Hmm, it's interesting to hear that Cathedral was so powerful. I'll have to do some more playtesting and see if the card needs to be toned down. Did you use the version that gave one Cathedral token when gaining it, or the version that gained two? Did the trashing even get used much?
We used the version that gave one Cathedral token when gaining it, and the trashing was definitely used in every case. I don't think the card is too powerful. I think it is just a solid card and some of the other cards might not be powerful enough. It definitely works well with a money-based strategy, similar to how Courtyard works well with money.
I was trying to figure out an easy way to allow the purchasing of additional Cathedral tokens for more money when you buy the Cathedral (i.e. spend another coin (or two?) when purchasing the Cathedral to get another token with it). It could make for an interesting choice between getting a Gold at 6 or getting a Cathedral with 2 trash tokens... Might be worth trying.
Monopoly is one of the cards in the set that I'm least happy with. I like the card concept, but I can't really decide how to balance it. Did it ever not gain a Gold when played?
I failed to gain a Gold with it when I played it. I think that happened at least one other time. The problem is that if you fail to get a gold with it, it is a significant setback, since it is a one-shot card that costs four and is then gone. To me it was more of a gamble than Gambler (bigger gain when you succeed, bigger loss when you fail). Perhaps make the self-trashing conditional on guessing correctly?
We also didn't think that it lived up to its name, since trashing one card from the supply doesn't significantly affect the supply. Also, it is rare that any one player would buy very many of them, since its main use is to get a Gold earlier on in the game and its utility decreases later on (plus it can be a bit harder to guess the Kingdom card later on).
You could change the text below the line to read "When you buy this or trash this..." so that you get two opportunities to trash from the supply per Monopoly, rather than one.
Clerk is the other card I'm not yet happy with. Mostly I need a better action effect. As for the reaction piece and its use against Tax Collector, the idea was that Clerk would allow you to trash a Copper or Curse, after which Tax Collector would be unable to hurt you. Did you play that Tax Collector only hit if the victim had 5 or more cards in hand?
I agree that the action effect of Clerk is not very good/interesting. Perhaps you could also let the person choose to leave one of the three cards on top of the deck? It seems kind of thematic, shuffling papers around on a desk, from the inbox to the outbox...
And now that you mention it, we
didn't play the Tax Collector correctly after using the Clerk reaction. I remember still trashing a card for it even though I had already trashed down to fewer that 5 cards with the Clerk.
Yeah, there's no point to buying Gambler after the first few turns. It's definitely an early game card.
As an early game card, I don't find Gambler to have a stronger effect than, say, Masquerade or other good cost 3 openers that have a bit of trashing. And I think its effect should be stronger than a Masquerade, since you're only going to get to play Gambler a few times before you're "forced" to trash it.
It also doesn't "feel" like a Gambling card, since the only gamble is whether or not it will get trashed. I usually think of gambling in association with a chance to make a lot of money, and getting the silver or other (fairly early-game) buy that I don't want to trash just isn't that big of a reward.
Hopefully Inventor is not too powerful.
I don't think it is too powerful. Probably similar strength to Cathedral (or a bit less), and it works well with money (like Smithy), but is more helpful near the end of the game, where Cathedral is a bit better earlier on.
Maybe Surveyor is underpowered as is, though.
To beef Surveyor, how about gaining the card on top of your deck? It seems like it would be fair to get to play it next turn, since you don't get to play it this turn as you have to discard it. You also might want to bump the cost up to 4 with that change since it might compare too favorably to Mint, for instance.
