Go here to see the most recent update of this expansion!:
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=20619Hello! If you're like me and have always wondered what dominion would look like with a little technological advancement, this is the expansion for you! It's a large expansion that's a mix of prosperity and dark ages: 16 strong, expensive cards that puts prosperity to shame, and 16 cheap, simple, mostly trashing cards that shine in certain situations. I'm looking for help with balancing the cards and getting general feedback before I go off and print them out.
The themes for this set include new spins on the vanilla bonuses and filling up the 1 and 7 coin gaps, something Don X. actually supports. This set is great for making powerful engines (it is the industrial revolution after all), and for truly massive decks. It is strongly recommended to play with colonies and plats.
I have read all the suggestions on my last post and made enough changes that it warrants a new post.
Expensive Cards:Theatre:
Hate it when you have the perfect kingdom for an engine but there are no stinking +buys! Or when its a kingdom of 10 great cards but they're all terminal? Well this is card for you. Alone it's worthless, a cantrip costing $2. But the worse the kingdom is, the better it gets. The actors play the part of whatever is you're missing to get your strategy off the ground. No handsize increasers? This cards is a basic lab costing $5. No villages? this card becomes a vanilla village at $3. It can be a worker's village at $4, and a junk dealer without the $1 at $4. Only when your kingdom is missing literally everything is this card an insanely strong $9 card.
"Other cards" refers to non-Theatre cards, so Theatre is not triggered by itself. "+2 Cards" only includes cards explicitly having +2 or more (+3 includes +2) written on the card. Smithy counts, Library does not. Conditional trashing counts as trashing.
[EDIT]: Changed trashing ability back to $2 from $1. Make up your minds people.
Cathedral:
Continuing the theme of chapel, bishop, and temple, this card trashes and rewards your tithe in the form of victory tokens. Adding cantrip to watered-down bishop warrants +$2 (see bridge -> highway). Because you must trash a card for the VP, the game must eventually end.
Infantry:
Infiltrate your opponents hands with this attack card. A +3 card attack like torturer or rabble, where you can place unwanted cards from your hand into an opponent's. Can attack repeatedly but keeps opponent's decks at 5. Attack about as hurtful as torturer, with same smithy bonus plus trash a single card justifies $6.
Hospital:
One step above doctor, but one step below donate in terms of quickly getting rid of unwanted cards. Useless if drawn in your first hand, but incredibly strong in your last. Tough shuffle luck, but who said hospitals were guaranteed to cure you?
Artillery:
This second attack card lets you load, aim, and fire a card out of your enemy's hand. The only discard attack that lets the attacker choose the card to discard is pillage, and such a powerful ability forces it to be a one-off. To make this balanced without having to trash itself, you must discard your hand. Thus only one can be played per turn. It's only as targeted an attack as pillage is, so that's not a problem.
Observatory:
Take a look at what's coming up and set up the perfect next turn, the strongest deck inspector in the game. Was too useless when drawn near the end of your deck, so made it a reserve card. Might be too strong now.
Police Station:
Need to protect you stuff from criminals? Hire a police station! This reaction card is Jack of all Trades on steroids. Originally this gave the opponent an option to trash their Attack card for benefit ("Jail" it), instead this card simply remedies any possible ill effects from the attack. Can trash the curse from Witch or Sea Hag, draws the top 3 cards and lets you discard them if they were muddled by Ghost ship or Rabble, and lets you retrieve from the trash anything Pirate ship or Rogue forced you to trash. Same reaction effect as Horse Traders.
Stock Exchange:
An action-treasure like crown. This lets you trade vanilla bonuses for any other vanilla bonus you need during your action phase or buy phase. Combination Cellar, Diadem, Storyteller, and Vault, thus the $7 cost. Does NOT let you play treasures during your action phase, or actions during your buy phase. So you need to have virtual gold to trade it in during action phase, and gaining actions during your buy phase would be useless, and gaining cards risks drawing any actions dead.
Oil Refinery:
All your action cards too complicated with all their "mechanics" and "words" and what not? Well refine them down into plain ol' vanilla! Turn your 10 native villages into regular, normal, not-a-novel-of-a-description villages! Or peddler variants, or even labs! This card is unique in giving a choice that doesn't need to be unique. Choose +3 cards, or $3, or +1 action and +2 buys if that's your thing.
Factory:
The next advancement on Laboratory, this "power card of epic proportions that probably shouldn't exist at any cost" isn't balanced at $8 on its own, so I made it gain a junk card, the more you use it the more you get (see below). The junk card could use some work to make it balanced. My goal is for it to be about as effective city quarter.
Town Hall:
Lots of decisions need to be made with this duration card. Gives 9 options with a mix of useful and potentially harmful. Usually nets out to a market with a discarded card so I put this at $6. $7 May be reasonable.
[Edit]: No longer forces you to choose what you didn't pick on your next turn. Now each turn is independent and tracking should be much easier.
Steel Foundry:
A Smithy or Blacksmith on steroids, this terminal draw is a great way to use up actions. Blacksmith without the copper drawback and with +$1. Vanilla bonuses put a pricetag of $9, but gains smog as downside.
Public School:
Let your cards edumacate themselves and lern to be gooder. Give your baker a degree and turn them into a lab assistant! Or have your lowly herbalist follow their dreams and become a market or something. The natural extension to teacher. Same effect but for all four tokens at once, but only for one turn. I felt that teacher was such a good card it was a shame no other cards besides events had the ability to place the +1 tokens.
Supermarket:
The next logical step up from grand market. The +$1 combined with +1 buy warrants an increase of $4 from grand market, but the drawback is stricter, needing at the least 3 golds to buy or some serious virtual coinage. This brings the total down to $9.
Metropolis:
And lastly the pièce de résistance: metropolis. From lowly hamlet, to village, to city, then metropolis. Its vanilla bonuses are exactly that of a fully leveled up city, so not game breaking, but with some VP to justify purchasing it late. A metropolitan area is practically a duchy anyway. The vanilla bonuses are worth $8, and VP nets to 1 with Smog, so up to $10.
Smog:
Deciding between these two. One's a cantrip curse, effectively an -1 VP token, but can be drawn dead. The other's a self-trashing junk. Pile structured identically to the Curse pile. Other suggestions welcome. Thematically the more you use the high powered cards, the more you pollute your deck.