Dominion: Empires has:
- 76 pieces of card art.
Even considering Landmarks (however they work) and Events, as well as the piles with two different cards, that's a lot of art.
Well if the Dual-Piles have a unique randomizer a la knights then that's 3 pieces of art per Dual-Pile. So minus 3 for 20 landmarks and 10 events, that's 46. So with anywhere from 1-5 Dual Piles we still have just enough leftover art.
- 60 VP symbols.
Again, that's a lot. I have no idea. Maybe Landmarks will have multiple VP symbols on them?
That's what I figured. There will probably be a lot that mention VP twice. I predict a card that has 5 VP symbols on it.
- 16 red hexagons.
The fact that these only come in red indicate that there isn't any player ownership attached to them (unless they work like VP tokens). My guess is that you put them on top of supply piles and they affect all players equally once placed.
I had an idea that the hexagons are icons on a card, which refer to a curse/debt token.
- 10 uses of "Setup."
I predict Landmarks.
Sounds about right, but I'm still hoping for something a la baker.
- 2 Duration cards.
Only two? I predict two more cards like Hireling.
Nah, otherwise they would have been in adventures. Probably they are outtakes from when adventures was a treasure chest, and were moved here once adventures dropped VP tokens and the rest.
- 2 ways to trash cards from the Supply.
Trashing from any old supply pile doesn't seem very fun. My guess is that there are actions that can trash additional copies of themselves from the supply for a greater effect. E.g. a terminal Silver that gives +$3 instead if you trash another copy from the supply.
- An Action-Treasure card.
I saw someone suggest that this card might trash itself when played in a particular mode, so that it's easier to tell what mode you play it in. Something like a 5-cost +3 cards that you can play as a 1-shot Gold in your buy phase perhaps? That's a simple BM card.
It might move as an treasure, rather than trashing itself. e.g. "+2 coins, put this on top of your deck."
- An Event costing $14.
Cost reduction seems the most likely thing going on here.
Probably, but a flat 14 would be epic.
- A way to double your money.
Event, $3, +1 buy, double your money once per turn. $7 buys a Province, $11 buys two, $14 buys two Colonies.
I agree with your event prediction, but it would make sense to throw in another buy.
- A way to bid.
Coins are the obvious thing to bid with, but the turn-based nature of the game makes this unbalanced in favor of the active player. I could see an auction happening during setup. Perhaps there is an 11th Kingdom card and you bid to get exclusive use of it. The loser gets some VP tokens. Kind of like the classic bidding games e.g. Contract Bridge. You have favorable play conditions, but have to score X more points than the opponent.
Or maybe you bid using your trusty red hexagons.
[/quote]
"Can we stop talking about the hexagons? Do people
really care about the hexagons? I mean, people are always joining up 3 points, how often do they join up eight?"
(Bonus points if you know where that quote is from) I think bidding will be done with VP, with curse tokens if you bid over. Or you could bid with debt tokens that are worth -VP if they aren't paid off. Here's a theory:
The red hexagon symbol is a symbol on cards referring to taking debt tokens. Each card with a red hexagon has "Setup: add repay to the supply" Repay is an event that reads: $2, return one of your debt tokens. If you did, +1 buy. Each debt token is worth -2 VP at the end of the game. Certain piles will allow you to get them cheaper. "When you buy this, you may take up to X debt tokens, +$1 per token taken." Bidding is done buy bidding coin amounts. Then you must play any number of treasures from your hand and pay all your $. Take debt tokens for +$1 until you have reached your bid.