Superb comments Think, thanks...my thoughts below...
Servant's Quarters seems pretty functional, though it's obviously very similar to Moat. (probably superior?) I'm not sure how much it contributes, from the sound of it you only have it around because you feel it needs to be. I bet you can get an alternative reaction that can fit better.
Yeah I think it is a tad superior to Moat, but not by much.
Pauper's Feast is cool, just for the ability to trash your trasher. That's narrow sure, but cool. Gaining a 4-cost on trash is less cool and also a tad narrow (mostly important in certain openings) but has merit. All in all, two sort-of narrow options make for a card that brings something to most boards.
Yeah its pretty narrow, but when the utility is needed it seems like such a nice buy. It can get you from 2 to 4 in the opening rounds, or trash a couple of copper/estates, which is useful and add +1$ along the way.
Bailey is auto-veto'd for being a cantrip moat. It totally trivializes attacks, as why wouldn't you just buy a boatload of them? Heck, it even gives you +Buys and costs $2 to enable just that. No cantrip reactions; keep those guys terminal.
One of the most contentious cards in the set. I've read a variety of reaction to this, some very much reacting the way you have. I suppose you would buy a boatload of them if the board had a lot of attacks, but its a clogger. Sure you can pull a +1 Action, +1 Card cantrip to push it away and move through, but it is card neutral, it can be action positive, for the price of another card.
I do see some hostile reaction to even the concept of a non-terminal reaction card...just on principle. I've probably seen it enough to remove the +1 Action. What would your reaction to the card be if one of the options on the card was +1$ instead of +1 Action?
Excursion is really narrow, even if this set has boatloads of hybrid victory cards. All the other uses are super obscure.
I felt the discard pile reuse was the highlight of the card and not a huge time sink, because most of the time, you have a few victory cards. Sure there will be times when the discard pile is 30 cards deep and for some obscure reason you want the one and only province card in the discard pile, but what's the time to retrieve that truly...30 seconds at most? I suppose in tournaments this gets annoying, but in casual play doesn't seem like a big deal.
It is one of those cards, that light up when certain cards are on the board and is a complete dead weight all other times. That makes it a poor design to be sure, but in some situations it could just be nifty as hell. One thought I had for the card was to tack on an ability if the discard pile is empty and give you the option of emptying your discard pile. As in...
If your discard pile is empty +2$. If your discard pile is not empty, you may search your discard pile for a Victory card. Reveal it and place it in your hand. If you do, reshuffle your discard pile.
I've wanted to hinge a couple of abilities on an empty discard pile. This could be the excuse to do so.
Villa seems kinda weird. My first reaction was "what's this +1 coin doing here?" My second was "Why don't you just discard the victory card(s) for +Card(s), wouldn't that be cleaner?" My third was "Oh, wait that let's you chain Villas--except wait, you don't want to do that in the first place because you are still losing cards."
Villa was a victim to the reaction as it was first designed, and got nerfed heavily along the way. I don't want to tinker with it too much now, but I understand your reaction. If I change anything it would be to change the "discard up to 2" to "discard any number of cards"...so its essentially +2 Actions, +1$ and then a Chapel, where you aren't limited to the number of discards.
I guess people feel it can chain easily...but to me its card negative, so the chaining potential isn't as strong. It combos really well with Servant's Quarters. In a weird way, it can kind of combo with Excursion, but yeah its not the kind of card you build tactics around. It is a +2 Action card, and those have utility on boards where no other +2 actions are there...(and that happens I know it does).
It was meant to be a "WOW" card in the set (every set has a few), I wanted to be as strong as the elite Village cards, but reaction nerfed it to this. I am okay play testing it though, see how it goes.
Bribed Official... steals a high value Treasure from their hand and into yours? From *all* players? Or gains you a Silver/Potion in hand? I've gotta be missing something, because this is pants-on-head crazy powerful.
It is strong. It is very powerful in multi-player games, but Thief is pretty good in that scenario too. The card does what I want it to do, but probably in an overpowered way. I'd like to add a way to avoid handing the card over, but the verbiage is already a tad verbose. One thing I could do is remove what happens if there are no treasure cards worth 2 or more, which means early in the game, the attack will often produce nothing. Another governor I can place on the card, is insist you have a Victory card in your hand to play it, making you discard it to activate the attack. Or I can just make you choose any card in your hand and discard it. It still needs work though, this I grant you.
Shyster seems really strong for a non-terminal $4 attack. I mean, we're looking at a Spy level of power here. This guy ain't exactly Torturer or Montebank, but he's still spammable and unlike say Spy, his sting really stacks with that spam.
It is probably the strongest, and to me, the most intriguing card in the set so far. I personally rarely play attacks, unless its Witch, Torturer or Mountebank. What I think makes it contentious is the +1 Action. I think without the +1 Action, the card becomes less overwhelming, but also probably not the greatest buy at 4, it becomes in the end, a rather weak Militia at that point. Perhaps the +1 Action should come at a price? One of the "themes" of this expansion is requiring cards to activate certain abilities, or requiring a discard to activate. What if the +1 Action required an empty discard pile, or for you to discard a card? I love the card, I want it kept in...its this set's Mountebank, but I don't want it ridiculously broken like Mountebank...and right now it is perilously close to being very broken. I could make it a Potion card, but I hate the Potion mechanic and really wanted to avoid it.
Cabal is strange. I believe Donald mentioned in the Intrigue Secret History about testing Harem values and having just really terrible success with 1 value versions. Bottom line is, no one wants Copper, so you are looking at Cabal only as a potential strict alternative to Silver. If there is a good opening $3 out, then that's easy. Otherwise, it's easy the other way. So there's really no decision making added by the card, just interactions with certain targeting cards? Meh, I'm not sold.
I wanted two Treasure cards at 4$. The idea behind the card is you avoid Silver and just buy Cabal, and then hope you can acquire enough to bridge you up to Gold and other treasure. It goes against the rest of the theme of the deck, which often highlights acquiring Silver. It's a "no brainer" card like you say, on some boards, its not worth it, on others it clearly is.
If you avoid Silver the whole game...this card makes tremendous sense. It Remodels nicely to gold and Remodels nicely from an Estate. I want to put a 2% upgrade card in the expansion similar to Remodel as well, (which is why I want two 4$ treasure/victory cards).;
I am going to stick with it, but I understand the reaction of "meh".
Silver Vein is more interesting. I can't even begin to figure this one out, despite its relative simplicity. Hilarious combo with SC/Vault. It's probably like Gardens, where it's dominant if enabled and dubious if not. (And that's okay! If it isn't like that, you need to nerf it until it is.)
Yeah this one needs play testing. The general reaction is the +1VP for every 5 Silver cards is too difficult to reach to make it worth it. To me, I look at how I can get a 4$ card to 3VP, which means it became a better buy than Dutchy. That means 13 Silver cards make it a Dutchy for 4$ (with just a little money along the way). That's an awful lot of Silver really, and all you've reached is Dutchy levels with it.
One variant I had early on, was the card was worth 1VP by default (a big VP), then an additional +1VP for every 5 silver in your deck. This way, it becomes somewhat compelling even with just a lousy 3 silver (you'll get 2 VP out of the deal, which literally bridges the Estate-Dutchy) gap. At 8 silver cards, it becomes as valuable as a Dutchy. I don't think you can 3-pile this like you do Gardens. I need to play test, but I think anyone who tries to run the gamut and then 3-pile before the Provinces catch up, won't make it...because one of the card you need to fuel the thing is pretty much unlimited in supply.
But I do think, its one of those cards you watch, and if points are needed to catch up, you can start to buy and feed it. I suppose it becomes quite interesting if Cabal is also on the board. I know at times, when I am behind 7 to 8 VP, a card that gets me 2VP is suddenly an intriguing second buy.
People have commented they want the card to pay off at just 4 silvers each. This means your payoff comes at intervals, 3, 7, 11, requiring just 11 silvers to get you to 3VP. I intend to put in a few Silver copy/acquire/steal cards in the set, to help this urchin out, but I've learned I can't really judge cards based on combinations in a set, it has to be judged on its own and in the context of any board it might become part of.
It was all superb commentary though, and really precisely the reason I delved into this little side-project, to solicit discussion and to learn how advanced players think and judge cards. It becomes more than just an expansion for me, it really becomes a lesson of sorts, so I thank you.
