I still feel like there's a faulty premise here that's going unexamined.
The game hasn't lost a bunch of attacks. We're down exactly one attack overall post-2E: Seaside went from 5 attacks to a mere 4. Ghost Ship was removed and no similar hand size attack took its place. But relative to 6 months ago, we're up a lot of attacks, as Allies has 7 of them.
You could argue that the attack-portion of the attack cards got less harsh. That's certainly true for the three junkers: Ambassador vs. Blockade, Mountebank vs. Charlatan, Sea Hag vs. Sea Witch (though Sea Witch is a much stronger card overall). But for the others (Pirate Ship vs. Corsair, Goons vs. Clerk), I'd argue that the attack got stronger. And again, Allies added some nasty attacks: multiple non-terminal cursers, Archer, Warlord, Barbarian. So it's not like Dominion overall got less aggressive.
The difference is we're down 4 very specific effects that make it hard to see the cards in your deck, primarily in 3+ player games. Ambassador and Sea Hag are both cheap junkers that can start hitting on Turn 3 (and are easy to buy in multiples). Mountebank was the only junker that reliably put two bad cards into your deck. And Ghost Ship slows the progression through your deck down to a slog.
And maybe you think the loss of sloggy 4-player games that take forever and still end on 3-piles is bad for the game. However, I've played a lot of Dominion with multiple casual players at a time, and I can say those types of experiences are the worst advertisement for the appeal of the game that you can find.
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Topic: Seaside and Prospeirity 2nd Editions (Read 3944 times)