What was your thought process behind the order of the Zodiacs? I feel like having Ares as the first one isn't super useful, because if you open with Astrologer, you're unlikely to need the Village effect if you draw it on Turn 3 or 4.
The most direct answer to your question is that, according to
the Internets, this is the order of the signs. In terms of what effects to give each one, I started by looking to official cards and/or for the ones that are represented by animals, the Way of that animal. (Way of the Sheep gives +$2 so I wanted Aries to give some +$, way of the Ox gives +2 Action so I wanted Taurus to give some kind of Village effect, Capricorn is a goat (or sea goat[?]) so I wanted to have it trash, etc.).
As to the strength of the initial Zodiac versus the others in order, I very specifically wanted it to start out relatively weak, and have the strength of the effect improve, peaking around nine or ten before starting to going down slightly (in part so the drop-off from 12 to 1 when it is reset isn't so dramatic). I thought of it in terms of what an Action with the effect would cost. So:
No. | Name | Related Official Card | Cost (estimate) |
1 | Aires | Squire (w/o other options or on-trash) | <$2 |
2 | Taurus | Village | $3 |
3 | Gemini | (kind of like Talisman and a +Buy) | $3+ |
4 | Cancer | Villa (+extra Buy, less the on-buy effect) | <$4 |
5 | Leo | Various terminal Golds, less their other effect | <$5 |
6 | Virgo | Sentry (but card comes from two viewed) | ~$5 |
7 | Libra | Not sure. Hunting Lodge? | ~$5 |
8 | Scorpio | Forum (less on-buy) | Almost $5 |
9 | Sagittarius | Laboratory | $5 |
10 | Capricorn | Upgrade (-gain) | <$5 |
11 | Aquarius | Highway (less +Card) | <$5 |
12 | Pisces | Peddler/Fisherman | <$5 |
(These are pretty vague, so some of them might be off.)
The idea is that you shouldn't be able to open with a $3 card that is immediately a Lab variant. You have to play the zero-net-effect cantrip in order to improve the active Zodiac, foregoing what you would have otherwise gotten. Of course, having options always makes a card better than not (so, for example, a "Smithy Village" that gave either +3 cards or +1 Action, +2 Villages would be extremely powerful, event though it lets you choose between two effects from cards that cost $3 and $4), so if you were on Leo and that $3 would let you hit a Canals or Platinum, you can put off improving your Astrology cards to otherwise improve your deck.
The other dynamic in play is that there is only one Zodiac pile, so if you make the effort to play 8 cantrips to turn them into a Lab, your opponent can just spend $3 to (a) get the Lab for herself, or (b) advance the pile further, and take it away from you. Of course, if you're pushing a terminal-draw big-money strategy, it may not be worth foregoing the buy to do (b) when your opponent will still have (relatively) valuable effects after the first two times you play it. But it does prevent building a strategy around just having one of the Zodiacs for the rest of the game (unless you can pile all of the Astrology cards).
Finally, I went back and forth on whether to call it a Zodiac pile or a Zodiac deck. I settled on the observation of piles (generally) being face up, and decks being face-down. Since this is face up, I called it a pile.