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[popsofctown]

Be sure to keep in mind that removing a card limits the overall possibilities the game has to offer, and thus, risks simplifying strategy.  There's a tradeoff though, when something offers a lot of swinginess, but not a lot of strategy, it hurts the game more than it helps.  The best example I can produce off the top of my head is "items" from Super Smash Bros. which are unanimously banned from tournament play, because although they provide unique effects with interesting strategic implications, they make best of 3 sets far less accurate and hurt enjoyment more than they help.  (Actually, some of the items are less like 2/5 Mountebanks and more like Harvests, but that particular community found life easier if they threw the baby out with the bathwater).

These are the cards that I think I would remove from Base.  To keep the question simple, I'm not going to allow alternative replacements, thus, for me to say I think the game would be better off without a card, it has to be so bad that I don't mind it skewing the color and icon balance of the age.

1. Oars
The problem with Oars isn't that it's a bad card, although it is.  The problem with Oars is that it is a bad opener.  It has a useful niche and is an interesting dogma to consider later in the game, but it if it is in your opening hand, it really screws you over.  While it does have a niche, the niche is still weak, and not all that interesting.  It's not worth the swinginess that Oars produces by screwing over opening hands, hands like Archery/Oars, Oars/Code of Laws, Oars/City States.  The other half of those pairs either are doing more to not suck as openers or have a more interesting niche, Archery does what you wish Oars was doing later in the game, Code of Laws is a very interesting card and can tussle for early icons, and City States has a good niche and even isn't that bad in the opening - though it's a lot worse in the opening if your opponent can notice that your opening two cards are City States and Oars, and proceed to refuse to get a 4th tower so that you are starved out of having any good dogma at all.

2. Oars - This is sort of a joke but.. Metalworking.  That card is really swingy in a silly way.  People have posted the turn 1 Monuments and stuff.  The nice thing about removing Oars, the way I've made up these rules, is that it nerfs Metalworking just enough to make Metalworking tolerable.  It is enough to keep Metalworking off the chopping block.

That's all I have for you.  I wouldn't remove any other cards.  As I gain more experience perhaps this list would grow. 

This might seem like a dumb thread, but, whatever, I had fun making it.

[rrenaud]

Feudalism?  Refrigeration? Encyclopedia?

[popsofctown]

I was really on the fence about Refrigeration.

Encyclopedia at the very least has the tactical interestingness of triple crown.

Feudalism is quite a bit better with cardcounting, you can snatch Machineries off a hunch.

[ksasaki]

did you know you can share oars to get 2 cards.  True story!

[BitTorrent]

The first time when opponents within the rank 2000~ range sees me start with Oars back in F14(the best players there back in those days usually are 2800+) would just laugh and feels that they already win this one, but after a few times when I start with Oars and I am in 2900, they know my trick and no longer take it easy 

Yea oars is far from perfect, but the icon combination makes it a very viable opener and the dogma effect is not bad either. 2 castles means that if your opponent starts with domestication he/she will have no advantage at all, since they have to go first and even they force you to meld an Archery from your hand you still have another hand and a full turn to fix whatever the trouble is. 2 castles also means that you cannot successfully demand anyone starts with a castle card - which is what I intended. You can only activate the second part of the Oars dogma if you cannot get any score from the first part of the dogma, and you can only share it if you don't have more castles than your opponent. To view it in another way, you can activate Oars in-order to get 2 cards while give your opponent a card. Since most ppl usually stick to castle cards for starting this is usually achievable.

People who stick to theory and logic would ask why don't I just draw one card then, but I can tell most of the situation it is better to have more choices, especially you don't have the best starter cards already. 

If I must tell you the worst starter I can think of in base set...Code Of Laws. I do think this one should be an age 2 or 3 card with the same family of effects but a bit more power such as you can tuck 2 cards of a same color or something...But not as an age 1 card with such weird icon combination...

[popsofctown]

Sharing Oars is usually the best play, but that's generally because you're trying to fix the problem of, I have Oars, Oars sucks as an opener, I need to get a decent dogma going.

Discussing that strategy kind of proves the point itself.

Oars vs. Domestication is one of the openings where Oars doesn't totally suck, but there's several other opening scenarios where it's pretty rough.

[ksasaki]

in the base set if i get code of laws i would agree it is kind of crappy.  However, if I get it in the expansion i am literally jumping for joy.  It is that good!  Like BitTorrent was saying, at least a third of the cards in age 1 have 2+ castles (the other 2 reds, domestication, mysticism, masonry).  Plus you might think stealing sailing from their hand to your score pile is bad, but I'd rather have sailing in my score pile than their hand!  Oars also has the "perfect splay" placements, where you can get a castle splayed left, and a castle and a crown (crowns are hard to come by in red!) splayed right.  No, I would not say oars is useless, agriculture seems more useless at the start.  With pottery you can just keep continuously spamming it, but agriculture requires a hand replenishment.  However, if I have agriculture in my hand, I usually meld it first just to defend against clothing, so it does have that going for it.

[BitTorrent]

Well IMO there is no real 'good' opener, say Metalworking did not actually give you more cards but a few scores(maybe a few more if your opponent have no interest in stopping you), Mysticism is decent in age 1 only because its 3 castles(its effect is fully powerful only when you got 5 top cards which is not something usually you can rush in age 1), The Wheel looks strong but what it only gives you is a double draw, so without help from Mansion you cannot get those card you grabbed and you may be in trouble if your opponent is doing stupid pottery once you wipe out the age 1 pile. Mansion is a 'minion' card which only gives you icon but the dogma is unused most of the time(yea you often use it once -> once it is done that card is a dummy). Clothing can destroy someone if your opponent is not careful enough, but most of the time what you can only get is a few score and a slight achievement advantage.

There may be 'bad' opener though, but what I want to say is that most age 1 cards cannot buy you a win right away, most of the starts are not entirely unfair to either side. At least for base set.

(Yea I know noodles in echoes is stupid, though most ppl cannot take advantage on me because when someone starts noodles against me I am already in high alert right at the first action...)

[marco2012]

I think the worst start would be city state + code of law. Both two cards are purple, and start with C.

Anyway, in every card have its own usage. (I seldom use Feudalism or service, thought. Use for gather more icons would be interesting, thought)

You may think removing more cards at future, but in my experience, the list will be disappeared lol

[theory]

Feudalism has to be my least-used dogma.  My god that's just so stinky.  Yay, I can use it to steal Machinery.  Whoop dee doo, why couldn't I have just drawn Machinery instead?  And great, it can splay Purple/Yellow left; literally the two worst Age 1-4 colors to be splayed left.

Well IMO there is no real 'good' opener

None of them will win you the game, but there are obviously starts that are way better than others.  Tools is so much worse in 4p; Domestication is almost always superior to Oars.  If the best point of a card is that it has "good symbols" to allow you to share your opponent's superior dogmas, then obviously those dogmas are better than yours ...

That being said I think the effect of a bad opening is pretty minimal, unless it involves an improbable scoring chain.  It's very difficult to beat a score racer if Metalworking happened to give them both Monument and Age 1 and if you don't draw a good score-beater.

[popsofctown]

Feudalism I would definitely remove if I could replace it with a new purple card, but using the arbitrary rules I set up I'd have to keep it.

Code of Laws-City States is pretty bad but the two cards pull more weight in other situations, Oars sucks during all four ages.

[timchen]

oars is probably a multiplayer card like thief.

In a 4p game you can probably imagine that the demand will be on a few players while the draw is shared among the rest. Then it brings pretty good benefit for the dogmaing player.

[popsofctown]

I don't think it works the way you think it works. 

Player A uses Oars.
Player B yields a Code of Laws for A's score pile and draws a 1.
Player C isn't impacted by the demand because he has more towers than A
Player D doesn't have any cards in hand, so he doesn't give up anything. 
Player A doesn't draw a card because it's not true that "no cards were transferred due to the demand". 
Neither does C, even though he has more towers. 
A doesn't get to draw a 1 from Oars, or a free draw action as a sharing bonus, he gets nothing but a measly point.

It sometimes better in multiplayer, if you manage to nail two 3's.  More often this phenomenon makes it even worse, though, you try to share the "draw a 1", but then score a 1 instead.

[timchen]

oh crap.