I'm confused about why Duchess is the way that it is. Specifically, the part where you can gain a Duchess whenever you gain a Duchy. Can anybody infer what the rationale behind that bit of game design was?
I mean, thematically, I get that a Duchy might come with a Duchess, and it's a neat idea to have a card that makes Duchies more significant by letting you gain something else with you gain them. But why is this that card? I can't quite figure out why a 2-cost "+$2, everybody spies themselves" is the particular card called Duchess and comes with a Duchy.
My best guess is that maybe Duchess is good in Duke strategies, since maybe it helps you get to $5? But it doesn't seem like Duchess is an unusually good card for ensuring $5 hands. Certainly not in the way that, say, Horse Traders is. Even plain old Silver is probably better on balance. And regardless, it seems odd for Donald to have designed a whole card just to enable a single combo with a card that's usually not also going to be there.
I'm just wondering what I'm missing. The last card that had me pondering the game design rationale for weeks on end was Followers: I couldn't figure out why the "gain an Estate" was there. I mean, I got that it was a penalty for using an otherwise powerful card, but it wasn't for ages before I figured out that the Estate makes it a near-perfect mirror of the attack portion (you get a +1 VP card and +2 cards; opponents get a -1 VP card and -2 cards).
I don't know if Duchess has some aesthetic touch like that that I'm missing, or if there is a whole strategy I'm missing, or what. Maybe Duchy/Duchess is somehow a good opening for a Duchy-rush game? Nah, can't be -- couldn't empty a third pile fast enough, surely.
Any insight?
