This one's pretty simple, and I'm sure others have tried something similar. It's not very strong; if you need a Levied card, you just buy it anyway, since giving an opponent $1 is not so bad. The fiance and I played with it last night, priced at $4. We both Levied Cultists, but there were other options, like Native Village, which probably would have made more money. Even underpowered, we thought the Event added depth to the Kingdom.
The card must be bought to trigger the Tax, so that you don't just Levy Curses. Plus there's nice counter-play with gainers. I specified non-Victory, which may not be necessary, but I thought Levying the Provinces would just go on your to-do list near the end of every game.
The tax could be a drawn card, of course that would be much stronger. You could make it cost $2, but I think that would be too good for many $5/2 splits. You could give it +Buy, but my gut says an event that makes you money should eat a buy.
FAQ:- This event causes there to be an extra pile in the game, but not in the Supply, called the Fallow pile. Cards from the Fallow pile cannot be bought or gained. During setup, randomly select an extra Kingdom card pile to be the first Fallow pile.
- When someone buys the Crop Rotation event, they switch the Fallow pile with a regular Kingdom pile of their choice. Cards from the old Fallow pile are now Kingdom cards and part of the Supply (so can be bought, gained, and count towards the end-game condition). Cards from the old Kingdom pile are now Fallow cards and have left the Supply (so cannot be bought nor gained).
- Basic Supply piles (Copper, Silver, Gold, Estate, Duchy, Province, Curse, and any added to the Kingdom such as Platinum from Dominion: Prosperity) cannot be made Fallow.
- Cards that have been gained from a pile that is now Fallow continue to work as usual.
Whoa! Can you do that? Have a pile that only exists sometimes? You can; I'm doing it right now. I'm very excited about this idea, but haven't tested it yet.
At first, the idea was to designate two piles that would switch in and out (the two crops) and they'd be the same price and be assigned somehow like the Bane. I was trying to write all that in one poor event and began to wonder why it needed any extra restrictions. Why not just, there is an 11th pile, and you can put it in the Supply instead of one that is there. Did you want that juicy King's Court? Too bad, now it's a Pearl Diver, I hope you brought an extra $2 to get KC back!
It's an event with +Buy, but if you want to buy a valuable card and
then banish it that same turn, you'll need to bring an extra buy yourself. Plus, including the +Buy makes it so you can always get the Fallow card if you're willing to fork over the extra cash.
The mechanic of removing a pile from the Supply may cause some weird interactions, but it should be no worse than Black Market. What happens to an exchanged Traveler when bought from the Black Market? Anyway, you can buy a Rats and rotate them out so you don't have to gain more Rats (until someone else rotates them back to mess with you). That sounds like a party to me.
