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[grep]

Smeltery
Types: Project
Cost: $5*
At the start of Clean-up, you may return a Treasure card to the supply and gain a treasure card costing up to $3 more than it
-
You can only buy this if you have at least 3 differently named Treasures in play

The condition is too harsh and arguably not necessary at all.
While Mine (i.e. handgaining) might be too strong it could at least topdeck like Taxman.

Oh I've missed in play in the description
Upgrading on cleanup does not consume an action and does not reduce the buying power (Mine is also giving extra $1, but you cannot play it every turn)
The cost is deliberately high, to avoid early buying of a cantrip copper trasher. Oh, I have an idea - instead penalize for coppers in play

Smeltery
Types: Project
Cost: $4*
At the start of Clean-up, you may return a Treasure card in play to the supply and gain a treasure card costing up to $3 more than it
-
This costs extra $1 for each two Coppers in play, rounded up

[Gazbag]

The problem is that the Project is expensive yet only useful for a few turns. Once you are out of villages your engine collapses.
That is not situational but pretty much always the case.
Even in the best case scenario, i.e. no price gaps, decent $2s and $3s, it is only four turns until that Patrician kamikazes himself.

I think that due to the expensive price this Project could get away with being non-mandatory. While it is mandatory you have no control at all. Another option is to not restrict the gained cards to Actions, then all those $5s could at least Upgrade themselves into Gold.

Is it a problem though? Why do you have to be playing an engine? It seems much more interesting to me than a lot of the official projects that you just buy when you have enough money because they're so potent and then they do their thing and there isn't much decision making involved. I like the board evaluation and forward planning skills you need to get the most value out of it, making it stronger doesn't necessarily make it more interesting. Maybe the price could be lower but I don't believe these contests should be judged too harshly on cost as it's impossible to know if the price is right without extensive playtesting, which isn't viable in this contest.

Darn. The two ideas I had for this round ended up as a simple trash-for-benefit Event and a Project with an ongoing condition, respectively. I don't want to submit my old stuff, so apparently I'll sit back and watch. It's a cool challenge.

Why not just go for one? I'm sure people would like to see what you came up with  .

[mail-mi]

Turn everything into Debt cost! Want to open Goons, go ahead! Want to start with Grand Market? Sure, why not!

I have no idea how broken this is.

[segura]

The problem is that the Project is expensive yet only useful for a few turns. Once you are out of villages your engine collapses.
That is not situational but pretty much always the case.
Even in the best case scenario, i.e. no price gaps, decent $2s and $3s, it is only four turns until that Patrician kamikazes himself.

I think that due to the expensive price this Project could get away with being non-mandatory. While it is mandatory you have no control at all. Another option is to not restrict the gained cards to Actions, then all those $5s could at least Upgrade themselves into Gold.

Is it a problem though? Why do you have to be playing an engine?

Because it is no worthwhile to spend two Buys on a project and endure a dead card in your deck for something that does not have much of an impact if you only have a few Action cards in your deck. Upgrade or Improve are cheaper and much betetr suited for such decks.

It seems much more interesting to me than a lot of the official projects that you just buy when you have enough money because they're so potent and then they do their thing and there isn't much decision making involved.

I totally disagree with the notion that Projects are so good that you can always auto-Buy them.
Canal is dubious without extra Buys (or virtual extra Buys in the form of gainers), Innovation is highly Kingdom-dependent, Crop Rotation and Road Network are hard to time and arguably not worthwhile if you have easier access to drawpower, Exploration is extremely tricky (I once had a Kingdom with Exploration, Cursed Gold and Trade and a 4/5 opening and nearly missed the combination), Silos is a powerful sifter but you forsake a $4 and Cathedral can blow up in your face in Kingdoms without gainers.
Interestingly the latter shares quite some similarities with your Project in terms of the potential forced (non-Upgrading once your are beyond $5) trashing of cards.

[Asper]

Darn. The two ideas I had for this round ended up as a simple trash-for-benefit Event and a Project with an ongoing condition, respectively. I don't want to submit my old stuff, so apparently I'll sit back and watch. It's a cool challenge.

Why not just go for one? I'm sure people would like to see what you came up with  .

Ah sorry, my bad, the problem is that they mutated to not fit the brief anymore. One cares about a card in your hand, but now it's only because it remodels it, and for the Project I shifted the special cost to be applied each time the ability is used. I had an Event version of it that fits, but it messes up the opening. If I think of a fix that works with the contest, I'll post it. Thanks

[Gazbag]

Darn. The two ideas I had for this round ended up as a simple trash-for-benefit Event and a Project with an ongoing condition, respectively. I don't want to submit my old stuff, so apparently I'll sit back and watch. It's a cool challenge.

Why not just go for one? I'm sure people would like to see what you came up with  .

Ah sorry, my bad, the problem is that they mutated to not fit the brief anymore. One cares about a card in your hand, but now it's only because it remodels it, and for the Project I shifted the special cost to be applied each time the ability is used. I had an Event version of it that fits, but it messes up the opening. If I think of a fix that works with the contest, I'll post it. Thanks

Oh I can't read misunderstood what you said, sorry!

The problem is that the Project is expensive yet only useful for a few turns. Once you are out of villages your engine collapses.
That is not situational but pretty much always the case.
Even in the best case scenario, i.e. no price gaps, decent $2s and $3s, it is only four turns until that Patrician kamikazes himself.

I think that due to the expensive price this Project could get away with being non-mandatory. While it is mandatory you have no control at all. Another option is to not restrict the gained cards to Actions, then all those $5s could at least Upgrade themselves into Gold.

Is it a problem though? Why do you have to be playing an engine?

Because it is no worthwhile to spend two Buys on a project and endure a dead card in your deck for something that does not have much of an impact if you only have a few Action cards in your deck. Upgrade or Improve are cheaper and much betetr suited for such decks.

It seems much more interesting to me than a lot of the official projects that you just buy when you have enough money because they're so potent and then they do their thing and there isn't much decision making involved.

I totally disagree with the notion that Projects are so good that you can always auto-Buy them.
Canal is dubious without extra Buys (or virtual extra Buys in the form of gainers), Innovation is highly Kingdom-dependent, Crop Rotation and Road Network are hard to time and arguably not worthwhile if you have easier access to drawpower, Exploration is extremely tricky (I once had a Kingdom with Exploration, Cursed Gold and Trade and a 4/5 opening and nearly missed the combination), Silos is a powerful sifter but you forsake a $4 and Cathedral can blow up in your face in Kingdoms without gainers.
Interestingly the latter shares quite some similarities with your Project in terms of the potential forced (non-Upgrading once your are beyond $5) trashing of cards.

I appreciate that you're trying to help me make the card better and increase my chance of winning, but you have to understand that the whole point of this design was to be a risky Project that threatens to eat through your Actions. The first draft was a Champion-like Project that trashed some Actions every turn, I don't remember the details. I didn't like that very much so I settled on this upgrading thing instead. I can totally believe that a card that upgrades only one per turn or is optional is stronger and maybe even more enjoyable for most people, but at that point it's no longer my design and is not the direction I want this to go in. Feel free to post something like that as your own entry to the contest, you'll probably win and that'll show me!

This discussion has made me think a lot more about this Project though and even goldfish a few quick games, which I found fascinating. I do think a Debt cost would be more appropriate than Potion now. The Potion was an attempt to slow it down when it chewed through supply piles but as it doesn't do that anymore and it's probably unwise to open with, I think Debt is probably better. So here's the new version, 6D seems okay as a starting point to me.




Oh and I said a lot of Projects not all Projects.

[Asper]

Darn. The two ideas I had for this round ended up as a simple trash-for-benefit Event and a Project with an ongoing condition, respectively. I don't want to submit my old stuff, so apparently I'll sit back and watch. It's a cool challenge.

Why not just go for one? I'm sure people would like to see what you came up with  .

Ah sorry, my bad, the problem is that they mutated to not fit the brief anymore. One cares about a card in your hand, but now it's only because it remodels it, and for the Project I shifted the special cost to be applied each time the ability is used. I had an Event version of it that fits, but it messes up the opening. If I think of a fix that works with the contest, I'll post it. Thanks

Oh I can't read misunderstood what you said, sorry!

No worries, I wasn't very clear. For reference, here's the Project I ended up with.

Originally I wanted it to be an Event that costed 5$ and allowed you to spend an Action to gain a 5$ card onto your deck, but that messed openings up.

[Commodore Chuckles]

An attempt at an easier-to-use but harder-to-buy Prince. It will usually take longer to build up to a point where it's affordable and you can only buy it once, but you don't have to fiddle around with it in your deck and there's no $4 or less restriction. I changed the original Prince text so that it wouldn't be as wordy, but I think it still works. It specifies non-Duration, and if the card leaves the play area then it just loses track of it.

Edit: Added a "but not less than $0" clause, an obvious oversight on my part. Also, I know it should have the * next to the price but that screwed up the formatting to the point of unreadability.

[Asper]

An attempt at an easier-to-use but harder-to-buy Prince. It will usually take longer to build up to a point where it's affordable and you can only buy it once, but you don't have to fiddle around with it in your deck and there's no $4 or less restriction. I changed the original Prince text so that it wouldn't be as wordy, but I think it still works. It specifies non-Duration, and if the card leaves the play area then it just loses track of it.

Losing track doesn't mean the card can't be played anymore, but as that only plays a role for one-shots and the Project can only be triggered once per game, I suppose it's half so bad.

[Commodore Chuckles]

Losing track doesn't mean the card can't be played anymore, but as that only plays a role for one-shots and the Project can only be triggered once per game, I suppose it's half so bad.

I don't understand the point you're trying to make here.

[Asper]

Losing track doesn't mean the card can't be played anymore, but as that only plays a role for one-shots and the Project can only be triggered once per game, I suppose it's half so bad.

I don't understand the point you're trying to make here.

You say that if the card leaves the play area that means the Project "just loses track" of it. While that's true, it does nothing. The card will still be played each turn, set aside or not. And my remark was that this only matters for one-shots (or to be more precise, cards that remove themselves from play), so it doesn't come up too often.

So, lose track does nothing and I don't see why you mention it, but it should still be fine.

[Commodore Chuckles]

Losing track doesn't mean the card can't be played anymore, but as that only plays a role for one-shots and the Project can only be triggered once per game, I suppose it's half so bad.

I don't understand the point you're trying to make here.

You say that if the card leaves the play area that means the Project "just loses track" of it. While that's true, it does nothing. The card will still be played each turn, set aside or not. And my remark was that this only matters for one-shots (or to be more precise, cards that remove themselves from play), so it doesn't come up too often.

So, lose track does nothing and I don't see why you mention it, but it should still be fine.

I guess I don't understand how the lose-track rule works then. I thought if the card leaves the play area, then it doesn't know where it is anymore and so can't do anything with it. How is this different from, e.g. Procession and Island? If what you're saying is true, then why can't Procession find Island and trash it?

[Asper]

Losing track doesn't mean the card can't be played anymore, but as that only plays a role for one-shots and the Project can only be triggered once per game, I suppose it's half so bad.

I don't understand the point you're trying to make here.

You say that if the card leaves the play area that means the Project "just loses track" of it. While that's true, it does nothing. The card will still be played each turn, set aside or not. And my remark was that this only matters for one-shots (or to be more precise, cards that remove themselves from play), so it doesn't come up too often.

So, lose track does nothing and I don't see why you mention it, but it should still be fine.

I guess I don't understand how the lose-track rule works then. I thought if the card leaves the play area, then it doesn't know where it is anymore and so can't do anything with it. How is this different from, e.g. Procession and Island? If what you're saying is true, then why can't Procession find Island and trash it?

Because trashing is only successful if the card is indeed moved to the trash, whereas playing a card TRIES moving it (into play), but doesn't depend on it. This has been this way since, uh, Throne Room and Feast?

[Lurker]

Observatory, Project, $3*
During your Action phase, Silvers are also Actions which give +2 Cards, +1 Actions instead of +2$.
   -------------------------
You can't buy this if you have any Treasures in play.

This is inspired by one of the Project outtakes which turned Silvers into Peddlers. I think attaching the no-Treasure cost should make going for it a nontrivial decision. It gets crazy with those fast silver gainers, but not in a way that ruins many kingdoms.

Edit: Changed from Lost City to Lab effect to make it less centralizing

[lompeluiten]

Royal Taxation  0*
Event
To buy this event, discard 4 victory cards
Gain a gold

[faust]

24 hours left for submissions!

[Asper]

Losing track doesn't mean the card can't be played anymore, but as that only plays a role for one-shots and the Project can only be triggered once per game, I suppose it's half so bad.

I don't understand the point you're trying to make here.

You say that if the card leaves the play area that means the Project "just loses track" of it. While that's true, it does nothing. The card will still be played each turn, set aside or not. And my remark was that this only matters for one-shots (or to be more precise, cards that remove themselves from play), so it doesn't come up too often.

So, lose track does nothing and I don't see why you mention it, but it should still be fine.

I guess I don't understand how the lose-track rule works then. I thought if the card leaves the play area, then it doesn't know where it is anymore and so can't do anything with it. How is this different from, e.g. Procession and Island? If what you're saying is true, then why can't Procession find Island and trash it?

Because trashing is only successful if the card is indeed moved to the trash, whereas playing a card TRIES moving it (into play), but doesn't depend on it. This has been this way since, uh, Throne Room and Feast?

To further elaborate, lose-track only keeps a card from being moved, not from knowing what it does. Trashing depends on moving a card, playing doesn't.

[segura]

Observatory, Project, $3*
During your Action phase, Silvers are also Actions which give +2 Cards, +2 Actions instead of +2$.
   -------------------------
You can't buy this if you have any Treasures in play.

This is inspired by one of the Project outtakes which turned Silvers into Peddlers. I think attaching the no-Treasure cost should make going for it a nontrivial decision. It gets crazy with those fast silver gainers, but not in a way that ruins many kingdoms.

It looks the idea behind the Buy restriction is to nerf the card such that you only get it later in the game. That is sound but the problem I see is that this very Buy restriction is too harsh, i.e. in some Kingdoms Observatory is not available, while the effect is far too strong.
Once you bought Observatory, an ordinary gainer like Ironworks becomes a non-terminal Copper that can gain a card which is stronger than Lost City.

[Asper]

Royal Taxation  0*
Event
To buy this event, discard 4 victory cards
Gain a gold

I think the wording would need to be:

Royal Taxation, Event, 0$
Reveal and discard up to 4 Victory cards from your hand. If you discarded 4, gain a Gold.

It seems similar to but worse than Quest and its name is a bit redundant with Tax', though.

[Lurker]

Observatory, Project, $3*
During your Action phase, Silvers are also Actions which give +2 Cards, +2 Actions instead of +2$.
   -------------------------
You can't buy this if you have any Treasures in play.

This is inspired by one of the Project outtakes which turned Silvers into Peddlers. I think attaching the no-Treasure cost should make going for it a nontrivial decision. It gets crazy with those fast silver gainers, but not in a way that ruins many kingdoms.

It looks the idea behind the Buy restriction is to nerf the card such that you only get it later in the game. That is sound but the problem I see is that this very Buy restriction is too harsh, i.e. in some Kingdoms Observatory is not available, while the effect is far too strong.
Once you bought Observatory, an ordinary gainer like Ironworks becomes a non-terminal Copper that can gain a card which is stronger than Lost City.

Thanks for the feedback! It is true that some kingdoms this is unavailable, which I think is somewhat similar to Capitalism or Tomb. Since it's a landscape card I'm not as concerned about that, but it's a consideration.

It may be too strong right now. I figured the Lost City effect would make the project worth going for, while not making the kingdom too boring otherwise. The project essentially costs $3 plus however much treasure you have in your hand since you can't spend them this turn. Do you think it would be more interesting and balanced if effect was Lab instead of Lost City?

Incidentally, the cost restriction was also meant to make gaining early silvers self-defeating.

[segura]

Do you think it would be more interesting and balanced if effect was Lab instead of Lost City?

The problem I see is that Silver becomes too universal, it does 3 things so all you need in addition is something that provides an extra Buy to build a Silver-mono engine that can gain 2 or even 3 Provinces per turn.
Sure, you have to do something before you get there, thin, get a gainer, get 3 virtuals Coin together to buy the Project. But afterwards it is IMO too simple.

That's of course no issue if you like other centralizing cards like Sauna/Avanto that also do more than an average card does.

[lompeluiten]

Royal Taxation  0*
Event
To buy this event, discard 4 victory cards
Gain a gold

I think the wording would need to be:

Royal Taxation, Event, 0$
Reveal and discard up to 4 Victory cards from your hand. If you discarded 4, gain a Gold.

It seems similar to but worse than Quest and its name is a bit redundant with Tax', though.

jeah did not have much inspiration. didt play a lot with the event yet.You are right with the wording, tough!

Royal Taxation, Event, 0$
Reveal and discard up to 4 Victory cards from your hand. If you discarded 4, gain a Gold.

[faust]

Sorry, I know I'm running a bit late.

Corruption
Project - $2P

Directly after playing an Action, you may set aside a Treasure that isn't a Copper to play it again. Discard set aside Potions, and trash all other set aside Treasures when that Action leaves play.

I think "make Potions do stuff" is a good direction to take this challenge. This Royal-Carriagification seems pretty fun. I dislike having two exceptional clauses on the card, but that is minor. More problematic is the interaction with Treasure gainers. This + JOAT can instapile Silvers. This + Sculptor can instapile Potions and Silvers for virtually infinite Villagers. The concept seems fun, but is currently broken and needs tweaking.

Education
Project - 10D

At the start of your turn, +$2.
At the end of your Buy phase, if you have any Debt remaining, take 2 Debt.

Neat design. It cancels its profit until you fully pay it off. Most of the time that probably takes 2 turns, and afterwards you start making profit. The interaction with other debt costs is mildly inconvenient - Education + Capital doesn't work, no wonder our universities are full of Communists! It's hard for me to tell how good this will be, it may need cost tweaking, but I think the design definitely works.

Patent
Event - $7*

Gain a card costing up to $5 to the top of your deck.
-
This costs $3 less per empty supply pile, but not less than $0.

With no piles empty, this is like Travelling Fair + $5 cost. As more piles empty, it gets cheaper and the topdecking becomes more of a penalty. I think that is pretty neat. One worry are those games where one pile drains quickly and then you can gain $5s for $4, it would need some testing to see how fun that is.

Pirate Training
Event - 8D

Move your Sifting token to a Kingdom supply pile. (When you play a card from that pile, you first get: discard any number of cards, then draw that many.)

I think if token Events were done today, they would be Projects, then you don't really need the token. Anyway, the problem with this for me is that it attaches a decision to playing a card that most of the time you won't care all that much about. It's like a Scrying-Poolification. That increases playtime for not enough benefit I think. Also I don't feel like the debt cost adds all that much to the card.

Walpurgisnacht
Event - $P+

When you buy this, you may overpay up to $6P for it. If you do, gain 2 cards each costing the amount you overpaid.

Potions to Charms! I feel like something could have been done with that theme. Anyway this is a nice enough way to make Potions useful. I just would prefer if it copied Charm's differently named condition rather than give a price limit. The way it is, gaining 2 copies of a strong card with this can still be overpowered.

Discovery
Types: Event
Cost: $2
Discard a Victory card costing at least $4. If you do, remove this from the Supply and look at 4 random Kingdom cards not in the Supply. Add one's Supply pile to the Kingdom and gain up to 2 cards from it.

This is a very compelling idea. But as with many novel ideas, I think tweaking it to make it work is difficult. This could be too swingy if one player rushes for it, I think it should at least give everyone an option to use it somehow. I also think that the special cost is somewhat random and does not tie in mechanically. Maybe require that you need to discard a card from an empty supply pile instead?

Bioengineering
Project - 6D

During cleanup, when you would discard an Action card on play, instead return it to the supply and gain an Action card costing exactly $1 more.

This is another one of those with an intriguing idea that I think is not quite fully realized yet. I like the idea of a massive game-warping Project, but this is not it; I think its main use right now is cute pileout tricks where you buy it to end the game. I find it hard to imagine a board where it is viable to buy this when there is more than one other turn to play. I think it either needs to be less punishing or offer a stronger benefit.

Research
Event - $7

Once per turn: Each other player draws until they have 6 cards in hand then discards a card. Choose a card discarded this way. You may trash any number of copies of it from play and your hand, or gain a copy of it if it isn't a Victory card.
-
This costs $1 less per card discarded (by you or any other player) this turn.

I like that this gives you some interesting player interaction. It creates an uncomfortable dynamic in multiplayer though, the first player to discard something is under pressure to discard good stuff and the last player has all the info to know if they can safely discard junk. It creates asymmetry where player 1 gets to trash all of their junk cards of a type and then player two can never trash them because player 1 does not have them to discard. Finally the price fluctuates too wildly; a single Minion play can drop this all the way to $0.

Smeltery
Project - $4*

At the start of Clean-up, you may return a Treasure card to the supply and gain a treasure card costing up to $3 more than it
-
This costs extra $1 for each two Coppers in play, rounded up

As pointed out, this needs clarification of where the exchanged Treausre comes from. I'm going to assume from play as otherwise it's really weak. I read through Project outtakes before this and there is a similar cut Project; according to Donald it makes the game too muhc about base treasures. I think something like this will always walk the line of making things boring or being irrelevant.

Commonwealth
Event - 2D

Gain a non-Victory card costing up to $6. Take D equal to its cost in $.

Such a natural idea. So probably broken. I don't think it will lead to very fun games, those high-cost cards have that cost for a reason. Plus there is no real reason for this to have debt cost itself, so it's not quite in the spirit of this challenge.

Democracy
Project - $16*

When you buy this, set aside a non-Duration Action card from your hand. At the start of your turn, play it, then set it aside again.
-
This costs $1 less for each differently costed card you have in play, but not less than $0.

Does it need "but not less than $0"? I suppose you could have a Black Market game with lots of Potion/Debt costs in the Black Market. Anyway... it has been pointed out that this would replay the card even if it leaves play. That is a bit of a problem with something like Pillage, but could probably be fixed. I think this overall works, but is kind of similar to Citadel. Also the cost change seems kind of random and not very impactful; since this was the core of this challenge, I need to subtract points for that.

Observatory
Project - $3*

During your Action phase, Silvers are also Actions which give +2 Cards, +1 Actions instead of +2$.
   -------------------------
You can't buy this if you have any Treasures in play.

I see this has changed from Lost Cities to Labs. That is probably for the best. I still don't think Lab is the best choice of effect here, it is just good in basically any deck, I think I would prefer something more situational, maybe terminal so you have to manage your Silvers. I'm also not sure about the cost, there are plenty of kingdom cards that give +$3 or more and with those, it is pretty easy to buy. I think it might be better just having a normal, but high, cost, or maybe have it cost $2 more per Silver in play or something.

Royal Taxation
Event - $0

Reveal and discard up to 4 Victory cards from your hand. If you discarded 4, gain a Gold.

This is just a worse Quest, and Quest isn't a particularly good Event.

Winner: Education by Tejayes
Runner-up: Patent by King Leon

Special Creativity award: Discovery by Fragasnap

[mail-mi]

Commonwealth
Event - 2D

Gain a non-Victory card costing up to $6. Take D equal to its cost in $.

Such a natural idea. So probably broken. I don't think it will lead to very fun games, those high-cost cards have that cost for a reason. Plus there is no real reason for this to have debt cost itself, so it's not quite in the spirit of this challenge.

The debt cost is there to simulate an increase in cost to get a good card now. So a $6 Goons becomes 8D Goons, or a $5 Cultist becomes a 7D cultist. But you're right it's most likely broken.

[segura]

Commonwealth
Event - 2D

Gain a non-Victory card costing up to $6. Take D equal to its cost in $.

Such a natural idea. So probably broken. I don't think it will lead to very fun games, those high-cost cards have that cost for a reason. Plus there is no real reason for this to have debt cost itself, so it's not quite in the spirit of this challenge.

The debt cost is there to simulate an increase in cost to get a good card now. So a $6 Goons becomes 8D Goons, or a $5 Cultist becomes a 7D cultist. But you're right it's most likely broken.

You just have to retro-engineer Overlord, Royal Blacksmith and City Quarter to find out, i.e. convert their costs into Coin costs. That is obviously not perfectly possible but they all look roughly like $6s to me.

So it seems like +2D thingy is not totally off. +3D would definitely be too much.

Overlord emulates nearly all Actions so you gotta pay 1D more for the flexibility than you would have to pay if you directly bought that Sentry or Witch. So I don't see how this is broken, looks actually pretty well balanced to me.