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[AJD]

It's interesting that this expansion continues to expand on ways to play Actions and Treasures outside of their normal phases. We have Courier and Herb Gatherer which can play Treasure cards during your Action phase, and City-state allowing you to play an Action card during your Buy phase (or even your Night phase)

Even your Cleanup phase! (Improve)

[trivialknot]

You replied to the wrong trivialknot comment    Oh never mind; I didn’t realize they said the same thing again as in Preview 4.

Anyway, no comment on Gang of Pickpockets, trivialknot? I enjoy reading the assessments, btw.

If you like my assessments, you should look out for Dominion Youtubers, who will probably make hot take videos next week (if they haven't done so already).

Okay, Gang of Pickpockets.  On first glance, avoiding a discard down to 4 seems to be of equivalent value to making your opponent discard down to 4.  So that would make Underling like Urchin without Mercenary, which doesn't exactly sound strong.  However, I think the key thing is that you get to see your hand before spending the favor.  So you're not just avoiding any discard, you're avoiding a good discard.  But good opportunities probably don't come all that often, so I suspect that getting favors has diminishing returns when this ally is in play.

[Holger]

Feast was not removed because it was weak. There are several "existing" cards that are weaker. Duchess for instance, which was not removed. Feast was removed because it was not interesting, according to Donald.

But like practically all removed cards, it was also very weak. It was ranked at #71 out of 73 $4 cards in the last Qvist ranking before its removal, surpassing only Thief and Scout, which were also removed.

Obviously Duchess couldn't be removed yet because it is from Hinterlands. But I bet it will be removed if Donald ever makes a "2nd edition" of Hinterlands.

[allanfieldhouse]

Royal Galley has tricked you all by reminding you of Throne Room.  Instead it reminds me of Caravan or Ghost Town.  This turn, it draws a card and lets you play an action, effectively +1 card +1 action.  Next turn, it's effectively +1 card +1 action again, but the extra card & action are spent on the same card you played the previous turn.

For the "next turn" assessment, isn't it more like playing a +2 cards +2 actions card (lost city)? Since you don't have to spend any cards/actions that turn to play the other card.

[allanfieldhouse]

Also, don't forget that Royal Galley is letting you pick a specific card to start next turn with. It's not just a free play from your initial 5-card hand. Starting your turn with a free Smithy or two is great! In that respect, it's more similar to a one-time Prince that also works on $5+ cards.

[Davio]

Also, don't forget that Royal Galley is letting you pick a specific card to start next turn with. It's not just a free play from your initial 5-card hand. Starting your turn with a free Smithy or two is great! In that respect, it's more similar to a one-time Prince that also works on $5+ cards.

I find that it works great with semi-engines, these are engines that don't really generate huge turns where you always draw your entire deck, but rather a string of medium turns where you play a bunch of cards until you run out of gas.
These types of engines love consistency, they don't aim to hit double Province turns, but rather a single Province each turn for as many turns as possible.

Royal Galley is a great card for those kinds of games.

[allanfieldhouse]

Played several games with Royal Galley last night against the bot (so it let me get all 10 of them). My impression is that it turns those semi-engines into a full fledged super-consistent engine. It really helps any sort of Village,Smithy,Workshop type of game.

[Davio]

Played several games with Royal Galley last night against the bot (so it let me get all 10 of them). My impression is that it turns those semi-engines into a full fledged super-consistent engine. It really helps any sort of Village,Smithy,Workshop type of game.

It's also great with cards which don't have cumulative effects like Militia (other than its $2).

[trivialknot]

Royal Galley has tricked you all by reminding you of Throne Room.  Instead it reminds me of Caravan or Ghost Town.  This turn, it draws a card and lets you play an action, effectively +1 card +1 action.  Next turn, it's effectively +1 card +1 action again, but the extra card & action are spent on the same card you played the previous turn.

For the "next turn" assessment, isn't it more like playing a +2 cards +2 actions card (lost city)? Since you don't have to spend any cards/actions that turn to play the other card.

Yeah, that's what I meant.  Royal Galley is like Caravan + Ghost Town.  In the context of a deck that draws and plays everything each turn, a single Royal Galley nets you 1 card and 1 action every 2 turns.  Additionally, it helps reliability by playing a card of your choice at the start of your turn.  That's pretty good.

However, it's a different beast from Throne Room.  When you draw your deck every turn, Throne Room is effectively a copy of another action in your deck, plus an extra action.  For example, if I have a Witch and a Throne Room, I can curse twice per turn.  If I have a Witch and Royal Galley, I draw one more card every 2 turns compared to Throne Room, but I can only curse once per turn.  I think Throne Room is a lot stronger in terms of raw power, but is not as good for reliability.

[Honkeyfresh]

Isn't Royal Galley just going to be bonkers strong? Looks stronger to me than throne room and probably stronger than any throne room variant for 4$. (Edge case: ghost, whose cost is literally 4$ but not 4$ in any other way.)

The Duration aspect is significant and I don't see that Royal Galley is automatically better or worse than Throne Room. For example, if I can draw my entire deck, I certainly prefer TR by a huge margin. If there are good Durations, I certainly prefer to be able to throne them.

nah.  Silver spawn is right on this.  This card is bonkers AF.  WAAAY OP.  It should cost 5.  I might buy it at 6 in some decks.  The ability to play the card twice on back to back hands is a super enabler.  That you can play a witch on b2b hands is crazy insane.  2 curse and a +2 cards on the next hand, and extra actions if the card is a cantrip.  I've had many games where I'd be playing 2 of these a turn and each one is playing a witch or lab or something.  It's a crazy good card.  It's soooooooooooo much better than throne room. A throne room plays it once that hand.  This plays it once that hand (a la throne room) and then again on the next hand too! Though I can tell you from experience a Royal Galley playing a Throne room is super duper bonkers inasne.

[Honkeyfresh]

Isn't Royal Galley just going to be bonkers strong? Looks stronger to me than throne room and probably stronger than any throne room variant for 4$. (Edge case: ghost, whose cost is literally 4$ but not 4$ in any other way.)

The Duration aspect is significant and I don't see that Royal Galley is automatically better or worse than Throne Room. For example, if I can draw my entire deck, I certainly prefer TR by a huge margin. If there are good Durations, I certainly prefer to be able to throne them.

it's definitely not anywhere near automatically or strictly better, but one card is the difference between a useless cantrip and a lab. Extreme cases aside, the general powerlevel seems extremely high.

disagree wholeheartedly, and by that I completely agree with you, in your original assessment.  It quite literally does everything throne room does and then some.  Which then helps your later hands become more productive, whereas Throne rooms weakness is when it gets a dead hand with nothing to play.  This one also draws another card/target for the Royal Galley to hit on.

[Honkeyfresh]

The artwork for Gang of Pickpockets is…interesting.

Our Gang of Pickpockets

Why are they all white?  Even the racist AF OG Our Gang had one black kid even if it was to mock and denigrate him...

[Honkeyfresh]

At last, I am here to speculate on the power & implications of the final previews.  I don't play online so I haven't tested any of these.

So, gaining a $5 cost is good, but Importer seems very likely to delay the gain for a shuffle, while skipping a shuffle itself.  I think this works for $5 cards that you want to eventually have in your deck but don't need immediately.  Like, I don't know, Groundskeeper.  Overall I think this is a weak card.

Courier reminds me of how hard it is to trigger Swashbuckler or Settlers.  It turns out that your discard pile is just empty like half the time.  And what if the top card of your deck isn't an action, then Courier is terminal!  In the best case, you have a sloggy deck that doesn't shuffle very often, or maybe you have a synergy like Mill.  Quite weak.

Royal Galley has tricked you all by reminding you of Throne Room.  Instead it reminds me of Caravan or Ghost Town.  This turn, it draws a card and lets you play an action, effectively +1 card +1 action.  Next turn, it's effectively +1 card +1 action again, but the extra card & action are spent on the same card you played the previous turn.  And it requires collision with a non-duration action.  I think this is a lot weaker than Throne Room, despite the extra draw.

Note, though I judge these cards to be weak, I very much like weak cards.  They pose challenges.

I really like Family of Inventors, but since its effects affect all players I think it may not be very strong.  You get access to the benefit one turn before your opponent, that's something.  Gives 2nd player an advantage in the first shuffle.  Otherwise, it relies on some asymmetry in strategies.  One neat move is to put them on Wizards, preventing your opponent from remodeling Liches into Province+Duchy.

Among the previews, I really like the split piles, and look forward to seeing the last two.  Split piles were low key my favorite mechanic from Empires, and these ones seem even more dynamic.

  Totally agree on courier and Importer.    Courier totally has the swashbuckler blues though in the right deck it can really shine.  In some games I would be discarding acntrips so that I could then get whatever dicard benefit and then getting the action back immediately through courier.  So that was neat.  But all in all i think its weak.

And obviously to anyone reading this that i disagree on the Royal Galley/Throne Room debate. 

[Honkeyfresh]

Royal Galley + any mandatory trasher would be a dangerous combination in a game with Possession!

I think you are forgetting that any opponent cards trashed during possession are merely set aside not trashed.

It took me like a year of playing to notice this.  Maybe 2.

ooh. I didn't realize the Royal Gallery would stay with them for the next turn
During the Possession turn, yes. But not on their regular turn, when the duration effect kicks in

Oof yeah.  Mst've been stoned.  Forgot the duration aspect of that.

In that case the "exactly more than one"  TFB cards like upgrade could be brutal depending on whats available.  a mandatory upgrade with only province/gold/overlord/farmland hand would be nasty.  So would something that requires trashing but without real benefit like Trade route early or student.

Just realized another hilarious aspect.  You could toss rats into your opponents deck.

[Jeebus]

Favors are using the coin tokens, right? How does tracking work with Family of Inventors and Trade Route?

"non-Victory supply pile" covers it.

But now there is Garrison. I assume the answer is just that you keep them in separate places on the card, like with Sinister Plot.

[mxdata]

Favors are using the coin tokens, right? How does tracking work with Family of Inventors and Trade Route?

"non-Victory supply pile" covers it.

But now there is Garrison. I assume the answer is just that you keep them in separate places on the card, like with Sinister Plot.

Garrison doesn't put the token on a Supply pile though