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[Co0kieL0rd]

Greetings, folks!
I've come up with this idea for a set of two cards that interact with each other. I'm just introducing the two mechanisms here, the cards haven't been tested or polished, yet. Please have a look at them. I will explain the idea below.

Siege, $5, Action/Attack
+1 Card. +1 Action. Each other player reveals the top 3 cards of their deck. If they revealed a Castle, they may pay a Castle token. If they didn’t, they trash a revealed Castle. They discard the rest.Setup: Add a Castle to each player’s deck.

Castle, $3, Action/Victory
+1 Card. +1 Action. Take a Castle token.Worth 1VP per Castle token you have.

With Siege in the Supply, each player starts with a Castle in their deck. This brings multiple changes with it;
(1) Each time you play the Castle, you basically score points. You can play it before your first reshuffle, and the more often, the better. (I might need to adjust the points-to-token ratio.)
(2) There's an eleventh card in your starting deck. It's a cantrip so it doesn't mess up your first reshuffle but there might be some edge-cases where this matters a lot.
(3) You start with a card in your deck that costs $3. Similar to LastFootnote's Domains, this can grant you an early trash-for-benefit bonus.

In order to stop your opponents from scoring points via Castle tokens, you need to buy Sieges (or other trashing attacks). Sieges are spammable to make hitting Castles easier but they are otherwise unreliable and weak attacks that provide no immediate benefit to the attacker (which I'm not so happy with). Siege still looks kinda stronger than Spy so it costs $5.

Two notes concerning the wording of Siege: it says "they trash a revealed Castle" so in the rare case they reveal two Castles (Rogue, Grave Robber,...) they only have to trash one; and it says "They discard all un-trashed cards" (better sounding suggestions?) so they discard a revealed Castle that hasn't been trashed, as well.

I would gladly appreciate it if you guys answer these questions:
Do the cards look interesting and fun?
Do they look practical?
Do they look balanced?

[LastFootnote]

I think the fact that you could lose your Castle to a Rogue, Knight, Swindler, or Saboteur is potentially problematic.

[Co0kieL0rd]

I think the fact that you could lose your Castle to a Rogue, Knight, Swindler, or Saboteur is potentially problematic.

I was thinking about that. To avoid it, Castle would need the additional clause "When you would trash this, if you have any Castle tokens, you may pay a token instead." There's plenty of space left on Castle but it would mean, there's another dash separating the text which I don't like

[Awaclus]

"They discard all un-trashed cards" (better sounding suggestions?)

"the rest".

[LastFootnote]

Well, the situation where you're going to end up with more than one Castle is really uncommon. So probably Castle should just give you +1 VP each time you play it. Then you have space under the line for, "When you would trash this, if you have any VP tokens, you may pay one instead."

[Co0kieL0rd]

Well, the situation where you're going to end up with more than one Castle is really uncommon. So probably Castle should just give you +1 VP each time you play it. Then you have space under the line for, "When you would trash this, if you have any VP tokens, you may pay one instead."

Pay VP tokens? How peregrine! I mean that would be a handy solution but I don't want it to interact with other VP token cards. Also, I was thinking about other token-to-VP ratios than 1:1 which wouldn't work with plain VP tokens.

[LastFootnote]

Well, the situation where you're going to end up with more than one Castle is really uncommon. So probably Castle should just give you +1 VP each time you play it. Then you have space under the line for, "When you would trash this, if you have any VP tokens, you may pay one instead."

Pay VP tokens? How peregrine! I mean that would be a handy solution but I don't want it to interact with other VP token cards. Also, I was thinking about other token-to-VP ratios than 1:1 which wouldn't work with plain VP tokens.

I think it's worth it. Why would you not want it to work with other VP token cards? That's rarely going to come up and it seems fine when it does. Plus, it would make Siege shorter, too. "+1 Card. +1 Action. Each other player reveals the top 3 cards of their deck, trashes a revealed Castle, and discards the rest."

By the way, I don't think Siege should be a cantrip. The tug-of-war between two cantrips seems uninteresting. Plus, all the Castles are going to be in the trash pretty quick if there are more than two players.

[Co0kieL0rd]

You have good and simple solutions, as always. With your suggestions, the cards would look about this:

Siege, $?, Action/Attack
Some vanilla bonus? Each other player reveals the top 3 cards of their deck, trash a revealed Castle and discard the rest.Setup: Add a Castle to each player’s deck.

Castle, $3, Action/Victory
+1 Card. +1 Action. +1VP.When you would trash this, if you have any VP tokens, you may pay 1VP instead.

Hmm, now they look less exotic but I guess that's the more elegant solution. Maybe Castle should get you +2VP each time you play it since you usually only have one? If Siege is not a cantrip, the incentive to buy it should be bigger, I think.

[pacovf]

There's a huge difference between this version of Castle and the one in the OP. The one in the OP doesn't give you any points if you trash it before the end of the game.

Whether the change is for good or not, I don't know.

[LastFootnote]

There's a huge difference between this version of Castle and the one in the OP. The one in the OP doesn't give you any points if you trash it before the end of the game.

Whether the change is for good or not, I don't know.

I consider it a benefit since it helps fix the Swindler/Saboteur/Knights/Rogue problem. With the version in the OP, you might build up 8 castle tokens and then have your castle trashed at the end of the game, which would suck a lot.

[Co0kieL0rd]

There's a huge difference between this version of Castle and the one in the OP. The one in the OP doesn't give you any points if you trash it before the end of the game.

Whether the change is for good or not, I don't know.

You're right! I totally forgot, that was part of my original idea: That you only have this one card that you really don't want to lose. Castle might well be even stronger. But that would probably make the whole game too swingy. Even the version with plain VP tokens would already change a lot in the early game.

LFN definitely made good points. Let's keep Castle this way for now. I should make Siege more compelling, though.

[LastFootnote]

If the danger of having your Castle trashed is part of the plan, then definitely keep it the way it is.

For me, the benefit of having this sort of setup is just being able to have new, simple Attack cards. I would probably do something like this:

Siege
Types: Action - Attack - Castle
Cost: $4
+$2. Each other player loses 1 VP (but cannot have less than 0 VP).

Keep
Types: Treasure
Worth $1. When you play this, +2 VP.
When you would trash this, discard it instead.

When you have a card of the Castle type, replace one of each player's starting Coppers with a Keep.

[Co0kieL0rd]

If the danger of having your Castle trashed is part of the plan, then definitely keep it the way it is.

For me, the benefit of having this sort of setup is just being able to have new, simple Attack cards. I would probably do something like this:

Siege
Types: Action - Attack - Castle
Cost: $4
+$2. Each other player loses 1 VP (but cannot have less than 0 VP).

Keep
Types: Treasure
Worth $1. When you play this, +2 VP.
When you would trash this, discard it instead.

When you have a card of the Castle type, replace one of each player's starting Coppers with a Keep.

Interesting. To have a Castle type would only make sense if I wanted to include more than one card referring to it. I'm not sure about that, yet. Keep is even closer to your Domain, and I would avoid too many similarities. I definitely want to try Castle/Keep as a cantrip and eleventh card in your starting deck because it seems pretty crazy to me. Might throw the game out of balance, though, we'll see.
I realise that if Keep was impossible to get trashed, Siege could penalise hitting an opponent's Keep even harder and it still would be less swingy because Keep remains in their deck, so that's a good thing. But if the attack cannot trash Keep anyway, I don't know if I would include the trash-clause. Anyway, nice suggestions, maybe I will try a combination of yours and mine.

[pedroluchini]

It seems really unfair that you could lose your Castle before you even get a chance to play it (and therefore can't pay any tokens to keep it). How about a different penalty?

When you trash this, you may discard down to 3 cards in hand. If you do, put this in your discard pile.

I think this adds some neat strategic possibilities, like trading one "currency" (handsize) for another (tokens) throughout the game.

It's true that this penalty is nerfed if, for whatever reason, you're already holding 3 or fewer cards (you choose to discard, find that you don't need to, but still get to keep your Castle).

[Co0kieL0rd]

It seems really unfair that you could lose your Castle before you even get a chance to play it (and therefore can't pay any tokens to keep it). How about a different penalty?

When you trash this, you may discard down to 3 cards in hand. If you do, put this in your discard pile.

I think this adds some neat strategic possibilities, like trading one "currency" (handsize) for another (tokens) throughout the game.

It's true that this penalty is nerfed if, for whatever reason, you're already holding 3 or fewer cards (you choose to discard, find that you don't need to, but still get to keep your Castle).

Since the Castle is among your starting cards, you will be able to play it at least once before your opponent gets any chance to play a Siege. Or am I missing something here?

Discarding as a protection against losing the Castle is a valid suggestion but not ideal for me as I wouldn't want you to be always able to defend against Siege. But I might change my mind...

[pedroluchini]

Since the Castle is among your starting cards, you will be able to play it at least once before your opponent gets any chance to play a Siege. Or am I missing something here?

It could get hit by an extremely lucky Swindler, a lucky Knight/Rogue, or a Saboteur (which will almost act like Castle-seeking missile).

Duh, never mind. You're right; the player is almost guaranteed to have a Castle token before the third turn.