I don’t get this. It just oscillates to and fro and an extra Buy is quickly (in 3P game literally on T2) worth a Province. In a 2P game greening will start on T3 so the game will be over on T6.
At least in a 2P game, you would hesitate to buy AC as soon as there's six tokens on it, since your opponent would then be the first one to get a Province from it - and possibly the only one, since they can just wait until the last turn of the game to get the $8 Eye for an extra free Province. The game won't become a Province rush unless both players want it to.
I think it's an interesting interactive card in 2P. But I'd consider setting up the Eye with 2 or 4 tokens instead of 3, to make the first AC buy of the game a more difficult decision. With 3 tokens at set-up, if you're the first to buy the Event and it oscillates to and fro, you'll also be the first to gain a Province from it (since the token is added before the gaining).
I don't think buying AC will at all be automatic, especially in a 2 player game. Getting a free $4 card is significantly weaker than getting a free $5 card, which is significantly weaker than getting a free $6 card. That's part of the reason I started it at 3 tokens. There's not (imo) enough of a difference between gaining at $3 and gaining at $4 to make the free gain have a big drawback.
Also, while the first to buy AC will can ultimately be the first to gain a Province, that only opens up if the other player buys AC twice. They can (among other things) never buy AC (only giving their opponent a slight advantage with a free $4 card) or wait until the end of the game to buy a Duchy (ideally on the final turn of the game). And even if it does get to 7 tokens, the other player is still subject to the penultimate province rule. So, if each play has gained 3 Provinces and are otherwise tied (or close) in VP, the player that didn't first buy AC could use AC to gain a Duchy. Their opponent couldn't then use it to gain a Province, because that player would just do the same, and win (having the 3VP advantage).
But I agree that AC can be broken in multi-player games. There, if two (or more) of your opponents will just snatch it from each other each turn, you must join in if you don't want to lose.
Regardless of the number of players, every time you buy AC, it makes AC significantly better for your opponent(s) until you hit 7 (or in Colony games, 10) tokens (the one exception to this is when there are 5 tokens on the Eye, as most games don't have anything at $7). This is true even in multiplayer games. The notion that players will start spamming AC presumes they won't think strategically about the down-the-line impact of doing so, which I don't think is the case (although admittedly this does have something of a steeper learning curve than other Events).
In a 3P or 4P game, once the Eye hits 7 tokens it will set off a chain reaction in which each player will buy AC to gain a Province (or risk all of their opponents doing so and passing them), effectively ending the game. Where the Province pile is untouched (at 12), each player will get an equal share of the pile (unless they can use +Buy and $8 to double dip). This also means that when the Eye hits 6 (if no one has done any greening and you don't have reason to believe your opponents have significantly better access to +Buy that you), there's a very strong incentive to buy a Duchy, trigger the Province rush, and end the game with a 3VP victory. But everyone knows this, so no one will buy AC at 5 tokens unless they think they have some advantage in that rush.
Admittedly, this does create a risk of the Event being overly centralizing in multiplayer games (especially those with +Buy). There could be an incentive to try to navigate into the strongest position to set off that chain. But that can only happen if more than one player is going for it (as a single player cannot move the Eye past 4 tokens). And if one player is in that stronger position and buys AC at 5 tokens, the other players don't have to continue the chain.
It would be nice if the concept could be salvaged to also work in multi-player games. Maybe only allow a player to buy AC if their right neighbour has the Eye? That way each buy of AC would be a difficult decision instead of an automatic one in multi-player.
I thought about something like this as well. The problem with that is that if one player takes the (relatively) low-risk choice of doing the first AC buy, the only player that can choose to push the riskier buys is one who happens to be to that player's right. I had another idea, in which there would be a kind of trail of Eyes, so that you could only buy AC if (1) you hadn't bought it before, or (2) every other player had bought it. Those might look something like this (although probably with a more serious name):
Eye Shadow • Artifact
You can't buy Annuit Cœptis.
In games with at least 3 players, if you have the Eye and another player takes it, take this.
| Eye Shadow Shadow • Artifact
You can't buy Annuit Cœptis.
In games with at least 4 players, if you have Eye Shadow and another player takes it, take this.
|
Eye Shadow Shadow Shadow • Artifact
You can't buy Annuit Cœptis.
In games with at least 5 players, if you have Eye Shadow Shadow and another player takes it, take this.
| Eye Shadow Shadow Shadow Shadow • Artifact
You can't buy Annuit Cœptis.
In games with at least 6 players, if you have Eye Shadow Shadow Shadow and another player takes it, take this.
|
You could also dispense with the last two, and (in the rare 5P or 6P games) just require 3 other players to buy AC before you can go back to it. Ultimately, I'm not sure any of these strategies don't just further put off and complicate what would ultimately be every player using this as soon as they could to gain the Provinces until they are gone.
I really like the simplicity of the wording in this design, even if it creates so tricky strategy issues.
