Sure, in a deck drawing engine you could try to keep 3 Curses in your deck to generate 3 VPs via this. Seems pretty hard to pull off though; you need to precisely draw everything but those very 3 Curses and then still have Forlorn Villages left to play.
My primary concern is that Forlorn Village looks like a very bad splitter. I start with 0 Actions in my deck typically, so tossing Actions from the top of my deck means that I get +Actions to play the Actions that aren't in my deck anymore. Its VP production would be a difficult use, but is something that Forlorn Village
can do that couldn't be substituted by a more consistent card.
What I didn't think so hard about is that Forlorn Village will actually be strong in a Treasure-centric strategy, because it will sift in the early game and produce anywhere from +3 Cards to +$3. That's pretty crazy.
Fete
Types: Action
Cost: $4
Choose one: +1 Card; or +1 Action; or +$1. Choose two (the choices can be the same): +1 Action; or +1 Buy.
It looks fine. It might not need the +$1 option at all. Even if players typically don't choose it, its inclusion might make it more complex without adding significant strength to the card--which is not ideal.
I don't think it will be overpowered with Lurker, as it is a $4 Necropolis if it doesn't align (an $4 Lurkers are harder to amass). It can certainly be annoying though.
What I wrote does sound like I am identifying Lurker as a broken combo, but I really meant that it would just be annoying. The change looks good. It fixes all the problems other than my general dislike for having to look at more non-Kingdom cards (which is an inherent function of the card and very much to taste).
I agree that [Sprawling Village] compares poorly to Port, but that's true of every $4 Village except Wandering Minstrel. Also, there's no reason to limit its use to cheap and "temporary" Actions. Its strength lies in that it lets you load up on more terminals than usual and then gives you flexibility.
This is like saying
Journeyman is weaker than
Wild Hunt. It is true, but missing the point.
Mining Village is a weaker
Village-with-a-bonus than
Wandering Minstrel, but they each have completely different mission statements. I wouldn't buy
Wandering Minstrel if I wanted to spike my economy, and I wouldn't buy
Mining Village if I needed to sift through a bunch of Coppers\Curses\Estates.
Port is a
Village-with-a-bonus whose bonus is:
"I come with another
Village when you buy me."
Sprawling Village is a
Village-with-a-bonus whose bonus is (outside of the rare edge-cases):
"I come with another
Village when you
gain me,
except the second one eats one of your other Action cards."
Unless losing one of my other Action cards is not a cost (such as a now-useless
Sea Hag), or one of some-five specific cards appear with it, then Sprawling Village is worse than
Port. That is a much smaller window of difference than most
Village-with-a-bonus cards.
Wandering Minstrel's strength versus
Farming Village's weakness (as similar deck-sifting splitters) is probably the most similar comparison in this category.
It isn't a problem, but it is quite probably weaker than you seem to be suggesting. I would not put it higher than the middling $4
Village-with-a-bonus cards like
Mountain Village and
Mining Village.
Industrial Village
Type: Action
Cost: $5
+2 Cards, +1 Buy. Trash a card from your hand. +1 Action per $1 it costs.
I can tell you from experience:
Prophet
Types: Action
Cost: $4
+2 Cards. You may trash or discard a non-Victory card from your hand. +Actions equal to its cost in coins.
When you trash this, you may gain an Action costing exactly $5, putting it into your hand.
Trashing stuff for such temporary +Actions causes its trashing to take front stage, while the +Actions are functionally ignored. That's why my Prophet gives you the option to discard for +Actions instead so that the trashing ends up being a side-thing while the splitting takes center stage.
Slave Merchant
Types: Action
Cost: $2
+2 Actions, +1 Buy, +$1. You may play a Treasure. You may buy a card.
Breaking convention of playing Treasures in the Buy phase is not something I personally like doing very much. Regardless, I think +2 Actions, +2 Buys, +$1 might be a bit strong at $2.
I meant to say "Take an extra Buy phase immediately, in which you can only buy 1 card." So, buying a card via this SPENDS Buys. It doesn't give you +2 Buys. And playing Treasures is necessary to buy a card.
Black Market uses the same wording and doesn't work that way, though. I'd recommend the effect "You may buy a card" be restricted to what kind of cards it can buy instead of wrestling with an entirely new wording. +2 Actions, +2 Buys, +$1 is maybe a little strong at $2, but +2 Actions, +$1 is definitely too weak.
Also, playing a Treasure is fine, but I personally don't like doing it outside of the Buy phase. The tracking of spending and gaining $ might end up being an annoyance on Slave Merchant.
Storyteller at least consumes all your $ every time you use it, so you don't have to track any $ once you've resolved it.
Can you explain what you mean by a "splitter"? I've not heard that term before.
It is a less-common term used to refer to cards that give +2 or more Actions. I like the term because I prefer
Village-variant for variations of cards that give a minimum of "+1 Card and +2 Actions" (even though cards like
Fishing Village don't give those vanilla benefits). Because
Throne Room and Developing Village do not unconditionally give "+1 Card and +2 Actions," I think of them as splitters distinctly from
Village-variants.
The term refers to a style of laying out Actions that aligns them like a tree: You play your Actions in a line, but offset cards when you play an Action that provides +2 Actions, thereby creating two "branches" to the line of Actions you are playing (the card which provides +2 Actions thereby "splitting" your Action line).
And why is do you suggest turning off the ability to turn estates into Developing Villages? I had thought of that as advantage, in particular on boards with no other $2s.
The problem is that trashing Estates is really, really good. It would be immensely frustrating (considering the lack of control) for one player to open with Developing Village on a board with no trashing otherwise and luck into trashing a starting Estate on turn 3 that turns it into another Developing Village, thereby necessarily reducing your effective deck size. If Developing Village cost $3, then hitting a starting Estate would only sometimes net you a real benefit based on the other $2 Kingdom cards (if any)--plus Developing Village would then compete with other $3 cards, so buying it for a chance of trashing an Estate would be ill-advised.
There are other cards that can do similar (
Necromancer->
Zombie Mason I'd argue is even worse), but the fact that official cards exist that can do it does not make it a good design.