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[Qvist]

I thought a little bit about the multi-type cards that we have.
I think you can differentiate between cards with subtypes and cards with 2+ types.
Attack cards are a subtype of Action Cards because a Victory-Attack Card doesn't make any sense I think. If you can't play the card, how can you attack?
The only thing that comes into my mind would be Treasure-Attack. But a Treasure card that attacks without spending an action would be very strong.
Theoretically this seems possible and must be a weak attack. But thematically an Attack Card fits better as a subtype of an Action card.
Ill-Gotten Gains attacks on-buy and not on-play so that might be the reason this is not an Attack Card.
Because of that Attack Card doesn't have an extra color, I think. But it would be nice if there were red.
So, it seems, that it won't be any Treasure-Attack Cards released.

Then there are Prize Cards. There are no subtype as Diadem is a Treasure-Prize Card while all other Prize Cards are Action-Prize Cards.
Normally this deserves its own color. But I understand that it's a special case as they come only in play if there is one speical card in the supply.
But isn't a Curse card also a special case and has a special color for only one card? This seems oversized if there weren't more Curse Cards coming. What do we expect Donald X?
I think, exactly that caused many to create expansions with curses as theme, containing Treasure-Curse cards etc. But many of you know that would require additional rules.

I think we can say there are 3 main types: Action (white), Treasure (yellow), Victory (green).
There are already 3 Action-Victory Cards with fitting white-green color.
Similarly there is 1 Treasure-Victory Card (yellow-green). These Cards are very straight-forward and are making no problems in what they do.

But there also the - very difficult to understand - Reaction Cards.
In the beginning everybody thought (ok, maybe only I did) that Reaction Cards are a subtype of Action Cards.
But with Hinterlands we now have a Treasure-Reaction and a Victory-Reaction Card.
What is a Reaction Card?
Let's first define the other types regarding when their effect comes into play.
An Action Card is a card you can play in the first phase of your turn and have to spend an Action.
A Treasure Card is a card you can play in the second phase of your turn without spending anything.
A Victory Card is a card that can't be played and counts only in the end.
A Attack Card is a card that, when triggered, affect other players.
A Reaction Card is a card that you can show (not play) when specific circumstances occur (even not in your turn).

So, a Reaction Card is totally independant from the Action part and I think the Action part was added that it isn't a dead card on some boards.
But, wait. A Treasure-Reaction Card is yellow-blue and a Victory-Reaction Card is green-blue. Reation Cards are therefore blue.
Why aren't Action-Reaction Cards white-blue? That doesn't make any sense to me and seems inconsistent.
Ok, there are still no vanilla Reaction Cards released, and I think there won't. But if they would come, there's no way to differentiate Action-Reaction Cards from pure Reaction Cards based on the color.
And I think a pure Reaction Card isn't a bad idea (see my other thread: Bargainer).

Some more examples without names and cost and all untested:
"If another player buys a card costing up to 5 Coins, you may reveal and discard this. If you do, gain a copy of it." (like Smugglers)
"If another player buys a card, you may reveal and discard this. If you do, +2 cards."
The last one seems interesting. It's like Laboratory, but a little bit worse; especially in multiplayer with handsize reducing attacks and of course you have to hold in your hand. If you draw it in your turn, it's dead.
And of course you can't scheme/throne/etc. it.
These may be examples of pure Reaction cards that are strong enough without an action part.

The last type would be the Duration Card.
Is it a subtype of Action or is it an independant type?
I think, it's designed as a subtype of Action (orange instead of white-orange again!), but I see no problems in having a Treasure-Duration Card.
For example (all untested):
$2 Tin Coin "Now and at the start of your next turn's buy phase: $1"
$5 Investment "0$. At the start of your next turn's buy phase: $3"
$4? Safe "When you play this and at the start of your next turn's buy phase, it`s worth $1 per Duration card you have in play (counting this)." (like Bank)

The last thing we haven't looked into: Does an Action-Treasure Card make sense? Why not?
We pointed out, that the difference between these two is the phase in which they are played and that playing an action card costs an action.
So if an Action-Treasure Card would exist a new rule has to exist: "If you play an Action-Treasure Card in the Action phase, you have to declare if you play it as an Action or as a Treasure Card and therefore starting the buy phase."
Then we could create cards, that have slighty different effects depending if you play it in the action or in the buy phase, e.g.:
Unnamed $4 "If played as an action: +2 Cards, $2, Discard 2 cards. If played as a treasure: $2 +1 Buy"

So what do you think?
Why the inconsistency in coloring the cards? Or do you think there's none?
Do you think there will be more and new 2-type Cards in the remaining 2 future expansions?
Will we ever see a pure Reaction card? Will we ever see another purple Curse card?

[rinkworks]

But, wait. A Treasure-Reaction Card is yellow-blue and a Victory-Reaction Card is green-blue. Reation Cards are therefore blue.
Why aren't Action-Reaction Cards white-blue? That doesn't make any sense to me and seems inconsistent.

I've noticed this and tried to make sense of it and ultimately just decided that it doesn't.  Why is Island half-and-half, but Moat is all blue?  Beats me.

I never thought of a Treasure-Duration, and if we ever got one, that would certainly suggest that Action-Durations are inconsistently colored.  But we're unlikely to get them, and so I suppose the coloring makes sense if we accept that Duration is a subtype of Action.  Anyway, certainly you can't have a Duration card that isn't also a playable type.

Before Hinterlands, I had an Action-Reaction-Victory custom card.  With the magic of Photoshop, I put together a beautiful card image for it.  But then Hinterlands came out, and I realized that I'd gotten the type ordering wrong (it should have been Action-Victory-Reaction, apparently) and also the color scheme:  I had blue on top and green on bottom, instead of vice versa.  Aargh.  I had some kind of definitive justification for why my ordering was correct, but I don't remember what it was, and maybe it's not as definitive as I thought at the time.

The last thing we haven't looked into: Does an Action-Treasure Card make sense? Why not?

I hope we never get one.  I admit that the main reason is it would be a nightmare for the Dominion computer game I'm working on, for various reasons.  But there are some rules complications that would have to be worked out and might be tedious to keep track of in practice.  For example, Peddler's cost is lowered by actions in play.  I suppose that if you play an Action-Treasure card as a Treasure, that counts.  But what about Conspirator, which operates by actions played and not actions in play?  It would be simple enough to throw a ruling into the FAQ to cover this, but doing the accounting for a complicated turn featuring many such Action-Treasure cards, some played as Actions and others as Treasures (throw in Black Market for a further opportunity for confusion), might be more trouble than it's worth.  Sometimes a barrage of Pawns and Minions on the table is already a headache.

[LastFootnote]

Well, Action and Treasure cards both do things when played. Unless the text of the card says "If this is your Buy phase, do this...", then the card will do the same thing no matter when you play it. You have to spend an Action to play it during your Action phase, but I suppose you could also Throne Room it.

I also hope we never get one.

[Qvist]

You're right. I hope we never get one Action/Treasure card. But the color problem still strikes me.
Is that asking too much or could Donald X give a statement to this?
Especially I like to hear an answer to these questions:
"Why are the Action/Reaction cards not white/blue and the Duration cards not white/orange?"
"Why do Action/Attack cards don't have a special color?"
(No criticism intended, just curiosity)

[Octo]

I think you're thinking about this too much personally.

The colours are there to highlight the functionality. Think about how we refer to all the cards: everyone refers to the blues as reactions, and the oranges as durations - no-one actually says "so when you're playing an action-duration card what happens if.....". A white/blue card would look weird in the first set, which is supposed to be simple. The reason treasure and VPs come in the split variety is perhaps because it's unusual for them to be played in such a manner and so this aspect needs highlighting. Same with treasure - it definitely needs highlighting that they can be played at some other time than the buy phase, but the fact that they're money also can't be ignored. Curses are purple on their own because , hell, they need to be!! I wouldn't read anything into how many of each group are colour at all personally.

Conversely, the fact that a duration lasts two turns is far more important than the obviousness that it's an action. Actions are commonplace. You play this card in the same way, and that's clear. The split colours start to look cumbersome, and I can see why the plain white/grey is just painted over completely.

Attacks not having any sub-set colour? Not sure at all about that one. Perhaps because they are too common, and they essentially operate in the same way - the differences in mechanics are not significant enough to warrant a new colour. And there's only three cards that respond to that sub-set in the whole game (so far). Prizes are the same: they're just not different enough to warrant it - once you have it's basically the same as all the rest.

Had they been different colours I wouldn't be complaining (attacks mainly), for example the dividers I made have attacks with red dividers, but I think having them plain highlight the others nicely, those with significantly different mechanics and different phases.

If you really really really can't sleep without an explanation other than "it just looks better and clearer this way", well, I don't think you're going to get one. They're like that to make the game clear, and not necessarily rigidly systematic.

[Jeebus]

Donald has explained why Attacks don't have a special color on BGG somewhere way back. It's because the Attack type doesn't have any special rules associated with it. "Attack" is essentially just a keyword so that it can be referred to by other cards. (You could in theory have a card that did the same as Witch, but without the "Attack" type, making it immune to Moat etc. Its cost would have to be higher than $5 of course.) Action, Treasure, Reaction, Duration, Victory and Curse cards all have rules that explain how they are used.

Actually I guess the rules for Victory and Curse are the same: Essentially there are no special rules (except for Province and Colony, regarding the end of the game). "Victory" and "Curse" are essentially just keywords. But since each of these types is the only one on the card, each type should get its own color.

It's the same with Prizes as with Attacks I guess. The Prizes do have some special rules though, regarding setup and that they're not in supply. But once a Prize card is in your deck, it doesn't behave in any special way because of the "Prize" type.