Okay, maybe Usurper, Great Embargo, and Army don't need to be Durations at all. The text below the line makes the tag effect independent from
playing the Attack itself.
Taxation sounds alright, though the cost increasing part of it is extremely weak. It also functions as "discard 1 card", and I think that will have more of a negative impact than the cost increase. Often it'll just increase the cost of junk, which people won't be buying anyway. In fact, it is liable to help your opponents by buffing their TfB cards.
In late game, opponents will have a very hard time if they set aside Provinces. But until midgame, you are right.
TfB doesn't work as the cost is only increased during the buy phase (the opposite of Peddler).
Usurper sounds a bit fiddly for real life play. Should I just flip my hand backwards? But then I'll have trouble seeing my own cards. Should I just lay them face up on the table? That could cause me to mix them up with cards that get played. It's also rather complicated for what should be a relatively weak attack. Seeing your hand as you play it usually won't matter that much, and the penalty is far weaker than Militia in that the other player can run through his engine before discarding 2 green cards that he drew at the end, or just giving up an extra +Buy.
I thought you could just hold the cards plain, parallel to the table.
The Attack is intended to hurt BM more than engines.
Great Embargo is not worded properly. You want to do it like Embargo:
Each other player takes an Embargo token.
When a player buys a Victory card, he gains a Curse per Embargo token he has. All Embargo tokens held by a player are discarded at the end of his turn.
The card does not need to be a Duration any more than Embargo does. It also seems weaker than Embargo. Early on, players aren't buying VP anyway. Later on, it is hit-or-miss whether you catch them on a turn they would buy VP. Even if you get them, it's just a Curse in the late game. New junk doesn't matter as much by that point.
I don't see why my wording wouldn't work. But yeah, this is more elegant. Maybe the Curse should go on top of the deck. Or maybe just this:
Landlord (Action-Attack) $4
+$2
Each other player takes an Embargo token.
When a player with an Embargo token buys a Victory card, he puts it on top of his deck and discards one Embargo token.
EDIT:
Great Embargo (Action-Duration) $3
+$2
Put an Embargo Token on each Victory Card pile in the supply. When a player buys a card from a pile with an Embargo token on it, he gains a Curse. At the start of your next turn: Remove one Embargo Token from each Victory card pile.
It does not work with Moat. I see, you dumped the Attack. I guess that's okay. Maybe the Embargo tokens should be put there after your buy phase so that the active player isn't affected by his own Embargo.
Army is a great idea, but pedro is right that it doesn't need a Duration type. I'd generalize the wording too:
Each other player turns the top card of his deck face-up.
When a player would draw a face-up card, he turns it face-down instead.
You could do similar attacks, or even non-attacks. Each other player with 4 or more cards in hand puts one card face-up on top of his deck. Gain a card costing up to $6, putting it face-up on your deck. You could even remove the below-the-line explanation of what a face-up card means and just stick that in the rule book.
The big thing to consider is what it does to cards that reveal or look at the top of the deck. If you have a face-up Estate, does Rebuild hit it? If there is a face-up card on your deck, how does Lookout work?
It's a neat mechanism though, and naturally produces combo/counter potential with cards Wishing Well and Mystic. So that's cool.
Rules clarifiaction on Army:
The face-up card is still on top of the deck. If a player discards, looks at or reveals cards from top of his deck, he also discards/ looks at/ reveals the face-up card and, if the face-up card should be put back on top of the deck, he puts it there face-down, as normally. The penalty only appears when a player would
draw any number of cards and one of them would be face-up.
You are right, maybe it can be an own mechanic for other cards as well.
Wine Cellar is problematic in games with more than 2 players in that it would be easy for other players to lose track of which cards are theirs, especially if you play multiple Wine Cellars. Having designated areas per player helps, but it would make the play area very messy.
Speaking of which, it is unclear how multiples stack. Suppose you play Wine Cellar twice and two of my Copper get set aside, one per attack. When you discard one Copper next turn, does this allow you to draw 2 cards? What if the third player also set aside a Copper -- one discard lets you draw 3 cards now?
Because it is a Duration card (and no while in play effect), you will always just draw one card per card discarded.
Maybe the cards could also be put next to the Wine Cellar itself to make it clearer.
I guess Wine Cellar would also work just like this:
Wine Cellar (Action-Attack) $2
+1 Card
+1 Action
Each other player discards the top card of his deck. You may discard copies of these cards from your hand; +1 Card per card discarded.
But the concept is more like "attack the other players and do something according to it at the start of your next turn." Lets see if there are more interesting things to do.
