Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: Donald X. on March 01, 2022, 03:00:08 am
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Allies 2: Split Piles
Split piles are back! Only this time they rotate. Also they have four different cards in them. Let's see one to better talk about this. It's: Augurs.
(https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/946677362215518218/948125930876973086/allies_TUE1.png?width=515&height=782)
So the pile starts with 4 copies of Herb Gatherer, then 4 copies of Acolyte, then 4 copies of Sorceress, then 4 copies of Sibyl. And you can only buy/gain the top card. But, the first card lets you "rotate" the pile. This puts all copies of whatever's on top onto the bottom. If the top has three Herb Gatherers and then Acolytes etc., rotating it puts all three Herb Gatherers on the bottom. If it was just one Herb Gatherer and then Acolytes, that one Herb Gatherer goes on the bottom. If the pile has different cards left in it, then rotating it will uncover a different one. It gets you through the pile.
So Herb Gatherer, it does this rotation trick, and Chancellors (what's that?), and also it gets a Treasure from your discard pile into play. Acolyte can turn stuff into Gold, but also can turn itself into whatever's on top of the Augurs pile - another Acolyte, or a better card (or hey, sometimes an Herb Gatherer). Sorceress is a guessing game, and if you're right you Curse the other players. And Sibyl lets you win that guessing game.
Here's another pile: Odysseys.
(https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/946677362215518218/948126129938628628/allies_TUE2.png?width=515&height=782)
As before, the first card can rotate the pile. Old Map does a little filtering. Voyage is an extra turn with a tricky limitation: you only get to play 3 cards, and that includes Treasures. Although things that play cards other than from your hand get around this a little (e.g. Golem). Sunken Treasure can get you stuff you don't have yet, and Distant Shore is somehow a Lab that gains Estates.
What do the randomizers even look like for these? I'm glad you asked.
(https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/946677362215518218/948126180027015198/allies_TUE3.png)
Split piles are a lot to process, so here's one normal pile too.
(https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/946677362215518218/948126262222802944/allies_TUE4.png)
Cards turn into other cards and leap into the fray. Buy it even if you don't know what it will possibly do for you; you won't regret it. This can of course mess up the order of split piles.
To spice up the Liaisons from yesterday, here are two more Allies.
(https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/946677362215518218/948126330694799430/allies_TUE5.png)
So that's an Armory and an Innovation.
As before, cards can be tried out almost immediately at https://dominion.games/.
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I like how the split piles tell a little story, just like the travellers.
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So uh, on a Voyage turn, if I play three cards and two of them are Throne Rooms, what happens next? Does Voyage overrule Throne Room's instructions?
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So uh, on a Voyage turn, if I play three cards and two of them are Throne Rooms, what happens next? Does Voyage overrule Throne Room's instructions?
If Throne Room is your 3rd played card from your hand you won't be able to play another card from your hand. If Throne Room is the 2nd card you can play your next card twice because the 4th action is not played from your hand... I think
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So uh, on a Voyage turn, if I play three cards and two of them are Throne Rooms, what happens next? Does Voyage overrule Throne Room's instructions?
If Throne Room is your 3rd played card from your hand you won't be able to play another card from your hand. If Throne Room is the 2nd card you can play your next card twice because the 4th action is not played from your hand... I think
Feels like there's a bunch of rules questions that can be asked here. For instance: If I gain an Action with Artisan and use City-State to play it, have I played it from my hand?
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How does Sunken Treasure work with Black Market? Seems like you would be able to gain any action on it?
I like these allies a lot. They’re interesting and seem to be in a nice balanced place where they don’t take over like Plateau Shepherd and Bauble or League of Bankers. Definitely some possibilities for city state to do a huge combo. You get that with bridge troll and enough favors you might empty the trolls in a turn.
Not that I don’t enjoy Plateau Shepherds.
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How does Sunken Treasure work with Black Market? Seems like you would be able to gain any action on it?
Unless specified, an instruction to gain a card always means from the supply.
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Woo-hoo, the Chancellor is back, now presumably even more powerful!
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So uh, on a Voyage turn, if I play three cards and two of them are Throne Rooms, what happens next? Does Voyage overrule Throne Room's instructions?
If Throne Room is your 3rd played card from your hand you won't be able to play another card from your hand. If Throne Room is the 2nd card you can play your next card twice because the 4th action is not played from your hand... I think
Feels like there's a bunch of rules questions that can be asked here. For instance: If I gain an Action with Artisan and use City-State to play it, have I played it from my hand?
And I think those two scenarios are equivalent. If playing a card from Throne Room doesn't count for Voyage, then Artican + City-State shouldn't count either. It all depends on what "play from your hand" means. Does it refer to only those times when you use an Action to play a card from your hand, or any time you end up playing a card from your hand? Presumably the latter.
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So uh, on a Voyage turn, if I play three cards and two of them are Throne Rooms, what happens next? Does Voyage overrule Throne Room's instructions?
If Throne Room is your 3rd played card from your hand you won't be able to play another card from your hand. If Throne Room is the 2nd card you can play your next card twice because the 4th action is not played from your hand... I think
Feels like there's a bunch of rules questions that can be asked here. For instance: If I gain an Action with Artisan and use City-State to play it, have I played it from my hand?
And I think those two scenarios are equivalent. If playing a card from Throne Room doesn't count for Voyage, then Artican + City-State shouldn't count either. It all depends on what "play from your hand" means. Does it refer to only those times when you use an Action to play a card from your hand, or any time you end up playing a card from your hand? Presumably the latter.
I also assume the latter. In fact, I just played a game with Throne Room and Voyage and I didn't even think of testing it out it seemed obvious enough.
You don't get to do much on a Voyage turn, can't even play much treasure. But it is nice to play Sunken Treasure.
EDIT: oh, I kind of missed what was being asked here. On a Voyage turn I played Throne Room - Market - Copper and had 3 to spend (and no option to play another Copper afterwards), that all seemed to work as expected.
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If Herb Gatherer is the only +buy and your opponent doesn’t get one quickly you can grab it and rotate it hiding the +buy under a pile of other cards.
Even though the first cards are decent it still may be a trap buying a rotate card to go for a card under it because you’re spending that money but the cards rotating makes the better card available to your opponent, without requiring that investment.
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So you should be able to use City-State to play the same card twice (using 4 Favors). First it plays it from your discard pile (usually), then it plays it from play. That means it can work as a Throne Room variant without actually being one. Thinking about it wrong.
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Regarding the illustrations:
Either the Augurs are miscredited, or the Augurs randomizer is.
All Augurs have Hans Krill, but the randomizer has Julien Delval.
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So you should be able to use City-State to play the same card twice (using 4 Favors). First it plays it from your discard pile (usually), then it plays it from play. That means it can work as a Throne Room variant without actually being one.
i thought the gist of allies was "once at the trigger point unless it specifies 'repeat as desired' like cave dwellers"; is this incorrect?
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So you should be able to use City-State to play the same card twice (using 4 Favors). First it plays it from your discard pile (usually), then it plays it from play. That means it can work as a Throne Room variant without actually being one.
i thought the gist of allies was "once at the trigger point unless it specifies 'repeat as desired' like cave dwellers"; is this incorrect?
Yeah, I was wrong. I forgot that an ability only works once.
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Of course the ultimate question: How are people going to handle the new split-pile type with Black Market? ;D
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Of course the ultimate question: How are people going to handle the new split-pile type with Black Market? ;D
Same way as the existing split-pile cards, I assume.
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Really curious how much weaker Old Map is compared to Fugitive. I assume it's enough of a difference that the slightly awkward wording was actually needed.
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is there a subtheme with U / R sifting this time?
and incidentally here's where we're at on the previews countdown, i think. i got the number of boxes for rotate wrong yesterday - shout out to hsypsx in the discord for catching that. Also unless we're Done With Cantrips i think i misunderstood the "+1 Card and +1 Action" wordcount part of the preview, which seems to portend Wild Stuff is coming.
(https://i.imgur.com/6bXjLCa.png)
click to enlarge.
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Woo-hoo, the Chancellor is back, now presumably even more powerful!
No way. Chancellor gave +(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png). Since you start the game with 7 Coppers and 0 other treasures, Herb Gatherer gives only +(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f7/Coin1.png/16px-Coin1.png). If anything, the existence of Herb Gatherer just shows that Donald removed Chancellor from second edition because it was far too powerful; now we finally have a balanced/nerfed version that won't dominate games.
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Yeah, I took "+1 card and +1 action" to mean literally those words, not "+1 card" and "+1 action".
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If anything, the existence of Herb Gatherer just shows that Donald removed Chancellor from second edition because it was far too powerful; now we finally have a balanced/nerfed version that won't dominate games.
We have had one since Vassal.
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Woo-hoo, the Chancellor is back, now presumably even more powerful!
I think Donald X. got inspired by Star Wars Episode 9.
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Woo-hoo, the Chancellor is back, now presumably even more powerful!
you mean this card?
(https://i.ibb.co/WtQYxbw/Region.png)
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Regarding the illustrations:
Either the Augurs are miscredited, or the Augurs randomizer is.
All Augurs have Hans Krill, but the randomizer has Julien Delval.
Thanks; Hans Krill is correct. One day we will fix that.
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I have just played a preview game with voyage and possession (acquired with sunken treasure). Fun, but I did find it a bit confusing predicting what turn was going to happen next!
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is there a subtheme with U / R sifting this time?
and incidentally here's where we're at on the previews countdown, i think. i got the number of boxes for rotate wrong yesterday - shout out to hsypsx in the discord for catching that. Also unless we're Done With Cantrips i think i misunderstood the "+1 Card and +1 Action" wordcount part of the preview, which seems to portend Wild Stuff is coming.
(https://i.imgur.com/6bXjLCa.png)
click to enlarge.
And now you've gotten the number of boxes for turn wrong today. Both Allies use it once each, and Voyage uses it twice, for a total of 4 times.
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So I was partially right in my guess about how rotating piles would work. I was right about cards being moved to the bottom of the pile, but I was wrong about how they moved there. I'd guessed they were one-shots that returned to the bottom of the deck. This sounds better than my guess, so I'm not upset about guessing wrong
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is there a subtheme with U / R sifting this time?
and incidentally here's where we're at on the previews countdown, i think. i got the number of boxes for rotate wrong yesterday - shout out to hsypsx in the discord for catching that. Also unless we're Done With Cantrips i think i misunderstood the "+1 Card and +1 Action" wordcount part of the preview, which seems to portend Wild Stuff is coming.
(https://i.imgur.com/6bXjLCa.png)
click to enlarge.
And now you've gotten the number of boxes for turn wrong today. Both Allies use it once each, and Voyage uses it twice, for a total of 4 times.
I wasn't sure on the 2nd box check for voyage. From the teaser, it's not clear whether that's purely wordcount, or if it's cards-that-have-the-word.
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is there a subtheme with U / R sifting this time?
and incidentally here's where we're at on the previews countdown, i think. i got the number of boxes for rotate wrong yesterday - shout out to hsypsx in the discord for catching that. Also unless we're Done With Cantrips i think i misunderstood the "+1 Card and +1 Action" wordcount part of the preview, which seems to portend Wild Stuff is coming.
(https://i.imgur.com/6bXjLCa.png)
click to enlarge.
And now you've gotten the number of boxes for turn wrong today. Both Allies use it once each, and Voyage uses it twice, for a total of 4 times.
I wasn't sure on the 2nd box check for voyage. From the teaser, it's not clear whether that's purely wordcount, or if it's cards-that-have-the-word.
Without checking, I think it's wordcount.
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I've noticed that the previewed Treasures do not have the little value indicators left and right of the card title on ShuffleIT. Is that intentional?
EDIT: Oh I see now that only the cards that provide a fixed positive coin value have that icon anymore. That seems sensible.
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is there a subtheme with U / R sifting this time?
and incidentally here's where we're at on the previews countdown, i think. i got the number of boxes for rotate wrong yesterday - shout out to hsypsx in the discord for catching that. Also unless we're Done With Cantrips i think i misunderstood the "+1 Card and +1 Action" wordcount part of the preview, which seems to portend Wild Stuff is coming.
(https://i.imgur.com/6bXjLCa.png)
click to enlarge.
And now you've gotten the number of boxes for turn wrong today. Both Allies use it once each, and Voyage uses it twice, for a total of 4 times.
I wasn't sure on the 2nd box check for voyage. From the teaser, it's not clear whether that's purely wordcount, or if it's cards-that-have-the-word.
Without checking, I think it's wordcount.
Even if it was just cards-that-have-the-word, spineflu's count would still be wrong. It would still be 3 today (Voyage, Crafters' Guild, and City-State), not 2.
Also, it can be deduced from the previews and the teaser that it is in fact wordcount. The wordcount for Favor is 33, but there are 9 Liaisons and 23 Allies, for a total of 32 cards that would say Favor. Thus one of those 32 cards must say it twice.
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My first impressions about the split piles: The $3 costs are really strong on both piles. Especially on the Augur pile, a singular Herb Gatherer is ridiculously strong with Sibyl. The other two cards work nicely as well, so the self synergy is very real.
The other split pile is probably not that strong, but very fun to play with. Voyage is absolutely nothing like Outpost, as being able to play 3 cards, including Treasures is a severe restriction unlike pretty much anything before. Sunken Treasure is the carrier here. I think Herbalist is legitimately good on these boards.
I already like this expansion more than Menagerie and Nocturne.
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So now you can take 4 turns in a row without Possession? Or am I missing some changes via errata?
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So now you can take 4 turns in a row without Possession? Or am I missing some changes via errata?
Unless I'm missing something, you can take unlimited turns with Voyage. You just can't get benefit from playing Voyage on a Voyage turn. But while Outpost and Mission are both once per turn, Voyage has no such restriction.
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So now you can take 4 turns in a row without Possession? Or am I missing some changes via errata?
Unless I'm missing something, you can take unlimited turns with Voyage. You just can't get benefit from playing Voyage on a Voyage turn. But while Outpost and Mission are both once per turn, Voyage has no such restriction.
Oh wow, I didn't notice that! That's not even a weird edge case then.
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I wonder why Herb Gatherer's Chancelloring is mandatory?
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is there a subtheme with U / R sifting this time?
and incidentally here's where we're at on the previews countdown, i think. i got the number of boxes for rotate wrong yesterday - shout out to hsypsx in the discord for catching that. Also unless we're Done With Cantrips i think i misunderstood the "+1 Card and +1 Action" wordcount part of the preview, which seems to portend Wild Stuff is coming.
(https://i.imgur.com/6bXjLCa.png)
click to enlarge.
And now you've gotten the number of boxes for turn wrong today. Both Allies use it once each, and Voyage uses it twice, for a total of 4 times.
I wasn't sure on the 2nd box check for voyage. From the teaser, it's not clear whether that's purely wordcount, or if it's cards-that-have-the-word.
Without checking, I think it's wordcount.
Even if it was just cards-that-have-the-word, spineflu's count would still be wrong. It would still be 3 today (Voyage, Crafters' Guild, and City-State), not 2.
Also, it can be deduced from the previews and the teaser that it is in fact wordcount. The wordcount for Favor is 33, but there are 9 Liaisons and 23 Allies, for a total of 32 cards that would say Favor. Thus one of those 32 cards must say it twice.
edge case: one of the rotating split piles has two cards that give them. Only the top card of the pile needs the Liaison type.
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is there a subtheme with U / R sifting this time?
and incidentally here's where we're at on the previews countdown, i think. i got the number of boxes for rotate wrong yesterday - shout out to hsypsx in the discord for catching that. Also unless we're Done With Cantrips i think i misunderstood the "+1 Card and +1 Action" wordcount part of the preview, which seems to portend Wild Stuff is coming.
(https://i.imgur.com/6bXjLCa.png)
click to enlarge.
And now you've gotten the number of boxes for turn wrong today. Both Allies use it once each, and Voyage uses it twice, for a total of 4 times.
I wasn't sure on the 2nd box check for voyage. From the teaser, it's not clear whether that's purely wordcount, or if it's cards-that-have-the-word.
Without checking, I think it's wordcount.
Even if it was just cards-that-have-the-word, spineflu's count would still be wrong. It would still be 3 today (Voyage, Crafters' Guild, and City-State), not 2.
Also, it can be deduced from the previews and the teaser that it is in fact wordcount. The wordcount for Favor is 33, but there are 9 Liaisons and 23 Allies, for a total of 32 cards that would say Favor. Thus one of those 32 cards must say it twice.
edge case: one of the rotating split piles has two cards that give them. Only the top card of the pile needs the Liaison type.
Good point, but I think Donald would give the 2nd card the Liaison type anyway for consistency's sake.
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Why isn't Old Map just +2 Cards? Is only allowing you to discard the first one that important?
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So now you can take 4 turns in a row without Possession? Or am I missing some changes via errata?
Unless I'm missing something, you can take unlimited turns with Voyage. You just can't get benefit from playing Voyage on a Voyage turn. But while Outpost and Mission are both once per turn, Voyage has no such restriction.
Well you can play a bunch on one turn, but you can't "chain" them.
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Why isn't Old Map just +2 Cards? Is only allowing you to discard the first one that important?
Because Fugitive is a $4.5.
It's interesting that Old Map is $3 instead of $4, though.
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If Herb Gatherer is the only +buy and your opponent doesn’t get one quickly you can grab it and rotate it hiding the +buy under a pile of other cards.
This happened to me once already when my opponent got one and then rotated the pile so I couldn't get one. It sucks.
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If Herb Gatherer is the only +buy and your opponent doesn’t get one quickly you can grab it and rotate it hiding the +buy under a pile of other cards.
This happened to me once already when my opponent got one and then rotated the pile so I couldn't get one. It sucks.
Sure, but you can (almost) always get a Herb Gatherer yourself after the opponent has gained one, before they can first play it. It's very rare not to have at least $3 on one of the turn(s) in-between.
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Why isn't Old Map just +2 Cards? Is only allowing you to discard the first one that important?
Because Fugitive is a $4.5.
I'm not sure how that explains why the two "+1 Card"s on Old Map are split.
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Why isn't Old Map just +2 Cards? Is only allowing you to discard the first one that important?
Because Fugitive is a $4.5.
I'm not sure how that explains why the two "+1 Card"s on Old Map are split.
The point being that the version phrased like Fugitive would be way too strong for a (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/32/Coin3.png/16px-Coin3.png). Even too strong for a (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2a/Coin4.png/16px-Coin4.png). But it is really surprising to me that moving the 1 draw like that can make it go all the way down to a (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/32/Coin3.png/16px-Coin3.png) without being too strong.
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Distant Shore + Inheritance would be a really strong combo in games with good targets for Inheritance. Otherwise, the Estate-gaining is a serious draw-back, especially in the early and mid-game
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Distant Shore + Inheritance would be a really strong combo in games with good targets for Inheritance. Otherwise, the Estate-gaining is a serious draw-back, especially in the early and mid-game
Distant Shores isn't available in the early game. I thought the same thing when I first saw it, but it turns out you usually don't get to play a Distant Shores more than 2-3 times in a game. And 2 or 3 Estates near the end of the game don't hurt much.
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Distant Shore + Inheritance would be a really strong combo in games with good targets for Inheritance. Otherwise, the Estate-gaining is a serious draw-back, especially in the early and mid-game
Distant Shores isn't available in the early game. I thought the same thing when I first saw it, but it turns out you usually don't get to play a Distant Shores more than 2-3 times in a game. And 2 or 3 Estates near the end of the game don't hurt much.
If you Inherit Old Map, you can rotate to Distant Shores very quickly, and then all the Estates you gain will be sifting cantrips.
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Herb Gatherer + Capitalism seems like it could potentially be really strong
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Distant Shore + Shepherd
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Why isn't Old Map just +2 Cards? Is only allowing you to discard the first one that important?
Because Fugitive is a $4.5.
I'm not sure how that explains why the two "+1 Card"s on Old Map are split.
The point being that the version phrased like Fugitive would be way too strong for a (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/32/Coin3.png/16px-Coin3.png). Even too strong for a (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2a/Coin4.png/16px-Coin4.png). But it is really surprising to me that moving the 1 draw like that can make it go all the way down to a (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/32/Coin3.png/16px-Coin3.png) without being too strong.
Indeed; the chance of the card drawn after the discarding being worse than any of the five cards from which you discard is less than 1/6. And Old Map has the additional bonus of rotating the pile.
I suppose Donald wanted the costs of the split piles to all be in ascending order from $3-$6, and Old Map to go first, so it had to cost $3. And since there's only 4 Old Maps in the pile, they can't dominate the game that much at any price.
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is there a subtheme with U / R sifting this time?
and incidentally here's where we're at on the previews countdown, i think. i got the number of boxes for rotate wrong yesterday - shout out to hsypsx in the discord for catching that. Also unless we're Done With Cantrips i think i misunderstood the "+1 Card and +1 Action" wordcount part of the preview, which seems to portend Wild Stuff is coming.
(https://i.imgur.com/6bXjLCa.png)
click to enlarge.
And now you've gotten the number of boxes for turn wrong today. Both Allies use it once each, and Voyage uses it twice, for a total of 4 times.
I wasn't sure on the 2nd box check for voyage. From the teaser, it's not clear whether that's purely wordcount, or if it's cards-that-have-the-word.
Without checking, I think it's wordcount.
Even if it was just cards-that-have-the-word, spineflu's count would still be wrong. It would still be 3 today (Voyage, Crafters' Guild, and City-State), not 2.
Also, it can be deduced from the previews and the teaser that it is in fact wordcount. The wordcount for Favor is 33, but there are 9 Liaisons and 23 Allies, for a total of 32 cards that would say Favor. Thus one of those 32 cards must say it twice.
One of the “favor(s)” could be from the new mats. Someone on Reddit mentioned this. (But I agree the teaser was wordcount.)
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Indeed; the chance of the card drawn after the discarding being worse than any of the five cards from which you discard is less than 1/6. And Old Map has the additional bonus of rotating the pile.
I suppose Donald wanted the costs of the split piles to all be in ascending order from $3-$6, and Old Map to go first, so it had to cost $3. And since there's only 4 Old Maps in the pile, they can't dominate the game that much at any price.
Is the math that straight forward? I mean, Legionary is a much stronger attack than Militia, but they both leave you with 3 cards. The only difference with Legionary is that one of them is random. Isn't that comparable to what Old Map does?
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So, all three announced victory cards are part of split piles. Meaning a total of twelve physical cards, just like one normal victory card pile.
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Why isn't Old Map just +2 Cards? Is only allowing you to discard the first one that important?
Because Fugitive is a $4.5.
I'm not sure how that explains why the two "+1 Card"s on Old Map are split.
The point being that the version phrased like Fugitive would be way too strong for a (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/32/Coin3.png/16px-Coin3.png). Even too strong for a (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2a/Coin4.png/16px-Coin4.png). But it is really surprising to me that moving the 1 draw like that can make it go all the way down to a (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/32/Coin3.png/16px-Coin3.png) without being too strong.
Indeed; the chance of the card drawn after the discarding being worse than any of the five cards from which you discard is less than 1/6. And Old Map has the additional bonus of rotating the pile.
I suppose Donald wanted the costs of the split piles to all be in ascending order from $3-$6, and Old Map to go first, so it had to cost $3. And since there's only 4 Old Maps in the pile, they can't dominate the game that much at any price.
Also, you want the top cards of these rotating split piles to be powerful so that the rest of the pile has a good chance of being uncovered.
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So uh, on a Voyage turn, if I play three cards and two of them are Throne Rooms, what happens next? Does Voyage overrule Throne Room's instructions?
If Throne Room is your 3rd played card from your hand you won't be able to play another card from your hand. If Throne Room is the 2nd card you can play your next card twice because the 4th action is not played from your hand... I think
Feels like there's a bunch of rules questions that can be asked here. For instance: If I gain an Action with Artisan and use City-State to play it, have I played it from my hand?
...Is there an official answer to either my question or Faust's yet?
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Indeed; the chance of the card drawn after the discarding being worse than any of the five cards from which you discard is less than 1/6. And Old Map has the additional bonus of rotating the pile.
I suppose Donald wanted the costs of the split piles to all be in ascending order from $3-$6, and Old Map to go first, so it had to cost $3. And since there's only 4 Old Maps in the pile, they can't dominate the game that much at any price.
Is the math that straight forward? I mean, Legionary is a much stronger attack than Militia, but they both leave you with 3 cards. The only difference with Legionary is that one of them is random. Isn't that comparable to what Old Map does?
Yes, but in engine games, there's a big difference between discarding one more card from a 3-card hand (Legionary) or from a 5-card hand (Old Map).
With 4 remaining cards after the discarding, you can almost always keep those cards you need to start the engine. With only 2 remaining cards this is much harder to do, without knowing what card you'll draw afterwards.
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Indeed; the chance of the card drawn after the discarding being worse than any of the five cards from which you discard is less than 1/6. And Old Map has the additional bonus of rotating the pile.
I suppose Donald wanted the costs of the split piles to all be in ascending order from $3-$6, and Old Map to go first, so it had to cost $3. And since there's only 4 Old Maps in the pile, they can't dominate the game that much at any price.
Is the math that straight forward? I mean, Legionary is a much stronger attack than Militia, but they both leave you with 3 cards. The only difference with Legionary is that one of them is random. Isn't that comparable to what Old Map does?
Yes, but in engine games, there's a big difference between discarding one more card from a 3-card hand (Legionary) or from a 5-card hand (Old Map).
With 4 remaining cards after the discarding, you can almost always keep those cards you need to start the engine. With only 2 remaining cards this is much harder to do, without knowing what card you'll draw afterwards.
They weren’t comparing Legionary to Old Map. They were comparing Legionary to Militia, as an analogy of Old Map vs Fugitive.
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So, all three announced victory cards are part of split piles. Meaning a total of twelve physical cards, just like one normal victory point pile.
What? Is this a theory of yours? We’ve only see one Victory card previewed so far.
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So, all three announced victory cards are part of split piles. Meaning a total of twelve physical cards, just like one normal victory point pile.
What? Is this a theory of yours? We’ve only see one Victory card previewed so far.
We know that there’s going to be 346 kingdom cards. 31 different kingdom card piles means at least 310 cards, unless we suddenly see a kingdom pile containing less than 10 cards. This means that only 36 cards are left. Of couse, it’s possible that we have an action card with 12 copies, just like Port, or a victory card with 10, but the six announced rotates and the information in this post lead me to believe that we have six split piles in total with 16 cards each, and if so, there’s no room for a regular victory card pile (one containing 12 copies). I don’t know this for sure, but everything seems to add up, so I ventured an informed guess. :)
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Indeed; the chance of the card drawn after the discarding being worse than any of the five cards from which you discard is less than 1/6. And Old Map has the additional bonus of rotating the pile.
I suppose Donald wanted the costs of the split piles to all be in ascending order from $3-$6, and Old Map to go first, so it had to cost $3. And since there's only 4 Old Maps in the pile, they can't dominate the game that much at any price.
Is the math that straight forward? I mean, Legionary is a much stronger attack than Militia, but they both leave you with 3 cards. The only difference with Legionary is that one of them is random. Isn't that comparable to what Old Map does?
Yes, but in engine games, there's a big difference between discarding one more card from a 3-card hand (Legionary) or from a 5-card hand (Old Map).
With 4 remaining cards after the discarding, you can almost always keep those cards you need to start the engine. With only 2 remaining cards this is much harder to do, without knowing what card you'll draw afterwards.
They weren’t comparing Legionary to Old Map. They were comparing Legionary to Militia, as an analogy of Old Map vs Fugitive.
I know. But my point was that the difference between Legionary and Militia (discarding down to 2 vs. down to 3 cards) is much bigger than the difference between Old Map and Fugitive (discarding down to 4 vs. down to 5 cards). The fewer cards you have in hand to start with, the more it hurts to discard another card.
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Why isn't Old Map just +2 Cards? Is only allowing you to discard the first one that important?
Because Fugitive is a $4.5.
I'm not sure how that explains why the two "+1 Card"s on Old Map are split.
The point being that the version phrased like Fugitive would be way too strong for a (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/32/Coin3.png/16px-Coin3.png). Even too strong for a (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2a/Coin4.png/16px-Coin4.png). But it is really surprising to me that moving the 1 draw like that can make it go all the way down to a (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/32/Coin3.png/16px-Coin3.png) without being too strong.
Indeed; the chance of the card drawn after the discarding being worse than any of the five cards from which you discard is less than 1/6. And Old Map has the additional bonus of rotating the pile.
I suppose Donald wanted the costs of the split piles to all be in ascending order from $3-$6, and Old Map to go first, so it had to cost $3. And since there's only 4 Old Maps in the pile, they can't dominate the game that much at any price.
For sure, I think having 4 copies instead of 10 copies of a card available should allow it to be more powerful than normal.
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So uh, on a Voyage turn, if I play three cards and two of them are Throne Rooms, what happens next? Does Voyage overrule Throne Room's instructions?
If Throne Room is your 3rd played card from your hand you won't be able to play another card from your hand. If Throne Room is the 2nd card you can play your next card twice because the 4th action is not played from your hand... I think
Feels like there's a bunch of rules questions that can be asked here. For instance: If I gain an Action with Artisan and use City-State to play it, have I played it from my hand?
...Is there an official answer to either my question or Faust's yet?
For Faust's question, I think it's pretty straightforward that that is *not* from your hand, because it never entered your hand. Throne Room also sounds straight forward. It's three cards, not three Actions. So, both the Throne Room and the card it's Throning would count as being from your hand
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So uh, on a Voyage turn, if I play three cards and two of them are Throne Rooms, what happens next? Does Voyage overrule Throne Room's instructions?
If Throne Room is your 3rd played card from your hand you won't be able to play another card from your hand. If Throne Room is the 2nd card you can play your next card twice because the 4th action is not played from your hand... I think
Feels like there's a bunch of rules questions that can be asked here. For instance: If I gain an Action with Artisan and use City-State to play it, have I played it from my hand?
...Is there an official answer to either my question or Faust's yet?
For Faust's question, I think it's pretty straightforward that that is *not* from your hand, because it never entered your hand.
If you gained it with Artisan, it entered your hand.
Throne Room also sounds straight forward. It's three cards, not three Actions. So, both the Throne Room and the card it's Throning would count as being from your hand
The question isn't whether it's from your hand. The question is, Voyage says you can't play a fourth card from your hand; but if the third card you play is Throne Room, it says you may play an Action card from your hand (twice). Does Throne Room's explicit "you may" overrule Voyage's instruction that you may not, or vice versa?
(I suspect that Throne Room doesn't overrule Voyage—I don't think Black Market's "you may buy" overrules Mission, either, though I haven't checked—but it's good to have clarity on these things.)
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Voyage overrules Throne Room.
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So uh, on a Voyage turn, if I play three cards and two of them are Throne Rooms, what happens next? Does Voyage overrule Throne Room's instructions?
If Throne Room is your 3rd played card from your hand you won't be able to play another card from your hand. If Throne Room is the 2nd card you can play your next card twice because the 4th action is not played from your hand... I think
Feels like there's a bunch of rules questions that can be asked here. For instance: If I gain an Action with Artisan and use City-State to play it, have I played it from my hand?
...Is there an official answer to either my question or Faust's yet?
For Faust's question, I think it's pretty straightforward that that is *not* from your hand, because it never entered your hand.
If you gained it with Artisan, it entered your hand.
Throne Room also sounds straight forward. It's three cards, not three Actions. So, both the Throne Room and the card it's Throning would count as being from your hand
The question isn't whether it's from your hand. The question is, Voyage says you can't play a fourth card from your hand; but if the third card you play is Throne Room, it says you may play an Action card from your hand (twice). Does Throne Room's explicit "you may" overrule Voyage's instruction that you may not, or vice versa?
(I suspect that Throne Room doesn't overrule Voyage—I don't think Black Market's "you may buy" overrules Mission, either, though I haven't checked—but it's good to have clarity on these things.)
I can't remember which interaction rules question lead to it, but at some point we got official clarification that "can't" overrides "can" or "do".
At the least, this seems to have been obvious since Snowy Village (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Snowy_Village) was printed. Without a rule that "can't" wins, then you would have a rules question about what to do when you play Snowy Village followed by Village, because Village says to get +2 actions but Snowy Village says you can't, and which card should you listen to?
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I can't remember which interaction rules question lead to it, but at some point we got official clarification that "can't" overrides "can" or "do".
At the least, this seems to have been obvious since Snowy Village (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Snowy_Village) was printed. Without a rule that "can't" wins, then you would have a rules question about what to do when you play Snowy Village followed by Village, because Village says to get +2 actions but Snowy Village says you can't, and which card should you listen to?
Correct, "can't" wins.
You can dodge this conflict with way more complex wordings on the "can't" cards; it never seems worth it to, people intuit that "can't" will win, since otherwise it wouldn't do anything.
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So uh, on a Voyage turn, if I play three cards and two of them are Throne Rooms, what happens next? Does Voyage overrule Throne Room's instructions?
If Throne Room is your 3rd played card from your hand you won't be able to play another card from your hand. If Throne Room is the 2nd card you can play your next card twice because the 4th action is not played from your hand... I think
Feels like there's a bunch of rules questions that can be asked here. For instance: If I gain an Action with Artisan and use City-State to play it, have I played it from my hand?
...Is there an official answer to either my question or Faust's yet?
For Faust's question, I think it's pretty straightforward that that is *not* from your hand, because it never entered your hand.
If you gained it with Artisan, it entered your hand.
Good point. Villa would be a similar situation now that I think about it. So, with normal gaining, it seems straightforward that it wouldn't count towards Voyage's three card limit, but cases like these, I guess it would count as playing from your hand? It's ironic that in this particular case gaining to hand is worse than gaining to your discard pile!
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It's ironic that in this particular case gaining to hand is worse than gaining to your discard pile!
Not if the card you gained was Golem, and you want to avoid playing that mandatory trasher that Golem finds!
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It's ironic that in this particular case gaining to hand is worse than gaining to your discard pile!
Not if the card you gained was Golem, and you want to avoid playing that mandatory trasher that Golem finds!
Golem doesn't play cards from your hand, though, so you'd still have to play whichever cards Golem reveals
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It's ironic that in this particular case gaining to hand is worse than gaining to your discard pile!
Not if the card you gained was Golem, and you want to avoid playing that mandatory trasher that Golem finds!
Golem doesn't play cards from your hand, though, so you'd still have to play whichever cards Golem reveals
Oops. Should have stuck with my original thinking of Throne Room, but then having to specify first edition Throne Room.
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So uh, on a Voyage turn, if I play three cards and two of them are Throne Rooms, what happens next? Does Voyage overrule Throne Room's instructions?
voyage is simply an awful card. I wouldn't buy it at 2. It's just fucking stupid. It wants to be a chic outpost, but it's really an outhouse.
If it was u get 3 plays and then the turn ends as normal (and u get to play any accumulated treasure) then it would be fine. But the 3 total cards for action/buy phase almost a turn that is almost not worth having save decks that shine with deck shuffling or trying to get to the last curse etc.
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Distant Shore + Shepherd
This is another card that baffles me. Why do I want a 6 cost lab that clogs my deck with estates! Like except in edge cases this seems really terrible. I think if it was only worth 1 vp and the estate was gained to exile instead it would be a much more attractive card, and worth its 6 cost price point.
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So uh, on a Voyage turn, if I play three cards and two of them are Throne Rooms, what happens next? Does Voyage overrule Throne Room's instructions?
voyage is simply an awful card. I wouldn't buy it at 2. It's just fucking stupid. It wants to be a chic outpost, but it's really an outhouse.
That's a strong opinion. Have you tried playing or playing against the card though?
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So uh, on a Voyage turn, if I play three cards and two of them are Throne Rooms, what happens next? Does Voyage overrule Throne Room's instructions?
voyage is simply an awful card. I wouldn't buy it at 2. It's just fucking stupid. It wants to be a chic outpost, but it's much more of an shit outhouse.
In the right deck, it can be strong. It works well with gainers, especially Sunken Treasure. And even without gainers, you can usually buy some relatively cheap cards on the Voyage turn, especially if there's good trashers to clear out the junk. Even if you end up only playing 3 Silvers, that's a $6 card right there
On the other hand, in a game with cursing or other junking attacks, I definitely wouldn't bother with it
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The Augur pile is amazing tho.. Clearly the best of the rotating pile cards. The synergy between all the cards is so good and all the cards are amazing in their own right. Herb gatherer is a super strong 3 card, a buy that can play any treasure in your deck that also constantly cycles your deck allowing you to offload all the shit cards you stashed at the bottom from sybil, unless you chose acolyte to trash them for gold, or sorceress thee stashed cards for easy curse sniping. Also nice that acolyte self-destructs into a sibyl/sorceress after you are done trashing ur estates/chapel/cellar's for gold.
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So uh, on a Voyage turn, if I play three cards and two of them are Throne Rooms, what happens next? Does Voyage overrule Throne Room's instructions?
voyage is simply an awful card. I wouldn't buy it at 2. It's just fucking stupid. It wants to be a chic outpost, but it's much more of an shit outhouse.
In the right deck, it can be strong. It works well with gainers, especially Sunken Treasure. And even without gainers, you can usually buy some relatively cheap cards on the Voyage turn, especially if there's good trashers to clear out the junk. Even if you end up only playing 3 Silvers, that's a $6 card right there
On the other hand, in a game with cursing or other junking attacks, I definitely wouldn't bother with it
meh it clogs your deck, punishes an engine and leaves you having fun figuring out if you should go silver or pawn while the guy next to you is alcolyting everything into gold/upgrading then to sibyl with the same cost card.
In a pure big $ deck it'd be fine(but how often do u play those?) , as u can probably pull 3 good treasures in 5 cards there. But it's an anti-engine card, as most engines require multiple plays, and then u don't even get to play the drawn treasure. I'd rather have most 3 or 4 cost cards I can think of in its place to help my engine, than put this stone in my deck.
I mean there are some edge cases where it could be ok, but honestly I'm debating if it is better or worse than scout or woodcutter. Pretty sure I'd rather have a woodcutter.
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The more apt comparison is it's like non-terminal workshop with more potential upside. Sometimes you want such a thing, sometimes you don't.
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Swap would be a really strong counter to Looters, probably to the point of making Looter attacks counterproductive. Just Swap those Ruins for some good Action cards!
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Re: Voyage discussion.
I have to say, I was surprised how little you can do on a Voyage turn. I was expecting its power level to be more similar to "only play 3 action cards". But not being able to finish by playing all Treasures does kill most standard turns.
On the other hand, there are a ton of useful things you can do with just a single action play on an extra turn. A few that come to mind are to hand out a Curse (or any other attack that stacks), Trash a card, or play a gainer (especially one such as Sunken Treasure that works better when you haven't just played a huge engine turn). Sometimes these things could've just happened on the original turn, but if you can do them an extra time because of Voyage, that's a huge boost. You just have to weigh that against the cost of an otherwise dead card.
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Re: Voyage discussion.
I have to say, I was surprised how little you can do on a Voyage turn. I was expecting its power level to be more similar to "only play 3 action cards". But not being able to finish by playing all Treasures does kill most standard turns.
On the other hand, there are a ton of useful things you can do with just a single action play on an extra turn. A few that come to mind are to hand out a Curse (or any other attack that stacks), Trash a card, or play a gainer (especially one such as Sunken Treasure that works better when you haven't just played a huge engine turn). Sometimes these things could've just happened on the original turn, but if you can do them an extra time because of Voyage, that's a huge boost. You just have to weigh that against the cost of an otherwise dead card.
We had an Odyssey game with Broker and Bandit. Voyage was great for (1) getting extra Bandit plays to have Golds to feed Broker (and try to trash opponents’ Sunken Treasures), (2) an extra Chapel turn in the early game, (3) Sunken Treasure (but we already knew that), (4) otherwise just grab whatever good $3-5 we could afford after playing 0-1 Action and 2-3 Treasures.
Another lesson I quickly learned was don’t topdeck the new Merchant Camp for a Voyage turn.
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So uh, on a Voyage turn, if I play three cards and two of them are Throne Rooms, what happens next? Does Voyage overrule Throne Room's instructions?
voyage is simply an awful card. I wouldn't buy it at 2. It's just fucking stupid. It wants to be a chic outpost, but it's really an outhouse.
That's a strong opinion. Have you tried playing or playing against the card though?
I try playing all the new cards to a fault when in Preview/unrated games b/c why not? And voyage has done nothing really to help and a lot to hurt. I build engines almost every time unless it's a true "big money" board without the pieces for a reliable engine. And this card just gums up any engine. Unless you draw 3 good coins (or things to do -- a junker, gainer that works basically on its own the turn is near meaningless. I just played a guy who in b2b games had voyager and never got better than a silver out of it, and most times even just got a 2 cost card. So it stifles my engine in the first hand by having a non-terminal non-draw card, and then the second hand essentially might allow me to get a silver in my deck usually? I'll pass. I'd rather get almost any other 3/4 cost card in the first place and just make the first hand stronger and more likely to improve my overall deck.
If you allowed me to add the card for free to my deck I think I would actually pass rather than have it. I almost can't think of a time where I would prefer Voyage to silver, and that is pretty sad for a 4 cost card.
I might try it some more to see If it shines anywhere, But the only time I've seen it do very good things is when a guy drew three action cards with a +buy one (sacred grove) and played the next two actions via delay on the next turn. So I guess it might work in Delay boards with + buy, but that's quite an edge case. But that really only shines because the delay/buy part allows you to essentially bypass the only 3 cards limitation.
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The more apt comparison is it's like non-terminal workshop with more potential upside. Sometimes you want such a thing, sometimes you don't.
I guess. But I feel very similar about workshop and almost never get it unless there is huge engine draw and no buys/or & a 3/4 cost card like chariot race that you want to grab asap in a race.
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Swap would be a really strong counter to Looters, probably to the point of making Looter attacks counterproductive. Just Swap those Ruins for some good Action cards!
this is a card that seems only ok when you first look at it but really is amazing. It does a great job of taking cards you once needed (moneylender/lookout/chapel/sea hag etc) into cards you then get to play in that same turn. The ability to turn any 2 cost action into a laboratory/mountebank and then play it that hand is just sick.
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So uh, on a Voyage turn, if I play three cards and two of them are Throne Rooms, what happens next? Does Voyage overrule Throne Room's instructions?
voyage is simply an awful card. I wouldn't buy it at 2. It's just fucking stupid. It wants to be a chic outpost, but it's really an outhouse.
That's a strong opinion. Have you tried playing or playing against the card though?
It feels like Voyage will shine when you have other Durations. Use your Voyage turn to get 2-3 Durations into play, then just have a much better next turn.
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So uh, on a Voyage turn, if I play three cards and two of them are Throne Rooms, what happens next? Does Voyage overrule Throne Room's instructions?
voyage is simply an awful card. I wouldn't buy it at 2. It's just fucking stupid. It wants to be a chic outpost, but it's really an outhouse.
That's a strong opinion. Have you tried playing or playing against the card though?
It feels like Voyage will shine when you have other Durations. Use your Voyage turn to get 2-3 Durations into play, then just have a much better next turn.
This can also work the other way, say drawing a bunch of cards you can't play and then not getting your wharf draw on your next turn.
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So uh, on a Voyage turn, if I play three cards and two of them are Throne Rooms, what happens next? Does Voyage overrule Throne Room's instructions?
voyage is simply an awful card. I wouldn't buy it at 2. It's just fucking stupid. It wants to be a chic outpost, but it's really an outhouse.
That's a strong opinion. Have you tried playing or playing against the card though?
It feels like Voyage will shine when you have other Durations. Use your Voyage turn to get 2-3 Durations into play, then just have a much better next turn.
or to completely defang your swamp hags if you aren't paying attention. either-or.
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So uh, on a Voyage turn, if I play three cards and two of them are Throne Rooms, what happens next? Does Voyage overrule Throne Room's instructions?
voyage is simply an awful card. I wouldn't buy it at 2. It's just fucking stupid. It wants to be a chic outpost, but it's really an outhouse.
That's a strong opinion. Have you tried playing or playing against the card though?
It feels like Voyage will shine when you have other Durations. Use your Voyage turn to get 2-3 Durations into play, then just have a much better next turn.
This can also work the other way, say drawing a bunch of cards you can't play and then not getting your wharf draw on your next turn.
But this is a choice of how to play it. Don't play Voyage on the same turn you play a bunch of other Durations, obviously.
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Voyage is a really cool card with lots of interesting interactions. It is nice with gainers, it is nice with cards that give tokens, it is nice with stackable attacks and it works really well with Delay. Sure, the limitation to play cards, including treasures, can be off putting but once you are used to that, Voyage is a beauty.
(if you wanna rip on split piles, please go to the Wizzard pile.)
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When you play a Herb Gatherer, the chat log says "an Herb Gatherer" for some reason.
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When you play a Herb Gatherer, the chat log says "an Herb Gatherer" for some reason.
The programmers are American, I believe, and in North America, the older pronunciation with a silent h remains the norm, thus "an Herb Gatherer"
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Re: Distant Shore, Voyage, etc
Lab is a great engine component. I'm glad to see a lab variant that you might not actually want in your engine. It does have its benefits, but I think it's the interaction with other Odyssey's that make it work well. You can use Sunken Treasure to gain it if you haven't played one yet. And on top of that, getting Sunken Treasure(s) on a Voyage turn will let you very easily gain more Distant Shores. But just don't get too many too early (unless you have Barons, Shepherds, etc.)
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When you play a Herb Gatherer, the chat log says "an Herb Gatherer" for some reason.
The programmers are American, I believe, and in North America, the older pronunciation with a silent h remains the norm, thus "an Herb Gatherer"
But Herbalist shows up as "a Herbalist"
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When you play a Herb Gatherer, the chat log says "an Herb Gatherer" for some reason.
The programmers are American, I believe, and in North America, the older pronunciation with a silent h remains the norm, thus "an Herb Gatherer"
But Herbalist shows up as "a Herbalist"
Hunh, that *is* odd. I've never noticed that before
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If the "H" word sounds like it starts with a vowel, use "an". If it sounds like a consonant, use "a".
An hour.
A hat.
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If the "H" word sounds like it starts with a vowel, use "an". If it sounds like a consonant, use "a".
An hour.
A hat.
I'm pretty sure we all know basic English. The issue is that for some speakers of English, "herb" starts with an h sound and for others it starts with a vowel sound. So some speakers have "a herb" and others have "an herb", the latter being the most common pronunciation in North America, while the former being common in most dialects outside of North America. It is peculiar that there's an inconsistency between Herb Gatherer and Herbalist. I guess those cards were programmed by people speaking different dialects of English
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Ah, I see -- the NA thing was about whether to pronounce the h in herb.
I disagree about the "we all know basic English" thing though. :D I see things like "an historical ..." all the time from major news organizations, etc.
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Ah, I see -- the NA thing was about whether to pronounce the h in herb.
I disagree about the "we all know basic English" thing though. :D I see things like "an historical ..." all the time from major news organizations, etc.
That's actually the *traditional* rule, forms like "a historical" are a more recent development. The older rule is that "an" is used before h followed by an *unstressed* vowel, as in "an historical" (but not "a history", because the stress there is on the first vowel), as in such contexts, the /h/ is very softly-pronounced, almost silent. It's a rule that seems to be dying out (unfortunately in my opinion - I think "a historical" sounds kinda ugly, but I recognize I'm in the minority there), but it's not quite dead yet
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Anyway...back to split piles. Man, if you get 3 of these new split piles in one game, that's a ton of extra cards to keep in mind simultaneously! It's not necessarily a new problem (eg Travelers), but it seems like this takes it to a new level.
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Anyway...back to split piles. Man, if you get 3 of these new split piles in one game, that's a ton of extra cards to keep in mind simultaneously! It's not necessarily a new problem (eg Travelers), but it seems like this takes it to a new level.
I had one with two of those piles and Museum. Museum ended up with a lot of points! Fairgrounds would also do really well with those
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Doesn't seem like it's that much compared to Knights, Castles, Ruins, and especially Black Market.
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For fun, I'm going to guess at the power level and implications of these cards--without having played any of them online. Best to get all my wrong thoughts out before reality has time to correct me.
Herb Gatherer is like Messenger. Not very strong at all. What's interesting is that if this is the only source of plus buy, you could buy one and rotate the pile, cutting off access to +Buy. It's a weak card that you nonetheless want to open with. If there are better sources of +buy though, I could see this getting ignored a lot of the time. Which is just fine, piles don't need to be good all the time.
Acolyte is Transmute. No seriously, it's a card whose main benefit is trashing Estates into Gold, and which you can only buy on the second shuffle, and often only if you bought another weak card in your first shuffle. Obviously this is better than Transmute but I think it's pretty weak. I think the player who gets Acolyte would prefer to rotate the pile so they can trash it for something better, but what if nobody gets Acolyte? Maybe the pile will just stop here.
Sorceress doesn't seem very strong unless you have some sort of synergy, e.g. with Sybil, which is obviously independently powerful already. So the synergy is right there in the pile, so I guess that seems good. I think cursers that require a bit of support like this can actually be more powerful, because it's entirely possible that one player will miss out, potentially leading to 10/0 curse splits. I can see the Augur pile rotating a few times throughout the game though, so you probably don't miss out forever.
I agree with the comparisons between Old Map and Fugitive--Old Map is slightly less powerful, but not that much less. It seems good relative to its cost. But obviously you can't build your deck around it, and it doesn't particularly synergize with the rest of the pile (especially not Voyage). I think this will have a very different dynamic from Herb Gatherer--you're okay missing out on this one.
Voyage seems good? It's not great in a deck with a lot of cantrips, but I'm sure there are plenty of turns where you can play $4 and just buy a cheap card, making it at about as good as Ironworks. Or maybe you trash some cards, without having to reduce handsize on your main turn.
Sunken Treasure is like the version of Horn of Plenty that gets worse on bigger turns, and also won't gain victory cards. So, really not like Horn of Plenty at all. This doesn't seem very strong without synergies, but hey Voyage is a synergy.
Distant Shore is like a Duchy + experiment. Gaining estates is not great, but how many shuffles are left anyway? Also don't you have old maps, just discard the estates.
Swap - This just seems like a great first $5--provided you have enough action density--because you could just swap to get whatever other $5 you would have wanted otherwise. It seems extremely powerful.
To judge allies, I still go back to my question "how good would Underling be with this ally?". Crafter's Guild makes Underling a cantrip armory half the time. That seems... extremely good. Like, almost as good as Cobbler but at a $3 price point.
City-State also seems extremely good. If you can gain a card during your action phase, it's effectively +1 card +1 action, with the card you draw and play being the action you just gained. If you can't gain cards during your action phase, well, it's probably still fine.
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Always take your Death Cart to a Swap meet