Go here to see the most recent update of this expansion!:
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=20619 Hello! 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, weaker 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. I really want to help widen the bell curve of card costs, so there are no cost 3 - 5 cards in this set, we need more cheap and expensive cards to spicen things up a bit. This set is great for making powerful engines (it is the industrial revolution after all), and for truly massive decks. Some of the expensive cards have a choose x theme going on, and some of the cheap cards have an exponential theme where they get stronger the more you play together. The expensive cards in this expansion are intended to be played with colonies and plats, justifying the high costs.
I have read all the suggestions on my last two posts and I thank you for all the feedback. I hope this version has a lot of the messy issues of the last two ironed out based on your suggestions! The costs still need some work, and please take the cost arguments I make as a suggestion to get in the ballpark. I know card costs are not as simple as just tallying up the bonuses. I have been working on this since before Renaissance came out, so excuse any card name duplicates while I think of a replacement name. You can see my old post here:
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=18592.0Without further
ado:
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, a cantrip buy at $3, etc. Only when your kingdom is missing literally everything does this card cost $7.
"Other cards" refers to non-Theatre cards, so Theatre is not triggered by itself. "+2 Cards" only includes cards explicitly having +2 or more written on the card. Smithy counts, Library does not.
Entrepreneur:
The jack of all trades of buying cards, this card is one step up from inventor! It is the reverse of capital, giving you coin tokens to spend on a later turn in exchange for taking that many coins from this turn, a great investment indeed. So that it doesn't cripple your turn entirely, you can still gain a $4 card, and if you have a couple gold left over, lets you buy 2 additional cards at a reduced cost. The debt collected stacks unlike capital, and the reduced cost benefit is like bridge, both effects reducing its throne room strength and overall ability to allow a megaturn like bridge.
I am open to a lot of suggestion with this card, balancing the cost and amount of coffers/debt is tricky.
Hospital:
One step above doctor, but one step below donate in terms of quickly getting rid of unwanted cards. Originally didn't allow trashing from your hand, but that was too tough of shuffle luck. Considering changing to only trash one card from hand. Still isn't as strong when its your first hand compared to your last, but who said hospitals were guaranteed to cure you?
Infantry:
Infiltrate your opponents hands with this attack card. A +3 card attack like torturer or rabble, where you can effectively place unwanted cards from your hand into an opponent's. Can attack repeatedly but keeps opponent's hands at 5. Attack about as hurtful as torturer, with same smithy bonus plus trash a single card roughly justifies $6.
Meeting House:
Continuing the theme of chapel, bishop, and temple, this card trashes and rewards your tithe in the form of coffers and victory tokens. Essentially Junkman + Bishop so costs $7. Because you must trash a card for the VP, the game must eventually end. Card originally named Cathedral, but Renaissance took that name.
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, preventing you from playing any further actions or playing treasures, thus only one can be played per turn. It's only as targeted an attack as pillage is, so that's not a problem at least.
Police Station:
Need to protect you stuff from criminals? Hire a police station! This reaction card is Jack of all Trades on steroids: this card simply remedies any possible ill effects from just about any 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, preventing attacks like pillage or enchantress from stopping you from playing it, and costs debt so you can still buy it after being attacked.
Stock Exchange:
An action-treasure like crown and one step up from bank. 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. Can really help if you're engine hit a dry patch or if you're just short some gold on your buy phase.
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.
Observatory:
Take a good 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. Many versions of this card were considered too weak, but let me know if you think this is good enough or too strong.
Oil Refinery:
Are 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.
Town Hall:
You're the mayor and lucky for you a lot of decisions need to be made with this duration card. Like Count, choose some harmful effects and then you get to choose some great effects next turn. Originally it allowed you to do both this turn and the next, for some interplay between the good and bad effects, but many said that made it too complicated. Wonder if the duration makes it too weak in this new version.
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.
Steel Foundry:
A Smithy or Blacksmith on steroids, this terminal draw is a great way to use up actions. Two more cards than Blacksmith, without the copper drawback and with +$1, but discards an action or treasure from your hand and gains smog as downside.
Supermarket:
The next step up from grand market. A +$1 combined with +1 buy to grand market, but with the drawback is stricter, needing at the least 3 golds to buy or some serious virtual coinage. This brings the price to $9, giving Platinum a run for its money, literally.
Metropolis:
And lastly the pièce de résistance: metropolis. From lowly hamlet, to village, to city, then metropolis. +2 cards like a leveled up city, and +3 actions like bustling village, but with some VP to justify purchasing it late. A metropolitan area is practically a duchy anyway. The vanilla bonuses are worth around $6-7, and VP nets to 3 with Smog, so up to $10.
Cheap cards:Smog:
Wow all this industrial activity is really clogging up the place. The more you use the high powered cards, the more you pollute your deck. This self-trashing junk is just slightly less harsh as a curse, if you can clear it away in time. Without another trashing card you'll always have one left over. Pile structured as 10*number of players, so 20 in a two-player game. I like what it adds thematically to the expansion to be replacing Curses, a medieval fear, with something more modern but just as deadly.
Banknote:
An action version of treasure cards that gets stronger the more you have! This is useful in scrying pool games, games with treasure attacks, or any other game where you just don't want your deck cluttered with treasures. Adding to that, cards that would gain you gold and silver explicitly can gain Banknotes instead. It especially combos well with my Stock Exchange (coincidence? nope.) Exchange your currency today!
Slums:
Village that gives actions based on how many have already been played. Useless if the first card played in a turn, but the best village version of City quarter the more actions you have played. If your slums are too productive they are returned to the pile, but the +Buy makes it easier to gain them back.
Worker:
Terminal draw that gets stronger the more you play. Can be chained. Playing 5 averages to 5 smithies, but for a quarter the cost.
Boom Town:
Remade version of a card from Auto-Destruct Sequence (
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3984). I really like this card, and it fits the set perfectly, but it had some balancing issues. I think this version may fix it, but let me know what you think.
General Store:
Want to buy 2 workers and a silver? Or how about a market and two coppers? This card will help you hoard up on cheap cards for whatever strategy calls it (looking at you gardens). Originally $2, but wanted to price at $1 to help people round out their purchases on boards where this is the only $1 card. If that makes it too strong what coin price should I limit it to?
Landfill:
Put something in the dump, get something out. Really simple card to turn trash coppers and curses away, gain a duchy from your gold or turn estates into coppers, or even more Landfills!
Statue:
A weaker version of monument. Instead of $2, gain a copper to your hand. No more game-breaking than monument is, and eventually stops when you run out the copper deck, so max 40 or so VP.
Street Market:
The purest form of market. Cantrip with variable +Buys. Stronger the more Silvers or Gold in your hand. Really useful for when you're running your Goons or Gardens decks and Buys are really your biggest limiter, as this can get you far more buys than any other card if you set things up right.
Coal:
Similar to Encampment from the Strife fan expansion (
http://www.nosro.net/games/dominion/strife/list.php#encampment).
The idea is the same, burn up this card for a temporary bonus. However you can chose to put it back or trash it, leading to some interesting player dynamics. Learn to share this non-renewable resource or burn them all up to prevent the other player from using any.
Power Plant:
Burn a card as fuel in the power plant to give you more cards to keep your engine going, turning it into smog. If you accidentally draw a card dead, you can save it for next turn. Must trash first so slightly weaker than a Masquerade in that regard, and also weakened by needing to gain a smog.
Locomotion:
Progress comes at a cost to everyone, involved or not. Move your deck along with this card, but watch as you get junk in everyone's face, including yours! This card is a self-curser with an option to remove them later. Notice it only gains Smog but can trash either Curse card.
Prison:
Effectively a trash a card, but put it back at the end of the game. Like Island but without VP or removing itself. Useful to keep the VP from estates, or to help with Gardens or Fountain.
Reforge:
Gain 1 coin token for copper, 5 for plat, etc. Weaker version of moneylender on all treasures, except its coin tokens so that's nice. Potentially game changing if you trash up all your treasures and end with a megaturn.
Sewer:
Sift through all the waste in your deck with this alternate to Courtyard. Chain together multiple sewers and make a sewage system that can get you the cleanest hand around!
Salesman:
And finally my favorite card in this section, Salesman. The buy equivalent of Hireling, giving you the extra buys you need to get all these cheap cards! Less unique now that Fair came out recently, but is still helpful to have in many situations. Strictly worse than Fair so priced at $3.
And that's all folks! Let me know what you think, what pricing changes should be made, what effects are too weak/powerful etc. I take any advice I can get!