My Submission:
| | Hunter$3* – Action +2 Cards +1 Card per empty Supply pile.
You may trash this to gain a card costing up to $1 more than it.
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This costs $1 more per empty Supply pile.
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I do like the idea of these cards that "power up" costing more based on the power up, like Community and Hunter as I think it makes an interesting decision on when to buy - getting them early when they might be weak, but at a discount, for their later powered up state. So you've got my vote there.
But I might suggest trying to avoid being strictly better than any of the official cards during any of the "ages" of the card; i.e. In Hunter's case, with one empty supply pile, it is is "strictly better" than Smithy.
You mean like how City is strictly better than both Laboratory and Lost City when Supply piles are empty?
Sure, good point. There is a difference though. When supply piles are empty, City is (effectively) strictly worse at the same cost. So strategically you need to decide whether to buy the card early at a premium or wait until it's powered up.
In the case of Hunter (and Community), if you get the card early, it's at a discount, instead.
Put another way, City is strictly worse, then strictly better. Changing costs cards should try to be balanced (and therefore not strictly better or worse) at all "ages". (at least, in my opinion)
While Hunter has something in common with City, obviously, there are quite some differences too. Getting Hunter early at a discount is easy to achieve as it is cheap, but if you want to keep it until it becomes powerful, it comes with a huge drawback. Only getting +2 Cards from Hunter for the most part of a game doesn't look like a good deal. Think of Moat in the absence of Attacks for a cost of $3. But hey, Hunter has a one-shot self-remodeling function. As segura has pointed out, this has the inevitable consequence that you cannot call the discount Hunter anymore your own. On the other hand, it brings you one step closer to the desired stage of emptying piles. You just need to buy a Hunter again at some point.
Then you compared a level 2 Hunter with Smithy and argued that it shouldn't be strictly better. I'd say it actually should. Otherwise, it wouldn't be worth to gain Hunter at any stage of a game (as compared to Smithy). Gubump also mentioned City versus Lab and Lost City, and rightly so. A level 2 City
has to be better. So, the real question is not
whether a level 2 Hunter should be better (or not) than Smithy, but rather,
how much better can it be, in order to be balanced. I have no answer to this question (yet). I have designed Hunter from scratch yesterday and after 6 games in a "I play solitaire for 3 players" mode, I came to the conclusion that it is interesting enough to be presented here, and also interesting enough to get more play testing. Then the future will hopefully show whether it will work in a balanced way.
Another comparison I have made is with the Traveller lines. Like an upgraded Hunter, you don't get a Champion early in the game. In some Kingdoms they will be weak (i.e. they do not come to the stage of being effective), whereas in other games, they can be powerhouses (i.e. they quickly become effective).