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[ThetaSigma12]

Everytime you play it is 'a second time', because every time you play it is a nw first time

Nope. This refers to the card you played, you can't spend an action to play this a third time.

[AdrianHealey]

That's not how cards work, do they?

You play an entire card as such.

Than the 'you may play this a second time' should be below a _____, I think.

[ThetaSigma12]

Than the 'you may play this a second time' should be below a _____, I think.

Nope (my new favorite word). That's only for effects other than when play, you may only spend an Action to play this card a second time when you play it.

[kru5h]

Everytime you play it is 'a second time', because every time you play it is a nw first time

Nope. This refers to the card you played, you can't spend an action to play this a third time.

Guys, I'm changing the wording anyway.

"If this is the first time you played this this turn, you may spend an Action to play it again."

[ThetaSigma12]

Everytime you play it is 'a second time', because every time you play it is a nw first time

Nope. This refers to the card you played, you can't spend an action to play this a third time.

Guys, I'm changing the wording anyway.

"If this is the first time you played this card this turn, you may spend an Action to play it again."

Ftfy. Anyways, we were going off that wording.

[kru5h]

I just realized that the trashing on this card is way too powerful:


You open Silver/Ivory Tower. Next turn, buy an Ivory Tower.

Whenever you play one, you draw the other one and can trash 5 cards from your hand. Next turn you can do the same.

I should remove the trashing from this card. Putting the good cards that you discard on top of your deck is already good enough (especially when discarding 5 at a time.)

"When you discard a card other than during a Clean-up phase, you may reveal this from your hand to, put that card onto your deck."

A lot less wordy, too.

[tristan]

Village and Smithy is equivalent to 2 Labs.
Village and Cipher is (sometimes) +3 Cards, discard 1 Card, +3 Cards, discard 1 Card. Kind of a super Embassy. But is it really stronger than a Double Lab?

The problem is that you are out of actions after having played it again (assuming that you start your hand with only one village) so whatever engine pieces you draw are dead. But Cipher for 4 is only viable compared to Smithy if you actually do use its 'play again' effect and in order to do that you need an engine.

So technically the problem is that this card converts two Actions in a huge load of cards. It is a pure draw engine with little room to add in some Action cards that provide extra buys or Attacks (admittedly the discarding is an indirect defense against junkers) or whatever.

This design is too narrow for my taste.

Courtyard is better than smithy in some cases.

Extremely situational. I'd never ever take a free Courtyard over a free Smithy.

1. First you don't need play it a second time after a village you will only really do this if you don't have a better option for said action.

Then Cipher at a price of 4 is inferior to Smithy. 

2. Even if you use all of your actions on this card and then draw dead engine pieces you can put one of them on top of your deck so maybe it won't miss a cycle. This effect is also useful for saving any extra golds/silvers.

That's your only good point: you can topdeck a village if you draw it deck. But you will probably not risk to get any other engine pieces besides a village and Cipher into the mix.

So overall I stick to what I said: this is on average weaker than Smithy but probably still too good for 3.
The problem of the card is its "wobbliness". It draws a huge shitload of card which is BMish but to kickstart it you need a high village density in your deck which is engine-ish. But you cannot play anything else besides the massive draw in your engine so it becomes an incredibly narrow card to use.
Any other terminal draw can be thrown into a mix much easier than this.

[loneXolf]

Village and Smithy is equivalent to 2 Labs.
Village and Cipher is (sometimes) +3 Cards, discard 1 Card, +3 Cards, discard 1 Card. Kind of a super Embassy. But is it really stronger than a Double Lab?

The problem is that you are out of actions after having played it again (assuming that you start your hand with only one village) so whatever engine pieces you draw are dead. But Cipher for 4 is only viable compared to Smithy if you actually do use its 'play again' effect and in order to do that you need an engine.

So technically the problem is that this card converts two Actions in a huge load of cards. It is a pure draw engine with little room to add in some Action cards that provide extra buys or Attacks (admittedly the discarding is an indirect defense against junkers) or whatever.

This design is too narrow for my taste.

Courtyard is better than smithy in some cases.

Extremely situational. I'd never ever take a free Courtyard over a free Smithy.

1. First you don't need play it a second time after a village you will only really do this if you don't have a better option for said action.

Then Cipher at a price of 4 is inferior to Smithy. 

2. Even if you use all of your actions on this card and then draw dead engine pieces you can put one of them on top of your deck so maybe it won't miss a cycle. This effect is also useful for saving any extra golds/silvers.

That's your only good point: you can topdeck a village if you draw it deck. But you will probably not risk to get any other engine pieces besides a village and Cipher into the mix.

So overall I stick to what I said: this is on average weaker than Smithy but probably still too good for 3.
The problem of the card is its "wobbliness". It draws a huge shitload of card which is BMish but to kickstart it you need a high village density in your deck which is engine-ish. But you cannot play anything else besides the massive draw in your engine so it becomes an incredibly narrow card to use.
Any other terminal draw can be thrown into a mix much easier than this.

I still would rather build Cipher/Village in more kingdoms than Smithy/Village, if you disagree with me that's fine.

[ThetaSigma12]

Village and Smithy is equivalent to 2 Labs.
Village and Cipher is (sometimes) +3 Cards, discard 1 Card, +3 Cards, discard 1 Card. Kind of a super Embassy. But is it really stronger than a Double Lab?

The problem is that you are out of actions after having played it again (assuming that you start your hand with only one village) so whatever engine pieces you draw are dead. But Cipher for 4 is only viable compared to Smithy if you actually do use its 'play again' effect and in order to do that you need an engine.

So technically the problem is that this card converts two Actions in a huge load of cards. It is a pure draw engine with little room to add in some Action cards that provide extra buys or Attacks (admittedly the discarding is an indirect defense against junkers) or whatever.

This design is too narrow for my taste.

Courtyard is better than smithy in some cases.

Extremely situational. I'd never ever take a free Courtyard over a free Smithy.

1. First you don't need play it a second time after a village you will only really do this if you don't have a better option for said action.

Then Cipher at a price of 4 is inferior to Smithy. 

2. Even if you use all of your actions on this card and then draw dead engine pieces you can put one of them on top of your deck so maybe it won't miss a cycle. This effect is also useful for saving any extra golds/silvers.

That's your only good point: you can topdeck a village if you draw it deck. But you will probably not risk to get any other engine pieces besides a village and Cipher into the mix.

So overall I stick to what I said: this is on average weaker than Smithy but probably still too good for 3.
The problem of the card is its "wobbliness". It draws a huge shitload of card which is BMish but to kickstart it you need a high village density in your deck which is engine-ish. But you cannot play anything else besides the massive draw in your engine so it becomes an incredibly narrow card to use.
Any other terminal draw can be thrown into a mix much easier than this.

I think it's fine at . Courtyard is a good , and the fact that this can be 2 of them AND overcomes Courtyard's big drawback (top-decking junk) seems to me like it should be fine.

The thing I do worry about is Nicheness as you said, and I would agree that in many games it would be a weaker (No villages, better draw). However I don't think that's a big issue, it's flexible enough that it seems like it could pass.

[tristan]

Village and Smithy is equivalent to 2 Labs.
Village and Cipher is (sometimes) +3 Cards, discard 1 Card, +3 Cards, discard 1 Card. Kind of a super Embassy. But is it really stronger than a Double Lab?

The problem is that you are out of actions after having played it again (assuming that you start your hand with only one village) so whatever engine pieces you draw are dead. But Cipher for 4 is only viable compared to Smithy if you actually do use its 'play again' effect and in order to do that you need an engine.

So technically the problem is that this card converts two Actions in a huge load of cards. It is a pure draw engine with little room to add in some Action cards that provide extra buys or Attacks (admittedly the discarding is an indirect defense against junkers) or whatever.

This design is too narrow for my taste.

Courtyard is better than smithy in some cases.

Extremely situational. I'd never ever take a free Courtyard over a free Smithy.

1. First you don't need play it a second time after a village you will only really do this if you don't have a better option for said action.

Then Cipher at a price of 4 is inferior to Smithy. 

2. Even if you use all of your actions on this card and then draw dead engine pieces you can put one of them on top of your deck so maybe it won't miss a cycle. This effect is also useful for saving any extra golds/silvers.

That's your only good point: you can topdeck a village if you draw it deck. But you will probably not risk to get any other engine pieces besides a village and Cipher into the mix.

So overall I stick to what I said: this is on average weaker than Smithy but probably still too good for 3.
The problem of the card is its "wobbliness". It draws a huge shitload of card which is BMish but to kickstart it you need a high village density in your deck which is engine-ish. But you cannot play anything else besides the massive draw in your engine so it becomes an incredibly narrow card to use.
Any other terminal draw can be thrown into a mix much easier than this.

I still would rather build Cipher/Village in more kingdoms than Smithy/Village, if you disagree with me that's fine.

You could do that and probably lose all games. Cipher is less flexible and on average worse than Smithy.
Your error is probably that you seriously overestimate the advantage of topdecking a card Courtyard style.

[ThetaSigma12]

You could do that and probably lose all games. Cipher is less flexible and on average worse than Smithy.

Whoa whoa whoa, Chipher is more flexible then smithy, that's half the point. It let's you top-deck stuff (you might think that sucks, but it's still flexibility), and it can become 2 copies of itself.

Your error is probably that you seriously overestimate the advantage of topdecking a card Courtyard style.

It may not be that good, but the fact that you can discard instead overcomes half the downsides of courtyard.


All in all, without the "spend an Action" clause it would cost . That seems fair. With the "spend an Action" clause, it seems like a good . It seems fine in engines, as it can
1) Top-deck dead cards
2) Discard green instead of top-decking it
3) Play itself again, so you need a slightly less Cipher-Village ratio.

[kru5h]

I just realized that this is too powerful in a Locksmith/Hireling combo:



If you have 2 or 3 Hirelings out, every time you play a Locksmith, you can unlock the previous Locksmith and all of the Hirelings for several extra cards each turn.

I should limit it to one duration card per play:

"You may treat another Duration card you have in play as if this is the start of your next turn. (Your other turns are the next such turn.)"

Edit: I dunno, though. Maybe this combo is really hard to set up and not worth the trouble.

[tristan]

You could do that and probably lose all games. Cipher is less flexible and on average worse than Smithy.

Whoa whoa whoa, Chipher is more flexible then smithy.

No.

You can use Smithy for BM and in all kind of engines. Cipher on the other hand is strictly worse than Smithy for BM and if you use it in an engine you can most likely only use it as a pure draw engine (if you don't spend an action to trigger Cipher a second time it is again strictly worse than Smithy). The only exception to that is the presence of double villages like Port or Fishing Village, they might enable you to buy other Action cards besides villages and Ciphers.

"Spend an action" is an interesting concept, I use it for a payload card (4$: Spend an Action. If you do: +4$, +1 Buy). But even that comes with an on-gain one-shot village.
That card works because you play it last. Cipher on the other hand is triggered during your turn, when you draw extra cards so that second Action you gotta play really hurt as you very likely draw Actions cards dead. Sure, you can topdeck one but at the end it still boils down to something that can only be really used in a pure draw-engine.

So the card is not very flexible, it is a niche card, something that can only be used for one particular thing. This is not the end of the world but obviously a flexible card that can be used in all kinds of situations is more interesting.

[navical]

You could do that and probably lose all games. Cipher is less flexible and on average worse than Smithy.

Whoa whoa whoa, Chipher is more flexible then smithy.

No.

You can use Smithy for BM and in all kind of engines. Cipher on the other hand is strictly worse than Smithy for BM and if you use it in an engine you can most likely only use it as a pure draw engine (if you don't spend an action to trigger Cipher a second time it is again strictly worse than Smithy). The only exception to that is the presence of double villages like Port or Fishing Village, they might enable you to buy other Action cards besides villages and Ciphers.

"Spend an action" is an interesting concept, I use it for a payload card (4$: Spend an Action. If you do: +4$, +1 Buy). But even that comes with an on-gain one-shot village.
That card works because you play it last. Cipher on the other hand is triggered during your turn, when you draw extra cards so that second Action you gotta play really hurt as you very likely draw Actions cards dead. Sure, you can topdeck one but at the end it still boils down to something that can only be really used in a pure draw-engine.

So the card is not very flexible, it is a niche card, something that can only be used for one particular thing. This is not the end of the world but obviously a flexible card that can be used in all kinds of situations is more interesting.

Cipher is strictly better than Courtyard, and Courtyard-BM beats Smithy-BM.

[ThetaSigma12]

You could do that and probably lose all games. Cipher is less flexible and on average worse than Smithy.

Whoa whoa whoa, Chipher is more flexible then smithy.

No.

You can use Smithy for BM and in all kind of engines. Cipher on the other hand is strictly worse than Smithy for BM and if you use it in an engine you can most likely only use it as a pure draw engine (if you don't spend an action to trigger Cipher a second time it is again strictly worse than Smithy). The only exception to that is the presence of double villages like Port or Fishing Village, they might enable you to buy other Action cards besides villages and Ciphers.

"Spend an action" is an interesting concept, I use it for a payload card (4$: Spend an Action. If you do: +4$, +1 Buy). But even that comes with an on-gain one-shot village.
That card works because you play it last. Cipher on the other hand is triggered during your turn, when you draw extra cards so that second Action you gotta play really hurt as you very likely draw Actions cards dead. Sure, you can topdeck one but at the end it still boils down to something that can only be really used in a pure draw-engine.

So the card is not very flexible, it is a niche card, something that can only be used for one particular thing. This is not the end of the world but obviously a flexible card that can be used in all kinds of situations is more interesting.

Oh, you mean like it's more flexible in decks. I thought you meant the on-play effect of smithy was more flexible.

I would agree smithy fits into more kinds of decks, but i mean, that's beacause it's a vanilla card man. Cipher to some more interesting TD might lead to a better comparison about flexiblity.

[tristan]

Ehm, if a complex card can only be used for particular decks it is not more interesting to play with than a vanilla card.
Take Hunting Party. It is similar to Lab but whereas Lab is pretty straightforward to play there are quite some subtleties involved with playing Hunting Parties well.

About the variable usage of Cipher, I just don't see it. The card is only better than Smithy if you actually spend an action to play it again so it is only better than Smithy in engines. But to play other Action cards in that engine besides a village and Cipher you either need double villages or a massive amount of villages.
So all you'll do is buy villages, Ciphers and Treasures. No room for other Action cards. Yawn.

Spend an Action is a cool concept but it simply doesn't work for terminal draw.

[ThetaSigma12]

I don't agree with your statement that Cipher only works in decks with solely Villages and Treasures (after all smithy and courtyard don't). However as neither of us has any sold playtesting to back up our claims I don't think we can reach a concusion.

[tristan]

I didn't say that Cipher doesn't work but that it is only better than Smithy if you actually use the "spend an Action" option.

Village and Smithy is the equivalent of two Labs, the combo is non-terminal. Village and Cipher triggered on the other is a massive terminal draw (with discarding or final topdecking). You draw a lot but are out of actions ... unless your starting hand featured two villages.

So unless there are double villages like Port, Fishing Village, Bustling Village or your deck has an incredibly high village density you cannot play a triggered Cipher with other Action cards in your deck.

You don't need to playtest this stuff, it is just how the card mechanically works: you need 2 Actions to trigger it.

Of course there can be a Kingdom in which you play village and Cipher without the second option being triggered ... but then the card is weaker than Smithy and we should reconsider the price.
This is after all how this entire discussion started, with balance considerations. The problem is that Cipher in its current form is too good for 3 and too weak for 4. You could change the card, price it in debt or Potion or price it at 4 and add an on-gain bonus.

[kru5h]

I didn't say that Cipher doesn't work but that it is only better than Smithy if you actually use the "spend an Action" option.

Village and Smithy is the equivalent of two Labs, the combo is non-terminal. Village and Cipher triggered on the other is a massive terminal draw (with discarding or final topdecking). You draw a lot but are out of actions ... unless your starting hand featured two villages.

So unless there are double villages like Port, Fishing Village, Bustling Village or your deck has an incredibly high village density you cannot play a triggered Cipher with other Action cards in your deck.

You don't need to playtest this stuff, it is just how the card mechanically works: you need 2 Actions to trigger it.

Of course there can be a Kingdom in which you play village and Cipher without the second option being triggered ... but then the card is weaker than Smithy and we should reconsider the price.
This is after all how this entire discussion started, with balance considerations. The problem is that Cipher in its current form is too good for 3 and too weak for 4. You could change the card, price it in debt or Potion or price it at 4 and add an on-gain bonus.

I view Cipher like Diplomat. Diplomat is only +2 cards if you don't set up its bonus. It still costs 4 whether the set can trigger that bonus or not.

Cipher is similar. It's better than +2 cards, and if you can trigger the bonus (even some of the time), it's quite useful.

With Smithy you want about 1 Village per Smithy, so you're buying Village - Smithy each time. An average cost of 3.5 coin per card.

With Cipher you want about 1.5 Villages per Cipher, so you're alternating between buying Village - Cipher and Village - Village - Cipher. An average of 3.4 coin per card.

If you really want to always combo your Cipher, you'll want Village - Village - Cipher, costing 3.33 coin per card.

A fully optimized Village-Smithy Village-Smithy Village-Smithy play is equivalent to 6 Labs (+12 cards, +1 Action.)

A fully optimized Village-Village-Cipher Village-Village-Cipher is strictly better than 6 Labs (You draw 16 cards, topdeck/discard 4, +1 Action), cheaper per card, uses the same amount of cards, but is slightly harder to setup (the order matters more, but you're going to have more Villages in your deck, so it's not as hard as it seems.)

Both setups equally leave +1 action left for your other cards. Cipher, however, is flexible. In a pinch, you can use fewer of your actions and get fewer cards and still get some value.

It may seem like Cipher only nets you 2 cards each time you play it, but the option to play Cipher again is like having another Cipher in your hand, so there's actually a hidden "third card" when you play it the first time. Plus it lets you topdeck collided terminals.

Overall, I'd say that Cipher isn't any better or worse than Smithy, it just plays differently and is higher variance. In many cases (no trashing/high greening/discarding doesn't matter as much), it's much better. In many cases (no Villages), it's much weaker.

Edit: Fixed some miscalculations.

[kru5h]

I changed Locksmith to a 3-cost. It gives +1 coin next turn instead of +1 Card so that it isn't so similar to Smithy.



It also only unlocks one duration card per play now.

[tristan]

A fully optimized Village-Smithy Village-Smithy Village-Smithy play is equivalent to 6 Labs (+12 cards, +1 Action.)

A fully optimized Village-Village-Cipher Village-Village-Cipher is strictly better than 6 Labs (You draw 16 cards, topdeck/discard 4, +1 Action), cheaper per card, uses the same amount of cards, but is slightly harder to setup (the order matters more, but you're going to have more Villages in your deck, so it's not as hard as it seems.)

Totally agree with you on this. The caveat is that it is incredibly hard to set up. Even with Village and Smithy you wanna "overvillage" precisely because it is hard to make the two cards turn up in a hand of 5.
In the case of Cipher, if the other player notices that you go for that he could just spite-buy villages away from you and in a 3P game you might only end up with 3 villages.

So this is the problem of Cipher, you need a massive village density to make the card really shine and this take time to set up and is also easily thwarted by the other player. It makes a huge difference whether you make "small steps" with one village and one terminal draw ... or whether you need two villages and a massive terminal draw like Cipher in your starting hand.

[kru5h]

I changed Campus again. Pupil costs 3 again.

Pupil/Campus Victory Split Pile (Supply 12)

This pile starts the game with 6 copies of Pupil on top, then 6 copies of Campus.
For a 2-player game, use only 4 of each card. Only the top card of the pile can be gained or bought.

Pupil Action,
Play this as if it were another Action card in the Supply costing up to .
This is that card until it leaves play.
---
When you discard this from play, trash it.

Campus Victory,
When scoring, choose a Victory card from your deck costing less than this.
This is worth double the of that card.

It's a cheap province if 1) You have a Duchy in your deck. 2) All of the Pupils have been bought. So this basically makes the game have 50% more provinces. So this just makes the game longer if everybody is going for provinces, or possibly shorter if you three-pile.

In Alt-VP games, Campus really shines. It's worth a heck of a lot, but since your deck is probably optimized for 4 or 5-cost cards, it can be a little tricky to get.

[kru5h]

I'm thinking of this change to Cobbler. Old version:

Cobbler Action,
Gain a card costing less than this.
If the gained card is an...
Action card, play it;
Treasure card, put it into your hand;
Victory card, gain an Estate.

(Quite strong in many cases.)

Potential new version 1:

Cobbler Action,
Gain a card costing less than this.
You may discard a card.
If you did and the gained card is an...
Action card, play it;
Treasure card, put it into your hand;
Victory card, gain a copy of it.

Potential new version 2:

Cobbler Action,
+1 Card
+1 Action
Gain a card costing up to .
You may choose one:
Discard a card, to put the gained card onto your deck;
or discard 2 cards, to put it into your hand.

I think I prefer v2.

Edit: I updated v2.

Edit2: I think I've got it.

Cobbler Action,
+1 Card
+1 Action
Gain a card costing up to .
If the gained card is an Action card, you may discard 2 cards, to put it into your hand.

[MattLee]

I've always been a fan of wishing well and I enjoy this even more. I especially like it when there is a card on the table that I want as many copies of as possible or a game that I end up with a lot of silver by the effects of some other card, wishing well really shines then. Its fun and seems well costed.

[ThetaSigma12]

I mean, it's a cool thought experiment, but in the end it's gonna be horrendously hard to balance. I mean, I can't see this working out in any way.

I take that back.