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[rinkworks]

City is one of the most interesting cards in the game, due to the way it uses empty supply piles.  It got me thinking there is room for more kingdom cards that use this idea -- in particular, cards for which the strategy isn't always quite the same, despite using the same underlying idea of a card that grows in power as supply piles are exhausted.

Investment
$5 - Treasure
Worth $2.  Worth an additional $1 per empty supply pile.

Mad Scientist
$3 - Action
+1 Card, +1 Action.  For each empty supply pile, +1 Card.

Burglar
$5 - Action/Attack
+3 Cards.  For each empty supply pile, +1 Card.
With no empty supply piles, each other player having 5 or more cards discards his hand and draws 5 cards.
With 1 empty supply pile, each other player having 4 or more cards discards his hand and draws 4 cards.
With 2 or more empty supply piles, each other player having 3 or more cards discards his hand and draws 3 cards.

Although these cards all follow a certain pattern -- overpriced at level 1, underpriced at level 2, and crazy powerful at level 3 -- I suspect the strategies you'd use with these cards are quite different.  Whereas a City is still useful as a Village at level 1 and can be bought up before any supply piles are depleted, I suspect you'd never want a Mad Scientist before some other supply pile was gone.  There would also be a difference in how *many* you want to stock up on.  Even at level 3, you'd not want a whole lot of Burglars in a kingdom without extra actions, though two or three would probably be a priority.

There's probably room for a cursing attack of this kind, too.  Maybe something like this:

Sorceress
$5 - Attack
Each other player gains a curse.
If 1 or more supply piles are empty, +2 Cards, +1 Action.
If 2 or more supply piles are empty, +$1.

The idea here would be that the Level 1 card is inferior to Sea Hag, more expensive, and equally useless for your own deck.  But the attack is still powerful and -- more to the point -- helps to exhaust that first pile, at which point a deck overcrowded with terminal Sorceresses suddenly comes alive as a Laboratory deck.  (The Level 3 power-up is an afterthought; I don't know what would be best there.)

I haven't tested any of these ideas yet.  Any thoughts?

[chesskidnate]

mad scientist seems like it might be too strong, with ironworks you're probably forced to go for them and with colonies it's probably reasonable opening silver/madscientist and just trying to drain the pile asap.

[philosophyguy]

Yeah, Mad Scientist is too cheap. At $3 it's relatively easy to get multiple buys per turn (plus Ironworks, HoP, etc.), and as soon as the pile is empty it becomes a Lab. $4 seems more reasonable.

[Jimmmmm]

Some of these "For each empty supply pile" cards would get pretty crazy if you manage to empty a 3rd/4th/5th pile at the start of your turn...

[grep]

Some of these "For each empty supply pile" cards would get pretty crazy if you manage to empty a 3rd/4th/5th pile at the start of your turn...

It's really a part of fun. You can plan some really strong superturns based on immediate depleting of several piles. To work well, there should be some helpers:

Prayer Beads
Action, $4
Gain a card with cost $4 or less. For each empty supply pile, gain another card of the same kind.

[Epoch]

It seems like there's some room for a reverse progression: cards which start off good, but become weaker when a supply pile has been emptied.  We already have the general concept of a card that can become weaker, as Tournament sucks out if your opponent has a province in hand and you don't, so I don't think it's antithetical.

Would have actually been interesting to see that mechanic in Cornucopia, with its emphasis on buying a spread of cards instead of slamming one or two piles.  This would be a card that rewarded buying just a little of everything.

[rinkworks]

Epoch:  I had that thought too, then forgot all about it when I wrote my post.  I think there's room for that too.  There are already plenty of cards that weaken over the course of a game:  Cutpurse, Trading Post, Chapel, Baron, Horse Traders, Moneylender, and so on.  Also all cursers!

Seems like it would make some interesting competitive play, too.  If one person loads up on too many such cards, he may have a great advantage -- until an opponent counters by rushing some pile and neutralizing the threat.

I guess my only concern would be that it would possibly encourage a player with such cards to go big money.  Because the treasure piles don't tend to run out, and buying up anything else might just ultimately lead to the neutralization of his own deck.

[kazztawdal]

Entrepreneur
$5 - Action - Attack

+1 Action

If there are no empty supply piles, each other player gains a Curse.
If there is one empty supply pile, each other player gains a Copper.
If there are two or more empty supply piles, each other player gains a Silver, and this card is no longer an "Attack."

[rinkworks]

I've now playtested and tweaked cards in this thread, and I thought I'd post my findings.

Investment
$5 - Treasure
Worth $2.  Worth an additional $1 per empty supply pile.

Definitely strong, arguably too strong, but too weak at $6.  Best in Colony games.

Mad Scientist
$3 - Action
+1 Card, +1 Action.  For each empty supply pile, +1 Card.

Stunningly broken at any price.  I gave up on this one.  It's actually just kind of boring.  Fully powered up, there's no longer any gameplay:  you just lay them all down, and do what you will with the rest of your deck.  Greening doesn't particularly slow them down, so those strategic considerations are non-issues.  Fully powered Cities, by contrast, don't necessarily draw your whole deck and allow you to make decisions about what to do with the extra actions.

Burglar
$5 - Action/Attack
+3 Cards.  For each empty supply pile, +1 Card.
With no empty supply piles, each other player having 5 or more cards discards his hand and draws 5 cards.
With 1 empty supply pile, each other player having 4 or more cards discards his hand and draws 4 cards.
With 2 or more empty supply piles, each other player having 3 or more cards discards his hand and draws 3 cards.

This is also broken, I suppose because of how wildly different the power of the attack is.  At level 1, it's scarcely an attack at all.  At level 3, it's brokenly powerful.  At level 2, it just does what another card already does.

I recognized early on that the drawing component of the card exaggerated the unbalancing, so I ripped that out and tried a few different flat bonuses.  But I soon discovered that the attack component was unfixable.  Ripping that out and restoring the variable drawing piece, I was somewhat surprised to find, works just fine:

Gatherer
$5 - Action
+3 Cards.  For each empty supply pile, +1 Card.

Sorceress
$5 - Attack
Each other player gains a curse.
If 1 or more supply piles are empty, +2 Cards, +1 Action.
If 2 or more supply piles are empty, +$1.

I figured the coin was too strong, so I changed it to +1 Buy before even playtesting it.  After a single game, it was clear it was still grotesquely powerful, so I priced it at $6.  But this was the wrong solution.  What happens is that Sorceress is still a must-buy at $6, so players just dive into the pile, suffering through the collisions.  The Sorceress pile emptied first -- I took the last one, quite apprehensively, as it meant my opponent would get the benefit of the cursing draw engine before me.  But I knew I'd have three Sorceresses in my next hand, so I took the risk.  My opponent handed out two Curses, and then I handed out the last three.

After a little more thought, it was clear that the drawing engine piece had to be put at Level 3, rather than Level 2.  That enabled me to drop the price back to $5, where it belongs.  That allowed me to throw away the irrelevant +Buy bonus, but I'm still deciding what to put at Level 2.  My current thought is one of these:

Sorceress #1
$5 - Action/Attack
Each other player gains a Curse.
If one or more supply piles are empty, +2 Cards.
If two or more supply piles are empty, +1 Action.

Sorceress #2
$5 - Action/Attack
Each other player gains a Curse.
If one or more supply piles are empty, +1 Card, +1 Action.
If two or more supply piles are empty, +1 Card.

I'm pretty sure both of these ideas are improvements; it's just a matter of figuring out which one works best.  Both retain the interesting decisions Sorceress players have to make about when they empty a pile, whether it's the Sorceress pile, Curse pile, or some other spammable pile.

[guided]

Awesome to see somebody actually doing extensive playtesting of their card ideas!

I have one question though: Even in Colony games, is Investment sufficiently differentiated from Venture (which I expect will usually be at least as strong) to be interesting?

[rinkworks]

Awesome to see somebody actually doing extensive playtesting of their card ideas!

I have one question though: Even in Colony games, is Investment sufficiently differentiated from Venture (which I expect will usually be at least as strong) to be interesting?

Probably?  I guess they are similar in that they improve in value over the course of a game.  But Venture's growth is more in your own control and usually a natural consequence of improving your deck.  Investment's growth is less sure.  It's just an expensive Silver if the first pile to go is Provinces or Colonies.  So, as with City, you have to judge whether or not that's likely to happen before going for them at all.  However, it's less harmful in the short term to load up on Silvers than Villages, so rushing the Investment pile, as opposed to the City pile, is a less risky proposition.  That's kind of why I wonder if it's a bit too strong at $5.  But the comparison with Venture is a good one.  I would imagine Venture to be stronger than Investment more often than not, so I feel better about it being balanced at $5.

[icesphere]

I think sorceress #1 and #2 are both good, but I would lean towards #2, to differentiate it from the witch card, and also so that it can more quickly become a non-terminal card.

[rinkworks]

I think sorceress #1 and #2 are both good, but I would lean towards #2, to differentiate it from the witch card, and also so that it can more quickly become a non-terminal card.

I thought of the similarity to Witch too, but, thing is, #2 has the same similarity to Familiar.

If you're interested in either, my advice is to try out both and use the one you like the best.  I suspect both cards are fine (I haven't tested #2 enough to say for sure); they just offer a different experience.  The main thing that differentiates this card from the other pile-aware cards I proposed is that it actively helps you deplete a pile.  That  makes it interesting in a way the others aren't, but what I wasn't anticipating was how much it means the better benefits needed to be pushed later, to Level 3.

[icesphere]

I could see how #2 would usually be more powerful than #1 for most setups, but like you said it's probably hard to know for sure until you play test it.