Dormant? I mean, it works, but I think "unactivated" would be better.
OK, fair enough. I'm just playing around with different terms. I was using "deactivated" earlier. Obviously "unactivated" is more correct, so I'll go with that.
In other news, here are some ideas I had for other Activation cards. I haven't yet given these as much thought as the ones in the OP, so feedback would be great.
Sawmill
Types: Action – Activation
Cost: $3
+1 Buy. +$2.
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When you activate this, +1 Action per Sawmill you have in play.
So, I assume what you're trying to do with this is to have an alt-village, because otherwise a woodcutter variant doesn't seem all that exciting. That might work... but I think you should choose a different on-play effect. As is, it's almost strictly superior to woodcutter, since you get at least +1 Action back when activating this. The only thing that makes it worse is that it'll miss the reshuffle if you play it as your last action right before a reshuffle.
Citadel
Types: Action – Activation
Cost: $6
When you activate this, look through your discard pile. Set aside up to 3 Action cards from it and play them in any order.
A strategy that comes to mind is: have 2 Citadels and 2 action cards with +2$ in your deck. Whenever you have at least 4$ in your hand, activate the citadel. Play the two +2$'s and your other citadel, buy province.
The concept is kind of weird because it synergizes with action cards, but it doesn't want engines that draw your deck. I think it's similar to Golem, but it seemes to be a lot better, mainly because it can play other Citadels. It seems op to me, but I'm not sure.
I think you may have missed that activation uses up an action all on its own. Sawmill is certainly not strictly superior to Woodcutter. If you only have a single Sawmill, it is actually strictly worse. If you want Sawmill to be equivalent to a Woodcutter, you need to have played a village beforehand so that you can activate it on the turn it is played. If you don't have the extra action, then Sawmill is stuck in play for at least one turn before you can activate it and get it back into your deck. Activating it doesn't even give you anything if you don't have a second Sawmill in play.
To get any sort of advantage, you need to buy at least two Sawmills. That in itself is an opportunity cost. Then you need to play both, which may take a full shuffle to do. Then you still need to wait until the effect is even useful, i.e. you have two terminals in hand that you want to play. Meanwhile, any extra unplayed Sawmills you have are just more terminals clogging up your deck.
Given the amount of work needed to get anything useful out of Sawmill, $3 seems entirely appropriate. I would actually criticize that it's probably too weak most of the time, except that there is some potential for it to fuel a megaturn combo.
But from an "excitement" standpoint, I do agree. Woodcutter variants are a bit boring. OTOH, the same can be said for pretty much any combination of vanilla bonuses, and not every card can do something entirely novel. This is why ideas like the "Activation" typing are important -- they allow us to come up with interesting new cards without resorting to especially complex ideas. The vanilla bonus on Sawmill isn't that important. The question is whether the activation is interesting enough. Is "finnicky village" compelling? I'm not sure. I think a pure village activation might be better, but maybe that's too easy... or, actually, too similar to Walled Village.
As for Citadel, it can only take cards from the discard pile so you would need $4 in hand AND the three other action cards to be in the discard for this to work. Even when that works out, the chain does not last forever because you will reshuffle eventually. Moreover, this only gets you one Province a turn, which can be strong but is not at all broken, especially considering that Citadel costs $6 and doesn't do anything when you first play. For comparison, a Bishop-Chapel Golden Deck is easier to set up and far more reliable. It
is an interesting combo idea and shows how a card like Citadel has potential to add new strategy to the game.
Is it stronger than Golem? Maybe. But it does have drawbacks -- the extra action needed to activate it, and the fact that it ONLY looks in the discard pile.
At a glance, I don't think there's anything broken with Citadel. My main concern is that it's potentially very swingy. There are probably boards where Citadel would be an important part of an engine, but it's mostly luck that determines how early you can pull the trigger on it. One player cycles through key actions early in their shuffle and also plays Citadels early, giving them an early activation. Another player doesn't draw Citadel until the end of the shuffle and has no spare action to activate it, which means they have to wait through their NEXT shuffle until key actions go into the discard... it could be a difference of many, many turns advantage to one player just from shuffle luck.
