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Communal ride

Communal Ride
$3 Action

+2 Cards
+2 Actions
Each other player gains a Horse.

Weak for me compared to Lost City.

If the kingdom doesn't have draw this is decent, but it's not super great either. If the kingdom has weak draw and no trashing, this might have relevance in the ways you are pointing out. But that's not most kingdoms at all.

While building, this is approximately either a blank Loot, a terminal +$3 +1 Card, or a Grand Market. Blank Loot is okay but not great, particularly because you want to be drawing your trasher, and the last 2 are usually pretty good, although the terminal mode will occasionally mess you up. So it does something nice there, but Hunter is double lab in those good situations, so it doesn't compare well. Also important to mention is that the "while building" phase doesn't last very long, so you aren't getting that (limited) value for long.

Less important, but I'm confused about your use of the word payload. Payload is by definition the cards an engine is trying to play every turn, so if a deck is a payload deck, that would mean you are drawing every turn.

Overall this card pushes towards weak engines. It raises the floor of any kingdom, but lowers the ceiling. I don't think it is any more relevant in money than Harvest was (hint: it wasn't).

Metropolis
- Action Duration
+1 Card and +2 Actions.
Choose one: +1 Card; or trash a card from your hand to gain a card costing exactly more than it.

Notes: It’s Lost City or a combined Village / Upgrade. It can be your +Actions, draw, and trashing, but with its high cost you're going to want other cards to be able to fill one or more of those roles too.

Name chosen before the similarly named “Polis” was posted.

True, but you will hit 2 or more Actions fairly often if you are building right. 3 or 4 Treasures out of 4 is a bad deck, and Festival is on the weak end of cards. And if your village can be terminal something isn't right.

Not all Kingdoms support engines and you ignore that this does a job in a money (payload) as well as an engine (splitter) deck. It is not automatically a splitter at all but a variable card. Also, you gotta consider the very card while building. It is similar in this respect to Hunter, a card which also wants you to have variable types (read: green earlier than otherwise and don’t mindlessly increase you Action density).

As I said, it is only bad if you hit more than 2 Actions. All other cases are effects that are as good or stronger than that of a $5 which compensates for the risk / lack of reliability.

True, but you will hit 2 or more Actions fairly often if you are building right. 3 or 4 Treasures out of 4 is a bad deck, and Festival is on the weak end of cards. And if your village can be terminal something isn't right.

Consistency is valuable, and this card doesn't have that. It's better than Harvest and Tribute, sure, but I'm not sure it's better than, say, Carnival. Sure it fills a niche in a lot of kingdoms, and like Festival it can fill that niche, but it really isn't doing a particularly good job of it.

That said, I think it would be a bit cluttered as a Victory card. Maybe another fix would be better, or maybe it's interesting enough that it can exist as a weak card.

I disagree. The extra Buy makes it fairly centralizing in plenty of Kingdoms and the card is only weak (gee, you get 5 vanillas!) if it hits more than 2 Actions:

4 Treasures - Animal Fair
3 Treasures, 1 Action - stronger than Gold
2 Treasures, 2 Actions - Festival

These are all decent or stronger than $5. If you also reveal green and thus draw, the card is basically always stronger than Market.

...

Castrum
$5 - Action
+1 Buy
Reveal and discard top four cards of your deck.
+1 Action per Action card revealed.
+$1 per Treasure card revealed.
+1 Card per Victory card revealed.


Fixed version of a notoriously weak card from the first edition.
Added image, renamed.

I think it’s still weak, the main thing is that tribute needed cards with multiple types to be truly effective. In the context of intrigue, it was bolstered since there are many x-victory cards. Designed as an independent card, there’s nothing to improve it.

I recommend you give this card two types, so in games with Castrums , you’re guaranteed to have access to a card that makes it worth it. One quick fix would be making it an action-treasure. Another fix would be replacing the +Buy to make it an action - victory worth 1 vp. The vp version feels a little stronger and might benefit from the original 2 card reveal text, potentially.

One thing that's always bothered me is that the smart people I'm listening to tend to think that Ranked Choice is one of the worst alternatives to FPTP, although still better.

What's bad about ranked choice?

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Communal ride

Communal Ride
$3 Action

+2 Cards
+2 Actions
Each other player gains a Horse.

Hasty Urchin with any source of +buy: Buy 2 Urchins for next-turn Mercenary!

I was starting to mention doing the same thing with treasure maps, but then I realized that treasure map says "trash this and a treasure map from your hand".  I guess if its set aside (via Hasty) its not in your hand.  Too bad.

Yeah, Hasty Treasure Map is pretty much worthless most of the time

FTFY