Dominion: Industrialization
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Hello! If you're like me and have always wondered what Dominion would look like with a little technological advancement, this is the expansion for you! It's a large expansion that's a mix of Prosperity and Dark Ages: 16 strong, expensive cards that puts Prosperity to shame, and 16 cheap, weaker cards that shine in certain situations. This is the fourth update to this expansion, and I have playtested most of these cards, but some of the cards in the newest iteration may need some tweaking.
Like Prosperity, playing with cards from this expansion triggers the use of colonies and platina. Normally it’s 10% probability for each card from prosperity or empires that appears in your kingdom, but for this expansion the rate is 100% if any card appears. This is of course to offset the high costs of many of these cards and to disincentivize piling out with the cheaper ones.
The themes for this set include new spins on the vanilla bonuses, more cards with choice, self-junking to play powerful cards, and cheap cards that get more powerful the more you play. This set is great for making powerful engines (it is the industrial revolution after all), and for truly massive decks. It is my intention to help widen the bell curve of card costs, so there are no cost 3 - 5 cards in this set by design. It is my personal opinion that we need more cheap and expensive cards to spicen things up a bit, and I kind of like filling out the cost gaps in the game, something Don X actually supports. This set is not intended to be played alone, but ideally mixed in with all the other expansions or at the very least base dominion.
I tabulate every bit of feedback I receive on my cards and have made many updates and fixes based on your suggestions. I am pretty set on having no mid-cost cards, that is after all the intention of this expansion, and therefore would prefer feedback keeping that in mind. I apologize for those who think high-powered, high-cost cards are not an addition to the game that they find appealing, but if that’s you then this expansion is not for you. Regardless I appreciate everyone’s input and look forward to your review!
But finally, without any further
ado, the cards!:
Expensive Cards:Theatre:
Hate it when you have the perfect kingdom for an engine but there are no stinking +buys! Or when it’s a kingdom of 10 great cards but they're all terminal? Well then, this is card for you! Alone it's worthless, a cantrip costing $2. But the worse the kingdom is, the better it gets. The actors play the part of whatever is you're missing to get your strategy off the ground. No hand size increasers? This card is a basic lab costing $5. No villages? this card becomes a vanilla village at $3. It can be a worker's village at $4, a cantrip buy at $3, etc. Only when your kingdom is missing literally everything does this card cost $7. "Other cards" refers to non-Theatre cards, so theatre is not triggered by itself. "+2 Cards" only includes cards explicitly having +2 or more written on the card. Smithy counts, library does not, etc. Emptied piles no longer count as part of the supply, therefore this card becomes more expensive – and more powerful – the longer the game progress, akin to city.
Entrepreneur:
The jack of all trades of buying cards, this card is one step up from inventor! It is the reverse of capital, giving you coin tokens to spend on a later turn in exchange for taking that many coins from this turn, a great investment indeed. So that it doesn't cripple your turn entirely, you can still gain a $4 card, and if you have a couple gold left over, lets you buy 2 additional cards at a reduced cost. The debt collected stacks unlike capital, and the reduced cost benefit is like bridge, both effects reducing its throne room strength and overall ability to allow a mega-turn like bridge. It naturally has an anti-synergy with itself, giving you the choice between a strong turn or to build up for future turns.
Hospital:
One step above doctor, but one step below donate in terms of quickly getting rid of unwanted cards. There is a bit of shuffle luck, it is much stronger in your last hand than first, but over multiple shuffles it should average out. Don’t expect to be able to trash all your junk at once. Then again, who said hospitals were guaranteed to cure you?
Infantry:
Infiltrate your opponent’s hands with this attack card. A +3 card attack like torturer or rabble, with an effect similar to ambassador, where you can effectively place an unwanted card from your hand into an opponent's. Can attack repeatedly but keeps opponent's hands at 5.
Meeting House:
Continuing the theme of chapel, bishop, temple, altar and the like, this card trashes and rewards your tithe in the form of coffers and victory tokens. Strictly better than junkman, but you want to get it early enough where you still have cards to trash, so costs $6. Because you must trash a card for the VP token, this card discourages never-ending games that is a danger with cantrip +VP.
Oil Refinery:
Are all your action cards too complicated with all their "mechanics" and "words" and what not? Well refine them down into plain ol' vanilla! Turn your 10 native villages into regular, normal, not-a-novel-of-a-description villages! Or peddler variants, or even labs! This card is unique in giving a choice that doesn't need to be unique. Choose +3 cards, or $3, or +1 action and +2 buys if that's your thing. The new bonuses are considered instructions, so playing a second refinery and naming the same card again overrides the effect of the first refinery, so they don’t stack.
Artillery:
This second attack card lets you load, aim, and fire a card out of your enemy's hand. The only other discard attack that lets the attacker choose the card to discard is pillage, and such a powerful ability forces it to be a one-off. To make this balanced without having to trash itself, you must spend all your actions, effectively ending your Action phase and preventing you from playing more than one per turn. Originally required you to discard your hand instead of spending all actions, but that was far to limiting.
Observatory:
Letting you take a peek at everything ahead of you and zero in on exactly what you need, observatory is the strongest deck inspector in the game! Nets out to a lab but with an assured good card to add to your hand, provided you’re not at the end of your deck. But as a reserve, you can hold on to it until after a shuffle, and with the right engine, reliably draw your entire deck to keep it strong.
Police Station:
Need to protect your stuff from criminals? Hire a police station! This reaction card is jack of all trades on steroids: this card simply remedies any possible ill effects from just about any attack. Lets you sift through the top 3 cards of your deck if they were muddled by ghost ship or rabble, trash the curse from witch or sea hag, and or retrieve from the trash anything pirate ship or knights forced you to trash. Reaction effect similar to horse traders, preventing attacks like pillage or enchantress from stopping you from playing it, and costs debt so you can still buy it after being attacked. Opening double police station is also a possibility if you’re so inclined. The constables are still figuring out how to reverse hexes it seems, so unfortunately, you’re still out of luck with those.
Factory:
The next advancement on laboratory, this factory is perfect for any engine and will make you reconsider buying that province, but watch out not to be too clogged up by smogs (see below) when you use it! Nets out to +3 cards +1 action if you can draw your whole deck and clear smogs, but you will always have one smog remaining unless you have some other form of trashing.
Stock Exchange:
An action-treasure like crown and one step up from bank. This lets you trade vanilla bonuses for any other vanilla bonus you need during your action or buy phase. Combination cellar, diadem, storyteller, and vault. Can really help if you're engine hit a dry patch or if you're just short some gold on your buy phase. As normal, +Actions in the buy phase are useless. First spend all gold, actions, and buys you'd like and discard any unwanted cards, count that number, then choose that many vanilla effects, only executing them after all the choices have been made. Be careful not to accidentally leave yourself with no buys to end your turn with!
Town Hall:
You're the mayor and lucky for you a lot of decisions need to be made with this duration card. Like Count, choose some harmful effects and then you get to choose some great effects next turn. Tough choice between completely ending your current turn by discarding or topdecking everything, or gaining some junk to topdeck and trash the next turn with one of your bonuses. But your town will appreciate the investment by giving returns 3-fold! Literally!
Supermarket:
You’ve heard of grand markets, now get ready for super markets! A +$1 combined with +1 buy to grand market, making it the only disappearing gold in the game, but the drawback is stricter, needing at the least 3 golds to buy or some serious virtual coinage. This brings the price to $9, giving platinum a run for its money, literally.
Steel Foundry:
A Smithy or Blacksmith on steroids, this super-terminal draw is a great way to use up actions. Nets one more card than a Blacksmith counting the smog, or the equivalent draw power of 3 smithies, but at the cost of two actions instead of one like every other action, and of course the -1 VP if you fail to clear that out.
Public School:
Let your cards edumacate themselves and lern to be gooder. A step up from teacher, now you can make every action card a cantrip instead of just one! At least for this turn that is. And for your treasures, an extra coin sure does make public schools a better investment than a dusty ol’ plat.
Metropolis:
And lastly the pièce de résistance: metropolis. From lowly hamlet, to village, to city, then metropolis. A village with one more +action than even bustling village, but with some VP to justify purchasing it late. A metropolitan area is practically a duchy anyway. As with the previous cards, considering smog it nets out to +1 card, +4 VP after the first time played.
Cheap cards:Smog:
Wow all this industrial activity is really clogging up the place. The more you use some of the high-powered cards, the more you pollute your deck. This self-clearing junk is just slightly less harsh than a curse, if you can clear it away in time. Without another trashing card you'll always have one left over. 20 cards to a pile, and not renewed if emptied. Adds thematically to the expansion by replacing curses, a medieval fear, with something more modern but just as deadly.
Slums:
Village that gives actions based on how many have already been played. Useless if the first card played in a turn, but the village version of city quarter the more actions you have played. If your slums are too productive they are returned to the pile, but the +Buy makes it easier to gain them back.
Worker:
Terminal draw that gets stronger the more you play, chaining together if they find each other. The more workers you have on your assembly line, the more work you can do! Chaining effect is similar to library's interaction with actions, but playing instead of discarding. Playing 5 workers averages out to 5 smithies, but for a quarter the cost!
Banknote:
An action version of treasure cards that gets stronger the more you have! This is useful in scrying pool games, games with treasure attacks, or any other game where you just don't want your deck cluttered with treasures. Adding to that, cards that would gain you gold and silver explicitly can gain Banknotes instead. It especially combos well with my stock exchange (coincidence? nope.) Exchange your currency today!
General Store:
Want to buy 2 workers and a silver? Or how about a market and two coppers? This card will help you hoard up on cheap cards for whatever strategy calls for it (looking at you gardens). Priced at $1 to help people round out their gains on boards where this is the only $1 card, so you could gain another general store and two $2 cost cards for example.
Landfill:
Put something in the dump, get something out. Straightforward card to let you trash out your junk, but also gives you full access to the trash to gain anything you need back. Great defense against knights or good synergy with procession.
Statue:
A weaker version of monument. Instead of $2, gain a copper to your hand. Eventually stops when you run out the copper deck, so max 40 or so VP and a pile is run out, so no endless games.
Sewerage:
Originally named sewers before the release of Renaissance. Sift through all the waste in your deck with this alternate to courtyard. Chain together multiple sewerages and make a sewage system that can get you the cleanest hands around!
Street Market:
The purest form of market. Cantrip with variable +Buys. Stronger the more silvers or gold in your hand. Really useful for when you're running your goons or gardens decks and +Buys are really your biggest limiter, as this can get you far more buys than any other card if you set things up right.
Coal:
Similar to Encampment from the Strife fan expansion (
http://www.nosro.net/games/dominion/strife/list.php#encampment).
The idea is the same, burn up this card for a temporary bonus. However, you can choose to put it back or trash it, leading to some interesting player dynamics. Learn to share this non-renewable resource or burn them all up to prevent the other player from using any.
Power Plant:
Burn a card as fuel in the power plant to give you more cards to keep your engine going, turning it into smog. If you accidentally draw a card dead, you can save it for next turn. Must trash first so weaker than a masquerade in that regard, and also weakened by needing to gain a smog.
Prison:
This card used to be an effect like island allowing you set aside any card for the rest of the game, but then menagerie came out with the excellent exile feature and it was perfect for this card! Put away any card, but extra points if you manage to lock up a criminal. Just make sure their buddies don’t let them escape!
Reforge:
Gain 1 coin token for copper, 5 for plat, etc. Weaker version of moneylender but on all treasures, and it’s coin tokens so that's nice. Potentially game changing if you trash up all your treasures and end with a megaturn.
Boom Town:
Remade version of a card from Auto-Destruct Sequence (
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3984). I really liked this card idea, and it fit the set perfectly, but it had some balancing issues so I modified it to include in my set.
Locomotion:
Progress comes at a cost to everyone, involved or not. Move your deck along with this card, but watch as you get junk in everyone's face, including yours! This card is a self-junker with an option to remove them later.
Salesman:
And last but certainly not least, salesman. The buy equivalent of hireling, giving you the extra buys you need to get all these cheap cards! Less unique now that fair is an event, but is still helpful to have in many situations. Strictly worse than fair, because fair acts immediately instead of needing to wait a shuffle and doesn’t require an action to play.
And that's all folks! Let me know what you think, I feel confident this set is close to finalization and so I will be printing a few sets soon. Let me know if you’d like me to ship you a copy! Merry Christmas!