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[werothegreat]

So I've noticed we have a card category that we've never really discussed as its own thing - Coin payload cards.  These are Actions whose main function is to give you lots of money.  Now, there are a lot of terminal Silver (and Gold, and Copper) cards, but most of them have that as an added bonus to whatever else they do.  Woodcutter is a +Buy card; the +$2 is there to make it (almost) worth $3.  Mountebank is for giving out junk, etc.  But some cards either only give coin or are intended as a payload of money.  Some of these do other things, but they are for the most part penalties to balance their cost.

Secret Chamber - indefinite amount - requires you to discard to get the money
Baron - $4 - requires discarding an Estate
Coppersmith - indefinite amount - requires Coppers to put it on
Tribute - $0, $2, $4 - depends on the other person's deck, and does other things, too
Salvager - ≤$11 - must trash a card first
Pirate Ship - indefinite amount - requires trashing opponent's money first
Merchant Ship - $2 this turn, $2 next turn - split between turns
Counting House - indefinite amount - requires Coppers in your discard pile
Vault - see Secret Chamber
Horse Traders - $3 - requires a two-card discard, but gives +Buy
Harvest - ≤$4 - requires deck variety, discards top of deck, requires deck
Duchess - $2 - cheap, gives benefit to opponent
Mandarin - $3 - must top-deck, can be either bonus or penalty
Poor House - ≤$4 - goes down with Treasures in hand
Beggar - $3 - requires gaining Coppers
Death Cart - $5 - requires trashing itself or an Action, and comes with Ruins
Count - $3 - see Mandarin, does other things

So why HT and not WC?  WC is equivalent to Silver with a +Buy, requiring an Action.  HT is a *Gold* for cheaper - the +Buy is just a bonus here.  Why Duchess and not Embargo?  You have to trash Embargo, and the +$2 is clearly a bonus to Embargoing a pile.  I dunno, you guys may disagree with this list, but some of these (PH, Harvest) I don't think are debatable.

So why differentiate these from normal terminal "Silvers"?  You don't get terminal Silvers for their money, you get them for their effect.  But *these* cards you get for their money, as they give a healthy amount compare to their cost; enough that you get them *because* of the $ they give.

[AHoppy]

This is interesting that nobody has noted this before.  I'm not really sure I'd put tribute in there because it does a lot more than just money.  I often buy it more for the possible actions and draw than the money, and I'm not sure I'd really see it as engine payload...  Probably best in BM mirror, not coin payload.  I might include in here Conspirator (unless you're defining payload as having to be non-terminal... but it's a pseudo-terminal). 

[werothegreat]

Let me try to explicitly define "Coin payload":

-Action card
-Giving coin is the focus of the card
-Balanced to give the most coin possible for its cost, factoring in any penalties

So for example, Embargo, without the Embargoing part, should give more than just +$2, given that it's a one-shot. 

As such, being non-terminal takes away too much potential coin for a card's cost, so I would not include Conspirator.

[crlundy]

Diadem? There's the needing actions "penalty", plus the challenge of gaining it.

[werothegreat]

But Diadem is a Treasure.  The whole point of Treasures is to get more money.  If I included Diadem, I'd have to include Philosopher's Stone and Cache, too.

Moneylender is a Copper trasher - the rest is just gravy.

Though I think Baron should also be on the list.

[crlundy]

-Action card
-Giving coin is the focus of the card
-Balanced to give the most coin possible for its cost, factoring in any penalties

D'oh

[eHalcyon]

I don't know about Horse Traders.  The name "coin payload" feels wrong because you get HT mainly to hit $5 consistently, and not really more than that.  Also, I think the +Buy is just as important on HT as it is on Woodcutter.

I'd also argue against Count because I think the trashing and Duchy options are just as important as the money.

I would also say that Duchess' main function is "bonus gift when buying Duchy" rather than any of its on play effects.

[jsh357]

What's the thesis of this?  I mean, sure, these are cards you get for making money, but for what purpose would you look at them as a set? I don't think this is a subject that's been "ignored" so much as it's a subject there isn't much to say about in the general case.  Playing a deck with Pirate Ship for payoff is way different than playing a deck with Counting House for payoff, for instance. (and for that matter, I see Counting House as a +draw card, not a +coin card)

[Awaclus]

I don't think Counting House should be here. Its main purpose is to increase your hand size for things like Storeroom etc.

[Gherald]

And here I thought Storeroom's purpose was to decrease your handsize for things like Counting House

[LastFootnote]

I don't think Counting House should be here. Its main purpose is to increase your hand size for things like Storeroom etc.

This is legit nonsense.

[Kirian]

I don't think Counting House should be here. Its main purpose is to increase your hand size for things like Storeroom etc.

And here I thought Storeroom's purpose was to decrease your handsize for things like Counting House

Why not both.jpg

[Awaclus]

I don't think Counting House should be here. Its main purpose is to increase your hand size for things like Storeroom etc.

This is legit nonsense.

It's not. Most of the time when purchasing a Counting House is a good idea, it's because it's the only way to increase your hand size in the kingdom.

[pacovf]

I don't think Counting House should be here. Its main purpose is to increase your hand size for things like Storeroom etc.

This is legit nonsense.

I will go out on a limb and say that Awaclus was joking.

[Mic Qsenoch]

Or you know, to put Coppers into your hand and buy something.

[TheOthin]

Or you know, to put Coppers into your hand and buy something.

But why put Coppers in your hand when you could put better cards in your hand?

[AHoppy]

Or you know, to put Coppers into your hand and buy something.

But why put Coppers in your hand when you could put better cards in your hand?

Because that usually requires a 2-card combo + village, which is less likely than just CH

[Gherald]

I don't think Counting House should be here. Its main purpose is to increase your hand size for things like Storeroom etc.

This is legit nonsense.

I will go out on a limb and say that Awaclus was joking.

Apparently he wasn't, and thinks this quite niche use of an already niche card is that card's main purpose.

[Awaclus]

I don't think Counting House should be here. Its main purpose is to increase your hand size for things like Storeroom etc.

This is legit nonsense.

I will go out on a limb and say that Awaclus was joking.

Apparently he wasn't, and thinks this quite niche use of an already niche card is that card's main purpose.

It's a niche card, I'll grant you that, but any use other than increasing your hand size is so weak that it's hardly ever relevant.

[LastFootnote]

I definitely did have a category for this kind of card in my mind, but it only included Adventurer, Merchant Ship, Counting House, and Harvest. I think it's good to include Baron, Coppersmith, Pirate Ship, Vault, Poor House, Beggar, and Death Cart. Those all strike me as cards whose primary purpose is to provide Coins for you.

Secret Chamber and Horse Traders are first Reactions in my mind. Tribute and Count do a bunch of stuff. Duchess and Mandarin aren't really good value as far as Coin generation goes; they're really more about the underline text. Salvager trashes Estates and sometimes $0 cards, which keeps it out of this category for me.

After thinking about it, I think it's useful to include Treasures whose main purpose is coin generation. Or at least to have a list of those.

Treasures you get for Coin payload:
Philosopher's Stone
Contraband
Venture
Bank
Diadem
Fool's Gold
Cache

Treasures you get for other reasons:
Harem
Stash
Loan
Talisman
Quarry
Royal Seal
Hoard
Ill-Gotten Gains
Masterpiece

Unable to categorize:
Horn of Plenty
Counterfeit

I guess Quarry is kind of iffy, but I don't think of something that lets you easily gain Action cards as "payload". For example, University isn't "payload" in my mind.

[LastFootnote]

I don't think Counting House should be here. Its main purpose is to increase your hand size for things like Storeroom etc.

This is legit nonsense.

I will go out on a limb and say that Awaclus was joking.

Apparently he wasn't, and thinks this quite niche use of an already niche card is that card's main purpose.

It's a niche card, I'll grant you that, but any use other than increasing your hand size is so weak that it's hardly ever relevant.

Using it for Coin payload seems relevant way more often than using it for increasing your hand size. In order for it to be useful for that purpose, you have to keep a bunch of Copper in your deck. That makes the likelihood of you lining it up with your village and your Storeroom or whatever pretty slim. And of course it only works once until you do discard those Coppers. It just seems entirely impractical. Is this something you've done more than once, Awaclus?

[Awaclus]

I don't think Counting House should be here. Its main purpose is to increase your hand size for things like Storeroom etc.

This is legit nonsense.

I will go out on a limb and say that Awaclus was joking.

Apparently he wasn't, and thinks this quite niche use of an already niche card is that card's main purpose.

It's a niche card, I'll grant you that, but any use other than increasing your hand size is so weak that it's hardly ever relevant.

Using it for Coin payload seems relevant way more often than using it for increasing your hand size. In order for it to be useful for that purpose, you have to keep a bunch of Copper in your deck. That makes the likelihood of you lining it up with your village and your Storeroom or whatever pretty slim. And of course it only works once until you do discard those Coppers. It just seems entirely impractical. Is this something you've done more than once, Awaclus?

Yeah, I build engines with Counting House and a Cellar variant for the +cards way more often than I go for a Counting House big money/slog/whatever that thing is called. And I also win most of those engine games, while it's closer to 50-50 with the other thing. It's not that hard to line up, you can get a lot of reshuffle control when you have Counting Houses and villages.

[LastFootnote]

I think the thing here is that your use of Couting House (increasing hand size) is the only conceivable use it could have in the kind of deck that you always want to build (mega-engine). But if you actually build a Counting House deck, you're definitely using it as a Coin payload and it does a fine job in that capacity.

I argue that you want to build a Counting House deck more often than you want to use it for hand-increasing. Although that's likely because the way I randomize games gives me way more games where Counting House as a payload is a good idea than full random would.

[jsh357]

I am with Awaclus on this one, which is why I claimed I try to look at CH as a draw card, even though it technically gives you money.  What it's actually doing is drawing cards; those cards just happen to be Copper.  Usually, you want better cards than the Copper, so sifting after drawing them is quite valuable.  You can use Counting House for payload, but that's only one way to look at a more complex card.

[AdamH]

So what's the point of this? If anything I think it's misleading.

So why differentiate these from normal terminal "Silvers"?  You don't get terminal Silvers for their money, you get them for their effect.  But *these* cards you get for their money, as they give a healthy amount compare to their cost; enough that you get them *because* of the $ they give.

I think this is just not true. Out of 17 cards on this list, I'm buying only 10 of them for this reason (which means the other 7 I'm almost never buying because I want the money, but rather for their other effects). If you look at these 10 cards, yes the whole point of them is that they're terminal and they do nothing but give you money, but the decks I would build around each of these cards are, for the most part, completely different (the exception is when I'm playing Big Money, but the only card here that I'm playing in BM that fits this description is Vault, maaaaybe Mandarin but I still don't think that fits). Grouping these cards together makes no sense to me.

If you're going to make a list of all of the cards that give you money, we already have a term for that, it's "virtual money." We've discussed a lot of the times when you want virtual money and why (though for some reason, there are people out there that think virtual money is inherently better than real money so they buy Woodcutter over Silver 100% of the time, but that's not relevant).

If you're going to do a cost/benefit analysis of how much money each card gives you compared to its cost, well I don't think that's useful because it can only be applied to cards that give you the same amount of money each time you play them and don't have any other effects. So that's like none of them.

But these cards on this list do lots of other things besides make you money, you didn't include attacks but you included other effects (even Duchess who helps your opponent). Why? Why are attacks special? We can easily look at cards that provide you with virtual money but what's the reason behind it? What are we trying to understand about these cards? Most of the time I'm buying these cards for their other effect. Most of the time it's more helpful to think about these cards in terms of the payload they provide for your deck rather than the number of dollars they can generate for you and how you can get them to do that.

Payload includes lots of things. It includes all forms of buying power (coins, buys, cost reduction, gains), not just money. It includes alternate ways to score points. It includes attacking your opponent. It's also a concept you can apply to a game of Dominion that you're playing.