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[GendoIkari]

In retrospect, I do wish we'd tried Sentry with: "Reveal the top 2 cards of your deck. You may trash one. You may discard one. Put the rest back in any order." Hindsight is 20/20 and all that.

That's a lot of power to lose for the sake of simplicity. Maybe for $4?

Is it really so much power? I think being able to trash 2 cards is problematically powerful for a cantrip $5, so removing that seems great to me. It removes the games where one player gets super-lucky with their early Sentry and just cruises to victory. And then you have the late game where you'd like to discard both cards. But unless they're both Provinces, sometimes you can just discard one and trash the other. You might not have drawn it again before the game ended anyway. Maybe that is too much weaker, though. I don't know, I think it could afford to be weaker and still sit comfortably at $5. A $4 cantrip that trashes from your deck sounds nuts to me.

EDIT: In case it wasn't clear, the idea isn't just simplicity. It's that Sentry is sometimes crazy strong.

I'd actually like even more simplicity: Look at the top 2 cards of your deck. You may trash one. Discard the rest.

I can see players being annoying by feeling like being forced to discard good cards sucks too much; but I also feel like new players shouldn't have to think about in which order to put 2 cards on top of their deck.

[LastFootnote]

I'd actually like even more simplicity: Look at the top 2 cards of your deck. You may trash one. Discard the rest.

I can see players being annoying by feeling like being forced to discard good cards sucks too much; but I also feel like new players shouldn't have to think about in which order to put 2 cards on top of their deck.

To be fair, they don't have to think about it. They can just slam those cards back down in whatever order, consequences be damned.

[LastFootnote]

To answer the OP, I also advise you to give him Second Edition.

All the new cards in Second Edition Base have conditions or decisions, whereas Spy was the only decision-heavy card to be removed.

To be clear: I do like the new cards. They just don't feel right for new players, or for Base.

I think that comparison is pretty unfair. For instance, Bandit is less decision-heavy than Thief, and the decisions (when there are any) are spread out among the other players rather than all made by you. Merchant has a "condition" but man come on. It's not complex.

Artisan is a very decision-heavy card, I'll give you that. Sentry could be simpler, as discussed. The rest of the new cards have a smaller decision space than Workshop. Is Workshop too complex for the base set?

EDIT: Or to put it another way, Feast is a more decision-heavy card than Merchant, Vassal, Poacher, and Bandit. Also Harbinger misses a lot, so there's not always a decision there.

[singletee]

To answer the OP, I also advise you to give him Second Edition.

All the new cards in Second Edition Base have conditions or decisions, whereas Spy was the only decision-heavy card to be removed.

To be clear: I do like the new cards. They just don't feel right for new players, or for Base.

I think that comparison is pretty unfair. For instance, Bandit is less decision-heavy than Thief, and the decisions (when there are any) are spread out among the other players rather than all made by you. Merchant has a "condition" but man come on. It's not complex.

Artisan is a very decision-heavy card, I'll give you that. Sentry could be simpler, as discussed. The rest of the new cards have a smaller decision space than Workshop. Is Workshop too complex for the base set?

EDIT: Or to put it another way, Feast is a more decision-heavy card than Merchant, Vassal, Poacher, and Bandit. Also Harbinger misses a lot, so there's not always a decision there.

Playing Vassal is often tricky. Based on my deck contents, what is the probability I hit an action? Furthermore, what is the probability that it's terminal? How does the expected result compare to another terminal I could play?

Feast and Workshop are decision-heavy, but it's the same type of decision (which card do I get?) that players are already used to doing many times per game when they buy cards. In any case, Woodcutter can easily induce as many or more options. Now with access to multiple buys, do I get one expensive card or two cheap ones?

[crj]

But how are you possibly rationalizing the interpretation that you can choose not to trash a Copper with Moneylender and still get +$3? "You may trash a Copper for +$3." If you didn't trash a Copper, you must have opted out of this ability! Hence, no +$3. It seems really cut and dried to me.

The erroneous thinking I envisage is "I play Moneylender. I choose to trash a Copper, but I don't have one to trash. Because I chose that option, I get +$3."

After all, a new player will have just read the bit in the rulebook which says "If you cannot do everything a card tells you to do, you
do as much as you can; you can still play a card even if you know you will not be able to do everything it tells you to." and the one which says "When a card gives you a choice [...] you can pick any option, without considering whether or not you will be able to do it." Only the notes on Moneylender itself will correct the misapprehension about how "for" works.

[crj]

Merchant has a "condition" but man come on. It's not complex.

It adds a "play-a-Silver" trigger to remember later, and requires you to track how many times you've played Merchant (which Throne Room can complicate) until you play that Silver.

I sort of half wish Second Edition Base had just included the mythical +1 Card, +1 Action, +$1 costing $4 instead of Merchant and Poacher. That feels more suitable for beginners.

I do accept Bandit is simpler than Thief just considering the decision-making. Though there is the "gain a Gold" and "other than Copper" to complicate it again.

[Donald X.]

In retrospect, I do wish we'd tried Sentry with: "Reveal the top 2 cards of your deck. You may trash one. You may discard one. Put the rest back in any order." Hindsight is 20/20 and all that.

That's a lot of power to lose for the sake of simplicity. Maybe for $4?

Is it really so much power? I think being able to trash 2 cards is problematically powerful for a cantrip $5, so removing that seems great to me. It removes the games where one player gets super-lucky with their early Sentry and just cruises to victory. And then you have the late game where you'd like to discard both cards. But unless they're both Provinces, sometimes you can just discard one and trash the other. You might not have drawn it again before the game ended anyway. Maybe that is too much weaker, though. I don't know, I think it could afford to be weaker and still sit comfortably at $5. A $4 cantrip that trashes from your deck sounds nuts to me.

EDIT: In case it wasn't clear, the idea isn't just simplicity. It's that Sentry is sometimes crazy strong.

Yes. Especially, a turn one Sentry is too big of an advantage. Trashing a single card would have been good enough.

[Donald X.]

I sort of half wish Second Edition Base had just included the mythical +1 Card, +1 Action, +$1 costing $4 instead of Merchant and Poacher. That feels more suitable for beginners.

I continue to be pleased that that mythical card doesn't exist. I do think that if I worked on the set today, I wouldn't have done both Merchant and Poacher. They're both fantastic cards to have in the main set, but I didn't need that many Peddlers.

[ackmondual]

I'm buying my brother Dominion for his birthday. I can buy him the 2nd edition or for about the same price I can buy him the 1st edition and give him the update pack (I have an extra one i'll never use). So the decision is kind of whether or not to give him the old cards for free. The extra variety would be nice but are they so bad that it would be better to not give them to a new player at all?

More is merrier in this case.  They're always free to ignore cards they don't like.  Let them explore for themselves, like the rest of us did!

And they either learn that Coppers are bad the hard way, like buying one via Woodcutter's 2nd buy, or put two and two together at some point after wondering why Bandit ignores Copper.

I always assumed the reason Bandit didn't trash coppers wasn't to teach that coppers are bad, but because those 4 player newbie Thief games where someone gets totally bankrupted are exceptionally unfun for that player.

Have you ever actually experienced such a game?

Yes. I have seen new players get reduced to being forced to buy coppers in futility because they literally can't do anything else in more than just one game thanks to Thief. Usually because they don't see it coming until it's too late. These were IRL games. Bear in mind that in 4 player you frequently get hit multiple times between your turns.

Obviously wouldn't happen to an experienced player, I know that Thief is a bad card and having opponents trash your coppers is good for you. But this sort of thing is a real turn-off. Thief was just below Sabatouer for card most likely to give people a terrible game, in my experience (Witch and Torturer followed shortly behind, I soon learnt what sort of cards to not bring to the table against players that didnt have experience with deckbuilder games).

Even then, you'd still need to worry about this with Pirate Ship.  3p game, 2 of us went heavy on PS and Bazaar.  3rd player did not.  He lost most of his Treasure cards and couldn't recover that he got up and just walked out in sheer frustration.  We played around his turn.

[dirkdebeule]

Four years later…
Did not read all posts again (only first 5 😄).
Hope you bought 2E?
Just have a look at the updates on http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Update_Packs
Then read the Theme of the Expansions… no more words.

Excellent job Donald!!
P.S. Don’t even know why there are discussions thread’s about updated cards.
Just be happy with all these luxuries and play, play, play… with the second edition updated expansions 👊🏻