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[Epoch]

One of the major, and most fun, types of Dominion deck is a cards/action two-card engine, the most vanilla example being Village/Smithy.  (As a side note: do we have a name for this besides "cards/actions two-card engine"?  I think we need one.  If I say cards/action engine, do people understand that as being the village/smithy type, rather than the Laboratory type?).

Unfortunately, these decks also, well, kind of suck.  Particularly in Province games.  They're very difficult to make competitive with big money.

There are a few ways that they can be made more competitive, most of which we have examples of already:

1.  Include +buy as part of the engine (Wharf, Council Room, and Worker's Village (and Festival, maybe) provide this)
2.  Include +money as part of the engine (Fishing Village, Bazaar)
3.  Include an attack as part of the engine (Torturer, Rabble)
4.  More efficient card drawing (Wharf, Council Room)

So an interesting aspect of that is that both (all?  We might count Witch or whatever) of the "engine + attack" cards are on the +cards side of the engine -- they're Smithy variants.  What if the attack were on the Village side of the engine?

An attacking village would probably want a few different features:

1.  Since it's easily spammable, it probably doesn't want to be an accumulative attack.  Like Militia, it should probably be just "it hurts you once, and then you're done."  The only easily spammable accumulative attack I can think of is Familiar, which is balanced by the Potion buy and the eventual run-out of Curses.
2.  It probably does not want to accumulate well with Torturer or Rabble.  Village/Torturer doesn't need any help.
3.  Since we don't want to price the engine out of the roof, we probably don't want a very severe attack.  If the card gives you all of +1 Cards/+2 Actions, and an attack, its minimum price is $4, and it could go up.

So:

Fortified Village
Action - Attack
Cost:  $4
+1 Card
+2 Actions
Each opponent with 5 or more cards in his hand reveals his hand.  If he has two or more cards with the same name in his hand, he discards one such card.

Whaddya think?  A chance of a Cutpurse effect in the early game (if your opponent has 1 or fewer Estates, most likely).  In the later game, a chance of a worse attack.  Barring weird situations (Council Room or whatnot), only affects an opponent once in a turn.

[rod-]

I sort of like how it will often turn on menagerie.  Most attacks being soft-countered by menagerie is one of my favorite aspects of the latter card. 

[rinkworks]

That's a really interesting attack idea.  Might be cool on another type of card, too.

But I really like your thought process here.  I agree, it would change things up in an interesting way if the Village component of such an engine could launch an attack.

Another idea would be to use Fortune Teller's attack.  It also doesn't stack, is somewhat weak, and wouldn't really make things any worse if Torturer were used for the drawing component.

Of other weak attacks, Bureaucrat is out because the ability to spam those, especially on successive turns, would be brokenly powerful.  Spy would work, though a "+2 Actions" Spy variant would probably be too close to the real thing to be interesting.  How about a Jesterish sort of attack?  That would have strange interactions, as if two players went for the same type of engine, they'd effectively help each other build them.

[Davio]

How about doing something with Victory cards in the opponents hand as a defense?
This way the attack is mild in the beginning when players start building their decks (due to Estates) and mild in the end when decks start greening.

It would only activate more often in the middle when both players have had a chance to properly build their decks and deal with the effects of this card.

I'm thinking something along the lines of:
Each other player may reveal a Victory card from his hand. If they do, they gain a Silver and discard that Victory card. Otherwise, they gain a Copper.

This will actually help players in the beginning, but hurt them badly in the middle when an opponent plays multiple in a row. In the end, players will get Silvers again, but Silvers are less powerful in the end.

[WanderingWinder]

How about doing something with Victory cards in the opponents hand as a defense?
This way the attack is mild in the beginning when players start building their decks (due to Estates) and mild in the end when decks start greening.

It would only activate more often in the middle when both players have had a chance to properly build their decks and deal with the effects of this card.

I'm thinking something along the lines of:
Each other player may reveal a Victory card from his hand. If they do, they gain a Silver and discard that Victory card. Otherwise, they gain a Copper.

This will actually help players in the beginning, but hurt them badly in the middle when an opponent plays multiple in a row. In the end, players will get Silvers again, but Silvers are less powerful in the end.

I don't want this card, basically ever. The 'attack' will almost always be more of a benefit to my opponent over the course of a game than a hindrance. Honestly, I think you could make it gain a copper or nothing and it would be a nice, interesting $4.

[Epoch]

Hmmm, is a deck-inflation attack (even one that inflates with Coppers instead of Curses, and could miss) ever only going to be worth 1 more than a Village?  Seems nasty.  Surely not deck inflation that's easily spammable and can hit more than once a round!

Here's Davio's card as a Village, with less help to your opponents and not so spammable:

Tollhouse
$4
Action - Attack
+1 Card
+2 Actions
Each other player with 5 or fewer cards in their hand may reveal a Victory card.  If they do not, they gain 1 Copper and put it in their hand.  If they do, no effect.

(It also makes the attack milder by adding to their hand's buying power.  Honestly, I just did that as a convenient way to prevent its spammability).

[Davio]

How about doing something with Victory cards in the opponents hand as a defense?
This way the attack is mild in the beginning when players start building their decks (due to Estates) and mild in the end when decks start greening.

It would only activate more often in the middle when both players have had a chance to properly build their decks and deal with the effects of this card.

I'm thinking something along the lines of:
Each other player may reveal a Victory card from his hand. If they do, they gain a Silver and discard that Victory card. Otherwise, they gain a Copper.

This will actually help players in the beginning, but hurt them badly in the middle when an opponent plays multiple in a row. In the end, players will get Silvers again, but Silvers are less powerful in the end.

I don't want this card, basically ever. The 'attack' will almost always be more of a benefit to my opponent over the course of a game than a hindrance. Honestly, I think you could make it gain a copper or nothing and it would be a nice, interesting $4.

Well, card design is not my forte. Often I just think about a certain direction that I'd like the card to have and not worry about the details much. I like the latest modification.

[Kirian]

I actually feel like the original card as presented is pretty balanced for the price, as it can only hit once; having it simply be a discard chosen by the player (i.e. a mini-Militia) might work just as well.  The main problem is this increases the Village/Torturer power.  But spamming coppers into their hand, as the most recent post does, gives them one good turn and then a horrible deck.

I must say I like the general idea.

[Epoch]

I actually feel like the original card as presented is pretty balanced for the price, as it can only hit once; having it simply be a discard chosen by the player (i.e. a mini-Militia) might work just as well.  The main problem is this increases the Village/Torturer power.  But spamming coppers into their hand, as the most recent post does, gives them one good turn and then a horrible deck.

If by "the most recent one," you my variant of Davios' idea, it's not very spammable.  It doesn't do anything if your opponent has more than 5 cards in his hand.  Presumably, he takes 1 Copper, ends up with 6 cards, and then stops.

It'd be interesting with Village/Torturer, since one might be inclined to take a Copper, then discard to the Torturer, then be forced to take another Copper.  On the other hand, take one Curse from the Torturer, and you're immune to the Village's attack.  I think I'd be inclined to call it an interesting tactical decision rather than "a huge problem," but it's possible I'm wrong.

Tollhouse/Rabble doesn't combo very well -- the Rabble sets up your next turn to be immune to the Tollhouse.  Fortified Village/Rabble is, I think, mostly just whatevs.  The Rabble doesn't set up your next turn to be immune to Fortified Village unless Rabble puts two of the same Victory cards onto the top of your deck, in which case your next turn wasn't likely to be awesome anyhow.

Hmm, a possible deal with Tollhouse that you could do: make it so that the person who reveals a Victory card discards it and then draws a card.  So...  that gets you back to "Victory cards help your opponent," like Davio's initial design.  But also, having one Victory card doesn't make you immune to the attack from then on.