Most of the cards I don't like are cards that completely overrun games like
Goons and
Wharf.
Wharf | +1 Buy Now and at the start of your next turn: +2 Cards
| $5 ACTION - DURATION |
The double
Laboratory next turn is good enough without giving you a Buy. If you stock up on
Wharves (as you probably will), you can probably just play another
Wharf anyway, but this nerf would at least slow it down a bit.
Cultist | +2 Cards You may play a Cultist from your hand. Otherwise, each other player gains a Ruins.
When you trash this, +3 Cards | $5 ACTION - ATTACK - LOOTER |
Cultists chain and then immediately drain the Ruins pile. This way you have to spend an Action for each Ruins given out which makes them much slower at junking decks, but they retain everything else that's so much fun about them.
Fishing Village | +2 Actions +$1 At the start of your next turn: +1 Action.
| $3 ACTION - DURATION |
Fishing Village turns a game into a crazy smorgasbord of actions. That's great: That's fine. The problem is that it provides coins both turns which makes it far too safe to piledrive. If it didn't provide that extra coin the next turn it would be brought back in check and much less safe to stack.
...and cards that are too weak to often be useful.
Scout |
+2 Actions Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. Put the revealed Curses and Victory cards into your hand and the rest back in any order. | $4 ACTION |
Scout really wants to work in an engine by cleaning off the top of your deck, but it (in most games) only draws junk cards (but not Curses) and doesn't give you anything else. By giving extra actions and cleaning the Curses off the deck, this would probably become a decent card rather than the brunt of Dominion jokes.
Adventurer |
Reveal cards from the top of your deck until you reveal 3 Treasures. Put 2 into your hand and discard the rest. | $6 ACTION |
Adventurer has a really hard time being useful. It's great if you can trash most or all of your Coppers, but if you can do that, straight card draw is probably better than
Adventurer's sifting. Because it sifts, it's theoretically good in slogs, but then you'll usually just be hitting Coppers. Letting it sift for more Treasures will enable it to actually find Treasures around Coppers.
Throne Room |
You may choose an Action card in your hand and play it twice. Otherwise, +$1. | $4 ACTION |
Throne Room has always had issues beyond accountability. The risk associated with drawing
Throne Rooms dead is usually too great to justify playing a single action twice. By providing a coin, it will always be at least a terminal Copper if nothing else.
Really, the game I prefer is the one where every Action is worth purchasing more than once every hundred games.
Lighthouse
$3 Action - Duration
Now and at the start of your next turn:
+1 Buy
+$1
___
While this is in play, when another player plays an attack card, it doesn't affect you.
The problem I have with Lighthouse is that it isn't terminal. You can piledrive them if you want and they'll never collide. The thing that I like about Moat and Watchtower is that they increase player interaction, but I feel like Lighthouse actually decreases player interaction, because you can't interact with someone who always has a Lighthouse in play. Also, Lighthouse isn't very good in games without attack cards. Therefore, I replaced the +1 Action with something that sometimes makes you want to buy Lighthouse even when there are no attacks: +1 Buy. This version is almost better than Woodcutter, so I felt like I had to increase the price.
I see the reasoning, but I would say that
Lighthouse is too good because it gives you a coin in your next hand in addition to not worrying about collision. Providing an Action and Coin the first turn and a Buy the second would balance it out more effectively, I think.
Goons
$6 Action
+1 Buy
+$2
You may trash up to two treasure cards from your hand.
___
While this is in play, when you buy a card, +1VP
The attack part of Goons feels slightly out of place and it really hurts when you get your first $6 hand hit by your opponent's Goons. Trashing possibly makes getting an early Goons even more important, but at least it doesn't make your opponents' early Goons buys less likely to happen. Also, it makes buying Coppers for the +VP more attractive (though still often a trap), because it has a built-in way to get rid of them.
I disagree with this method. In any game where getting multiple
Goons cards into play is possible, this ability to trash Treasures would make them even more important than they already were since they provide the Treasure thinning that you need. My suggestion to fix them would be to weaken the coin they provide (thusly making it harder to use its extra buys), or make its Attack anti-stack (discouraging stacking them whenever it is possible).
"+$1" or "Each other player discards down to 3 cards in hand, and then draws a card"
Familiar - Action, $P
+1 Card
+1 Action
Each other player gains a curse.
---------
You may not buy this after another card, and you may not buy another card after buying this one.
I think it would be simpler to drop
Familiar down to $2P instead: Possible to miss, but extremely unlikely.
Transmute
Action - $P
(Same effect as before)
---
When you gain this, +1 buy
It significantly lowers the opportunity cost of getting one, and gives a little perk to the treasure trashing option should you choose to take it. Also it's probably the only chance the game has at putting this when gain effect on a card (putting on a card without a potion cost means you can make a run on the pile with enough Highways etc.).
Serious agreement here. It's a brilliant, simple fix to the card.
Marauder
Action/Attack - $4
Gain a Spoils from the Spoils pile
Each other player gains a Ruins, putting it in his hand
I like the tradeoff between short term and long term.
Sure. No problem here.
Inn
Action - $5
+2 Cards
Discard any number of cards, +1 action for each card you discard this way
---
When you gain this, you may look through your discard pile (including this), reveal any number of Action cards from it, and shuffle them into your deck.
More variety, and more thematic on top (the more "time" you spend at the inn, the more you can do), and the bottom cuts down on unnecessary shuffling.
I've thought of this too (the discarding cards), but I think it makes
Inn too good. The sifting it provides is moderately hard to use, but strong when you can. I mostly don't like
Inn's on-gain effect because I rarely feel as though I'm using it effectively.
Farming Village
Action - $4
+2 Actions
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal an Action or Treasure card. Put all the revealed cards in your hand.
It's simpler, more interesting and slightly more thematic.
This makes Farming Village a bit stronger, but only with Trash for benefit. I wouldn't say this pushes it out of being reasonable at $4.
On a completely unrelated note, I think a good change to Fortress would be to put 20 in the supply, and then have the effect be "When you trash this, gain a Fortress, putting it into your hand."
This would be a perfect fix to all of
Fortress's problems.