They were removed for a reason or two. And while those reasons do make sense (overall too few usages, "forced usage", un-fun, etc.), that still doesn't mean I and my groups had fun with them. What did you guys enjoy out of them?
AdventurerSomebody managed to hit a Gold, and then go past 6 dead cards (Victory and Curses) to hit a Platinum. Was just what was needed to buy a Colony, and get a turn back from NOT having a turn with 5 useless cards in hand for his next hand.
SpyThe groups I play with tend to either discover their fair share of strategies before me, or at the same time. I was the first to combine this with Thief to set up Silver and Gold for the taking. People were initially shocked that I told them to leave their Silver and Gold on top. One of them even discarded it because that's the "default thing" that we've been doing, but I had to tell him to leave it on top, as I have a Thief coming up so I'm going to be nabbing the Gold soon!
ThiefBecause it takes ANY treasure, it does create even more tension when you have Treasures that are more "exotic" than Silver and Gold (as opposed to Noble Brigand, even though it's regarded as better). Venture and Platinum can also be yours for the taking. Admittedly, other Treasures like Quarry and Loan aren't so great when you've utilized them to effect, so it is welcome to go away.
Bandit, its 2e replacement still goes after those other "exotic" Treasures, but it just trashes them. You don't get to nab them for yourself. I suppose that nabbing it for yourself isn't as great midgame and on since you'll get much less uses out of them due to taking longer to reshuffle, but for our early games, it still contributed some part in not buying Gold or Silver, especially early on.
FeastIt's fun to TR or Kings Court this. Otherwise, we did use it as a way around Embargo tokens for one game
ChancellorI've seen games where this kicked ass. I will confess they were most certainly the exception than the norm. The one that stands out the most is when I played in a 4p tourney of this game...
4p game with P/C (plat. Colony)
The relevant cards (as I can't recall everyone of them)...
Venture, Loan, Quarry, Grand Market (GM)
Chancellor
OPENING
I decided to get into Grand Markets by going Quarries. It proved too difficult to get 2 of them together to get a guaranteed Grand Market (GM), and Silver wasn't that useful
p2 did Loans to trim his deck of Coppers
p3 Ventured her way to compete with the rest of us
p4 got a Chancellor early, and IIRC, sometime later flipped his deck as soon as he got a good card (Gold? Grand Market? probably Gold...) while his draw deck was full
MID GAME
I was hurtin'
At roughly 40% of the way through the game, p4 got his first Colony
p2 and p3 got theirs sometime later. I wouldn't get my first Colony until about 80% of the way through the game.
p4 did well enough that he was getting a decent amount of Gold, GM, and Platinum. He even apologized for taking so long for a few turns, but to be fair, I don't blame him... one case, it was roughly mid game and it was a bit of an important decision to decide if he wanted to do more on the engine side, or the green side. For another turn, he had $18 and multiple buys, with no Copper in play (so GM were an option)
END GAME
me: 35
p2: 50ish
p3: 50ish
p4: 80-something
Pretty much the feeling of "Just when you thought you were playing Dominion... nope! THIS is Dominion!".NEXT GAME
Tournament games had us play 2 games in a 1.5 hour time slot (we usually pounded out 2 within 45 minutes). For our 2nd game, we also had Chancellor. Also had Witch, Gardens, and the rest I can't remember (other than p4 from last game won on Gardens). After studying this game's Setup, he says that nope... Chancellor isn't worth bothering with on this Setup.WoodcutterNo major memories here. It definitely got used in games where we were paying $18 for a Province, so this being the only source of +Buys helped with that.
Secret ChamberDitto here.. nothing major here, other than it was the 2nd Reaction card we've seen. It was more tailored towards Attacks that have you flip up the top card or cards of your deck to swap something you'd like reveal instead. So Silver into Silver instead of Copper into Curse vs. Swindler, or for Saboteur, may as well cycle through my Coppers. Also to swap out inferior cards for better ones to be able to do better stuff on your turn. I did manage to get a Province or Gold I otherwise wouldn't have been able to.
Great HallPeeps did like Upgrading Estates into this. Otherwise, amongst groups that tend to rush towards these alternative Victory cards, this accelerated the game since the game would sort of "begin" with 1 empty pile already
TributeThe better someone's deck was, the better for you this was. Again, my groups liked to go for the alt-Victory cards, but also the multi-type ones, which made that choice an interesting decision with this. Also, fun when 2 Curses are flipped up (hey, you did Curse him :p), or Throne Room on Tribute to get 2 Copper, and then 2 Silver (so only $4 out of all of that :p)
SaboteurAkin to Thief Trashing Treasures that normally wouldn't happen, this shares a bond with Bandit where it also got good Treasures into the Trash for other interactive purposes (see Thief above). Here, you get more variety since it also goes after non-Treasures. Folks losing Fairground was quite painful one game since they were worth 6pts to them!
Bandit (from base 2e) does go after the specialty/power treasures, so at least it creates a more diverse Trash pile there (for cards like Forager, Graverobber, Lurker, etc.)
CoppersmithIt's hard, but fun to get this and Coppers when you've played multiple ones of them.
Otherwise, I've seen a few games where players managed to get 4 Copper and a CS to nab a Province
ScoutThe discovery of this being good with the multi-types (e.g. Harem, Nobles, Great Hall), is kind of neat, even though it's another card that got deemed to be not so great. Oh... drawing a whole bunch of even just plain Victory cards (no function on their own) paired up nicely with Secret Chamber or Cellar.
Oh.. putting cards in order was fun too. With a Moat coming up and no actions, I could leave the what would've been a dead card beyond my draw, and just draw the Victory and Treasures instead, leaving the action card for next turn.
Or with a Smithy, just put the Copper and Silver on top within the first 3, and leave the Gold out of Smithy's reach at #4 from the top of the deck. The Silver and Copper will be enough to buy a Province (and no extra buys anyways), leaving the Gold for next turn.