i might write a more detailed run down later in the road as i gain more experience with echoes and the basic one i already wrote get fixed but let's talk about a few echoes card i consider important in the meanwhile
Age 1
Perfume - having only 1 castle makes it hard to use but it basicaly tells your opponent to not tech up cause you will catch him otherwise
excellent for building echoes cards early on, great starter card
Ruler - much better than writing in that the echo effect will score you tons of free card
also has the distinction of allowing you to immediately draw a 2 echoes (some real gems like watermill and linguistics)
Ice Skates - if you share it and your opponent has no card,it doubles as board screwing as it forces your opponent to go through the removing part,it brings you closer to the foreshadowing achievement and it let you tech up
i'd argue that it's even more useful to return 3 cards to meld 3 2s of the echoes variety, the screwage factor is useful too
Flute - the rest of the text on the card doesn't matter,splaying left for an echo effect is great,the best part is that you can use it once to splay purple left and then cover flute with something else
Noodles - if you get all the 1,this is like having super pottery and it's easily one of the most powerfull echoes scorer
noodles is a scary one, also immune to mapmaking unlike the other big 1 scorers like clothing and metalworking
Chopsticks - all the card that makes achievement avaiable again are good,chopsticks in particular is good because you only need 5 points more for each time you claim 1
if you tuck this and splay left under domestication, makes for "super domestication" (draw 2, meld 1)
Soap - see above,i once won a game claiming three 1,two 2,a 3 and a 4 thanks to soap
Umbrella - if you can tuck this and splay left under the wheel, it's very similar to "super domestication," though you must meld the card before you draw 2
Age 2
Lever - sort of like math but slower
Watermill - occasionaly it tucks huge amount of cards,all of the card that it tucks comes with extra points and a step more toward the wealth achievement
Chaturanga - 3 free action in that you get a free meld and 2 draws,occasionaly you also ends teching up
Linguistics - THE power card of age 2 (IMO), not luck dependent like foreshadowing a 4 is great, in addition you can draw a card equal to a bonus, this card is useful forever
Toothbrush - if you can get this tucked under fermenting and splayed right, WOW (tuck all cards of one value)
Age 3
Almanac - i didn't think much of this card at first since all it does is that it foreshadows but in truth it let you score huge amount of points as those 4 risk turning into a 5 with a bonus and that 5 with a bonus can then turn into a 7 with a bonus and so on...
sick sick echoes if you can splay that blue left
Novel - it's like a wheel,that splays your card and keeps drawing even after you cover it
if you can get bell's echo with this (score a card from your hand), it becomes really crazy on top of whatever purple card you have, monotheism a personal favorite
Deodorant - if drawing and melding a card is good then doing it twice is what? awesome?
Age 4
Slide Rule - if all your card are 4 and all your pile are splayed this let you jump 5 ages ahead,that's huge
yeah, even getting to age 6 where that dreaded industrialization is is awesome
Clock - carefull board manipulation let you use this to splay all your color right,the i demand effect has a decent chance of stealing 3,4 or 5 which can lead to huge scoring
Kobukson - if you missed flute,this basicaly does the same
not to mention it removes all your opponents castles, kind of useful I might add, also note that it says splay left ANY color, so you can start trolling your opponents splays later too...
Telescope - not great by itself, but awesome again like Almanac for that left splay echo
Age 5
Coke - Coke let you search for/and improve industrialization,industrialization is godly in echoes games
Stove - decent scorer in the right situation
Lightning Rod: killer card if you are tucking 2 echoes, in addition to forcing your opponent to remove top cards, NOTE: needs a castle lead
Age 6
Kaleidoscope - Atomic Theory + Splaying = godly
kinda luck based, good if you have no right-splays
Hot Air Balloon - let you score an achievement in a pinch
Hot air balloon let's you draw and score a 7. I generally don't achieve my opponent's card because the "instead" effect is draw and meld a 7. not bad at all...
Bifocals - like stated below, foreshadow ANY value, also a right-splay echo effect, the additional ability of returning a foreshadowed card and foreshadowing another is awesome too
Loom - kind of like a poor man's industrialization, but it can let you get that heritage at the cost of loss of score. But if you have a bunch of 1s and 2s then it's really a good deal
Age 7
Photography - if you use it with bifocals or jeans it let you skip directly to age 9-10
Rubber - sort of like super steam engine
Elevator - huge score stealer
elevator is a KILLER card if you get it early. one clock means it is un-stealable by all those crown-stealers. Also means it will not be shared generally, you can really change the score situation in a hurry
Saxophone - i've never seen it happen but this potentialy let you insta-win you the game
splaying red up never hurt anybody, also the draw and tuck 2 8s is an echoes effect that appears for right and up splays! nice! Think it has a score a top card effect too
Age 8
Radio Telescope - first insta-win card even tough it's pretty random and you need tons of lightbulb which doesn't make it much different from empiricism in the end
yeah but drawing x 9s for every lightbulb, there are tons of good 9s like satellites. My friend used to complain that it was a race for radio telescope! haha
Crossword - quite big drawing power
Tractor - it scores,it draws,it's nice all around
Television - like hot air balloon it can scores an achievement when the stars align
ridiculous card...if your opponent has a bunch of 1s and / or 2s you can literally send his board back to the stone age while you achieve the rest. Kind of like a real television really...
Age 9
Laser - stops an opponent with a big score pile by forfeiting all the achievements
not to mention lets you draw and meld 2 10s. Very nice indeed
Rock - i've never seen this insta-win but ehy it's there
Helicopter - I've never used this to great effect, but you are allowed to transfer top cards to opponent's score piles. ANY card you choose, and then you can return a card with a matching symbol and repeat. So you could totally kill his board, but unfortunately it goes to score
Age 10
Human Genome - if you have no card in your score pile this insta-win you the game
Puzzle Cube - if you have no pile splayed this insta-win you the game
Social Network - if your opponent has got the icon lead this insta-win you the game
GPS - demand to return all your foreshadow, only direct attack card on foreshadow, also foreshadow 3 10s