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[LastFootnote]

So, we know now that Dark Ages has a theme of upgrading cards. That got me thinking about the different ways that could be accomplished. I came up with this card. Apologies for what must be the dozenth card named 'Investment', but I couldn't think of a more apt descriptor.

Investment
Types: Action
Cost: $6
Trash this card. You may put an Action card from your hand on your Investment mat (face up).
When you play a copy of a card on your investment mat, +$1.

[eHalcyon]

Does it stack?  That is, can I put two Hamlets on the Investment mat and turn it into a Grand Market?  I think this would be difficult to balance.

Nonetheless, I think it's a really cool idea.  It would also fit with the (non-functional) theme of austerity and poverty of Dark Ages in that you'd probably only use Investment on cheap cantrips that you can buy en masse.  Then again, those cheap cards will suddenly give you some significant financial windfall, so maybe it's not so on-theme after all.

[qmech]

To put two Hamlets on the mat is going to cost you two $6 buys that you subsequently have to trash, so it's not so cheap. 

From the wording I'd expect it not to stack.

[Morgrim7]

What about Action/VPs like Island, Nobles, or Great Hall? Do they still count as VPs to the end of the game?

[rinkworks]

I playtested this in a real game (2-player) a few days ago.  It was an amazing amount of fun, since it makes you completely rethink all the other cards it appears with.  I really think I'll have to play several more games to get a handle on it.  However, my initial thought is that it needs to cost $7.  It's not that dissimilar, when you think about it, to an Expand (Pearl Divers become Peddler-with-a-bonus cards; Markets become Grand Markets; terminal Silvers become terminal Golds), the difference being that ALL copies of the upgraded card get upgraded, with the drawback that one of the copies is permanently removed from your deck.

My opponent and I used the card on Markets and Merchant Ships.  I went for Merchant Ships first, then Markets, while my opponent went directly for Markets and never used it on anything else.  Markets are obviously super good targets for it, which I was slower to catch onto, but Merchant Ship turned into a power card too.  Then I had to go Markets anyway for the +Buy.

Cantrips in general would be prime targets, as simple cantrips become Peddlers, and Peddlers become activated Conspirators.  In the absence of those, I imagine it would do interesting things to other non-terminals like Apprentice.  Anyway, more experimentation is required, but it's really cool.

One drawback is the swinginess of having to collide it with the action you want to set aside; however, this actually isn't THAT bad, since whatever action card that is you probably want multiple copies of.  So you buy multiples at the outset, and the necessary collision will be inevitable.

In turn, that does mean you probably play decks without a lot of variety, which is perhaps a minor aesthetic drawback, but I think it's well worth it.  Great idea!

Edit:  I'd recommend adding wording about returning the set-aside action cards to your deck at the end of the game.  If you couldn't do that, it would be the only such card not to have the cards return (Native Village, Island, maybe Haven fits), and it would be more fun with Vineyards, Gardens, and dual-type Action-Victory cards not to lose them.

[Schlippy]

My (yet unfinished and crazily overhauled) fan expansion has a quite similar card named Galvanize. It is not capable of permanently upgrading cards and can only upgrade cards as long as there is at least 1 of that card left in it's Kingdom pile. It costs "only" $5 though and brings an Action.

Galvanize - Duration - $5
+1 Action
Take an Action card from the supply and put it on this card. While this is in play, copies of the Action card on this card produce $1 more for you when played.
----------
At the start of your next turn: +$1, put the Action card on this card back into the supply.

I am sure though that those two cards play out completely different. Investment is permanent, Galvanize is temporary. Investment cannot really be countered and can make cantrips absurdly strong, Galvanize can be countered relatively hard unless someone manages to consequently play 2-3 Galvanizes each turn. Investment is a one-shot, Galvanize is a Duration card. Investment can be relatively useless in some Kingdoms, Galvanize can theoretically be played on other Galvanizes in Kingdoms with no +Actions and no cantrips. (There are of course Kingdoms where Galvanize will be quite useless, but I am sure that there are more for Investment.)

I am not saying that one of the two is the better one, but I am worried that Investment sounds like it could become ridiculous in a lot of Kingdoms (especially with trashing) for the one who hits $6 first. I am also pretty sure that it narrows down the choice of viable tactics a lot in most Kingdoms.

Note that I assume that Investment stacks. If it doesn't than it is probably less ridiculous than I said but probably more useless in more Kingdoms.

[LastFootnote]

It doesn't stack.

[Schlippy]

It still does lead to some synergies that are probably too strong and swingy.

Scheme permanently becomes Treasury that you can put back on your deck even if you bought a Victory card.
Lighthouse permanently becomes a non-terminal Merchant Ship.
Fishing Village permanently becomes a non-terminal Merchant Ship with +Actions.
Markets permanently become Great Markets that you can buy with Copper in play.
Villages permanently become Bazaars, Village analogues become Bazaars with extras.

Most attack cards (especially Goons ) will be ridiculous with a permanent $1 more on them. Mandarins are most likely completely broken in non-Colony games with $4 on them, especially because you can easily amass them when you hit $5 first and then easily get to $6 to buy an Investment.

It would not be that much of a problem if it wasn't so massively swingy with the high cost of $6 and the condition to need the card you want to enhance in your hand.

[LastFootnote]

@Schlippy: To be honest, I proposed this idea mostly as academia. I never intended to playtest this particular card myself, and I figured this version wouldn't be balanced. Frankly, I'm shocked (and pleased!) that rinkworks found it to be a fun card. Bonus!

All that being said, you're making at least one mistake about how the card works.

With Duration cards like Lighthouse and Fishing Village, they do not permanently become non-terminal Merchant Ships because they do not give +$2 on the following turn. When you resolve a Duration card the turn after you play it, you are not playing it, so you do not get the extra Coin.

[Schlippy]

All that being said, you're making at least one mistake about how the card works.

With Duration cards like Lighthouse and Fishing Village, they do not permanently become non-terminal Merchant Ships because they do not give +$2 on the following turn. When you resolve a Duration card the turn after you play it, you are not playing it, so you do not get the extra Coin.

Yeah, I agree. I do not know why I assumed that, especially because I carefully chose the wording on my card to ensure that this does not happen.

[rinkworks]

It still does lead to some synergies that are probably too strong and swingy.

Scheme permanently becomes Treasury that you can put back on your deck even if you bought a Victory card.
(...)
Markets permanently become Great Markets that you can buy with Copper in play.
Villages permanently become Bazaars, Village analogues become Bazaars with extras.

This is true, but although that sounds crazy strong -- and, indeed is -- it does take a long time to set up.  After further testing, I may indeed concede that it's too strong and swingy even at a high price, but I see another possibility being about equally likely:  that although you can build up to crazy strength, the strength is adequately offset by how hard you have to work to get there.  A good example of this is Alchemist.  Once you get going, you've got a Lab stack that fully activates every single turn.  Crazy strong, given that Laboratories are strong anyhow.  But setting it up takes a lot of work.

I'm not necessarily convinced that setting up a Grand Market stack with Invested Markets is substantially easier than setting up an actual Grand Market stack.  On some boards it'll be easier, sure, but to make an Invested Market stack you do have to (1) collide two of your buys, (2) throw away a $7 buy (Investment) and (3) throw away a $5 buy (Market).  And until you manage to do that, you've spent a $7 buy on a dead card, whereas an opponent playing a different strategy already has a King's Court or a Goons or something that's useful NOW.

That said, if further testing shows the card is too strong anyway, a good nerf might be to only provide the extra $1 at most once per turn.  So a sequence of three Invested Markets only nets you 1 extra coin instead of 3.  That reduces the swinginess, while also making it more attractive to use Investment on non-spammable cards, thereby broadening the strategy space of the card.

[Schlippy]

This is true, but although that sounds crazy strong -- and, indeed is -- it does take a long time to set up.  After further testing, I may indeed concede that it's too strong and swingy even at a high price

A higher price often adds to the "swinginess" of a card.

I'm not necessarily convinced that setting up a Grand Market stack with Invested Markets is substantially easier than setting up an actual Grand Market stack.  On some boards it'll be easier, sure, but to make an Invested Market stack you do have to (1) collide two of your buys, (2) throw away a $7 buy (Investment) and (3) throw away a $5 buy (Market).  And until you manage to do that, you've spent a $7 buy on a dead card, whereas an opponent playing a different strategy already has a King's Court or a Goons or something that's useful NOW.

I am not really concerned about Markets, because like you said; unless you have heavy trashing in the Kingdom it will probably take a long time to set it up, unless you get very lucky. The problematic things are cards like Native Village, Lighthouse, Fishing Village, Scheme. Cheap cantrips or pseudo cantrips that are are spammable and already strong as is.

That said, if further testing shows the card is too strong anyway, a good nerf might be to only provide the extra $1 at most once per turn.  So a sequence of three Invested Markets only nets you 1 extra coin instead of 3.  That reduces the swinginess, while also making it more attractive to use Investment on non-spammable cards, thereby broadening the strategy space of the card.

While it certainly is quite a nerf, it might be too much of a nerf to make it really worthwhile. It also does nothing about the main problem of its swinginess: You have to get it into your hand with a card that you want to upgrade. And even if that happens it might be better in that situation to play that card, because it nets you profit now and often is more of a solid play.

[rinkworks]

That said, if further testing shows the card is too strong anyway, a good nerf might be to only provide the extra $1 at most once per turn.  So a sequence of three Invested Markets only nets you 1 extra coin instead of 3.  That reduces the swinginess, while also making it more attractive to use Investment on non-spammable cards, thereby broadening the strategy space of the card.

While it certainly is quite a nerf, it might be too much of a nerf to make it really worthwhile. It also does nothing about the main problem of its swinginess: You have to get it into your hand with a card that you want to upgrade. And even if that happens it might be better in that situation to play that card, because it nets you profit now and often is more of a solid play.

That probably depends on how strong the card is in the first place.   A Goons is not made as much stronger (percentagewise) by +$1 as a Pearl Diver would be.  I'd happily let a Pearl Diver go unplayed for a turn in exchange for money on successive plays, but I'd be more reluctant to do so with a Goons.  I don't know if that changes the strategy of the card in a desirable or undesirable way.

But I still say swinginess due to needing the collision isn't that bad, because unlike with the other major collision cards (Treasure Map, Followers, maybe Baron) it's not as important to collide first with Investment.  True, you'd rather collide sooner than later, but let's say there's a Pearl Diver race between two players who each have a single Investment in their decks.   Player 1 opens Silver/Silver, buys Investment turn 3, a Pearl Diver turn 4, and collides them turn 5 (whereupon he also buys another Pearl Diver).   Fine, but now he's got only one Pearl Diver in his deck to actually make use of the activation, so he spends a shuffle buying Pearl Divers for use after that.  Or he started with a more risky, aggressive strategy and opened Silver/Pearl Diver and still managed to afford Investment turn 3.  So, okay, he's got 2 Peddler-with-a-bonus cards.  This hardly offers this player with an insurmountable advantage.

Meanwhile, Player 2 gets unlucky.  He opens Silver/Silver, buys 5 Pearl Divers on turns 3-7, then finally affords an Investment on turn 8.  He still has to collide it with a Pearl Diver to make it work, and in the meantime Player 1 is already active.  Thing is, it's now almost impossible for him NOT to collide with a Pearl Diver the very next time through the deck, at which point his deck gets a sharper power boost, as it upgrades four cards instead of one.

Very contrived examples here, but the illustration is that not colliding early means (1) you're more likely to collide next time, and (2) the longer you wait to collide, the bigger the instant power increase is.  I'm persuaded that these two factors mitigate the card's swinginess.  You'd still rather collide early than late, but it's not like Treasure Map, where the first to collide gets immediate use of four Golds you can't match until you do, nor Tournament, where only the first to collide gets Followers.  It's not even as swingy as Baron, because +$4 now results in a bigger kickstart to your deck  than +$1 next time a copy of the collided card comes up does.

[Adrienaline]

Then how about we modify this idea a little bit? I recognise there is too much text on this for an actual card, and the wording may be shot in parts, but in the same idea vein.

$8: Bribe
Action
Choose a card from your hand, deck or discard pile, trash this card and add the card you choose to your "Bribe" mat. If you choose to draw the card from your deck, shuffle your deck afterwards.
You get the effect below every time you play the selected card after this, in addition to the effects of the card
If it is a
Action: +1 card, +1 action
Treasure: +$1, +1 buy
Victory: Each other player gains a curse, and the type becomes Action/Victory
Curse: You may trash a card from your hand and gain a card costing $1 more, and the type becomes Curse/Action
If the card is a dual type, you choose which bonus you want each time you play the card, but you only get 1 per copy of the card played.

Or, more realistically, I forsee a variety of types of investment, with different effects (+1 card, +$1, +1 action, +1 buy, everyone else discards a card, everyone else gains a curse, trash a card and gain a card costing up to $1 more) and different prices (obviously, the cursing effect will be more expensive). They wouldn't synergise well with each other, but only 1 or 2 in a kingdom could change things completely.

[Boldot]

Sweet jumpin jesum Bribe is powerful.  Basically, to me that looks like first person to get that is gonna win.
Seriously, turning Smithies into +4 cards +1 action? There's just no way you could balance that.  Torturer becomes its own chain.  All coppers becoming silvers, silvers to gold (with +buy too!).

I really like the concept, but as is this is just absurdly powerful (probably even moreso than the original Investment I'd say)

[Adrienaline]

The idea is that you give up a province and a copy of that card to get it though, maybe you have to put aside two copies of that card?

It was intended to be a bit tongue in cheek, but I like the concept too.

[rinkworks]

I played another test game of the original card idea at a $7 price.  I went for Walled Villages, while my opponent went for Throne Rooms.  The Throne Room idea was brilliant, since if you play two Throne Rooms, you actually get +$3 besides being able to play doubled actions thereafter.  But ultimately I won the game with invested Walled Villages.  I'm not so sure our choice of Investment card made the difference, but it was really nice having Walled Villages, and it occurred to me too late that if the only action cards I ever bought were Investment and three Walled Villages (sacrificing one to the Investment mat), then I could play two Walled Villages every turn and return them to the top of the deck each clean-up.  Basically I'd have a free +$2 every single turn for the rest of the game.

Anyway, that card works better at $7.  I do suspect it's still overpowered by publishing standards, but the start-up costs -- in time, money, and opportunity -- to get things rolling are very steep.  But it's just so much fun, I hate to rein it in.  Next game we try, I'd like to try to break it, by including such power combos as Pearl Diver and Conspirator in the kingdom.

[heron]

Scheme and Treasury combo well with this card.

[rinkworks]

Just goes to show:  sometimes a couple games of playtesting isn't enough.  Usually just one or two games seems to get me 80% of the way toward balancing any particular fan card, but once in a while it takes longer to figure it out.

After (losing) several more games with this card (which I've named "Cargo Hold," as "Investment" is already the name of another card of mine), I'm persuaded that $5 is fine after all.  Without rereading the whole thread, I think my opinion on the price started at $6, went up to $7, and now it's all the way back down at $5.

The reason is that, although power combos with Pearl Diver, etc, are possible, they are not usual; moreover, they take a LONG time to set up:  you have to essentially trash two early-game buys, while buying extra copies of the card you're upgrading so you can actually make use of the ability.  Huge penalty, the like of which I hadn't fully appreciated the last time I posted here, that means many Cargo Hold strategies are just too slow to pay off.  So I think this is a narrower card than I realized and therefore fine at $5.  But when a combo pays off, it's a lot of fun.

Great card, and I'm kind of relieved that its power level seems more in the usual range.