think were wrong though:
Legionary - the attack did not hurt as much as I thought it would. If you really need to collide two cards, it can actually help, similar to Margrave. It's still solid, but not 10/10.
Catapult/Rocks - I think Catapult was overrated, Rocks underrated. Catapult is a very weak trasher, and the attack only hits hardest when you trash the cards you least want to trash. Catapult is a poor defense against itself. In three games, we only emptied catapult once, and the person who bought several performed poorly. In that game, Rocks were great, especially when I could gain them midturn (with Engineer and Graverobber), or trash them midturn (with Catapult).
Archive - Archive is fine. Choosing the order of cards you draw really helps even out turns and reliably collide cards.
Gladiator - This turns into a terminal gold really quickly. It helps you hit high numbers, which is good for both buying and using Fortune.
Encampment - I still don't know how good this is. Once I reveal Plunder, either I lose Encampments right when I want them the most, or else everybody gets access to Plunder. It seems so terrible, but I keep on buying them, what am I doing with my life?
My general impression of Empires is that we played a lot of sloggy games. Part of this is that trashing seems weaker on average. But also, I think my group might be overreacting to landmarks, ruining our decks for points. We sure had some high-scoring games.
I don't think Empires trashing is weaker than average. It has Donate for crying out loud. I would argue though that Adventures and DA have a lot of strong trashers, but otherwise, the trashing in Empires seems stronger than pretty much all other expansions.
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Having played a bunch of games over the weekend, I mostly agree with a lot of the predictions. Here are a few things that I think were wrong though:
Legionary - the attack did not hurt as much as I thought it would. If you really need to collide two cards, it can actually help, similar to Margrave. It's still solid, but not 10/10.
Catapult/Rocks - I think Catapult was overrated, Rocks underrated. Catapult is a very weak trasher, and the attack only hits hardest when you trash the cards you least want to trash. Catapult is a poor defense against itself. In three games, we only emptied catapult once, and the person who bought several performed poorly. In that game, Rocks were great, especially when I could gain them midturn (with Engineer and Graverobber), or trash them midturn (with Catapult).
Archive - Archive is fine. Choosing the order of cards you draw really helps even out turns and reliably collide cards.
Gladiator - This turns into a terminal gold really quickly. It helps you hit high numbers, which is good for both buying and using Fortune.
Encampment - I still don't know how good this is. Once I reveal Plunder, either I lose Encampments right when I want them the most, or else everybody gets access to Plunder. It seems so terrible, but I keep on buying them, what am I doing with my life?
My general impression of Empires is that we played a lot of sloggy games. Part of this is that trashing seems weaker on average. But also, I think my group might be overreacting to landmarks, ruining our decks for points. We sure had some high-scoring games.
I don't think Empires trashing is weaker than average. It has Donate for crying out loud. I would argue though that Adventures and DA have a lot of strong trashers, but otherwise, the trashing in Empires seems stronger than pretty much all other expansions.
Temple and Sacrifice are both pretty solid trashers, to be honest. Temple's drawback of requiring differently named trashed cards is hardly a problem, and Sacrifice's benefits on trash and ability to save a late game turn by being a sifting Village of sorts make it quite valuable. You can get thin enough with both these cards.
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I don't think Empires trashing is weaker than average. It has Donate for crying out loud. I would argue though that Adventures and DA have a lot of strong trashers, but otherwise, the trashing in Empires seems stronger than pretty much all other expansions.
Yeah, but we've been including 2 events/landmarks, and 3 Empires cards in each game. Any given card is far more likely to show up than any given event. All three trashers (Temple, Catapult, Sacrifice) are terminals (with the occasional exception of Sacrifice), and Temple is the only one that trashes more than one card at a time. It seems comparable to the trashing in Base.
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Temple and Sacrifice are both pretty solid trashers, to be honest. Temple's drawback of requiring differently named trashed cards is hardly a problem, and Sacrifice's benefits on trash and ability to save a late game turn by being a sifting Village of sorts make it quite valuable. You can get thin enough with both these cards.
Temple, Sacrifice and Donate also are among the rare trashers that are particularly effective against Cultist.
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I think the question with Temple will be, do I trash more cards now, to get my engine going, or only one at a time, to make sure I continue to have fuel for my Temples?
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Temple and Sacrifice are both pretty solid trashers, to be honest. Temple's drawback of requiring differently named trashed cards is hardly a problem, and Sacrifice's benefits on trash and ability to save a late game turn by being a sifting Village of sorts make it quite valuable. You can get thin enough with both these cards.
Temple, Sacrifice and Donate also are among the rare trashers that are particularly effective against Cultist.
Advance is very cool for that as well, even though it's not strictly speaking a thinner.
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I think the question with Temple will be, do I trash more cards now, to get my engine going, or only one at a time, to make sure I continue to have fuel for my Temples?
Trash more cards now. A terminal action that gives +1 VP is weak (compare to Monument), and you can't get many extra points by buying more Temples (especially since your opponent can snipe them if you try to build tokens too long).
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Temple trashes, so I would say it is better in the opening, but Monument is much stronger later on, due to the virtual coin.
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I think the question with Temple will be, do I trash more cards now, to get my engine going, or only one at a time, to make sure I continue to have fuel for my Temples?
The difference is between 10 or 7 Temple plays, assuming you add absolutely nothing to your deck that you are willing to part with. Three VP (6 if you gain another Temple to scoop it up) isn't worth a fatter deck for longer, considering you have other ways to gain VP quickly and you'll get to trash more often sooner if you trash a lot early.
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Okay, here are my Kingdom card predictions. I will post Landmark predictions at a later time.
Archive: This seems like a Double Caravan that you have some control over. If you can't draw your whole deck, this seems pretty solid since if you have multiple Archives in play, you can set up your turns better. I feel this is roughly on the power level of Lab and Hunting Party, maybe in-between the two.
Capital: This is a hard one. I think it will be Tactician-like giving you a bigger turn now and can lead to the eventual mega-turn. However, this is competing against many other five-costs. With that said, I though Wine Merchant sounded weak at first, and it ends up I buy that card fairly enough. However, I expect this is weaker than Wine Merchant since of the debt thing. It is non-terminal though. For now, I say this is a notch-below mid-tier.
Castles: I feel like when these are on the board, they will make games interesting. You can easily get them early on, but are they worth it? Distant Lands at least can vanish from your deck. This take up space. I feel most kingdoms this comes up in this is a card you will have to consider your strategy based on it being in the kingdom even if you don't buy any. Overall, I feel these will be bought more than most alt. vp, but less than Distant Lands.
Catapult: It's a trasher, so there's that. I think it's decent. Not the greatest trasher or attack ever since later on, you need to buy fuel for it. The $3 price point has a lot of strong trashers. This is obviously better than Trade Route. It does junk and makes one discard. So, I will say this is slightly above average.
Rocks: Weak card seems weak. Okay, Catapult needs fuel, but unless your deck is really thin, this card just seems to take up space. I don't think it's the worst card ever, but weak for sure.
Chariot Race: I feel if you can get your deck thin or use Spy-attacks, this will be pretty good. I feel it is above mid-tier $3's but super powerful or anything.
Charm: Oh man, this seems cool. HoP is my favorite Dominion card. However, I think this is weaker than HoP. I think this card is strong, but the $5 slot is very competitive. I guess compared to $5 treasures, I feel it is stronger than Relic and Trove, but HoP is better. So, I think overall, this is above average, but not too much above average in terms of power level.
City Quarter: Strong card seems strong. Compared to other $6+ costs we have KC, Goons, Lost Arts, Pathfinding, I think it is a notch below the strongest $6+ cards. Probably stronger than Inheritance and Grand Market. If Events did not exist, I would say put it between Goons and Grand Market.
Crown: Seems average. Throne Rooms are great, but this costs $5 and Royal Carriage is just better.
Encampment: Seems hard to pull off. It does cost $2. Sometimes, this will be your only village. I feel on average this will be an okay $2 costs, and on some boards, you will reliably be able to turn these into Lost Cities. For now, I will say it's an average $2-cost.
Plunder: Non-terminal Monument seems good, but first you have to get to it, and well there are lot of strong $5-costs. I think this is slightly weaker than Relic. I will say this is an average $5-cost, especially since there will be a lot of kingdoms you never end up getting this.
Enchantress: Seems to slow decks down. I feel this will be slightly stronger than Militia. So, I will say it is an above average $3 cost, but still not as strong as the strongest $3-costs which is a very competitive category.
Engineer: Meh. One thing I've noticed is that every expansion has a Workshop-variant. This is kind of surprising actually. I would love to see more Throne Variants and am glad since Adventures we got treated to 3 of them. Anyway, Ironworks is, well, Ironworks. Duplicate gets $5 costs and $6-costs if they're relevant. Armory top-decks. I guess this trashes itself, and you can pay less than $4 to get it and pay off the rest the next turn. So, I will say it is probably at the same power level as Armory.
Farmer's Market: I think as people get more experienced with this card, they will just avoid it. You can easily ignore this, wait for the points to pile-up, buy one and then swipe the points. I think people will mainly buy this for the +Buy. So, I think it's an average card.
Forum: Seems roughly on the same power level as Cartographer. It sifts. It costs $5. You can end up discarding bad cards from your hand rather than upcoming cards.
Gladiator: The card seems average. A lot of times, I think this will be a terminal-gold, and it does help to get Fortune. On most Engine boards, you will want Fortune, so I guess this makes it above average, if for no reason, you need to buy it to help get to the bottom card.
Fortune: I bought this once actually in a game I played against Donald X. Doubling your money is very strong. If you are generating $8, you can now Double Province. If you're at $12, you're now triple Provincing. KC, Goons, Lost Arts, and Pathfinding are still stronger cards. I think though this is going to be better than GM and roughly around the power level of City Quarter.
Groundskeeper: This is such a hard card to rank. I think as players play with it more, strategies will emerge and this will end up being considered a solid card. I will say it is a notch above average for now though.
Legionary: I feel this card is way, way overrated. First, you need two cards to get the attack to work. That can be a lot of work, especially if you are not drawing your deck. I think this is okay. It seems solid, just not crazy strong. I feel this is below Margrave. It doesn't draw, no +Buy, takes two cards to make the attack work. I do think though this is better than Swamp Hag which is just slow. So, somewhere between Margrave and Swamp Hag.
Royal Blacksmith: Being able to draw 5 cards is insane. I think this will be a power house on a lot of engines. Not as strong as City Quarter or Fortune, but still very strong. I think this is better than Hunting Grounds. I would rank this at a notch below GM or maybe at roughly the same power level. Overall, a solid and strong card.
Overlord: The flexibility of this is going to be huge. If you have a lot of good $5 costs, it will be way better to have this. I feel GM, Royal Blacksmith and this are roughly around the same power level. So, yah, I think it's a strong card.
Patrician: Seems okay. Slightly better than Vagrant. So, an okay $2, I guess.
Emporium: Likely, you won't see this come up on a lot of boards, but when you do, getting a Peddler and 2 VP is better than a Duchy. Because Patrician is on top of this, making it hard to get to, I will say this is roughly an average $5-cost.
Sacrifice: Strong trasher seems strong. It gives VP and money. And, hey, you can even make an engine out of it. This and Rats or even Fortress combo well together. I think this is a solid trasher. Not the strongest trasher ever, but very good. So, I will say it's a solid trasher, but a notch below the power trashers like Steward, Junk Dealer, Chapel, etc.
Settlers: Seems decent. I feel this will be a Lab a lot of times, and when these go, your Bustling Villages will be Labs. So, I feel this is above average for a $2-cost, but not too crazy or anything.
Bustling Village: Seems great. Only trouble is, you need to get to this first. On boards where Villages are plenty, you might just ignore going for it, since Settlers have to run out. However, if you have 2 or 3 Settlers, many times, you are looking at a super Lost City. Okay, it won't always be a Lost City, but three actions is solid. I feel this is stronger than Bazaar overall, but weaker since you can't straight away get to it. I will it is somewhere between Bazaar and Bandit Camp in terms of power level.
Temple: It's a trasher, you get VP, your opponent does't get to trash, and hey, you sometimes trash two cards with it, and I guess in rare cases three cards with it. I feel this is solid, just slightly below Sacrifice, but I wouldn't mind opening it. The whole VP gathering thing doesn't bother me much. It's just something to be aware of when playing.
Villa: I'm not sure on this. It doesn't draw and that's huge, but you can play actions you drew card and occasionally pull off other combos. It does give +Buy, so that's pretty huge. In terms of Villages, I think it is slightly above Worker's Village since you can pull off neat tricks with it. Actually, I will say it's a couple notches above WV. I think though power villages like Minstrel and Port are stronger on average though.
Wild Hunt: So, it draws cards and you can get VP from it. Seems decent. The VP thing probably makes it slightly better than Journeyman and Catacombs, but roughly on the same power level.
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I really like the setup affect of Tax, but unless I'm missing something, I'm not seeing much use in actually buying it.
It costs you 1 buy and 2 coins to, at best, give another player 2 debt (if they actually buy a card from the chosen pile).
That seems like a bad trade off in a 2 player game, and even worse with 3 or 4 players. What am I missing?
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If the 1 buy 2 coins would've otherwise gone unspent ($7, 2 buys where you really want a 5, for example) it's not too bad.
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I'm assuming Tax is more powerful than it looks.
My reasoning is thus: If it isn't more powerful than it looks, it would have had +1 Buy on it. (-8
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Well, tax itself makes it more likely that you end up with 2$ 1Buy:
I open Remake, and then next turn, no good 2$... might as well Tax Remake. (and the cycle goes on...) ;)
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I played one have with it. It seems to hear it's uses. I think it's decent, better than Embargo for sure.
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Okay, so now, here are my Landmark predictions. I will say this, seeing as how Landmarks are a very new mechanic, it's hard to predict how much impact they will have. Overall, though, I think most of them will change little how the game is played except for less experienced Dominion players. When talking about power, I will be more focusing on how much of an impact I expect a certain Landmark to have on the game.
Aqueduct: In engine games, I think the amount of VP to gain will be low. It might be worth it to pick up an early green card if there is 3 or 4 VP on it. Great Hall essentially becomes better than Distant Lands. I think if you can buy an Island or Great Halls or something that doesn't interfere with your deck, the points will be nice. Will it put you much ahead of your opponent, maybe a little, but usually the player who builds has the advantage. For BM, I think getting an early Province is probably right, especially if a lot of tokens have piled up on it. Verdict: Minor impact in Engine Games. Huge Impact on BM and Slog games.
Arena: I don't think this changes much. You might want to open double terminal with this, but perhaps you already wanted to do so already. Verdict: Players will likely split points most games. Minor Impact
Bandit Fort: For BM games, this will change how you play. I think a Duchy/slogish thing is very likely to play out with this on the board. For engines, if you need to open Silver to hit $5, you're still opening Silver. Verdict: Zero impact on Engines. Dramatically changes BM games.
Basilica: Like Arena, this will be something you sometimes do just because you have $2 leftover. I guess if you have $6 and are contemplating over an Ironmonger or some $5-cost, you might take another Ironmonger for the points. I can also see in Engine games especially, taking these points over buying a Duchy since they don't clog the deck. Verdict: Some Impact on Engine games. Minor Impact BM games. Some Impact on Slog games since there will be a few times where you only have $2 anyway
Baths: Again, engines might want to not gain something to get the points rather than buy a Duchy. Mission likes this, but I have a hard time seeing this as being overall too impactful. Verdict: Minor impact on Engine and BM games. Some impact on slogs.
Battlefield: Encourages early greening in BM games. However, I think there are still enough points to go around, so you should probably just buy that gold if you need it. For Engine, do you really want to green early for an extra two points? I think not. I guess Great Halls get a very nice buff though. My overall impression though is this will have a minor impact on the game.
Colonnade: Okay, this is for engines pretty much. I think this will have some impact on those games. You might decide to get another Ironmonger rather than something else since well, you get two points with it since you already have one in play. Verdict: Some Impact in engines. Little to no impact in BM and slogs.
Defiled Shrine: Another enginey Landmark. Okay, I can see this being pretty big. I mean, I can imagine lots of points piling up and you can get a free province if you are willing to have a curse in your deck. Verdict: Big Impact on most (but not all) engine games. Little impact on slog and BM games.
Fountain: 15 VP is a lot. The existence of this card will change how you approach a board. You might even trash all your coppers, but that 15 VP will always be in your mind. For BM, going out of your way to buy a copper is okay. Beggar is a decent card to get. Cache is great. Slogs probably had a couple extra coppers, so there. Verdict: Will have an impact on the majority of boards this shows up.
Keep: I don't know. I think most players will be happy to tie, but if its the end game, you might be able to get an extra silver or gold and take away some points from the other player. Actually, for that reason, I think this will have the biggest impact in engine games where you have enough extra buys and gains to get extra treasure to deny your opponent the points. Verdict: Impact on many engine boards. Minor impact on slog and BM boards.
Labyrinth: For this to work you need to be playing an engine. I can see some players buying an extra copper off Squire for the points. That sounds silly. Overall, if you were gaining cards, you were gaining cards. Verdict: Minor impact on engine
Mountain Pass: Okay, this Landmark is crazy. I mean, geese, how the hell do you figure out the right bid amount. Anyway, no matter what, this card will almost always have an impact. Rebuild might just bid 40 since getting 8 Points is hard in those games. I mean you're likely not buying Province in a Rebuild game. 8 points is a decent amount even in engine games. It's a lot in most games, period. Goons just laughs and maybe you bid $1. lol Verdict: Major impact on most boards
Museum: Hello Fairgrounds. I guess if you're playing an engine, you might go out of the way to get a card you didn't have, but if the card is total junk then maybe Duchy is better. Verdict: Impact on some engine boards
Obelisk: ?? Man, I don't know. I guess it depends on the pile. 2 VP thiefs sound unappealing to me. If it's Caravan, I probably wanted it anyway. Verdict: Minor Impact in most games
Orchard: Another engine card. I guess in some games, you will buy a third Ambassador since that is worth more than a Duchy. You are also likely to build longer to make sure you get 3 copies of any card that won't hurt your deck. Verdict: Some impact in engine games.
Palace: This will have a bigger impact in BM games where you probably have a lot of Silver, so any gold you buy ends up being worth 3 points. Yah, I will take gold over Duchy. In engines, you might buy an extra gold or two since, well, gold is better than Duchy. Or, maybe you have gold, but no silver, so you get Silver. Makes sense. Verdict: Reasonable impact on BM games. Minor impact on engine games.
Tomb: You were already trashing your cards. Verdict: In engines, you might try to go out of your way to buy an extra copper or two each turn to trash. Works well with Fortress. I can see Fortress, Donate, Tomb being a thing. Verdict: Some impact in engine games.
Tower: I played with this twice, actually. I don't think it changes much. 1 VP is not really that much. I guess it encourages to load up on cantrips, but you were probably doing that already. This does change curses pretty much into ruined villages. Verdict: Some impact in engine games
Triumphal Arch: You better be tracking your deck. I think in engines this will have some impact. But, you have to be careful and make sure you don't miscount your actions. 3 VP per copy of a card is a lot though.
Wall: Honestly, I have no idea. I think in games without trashing, you will just play Dominion like usual and end up with a negative score. With engines, trashing got even better, but weren't you trashing anyway?
Wolf Den: I feel this will have little impact. Sometimes, there are cards you want copy of. Do you really go out of your way to get an extra copy that will just gum up your engine. My hunch is no. Verdict: Minor impact on some engine boards.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPS7UX3BHiE
Might as well put this here, since I don't want to rewrite what I think of all the cards. I'll probably do another video when I'm a lot more familiar with the cards.
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Might as well put this here, since I don't want to rewrite what I think of all the cards. I'll probably do another video when I'm a lot more familiar with the cards.
Thanks for posting this! I've watched most of it, and it's been fun times. I'm up to Donate, and will watch the rest tomorrow. Two mistakes I noticed, though.
1. Advance/Rats isn't really a combo, because even if you draw a Treasure from trashing Rats, you can't play it. You already bought Advance, so you're done playing Treasures for the turn (unless you buy a Villa).
2. The game can only ever end at the end of a turn, and Donate's effects happen between turns. This means that even if you do trigger an end-game condition with Donate (like trashing your Hunting Grounds to pile out the Estates when two other piles are empty), the next player still gets another turn before the game ends! (And they could return cards to a pile to prevent the game ending, etc., etc., Dominion amirite?) So I mean you might still do it, but be careful.
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What I think are the best cards in the expansion:
Legionary: Not only is it better than discard to 3, it gives you $3. And it works nice with topdeck mucking(Scrying Pool/Spy/Sea Hag). I'd buy it if it only gave $2, or if it cost $6.
Overlord: Better than Band of Misfits because it can emulate $5 costs. It's actually really big on some boards to be able to force a 5/2 split for yourself at the cost of 1 debt.
Villa: Going to be an explosive tactics card, for sure. Like, it's a Village for effectively $3 if you're getting 2 cards, and you get to play it instantly. And of course there's ways to just loop and loop and get all of them.
Enchantress: Not only a good attack against stuff like Smithy BM, it gives 2 starting cards; better than +2 cards because it's "nonterminal" i.e. you can draw an Action with them and play it next turn.
Donate: Basically invalidates junkers and all other trashers, and possibly worth opening with. Donate BM is actually pretty fast, and I shudder to consider facing Legionary-Donate on a 5/2 start, or any other 5 cost that could deny me my 5.
Encampment: For that 16.7% of the time you can open 5/2 with this. Or if your ideal end deck hates Silver but needs an opening. Or if you have Buys and a little money to spare. Don't necessarily see people buying Plunder much though.
Castles: Games will be decided by who gets which Castles. You have to have a pretty strong strategy of your own to completely ignore them, since they have such synergy. Sniping one is almost mandatory, two possibly.
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1. Advance/Rats isn't really a combo, because even if you draw a Treasure from trashing Rats, you can't play it. You already bought Advance, so you're done playing Treasures for the turn (unless you buy a Villa).
Don't know about that, I think the important part is it's a very good way to trash Rats for benefit. Sure, you don't really get the +Card, but you still got an Action costing up to 6, and hey, that Rats you trashed probably used to be an Estate. Would be really fun to Seaway Rats and burn your whole deck into Rats, then buy 10 Advances and recreate it with the best Actions.
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1. Advance/Rats isn't really a combo, because even if you draw a Treasure from trashing Rats, you can't play it. You already bought Advance, so you're done playing Treasures for the turn (unless you buy a Villa).
Advance / Rats is Definitely A Thing, it just doesn't make use of the on-trash draw. Converting all your junk to junk actions and then converting junk actions into good ones can be really good.
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My first game with Empires included Baths as the landmark and Overlord. Everyone (4p) bought overlord with their first or second buy and cashed in on baths for their next two turns while paying down debt. Don't know if it was a powerful move, but we all appreciated having baths when debt is on hand.
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I really like the setup affect of Tax, but unless I'm missing something, I'm not seeing much use in actually buying it.
It costs you 1 buy and 2 coins to, at best, give another player 2 debt (if they actually buy a card from the chosen pile).
That seems like a bad trade off in a 2 player game, and even worse with 3 or 4 players. What am I missing?
2 player game, I've got a 1-0 Province lead. My opponent buys 2 Castles. I have $8 and 4 Buys next turn...and now Castles have 8 debt on them. Not sure if it was the right play, but it was fun!
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@Seprix is that on Youtube?
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@Seprix is that on Youtube?
You mean the Youtube video he linked? Good question....
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@Seprix is that on Youtube?
You mean the Youtube video he linked? Good question....
It's been a slow morning.
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@Seprix is that on Youtube?
Yes. It's my secondary channel where I stream things. I don't use Twitch.
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My set will be coming next week(Time it took me to write=travel time U.S.->Germany), so this is the last chance to make my inaccurate power predictions. I don't want to miss the chance to be embarrassed in the future by looking back on these.
General comments: After Adventures was released, quite a few people complained about power creep in Dominion. I'm not at all surprised that those guys stayed silent this time around, most of the cards look very nicely balanced, even though VP chips are a mechanic that can get easily out of hand (looking at you, Goons!) Overall I think the fun/strength ratio is really great for this expansion, coming from someone who doesn't like its spirtual predecessor very much (compared to other expansions, of course!)
I'll be ordering the cards on how certain I am of my prediction from "I have no clue how strong these are" at the top to "I am even less sure about these" at the bottom. Rating will be strength, not how much I like them.
Engineer: Looks like an okay gainer, around Armory level. It can't gain itself but I don't think that is much of an issue, but I don't think the bonus is good enough that you'll get it more often than you would take another gainer in the same place. The biggest uncertainty is whether it is good to make use of the passive often and rebuying Engineers, I have no idea how good this is. 5/10
City Quarter: One of my favourite cards already. Draw and Village in one card? I suppose you really like other nonterminal draw or trashing to get going, but afterwards 2 or 3 of these seem amazing. It is pretty expensive, though and the debt probably doesn't help too much at the point where you want this but it's still nice to get them exactly on the turn you need it. 9,5/10
Farmers' Market: Meh. The card doesn't look strong very strong, I like how it rewards deck control, though. It seems like playing smart with this card (whatever that means) feels pretty rewarding. Probably mostly interesting if you need the +buy from it and the mindgames surrounding it. 4,0/10
Sacrifice: Decent trashing, albeit it looks slow to me to get rid of your starting cards. On the plus side, +2 coins is one of the better things you get for trashing treasures so you won't be that sad drawing four coppers with it. Also it's seems pretty good to make use of the action card benefits if you manage that. 6,5/10
Chariot Race: Epitome of "ok". Maybe there is great support for it but that seems rare. The bonus is nice to have and the card doesn't hurt so it's probably a decent card to pick up on three but not a game changer. My pick of most overrated card in the set. 5,0/10
Royal Blacksmith: Draw is good, right? Looks a bit sad compared to other draw if you have coppers otherwise it's going to be very, very nice. 8/10
Patrician/Emporium: Eh. You don't want Patricians particularly early, you don't want overpriced Peddlers late so the VP better be worth it. I just don't see it working out. Buying Patricians early probably only happens if you hit two a lot and that means your deck is probably garbage which means getting five actions in play is a challenge. I really can't imagine how the five Patricians go away (okay, Aventurer tokens, maybe Goons) early enough for Emporium to matter. 3,5/10
Temple:strong trashing becomes very weak trashing when you have only coppers left. Atleast you can trash additional temples you are forced to gain with some vp on them. 5/10
Capital: Not a fan. Besides the obvious combos where you don't need to discard the card it looks like not the hottest card. I'm a fan of the debt concept in general, however I don't consider it that strong that you want to pay $5 just for having money one turn earlier for a net benefit of zero. Also okay for spiking expensive stuff, but how much of those are in the game, really? 4,5/10
Gladiator/Fortune: Fortune sounds very cool to me but playing gladiator looks like a pain. I wonder if you there are boards where you ignore Gladiator and just never reveal cards to mill the gladiators. It saves you the terminal space and your opponent has his terminal space occupied and only get +$1 as a reward. No matter how you get there, after getting to Fortune the game probably gets pretty explosive, it should make up for the weakness of Gladiators. 8/10
Wild Hunt: Another favourite of mine. Overdrawing is needed to pick up the points, in the engine that plays pretty straightforwardly. I guess you can't really leave 4VP on the pile if your opponent can add four of them aswell and take the points. Estate flood is no good either, though so you better get to use them for other stuff. Some interesting decisions for a Wild Hunt BM mirror, maybe a simulator will answer the optimal play there ;) 7/10
Charm: Another one of those gainers that doesn't outstay its welcome. Good with multiple $5 costs (Charm is one of them, fortunately) Looks definitely inferior to HoP altough that doesn't say much. 6,5/10
Crown: I'm one of the people who rates Throne Room a lot stronger than the average (according to Qvist rankings) so Crown can't be all that bad for $5. I can't help but wonder how many treasures actually make use out of this, I think it's more of a reliability thing and it doesn't get drawn dead. Overall above average, but not by much. 6/10
Legionary: This attack just seems so cruel. There are quite a few engines where you need three cards in your starting hand which you can't guarantee anymore. I suppose mirrors will work similar to Ghost ship mirrors; the attack will prevent repeated activation of Legionary every turn. If you manage to play it every turn, it's devastating. Question: Would you ever activate a second Legionary in a turn? And if so, what could be the reason? 8/10
Forum: It's like playing double Fugitive, awesome. The first sifter in the Kingdom that doesn't make you feel bad about playing it. Instead, it makes you feel bad about buying it. It competes with other $5 costs, so you better really need the cycling. Your $12 Herbalist becomes a $2 Herbalist so that's pretty nice, altough I'm skeptical this situatio occurs far too often (having $5 to spare). So yeah it's starting to get really hard to assess these. 7/10
Settlers/Bustling Village: The good thing is that Settlers can actually be useful. However, it's still weird to build an engine where the villages become available so late. I hope that the strength of BuV makes up for that, though. Especially cause having several Settlers is quite rewarding with BuV's. Nonetheless, spending five turns on buying Settlers slows down significantly, so it's pure speculation on my part. 7,5/10
Overlord: I'm not so sure about this one. You can always open witha five cost, so that's kinda cool. Besides that, how good is the versatility really? Probably pretty nice on boards where you want to play a lot of fives in a specific order, but mostly it just looks "ok" to me. 5,5/10
Encampment/Plunder: I don't think Plunder is that strong that you are happy about covering the pile up. Lost Cities are great though so I suppose you are happy with picking up a Gold at some point. Hard to say how good a one-shot LC is without the opportunity of keeping them 6,5/10
Villa: On gain bonus obviously crazy, the village afterwards pretty mediocre. No idea how good this can get. 7/10
Catapult/Rocks: Very Slow trashing, very slow attack. Doesn't look very strong at first glance. The attack is pretty strong though, so Silver gainers are more welcome than usual. It's probably pretty good aswell if it's the only trasher and you need to thin. I don't see Rocks coming into a 2p game ever, unless a fairy steals three catapults or something. 4,5/10
Archive: Another utility card that costs 5. Really hard to determine the strengths for me. Aslong as you don't have ambition to draw your deck, this seems very good, otherwise it's obviously not cool. Generally I'm a fan of utility cards and hopefully this will be one of the better ones, maybe even making engines possible that haven't before (without trashing) 7,5/10
Enchantress: One of the most novel mechanics since Inheritance so I can only pretend to know what I'm talking about. Obviously cheap actions and action density is stuff you need to counter it, otherwise it's hard to assess how hurtful it can get. The +2 cards are pretty good regardless, though. 6,5/10
Groundskeeper: I'm biased towards the best case scenario with this card, emptying estates for like 50 points while the stupid province player buys all of these expensive green cards. That probably doesn't happen very often, so on average it doesn't look that good to me since it does nothing for you basically. If you can gain them effortlessly they are still fine with less buys, otherwise probably rather mediocre 5,5/10
Castles: After being awed by the pile and its different cards, I'm much more skeptical about them now. You can gain like 45 points if you get all of them, but not 22 if you split them. Maybe the strength of the castles really results from being so bad on their own that denying is much less worth than it looks like. I really hope I'm wrong about these 3,5/10
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Yes, Castles seem more and more awful the longer I've studied them.
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Question: Would you ever activate a second Legionary in a turn? And if so, what could be the reason? 8/10
Chariot Race. Man, make them draw that stupid Province on top of their deck. In general, if you know that their top card is bad (because Rabble etc.), then having them discard one of their probably good 3 cards for it is a decent move.
Groundskeeper: I'm biased towards the best case scenario with this card, emptying estates for like 50 points while the stupid province player buys all of these expensive green cards. That probably doesn't happen very often, so on average it doesn't look that good to me since it does nothing for you basically. If you can gain them effortlessly they are still fine with less buys, otherwise probably rather mediocre 5,5/10
I really think that assessment is off. A good comparison is Distant Lands; if you can expect to buy 4 or more green cards before the game ends, then this is better than Distant Lands, and well, DL is already a very decent card. Groundskeeper has the additional advantage of making the Estate alt-VP strategy viable.
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Rabble Legionary is a scary pseudo pin.
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I think Groundskeeper probably looks a little better in Empires-heavy games, but that said, I still think it's really good. It's a $5 cost that you can't afford to significantly lose the split on in most boards.
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While this thread is of course primarily for predictions before you play with Empires, I wanted to give my thoughts on all the cards after only having played a few games, and this seems like an appropriate place! So there's a bit of experience behind this analysis, but very little in the grand scheme of things.
I'm not voting out of 10 because it's seems pointlessly granular. Ratings from 1-5 should be fine. I'd like to say the ratings are purely strength based but as a fallible human being exciting cards are probably biased towards higher ratings. There's a lot of speculation in these despite my preferred writing style maybe appearing in a bit of a factual tone at times.
Only the kingdom cards today, because this took a long time to write.
Debt
Engineer: Workshop that can trash itself for an extra gain. Ehh. Maybe the on-trash might help you to win a crucial split or get a card slightly earlier but for the most part it's going to play exactly like workshop, with the same decisions behind when you actually want one or not. And workshop is fairly average so this is as well. 3/5
City Quarter: This card is bonkers. You only need about 3 and with a bit of trashing you'll be mostly drawing your deck reasonably consistently in no time. Which is good, because they're expensive but wow it's so worth it. Your engine just explodes once you add a few of these. The debt cost is also nice when bonus buys don't come easily as it's easier to justify a single larger payment. With a little bit of support like a few labs or forums to grease the wheels kicking off is really easy. If it's the only village available though, you are not going to be able to buy lots of them so you'll need to lower your expectations on how many terminals you add, as the large cost to add more of them will definitely start to cause issues. 5/5
Overlord: It's going to be an extremely rare board where you don't want these. The flexibility is really really good and you have no issue playing exactly the right power card at exactly the right time. If you have a board with no villages but an important terminal like Witch and at least one cantrip, you can just get about 3 of these and have no issues playing the witch nearly every turn from turn 3 onwards, while not having to worry much about terminal collision. It's just so good. Buying this on your second opening buy and being in debt for 2 or 3 turns can easily be the right call. Village/terminal draw engines have almost no reliability issues at all (although you still want to buy some of the cheaper components, of course). Biggest problems it has are all-terminal boards, and those boards where the gains are so fast and strong that the important piles empty fast, which neuters the card a bit. 4/5
Royal Blacksmith: The powerful draw makes this a lot like City Quarter, except with the obvious differences that it's not a village. Both cards want the coppers out, but Royal Blacksmith needs village support but can also work better in engines with treasure payload, or that are being discard attacked each turn. So similar but perhaps a bit weaker overall, although perhaps this comparison is pointless because odds are low you'll have both in the kingdom right? Still very powerful, +5 cards is huge! 4/5
$2
Encampment / Plunder: Plunder probably comes a bit too late to make a huge difference but points are points and it makes for a great payload. The real rockstar here is Encampment, which is so easy to just keeping picking up incidentally even when putting them back. Lost city effects are really good that a one-shot for 2 is still great, and when you do get to keep them it's just insanely good value. The pile is really neutered without bonus buys or gainers though, but it's still a good card to buy on a dud $2 turn. Would you buy an event for $2 that gives you an extra card and action next turn? Yeah you would! 4/5
Patrician / Emporium: Seems hard to get use out of these but 2 points for a $5 peddler adds up! I feel that this pile will largely go untouched unless the players have enough incidental $2 buys to lower the Patricians enough that it's worth emptying them for the Emporiums. You don't want to specifically piledrive the entire pile just to get at the Emporiums, they aren't that good. 2/5
Settlers / Bustling Village: Don't know how I feel about these. The Settlers are actually not very good at all and piledriving them to get at the villages can be slow and have a big opportunity cost. The villages are really good, but they come late and when you do get them you can have reliability issues because you won't have many. I feel like this is not a village that is friendly for terminal draw. An example kingdom where I could imagine going for this would also include City Quarter and Farmer's Market, you have a +buy payload you can get early, want to increase your action density with cheap cantrips and need a boost to your otherwise meagre +actions. I can see myself ignoring these more often than I'd hope to. 2/5
$3
Castles: I have a lot to say about these. I think a lot of Alt-VP piles are an alternate way to score while ignoring provinces entirely, or at least not getting very many. But with Castles you can't do that, this is an Alt-VP that wants boards where you're going for Provinces anyway and this is a powerful supplement. Everyone knows that while the maximum possible score is huge, it's impossible to get all of those points in practice, but that's not really the point. I think that while these can be used in more of a treasure-heavy non-engine deck, it's the powerful engines where these will really shine. The better engine can put themselves in a really strong end-game position, and there's the real power. What you want is a deck-drawing engine with the ability to double province and have 3 or 4 buys and then just buy the first 3 or 4 castles all at once, and then next turn buy until there are 3 left and grab what ever your opponent leaves you on your next turn (they aren't going to be able to get all 3 without the small castle). This is so many points, and if you also manage to get Opulent castle the amount of money you can generate is huge and should be in a position to triple-province or slam the duchies. What you absolutely don't want to do is start buying the cheap ones early because not only are the first two not all that good but small castle is such an easy counter if your opponent gets it, it's the real power castle that lets you control the pile. Note: I have not actually had the chance to build such an engine in a two player game so this is very speculative. Anyways, this will not come into play on a fair number of games but when it does it heavily rewards the player with the stronger engine that can position themselves for the end-game first and ups the points enough to let them build a bit longer, so that's nice. 4/5
Catapult / Rocks: I really do not like these cards. They seem so bad! Catapult is like a militia, but instead of having a good turn while hurting your opponent, you militia yourself as well in order to trash a copper. It's like Miser except after all the copper trashing you don't have a powerful terminal payload card that generates enormous sums of cash. and if your opponent does go for catapult I think you should not follow suit and go for something less reliant on trashing, because if you do your gonna have these turns where you play catapult and have like only $2 or $3 to spend and it's just rubbish. The cursing seems entirely incidental because it's really really difficult to throw loads of curses their way without haemorrhaging your deck at a time when it actually matters and one or two curses is no big deal. Sure there are boards where you want to open Trade Route, but Trade Route is not a high barrier to meet. 1/5
Chariot Race: Sometimes you want those cantrips, but you really cannot build an engine around scoring points consistently with this. It's better than nothing, and the points can matter, but it's obvious when a cantrip is a better buy than silver and that's really the time when you pick them up. Also beware of debt-cost cards in the same kingdom, they KO this card with annoying frequency. 2/5
Enchantress: The duration effect is really nice, and the attack can be utterly devastating or basically no big deal. The attack hurts the most in those decks where the cards are very expensive and/or somewhat unreliable, like Bustling Village + Royal Blacksmith. You want these when you've got the spare action space or when it's really obvious that the attack is gonna be a big deal and well, that's all I have to say really. 3/5
Farmer's Market: I think people are underestimating this a bit, because VP chips are really good. Having said that, it's sort of like a strange monument/woodcutter combo that is terminal payload but definitely on the weak side. I think where this will really shine are those boards with loads of buys and gains like talisman and you can suddenly grab a load of these with villages and then get a bunch of points and money, but the board would have to have lots of gains basically being the only thing going for it, like a weak engine but there's stonemason, you know? I think it's on the weak side of average but will be relevant slightly more often than people give credit for. 3/5
Gladiator / Fortune: Holy smokes I was not prepared for this! Fortune is absolutely ludicrous! Imagine a board with no draw but everyone is double-provincing anyway, that's the power of Fortune! And Gladiator is actually pretty decent on its own too with getting the extra coin not really all that hard to pull off, although maybe you don't want it in your opening buy? It's hard to put across in text how insane Fortune is without going all caps, and I refuse to do that. 5/5
$4
Sacrifice: Yeah it's slow but this is actually really powerful. Trashing your Estates is always good but getting 6 VP for it? Also I usually never want to trash action cards but late game I'm trashing them with this bad boy like there's no tomorrow, which you know, there isn't because the game's about to end, but yeah anyway the point is that this is a really solid trasher. No matter what you trash, you're having a good turn. Well, a reasonable one at least. 4/5
Temple: You absolutely cannot ignore this card. It adds so many points so fast it's crazy. For trashing all your junk you're getting 7 VP (a lot!) while also throwing another 7 VP into a pool that you really want to win. Buying more temples once there are about 3 VP chips on the pile is something you really want to do because that's a 6 VP swing right there, and this is going to happen about 5 or 6 times really early on in the game. Each temple after the first is therefore like a Provence but you can trash it for no loss, and get even more points for doing that! And all the while you are getting insane amounts of points you're making your deck really thin and good. I think you absolutely have to position your deck to buy a 4-cost at the drop of a hat if you can because there are so many points up for grabs and you have to try to win it. 5/5
Villa: This is a strong card and engines can be way more reliable when it's available to buy. It will make you want to prioritise getting terminal draw more so than usual. A lot has been said about this card already and yeah it's really nice. 4/5
$5
Archive: Non-terminal draw is really really good! And this is no exception. Anyway I have already written my thoughts about this here (http://"http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=16178.0"). 4/5
Capital: Ehhh. It has obvious cute combos but most of the time you want 5 cost cards most of all and therefore buying this 5-cost card that generates you $0 overall just isn't actually very good. A narrow card. 2/5
Charm: This is either a non-terminal woodcutter (which is decent) or gets you some good 5 or 4 costs. It's alright but the gaining effect has not really been as useful as I would have thought so far and is extremely board dependent. I know there were initial comparisons to Horn of Plenty but it's not really the same thing at all. 3/5
Crown: Throne Room is awesome, and this is no exception, because it's Throne Room that's usually at least a silver if it misses. Almost everything that applies to Throne Room applies here honestly except for some cute synergies and anti-synergies. A good card, but so is Throne Room. 4/5
Forum: Excellent sifter but a tad on the expensive side. That whole no-buy cost thing? You will only rarely take advantage of that. 3/5
Groundskeeper: Not really had a chance to play with this much yet so am unsure of its power. I think you only need to get 2 points from it to be worth buying over duchy because not adding a stop card can be worth the small point loss. I think this will mostly be a card to give you better end-game control and that's always great, but it's just enough on the expensive side that it might be a tough call, and it's not going to help you if you overbuy it on those games where the province split is crucial. So.... not sure. 3/5
Legionary: This attack is crazy strong and yeah it needs some setup and you have to work for it, but really a terminal gold at 5 cost is plenty fine on its own and ensuring you have at least 6 coin when you get the attack off is really strong. It's so hard to do anything reliably when you get hit by this attack that games with strong engines will be over once someone pulls this off consisitently, and in games without strong engines you still want to go for this anyway. 5/5
Wild Hunt: Wow so many points. Much like Temple, you have to go for this. It's very strong. Obviously there's the powerful terminal draw engine games where winning the split will be huge, but outside of those games you still want to play this a lot anyway because smithy-likes are really good usually anyway, and one that gives a ton of points is just even better. 5/5
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Time for part 2!
Events
Triumph: It's basically a Goons event except not as good. Really you want to get loads of buys then purchase a ton of coppers followed by as many of these as you can afford (and the last one doesn't need any money because it costs debt). It needs the right board with tons of buys to actually be worthwhile, but even then it's not always all that good. Seems quite narrow to me. 2/5
Annex: The 8 debt cost seems really steep for what you get. It gives you a Duchy, but it's still a pretty steep cost. I guess you would buy this if you hit 7 near the end of a shuffle while greening so you can not put some of your green in your next shuffle, but... eh. I'm not all that impressed with this. 2/5
Donate: It's as insane as everybody thinks it is. 5/5
Advance: Nice for getting up to 5 and 6 cost action cards quickly but I think it looks sexier than it really is. If you need lots of 5s then you're likely better off buying a silver or two instead of buying cheap actions just to convert them a shuffle later, because that's slow. It's really nice for letting you take more risks with opening two terminals, as a terminal collision is not so bad. 3/5
Delve: Silver flooding is usually a mediocre strategy because many silver gainers are just too slow, but this event is certainly better than Masterpiece and makes silver flooding very quick and easy. But even when not silver flooding its a nice way to spend a spare $2 and really keeps your economy going, so it's still useful with engines but way more restrained. I think this will impact pretty much every game it's in, but it's not going to be totally dominant very often. 4/5
Tax: The debt starting on the board is different and cool, but the event itself seems a bit pants, like an easier to use but much worse Embargo. 2/5
Banquet: I can see uses for this but being flooded with copper is so so bad most of the time, as we all learned from Cache. I think this is narrow and situational. 2/5
Ritual: Worth noting that trashing victory cards to Ritual is actually really poor, you usually break even or end up only 1 point ahead, which is a waste of time, and because you gain a curse doesn't even thin your deck. I think where this is most useful is trashing golds or actions in the late game for a last-minute point spike, but you're not always going to be able to pull that off easily. you definitely only want to trash something with a cost of $4 or higher. It seems like there is huge point potential here but you're going to need strong gaining or purchasing power I think. 3/5
Salt the Earth: On the one hand this seems nuts at first glance but on the other hand you really need to be substantially in the lead for it to be worth buying so its use only really comes into play right at the very end of the game. Obviously this card is all about positioning yourself into a strong end-game position with multiple buys and lots of money and so it brings that end game position a lot sooner sometimes. It also has some possible synergies with winning splits on strong alt-VP piles or shutting down some alternate strategies. It seems to help close the game early for the player with the stronger engine, but that person might have won anyway? Gauging the real impact of this seems tough. 3/5
Wedding: Gold for 4 is nice, and getting a point with your gold is nice, but in practice this is much more exciting looking than it really is. I think this is going to be overrated by newer players and in practice isn't going to be all that important. Allows you to get away with thinning more aggressively though as it's easier to buy decent payload, you only need to keep around 2 silvers instead of 3. Feels low impact to me in the grand scheme of things. 2/5
Windfall: This is either really crazy or totally useless, and it's usually quite obvious when either is the case. You need either super good trashing or really strong draw, and in the former case it adds payload so fast that you don't really need much else, so it seems like it might make those games a bit dull. Was going to rate it 4 but the games where it is totally useless stick out in my mind enough to drop its rating. 3/5
Conquest: This is really good for big-money silver flooding type strategies, although you do want to start picking up Provinces whenever you can because buying one of these per turn is not that fast in terms of points. I think it can work in an engine too but in more limited capacity, you actually want to buy this multiple times in a single turn and only one turn of doing that, as other ways to get silver during a turn are quite hard and if you can buy 4 of these that's 20 points for $24, so a bit like colonies, except you get 8 silver instead of two green cards. Sure in that case you don't really want the silver but it really helps you green reliably so that's probably why you want to do it once? I dunno. Seems powerful but the more I think about it the less powerful it seems? 3/5
Dominate: This is so many points, it's mad. But if the engine is weak it's quite easy to snipe Provinces from under it, but even so I think this is worth going for more often than not and 15 points all at once is enormous. I think that not having the Platinum around for this event will mean that this is not the right call more often than that is the case for Colonies, but it's still really good. It's only not getting 5 because it's not always so game-defining. 4/5
Landmarks
Aqueduct: Requires you to situationally dip into Duchies or nab an Estate. If you ignore this and your opponent goes Big Money they will rapidly accumulate lots of points but it's easy to stop while also buying you some more time to build if you're paying attention. It's there and forces your hand occasionally but overall doesn't feel like a huge deal. 3/5
Arena: Lets you take more risks with terminal collision, and then the points run out and it's business as usual. Might change the order you build your deck in slightly but not going to be all that important. 3/5
Bandit Fort: Massively punishing and game-warping, and heavily encourages even weak engines with lacklustre payload actions. Just don't be so scared that you forgo treasures entirely, sometimes you really need that Silver to get to $5, or that Gold to trigger Legionary. 5/5
Basilica: Rarely will this actively encourage you to buy cheaper cards, sometimes you will either go for more buys and economy earlier but often it will just randomly give you points and you will be like "oh OK". 2/5
Baths: Going to buy a wimpy 2-cost like Settlers or Pearl Diver? Stop. Take the points instead. Otherwise totally ignorable. Cards are good! Gain them! 2/5
Battlefield: Makes Action-Victory cards like Island and Great Hall quite good, and without those will encourage earlier greening. Makes a difference because the players have a lot of control over this and can change your strategy a bit. 4/5
Colonnade: When life gives you a colon, make colonnade? This card shouts build more! at you but you were gonna do that anyway, right? 3/5
Defiled Shrine: This can accumulate big points fast. Grab something like a woodcutter and be prepared to snipe points at a moment's notice, but the fact that you get a curse makes it tricky. Seems powerful on an engine board but might only be tie-breaker points to someone on lame Big Money boards. 4/5
Fountain: A no-brainer with no copper trashing but with trashing you're gonna need some strong draw if you go for this. I think this will be tricky to tell if it's worth it or not sometimes, which is fun, but how good is it really? Trashing is just so strong. 3/5
Keep: I don't think you can ignore this, and games will become treasure-heavy and there will be a lot of back and forth, with 5 or 10 point swings happening all the time. 5/5
Labyrinth: Well I guess I will go for that Workshop after all. 2/5
Mountain Pass: Throws an enormous and high-impact decision into the mix at a moment's notice, I think you really need to try and prepare yourself with the ability to generate decent money and then grab an early province if you can so you can be in a strong position to get a good deal for those points. If your opponent clearly isn't having very high-money turns and they bet big you can set them back multiple turns by letting them take the points and then crush them if there's a good engine, and if they don't want to take the risk you might get lots of points on the cheap. It's a lot of points, a 16-point swing is huge. I think you have to keep this in your mind all the time until it goes off but also pay attention to your opponent's deck. 5/5
Museum: Big points, but usually it's easy to just pick up variety either really late or opportunistically. You'll definitely need to pay attention to this, but I think most of the time both players will just have to go for it and things end up turning out the same so not super interesting. 4/5
Obelisk: Super random as to whether or not it will be any impact. Hard to give an overall assessment because it's so heavily dependent on both the board and what it grants bonus points to. 3/5
Orchard: It seems like sometimes it will actually be quite hard to get a lot of points out of this and scores will be similar. Really it will mainly just exist to provide a number of extra points to an engine player and so dis-incentivise alternative strategies slightly. When both players go for an engine it will probably make no difference at all? 2/5
Palace: Barring boards that are insanely good for this like Jack + Treasure Trove, this seems like while it offers some bonus points to big money players, engines that need treasures as payload will still be able to easily get 6 or 9 points from this, so overall the difference is not huge. Then again sometimes an extra province of points is all the big money player needs to beat the weak engine so pay attention. 3/5
Tomb: Trashing is really good so you were going to do it anyway, so this makes almost no difference honestly. 2/5
Tower: How often do piles empty where all players aren't going for them anyway? Games where one player gets substantially more of a certain card on a card are super-rare and those boards are either already going to win as they got loads of minions, or more rarely they were piling all of the cities themselves and now they might not get completely crushed. But usually at least one of the piles that runs are going to be a victory card so this will not make all that much difference. It's the speedy three-pile boards where you have to watch out because players don't need to pick up as many extra points while pulling off the three-pile and so three-piling is so much easier and harder to try and stop by grabbing green. I think overall this landmark is often weak but occasionally throws a spanner into the works of the end-game on boards that were already really tricky to play anyway. 3/5
Triumphal Arch: It seems to be so difficult to get a lot of points out of this, and feels a bit like Tower really. Usually the point differences it gives are very small, but like Tower sometimes that really matters. 3/5
Wall: Absolutely crushing. This seems to be game-warping because it's so easy to lose a lot of points by playing only slightly carelessly. Hurts the small point-value VP quite a lot so you really really need to care about point-chip sources and provinces. 5/5
Wolf Den: You've really got to pay attention to this because it's so easy to get caught out and lose a ton of points. Your first Duchy being worth 0 and the second effectively worth 6 makes a big difference too. There are actually quite a lot of cards that you only want one copy of so either you double-down on them or you have to be very careful about trashing them at the end game, it's so easy to end up having the game end before you trash them and get punished for them. you will have this playing on your mind throughout the entire game. 5/5
Summary
5/5: Very powerful cards that usually dictate a part of your strategy
- City Quarter
- Gladiator / Fortune
- Temple
- Legionary
- Wild Hunt
- Donate (Event)
- Bandit Fort (Landmark)
- Keep (Landmark)
- Mountain Pass (Landmark)
- Wall (Landmark)
- Wolf Den (Landmark)
4/5: Strong cards that you often base a part of your strategy around
- Overlord
- Royal Blacksmith
- Encampment / Plunder
- Castles
- Sacrifice
- Villa
- Archive
- Crown
- Delve (Event)
- Dominate (Event)
- Battlefield (Landmark)
- Defiled Shrine (Landmark)
- Museum (Landmark)
3/5: Generally good cards or those that are only strong in rare circumstances
- Engineer
- Enchantress
- Farmer's Market
- Charm
- Forum
- Groundskeeper
- Advance (Event)
- Ritual (Event)
- Salt the Earth (Event)
- Windfall (Event)
- Conquest (Event)
- Aqueduct (Landmark)
- Arena (Landmark)
- Colonnade (Landmark)
- Fountain (Landmark)
- Obelisk (Landmark)
- Palace (Landmark)
- Tower (Landmark)
- Triumphal Arch (Landmark)
2/5: Often ignorable or quite weak cards or things that make no real difference to your strategy
- Patrician / Emporium
- Settlers / Bustling Village
- Chariot Race
- Capital
- Triumph (Event)
- Annex (Event)
- Tax (Event)
- Banquet (Event)
- Wedding (Event)
- Basilica (Landmark)
- Baths (Landmark)
- Labyrinth (Landmark)
- Orchard (Landmark)
- Tomb (Landmark)
1/5: Chancellor says hi
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I think you might be being a bit hard on Catapult. It's still a $3 trasher and usually only $1 different on-play from one of the more un-ignorable attacks in the game, Militia (admittedly, it's not going to hit $5 like first Militia sometimes does.) I'd much rather have Catapult in a kingdom than Trade Route, and I've bought plenty of Trade routes. Sometimes even two if I'm aggressively trying to get thin.
Also, Settlers is pretty weak, but it does get significantly better with sifting. It loves cards like Warehouse and Inn. Bustling Village is great. It's just too bad there's five Settlers on top of it. Having to buy only one action for two additional terminals is a significant accelerator, it's just that you have to empty the Settlers first, which makes it less great. If there's discard-for-benefit in the Kingdom, like Vault or even something weak like Secret Chamber, you can put that together with Bustling village and Settlers to make a weird discard/retrieve engine, even without sifters, and the extra terminal plays you get from Bustling Village make it work.
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Thanks for the comments. You are probably right that I am undervaluing these cards, but Catapult is so much worse than Militia. It's worth noting that it is not $1 less on play, it's $2 less because you trash a copper to get the effect, and combined with how slow trashers you really want to get rid of your Estates ASAP but with Catapult you want to kill the coppers because the discard effect is so much better in the early game you just end up with these super bad hands all the time with a high Estate density. Surelike Trade Route it has its use when you will take anything to get trashing, but for every card in the game you can construct kingdoms where that card is good, like Scout and Adventurer and Trade Route but those are still cards I'd rate 1/5.
Good point about sifting for Bustling Village and Settlers. Part of my reasoning for not being so keen on Bustling Village is because I found out when playing with City Quarter that only having 3 or so villages in your deck can make it super hard to kick off if the village isn't in your starting hand, which is less likely when you have so few, think about decks where you need Crossroads as your village and how often that can dud. City Quarter is 5/5 though because the drawing is insane so you don't need to buy terminal draw as much, and it plays nicely with other villages if they are around to help you use draw to find it and you still want it because it draws so much, while with bustling village I probably won't want it when other villages are on the board because it's so much harder to get and I can just use those other villages most of the time. And plowing through the settlers also means that while I spent time on getting g these not great cards I ended up also letting my opponent buy the Bustling Villages without them having to waste time buying bad stuff, so if you can't make the settlers work for you then it seems kinds bad.
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Catapult is better than Militia.
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Urchin and ambassador are considered two of the strongest $3s because they thin your deck and attack your opponent at the same time. Catapult is obviously not as strong but it still does both of those things, so I definitely think it's way better than people say.
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Urchin and Ambassador are really strong because they are fast trashers that trash more than one card at a time, so if you get them early you can add good cards to your deck while still having the overall size of your deck decrease per shuffle, an effect that I would say is more than twice as good as trashing just one card. So comparing these with Catapult is a mistake, they are in a different league entirely on a fundamental level.
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Urchin actually starts slow at first. It does get faster though once you're trashing two cards at a time.