Thank you for the elaborate reply, Fragasnap. I am pissed because I have to write my replies to you all over because I accidentally deleted a lot of text in one misclick but I will try to remain calm and friendly. It’s got nothing to do with you
Capital
The Action is a cute counterpoint to Mining Village, but is probably a lot more frustrating than it. +2 Cards has a lot more variable value than +$2.
One of my favorite parts of Dominion is the way Victory cards weigh players down. Games like Ascension, Star Realms, and Thunderstone all fall into the trap of making cards good for player's decks also good for player's scores. This causes the economic snowball to spin out of control and makes deck building stupidly easy. Dominion is fantastic because of how incredibly hard it is to build a deck effectively. Capital destroys that since Provinces are now not only commonly the best source of Victory points, but also powerful Action cards (Hunting Grounds to be precise). Because the effect is tied to Capital I am sure that BM/Province would not be the best thing ever because Capital ensures there will always be a splitter in Kingdoms with this effect. However, that does not change that the ability to draw 4 cards for playing Provinces would make the first player to gain a Province not only the player with the most points but also the player in the best position to gain more Provinces.
I do not like Capital.
Fair enough, +4 Cards on a Province is a huge deal. The main point of Capital for me is that it gives Estates the ability to be played for +1 Card to modify the opening turns. Capital’s “in games using this” effect could just be limited to that. The +2 Cards bonus is arbitrary and merely replacing its former effect “You may gain a Victory card costing up to $1 per Action card you have in play” which was ridiculous. I don’t see how +2 Cards would be frustrating on a village, though.
Prefect
This seems reasonable, if a little boring. Again, I love the way Victory cards weigh players down and Prefect makes Provinces stronger by removing them immediately and safely from player's decks.
I suppose you don’t like Explorer and Tournament, or Crossroads. I haven’t really much to say about this version of Prefect, as it hasn’t been tested, other than it might be too easy/automatic to do its thing.
Refugees
I am not compelled by this mechanism and do not think it is worth a whole mat added to the game. The way I see it playing, it will make games end frustratingly early since it makes rush strategies so much easier.
I just don’t know where else to put the Refugees not-in-the-Supply. I don’t want them in the trash at the start of the game, I can’t use Tavern mats… a Refugees mat seemed like the easiest thing to me. However, it’s really just any place the card text can refer to. You can put the surplus Refugees anywhere you like as long as they are visibly not in the Supply. Put them on the Trade Route mat, it doesn’t matter.
Routing
I think I agree that this takes quite a bit of processing and a bit of bothersome "push your luck" for little benefit. How about looking at the top 3 and top decking 2?
This would be too similar to several fan cards I’ve seen. Like I said before, I’ll either do my own unique version, or none
Tollkeeper
This one is pretty cool. Weak enough that it likely won't discourage Silvers, strong enough to be playable after other players have committed to a more money centric strategy. I wonder how often players would avoid playing money centric strategies to counter Tollkeeper.
This cards needs to be tested on games with 3 or more players. I would be happy to get any support, as I mostly get to play with only 1 person.
Benefit
Super board dependent, but likely enables some cool stuff with good cards at the $2 and $3 price points. I like it.
It’s one of my own favourite cards, especially with the new reaction. I’ve had Benefit in a couple of games and there has been a place for it in every deck. It’s probably only bad as a BM enabler.
Bog Village
I'm not sure I like the politics and natural luck in the card with players putting Bog Villages into the trash. From experience, the ability to get the "on-trash" effects of cards from the Supply is silly and I recommend wording to get around it.
I am not sure I like the way this can elongate or shorten the game by trashing Kingdom piles indiscriminately. I might like it better if it could only trash and return Bog Villages.
I don’t see how Bog Village is luck dependent, even in multiplayer games. Why would you trash a BV from the Supply if you cannot ensure you return it within the same turn?
Harnessing on-trash bonuses from the Supply may be silly but also a lot of fun. And it doesn’t seem more game changing to me than, say, Watchtower.
Realm Tax
Realm Tax should really count "Actions you have in play" rather than any Action in play since it counts other player's Durations as written. This is probably fun on most boards, though there are boards that will make this worthless.
Realm Tax’s cost, other than Peddler’s, is always dependent on actions in play. I would need to specify it only counts actions of the active player like, “This costs $1 more per Action card, the current/active player has in play”, which sounds awkward. Counting all actions in play seems much simpler and allows for some cute interactions. I like the way it makes you think more carefully about Durations. The top part’s wording is to be in accordance with the bottom part.
Shire
Worth a significant number of Victory points (likely 2VP) and acts effectively as a Smugglers that can be used on any other player's turns. I think it compares too well to Smugglers, especially in multiplayer. I might consider increasing its cost to $5.
It’s no surprise it compares favourably to Smugglers. Smugglers is slow (it doesn’t help your current turn), unreliable, imbalanced in multiplayer, not exactly popular, and it costs $1 less. Still there’s one thing about Shire that everybody seems to miss: you have to use Shire
immediately after another player gains a card you want, while Smugglers at least gives you a choice among all the cards the player to your right gained last turn.
Bastion
Probably not worth buying on any board that might have a Supply pile empty. I don't like how this becomes utterly terrible if two Supply piles empty. I would cap the discard to 1 card if any Supply piles are empty to make its effectiveness more even.
I’ve played several games with Bastion and it’s really powerful and fast. Those games never ended on piles because Bastion pushes them towards Provinces. Even if there’s one pile empty (usually the Bastion pile), it’s still strong. You are underestimating the card.
Beachcomb
I think this plays too much better than Laboratory most of the time even without its Reaction. With its Reaction, I think this will be incredibly powerful since it can save Remodeled Provinces. Please get rid of that interaction.
Remodel, and most other trash-for-benefit cards, read “gain a card costing up to X more than the
trashed card.” As far as I understand it, this means if you use Beachcomb to discard the card you would have trashed with Remodel, you don’t gain a card. Beachcomb is supposed to be a counter to the very unpopular family of trashing attacks.
Beachcomb cycles less than Lab and if there’s no discard pile, it just sucks. Being a cantrip doesn’t help with that. Still, like Hunting Party, it’s often better than Lab but not always, so it costs $5.
Builder
Battlement
I like Battlement, but I don't like Builder. Builder provides a boring cost reduction since it does not give any of the pieces it needs to make cost reduction exciting and caps prices at a different point than any other official card which causes rules confusion.
I’m not happy with Builder’s top part. It’s supposed to be something simple and short. The problem is, those effects are already taken in various forms. I’m considering putting Refugees’ top part, that no one ever talks about, onto Builder if Refugees doesn’t work out because it’s actually really good.
Building Crane
This is interesting. One would probably never buy it without some sort of +Buy being available, but that is common enough to not worry about it.
Yeah, BC seems a little too weak to me but I can’t think of any other, simple and fitting bonus (other than +buy) on top of +3 Cards, +1 Action. +4 Cards, +1 Action seems too ridiculous.
Demagogue
I like the idea, mostly because I like naming cards, but I do not like how this encourages a monolithic deck construction for all players. I especially don't like that this discards the card. One is likely to have Copper or Curse the most common card in their deck, so a player will name one of those. If he is wrong, he not only possibly discarded a good card from his deck, he also has to gain a Curse!
Too bad you don’t like the idea but the general opinion on Demagogue is positive. It’s certainly more fun than Sea Hag!
Deposit
This is probably a game decider here since it gives a +Buy. I think I would be more interested if this did not come with the +Buy packaged onto it, but maybe that would make it too weak. I think most of the time players will only store Coppers and then play 4 of them at once for a double Province turn later.
Deposit is soooo slow and weak. Most of the time, it just reads “+1 Buy, trash a Copper from your hand.” I want it to be explosive to account for that. Players usually cash in their Deposits earlier to reach other critical price points. It’s harder to pull off a single megaturn with Deposit compared to Bridge. And when you do, Deposit discharges itself and floods your deck with Treasures (Coppers!) which makes it impossible to do this consistently.
Draft Horses
I do not think that being able to top deck Actions from your hand is necessary. It would be simpler and largely the same for only digging through the discard pile. I like this one.
Maybe you don’t mind terminal collision as much as I do but it’s cool you like it anyway!
Money Launderer
I think the card would look a lot cleaner if its cost increment was a "while this is in play" effect instead since it would get a horizontal rule.
I would increment the cost of Coppers by $2 to make those trash-for-benefit shenanigans more prevalent. I think it would be too hard to play a million Money Launderers.
It’s written like this so the cost increase for Copper can be Throned but so far it was never relevant. I suppose it should increase its cost by $2 and do so while it’s in play. Most people would prefer it that way.
Mediator
This seems pretty alright. I don't like that it uses Coin tokens from Guilds and VP tokens from Prosperity.
This is my fan set. I do what I like.
No seriously, why would I not use all the resources the original game and expansions provide and utilise their full potential?
Poacher
Forest Hut
I do not like the Shelter. It is a Dark Ages thing and replacing one of the other Shelters with a Forest Hut seems like a weird starting game decision. I think Poacher is too weak to be useful, even with the ability to open with 2 of them.
What you do is you open with 3 Poachers (Forest Hut helps you do that) and then you have super-labs plus non-terminal trashing, both effects being conditional. I can see people not liking it but it’s certainly not weak.
Provisioner
This is almost certainly too strong. Its effect for you is better than Vault and that card affords a benefit to other players to make it weaker!
Yeah it’s pretty powerful! I might limit it to only play one Treasure from your hand. I need to test it more though because I have a theory that Provisioner will choke in almost every deck eventually. Provisioner+BM might just stall when you start greening. I may be mistaken.
Robber Knight
Weird card. I don't think it would be a lot of fun since you would be left with a high variance deck of Ruins that you can only play by drawing them with your Robber Knight and Golds.
I bet whoever happened to have a handful of Golds collide late in the shuffle would end up winning by overpaying for Robber Knight and getting to trash most of their Ruins and possibly some other junk.
Hmm other people say Robber Knight is (or seems) fun. I personally think it is! Dominion is always luck dependent and sometimes early shuffle luck can be game deciding. Robber Knight doesn’t break new grounds here.
Royalty
I would let the player of Royalty gain a "non-Victory card" rather than "an Action or Treasure." This will always be able to gain at least a $4 but will often be hitting $3+ cards and thus gaining $5, likely often enough to make Royalty worth $5.
Unique and powerful gainer Attack.
“Non-Victory card” is shorter so why didn’t I use that? I don’t know but I will change it.
Let’s compare Royalty to Jester:
Royalty gives no on-play bonus. Jester gives +$2.
Royalty might have a “Rabble” effect on other players. Jester always discards the top card regardless whether it’s of good or bad.
Royalty does not junk other players. Jester might give out Curses or other bad cards.
Most importantly: Royalty only gains one card. Jester may gain as many cards as there are players!
To me this looks like Royalty is sufficiently worse than Jester to be worth $4. Granted, it’s still a powerful card for $4 but they can’t all be the worst $4 ever
Suburb
This is a very weak splitter effect that comes with a Reaction to make it better. I think the Reaction could trigger whenever it was discarded "except from Play" and it would still be reasonable.
The only case where that matter would be if you drew dead a Suburb and discard it with your other hand cards during Clean-up, in which case you could also set it aside with your suggestion. Am I correct? It seems worthwhile to make it a little better.
Valorize
I can understand how this would be super powerful. If you required that the Valorize token be placed upon the card trashed or gained you might be able to limit its power effectively enough.
Interesting idea, although I would have to think of a way to implement this cleanly. Putting the token on the pile of the trashed card (if there is any!) seems awkward. Putting it on the pile of the gained card would require more wordy restrictions because Valorize can gain any card from the Supply but put tokens only on Kingdom piles.