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[silverspawn]

Thank you a lot for going through my cards! I appreciate it.

that's nice to hear. now upvote my post 

It's coincidence if by "top" you mean the cheaper cards.

I didn't even realize they were ordered by cost <.<

[Co0kieL0rd]

Hey guys, time to check out Roots and Renewal again because great changes have been made!

First off, I took out every political effect there has been before. Some cards got permanently kicked out, such as Tenure and Fraud, while others got changed to be both fairer and more interesting. As usual, all current cards are visible in the overview post on page 1. The following is a (poorly written) change log:

• Money Launderer: Now the cost increase of Copper happens on-play rather than while in play so that this effect can be Throne'd, KC'd etc. as well.
• Battlement: Took away the cost limit of $4 so you can gain any Attack card with it (or rather have to if possible).
• Bog Village: Gives you an additional +$1 each time you play it for each copy of Bog Village you returned to the Supply this turn. So it may actually be a Bazaar every other time you play it.
• Reconvert: This seemed too strong to basically everyone. I tried many versions of this but was never pleased until I came up with this one. It doesn't give you an option any more and is way less useful in the early game but synergizes well with trash-for-benefit cards in mid- to late-game.
• Royalty: The attack is pretty strong and reliable (way less swingy) now. It should be devastating against tight engine decks.
• Siege: The original Siege (non-terminal mini-Militia) seemed to weak so I'm considering either cantrip mini-Militia or non-terminal mini-Ghost Ship. Please share your thoughts!
• Benefit: I'm trying 2 cards with a total cost of up to $7. It could be very strong on certain boards and weak on others; there are enough other cards like this. It might be a little too strong as a $5-cost, though.
• Building Crane: Now gives +3 Cards, +1 Action instead of +2 Cards, +2 Actions to make it a bit stronger but on the other hand harder to get multiple +Buys in one turn.
• Sentinel: Formerly known as Deposit. Otherwise unchanged.
• Beachcomb: Cost reduced to $5 and the reaction can now only help you but not harm your opponents any more as it was political.

Finally, I made some new cards. Check them out!

Realm Tax
Types: Treasure
Cost: $3*
If there are at least 3 Action cards in play, this is worth $3. Otherwise, it’s worth $1.This costs $3 + $1 per Action card in play.

There are so many combinations of top and bottom part I can think about for this card but this one currently seems the most intriguing to me. You buy it early when it's cheap but bad and use it later when it's expensive but good. It's a Treasure for engine decks and you might eventually trash it to get some nice benefit. It's so flexible! Buy it! BUY IT!

Deposit
Types: Action
Cost: $3
Choose one: Set aside up to 2 Treasure cards from your hand on your Deposit mat; or +1 Buy and put either 1 or all cards from your Deposit mat into your hand. You may look at the cards on your mat at any time; return them to your deck at the end of the game.

It's your 100% reliable Native Village for Treasures that gives you just what you need at the right time. Even if you never retrieve any Treasures you Deposited, at least you have pseudo-trashed all your yellow junk.

Market Town
Types: Action, Reaction
Cost: $4
If you have 5 or more cards in your hand, +1 Card, +1 Action, +1 Buy and +$1. Otherwise, +1 Buy and +$2.When another player plays an Attack card, you may set this aside from your hand. If you do, then at the start of your next turn, draw until you have 5 cards in hand and return this to your hand.

Play it regularly: boring Woodcutter. Play it after using the Reaction (or in an engine): it's a Market which is, like, the best $5-cost card out there! The Reaction looks suspiciously like Horse Traders but it's sufficiently different if you consider twice. Sorry, this card looks so crammed!

Shire
Types: Victory, Reaction
Cost: $4
Worth 1 VP per empty Supply pile.When another player gains a card costing from $3 to $6, you may discard this. If you do, gain a copy of that card.

Remember Prefecture? "Worth 1 VP per Province in the Supply"? Weird, inconsistent and anti-Dominion. Forget that! Here's Shire which tries to accomplish a similar thing without negating Provinces and a Smuggler-esque Reaction to spice it up. I hope you like it, it's one of my new favourites.

Mediator
Types: Action
Cost: $5
Reveal the top 2 cards of your deck. For each card revealed, if it is an Action card, +1 Action. Treasure card, take a Coin token. Victory card, +1 VP. Draw one of them and discard the other.

This card wants to get maximum profit out of your deck. It's like Tribute and Ironmonger combined with a great payload and is most effective in mixed decks as it can deal with everything it finds on top of your deck.

I apologize for my moronic parlance. I'm really tired!

[scott_pilgrim]

Realm Tax seems like a cool idea, but I think the numbers will need to be adjusted, maybe price it at something like $3+$1 per action ($1 per action will be really cheap too often I think; as is, if it's hard to get, then it's almost always going to be a gold).  But unless you intend for it to count other players' durations, it should specify "action cards you have in play", for both the top and bottom part.

I was thinking Deposit was really weak, but I think the pseudo-trashing aspect of it makes it good.  I assume the "1 or all cards" is to nerf the pseudo-trashing?  It seems really clunky to me, I think it might be better to just say "any cards", and then bump the price up to $4 if necessary.

[LibraryAdventurer]

I like that Money Launderer can be throned now.

I don't like that Reconvert can only gain from the trash. That makes it dead whenever there's no (real) trash-for-benefit or trashing attack on the board. When this is the set's (pseudo) trash-for-benefit card, it shouldn't need another one on the board in order to be useful.

FWIW, I don't think Reparations looks too strong. For about the first half of the game it's just a treasure version of workshop, and usually isn't until very near the end that you get more than one empty pile.

Realm Tax: I agree with scott_pilgrim.

The idea of Deposit looks cool, but I think it'll be weak too often once you've gotten rid of your coppers. I think it's worth testing as-is though.

As you pointed out, Market Town is too crammed full of text. Here's a suggestion to simplify it a little:

+1 Buy. +$1.
If you have 5 or more cards in hand, +1 Card, +1 Action.
-
When another player plays an Attack card, you may set this aside. If you do, then at the start of your next turn, draw until you have 5 cards in hand and return this to your hand.

I remember seeing a fan card reaction that said "When any player plays an attack", I think that may fit on this card especially if you make it just +$1. This change would have a drawback of making the card a dud on boards with no attacks or handsize increasers, but kingdoms without either of those aren't very common.
PS: Market isn't one of the best $5 cards.

I like Shire from the looks of it, but it bothers me a little that it has two significant advantages over Smugglers (VP and not needing to spend an action to smuggle a card) and only costs $4 over Smugglers' $3. But it's probably fine.

Beachcomb: If you made the reaction 'discard' instead of 'reveal' I think that would make it better:
"When you would trash a card, you may discard this from your hand. If you do, discard that card instead of trashing it."
I know it hurts the self-synergy you built into it, but I think the card is too strong as-is. If it isn't too strong it would be because it whiffs sometimes (when your discard pile is empty).

...hmmm You have three cards (Beachcomb, Slurry Pit and Draft Horses) that depend on having a discard pile. I wonder if it would help the set to have a sifter like a warehouse variant (Nevermind- you do have Bivouac and Mediator that do a little of that), or maybe a card that lets you leave a couple junk cards in your discard pile on the next reshuffle or a Rabble-style discard-from-deck attack. (A discard-from-deck attack combined with Slurry Pit could be really mean, but then I don't like Slurry Pit much anyway.)
Or maybe Beachcomb and/or Draft Horses could access the Deposit mat...

Royalty looks too nasty. The only thing making the attack weaker than Saboteur is that it can't hit VP cards, but instead of that it has +$2 and it puts any curses and victory cards back on their decks. I hate Saboteur and this looks too similar.

Mediator looks interesting and possibly very cool, but it's hard (for me) to guess how it'll play until I play with it. Some people probably won't like that it's the only card in the set that uses VP tokens and coin tokens, but I see nothing wrong with that.

nice job so far with the expansion. I've already printed several to use at home, but I've only gotten around to using one so far. I've used Suburbia once, and it seemed fine; not really exciting but still cool.

[Awaclus]

I like Deposit. I don't like making it more powerful.

[Co0kieL0rd]

Realm Tax seems like a cool idea, but I think the numbers will need to be adjusted, maybe price it at something like $3+$1 per action ($1 per action will be really cheap too often I think; as is, if it's hard to get, then it's almost always going to be a gold).  But unless you intend for it to count other players' durations, it should specify "action cards you have in play", for both the top and bottom part.

Realm Tax may well be too cheap although bumping up the cost will hardly make any difference because you'll likely buy it early-game when you only have 1 buy, anyway. But when I tested it with a friend it seemed really strong and gave me a huge advantage because he wasn't using it properly.
As for counting actions, I was thinking that it would be interesting if the card counted other players' durations as well. But I'm afraid people would tend to forget this part and it's such a minor feature that I might as well cut it out.

I was thinking Deposit was really weak, but I think the pseudo-trashing aspect of it makes it good.  I assume the "1 or all cards" is to nerf the pseudo-trashing?  It seems really clunky to me, I think it might be better to just say "any cards", and then bump the price up to $4 if necessary.

I'm not pleased with how bulky the text looks, too. But I felt I had to include the final lines from Native Village. I'm going to playtest it some more with "1 or all cards" before I'll change anything for the exact reason that I felt like the pseudo-trashing needs a nerf.

I don't like that Reconvert can only gain from the trash. That makes it dead whenever there's no (real) trash-for-benefit or trashing attack on the board. When this is the set's (pseudo) trash-for-benefit card, it shouldn't need another one on the board in order to be useful.

I've already changed Reconvert so many times but I just can't get it right. Do you have any suggestions that stick to this concept to make it useful without other tfb cards?

As you pointed out, Market Town is too crammed full of text. Here's a suggestion to simplify it a little:

+1 Buy. +$1. If you have 5 or more cards in hand, +1 Card, +1 Action.When another player plays an Attack card, you may set this aside. If you do, then at the start of your next turn, draw until you have 5 cards in hand and return this to your hand.

I remember seeing a fan card reaction that said "When any player plays an attack", I think that may fit on this card especially if you make it just +$1. This change would have a drawback of making the card a dud on boards with no attacks or handsize increasers, but kingdoms without either of those aren't very common.

I'm not convinced. I don't like it reacting to your own attacks, especially not if it just was a Herbalist when it whiffs. For some time now I have been considering introducing the phrase "set it aside until next turn" as a fixed term for "set it aside; if you do, then at the beginning of your next turn, put it into your hand". This would make some of my cards significantly shorter. What are your opinions about this?

PS: Market isn't one of the best $5 cards.

Dude, I was, like, totally joking there

I like Shire from the looks of it, but it bothers me a little that it has two significant advantages over Smugglers (VP and not needing to spend an action to smuggle a card) and only costs $4 over Smugglers' $3. But it's probably fine.

It should be fine, I think. It has some disadvantages compared to Smugglers; whilst the latter gives you a choice which of the cards the player to your right gained last turn you gain, Shire has to be in your hand the moment they gain it and you have to make the decision whether to reveal and discard it the moment they gain it. And Shire cannot be Throned.

Beachcomb: If you made the reaction 'discard' instead of 'reveal' I think that would make it better:
"When you would trash a card, you may discard this from your hand. If you do, discard that card instead of trashing it."
I know it hurts the self-synergy you built into it, but I think the card is too strong as-is. If it isn't too strong it would be because it whiffs sometimes (when your discard pile is empty).

Beachcomb started out at $6 and that was just too expensive for a Lab variant that whiffs after a reshuffle (which is actually terrible for engines). I didn't get to playtest the card and use its reaction too often, yet, but I was kinda hoping it would balance itself out. I'd be glad if you helped me playtest

Mediator looks interesting and possibly very cool, but it's hard (for me) to guess how it'll play until I play with it. Some people probably won't like that it's the only card in the set that uses VP tokens and coin tokens, but I see nothing wrong with that.

I love Mediator. I have no problem using elements from other sets as this is my fan card expansion and an homage to several concepts the original sets introduced. And I love the fact that I found way to fuse two of them into a beautiful card that can handle any deck except pure action-decks. Try it in a mixed deck, it works well
PS: One far less fruitful attempt to combine two concepts is Siege. It just doesn't turn out the way I would like it to.

nice job so far with the expansion. I've already printed several to use at home, but I've only gotten around to using one so far. I've used Suburbia once, and it seemed fine; not really exciting but still cool.

That's great to hear! If you want exciting cards, I suggest you test Mediator, Sentinel, Benefit or Building Crane. Sentinel is probably the "best" card I made. I don't want to brag but it just works so well^^

[Co0kieL0rd]

I tweaked some cards again. Just going over the changes quickly:

• Realm Tax now costs $3 + $1 per Action card you have in play. I playtested it with friends and they agreed it's too strong to get for $0.
• I changed Mandate to a version that plays 2 Couriers immediately so it's very fast. To balance it out, when you buy it, you have to return an Action card you have in play to the Supply.
• I removed Siege (the Duration card) from the set for the time being. Somehow, Duration discard Attacks tend to be either too strong with a vanilla-bonus tacked on them, too weak without one, and un-fun either way. I'll try to come up with something better.
• After several failed versions of Reconvert (either too weak or too strong), I decided to try something completely different.
  
  It's a little worse than Salvager or Apprentice if you play it once but its flexibility should make up for it.
• I also added another card that does stuff with the Supply which is kind of the set's theme so, yeah, here's Salesman:
  

I'm just gonna leave this as it is for now. Both cards haven't been tested at all so I'm looking forward to your opinions and experiences!

Peace!

[Asper]

While i don't particularly mind Mediator, i would like you to note that it does nothing to end the game. Bishop and Goons do it very clearly, while Monument just becomes a pretty bad card if you ignore the part that helps end the game (the +$2). The problem of +VP cards is that you might want to play them indefinitely, and that's nothing we want (though Fortress/Bishop is now a case where you actually can have that situation).

[ConMan]

While i don't particularly mind Mediator, i would like you to note that it does nothing to end the game. Bishop and Goons do it very clearly, while Monument just becomes a pretty bad card if you ignore the part that helps end the game (the +$2). The problem of +VP cards is that you might want to play them indefinitely, and that's nothing we want (though Fortress/Bishop is now a case where you actually can have that situation).

And Goons with Trader and an empty Silver pile, but that's obviously much harder to set up.

[Asper]

I'd suggest making the returning of cards on Blackmail optional (hope nobody said this, yet). As is, it becomes a dead card if all you have in hand are good cards. Unlike Ambassador, it gives a bonus, so you might want to enable players to play it for that, even if they don't want to attack.

Also i like Building Crane. It's a very clever idea.

[Co0kieL0rd]

While i don't particularly mind Mediator, i would like you to note that it does nothing to end the game. Bishop and Goons do it very clearly, while Monument just becomes a pretty bad card if you ignore the part that helps end the game (the +$2). The problem of +VP cards is that you might want to play them indefinitely, and that's nothing we want (though Fortress/Bishop is now a case where you actually can have that situation).

And Goons with Trader and an empty Silver pile, but that's obviously much harder to set up.

I was thinking about that for some time and I can just assume that prolonging the game with Mediator would be difficult and need quite a few Victory cards in your deck to gain several VP each turn. But this increases your chances of stalling (like, if Mediator reveals two Victory cards). Also, Mediator provides coin tokens which promote buying cards. I've only played one game with Mediator so far where it wasn't a problem but of course it needs more testing. I was happy with its balance, though.

I'd suggest making the returning of cards on Blackmail optional (hope nobody said this, yet). As is, it becomes a dead card if all you have in hand are good cards. Unlike Ambassador, it gives a bonus, so you might want to enable players to play it for that, even if they don't want to attack.

I has been suggested before but I found that Blackmail is a pretty strong attack. In the early game, it might hurt your opponent as much as Militia or Cutpurse, although they have a choice which can be considered a weak point. I kept the returning on Blackmail mandatory to nerf it but if it turns out nobody plays it in the endgame anymore, I might make it optional.

Also i like Building Crane. It's a very clever idea.

Thank you I'm not quite happy with its power, yet. During playtests, I often felt like I wasted money on Building Cranes when I didn't play enough of them in one turn or didn't get enough money or buys to get them back AND other cards that actually improve my economy. In boards without +buy or gains, it's most likely a waste of money. So I'm thinking about buffing it to "+4 Cards, +1 Action." That might be reasonable.

[Co0kieL0rd]

I updated a few cards. The old versions are on the left and the new ones on the right.

   

Old Deposit seems a little weak and lackluster so I decided to give it some insane option to play. I have no idea if this is at all balanced. It can produce a vast megaturn but it could also turn out very badly for you. With a flawless engine, it would probably be too good... I'm not sure.



Reconvert costs $4 for now. It seemed too weak at $5 but might be a touch too strong at $4. We'll see.



Market Town does other stuff as an Action now. It's easier to read and should play out differently from comparable cards (i. e. Woodcutter and Market).

   

I play-tested the left version with two friends and it was the horror. Royalty was so powerful it could completely obliterate other player's engines and leave only green cards. They hated it and I realised it's un-fun and unreliable. The new version has freshly emerged from the steaming think tank and is ready to be gain you some stuff and be only mildly annoying for other players. Isn't that nice?



The degradation of Royalty gave way to a new attack that is so brutal that I get dizzy looking at it. Maybe this is way too much... but I'd like to explore the extremes. I'm ready to dismiss them if they turn out to be eldritch horrors.
Siege is the result of two concepts fused into one. When it turned out a cheap non-terminal duration discard attack is nothing more than annoying and game-slowing, I knew this kind of attack needed to be much more expensive and proportionately strong, and there should be some bonus for the attacking player as well. I decided to give the attacker an incentive to play the card as little as possible and mainly use Siege as a transitional stage on the way to a Province. I haven't tested this at all so the attack might be vastly overpowered.



And finally, I had this idea. I wanted an overpay card because why not? I have utilised many mechanisms specific to other sets to expand their range and I feel this is fairly new. Provisioner wants to play Treasures mid-turn without a buy phase to reduce your hand size. It can either be a Lab or a Smithy. But either of those it can be only once. So It's basically another combo card but also works great on its own in smaller quantities.

[LibraryAdventurer]

I kinda like the old version of Deposit better, but I'm just looking at them and you've playtested it so maybe the old version isn't as good as it looks? The new version looks weird. It doesn't do anything for you on the turn you play it, but you can easily save up for a big megaturn. Hard to guess how it'll play by looking at it. I liked the flexibility of the old version when you could take as many or as few as you want from your deposit mat (maybe you want to leave most of the coppers there).

re: Reconvert: Instinctively I'd agree with your initial idea that the options would make up for lacking the automatic +action that apprentice has. But again, I'd have to playtest it to tell.

I like this version of Market Town a lot more than the previous one.

This version of Royalty looks okay except when it reveals coppers (or ruins). Discarding coppers doesn't hurt your opponent, but you may have to hurt yourself by gaining a copper if they aren't any $1-2 cost kingdom cards on the board. I think it'd help a lot of you make it affect 'an action or treasure costing more than $0' or maybe costing at least $2 or $3.

I kinda like this version of Siege, but the attack may still be too powerful to be fun if someone gets more than one siege in play (or two players have a siege in play in a 3+ player game). I think it'd be fine if you say 'each player with 5 or more cards in hand' and keep it otherwise the same (or maybe use ghost ship's wording 'each other player gains a ruins and puts cards from their hand onto their deck until they have four cards in hand' -that way they still gain ruins even if they already only have four cards in hand). Putting a card back plus gaining a ruins two turns in a row is still a very strong attack, but that way it shouldn't be too horrible to be fun when there's more than one siege in play. And I like the below the line effect to go with it too.

Provisioner should cost at least $5. Compare it to library, it doesn't have the set aside actions part that library does, but instead it has options before drawing to 7 (including acting like a lab).
I think the below the line part would be better as an on-gain or on-buy effect to set aside a copper for next turn instead of overpay because overpaying by one (usually) doesn't do anything, but as-is you don't have to overpay at all to set aside a copper for next turn. And even setting aside a copper from play for next turn is pretty significant.

[TheOthin]

Siege is so much stuff weirdly glued together. It does a hand attack and a junk attack and another hand and junk attack the next turn and then it also lets you upgrade things.

Provisioner looks absurd. From a 5-card hand, it can be +3 Cards, +1 Action, or just +4 Cards. There are advantages and disadvantages to the way it does it but not enough for either of those effects to be treated much different from if they were available directly. Bear in mind that +4 Cards is a $6 effect and +3 Cards, +1 Action is even better.

You compare it to Lab and Smithy, but that's not right at all; it removes itself from your hand so you get an extra card. Consider how Library is Smithy-with-a-bonus. And also bear in mind that even if it only drew to 6 to mime Lab or Smithy, it'd have to cost at least $6, because Lab costs $5. And as it stands it's looking for something much higher.

[Co0kieL0rd]

I kinda like the old version of Deposit better, but I'm just looking at them and you've playtested it so maybe the old version isn't as good as it looks? The new version looks weird. It doesn't do anything for you on the turn you play it, but you can easily save up for a big megaturn. Hard to guess how it'll play by looking at it. I liked the flexibility of the old version when you could take as many or as few as you want from your deposit mat (maybe you want to leave most of the coppers there).

Notice that new Deposit allows you to set aside up to 2 Treasures if you don't trash it. So the choice is almost the same as before but I gave it more oomph because it felt like Deposit needed it but you gotta trash it to do the trick. Might be under-priced, although it's actually quite weak  as long as you use it to pseudo-trash Coppers.

I like this version of Market Town a lot more than the previous one.

Thanks! Vanilla bonuses in the same line still isn't the best stylistic choice but I prefer it to a tiny font. It doesn't look that crammed any more. Anyway, I need to find a better programme to design the cards.

This version of Royalty looks okay except when it reveals coppers (or ruins). Discarding coppers doesn't hurt your opponent, but you may have to hurt yourself by gaining a copper if they aren't any $1-2 cost kingdom cards on the board. I think it'd help a lot of you make it affect 'an action or treasure costing more than $0' or maybe costing at least $2 or $3.

Good idea. I might do that if it turns out that Remodelling without trashing but based on a lucky attack isn't as strong as I think it might be.

I kinda like this version of Siege, but the attack may still be too powerful to be fun if someone gets more than one siege in play (or two players have a siege in play in a 3+ player game). I think it'd be fine if you say 'each player with 5 or more cards in hand' and keep it otherwise the same (or maybe use ghost ship's wording 'each other player gains a ruins and puts cards from their hand onto their deck until they have four cards in hand' -that way they still gain ruins even if they already only have four cards in hand). Putting a card back plus gaining a ruins two turns in a row is still a very strong attack, but that way it shouldn't be too horrible to be fun when there's more than one siege in play. And I like the below the line effect to go with it too.

You're probably right. It would be the best solution if Siege always gets you down to 4 cards and no less. The Ruins shouldn't matter so much, as they're going to come in late and sporadically due to Siege's high cost.

Siege is so much stuff weirdly glued together. It does a hand attack and a junk attack and another hand and junk attack the next turn and then it also lets you upgrade things.

As I mentioned above, the upgrading option serves as an incentive to trash it and gain a Province instead of playing Siege over and over. Anyway, I like cards that do a lot of stuff. I leave the easy cards to LastFootnote, he's very good at coming up with cute ideas, and we don't get in the way of each other
(Just to be very clear, I admire his ideas. The last sentence should not be read as if I was making fun of them.)

Provisioner should cost at least $5. Compare it to library, it doesn't have the set aside actions part that library does, but instead it has options before drawing to 7 (including acting like a lab).
I think the below the line part would be better as an on-gain or on-buy effect to set aside a copper for next turn instead of overpay because overpaying by one (usually) doesn't do anything, but as-is you don't have to overpay at all to set aside a copper for next turn. And even setting aside a copper from play for next turn is pretty significant.

Provisioner looks absurd. From a 5-card hand, it can be +3 Cards, +1 Action, or just +4 Cards. There are advantages and disadvantages to the way it does it but not enough for either of those effects to be treated much different from if they were available directly. Bear in mind that +4 Cards is a $6 effect and +3 Cards, +1 Action is even better.

You compare it to Lab and Smithy, but that's not right at all; it removes itself from your hand so you get an extra card. Consider how Library is Smithy-with-a-bonus. And also bear in mind that even if it only drew to 6 to mime Lab or Smithy, it'd have to cost at least $6, because Lab costs $5. And as it stands it's looking for something much higher.

I messed up there. Of course Provisioner should cost $5 and still only draw up to 6 cards in hand. Even then I wouldn't be pleased with how the second Provisioner in your hand would feel after you played the first one. The card probably needs more options... or other options. What was I even thinking?
It's also bad that I didn't notice that my overpay idea essentially means "When you buy this, play a Copper you have in play next turn" - of course that's huge, and doesn't require overpay. I might either change it to LibraryAdventurer's suggestion or think of some other overpay mechanism.

[LastFootnote]

Siege is so much stuff weirdly glued together. It does a hand attack and a junk attack and another hand and junk attack the next turn and then it also lets you upgrade things.

As I mentioned above, the upgrading option serves as an incentive to trash it and gain a Province instead of playing Siege over and over. Anyway, I like cards that do a lot of stuff. I leave the easy cards to LastFootnote, he's very good at coming up with cute ideas, and we don't get in the way of each other
(Just to be very clear, I admire his ideas. The last sentence should not be read as if I was making fun of them.)

Look at it this way. If you split Siege into two cards, you get two better cards almost for free! I like Siege's duration effect, but I'd rather see:

????
Types: Action - Duration
Cost: $5
Now and at the start of your next turn, +$1.
While this is in play, when you buy a card, you may trash a non-Duration card from play and gain a card costing exactly $1 more than the trashed card.

The non-Duration bit is so that you can't trash a Duration that still has stuff to do on a future turn. There's nothing to track that.

Deposit has a bunch of unnecessary words. You're not setting the cards aside face down, so you don't have to say that you may look at them at any time. You also don't have to specify that they return to your deck at the end. I know Native Village does, but it doesn't need to either and the more words you can cut the better. Also because they're set aside face up, you don't need to reveal them first; they're public knowledge at that point. So:

Deposit
Types: Action
Cost: $3
You may trash this. If you do, +1 Buy and play each card from your Deposit mat twice in any order. Otherwise, set aside up to 2 Treasure cards from your hand on your mat.

OK, now that we've got wording out of the way, I think the card is probably weak. I'd try it without the one-shot, always give the +1 Buy, and let you play any number of cards from the mat. So:

Deposit
Types: Action
Cost: $3
+1 Buy. Choose one: Set aside a Treasure card from your hand onto your Deposit mat; or play any number of cards from your mat twice each.

OR:

Deposit
Types: Action
Cost: $3
+1 Buy. Choose one: Set aside any number of Treasure cards from your hand onto your Deposit mat; or play a card from your mat twice.

[Co0kieL0rd]

Look at it this way. If you split Siege into two cards, you get two better cards almost for free! I like Siege's duration effect

By Duration effect do you mean the Attack itself or the ability to upgrade?

????
Types: Action - Duration
Cost: $5
Now and at the start of your next turn, +$1.
While this is in play, when you buy a card, you may trash a non-Duration card from play and gain a card costing exactly $1 more than the trashed card.

The non-Duration bit is so that you can't trash a Duration that still has stuff to do on a future turn. There's nothing to track that.

Good thing you mentioned the tracking problem with Duration cards being trashed during the turn in which they've been played! I need to include that condition.
I already tried Siege as a card that purely attacks, either as a cantrip or just with +1 Action but with no other benefits and that was awful. And I didn't want any ordinary vanilla bonuses either because I already have plenty of them on other cards. I wanted something unique. Anyway, as a Duration card with a benefit for the attacker, Siege becomes so strong (even without the Ruins) that it had to cost $6 or $7. That's why it does both of these things. The card you suggested is good but it doesn't solve Siege's power problem.

Deposit has a bunch of unnecessary words. You're not setting the cards aside face down, so you don't have to say that you may look at them at any time. You also don't have to specify that they return to your deck at the end. I know Native Village does, but it doesn't need to either and the more words you can cut the better. Also because they're set aside face up, you don't need to reveal them first; they're public knowledge at that point.

This is an issue because I actually meant for the Treasures to be set aside face down, I just forgot to put it in the text. Otherwise, your opponents would have the right to look through your Deposit mat cards at any time and that's not what I want. Although you need to reveal the Treasures to make sure they're not other cards you set aside.
Are you saying Native Village doesn't need to tell you to return the set aside cards to your deck at the end of the game or Deposit doesn't need to? I assume if an original card needs this clause, mine needs it, too. On the other hand I could just not care what official cards say because this will probably never be a cause for concern in reality.

[LastFootnote]

I like Siege's duration effect

By Duration effect do you mean the Attack itself or the ability to upgrade?

I meant the ability to upgrade. The Attack doesn't thrill me and it's a bit tough to track whether it's been blocked with Moat or Lighthouse, since the Moat or Lighthouse has been shuffled into the target's deck by the time the attack hits the second time.

Deposit has a bunch of unnecessary words. You're not setting the cards aside face down, so you don't have to say that you may look at them at any time. You also don't have to specify that they return to your deck at the end. I know Native Village does, but it doesn't need to either and the more words you can cut the better. Also because they're set aside face up, you don't need to reveal them first; they're public knowledge at that point.

This is an issue because I actually meant for the Treasures to be set aside face down, I just forgot to put it in the text. Otherwise, your opponents would have the right to look through your Deposit mat cards at any time and that's not what I want. Although you need to reveal the Treasures to make sure they're not other cards you set aside.
Are you saying Native Village doesn't need to tell you to return the set aside cards to your deck at the end of the game or Deposit doesn't need to? I assume if an original card needs this clause, mine needs it, too. On the other hand I could just not care what official cards say because this will probably never be a cause for concern in reality.

Neither Native Village nor Deposit needs the "return them to your deck at the end of the game" clause. It's in the rules that set-aside cards go back to your deck at the end of the game.

Why have the cards face down? The other players already know what they are, and I seriously doubt that knowledge is going to generate AP. I don't think a lot of time is going to be eaten up with players examining other players' Deposit mats. And of course it's fewer words to just set them aside face up (the default). I am struggling to come up with a good reason that they should be face down.

[Co0kieL0rd]

Yeah, you know what - you're right As much as I like cards that do a lot of stuff. I still want to keep them nice and concise. You have made several good suggestions for Deposit. Now I need to evaluate each option.

Are there any cards in my set so far that appear to be "optimal" in what they do and how it is expressed through the card text? Cards that probably don't need change at all? I currently consider maybe 5 or 6 cards "finished" but I'd like to hear unbiased opinions on that.

[Asper]

To make a Duration - Attack trackable, you could let players set aside something:

Each other player with 4 or more cards in hand sets one card from it aside and gains a Ruins. If he did set a card aside, after he draws cards during his next cleanup phase, he discards the set-aside card, discards a card from his hand, and gains a Ruins.

Of course this isn't pretty. It becomes even more horrible if you try to make it topdeck the card (i went with discarding), as that would remove the card that tracks the attack. Tracking over Ruins could be possibly unfair (if only some players got one), unreliable ("if you do" is needed) and still untrackable because of Watchtower.

I'm pretty sure this isn't novel enough to excuse the wall of text a clean implementation demands.

Edit: Or you could use tokens. Which is also bad, unless they have an ongoing purpose.
"Each other player sets aside a VP token. If he doesn't buy a card during his next turn, he takes it".
Oh wait, this isn't an attack... It's bribery. Never mind.

[Co0kieL0rd]

Or it could say "Now and at the start of your next turn, when this is in play...", dealing with the trashing issue. This is especially important with Builder in the Kingdom.

   

I have thought about Moat and Lighthouse before and I assumed "the attack doesn't affect you" ceases to apply at the end of your turn, or when Lighthouse is discarded from play, respectively. If that's not the case, that would make it even more complicated. But since there are no official Duration Attack cards, there are no rules for it either, are there? If I can make up the rule, I'd say Moat and Lighthouse only block during the turn they're revealed or in play, respectively.

[Asper]

Or it could say "Now and at the start of your next turn, when this is in play...", dealing with the trashing issue. This is especially important with Builder in the Kingdom.

   

I have thought about Moat and Lighthouse before and I assumed "the attack doesn't affect you" ceases to apply at the end of your turn, or when Lighthouse is discarded from play, respectively. If that's not the case, that would make it even more complicated. But since there are no official Duration Attack cards, there are no rules for it either, are there? If I can make up the rule, I'd say Moat and Lighthouse only block during the turn they're revealed or in play, respectively.

Most of us probably thought that at some point, but that's a misconception. All a Duration card does next turn is part of its "on play" effect. If somebody reveals Moat to it, he's unaffected by the entire card, not only the part that happens now.

A reason why you thought it might be that the german Seaside edition places "next turn" effects under a line.

Edit: Ah, nonsense, of course you know how the original durations look like... Forget that part. What was i thinking?

[LastFootnote]

Are there any cards in my set so far that appear to be "optimal" in what they do and how it is expressed through the card text? Cards that probably don't need change at all? I currently consider maybe 5 or 6 cards "finished" but I'd like to hear unbiased opinions on that.

Realm Tax looks good. I like the card and its wording. I would have the cost be "?*" instead of "0*", but that's it.

Bivouac's wording is fine. I would still take out the part that allows you to topdeck it.

Money Launderer's wording is fine. I would either remove the "Copper costs $1 more this turn" or make it a "while in play" under a dividing line.

Poacher could maybe say, "For each Poacher discarded". Forest Hut's wording is fine, but neither Poacher nor Forest Hut thrill me.

Salesman's wording is fine and the on-play effect seems solid. The setup seems an unnecessary complication, but I get how it's supposed to work with the cost reduction.

Builder and Battlement are fine wording-wise. Battlement seems like it's going to run out piles way too fast. Also the on-trash bit is maybe a little confusing in a "I'm not sure I'm reading this right" kind of way, even though it's straightforward.

Draft horses should probably say "reveal up to 3 Action cards from your discard pile and hand". Anyway, it's a bit too similar to Scavenger in my mind.

Suburbia's wording is fine. Again, I've tried the bottom part on some cards and found it to be not much fun, but maybe you'll have better luck with it.

Blackmail's wording is fine, but I don't find it to be sufficiently different from Ambassador.

I think Bog Village is too much rigmarole. I like that trashing from the Supply is one option and the other one potentially gets you money, but it's too much confusing work to get that money.

I think Market Town's reaction is too similar to Horse Traders. Yes it works differently, but you're still reacting to draw cards. The top is unexciting, but hey it's the top of a Reaction. It doesn't have to be exciting. Obviously I would prefer that it didn't have 3 vanilla bonuses side by side, but how bad is that really?

It's hard to say how balanced Reconvert is, but it could probably be cheaper.

As for Royalty, I think putting an arbitrary number of cards back on your deck is a recipe for AP. Also holy crap you're gaining a lot of cards in a game with 4 or 5 players. Jester is like this too, but usually Jester isn't gaining you a card per other player.

As I've said elsewhere, I'm not super-stoked about Victory cards like Shire that usually cap out at 3 VP. The reaction is potentially game-slowing since each other player has to pause whenever they gain a card in the cost range. Though maybe the cost range itself mostly solves that problem. Tough to say.

Slurry Pit is too much like Masquerade to really interest me.

Beachcomb seems situationally quite strong. Maybe it makes me too sad when my discard pile is empty, dunno. The reaction seems like a fairly classic thing, though again situational.

Benefit seems neat. I'd take out the Estate gaining. Other than that it seems quite interesting.

Building Crane is cool. Not sure it's balanced, but probably worth testing as-is. I strongly advise changing the wording to, "+3 Cards. +1 Action. Return this to the Supply. Building Cranes cost $1 less this turn (but not less than $0)." The other interactions with Ambassador and the cards in this set don't seem worth it. But even if you do keep it, you should say "Building Cranes" or "copies of Building Cranes" instead of "this".

Holy cow you have a lot of cards. I didn't realize before starting this. OK, moving on.

Demagogue seems often helpful to other players if only one is played.

Juggler seems a bit messy and a bit similar to Mountebank. I guess I'd have to play it to see if I liked it.

Tough to say whether Mediator provides much that Tribute doesn't. Although it does reward you for Victory hybrid cards rather than penalizing them, so it's got that going for it. You should say "Put one of them into your hand" rather than "Draw one of them". Envoy says to "draw" cards that are revealed, but that's an error.

Reparations seems pleasantly simple. Not sure if it's fun to play, but it's worth a shot.

Sentinel seems worth trying.

Bastion seems good.

It's hard to judge Mandate on its own, and I'm not fond of Courier. Too similar to Band of Misfits, and "an Action card other than Mandate from the Supply costing up to $4 that you choose" is a mouthful.

I've already talked about Siege and Deposit today.

Almost all of your cards are worded excellently. I would use "he" and "his" rather than "they" and "their" just to be consistent with the published cards, but I can understand why you'd want to keep it gender neutral. I don't think it's going to cause confusion here.

[Co0kieL0rd]

Thank you very much for your opinion! I will take all your statements into account. I'm just going to reply to some of them where I feel it's important.

Realm Tax looks good. I like the card and its wording. I would have the cost be "?*" instead of "0*", but that's it.

It just crossed my mind that it might be a problem that Realm Tax's bottom line addresses "you" while just sitting in the Supply. So whose player's Action cards in play do get counted? Obviously it's supposed to be those of the active player but it doesn't say that. So it might go back to counting all Action cards in play as it originally said on the card. But that seems so counter-intuitive. Hmmm...
Anyway, I chose "0*" to avoid any cases where Real Tax cannot be clearly assigned a specific cost. In that case, it's $0. But such a case is probably impossible...

Money Launderer's wording is fine. I would either remove the "Copper costs $1 more this turn" or make it a "while in play" under a dividing line.

I originally had it say "while in play" but I changed it and some people were happy with it. I assume Money Launderer's Copper-cost line won't be worth exploiting in the majority of games. But when there's TR/KC and ML and TfB available - I want you to be able to reap those juicy benefits. I know DXV regretted that he didn't have Coppersmith say "While this is in play, Copper produces $1 more" but I don't care^^ The ML + TfB combo is meant to be exploited!

Juggler seems a bit messy and a bit similar to Mountebank. I guess I'd have to play it to see if I liked it.

Please go ahead and play with the Juggler It's one of the oldest and most well play-tested cards in the set, and the tricky decisions involved are worth the wall of text. Juggler rewards deliberate gameplay on both sides of the attack.

[Co0kieL0rd]

Hello, this time I'm announcing a BIG update. Thanks to the help and advise from LastFootnote I was able to recreate all my cards with templates using GIMP (except for Forest Hut, for which I don't have a template). I also tweaked the wording of several cards and took your comments into consideration.
The most notable differences are:

• Deposit is more powerful and looks simpler because I removed the redundant Native Village-part.
• Bog Village and Building Crane behave a little different now for the sake of simplicity. Bog Village especially should be less confusing now.
• I clarified the text on Royalty so it always makes you gain one card per turn, regardless of the number of players. And it ignores Coppers.
• Slurry Pit is missing. I will rework or replace the card with something more exciting and useful.

Furthermore, I'm trying to come up with alternative mechanisms for Bivouac or Suburbia or both, especially considering their bottom parts. They are too similar.

And here are the cards in a cohesive display and their new glorious beauty for you to enjoy, haha.