Judgement: Card: Textile Mill
Creator: Aquila
Mechanic: Exhaust state, -1 Action on the next immediate available +Action, even carrying over to future turns.
Judgement: I really like the card theme and name here, you have textillers working and you can overwork them for a bigger benefit, and I think overpay for villagers is a very good mechanic that I'm surprised never made it into the game (at least yet anyway). This is also one of those cards where having overpay for villagers really makes sense. The implementation of -1 Actions you've decided to go with, while very clever and mirroring exactly the implementation of -1 card tokens, is harsh enough where I don't see cards being able to use it without also including villagers, and that's pretty restrictive from a design standpoint. I believe almost all the cards in your expansion do in fact include a villager mechanic where exhaust is included, so at least that issue is addressed, but for this card, I don't think the benefit I'd get, 2 extra cards, would be worth risking a dead turn. I would only ever play the card if I could get rid of exhaust this turn, or had a villager on hand (limiting my plays of this card to often once or twice since $7 is usually how high I'd overpay), so that severely limits this card in a way a $5 smithy variant doesn't need to be limited. I however do like that the exhaust is optional, so maybe it's fine if the benefit is not *too* good, and maybe +3 cards instead is too strong, but that's where I'd put it. Regardless, very well designed card thematically and mechanically.
Card: Elves and Orcs
Creator: silverspawn
Mechanic: -1 Action, applied conditionally on presence of unused Actions.
Judgement: Elves and Orcs are a great theme, I love it. This would go great in some Fantasy-like expansion. I really like Orc, very simple and aesthetically pleasing use of -1 Action. It's basically a smithy that can only be used if you've already played a villager and even then is still terminal, and if you think you can't do that regularly, then it's junk, and you can spend your normal action in a turn getting rid of it. I like it a lot. Elven village on the other hand I'm less crazy about. The concept of a junker giving out orcs I think is okay, but the big problem is when you'd want to do that. When there's lots of terminal space on a kingdom and Orc's the only draw, its actually a pretty good draw as far as things go, and I'd want some for myself. On boards where there's no villages however, you know I'm going to be going for that junker. Elven village is a village, so it kinda forces the game into the "Orcs are good" state. Sure, if you win the Elven split, you're at an advantage, but you've also handed out a winning split of orcs too. If you've played a village, then playing an Orc is like playing two Moat variants, so a village that hands out 2 moats to your opponents, where they can spend an action to trash their extras, seems like one I would probably just skip all too often, until my opponents buys them and hands me free Orcs of course. In short: Orcs great, Elves not so much. A suggested change (though you might have to change the card's theme) would be to make Elven village a supervillage (+3 Actions) for $4 (okay since I think opponents gaining orcs is more often a drawback), and allowing you to optionally gain an Orc for yourself as well. Great card(s)!
Card: Legendary Hunter
Creator: mxdata
Mechanic: Spending unused Actions for an equal-amount benefit
Judgement: You submitted 3 cards here and I will taking my opinion of your best one as your submission. I do like how you've chosen to use spending Actions as the mechanic on all your cards, it does dodge the hairy question of negative Actions nicely. Spending Actions for Buys was pretty nice on your other cards, but I thought spending Actions for cost reduction on this card was very clever and something I myself would never have thought of. I really like it's uniqueness. It is a terminal draw, so the more of these you get, the more expensive they become as you'll have less and less spare +Actions. I like the theme pairing with Hunting Grounds as well. The only downside I see is it's cost. +5 cards would be balanced at $7 I believe, however I find that on most turns in most games you'll have maybe one or two spare Actions at the end of your turn, if that, so I think this card is usually more expensive than its worth. It would be better at $8 or even $7 honestly. Where this card really shines is when you would buy multiple of these, because then each spare Action you have is not just an effective $1, but $1 for each one you'd buy in an effect similar to bridge. However at this price, that would rarely happen. I think this effect belongs on a cheaper, less powerful card, and then it'd be really really good. A +3 Card +1 Buy variant I think would be perfect.
Card: Faustian Dealings
Creator: Xen3k
Mechanic: -1 Action and -1 Buys, applied conditionally on presence of unused Actions/Buys.
Judgement: Faustian dealings is a great name for a card, especially one that trades Actions and Buys. I am fond of Action-Treasures and I like how this spends Actions in the Action phase and Buys in the Buy phase. You need either 2 Actions or 2 Buys to get the benefit and I think that's really neat. The card wording could use quite a bit of cleaning up though. There's a lot of conditionals and is very wordy, with 3 different groups of effects in the Action phase. I think you'd be fine if you just moved the on-play abilities to the conditional benefit. Sure it makes a much riskier card, but that's fitting of the theme, and Action-Treasures are flexible enough to be able to take on the extra risk. I would suggest:
"If it is your Action phase and you have 1 or more Actions remaining: -1 Action, +2 Buys, +$2.
If it is your Buys phase and you have 2 or more Buys remaining: -1 Buy, +$3."That reduces a lot of text and makes it significantly clearer what exactly the card is giving you. If the risk is still a problem, then you can include
"If neither, +1 Buy, +$1" and I think the card would still be balanced. There's a lot of potential with this card and I think with some simplification this could be the best in the set!
Card: Leverage
Creator: spineflu
Mechanic: -1 Buy, allowing negative values not specified
Judgement: It's simple, I like that. Basically a non-terminal inventor, except with a -1 Buy drawback on Victories. Buys and cost reduction are a strong combo, so I can see why the antisynergy is there, to prevent bridge-like megaturns, but this card doesn't give you +1 Buys anyway, and so if there was +Buys on the board I would just ignore them, because an inventor megaturn is just as strong as a bridge one, and that one doesn't really care if you have Buys, the goal is to empty greens with the gain anyway. I want to like it but it's hard to see where it shines and where it duds. I think I'm missing something here. If I am not, then maybe I would consider dropping the Victory conditional and just make -1 Buy on all gains? And then maybe make the gain conditional so it's not too oppressive. It does seem to be a different card at that point, so I don't know what to think of this card, but that is the direction I'd take it. On a different note, leverage is a cute name for a -1 Buy card, though nothings really being borrowed/invested. The picture is just some guy though, is that Mr. Leverage?
Card: Craftsman
Creator: DunnoItAll
Mechanic: -1 Action on gain, so long as not already at 0 Actions
Judgement: First of all, definitely an easy text fix that doesn't change the card almost at all:
"Choose one: Gain a card costing up to $4; or, if you have 1 or more unused Actions, -1 Action and gain a card costing $5."The only case that isn't preserved is when you want to play the card but don't want to gain at all, and you do happen to have 1 or more unused Actions and thus can't choose the second for nothing (which is what you'd get if you didn't meet the condition), but that's a rare enough situation to not really matter. Since this wording is similar to a previous version of this card you've posted already that I've seen, I will base my Judgement on this wording instead. Now to the card, gaining any card costing up to $5 is an effect reserved only to Artisan, Altar, and Vampire, and for good reason, it's a really strong effect that needs some drawback, even at $6 (though Artisan and Altar are only sometimes drawbacks), but I think this is the perfect compromise for a $5 gainer that costs $5. It is severely limited in how many of itself it can gain per turn, needing another village play every additional time you want to gain a $5. It also defaults to a $4 gainer, though it is very weak to other $5 cost $4 gainers in comparison. The only issue I have is that, without any villages, this can just never trigger its $5 gain effect, and that makes the card very weak, much weaker than Falconer or Sculptor, both of which can gain a $4 to your hand. It's basically a very expensive workshop on villageless boards. For that reason I think you should drop the condition in the second half, and simply have a line at the bottom reading
"(You cannot go below 0 Actions.)". This way it doesn't need a village play to get its $5 effect, but still needs 2 village plays if you want to keep playing Actions afterwards. This way it's still a limited $5 gainer, being hard to play multiple a turn, but not so limited as to being hard to play at least one a turn. With that change, combined with the fact that I love the theme of the card with its thematic link to Artisan, I think this could be a real winner of a card.
Card: Fishwife and Townspeople
Creator: emtzalex
Mechanic: -1 Buy, Buys cannot go negative, specified externally.
Judgement: Love how much this has going for it considering it only uses vanilla bonuses, love the simplicity! As for the cards themselves, it's tough. Fishwife is a good silver alt, and I like giving up a coin for +2 Buys. Fits in thematically with a fish seller too. The problem is I think it may be strictly better than silver, since it's as you say +1 +$2, but with the option to spend $1 for +2 Buys. The problem is an action version of silver and silver aren't strictly comparable, and the closest thing to this would be Patron, which this isn't strictly weaker than either, so tough to say. Maybe $3 is fine. For Townspeople however, a Lab or Village card is definitely strictly better than a lab, and I'm not sure if a -1 Buy is enough of a drawback to bring it down to $4. Especially since the way you have it, you can play as many of these as you want as labs, only lose one buy, then play a single fishwife for +2 Buys all back. You'd just never want to play fishwife, or any +buy, before your Townspeople, and that's fine, because Fishwife doesn't draw, you'd want to play it at the end of your turn anway, since you usually play all your draw first before your payload. You would therefore just always play townspeople as a lab, as the drawback is not really a drawback unless you get really unlucky and don't draw any fishwives, but that's a risk I'd almost always take for a cheap lab, unless a buy this turn was crucial. It either needs some condition not allowing it to be played without surplus buys, or some other combination of bonuses. With a condition, then I think it's pretty balanced, you'd be forced to have to play fishwives beforehand, and every one you play lets you lab twice, so 3 cards for double lab at $11 combined, that I think is pretty good. Thematically I can see it being called Townspeople from the village aspect, but since it's a split pile, I'd have liked it if the second card fit with the first, but I can understand the difficulty in that since Fisherman and Fishing village are already taken. Maybe change one card to Fishmarket and another to Fishwife? Makes sense because one buys and one sells, in a way.
Suggested wording for Townspeople:
"+1 Card, +1 Action, Choose one: +1 Action; or, if you have 1 or Buys, +1 Card and -1 Buy". That at least lets you still risk having 0 Buys for that one last Townspeople play, and I kind of like that risky choice available.
Also minor change but for clarity I would suggest this wording for Fishwife:
"+1 Action, Choose one: +$2; or +$1 and +2 Buys" Card: Bridgeman and Drawbridge
Creator: mathdude
Mechanic: -1 Buy, Buys can go negative, specified on a previous version of the card.
Judgement: Looks good, I especially like the theme with bridge, and how you need to play a bridgeman to get the full effect of the drawbridge, nice design thematically. Would be nice if you included pictures however, I'm sure it'd look great! As for the card, I like that it's a split, with the first giving Buys and the second taking them, similar to the previous entry. This is also a safer version, since the taker is a Treasure you can always know how many Buys you have before deciding to play it. I don't like how Bridgeman is strictly worse than Candlestick maker, I think it could have given +2 Buys and still costed $2, but then drawbridge would need to be weaker as it would be too easy to fit the condition, but that would have been my next feedback anyway. I think I would have prefered it reduce cost by 1 instead of 2, since the only time you'd want to play Drawbridge is if you had 2 or more buys anyway (since you'd never sacrifice your only buy for an effective 3 coins). In fact, it would make more sense to just put "If you have at least 2 Buys remaining: " at the start of the card, that way you dont need a new line specifying whether or not buys can go negative, and the card effectively does the exact same thing, since no one would every want to play the original card at 1 buy anyway for 1 coin if they can't buy anything afterwards. Either way, reduce by 2 is significantly better than 2 reduce by ones, since its half the card space, it would be like putting a +1 card on bridge. Moreso, it'd be like making bridge cantrip, cause they're not terminal by being treasures. So Drawbridge is basically a Highway and Bridge, but with +1 Action -1 Buy instead of +1 Buy, which I want to say makes it (almost) strictly better than bridge at $4. Better to just make this weaker by reducing cost by 1 (It would still be comparable to bridge, trading +1 Action for -2 Buys), and slightly buffing Bridgeman in response. That would also make losing the Drawbridge split a lot less oppressive, since presumable there are only 5 in the pile. Other than that, I really like the interplay between these cards and the theme you chose, good work.