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[BraydonM]

The Townsfolk is certainly an interesting pile, I'm mostly unsure its worth picking up the first card Town Crier which may be the worst pile topper in the expansion.

Town Crier? Why is he crying? Is it because he knows his modes are pretty bad and he is basically a cantrip that does nothing when he doesn't have an Elder around to hold his hand?
-- Is there ever a reason to buy this card when you have more than 2 coins? I tend to think of it as something you get with spare change simply because it won't hurt you and not really because it is particularly useful.

Blacksmith
-- Works like a watchtower mainly but can cantrip or play as a +2 when that isn't desirable.
-- Can draw to 7 and give an action or get +3 cards and an action when combined with elder. (Draws to 8 with elder if you don't want the action)

Miller, Border Guards big brother
-- When is this worth the more sizeable investment? Is it worth taking just to line up Elder and Blacksmith?

Elder
-- Works with Pawn, Scrap, Steward, Courtier, Native Village, Spice Merchant, Squire, Amulet, Miser, Wild Hunt, Specialist, Modify, Count, Innkeeper, Broker, Hill Fort, Governor, Town Crier, and Blacksmith.
-- Elder really loves Capitalism, there's a joke there somewhere.

[infangthief]

I suppose the main things with Town Crier are:

• you have to get one (or hope your opponent does) if you want any of the other cards in the pile.
• having control of pile rotation is good. Eg if you're ahead on Elders you might want to rotate back to Town Criers.
• if you play it with Elder it is an activated Conspirator for $2, pretty good. EDIT - it is worse than that, because you have to use your Elder play on it rather than something better. Elder+Town Crier is like "+1 Action +$4", which is not great actually.

Also, it's "crier" as in announcer, proclaimer, not about being upset. Or was that bit a joke?

[D782802859]

+1 Action, +$4 is better with draw to x, and Blacksmith does provide that.

[Awaclus]

I default buy Town Crier over Silver. Silver colliding with your other opening buy is usually bad, and Town Crier doing the same is not really much worse, but the fact that you don't have to keep it around as a stop card later is important.

[BraydonM]

I suppose the main things with Town Crier are:

• you have to get one (or hope your opponent does) if you want any of the other cards in the pile.

(...)
[/list]
Also, it's "crier" as in announcer, proclaimer, not about being upset. Or was that bit a joke?

The issue I have with buying just for the sake of rotation is you are also usually leaving that pile open for the other player to buy from. It's hard to see rotating as an advantage in a lot of cases since your opponent can also gain them.

The crying bit was in fact, a joke. Probably not a great one if you have to ask.

I default buy Town Crier over Silver. Silver colliding with your other opening buy is usually bad, and Town Crier doing the same is not really much worse, but the fact that you don't have to keep it around as a stop card later is important.

Can you elaborate on that? I'm confused as to why you assume colliding silver with your other starting buy is bad?

[Awaclus]

Can you elaborate on that? I'm confused as to why you assume colliding silver with your other starting buy is bad?

Because usually it's important to hit $5, not $6 or $7, and if Silver collides with trashing, that often means you aren't hitting $5 that shuffle.

[infangthief]

I suppose the main things with Town Crier are:

• you have to get one (or hope your opponent does) if you want any of the other cards in the pile.

(...)
[/list]
Also, it's "crier" as in announcer, proclaimer, not about being upset. Or was that bit a joke?

The issue I have with buying just for the sake of rotation is you are also usually leaving that pile open for the other player to buy from. It's hard to see rotating as an advantage in a lot of cases since your opponent can also gain them.

I was kind of assuming different players having different strategies.
Perhaps that happens less at higher levels of play, but in my very casual play group something like big money vs engine is not uncommon.

[Titandrake]

The Townsfolk is certainly an interesting pile, I'm mostly unsure its worth picking up the first card Town Crier which may be the worst pile topper in the expansion.

This definitely isn't true, I'd give that honor to Tent. It's totally fine to open Town Crier, playing it as a cantrip if it collides with your other action and a +$2 if it doesn't. Then you generally play it as a cantrip later in the game, but that's fine, by then it's already done its job of helping you get to $5. It's only a problem if you expect to both need expensive actions and are action limited, then you'd rather have the Silver, but even then I've liked opening it just to have some control over the Townsfolk pile.

The monolithic Townsfolk deck is to get as many Elders as you can, try to line up Elder-Blacksmith to do "draw up to 6, +1 Card, +1 Action", then Elder-Townsfolk to play them as Conspirators. It's not that great (draw-to-X is just less good than a dedicated draw deck), but it makes its own money and in the absence of other options it can be pretty effective.