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[Drab Emordnilap]

Credit Union - $?
Treasure
When you play this, it’s worth $1 per other Treasure card you have in play (not counting this).

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One of the most difficult parts of making good custom cards is costing them correctly. There are some good guidelines one can follow (Check out the Dominion Fan Card Creation Guide, by rinkworks), but there's no strict formula that will tell you exactly how much a card should cost. Some cards are worth more than the sum of their parts.

I started this thread to see if other people were interested in discussing the pricing of custom Dominion cards, and to see where the consensus lies on how powerful some effects are when divorced from their current card(s). Obviously, the ability on the card above is effectively the same as the ability on Bank, with Bank always providing +$1 over Credit Union. How much of a difference should that make in the cost of the card?

Survey says...

[Qvist]

The difference between the basic treasures is +$1 and $3 in cost.
So, I assume that $4 is fine. In games where this is strong (big handsize) the price difference shouldn't matter that much, so $4 seems ok, although $5 could also be fine.

[Tables]

This seems too good for $4. It's almost always going to be at least a copper, most of the time at least a Silver. How often is it Gold? As often as Bank is worth $4, and that's reasonably often in the right style of deck. But at $4, it seems too easy to add these as an engine component; you can pick them up on the cheap to give you $5, $6, or so every time you play them. That's too good for $4, so I think $5 is fair.

Qvist, remember that logic breaks down above $6. Platinum is +$3 over gold, but gives an extra $2. Bank is in that fuzzy region.

[One Armed Man]

I don't know why this card would be interesting since it is just a kingdom card -$1. I had my own idea for a Treasure. The wording could use work.

Investment
$4 - Treasure
Worth $0
When you play this, you can discard a Treasure card from your hand. If you do, double your current $.

[Drab Emordnilap]

I don't know why this card would be interesting since it is just a kingdom card -$1.

I agree this card isn't a super-innovative card. This thread is more about the nuances of pricing than about the card itself, though.

It's also possible to make new cards out of parts of old cards that are still interesting, though, like Mystic.

[Brando Commando]

I started this thread to see if other people were interested in discussing the pricing of custom Dominion cards, and to see where the consensus lies on how powerful some effects are when divorced from their current card(s).

I don't usually comment on variant cards, but for whatever reason I find this interesting. Anyway, I don't think the question is exactly, "What's the 'right' cost for this card?" but more like "If it had X cost, what would that do to the game?" with many too-low costs making it an almost-always buy (bad for the game) and too-high costs making it almost-never buy (also bad for the game). But the middle range might be two or three different costs, which would all result in different but not necessarily better or worse games.

I think we can all agree that range is logically somewhere between $4- $6, but $4 really does seem too low to me. It's probably a frequent buy at even $5, since many engines lead to many cards in hand, but at with Bank at $7 you often have to make a serious calculation before deciding when to switch from buying bank to greening. I do worry that even at $5, this plus a tactician is very powerful.

[Qvist]

Ok, one problem is opening Credit Union/Silver which gives the possibility for 2 Golds in turn 3 and 4 which seems too strong. So, I agree with $5 for its cost.

[Drab Emordnilap]

Ok, one problem is opening Credit Union/Silver which gives the possibility for 2 Golds in turn 3 and 4 which seems too strong. So, I agree with $5 for its cost.

Some cards already allow this, though? (Coppersmith, Baron, Death Cart, to name a few)

[Titandrake]

Well, yes, but those all fall off as the game progresses unless you actively try to make it work. Credit Union consistently gets better, because you'll have a bigger deck with few victory cards.

I think it has to be $5: it's almost always at least worth $2, and is worth $3 enough of the time to require a cost boost.

[Sakako]

This is just a Bank -$1... so I suppose it should probably be evenly priced at $6. It's usually as good as Gold, but is often better, and is sometimes worse.

[SirPeebles]

I don't approve of the implication that Credit Unions are inferior to Banks.

[enquerencia]

I voted $5 because it obviously has to cost less than bank as it gives your deck less value than bank.  If you play it by itself it gives $0.  But at $6 it competes with gold and creates a high degree of AP.  At $5 it seems like you're getting a deal (like Contraband or Cache), but can also be a pretty worthless card in certain hands (like Contraband or Cache).  I kinda think those are the two best cards to compare this to, in terms of how to value it.  The only $6 treasure that isn't gold is used to put gold in your deck as you green (Hoard, in case you missed it).

Edit: Obviously Cache is pretty good no matter what hand it ends up in.  What I meant is that it doesn't add that much value to your deck because it also throws copper in there.  And also Hoard isn't the only $6 treasure that isn't gold.  There's Harem. I should probably proofread before posting instead of posting all willy-nilly and then obsessively nit-picking my own post and editing the hell out of it.

[Mic Qsenoch]

The card you need to compare this to is Coppersmith.

[Brando Commando]

I don't approve of the implication that Credit Unions are inferior to Banks.

Can you elaborate? From what I can tell, Credit Union is strictly worse than Bank.

Edit: Oh, duh. You were making a joke.

[SirPeebles]

Sorry, I was referring to the namesakes, and not the cards.  I probably shouldn't have capitalized them.

[Drab Emordnilap]

I don't approve of the implication that Credit Unions are inferior to Banks.

I wasn't going for "worse than banks" so much as "similar to, but not the same as banks". Also possibly "doesn't create as much profit as banks".