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[Aquila]

*Revolution is currently under playtesting and changes will be posted once confirmed, and this OP modified*

So, I liked the idea of making fan cards and started thinking about some, trying to introduce new mechanics the game doesn't yet cover. I thought of a batch, then started browsing this forum (not BGG's) to see if they were already covered. And indeed some of them were, but nothing exactly the same. So after a lot of thought and revision, then putting in a theme, tackling wording (as the first few posts will show, the boring bit), and now ongoing playtesting, I hope they're good for posting them here and will add interest to these forums. I see the theme of industrial revolution is well covered already; it was just fitting to what the set does.

Mechanics: cards that use multiple actions, action tokens, a set of cycling one-shots.

Cards that use multiple actions - these are cards that involve -1 action in various ways. Some can have additional actions used on them for extra effects; this is not playing them again, so Champion would not give another action for this. Similarly, Thrones replay the whole card, not just do one extra effect. You cannot, of course, use extra effects on these cards if you have no actions left. And once you play another action card, you cannot go back to a previous one to use another of its effects; it is then resolved, no matter how many effects you did. When you do more than one effect on a card, you can track it easily by putting an action token on the card.
Action tokens - there are cards that let you collect action tokens. When you pay one, you get +1 action. You can do this at the same times as calling a Coin of the Realm, directly after resolving an action. You would be allowed to pay one while resolving a card to use a -action effect it has.

Onto the cards. Playtesting notes are added in later posts.

Advancing Village - Action, $3 cost.
+1 card
+1 action
You may discard a card. If you do, take an action token.

How can you call this a Village? It's a cantrip! It will give you 2 actions, only you can use the second later, when you need it.

Blueprints - Action, $3 cost.
+1 buy
+ $1
Trash a card from your hand. + $1 per $2 it costs. If it wasn't an Action or Treasure card, trash up to 2 more cards from your hand.

The plans to develop your green space into cold, hard industry.

Cameo - Treasure, $5 cost.
$2
You may put a card from your hand on top of your deck. If you do, take an action token.

A worker's memory of home. Send something back to them, and keep working hard.

Canal - Action, $5 cost.
+1 buy
If you have used 3 or more actions this turn (counting on this), cards everywhere cost $1 less, but not less than $0.
You may gain a Treasure costing up to $4.

The travel route synonymous with industrial revolution. It's showing promise, but it doesn't feel quite there yet.

Colliery - Action, $2+ cost.
Do this one to three times. For each time after the first, -1 action:
+ $2
Discard a card.
-
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. For each $1 you overpay, take an action token.

An epic kind of terminal Silver.

Dairy - Action Reserve, $5 cost.
+2 cards
+1 buy
+ $2
At the start of your Buy Phase, put this on your Tavern mat.
-
At any time during your Action Phases, you may discard this from your Tavern mat and -1 action.

Keep the tavern supplied with your very own milk. And cheese.

Entrepreneur - Action Reaction, $2 cost.
+1 action
+ $1
If the Entrepreneur Supply pile is empty, +1 card +1 buy.
-
When any other player trashes a card, you may return this to the Supply to gain a card costing up to $5.

The set's reaction, aspiring to be a worthy $5 cost card be it Market or something else.

Hawker - Action Attack Duration, $4 cost.
Until your next turn, each other player may only buy 0 or 2 cards during their Buy Phases.
At the start of your next turn:
+1 buy
+ $2

This formerly confusing Consumerist got a facelift. With so many new products being invented, there are plenty of wares for him/her to peddle and distract your opponents with.

Innovator - Action, $5 cost.
Choose one, or do both in either order and -1 action:
+ $3 and play up to three Treasures from your hand; or pay all your $ to buy a card immediately, gaining it to your hand.

Give him enough resources and he'll create something to use right away. A proposed variant has also been tested, but I'm undecided which to go with at the moment. This is the big one.

Locusts - Action, $4 cost.
+1 card
+1 action
Set this aside. Trash a card from your hand and one from the Supply costing up to $5 other than Locusts.
At the end of your turn, trash this and gain a Locusts.

A swarm of voracious locusts chews up the kingdom. There are 12 of these, but thankfully they don't stick around forever.

Magnate - Action, $5 cost.
While this is in play, the first two times you gain a card, take an action token, and when you spend an action token, instead of +1 action play an Action card from your hand twice.

Modified from a complicated past, the former Executive became an industrial proprietor. He uses his influence to Throne cards, and gains power as your empire grows.

Patent - Action, $6 cost.
Choose one: +1 card, +1 action, +1 buy or + $1, then treat this as the card on your Patent mat.
-
When you first gain this, choose an Action card in the Supply costing up to $4 that is not on any other player's Patent mat. Put it on your Patent mat.

Make a great invention, and patent it before anyone else takes your idea.

Refinery - Action, $5 cost.
Choose one, or do both in either order and -1 action: trash a card from your hand, and gain a card costing up to $2 more than the trashed card; or look through your discard pile and put a card from it into your hand.

It doesn't follow the traditional verb form of Remodel variants. This is more obviously industrial.

Revolters - Action Attack Duration, $4 cost.
At the start of each other player's Buy Phase during their next turn, they get -1 action. If they have no actions left, they gain a Curse.
At the start of your next turn, take an action token.

Get their workers to join the revolt or else. This had proven weak and needed bettering, so this hopefully is nearer the solution.

Steelworks - Action, $5 cost.
Choose one, or do both in either order and -1 action: draw up to 8 cards in hand, then discard down to 5 cards; or reveal your hand, and if there are…
2 or more Treasures, +1 buy;
2 or more Actions, +2 actions;
2 or more Victory cards, + $2.

Sifter in which you can get an Ironworks-like bonus for the hand you have.

Textile Mill - Action, $5 cost.
Choose one, or do both in either order and -1 action: +3 cards; or look at the top 5 cards of your deck, discard any number, then put the rest back with any number from your hand in any order.

This one needed a balance from how it was before. The flavour is kind of loose, you spin your cards around like putting them through the mill.

Tutor - Action Duration, $3 cost.
+1 card
+1 action
Set aside a card from your hand. At the start of your next turn, if the card is an...
Action, play it;
Treasure, trash it;
Victory or none of these types, discard it and +1 card.

Teach your citizens the ways of efficient trade. Don't forget to pay him, though.

Wastelands - Victory, $5 cost.
If you have 15 or fewer cards in your deck, this is worth 5VP, otherwise 2VP.
-
When you gain this, trash up to 3 cards you have in play.

The set's alt VP. The name is industrial, sure, and fits the on-gain trash, but...how can you have a prosperous dominion over wastelands?


Sets of cycling one-shots - these are currently being reworked, reason being they are too swingy. Here is the old idea anyway. I call them Wanderer cards as they wander in and out of the kingdom. Firstly the text on the randomiser card:

Shuffle the Wanderer cards before each game. Keep them face down except for the top card, which is the only one that can be bought. They cannot be gained or trashed. When you buy a Wanderer, +1 buy, and it stays in play until the end of your next turn, after which return it to the bottom of this pile. Effects are played at the start of your next turn.

So they're a Supply pile, but they don't have the Action type. Buy one to get an extra boost for your next turn, then return it afterwards. This set of 10 goes with simplicity, helping engines.
 

  Bard - Choose one: +2 actions; gain a Silver; or trash 2 cards from your hand. $2 cost.
  Caravaneer - +2 cards. Gain an Estate. $2 cost.
  Circus Troupe - when you first buy a card this turn, gain a non-Victory card costing less than it. $2 cost.
  Painter - Choose one: +1 card; or look through your discard pile and put a card from it into your hand. $2 cost.
  Ramblers - reveal your hand. + $1 per Victory card you reveal. $2 cost.
  Refugees - choose an Action card in the Supply costing up to $4. Treat this as if it were that Action for this turn and play it. Whenever it would leave play, return this to the bottom of the Wanderers pile. $2 cost.
  Roadshow - +1 action +$1 +1 buy. You may trash a card from your hand. $2 cost.
  Secret Dealer - +1 buy. You may trash a card from your hand. If you do, + $ equal to its cost. $2 cost.
  Survivalist - Do this three times: discard any number of cards from your hand to draw that many cards. $2 cost.
  Tracker - look at the top 3 cards of your deck. Put one of them into your hand, put one back, and trash or discard the other. $2 cost.

One player could get just the right Wanderer, whereas the next one could be of no use to anybody, giving the one player a potential advantage. I believe, though, I'm very near to having an improvement worth posting.

That's all for now. Feel free to comment, criticise or suggest improvements. I don't mind criticism, it's essential to perfecting any design.
Thx for reading!

[Asper]

I suggest to post less cards at once. I understand why you would want to share all of your ideas at once with us, but given there are no pictures, this is an incredibly long wall of text. Many people won't even start reading it, as they will get tired of it before finishing. I'm saying this before taking any look at your actual cards, just as a friendly tip: Less at once means more detailed feedback, and probably more altogether.

Now I'll check some random cards and give my 2 cents:

Taskmaster - Action, +1 card +4 actions. If there are any unused actions at the end of your turn, draw 2 less cards for your next turn’s hand, down to 3. $4 cost.

On a German forum I already encountered something like this, where spending all your Actions was necessary to achieve something. I think it's not too great to punish somebody for overproducing, though. As I said about LastFootnote's Charlatan already, overproduction is in itself a punishment, as you waste something you put effort in. That said, it doesn't look unbalanced. With +3 Actions it'd maybe even pass as a regular 4$? I don't know. Or just give the penalty every time. Just, I'd suggest to not punish for failing to use your potential.

Potteries - Action, +4 cards. You may use a second action on this. If you do, +1 buy, + $2. $6 cost.

You might like to check out my Town/Road (click the link in my signature) on how I did spending two Actions on one card. It seemed easier to me back then. And I'd say it is if you only do one card with that ability, but here of course you made it a recurring thing. Which means that yes, you have to learn something new, but you get a whole new bunch of cards that use that thing. That said, I'm not sure how good or bad Potteries is. It seems better than Hunting Grounds, but I'm not sure how much better.

Advancing Village - Action, +1 card, +2 actions. If this was played from your hand, take an Action Token. $5 cost.

I don't get what you say about "replaying itself infinitely". If the +1 Action token just gives you +1 Action, however would you play this card again?

Executive - Action, +1 card. Discard any number of Treasure cards. Take an Action Token per card discarded. While this is in play, when you spend an Action Token you may use the action on the last one you played.

I don't get the last part. Is the +1 Action Token supposed to be something like Royal Carriage? Because if it's just "When you play an Action card, you may use an Action token to get +1 Action", what would "use it on the last one you played" even mean?

[navical]

I suggest to post less cards at once. I understand why you would want to share all of your ideas at once with us, but given there are no pictures, this is an incredibly long wall of text. Many people won't even start reading it, as they will get tired of it before finishing. I'm saying this before taking any look at your actual cards, just as a friendly tip: Less at once means more detailed feedback, and probably more altogether.

Definitely this.

Executive - Action, +1 card. Discard any number of Treasure cards. Take an Action Token per card discarded. While this is in play, when you spend an Action Token you may use the action on the last one you played.

I don't get the last part. Is the +1 Action Token supposed to be something like Royal Carriage? Because if it's just "When you play an Action card, you may use an Action token to get +1 Action", what would "use it on the last one you played" even mean?

I assume it's meant to be

While this is in play, when you spend an Action token, you may replay the last Action you played instead of getting +1 Action.

Although I can't find a perfect wording either, I think that's clearer?

[Aquila]

I suggest to post less cards at once.

Good call. I should thank you both for reading what you have.

Edit: so I split them up according to their mechanics. Reverted as they looked more clumsy dotted around. I am slowly working on images for each card.

Executive - Action, +1 card. Discard any number of Treasure cards. Take an Action Token per card discarded. While this is in play, when you spend an Action Token you may use the action on the last one you played.

I don't get the last part. Is the +1 Action Token supposed to be something like Royal Carriage? Because if it's just "When you play an Action card, you may use an Action token to get +1 Action", what would "use it on the last one you played" even mean?

So you play Executive, and discard some Treasures to get some action tokens. If there are no actions left after this, you would pay a token to gain +1 action in the usual way. You can choose to play an action from your hand at this point.
Or you can use the action you just got from the token on the Executive, since it is the last action you played. So it would still count as using an action, and you would again have none left.
Now the difficulty with wording; suppose after the Executive you play Potteries, then pay another token and use the action on the Potteries. You are using 'a second action' on it and would get the Woodcutter effect. If you were to 'replay' the Potteries like with Royal Carriage you would replay the card and get 4 cards again.

I hope this makes sense since it helps to explain this:

Advancing Village - Action, +1 card, +2 actions. If this was played from your hand, take an Action Token. $5 cost.

I don't get what you say about "replaying itself infinitely". If the +1 Action token just gives you +1 Action, however would you play this card again?

I should explain that when I wrote the commentary for each card in my own notes, the rule on Executive was always what action tokens did. I changed them for simplicity and then made Executive to keep the effect. I just forgot to update this.
So with an Executive in play, you'd play Advancing Village, gain a token, which you use on Advancing Village, gain another token, etc.

Edit: adjusted the comments on each card.

[Asper]

Hum, I'm really not sure I like the idea of being allowed to re-play cards that are already in play. It seems wonky with Durations, at least. If you want to keep that ability, you should fix up Executive instead of altering other cards that give out the token: "While this is in play, when you play an Action card from your hand, you may first spend any number of +1 Action Tokens to play that card that many additional times."
That would stack with several, though. An alternative would be to just introduce an own type of token: "Take that many Executive Tokens..."

[Aquila]

Some adjustments thanks to your feedback.

I guess a lot of confusion arises with this whole 'second action' idea. If we remove that things should be easier. I can do what I did to the unnamed remodeler, 'choose one... You may use two actions on this'.

Glassworks - action. Choose one: return up to 2 cards from your hand to the piles they came from, and you may gain a card costing exactly the sum of the returned cards; or draw up to 6 cards in your hand. You may use two actions on this. $5 cost.

Should play just the same, only Thrones let you do one then the other too.

Potteries - Action, choose one: +3 cards; or +1 buy, + $2. You may use two actions on this. $6 cost.

I feared that playing Village-this to draw 4 cards twice would be too strong, so it's down to 3 but hopefully a lot simpler. I'm toying with adding 'when you gain this, take 2 action tokens.'

Steelworks - Action. Choose one: draw up to 9 cards in hand, then put 3 cards from your hand on the bottom of your deck; or reveal your hand, and if there are… 3 or more Treasures, + $2; 3 or more Actions, +2 actions; 1 or more Victory cards, +1 buy. You may use two actions on this. $5 cost.

This is quite a bit stronger; you can reveal your hand twice for 3 actions and/or $4, but it'll be harder to get with a 4 card hand.

Textile Mill - Choose one: +1 card per card in your hand, discard up to 3 cards then put your hand on top of your deck in any order; or gain a card costing up to 4 into your hand. You may use two actions on this. $5 cost.

The Workshop part gains to hand to work better with the first part, but would two 4s to hand be too strong?

A change to Taskmaster to be similar to Lost City's balance:

Taskmaster - Action, +1 card +4 actions. When you gain this, draw 2 less cards for your next turn’s hand, down to 3.

The skill element is still there. There could be some complex reason to gain one just for the effect.

These changes should make Executive and Expert much simpler:

Executive - Action, +1 card. Discard any number of Treasure cards. Take an Action Token per card discarded. While this is in play, when you spend an Action Token you may replay the last action you played instead of +1 action. $6 cost.

Expert - Action. Choose one: +1 card, +1 action, +1 coin or +1 buy, then replay the last action you resolved that is not an Expert. $5 cost.

About replaying durations, the instructions for Royal Carriage seem to imply you can only do so on the turn you play them, and not on their later effects. If you do so the card stays out with it for easy tracking. It wouldn't make sense with Hireling otherwise. And it can't replay reserves as they're never in play after they're resolved. So, with the cards changed to be like this, the same rule would apply, the action token (Executive) or Expert card staying with the duration.

Hopefully improvements.

[Chris is me]

It's not at all clear what "you may use 2 actions on this" means. To me, it reads "you may play this card and have it consume 2 actions instead of 1", with no additional effect.

Do you actually mean "You may use an additional Action to play this card a second time"?

[faust]

Consumerist - Action attack duration. Each other player reveals their hand at the start of their turn and plays all Treasure cards, then pays all their $. They may gain a card costing up to the amount. At the start of your next turn: +1 card + $2. $5 cost.

Split your opponents' total coins for the turn in two. It has them gain a card to save Black Market-like confusion, particularly involving debt, and it prevents on-buy effects too. This may be strong, or at least swingy in its impact.

This has serious problems with Crown. You are forced to play Crown, but it's your Action phase, so uh I suppose you can throne an Action. What if I draw more Treasures? Do I have to play them? Am I allowed to play them? And what if I discard some of the Treasures in my hand? Am I still required to play them?

Similar problems, to a lesser extent, occur with Counterfeit - did I play the counterfeited card and have thus fulfilled the requirement to play it, or does Consumerist line up the cards in your hand for play and you have to play them even when they stop being in your hand? And if I Counterfeit Rocks to gain a Silver in hand, what about that?

Unfortunately, I do not have a good idea of how to fix these issues while keeping the premise. Other than that, I would add that gaining a card at the start of your turn rather than at its end is usually considered a bonus, so I'm not sure the attack is strong enough to be worth it.

[Shvegait]

It's not at all clear what "you may use 2 actions on this" means. To me, it reads "you may play this card and have it consume 2 actions instead of 1", with no additional effect.

Do you actually mean "You may use an additional Action to play this card a second time"?

These cards give you an extra optional effect, if you pay Actions. Think of how Butcher lets you pay Coin tokens, and then that gives you an extra benefit. Here, you pay Actions for the extra benefit.

Take Potteries for example (using the version from the first post). When you play it, it's just like Hunting Grounds. Then, you can pay another Action (if you have one) for +1 Buy, +$2.

I find the wording on these cards a bit confusing, especially considering the explanation on how Action tokens work. The card texts themselves should be enough to explain how the card works. The alternating back and forth between 1st action part and 2nd action part seems too complicated. The concept of "using two actions" is certainly ambiguous and should be reworded.

I think the concept could work somehow like this, for example:

Potteries - $6 Action - +3 Cards, You may pay an Action. If you did, +1 Buy, +$2.

This wording would be consistent with Storyteller, but still might be a little ambiguous on its own because Action is an overloaded word in Dominion (see Diadem). Actually, if you want to be consistent with Diadem, you may want to say "You may pay an unused Action", but I'm not sure that's necessary.

As for Action tokens, you could make them work just like Coin tokens from Guilds. Instead, you would have, during your Action phase, you may spend an Action token, for +1 Action. I think that is what you intended, though I'm not sure. I would think, though, to prevent some rules problems or confusion, you would want to limit when Action tokens can be spent to after completely resolving an Action, or whenever you "may pay an Action".

Unfortunately, by Executive changing Action tokens into Royal Carriage effects, the only reasonable time to be able to spend Action tokens is after completely resolving an Action, which doesn't work nicely with the "may pay an Action"/"use two Actions on this" cards. Honestly, though, Executive is overpowered and probably needs to change anyway. A single Executive and a single Bridge can end the game in just a few turns, as soon as you can get 7 or 8 Action tokens and collide Executive and Bridge.

Some interesting card effects here. Haven't even looked beyond the Action theme yet.

[Aquila]

Some good observations, thank you all.

Consumerist - Action attack duration. Each other player reveals their hand at the start of their turn and plays all Treasure cards, then pays all their $. They may gain a card costing up to the amount. At the start of your next turn: +1 card + $2. $5 cost.

Split your opponents' total coins for the turn in two. It has them gain a card to save Black Market-like confusion, particularly involving debt, and it prevents on-buy effects too. This may be strong, or at least swingy in its impact.

This has serious problems with Crown. You are forced to play Crown, but it's your Action phase, so uh I suppose you can throne an Action. What if I draw more Treasures? Do I have to play them? Am I allowed to play them? And what if I discard some of the Treasures in my hand? Am I still required to play them?

Similar problems, to a lesser extent, occur with Counterfeit - did I play the counterfeited card and have thus fulfilled the requirement to play it, or does Consumerist line up the cards in your hand for play and you have to play them even when they stop being in your hand? And if I Counterfeit Rocks to gain a Silver in hand, what about that?

Unfortunately, I do not have a good idea of how to fix these issues while keeping the premise. Other than that, I would add that gaining a card at the start of your turn rather than at its end is usually considered a bonus, so I'm not sure the attack is strong enough to be worth it.

This may skew game mechanics too far, but:
"Each other player starts their next turn with a Buy Phase, in which they keep their hand revealed and play all Treasures. (They still have a Buy Phase after their Action Phase.)"
The potential this has is when a player can hit 8 but only with the actions he has. Instead he gets two buy phases with less than 8 to spend.

It's not at all clear what "you may use 2 actions on this" means. To me, it reads "you may play this card and have it consume 2 actions instead of 1", with no additional effect.

Do you actually mean "You may use an additional Action to play this card a second time"?

These cards give you an extra optional effect, if you pay Actions. Think of how Butcher lets you pay Coin tokens, and then that gives you an extra benefit. Here, you pay Actions for the extra benefit.

Take Potteries for example (using the version from the first post). When you play it, it's just like Hunting Grounds. Then, you can pay another Action (if you have one) for +1 Buy, +$2.

I find the wording on these cards a bit confusing, especially considering the explanation on how Action tokens work. The card texts themselves should be enough to explain how the card works. The alternating back and forth between 1st action part and 2nd action part seems too complicated. The concept of "using two actions" is certainly ambiguous and should be reworded.

I think the concept could work somehow like this, for example:

Potteries - $6 Action - +3 Cards, You may pay an Action. If you did, +1 Buy, +$2.

This wording would be consistent with Storyteller, but still might be a little ambiguous on its own because Action is an overloaded word in Dominion (see Diadem). Actually, if you want to be consistent with Diadem, you may want to say "You may pay an unused Action", but I'm not sure that's necessary.

How does this read:
"Choose one: +3 cards; or +1 buy +$2. You may use a second action on this to replay it."

As for Action tokens, you could make them work just like Coin tokens from Guilds. Instead, you would have, during your Action phase, you may spend an Action token, for +1 Action. I think that is what you intended, though I'm not sure. I would think, though, to prevent some rules problems or confusion, you would want to limit when Action tokens can be spent to after completely resolving an Action, or whenever you "may pay an Action".

I never did explain did I? Well this is exactly what I thought.

Unfortunately, by Executive changing Action tokens into Royal Carriage effects, the only reasonable time to be able to spend Action tokens is after completely resolving an Action, which doesn't work nicely with the "may pay an Action"/"use two Actions on this" cards. Honestly, though, Executive is overpowered and probably needs to change anyway. A single Executive and a single Bridge can end the game in just a few turns, as soon as you can get 7 or 8 Action tokens and collide Executive and Bridge.

Ah yes, I had kept my Canal in mind but I suppose a Bridge-Silver opening would be too fast. If I limited the number of Treasures it could discard to 2?

[faust]

Consumerist - Action attack duration. Each other player reveals their hand at the start of their turn and plays all Treasure cards, then pays all their $. They may gain a card costing up to the amount. At the start of your next turn: +1 card + $2. $5 cost.

Split your opponents' total coins for the turn in two. It has them gain a card to save Black Market-like confusion, particularly involving debt, and it prevents on-buy effects too. This may be strong, or at least swingy in its impact.

This has serious problems with Crown. You are forced to play Crown, but it's your Action phase, so uh I suppose you can throne an Action. What if I draw more Treasures? Do I have to play them? Am I allowed to play them? And what if I discard some of the Treasures in my hand? Am I still required to play them?

Similar problems, to a lesser extent, occur with Counterfeit - did I play the counterfeited card and have thus fulfilled the requirement to play it, or does Consumerist line up the cards in your hand for play and you have to play them even when they stop being in your hand? And if I Counterfeit Rocks to gain a Silver in hand, what about that?

Unfortunately, I do not have a good idea of how to fix these issues while keeping the premise. Other than that, I would add that gaining a card at the start of your turn rather than at its end is usually considered a bonus, so I'm not sure the attack is strong enough to be worth it.

This may skew game mechanics too far, but:
"Each other player starts their next turn with a Buy Phase, in which they keep their hand revealed and play all Treasures. (They still have a Buy Phase after their Action Phase.)"
The potential this has is when a player can hit 8 but only with the actions he has. Instead he gets two buy phases with less than 8 to spend.

A hopefully simpler solution I thought of:

"While this is is play, when another player starts their turn, they reveal their hand and set aside all Treasure cards. Then they play the cards set aside in any order."

This still has weirdness with Crown, but the rules should be clear; any additional Treasures are not played. It nerfs Counterfeit since you don't get to trash anything, but that's fine.

On power level: I get that, but hitting $8 is only really important late-game; maybe the attack hurts very early as well if you would reach $5 with Action + Treasures. Mid-game, gaining the card and being able to play it the same turn may well be a bonus; providing virtual +buy may be a bonus too. Attacks that are sometimes beneficial can work (see Haunted Woods) and it's an interesting way to attack a player, but I think the other effects of the card are too weak.

[Shvegait]

How does this read:
"Choose one: +3 cards; or +1 buy +$2. You may use a second action on this to replay it."

I think this might be OK, but I would drop the word "second" because it's confusing (or re-word depending on what you want the card to do). Consider the case where you do use a second action to replay it. Then you are faced with the same choice: "You may use a second action on this to replay it". But what does that mean now? Are you not allowed to, because it would be a "third" action? Or are you allowed to? For that particular play of the action card, it's only your "second" action. That's the reason I think something like "You may pay an Action to replay this" would be more clear.

Also keep in mind that as written, this lets you pick +3 Cards each time, if you want. Note that the first play is a Smithy, but each subsequent play is a Hunting Grounds (because you don't have to play another card from your hand for the effect). So this might be too strong, when there are cheap villages.

[Asper]

How does this read:
"Choose one: +3 cards; or +1 buy +$2. You may use a second action on this to replay it."

You're running into a few of the troubles I tried to avoid with my Road (yes, this is shameless self-advertizing in a way, but maybe it'll be insightful, after all):
First, it's a hard to track how many buys and coins you have. Admittedly, my Road can't track the Actions it used, either - but here you're counting 3-dimensional: Coins, Buys AND Actions.
Second, my card isn't in the supply as a +1 Action token on it would draw your deck. That still works with Champion, though that's a bit harder to achieve and kinda over the top either way. Here it's worse, because the card actually generates unlimited amounts of coins and buys, which means putting the token here and drawing one=Victory.
Third, Road comes with a Village for the reason that it gets easier to balance without being useless from time to time.
Lastly, the wording: If I played this at first with a Herold, Throne Room or something like that, I never spent a "first" action on it, so may I actually use a "second" one?

[Aquila]

OK, so the wording is still misleading. What it needs to convey is when you play the action, you have the option of using one extra action on it to replay it, but avoid 'replaying' it for such cases as Champion. Maybe...
"You may use an action to do this twice."

Tracking which effect you choose each time is a valid point. When it comes to the number of times you replay an action with Executive or Expert or if you 'use it twice' you can put an action token on the card for each extra time. An idea for indicating which effect you chose is put the token on the picture for one effect and on the text for the other. For some tracking cases (such as maybe KC-Pawn or Courtier) you just have to be creative.

[Asper]

Other suggestions:

"Choose one: A; B
You may pay/expend/use up/lose one of your Actions, to choose a second time (the choice may be the same)."

or:
"Choose one: A; B
If you have unused actions, you may choose a second time (the choice may be the same). If you do: -1 Action"

[Aquila]

Appreciate the suggestions, but I think I like the 'do this twice' format the best. It already exists on Remake. And I think it should go first, so that running through the effects in order one doesn't think they can use an extra action to then choose two more times. So like this:

Action. You may use an extra action to do the following twice. Choose one: trash a card from your hand and gain a card costing up to 2 more than the trashed card; or look through your discard pile and put a card from it into your hand. 5 cost.
Canal - +1 buy. You may use an extra action on this. If you do, cards everywhere cost 2 less this turn, but not less than 0. For the first time Canal is played on your turn, when you gain a card, you may gain a Treasure costing up to 4. 5 cost.
Colliery - +1 card. You may use an extra action to do the following twice, or two extra actions for three times: +2 coins, discard a card. 4 cost.
Glassworks - You may use an extra action to do the following twice. Choose one: return up to 2 cards from your hand to the piles they came from, and you may gain a card costing exactly the sum of the returned cards; or draw up to 6 cards in your hand. 5 cost.
Potteries - You may use an extra action to do the following twice. Choose one: +3 cards; or +1 buy, +2 coins. 6 cost.

Does this make complete sense? Do they need the 'extra' there?

And two other proposed tweaks:

Cameo - Treasure, +$2. Take an Action Token. You may put a card from your hand on top of your deck. $4 cost.

Generally more playable.

Patency - When you first gain this, set aside 2 different Action cards other than Patency from the Supply costing up to a total of $8. When you play this, it becomes the action on the left until it is resolved, then, unless this has left play, the one on the right. $7 cost.

Wording adjustment that should play durations and reserves in a balanced way. Put a Reserve on the left and the right card never gets played as Patency goes to the Tavern mat, leaving play.
If a Duration is the left card, then we follow on from what was discussed earlier with Royal Carriage's interaction with durations; it is resolved after the immediate turn's effects are completed, not the later ones. Patency will then become the right card, thereby cancelling the next turn effects. So no shenanigans with Tactician or Hireling.
And if either are on the right, they play normally.
Well, that was wordy... I hope you get it.

[Shvegait]

Appreciate the suggestions, but I think I like the 'do this twice' format the best. It already exists on Remake. And I think it should go first, so that running through the effects in order one doesn't think they can use an extra action to then choose two more times. So like this:

Colliery - +1 card. You may use an extra action to do the following twice, or two extra actions for three times: +2 coins, discard a card. 4 cost.

Does this make complete sense? Do they need the 'extra' there?

A problem with this wording is that it's not clear what happens if you choose not to use an extra action. I know you intend it to mean that you do the part that follows a single time, but it's not clear from the wording. The way it reads, you don't actually get any benefit from playing the card at all unless you spend additional actions. Something like "Otherwise, do it once" is needed, which could be in parentheses.

I like Asper's suggestion of "If you have unused Actions, you may ... -1 Action". It doesn't require any additional rules and it's not too wordy. The only problem is that it doesn't work nicely with every possible clause you have after it, but if you have something like discard a card, it's pretty clean.

How about this?

Colliery - +1 Card, +1 Action. Do this three times: If you have any unused Actions, you may discard a card, for -1 Action, +$2.

[Aquila]

Updated the OP with wording changes and hopefully clearer commentary on each card.

Appreciate the suggestions, but I think I like the 'do this twice' format the best. It already exists on Remake. And I think it should go first, so that running through the effects in order one doesn't think they can use an extra action to then choose two more times. So like this:

Colliery - +1 card. You may use an extra action to do the following twice, or two extra actions for three times: +2 coins, discard a card. 4 cost.

Does this make complete sense? Do they need the 'extra' there?

A problem with this wording is that it's not clear what happens if you choose not to use an extra action. I know you intend it to mean that you do the part that follows a single time, but it's not clear from the wording. The way it reads, you don't actually get any benefit from playing the card at all unless you spend additional actions. Something like "Otherwise, do it once" is needed, which could be in parentheses.

I like Asper's suggestion of "If you have unused Actions, you may ... -1 Action". It doesn't require any additional rules and it's not too wordy. The only problem is that it doesn't work nicely with every possible clause you have after it, but if you have something like discard a card, it's pretty clean.

I went with do it once, since as you said the format wouldn't work very well for all the multiple action cards, so I decided to keep them all the same. That said, it could work (now I notice Diadem says 'unused actions'). Here they both are:

Colliery - +1 card. You may do the following once, use an extra action to do it twice, or two extra actions for three times: + $2, discard a card.

Colliery - +1 Card, +1 Action. Do this three times: If you have any unused Actions, you may discard a card, for -1 Action, +$2.

Potteries - Action, You may use an extra action to do the following twice. Choose one: +3 cards; or +1 buy, + $2.

Potteries - choose one: +3 cards; or +1 buy, + $2. If you have any unused actions, you may choose again for -1 action.

I could even try the second use format again:

Potteries - +4 cards. If you have any unused actions, you may do: -1 action, +1 buy, + $2.

I would appreciate opinions as to what format is best.

And so this isn't all just a discussion on how to word cards properly, I'll put the question out:

Consumerist - Action attack duration. Each other player reveals their hand at the start of their turn and plays all Treasure cards, then pays all their $. They may gain a card costing up to the amount. At the start of your next turn: +1 card + $2. $5 cost.

Split your opponents' total coins for the turn in two. It has them gain a card to save Black Market-like confusion, particularly involving debt, and it prevents on-buy effects too. This may be strong, or at least swingy in its impact.

...

This may skew game mechanics too far, but:
"Each other player starts their next turn with a Buy Phase, in which they keep their hand revealed and play all Treasures. (They still have a Buy Phase after their Action Phase.)"
The potential this has is when a player can hit 8 but only with the actions he has. Instead he gets two buy phases with less than 8 to spend.

A hopefully simpler solution I thought of:

"While this is is play, when another player starts their turn, they reveal their hand and set aside all Treasure cards. Then they play the cards set aside in any order."

This still has weirdness with Crown, but the rules should be clear; any additional Treasures are not played. It nerfs Counterfeit since you don't get to trash anything, but that's fine.

On power level: I get that, but hitting $8 is only really important late-game; maybe the attack hurts very early as well if you would reach $5 with Action + Treasures. Mid-game, gaining the card and being able to play it the same turn may well be a bonus; providing virtual +buy may be a bonus too. Attacks that are sometimes beneficial can work (see Haunted Woods) and it's an interesting way to attack a player, but I think the other effects of the card are too weak.

I realised making Consumerist start turns with buy phases gets really wonky with Villa, so before bothering to get the wording sussed, is his attack too weak based on faust's reasoning?

[Aquila]

Having got some good playtesting done, I thought I'd post some updates. Here are the main ones:

• I've put all the cards that use multiple actions under the type 'Multi'. It's a clean solution that makes wording much shorter and simpler. All Multi cards call for -1 action to do extras in various ways, and the rule simply is you can't do such effects of you have none left.
• Advancing Village (was 5 cost 1 card 2 actions take token) now gives tokens when you gain cards. It seemed better to not simply give tokens out on a simple cantrip, but to make it a bit more challenging to get them.
• Cameo similarly gives its token if you do top-deck a card. It's bumped up to 5 like the other silver+ Treasures.
• Glassworks now trashes cards rather than returns them to the Supply. It actually progresses to the game end now, and plays nicely.
• Consumerist is now called Hawker, actually a thing, and reads:

  each other player reveals their hand and sets aside all Treasure cards. They take another Buy Phase after their next one with them, with +1 buy. At the start of your next turn: + $3.
• Entrepreneur now gives +1 buy on pile empty. It basically takes what Labourer ​tried in being a delayed Market, so Labourer can now go.
• Executive is now called Magnate:

  discard up to 2 cards. Take an action token per card discarded. While this is in play, when you spend an action token, instead of +1 action you get: +1 card, and you may play an Action card from your hand twice.
• Patency is now Patent, again actually something real, and it needed​ to become a Multi. You choose one set aside Action, and can then do the other for -1 action.
• Revolters was weak, and easily stopped by BM. It's now:

  At the start of each other player's Buy Phase during their next turn, they get -1 action. If they have no actions left, they gain a Curse. At the start of your next turn, +1 action.

  It doesn't quite seem right as is, it'll need a bit more work.
• Steelworks is now:

  draw up to 8 cards, then discard down to 5; or reveal your hand, and if there are... 2 or more Actions, +2 actions; 2 or more Treasures, +1 buy; 2 or more Victories, + $2.
• Textile Mill is now:

  +2 cards and gain a Silver to hand; or look at the top 5 cards of your deck, discard any number, then put the rest back with any number from your hand in any order.

And there are outtakes:
Labourer (+1 action, +1 buy, if 3 or more actions have been used this turn +1 card +1 coin) didn't look very interesting alongside Entrepreneur, as explained above.
Taskmaster (+1 card +4 actions, on buy draw 2 less cards for next hand) lost its appeal once I started thinking action tokens.
Toxic Waste (while in play cards not in supply cost 1 less, when other player plays a card costing 1 or less they gain Curse) tried too hard to be different, and was potentially too strong. I could make Revolters a much simpler curser.

The OP has had an overhaul to make it a hopefully simpler read.

[ThetaSigma12]

I haven't really read through everything, but kudos for updating an expansion based on playtesting! That doesn't happen a lot.

[Aquila]

Some more definite updates.

Just by putting each Multi with Fishing Village it was clear which ones looked balanced and which weren't:

• Colliery was insane, but removing the +card has reined it in. I'm now trying it as an overpay card, $2 +1 action token per 1 overpay. Looking fine at the moment.
• Glassworks got decks going too fast, with trash and good draw together. It's an outtake.
• Potteries was so good it's silly. Straight to the outtakes.
• Textile Mill was in the same boat as Potteries, with +2 cards +2 coins (in the form of to hand silver) together. But with Potteries gone, I'm trying +3 cards on it instead.

No problems with the others yet.

And Hawker's been weak. I've got an idea in line for a fix, but it hasn't been tested yet.

And three promising new cards:

Incinerator - Action, $3 cost.
+1 buy
Trash up to 2 cards from your hand. If you trashed a Curse, trash up to 2 more cards from your hand and + $1.

Innovator - Action Multi, $5 cost.
Choose one, or do both in either order and -1 action:
+ $3 and play up to three Treasures from your hand; or pay all your $ to buy a card immediately, gaining it to your hand.

Locusts - Action, $4 cost.
+1 card
+1 action
Set this aside. Trash a card from your hand and one from the Supply costing up to $5 other than Locusts.
At the end of your turn, trash this and gain a Locusts.

[ThetaSigma12]

Incinerator - Interesting. Reminds me of Plastic Brain's Medicine. It might be a tad too good with curses or a bit swingy.

Innovator - IDK about the -action, but the rest should be just gaining. "Spend all of your $, then gain a card to your hand costing up to the total $ spent." I don't think you need the option to do only one, right now the card seems too good. I could really be underestimating the -action though.

Locusts - Looks really good. A cantrip trasher for 4, that gives you a free $5? Sure, it has limited uses but it's a guaranteed opener. Even with 5, you need to grab one to at least contest the pile.

[Aquila]

Innovator - IDK about the -action, but the rest should be just gaining. "Spend all of your $, then gain a card to your hand costing up to the total $ spent." I don't think you need the option to do only one, right now the card seems too good. I could really be underestimating the -action though.

Playtesting hasn't been that thorough like this, but it's come a long way to get to something close to balanced. It's fair at buying Treasures, as you lose out on total coins for the Buy Phase, it's buying Actions that's been the trouble. You either need enough virtual coin played before and 2 actions left, or enough Treasure in hand and 3 actions, to play the Action card of choice straight away. Both involve a bit more than just a Village, so it's not so scary an opener.

I think you have a card similar to this on your thread, one called Munitions, that buys a card like this onto your deck for $3 cost. Maybe I should test it for strength.

Locusts - Looks really good. A cantrip trasher for 4, that gives you a free $5? Sure, it has limited uses but it's a guaranteed opener. Even with 5, you need to grab one to at least contest the pile.

Hmm, it doesn't gain the card costing up to 5 but trashes it from the Supply. That would of course be too strong.
Did you maybe misread it because it says '...costing up to 5' and not '5 or less'?

[Asper]

Here's a more boring version that doesn't need a Village in the kingdom to work (which would be my main critizism of the "spend several actions" mechanic, and one of the reasons my Road always comes with a Village):

Innovator, Action, 5$
+1 Action
+2$
Lose any amount of $. Gain a card costing at most the amount you lost to your hand.

Obvious comparisons are Minion and Royal Seal. Royal Seal can use its effect later in your turn and can't be drawn dead, but it's topdecking is quite a bit weaker, lacking both the implicit +1 Card and the implicit +1 Buy.

[ThetaSigma12]

About Multi cards, I am against the subtype. You don't need a new type for each mechanic, intrigue didn't come with "choosing" type cards. You say it's for simplicity but it doesn't make things simpler. Even if you want to keep the type, I'd change it.

Regarding the multi cards, I think you should have -1 Action tokens. Whenever you would have to spend an action (other than playing a card), if you have no actions you may take a -1 Action token. These are basically the same as debt. You can't take more -1 Action tokens if you have some and you have to play them off with Actions.

[spiralstaircase]

Innovator, Action, 5$
+1 Action
+2$
Lose any amount of $. Gain a card costing at most the amount you lost to your hand.

Without support from other +Action +Money cards, one copy of this card gains you a card costing up to $2, which seems *really* weak for a $5.  Multiple copies let you gain a bigger card, but at the cost of also copper-stuffing yourself.  I think at least it needs "You may".

[GendoIkari]

I'm not getting why you would ever buy Banner. It does nothing for you at all on play, compared to Embargo's $2. And then, while Embargo can hurt or shut down an opponent's strategy if it's different from yours, Banner only affects the first time they purchase the card, and even then instead of giving them a Curse, it gives them a one-shot terminal.

Or you could put it on the pile you want to buy to make it only cost $4 instead of $5 or something, maybe that was the intent? Although then it's just a terminal Copper. I'm not sure when you would ever actually want to spent the money and action space to get one.

[Aquila]

Here's a more boring version that doesn't need a Village in the kingdom to work (which would be my main critizism of the "spend several actions" mechanic, and one of the reasons my Road always comes with a Village):

Innovator, Action, 5$
+1 Action
+2$
Lose any amount of $. Gain a card costing at most the amount you lost to your hand.

Obvious comparisons are Minion and Royal Seal. Royal Seal can use its effect later in your turn and can't be drawn dead, but it's topdecking is quite a bit weaker, lacking both the implicit +1 Card and the implicit +1 Buy.

This is coming back to how it first was, though without the Treasure playing. I hadn't considered that was why it was too good, so I will give this a go. Thanks.

I have looked at Town and Road, and they are good. Champion as you say is the main snag, so my only real question with them is, is a Town-Page opening broken?

Just saw your last post, agree with 'you may'.

About Multi cards, I am against the subtype. You don't need a new type for each mechanic, intrigue didn't come with "choosing" type cards. You say it's for simplicity but it doesn't make things simpler. Even if you want to keep the type, I'd change it.

So what are your thoughts on the Gathering type? I find the text on the cards to be self-explanatory, but I suppose it's easier for players to see 'gathering' and think 'we put VP tokens on this pile then'. This is what led me to do the Multi type. It's easier for newer players to read 'Multi' and think 'this is a card we can use more than 1 action on' than read the text. I can also save card space by not having to write common rules about applying -1 action on each card.

But, having said all of this, what you say next is interesting:

Regarding the multi cards, I think you should have -1 Action tokens. Whenever you would have to spend an action (other than playing a card), if you have no actions you may take a -1 Action token. These are basically the same as debt. You can't take more -1 Action tokens if you have some and you have to play them off with Actions.

Make this turn strong with actions to sacrifice the next? I think you can implement this mechanic in a Reserve:

Textile Mill
Do these in either order: +3 cards; look at the top 5 cards of your deck, discard any number, then put the rest back with any number from your hand in any order.
Put this on your Tavern mat.
-
At any time during your Action Phases, you may discard this from your Tavern mat for -1 action.

If this works it can save using tokens at all.

@Gendo: I've only just got to playtest banner, I'll reply later if it doesn't work. Your thoughts are fair; I guess ultimately the card came from groping with the idea of putting cards on different Supply piles. This was kind of a final possibility before fully concluding the idea doesn't work at all.

[Asper]

Here's a more boring version that doesn't need a Village in the kingdom to work (which would be my main critizism of the "spend several actions" mechanic, and one of the reasons my Road always comes with a Village):

Innovator, Action, 5$
+1 Action
+2$
Lose any amount of $. Gain a card costing at most the amount you lost to your hand.

Obvious comparisons are Minion and Royal Seal. Royal Seal can use its effect later in your turn and can't be drawn dead, but it's topdecking is quite a bit weaker, lacking both the implicit +1 Card and the implicit +1 Buy.

This is coming back to how it first was, though withou the Treasure playing. I hadn't considered that was why it was too good, so I will give this a go. Thanks.

I have looked at Town and Road, and they are good. Champion as you say is the main snag, so my only real question with them is, is a Town-Page opening broken?

First of all, I see no good reason to open with Town in this case. Except maybe that you don't mind losing Town to Warrior as much, and Road can't be trashed. For a moment after writing this I thought that costing Road at 3$ might solve the issue, but either you'll just get it after you have Champion out, or a player might try to drain the pile before you get one, at which point you also get one, and Warrior does what it does best, namely ruin the game by trashing your key cards. If I'm at that, I'll admit that I hate Warrior with passion, so Road/Champion never shows up for me as I have come to veto the Page line.

Champion is part of a card that, in my opinion, is a terrible play experience either way. Call it apologetic, but I can't help but feel this makes the problem less dire. However, not everybody sees it that way. So, if you DO like the Page line, does Road ruin the game? I don't think so. First of all, all Road does is draw your deck. But drawing your deck isn't exactly something only Road can do. True, you can draw a deck of any size with a single Road. But how many times do you have to spend 4$ to make it halfway likely to draw one regularly? It's a super strong combo - but Champion is super strong regardless of Road, and as Road does NOTHING but draw, perhaps you can get something better instead? As I said, drawing your deck isn't exactly impossible without Road, so maybe I can have all of this with a deck that's better in the meantime, possibly gets me to Champion faster? Even if Road WAS a must-buy in Page games, just like with Chapel, there's still plenty of wrong decisions to make besides this one. Road/Champion is not Rebuild. I hope this sheds some light on my view on this.

The only thing that irks me is that, technically, Road allows for infinite turns. To fix this, I could add a condition to the wording: +2 Cards. If you drew any cards this way, put this in your hand."

[GendoIkari]

Wanderers feel like they should be events. I like the idea of a rotating event pile, though. But making them events follows naturally from the rules that exist, instead of thinking of them as a new type of card that "can't be gained or trashed".

[Asper]

Innovator, Action, 5$
+1 Action
+2$
Lose any amount of $. Gain a card costing at most the amount you lost to your hand.

Without support from other +Action +Money cards, one copy of this card gains you a card costing up to $2, which seems *really* weak for a $5.  Multiple copies let you gain a bigger card, but at the cost of also copper-stuffing yourself.  I think at least it needs "You may".

It certainly should be "you may". An alternative would be a version that takes debt:

+1 Action
+2$
(If you have no <dept>,) you may gain a non-victory card costing up to 8$ to your hand. Take <1> per $ the card costs.

[Aquila]

Wanderers feel like they should be events. I like the idea of a rotating event pile, though. But making them events follows naturally from the rules that exist, instead of thinking of them as a new type of card that "can't be gained or trashed".

Yes, I do agree with this, because the Wanderers are a bit too swingy as they are. Making them rotate so each player can access them during a full round of turns is fairer. The current cards would need a revamp, and, well, what would they do that current events don't? Or would they still be bought? Could they be things to use actions on, or could they be passive effects? I have these ideas going around at the moment.

[faust]

So what are your thoughts on the Gathering type? I find the text on the cards to be self-explanatory, but I suppose it's easier for players to see 'gathering' and think 'we put VP tokens on this pile then'. This is what led me to do the Multi type.

The Gathering type exists only so that Defiled Shrine can refer to these cards. Unless you need to refer to such cards specifically, there is no need for an extra type.

[ThetaSigma12]

So what are your thoughts on the Gathering type? I find the text on the cards to be self-explanatory, but I suppose it's easier for players to see 'gathering' and think 'we put VP tokens on this pile then'. This is what led me to do the Multi type.

The Gathering type exists only so that Defiled Shrine can refer to these cards. Unless you need to refer to such cards specifically, there is no need for an extra type.

Ditto. Cards should not have a type solely based on their on-play effect.

[GendoIkari]

So what are your thoughts on the Gathering type? I find the text on the cards to be self-explanatory, but I suppose it's easier for players to see 'gathering' and think 'we put VP tokens on this pile then'. This is what led me to do the Multi type.

The Gathering type exists only so that Defiled Shrine can refer to these cards. Unless you need to refer to such cards specifically, there is no need for an extra type.

Ditto. Cards should not have a type solely based on their on-play effect.

Reserve says hi. Though I'm on record as stating that reserve really shouldn't be a type. Or at the very least, Distant Lands shouldn't be one. The rest of them should have probably been reactions. But as it stands, reserve means nothing other than "has the on play effect of moving to your tavern mat in addition to other effects."

[ThetaSigma12]

So what are your thoughts on the Gathering type? I find the text on the cards to be self-explanatory, but I suppose it's easier for players to see 'gathering' and think 'we put VP tokens on this pile then'. This is what led me to do the Multi type.

The Gathering type exists only so that Defiled Shrine can refer to these cards. Unless you need to refer to such cards specifically, there is no need for an extra type.

Ditto. Cards should not have a type solely based on their on-play effect.

Reserve says hi. Though I'm on record as stating that reserve really shouldn't be a type. Or at the very least, Distant Lands shouldn't be one. The rest of them should have probably been reactions. But as it stands, reserve means nothing other than "has the on play effect of moving to your tavern mat in addition to other effects."

Yeah, Reserve type is a stretch. But I think we can all more or less agree that Multi should not be a type.

[Q]

Great cards, especially the playtesting&updating and the Action token concept. It could be implemented via a one-shot non-Supply Reserve card but the token is simpler in practice.

About Advancing Village, I like the cap but think that it still so good that it might have to cost 4. Its main advantage over Coin of the Realm is that the later frequently stays on the Tavern mat when you shuffle wheras Advancing Village accumulates tokens. Because of that you might even open with it in some Kingdoms.

Incinerate does not need an extra buy. All the trashers that do have one, Forager, Trading Route and Salvager, are also (conditional) payload cards which can make use of the extra buy whereas a multitrasher rarely does. I like that Incinerate makes Cursers slightly weaker.

Locusts runs into scaling issues. Assuming that every player only buys one Locusts you can use it on average 5 times in a 2P game, 3.3 times in a 3P game and so on. So perhaps use 4x # players Locusts per pile in a game?
It is hard to judge though what x should be in the case of an 'on average x times and then self-destruct' cantrip trasher that costs 4.
I like how thematic the card is with the pile eating.

[Aquila]

About Advancing Village, I like the cap but think that it still so good that it might have to cost 4. Its main advantage over Coin of the Realm is that the later frequently stays on the Tavern mat when you shuffle wheras Advancing Village accumulates tokens. Because of that you might even open with it in some Kingdoms.

Agree with everything here. First I compared AV to Village, sometimes it looked worse when it gave no immediate actions, but in balance an action token is better than a +action. Then that it can give 2 of them makes it good in the games you can do so. Yes, it feels like it should cost more, and testing showed no problems with that.

Incinerate does not need an extra buy. All the trashers that do have one, Forager, Trading Route and Salvager, are also (conditional) payload cards which can make use of the extra buy whereas a multitrasher rarely does. I like that Incinerate makes Cursers slightly weaker.

Take the +buy off and it looks weak compared to Chapel. It isn't there to try making it a later payload card, trying to get the $1 often wouldn't be a good idea. It's there so players can simply buy a Curse if they want to try accelerating their trashing, especially for the games with no cursing Attack, and if not it gives reason to choose it over Chapel in such a game, something for it to do after the deck is trimmed. It was +action and gain a Curse on buy at first, but a) this set didn't need an extra non-terminal and b) who wants to be forced to get junk with their trasher?

Locusts runs into scaling issues. Assuming that every player only buys one Locusts you can use it on average 5 times in a 2P game, 3.3 times in a 3P game and so on. So perhaps use 4x # players Locusts per pile in a game?
It is hard to judge though what x should be in the case of an 'on average x times and then self-destruct' cantrip trasher that costs 4.
I like how thematic the card is with the pile eating.

Too many Locusts I feared would empty the piles too fast, but that was during the first version when they gained and trashed on play rather than end of turn. They may be slow enough now to merit several. They could always be a 12 card pile like Port though, so everyone can get an even share of them in any size of game.


And I'll put this one out as well - I hope thanks to Theta's post above I have revived Potteries. Playtesting at present seems to show as much:

Dairy - Action Reserve, $5 cost.
+2 cards
+1 buy
+ $2
At the start of your Buy Phase, put this on your Tavern mat.
-
At any time during your Action Phases, you may discard this from your Tavern mat and -1 action.

I put Textile Mill in this format, but it's a really tight squeeze on cardspace. This feels similar to Wine Merchant but plays differently enough. For the issue of theme, I renamed it Dairy, you send the produce to your tavern.

[ThetaSigma12]

Incinerate does not need an extra buy. All the trashers that do have one, Forager, Trading Route and Salvager, are also (conditional) payload cards which can make use of the extra buy whereas a multitrasher rarely does. I like that Incinerate makes Cursers slightly weaker.

Take the +buy off and it looks weak compared to Chapel.
[/quote]
Doesn't everything look weak compared to Chapel?

[Q]

I doubt that Incinerate makes you want to buy Curses. It is a net extra trashed card plus a Coin at the cost of having to draw an additional, dead card and match it with Incinerate.
Note that the net extra card that you can trash if you trashed a Curse is only something you opt to do if you have Incinerate and 4 junk cards in your hand and this no earlier than after the 2nd shuffle. You rarely have lot of nonterminal draw at this point to increase your handsize so you are more likely to draw Incinerate with only 2 or 3 junk cards.

This is why Incinerate is probably more of a hedge against Cursers than a card that incentives you to buy Curses.

[Aquila]

I'm not getting why you would ever buy Banner. It does nothing for you at all on play, compared to Embargo's $2. And then, while Embargo can hurt or shut down an opponent's strategy if it's different from yours, Banner only affects the first time they purchase the card, and even then instead of giving them a Curse, it gives them a one-shot terminal.

Or you could put it on the pile you want to buy to make it only cost $4 instead of $5 or something, maybe that was the intent? Although then it's just a terminal Copper. I'm not sure when you would ever actually want to spent the money and action space to get one.

I'm going to take out the problematic Banner. Seeing that it's a variant on a principle that has come up more than once on this forum, that of putting a supply card onto a different pile, I thought it good to write my thoughts against it for any fan card creators who come to the same idea. With the introduction of split piles I anticipate this being more likely.
Banner was this:

Banner - Action Victory, $4 cost.
Return this to the supply. Move a Banner onto a different Supply pile that doesn't have a Victory on top. Cards on that pile cannot be gained or bought before it is.
-
When you buy this, gain the card under it.
-
1VP

It wouldn't just change 5-costs into 4, but any cost; Platinum, and even Fortune and the other Debt-cost cards could all be bought for $4, with the intention that the player would get a junk card with it for balance. With hindsight, Banner isn't really a junk card. You can use an action to remove it from your deck and put it on a pile irrelevant to the game, even if that's Curse, and you can then run the risk of giving the same power to your opponents.

Besides this, you could use it aggressively to try denying piles to your opponents, like those that cost cheaper or those that depend on being bought like Mint. This denies the pile to yourself too, which you may not always want to work around.
I'd like to use a card mocked up on these forums as a reference to what would happen with a card that makes large on this denying effect, being of less benefit to the buyer's deck:


Both Rabbits and Banner have in-built ways to still allow gaining cards from the piles they sit on. With a card that doesn't, a game with it and no extra buys would see any chosen pile completely denied, taken out the game. No player will want to use a precious buy and turn on that card just to open up the cards underneath, as it will not progress the deck's payload.

Rabbits' impact on a game will vary depending on the presence of other sources of +buy. If there are no others, the only way to gain a card from a pile it sits on, and avoid the total denial problem, is by playing another Rabbits. This boils down to two outcomes: either there are few Rabbits out because few are bought, and a player is likely denied a key card to their strategy because they don't have a Rabbits on a turn they can afford it; or there are many out because many are bought, and that leads seamlessly to my conclusion. And if there are other buys, Rabbits become more like attempts at junking the opponent, but that eventually come right back at you.

My conclusion with all such cards that move onto other piles is this: they may add extra variety to games, but, with the greatest respect to kru5h and his Rabbits, I do not personally feel they are a welcome addition. They take away from all the central strategy elements of the game and instead make it more a mindless process of 'buy whatever's available and see what happens'.

And from there I find it's impossible to balance Banner. No cost is fair yet effective, for if it's too low it's too powerful at letting players buy whatever they want, if it's too high you can totally eliminate more piles, and if it's in the middle like at $4, as Gendo said it has little point.

[Holger]

Innovator, Action, 5$
+1 Action
+2$
Lose any amount of $. Gain a card costing at most the amount you lost to your hand.

Without support from other +Action +Money cards, one copy of this card gains you a card costing up to $2, which seems *really* weak for a $5.  Multiple copies let you gain a bigger card, but at the cost of also copper-stuffing yourself.  I think at least it needs "You may".

It certainly should be "you may". An alternative would be a version that takes debt:

+1 Action
+2$
(If you have no <dept>,) you may gain a non-victory card costing up to 8$ to your hand. Take <1> per $ the card costs.

This version is far too strong; it's better than a Grand Market and a Capital (minus 1 buy) put together on one card.

[Asper]

Innovator, Action, 5$
+1 Action
+2$
Lose any amount of $. Gain a card costing at most the amount you lost to your hand.

Without support from other +Action +Money cards, one copy of this card gains you a card costing up to $2, which seems *really* weak for a $5.  Multiple copies let you gain a bigger card, but at the cost of also copper-stuffing yourself.  I think at least it needs "You may".

It certainly should be "you may". An alternative would be a version that takes debt:

+1 Action
+2$
(If you have no <dept>,) you may gain a non-victory card costing up to 8$ to your hand. Take <1> per $ the card costs.

This version is far too strong; it's better than a Grand Market and a Capital (minus 1 buy) put together on one card.

I admit that the +2$ together with the gaining to hand are too much and one should be dropped.

[Aquila]

I'm finding it hard to decide which Innovator variant is better at the moment, the one I have on the OP with Treasure play and needing 2 actions, or Asper's variant not involving debt at $4 cost. Neither show themselves imbalanced, but the former is certainly hard to work out when throned.

But one card I have plans to change is Expert. Look at the card and you might at first think 'that's nice, a really flexible card', like me. But, what does it actually add to a game? How does it impact a kingdom/board? Someone else's first impression of the card was 'boring' and now I see why - it's nearly always just a strictly better version of another card, nothing different.

So I thought about fusing it into Patent, so that it could become thematic:

Patent - Action, $6 cost.
Choose one: +1 card, +1 action, +1 buy or + $1 , then treat this as the card on your Patent mat.
-
When you first gain this, choose an Action card from the Supply costing up to $4 that is not on any other player's Patent mat. Put it on your Patent mat.

Functionally, it might play better at $7 cost allowing $5-costs on the mat. More usability, but maybe more problems with it.

[Aquila]

More updates which may be of interest:

Hawker interferes with Buy Phases following a different premise:

Hawker - $5 cost
Until your next turn, each other player may only buy 0 or 2 cards during their Buy Phases.
At the start of your next turn:
+1 buy
+ $2

The vanilla might be on the weak side for $5. Or it could be balanced like this for $4, a bit more playtesting needed yet. It does do more consistent damage though, unlike before.

Magnate and Advancing Village have had a swap around in how they gain action tokens:

Magnate - $5 cost
While this is in play: the first two times you gain a card, take an action token; when you spend an action token, instead of +1 action play an Action card from your hand twice.

Advancing Village - $3 cost
+1 card
+1 action
You may discard a card. If you do, take an action token.

Each can now be cheaper. +cards on Magnate-d tokens seems unnecessary by how it now plays out, but it may be that its gaining and playing tokens are to be separated so that you choose one or the other. It can collect quite a horde of them.
AV is kind of boring, and I may add some kind of on-trash ability to make it interesting; first that comes to mind is gain a card costing up to $4.

Blueprints is queer and doesn't add anything interesting to the game after all, returning Victories to the Supply. It's really narrow. And Incinerator doesn't seem to quite make sense, and it's likewise narrow. So I'll take those out and add this:

Blueprints - $3 cost
+1 buy
+ $1
Trash a card from your hand. + $1 per $2 it costs. If it isn't an Action or Treasure card, trash up to 2 more cards from your hand.

Revolters can give an action token on its second effect instead of +1 action, don't see why not. It should help the card more.

And I think I have a solution coming together for the Wanderers, but I'll leave that for later.

[Holger]

Innovator, Action, 5$
+1 Action
+2$
Lose any amount of $. Gain a card costing at most the amount you lost to your hand.

Without support from other +Action +Money cards, one copy of this card gains you a card costing up to $2, which seems *really* weak for a $5.  Multiple copies let you gain a bigger card, but at the cost of also copper-stuffing yourself.  I think at least it needs "You may".

It certainly should be "you may". An alternative would be a version that takes debt:

+1 Action
+2$
(If you have no <dept>,) you may gain a non-victory card costing up to 8$ to your hand. Take <1> per $ the card costs.

This version is far too strong; it's better than a Grand Market and a Capital (minus 1 buy) put together on one card.

I admit that the +2$ together with the gaining to hand are too much and one should be dropped.

Even if you drop the "to hand", it's still close to strictly better than Grand Market.
If you only drop the +$2 instead, it's far better than Capital when used on non-Victory cards, but can't be used on Provinces, which might or might not be balanced.
Either way, the card seems too similar to an existing card to me; thus I'd rather stay closer to Asper's original card. What about adding a Storyteller-like clause to it?

Innovator, Action, 5$
+1 Action
+2$
You may play a Treasure from your hand. Pay any amount of $. You may gain a card to your hand costing at most the amount you paid.

This would be close to a non-terminal Armory even if you only play a Silver, and potentially far better with more virtual $.