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[Tables]

Basically, I've been wondering recently, what if card X cost 1 more, or 1 less, or did/didn't give a buy, or something else relatively small. Mostly relating to cards at the top/bottom end of their price range, with a similar card to compare to. And with Qvists list's, it's actually possible in some sense to say how much a card would change, which is nice.

But anyway, the things I've been wondering are:
1) What if Wharf didn't have that +buy, but Merchant Ship did?
Donald says Wharf got the buy to compare more favorably with MS... was it truly necessary? Certainly, Wharf's buy is very useful, but I doubt Wharf would really fall out of the top 10 $5's without it, or not by much if it did. And Merchant Ship would certainly benefit - that next turn essentially now has a free Grand Market thrown in. But I still think Wharf would be a lot better than MS.

2) What if Ambassador cost $4?
Opening double Ambassador is often a very strong move, and Ambassador itself is very powerful. The jump from $3 to $4 is not huge, so preventing the double Ambassador opening and not much else doesn't seem like it would ruin the card or the card's availability much. Ambassador would still be a top $4, methinks, but would probably open Ambassador games up a little.

3) What if Adventurer cost $5?
Adventurer is generally a bad card, not because it's weak, but because it does too little for it's cost. It's uncommon to see a board where Adventurer > Gold. But then, Gold and Adventurer have the same cost. If Adventurer cost only $5, well, would they suddenly become too powerful? It's a big drop down into $5 territory after all. The best comparison is probably Harvest. Harvest will often get you $3, occasionally $4 or $2, and cycles 4 cards. Adventurer gets you twice the average value of treasures left in your deck - generally this will be about $2 early, rising towards $3-4 mid-lategame and not slowing down when you start greening, and cycles... some cards. I don't think there's a big difference personally, although of course this ignores one big fact: Adventurer draws specific treasures. So if you can arrange to draw those specific treasures it can be far, far better for you and can set up some combos. So it might be slightly better than Harvest. But Harvest is hardly one of the power $5's.

Those are the main things I've been pondering recently. I'm not saying I think they should be changed (otherwise, I'd have gone to the variants forum to be ripped to pieces ), and I'm not saying Donald made a mistake with these cards, but I do think some of these cards, now we've had a while to play with them and see what they do, just slightly stick out to me.

[brokoli]

I think Wharf's +buy is very very good.
Also, I wonder how scout would work costing 3$…

[MasterAir]

Another relatively minor, but (in my opinion) game enhancing change we've toyed with in my local play group.

King's Court
...
You may not King's Court a King's Court.

Makes KC a little more swingy, but it means that it doesn't dominate the games it is present in like it does at the moment.

I like all of Tables' suggestions, though I think that maybe just adding +buy to the Merchant Ship makes it competitive. You still can't make an engine with it, without some alternative form of +cards.  I think adventurer would be a very strong $5, the same as it's currently a (very?) weak $6.  That gap is large, which is why there are so few $6+ cards.

One thought I had about Ambassador, is on boards where Ambassador is a strong card, if it cost $4 you increase the shuffle luck problem a little.  You probably want to pick up your second ambassador sometime in the second shuffle, there's a chance you have to make a rotten decision if you open Ambassador-Silver and draw (Accc(S/c) - (c/S)cEEE), not likely, but possible.

[timchen]

For (1), I guess the points are valid. Funnily, I figure the +buy is much useful with the +2 cards instead of +2 coin in both turns; an exchange will therefore weaken the average strength of the two cards. I actually prefer the current cards as that makes Wharf standing out. It's not that a bad thing to make a card standing out... or is it?

(2) and (3) are perfectly valid points. However, the game play probably does not change much.

I started a similar thread a long time ago on BGG about possible cost adjustments. Now I have a different feeling. It seems that adjusting the cost actually does not do that much, unless of course, you change it too much, like making the ambassador a $5 or something. For a strategy when a card has its specialized use, one usually does not care that much whether a card is cost 4 or 6. (Like, you know, you still get the Forge when it's at $7, despite very often you just use it as a Chapel, or a Salvager.)

The only thing it can change, it seems, is how a card can be effective generally in a BM-ish setting. Like, a 5-cost adventurer+BM should be somewhat more competitive, and a four-cost adventurer can just be blindly strong, buying say 3 of them throughout the game and then money. On the ideal side of balancing things out, it is probably a good idea to have each card competitive with BM, but nowadays I am no longer interested. Actually, I think the game can be more fun, if we need not worry about being beaten by a money strategy.

The thing is, judging how competitive a money strategy is is not an intellectual exercise. It is just too hard to calculate analytically, and the only way one can get better at this is via experience, either in game, or by simulation.   The natural swinginess of BM strategies doesn't help either.

[rinkworks]

1) What if Wharf didn't have that +buy, but Merchant Ship did?
Donald says Wharf got the buy to compare more favorably with MS... was it truly necessary? Certainly, Wharf's buy is very useful, but I doubt Wharf would really fall out of the top 10 $5's without it, or not by much if it did. And Merchant Ship would certainly benefit - that next turn essentially now has a free Grand Market thrown in. But I still think Wharf would be a lot better than MS.

I like these cards as they are, but at the same time I think that Donald's reasoning for which one got the +Buy is one of the very few mistakes he's made.  To clarify:  The final cards are NOT mistakes, but I think Donald's stated reasoning for how they should be is incorrect.  Because without any +Buys, Wharf would still be the stronger card.

Why?  The short answer is because Wharf's next-turn effect is essentially a non-terminal draw rather than a terminal draw, which makes it much more powerful.

The more detailed analysis:  In general +$ and terminal +Cards are roughly equivalent in power.  Which one is better in any given instance is situational, but figure that they're the same when $1 is your average card value, and that's often what it is.  If you look at the other official cards, though, you can see how Donald has designed it so that +$ is treated as slightly stronger.  Compare Moat to Duchess, for example.  Moat offers +2 Cards and a bonus.  Duchess offers +$2 and has other effects that cancel each other out entirely.  Notice that Smithy only costs $4, but a terminal Gold, if it were to exist, would probably cost $5.  Torturer, Rabble, and Margrave offer +3 Cards and attacks, but +$3 cards at the same price level are finicky (Mandarin) or unreliable (Harvest).

It makes sense, then, that a double +$2 would be stronger -- or at least costed as if it were -- than a double +2 Cards.  However, the fact that one of the +2 Cards bonuses on Wharf is non-terminal is HUGE.  It's Laboratory vs. a non-defending Moat.  That's simply staggering.  By contrast, while vanilla +$ bonuses are certainly better if you don't use up an action to get them, they don't increase in power as much.

Thus, if neither card had any +Buys, Wharf would still be stronger than Merchant Ship.  If the goal, as it seems to have been based on what Donald said, was to balance the cards out in terms of power level, the +Buys really should have gone on the Merchant Ship.

But like I said at the outset, although this was probably a mistake of the reasoning, I don't think the end result was a mistake.  It's not all that important for every $5 card to be equivalent in power level.  It's nice having Wharf be powerful, and Merchant Ship isn't so weak from lack of +Buys that it isn't still a worthy member of its cost category.

Additionally, there are more cards that offer money with +Buys than cards with +Buys.  So the published versions of Wharf and Merchant Ship cards diversify the card pool a bit.  To put it another way, if the +Buy were moved to Merchant Ship, then Merchant Ship would be a double Woodcutter, and Wharf would be a double Moat.  As they are now, neither card really has an official "this turn only" equivalent, and that's more interesting.

2) What if Ambassador cost $4?
Opening double Ambassador is often a very strong move, and Ambassador itself is very powerful. The jump from $3 to $4 is not huge, so preventing the double Ambassador opening and not much else doesn't seem like it would ruin the card or the card's availability much. Ambassador would still be a top $4, methinks, but would probably open Ambassador games up a little.

Here, however, I think it was a small stroke of genius to cost it at $3.   As you say, Ambassador would not play THAT differently at $4.  And since it's such a strong $3, you'd think it "should" be $4.  But in terms of practical effect, the only things I see a price hike doing is closing the strategy space.  At present, Ambassador/Ambassador and Ambassador/Silver are both really strong openings, and we've had much debate and analysis on this site for trying to figure out which one is better in which situation.  But costed at $4, Ambassador/Silver would be a pretty automatic opening; in other words, a lot less room for strategizing.

MasterAir makes another point I hadn't thought of, which is that a $4 Ambassador would also be just slightly more luck-based in terms of picking up a second copy on the second shuffle.

On the other hand, a $5 Ambassador shows more promise.  Not saying it's necessarily an improvement on a $3 Ambassador, but it does not suffer from the strategy-closing problem of the $4 Ambassador, because now you can't open EITHER Ambassador/Ambassador or Ambassador/Silver, so there is no "automatic" opening.  It might still suffer from a luck problem, in that it might make a 5/2 opening dominate a 4/3.  But that wouldn't be anything Witch and Mountebank don't already do.

3) What if Adventurer cost $5?

I've wondered this myself.  It's not broken at $6, but I don't know why it would be broken at $5.  Like you, I'm not really saying it SHOULD be changed, but try as I might I can't shake the hypothesis that maybe, just maybe, a $5 Adventurer would be a good idea.

[chwhite]

I like the idea of Scout at $3 and Adventurer at $5, though I have to think there must be some reason for Adventurer's price point that I'm just not getting.  Don't see any reason not to make Scout cheaper.

I've gone back and forth on Ambassador and I think I agree with Rinkworks that it's better at $3. 

Another idea: Transmute at $4 or $5 instead of Potion-cost.  How well would that work?

[rrenaud]

But like I said at the outset, although this was probably a mistake of the reasoning, I don't think the end result was a mistake.  It's not all that important for every $5 card to be equivalent in power level.  It's nice having Wharf be powerful, and Merchant Ship isn't so weak from lack of +Buys that it isn't still a worthy member of its cost category.

To me, this just seems like a post hoc apology.  Donald X. is so good, even when he is wrong he is right!  I think a lot of the posters will have an anti change bias.

Amb at $4 is good.  The game could use less ambassador spam wars.

[rinkworks]

But like I said at the outset, although this was probably a mistake of the reasoning, I don't think the end result was a mistake.  It's not all that important for every $5 card to be equivalent in power level.  It's nice having Wharf be powerful, and Merchant Ship isn't so weak from lack of +Buys that it isn't still a worthy member of its cost category.

To me, this just seems like a post hoc apology.  Donald X. is so good, even when he is wrong he is right!

Heh.  It sounds like that, but in the paragraph after you quoted I explained why I think the cards are best as they are for reasons other than Donald's.  I think valuing diversity over power equivalency is a pretty fair defense.

Amb at $4 is good.  The game could use less ambassador spam wars.

Why not Ambassador at $5 then?  I could get behind that.

[olneyce]

But like I said at the outset, although this was probably a mistake of the reasoning, I don't think the end result was a mistake.  It's not all that important for every $5 card to be equivalent in power level.  It's nice having Wharf be powerful, and Merchant Ship isn't so weak from lack of +Buys that it isn't still a worthy member of its cost category.

To me, this just seems like a post hoc apology.  Donald X. is so good, even when he is wrong he is right!  I think a lot of the posters will have an anti change bias.

Amb at $4 is good.  The game could use less ambassador spam wars.

I used to think that but increasingly disagree.  Ambassador wars are incredibly interesting and difficult to play well.  The thing is that successful Ambassador strategies often have a moment when your opponent is buying things left and right and you're doing nothing.  And you have to be willing to stick it out.  When it works, there's nothing more satisfying than realizing that your opponent has less points at turn 25 than they did at turn 10.

However, unsuccessful Ambassador wars often look exactly the same.  It's just that you never catch back up.

Ambassador is an evil card in many ways, but I'm far more forgiving of it than the other evil cards (Torturer, Witch, Mountebank, etc.) because it takes a lot of precision to make it work.  It's not just a race to whoever can chain their Torturers a couple times first.

I'd like to see Scout at $3.  Doesn't seem like it would make it a power 3 but might make it more useful.

[Kuildeous]

I'd like to see Scout at $3.  Doesn't seem like it would make it a power 3 but might make it more useful.

Scout as $3 would make it more in line with Lookout and Loan. All of these cards are set up to have pretty minimal (or zero) benefit now but a better hand next time. I would be tempted to group it with Herbalist and make it a $2 card, but that would make Scout absolutely shine in kingdoms with Crossroads, Nobles, Harems, etc. I'm not sure that's really a bad thing, though.

Oh well. It is priced the way it now. If I were to look at any Dominion card and say that I feel the final price doesn't match what it should have been, I'd say it is Scout. And even then, the difference between $3 and $4 is pretty slight. If I don't see a need to buy it at $4, then I wouldn't have a need to buy it at $3. So, I'm not even really that committed to saying it's priced wrong.

[Tables]

It's hard for me to comment too much as I first got into Dominion after Prosperity came out, but back at the time of Intrigue, wasn't there a much higher density of victory kingdom cards - especially ones which do things, as they all came in Intrigue? Perhaps that was the main reason for Scout's price - it made more sense at the time in Intrigue, but has since weakened with few victory hybrids coming later (Island in seaside, nothing at all since? Well, excluding Tunnel).

[dondon151]

What I don't get is why Scout is not more like Apothecary and Cartographer (i.e., it's missing the +1 Card).

[Voltgloss]

It's hard for me to comment too much as I first got into Dominion after Prosperity came out, but back at the time of Intrigue, wasn't there a much higher density of victory kingdom cards - especially ones which do things, as they all came in Intrigue? Perhaps that was the main reason for Scout's price - it made more sense at the time in Intrigue, but has since weakened with few victory hybrids coming later (Island in seaside, nothing at all since? Well, excluding Tunnel).

This is most likely right.  In this thread, Donald X. himself confirmed that Scout was "made ... specifically to go with the victory cards in Intrigue."  See below:

The early main set, Intrigue, and Seaside/Hinterlands were all just some cards, mixed together and played together, which I then divided up into a main set and two expansions.

From that point on, I tended to play expansions in pairs irl, or all mixed together online (I had my own online program we used before isotropic). When you are hauling boxes to a game night, it's easier just to bring two plus the base cards.

Scout however is one of the five cards I added to Intrigue when it turned out they wanted 25-card expansions rather than 20-card ones. It did not previously exist; I made it specifically to go with the victory cards in Intrigue.

Scout tends to be weak outside of all-Intrigue games and well you get better at these things as you go along. Crossroads is not weak outside of all-Hinterlands games; there you go.

[pst]

3) What if Adventurer cost $5?

I've been wondering instead what would happen if Adventurer also gave +1 Buy. I don't think that would make it too strong at $6, and it certainly would be played a lot more.

Another relatively minor, but (in my opinion) game enhancing change we've toyed with in my local play group.

King's Court
...
You may not King's Court a King's Court.

I think there is room for a Prince's Court that can only triple an action card costing at most $X, probably $4. (And it should cost more than $X itself, so could only be used on itself together with price-fixing.

Or maybe it could triple those lesser actions and only double the more expensive ones instead of being totally ineffective with them.

[Kuildeous]

It's hard for me to comment too much as I first got into Dominion after Prosperity came out, but back at the time of Intrigue, wasn't there a much higher density of victory kingdom cards - especially ones which do things, as they all came in Intrigue? Perhaps that was the main reason for Scout's price - it made more sense at the time in Intrigue, but has since weakened with few victory hybrids coming later (Island in seaside, nothing at all since? Well, excluding Tunnel).

Even when all you had were Base and Intrigue, Scout was still kind of weak. Really, it was useful with Harems, Nobles, and Great Halls. That's three cards out of fifty. And unless Harem or Nobles was out there, I don't think Scout was necessarily that great of a plan.

Granted, I was the one in our group who saw the benefit of the Scout. Others were like, "Yeah, so what?" I bided my time and showed how awesome my next hand was without those pesky green cards. It got a minor ooh. I also showed how great it is with Harem. That got a better reaction. But, in short, I overvalued Scout when it first came out.

But it is still a fun card. I love using it to fuel Baron or Tournament or (gasp!) Explorer. The gameplay for it is awesome. It's just not that fast.

[LastFootnote]

I like the idea of Scout at $3 and Adventurer at $5, though I have to think there must be some reason for Adventurer's price point that I'm just not getting.  Don't see any reason not to make Scout cheaper.

After looking at some of the 'Suggested Sets of 10' from the various sets, I'd guess that the idea is that you buy Adventurer with $6 instead of Gold when (A) you're using other Actions to flood your deck with Treasure cards, rather than spending your buys on them (any Silver gainer, Treasure Map, Mint) or (B) in multi-player games where the attacks are flying fast and furious or (C) both.

As far as Scout goes, I think it needs a buff more than a cost reduction. +1 Card is the obvious one, but could potentially be too powerful. Perhaps it could allow you to reveal your top 5 cards. Perhaps it could allow you to discard revealed Curses. Perhaps even just a flat +$1 would be best. Sometimes it feels like a lot of cards could use a +$1, Thief not least among them.

[dondon151]

As far as Scout goes, I think it needs a buff more than a cost reduction. +1 Card is the obvious one, but could potentially be too powerful.

I don't see how +1 Card may be too powerful when Cartographer is still better in most circumstances (and priced at $5) and Apothecary is priced at the equivalent of somewhere between $4 and $5.

[LastFootnote]

As far as Scout goes, I think it needs a buff more than a cost reduction. +1 Card is the obvious one, but could potentially be too powerful.

I don't see how +1 Card may be too powerful when Cartographer is still better in most circumstances (and priced at $5) and Apothecary is priced at the equivalent of somewhere between $4 and $5.

Well the difference between a $4 card and a $5 card is supposed to be pretty big, and in many circumstances, a Scout with +1 Card would not be much less powerful than a Cartographer. It would be much more powerful in a large variety of circumstances. It would be powerful enough that I'm not sure I'd want people to be able to pick them up en masse (via a Workshop variant).

[Taco Lobster]

It's hard for me to comment too much as I first got into Dominion after Prosperity came out, but back at the time of Intrigue, wasn't there a much higher density of victory kingdom cards - especially ones which do things, as they all came in Intrigue? Perhaps that was the main reason for Scout's price - it made more sense at the time in Intrigue, but has since weakened with few victory hybrids coming later (Island in seaside, nothing at all since? Well, excluding Tunnel).

Even when all you had were Base and Intrigue, Scout was still kind of weak. Really, it was useful with Harems, Nobles, and Great Halls. That's three cards out of fifty. And unless Harem or Nobles was out there, I don't think Scout was necessarily that great of a plan.

Granted, I was the one in our group who saw the benefit of the Scout. Others were like, "Yeah, so what?" I bided my time and showed how awesome my next hand was without those pesky green cards. It got a minor ooh. I also showed how great it is with Harem. That got a better reaction. But, in short, I overvalued Scout when it first came out.

But it is still a fun card. I love using it to fuel Baron or Tournament or (gasp!) Explorer. The gameplay for it is awesome. It's just not that fast.

Don't forget - Baron's an Intrigue card too (so that's 4 out of 50, or 4 out of 25 if you're just playing Intrigue).

I think Adventurer suffers from the same set insularity problem.  I've been playing a lot of the unofficial Dominion app lately, and it only has the base cards.  In that environment, the Adventurer works as a Witch defense in the absence of trashing.  I suspect it is balanced (or maybe priced) specifically for that environment. 

[chwhite]

It's hard for me to comment too much as I first got into Dominion after Prosperity came out, but back at the time of Intrigue, wasn't there a much higher density of victory kingdom cards - especially ones which do things, as they all came in Intrigue? Perhaps that was the main reason for Scout's price - it made more sense at the time in Intrigue, but has since weakened with few victory hybrids coming later (Island in seaside, nothing at all since? Well, excluding Tunnel).

Even when all you had were Base and Intrigue, Scout was still kind of weak. Really, it was useful with Harems, Nobles, and Great Halls. That's three cards out of fifty. And unless Harem or Nobles was out there, I don't think Scout was necessarily that great of a plan.

Granted, I was the one in our group who saw the benefit of the Scout. Others were like, "Yeah, so what?" I bided my time and showed how awesome my next hand was without those pesky green cards. It got a minor ooh. I also showed how great it is with Harem. That got a better reaction. But, in short, I overvalued Scout when it first came out.

But it is still a fun card. I love using it to fuel Baron or Tournament or (gasp!) Explorer. The gameplay for it is awesome. It's just not that fast.

Don't forget - Baron's an Intrigue card too (so that's 4 out of 50, or 4 out of 25 if you're just playing Intrigue).

I think Adventurer suffers from the same set insularity problem.  I've been playing a lot of the unofficial Dominion app lately, and it only has the base cards.  In that environment, the Adventurer works as a Witch defense in the absence of trashing.  I suspect it is balanced (or maybe priced) specifically for that environment. 

I'm skeptical that Adventurer's cycling is actually good enough to counter Witch if, since there's no trashing, it's likely to pick up lots of Copper.

I do think there are a bunch of cards which have that same insularity issue, and are much better in tableaux populated by their own expansion, but I doubt Adventurer is one of them.  The prime candidates IMO are:

* Bureaucrat- good in Big Money, bad in long chains.  Since the base set is all about Big Money, it stands to reason a Bureaucrat-based deck is strongest there.  In addition, the B-crat works particularly well with and/or against Chapel and Gardens decks.  Its insularity is less pronounced now that Hinterlands gave it a boost, but it's still there.
* Scout- as mentioned, though Scout isn't that great even in most Intrigue-heavy sets.
* Herbalist- the +Buy is crucial to Scrying Pool and Alchemist chains, and top-decking Potions and P Stones can be quite important.
* Counting House- CH's most consistent use IMO is as a Mountebank counter, so it belongs here.  Though like Scout it's pretty bad with most Prosperity setups anyway.

There are a whole boatload of other marginal and mediocre cards that are most likely to be useful in setups dominated by their expansion, but these strike me as the most egregious.  Other candidates might include Chancellor, Saboteur, Outpost, Harvest, Develop, and Trader.

[jotheonah]

On a similar note to the OP, I've been tinkering with how one could "fix" Counting House so that it's not totally useless if you happen to draw it in your first hand. Some kind of "If there are no Coppers in your discard pile, gain up to 2 coppers, putting them into your hand" or "if there are no coppers in your discard pile, put your deck into your discard pile" That way a throned CH would always nab all your coppers.

[chesskidnate]

It's hard for me to comment too much as I first got into Dominion after Prosperity came out, but back at the time of Intrigue, wasn't there a much higher density of victory kingdom cards - especially ones which do things, as they all came in Intrigue? Perhaps that was the main reason for Scout's price - it made more sense at the time in Intrigue, but has since weakened with few victory hybrids coming later (Island in seaside, nothing at all since? Well, excluding Tunnel).

Even when all you had were Base and Intrigue, Scout was still kind of weak. Really, it was useful with Harems, Nobles, and Great Halls. That's three cards out of fifty. And unless Harem or Nobles was out there, I don't think Scout was necessarily that great of a plan.

Granted, I was the one in our group who saw the benefit of the Scout. Others were like, "Yeah, so what?" I bided my time and showed how awesome my next hand was without those pesky green cards. It got a minor ooh. I also showed how great it is with Harem. That got a better reaction. But, in short, I overvalued Scout when it first came out.

But it is still a fun card. I love using it to fuel Baron or Tournament or (gasp!) Explorer. The gameplay for it is awesome. It's just not that fast.

Don't forget - Baron's an Intrigue card too (so that's 4 out of 50, or 4 out of 25 if you're just playing Intrigue).

I think Adventurer suffers from the same set insularity problem.  I've been playing a lot of the unofficial Dominion app lately, and it only has the base cards.  In that environment, the Adventurer works as a Witch defense in the absence of trashing.  I suspect it is balanced (or maybe priced) specifically for that environment.

Keep in mind that the alternative to adventurer at 6 is a gold so unless the adventurer picks up 4 coin(on average) it is probably a bad buy.

[hgfalling]

Also at the part of the game where adventurer will net you 4, the cycling it gives you is bad, not good.

[Kahryl]

Scout should look at the top 6 cards of your deck, not the top 4.

Fishing village should be $4.

Adventurer should be $5.

Merchant ship should get the +buy, not Wharf (I'm glad I'm not the only one who's thought that..)

Horn of Plenty should be worth $1.

JoaT's spy effect should happen last.  JoaT is too strong not because of the power of individual effects but because of the self-synergy.

Farmland should be worth 3VP.

Torturer should only discard 1 card if you choose that option and already have <5 cards in hand.  Donald says the attacks are designed not to stack within a turn and the "gain a curse in hand" seems to be an attempt to do this, but Torturer still stacks like crazy.

Harvest should reveal 5 cards.

Tribute should reveal 3 cards and let you choose two.

Jester should not let you gain more than one card.

Develop should let you choose whether to put cards on the deck or not.

IMO of course!

[brokoli]

About fishing village : there is a big difference between a village with +1 card and a village without. Festival/Bazaar is a good example.