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[Showdown35]

Ok, so I'm really liking this Hirelings Pile idea, so I made up 6 more cards for it (I'll have to cut one, but one of these six is kind of done in jest, so it'll probably get the boot).

Here are the images:



Again, all cards are $6, and start with
+3 Cards
Discard a card. If it is a Treasure card...

Hired Advisor - Action-Hireling
...look through your discard pile and choose an Action card from it. If you do, play it twice.

Hired Enforcer - Action-Attack-Hireling
...each other player with at least 4 cards in hand may discard a Treasure. If he doesn't, he discards an Action card (or reveals a hand with no Action cards).

Hired Guard - Action-Reaction-Hireling
...put this on top of your deck.
-----
When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, you are unaffected by that Attack.

Hired Pathcutter - Action-Hireling
...reveal the top 5 cards of your deck. Discard all Victory cards revealed and put the rest back in any order.

Hired Tomb Raiders - Action-Hireling
...look through your discard pile and choose up to 2 Treasures from it that are not the Treasure you discarded. Put them into your hand.

Hired Escort - Action-Hireling
...+1 Card and +3 Actions.


The comments from the first round of these helped me out plenty, so please, critique and comment freely!

[Grujah]

LOL @ Cercei being an Escort. Now to actually read the cards

[soulnet]

I like the Pathcutter, although I have no clue on its power. Advisor and Escort I think are way too powerful. For escort, just +2 Actions and no extra draw would be plenty good. Better than +2 Cards +2 Actions in most cases, and +2 Cards, +2 Actions is powerful enough for $6. Advisor is even better than that. With some building around to ensure you have Actions in the discard (i.e., load up on Warehouses), is a powerhouse. But even just playing it and even now and then whiffing on the extra Action would be really strong.

For the Guard, I would try to avoid putting it on top from play by making that be "when this is discarded from play", to avoid replaying it on the same turn an unlimited number of times.

The wording of Enforcer is weird. It is basically discard a Treasure or Action, but you can get away discarding nothing if you have no Actions. Is there an important reason not to make it "Discard a Treasure or Action (or reveal a hand with...)". The discard Attack seems fine. It is powerful, but not overpowered. I think its probably on par or even a bit weaker with "discard down to 3", of course one or the other may be way better depending on the kingdom. Enforcer seems weaker than Margrave to me, and it costs $6, so improving the Attack may be fine. Maybe add +Buy to Enforcer.

For the Tomb Raiders, you probably need to reveal the Treasures involved before discarding/drawing for accountability.

[Grujah]

Pathcutter's effect sounds worse than Scout's, as it doesn't even synergize with things that Scout synergies.

[popsofctown]

Advisor has the same accountability issue Throne Room does.  Guess it matches its inspiration well in that respect. 

[soulnet]

I find it pretty lousy that I like the art for your Hirelings better than most (if not all) the art of the official Dominion cards.

[SirPeebles]

The wording of Enforcer is weird. It is basically discard a Treasure or Action, but you can get away discarding nothing if you have no Actions. Is there an important reason not to make it "Discard a Treasure or Action (or reveal a hand with...)". The discard Attack seems fine. It is powerful, but not overpowered. I think its probably on par or even a bit weaker with "discard down to 3", of course one or the other may be way better depending on the kingdom. Enforcer seems weaker than Margrave to me, and it costs $6, so improving the Attack may be fine. Maybe add +Buy to Enforcer.

I like soulnet's suggestion.  As written, Hired Enforcer requires any player with fewer than four cards in hand to discard an Action card, and soulnet's suggestion fixes that too.

[Showdown35]

I find it pretty lousy that I like the art for your Hirelings better than most (if not all) the art of the official Dominion cards.

Please note that I, by no means, have any rights to the art I use in my preview cards.  They are purely for personal use, and I do not endorse printing and using my preview cards (unless you make them yourself with whatever art you want).  That being said, most of the art I find and use on my previews are from concept artist websites, and most pieces have been commissioned by a company for a game, a book, etc.  The artists have most likely been paid well for the art.  I don't know how much money Rio Grande Games shells out for it's Dominion commissioned art, but I'm guessing it's less than WotC, or other companies that own the art I use.

[GendoIkari]

Ok, so I really like some of these.

Hired Guard... the concept of a Moat that you can keep turn to turn is cool. Though I wonder how often the ability will be used instead to play Hired Guard multiple times in a turn. It would become the only card you can play twice in the same turn, except for Mandarin/Black Market or Graverobber things.

Hired Pathcutter... maybe my favorite name for a card ever, and I normally don't care about flavor all that much. But victory points are land, and the pathcutter gets land out of the way. But as was mentioned, it's a lot like Scout.

Hired Tomb Raiders... needs different wording, I think. There's no real way to know if the card you discarded was one of the ones you are pulling back. Not sure of an easy fix that keeps the "discard a card" part, though.

Hired Escort... sounds way too powerful. Reasonable to assume that you'll be able to discard a treasure most of the time, which makes this card simply +3 cards, +3 actions. Sounds way too good for a $6.

[Grujah]

Tomb raider - different physical card or differently named card?

[Showdown35]

Tomb raider - different physical card or differently named card?

I meant it as different physical card... I thought about "differently named" which would get around the accountability issue and allow me to keep the continuity of "discard a card, if it's a treasure" without a "set aside" clause stuck in the middle, or something like that.

Hired Escort I just threw together for flavor (as it fits both the "Corruption" theme, and the "Hirelings" flavor), I'm actually axing it from the Hirelings pile and keeping a much cheaper version (either named "Escort" or "Harlot" or something) as my set's village variant. Let me know what you think:

Harlot
$2 - Action
(maybe +1 Card - haven't decided yet)
+3 Actions
You only draw 4 cards (instead of 5) in this turn's Clean-up phase.

I'm not sure how this would interact with Outpost though.
Also considering adding "If you play another action this turn" before the drawback, just in case you Golem into Harlot and have no actions in your hand, don't want to penalize if you don't use any of the extra actions.

[werothegreat]

Where have you put the rest of your cards from your expansion?  I've been trying to find a thread where you've put them all.

[Showdown35]

Advisor has the same accountability issue Throne Room does.  Guess it matches its inspiration well in that respect.

I will change it to "you may choose an Action card from it."  Although I'm considering making "reveal your discard pile" a sub-theme of the set, so that would also fix the accountability issue.

Hired Guard... the concept of a Moat that you can keep turn to turn is cool. Though I wonder how often the ability will be used instead to play Hired Guard multiple times in a turn. It would become the only card you can play twice in the same turn, except for Mandarin/Black Market or Graverobber things.

I'm going to change it to top decking during clean-up, to avoid being able to replay it (like soulnet pointed out), which was not the intention, I just overlooked that humongous detail!

The wording of Enforcer is weird. It is basically discard a Treasure or Action, but you can get away discarding nothing if you have no Actions. Is there an important reason not to make it "Discard a Treasure or Action (or reveal a hand with...)". The discard Attack seems fine. It is powerful, but not overpowered. I think its probably on par or even a bit weaker with "discard down to 3", of course one or the other may be way better depending on the kingdom. Enforcer seems weaker than Margrave to me, and it costs $6, so improving the Attack may be fine. Maybe add +Buy to Enforcer.

My intention behind Enforcer was that he makes you discard an Action.  If you don't have one, you don't discard anything, but if you do have one and you really want to keep it, you can pay him a Treasure (or the "tax") to keep the Action. This is why it was worded the way it was. What if I change it to players with at least 3 cards in hand?  I know an Attack that can reduce a player to 2 cards is pretty brutal, but keep in mind there is only one copy of him in the game.

Where have you put the rest of your cards from your expansion?  I've been trying to find a thread where you've put them all.

I haven't posted them all together in one thread.  Any thread with "Flavor" in the subject line is part of this expansion.  Once I'm happy with all the cards (with lots tweaking based community comments and critiques), and I feel they are all ready for play-testing, I will post them up on my personal site and provide a link.

Although, I will not make them into printable sheets, as I am in no way encouraging the printing and use of the images since I have no rights to the artwork in my previews.  If you want to make your own version of my expansion, however, I am more than happy to hear about any play-testing the community does.

[soulnet]

Advisor has the same accountability issue Throne Room does.  Guess it matches its inspiration well in that respect.

I will change it to "you may choose an Action card from it."  Although I'm considering making "reveal your discard pile" a sub-theme of the set, so that would also fix the accountability issue.

Reveal your discard sounds like something that could be really slow, especially with the possibility of having to do it every turn. If it is on other cards, maybe even several times a turn. I would avoid it if possible. In this case, "you may" sounds like a way better option to me.

My intention behind Enforcer was that he makes you discard an Action.  If you don't have one, you don't discard anything, but if you do have one and you really want to keep it, you can pay him a Treasure (or the "tax") to keep the Action. This is why it was worded the way it was. What if I change it to players with at least 3 cards in hand?  I know an Attack that can reduce a player to 2 cards is pretty brutal, but keep in mind there is only one copy of him in the game.

I fail to see why the wording I proposed goes against this purpose. The difference in practice is minor. I would say that flavor does not have to influence the precise wording and is not lost with the change. I would prioritize clarity and preciseness. But its your card, of course.

About power level: The problem with your proposal is that in many games it is not really more powerful: you still discard every time. But, whenever there is a Militia attack present and an Engine to play them both every turn, whoever gets discard can Attack much more devastatingly than the opponent. Knights also do that if you are the only one to get Sir Michael and there are no other Attacks in the kingdom, but they are a little bit less offensive since the trashing Attack can eventually cause you to trash Sir Michael, so there is still some defense possible for the opponents.

[Showdown35]

Your proposal, "Discard a Treasure or Action (or reveal a hand with...)" means even if you have a hand with no Actions, you still have to discard a Treasure. Its not that the flavor is influencing the wording, its that the mechanic is "discard an Action if you have one, unless you discard a Treasure". If you dont have an Action, you dont have to discard a Treasure. The Treasure discard is always optional. I'm not sure how to word it other than my OP to get that mechanic accross.

Maybe I could try "Each other player with 4 or more cards in hand discards an Action card unless he reveals a hand with no Actions or discards a Treasure."
Does that sound better?

[soulnet]

Your proposal, "Discard a Treasure or Action (or reveal a hand with...)" means even if you have a hand with no Actions, you still have to discard a Treasure. Its not that the flavor is influencing the wording, its that the mechanic is "discard an Action if you have one, unless you discard a Treasure". If you dont have an Action, you dont have to discard a Treasure. The Treasure discard is always optional. I'm not sure how to word it other than my OP to get that mechanic accross.

Maybe I could try "Each other player with 4 or more cards in hand discards an Action card unless he reveals a hand with no Actions or discards a Treasure."
Does that sound better?

Ok, my point was that I think the minor difference does not affect the flavor so much. I guess for that particular effect your original text is better than this one. Maybe separate better the "with 4 cards in hand". Like:

Each other player with 4 or more card in hand does this:
He may discard a Treasure. If he doesn't, ...

To avoid confusion with the quantifier.

[Showdown35]

I may just drop the "4 cards in hand" quantifier altogether.  Like you said, it usually only matters when there is another hand size attacker in the kingdom, and with it only attacking Actions (Treasure will still be an optional discard), players aren't forced to discard their only one or two Treasures and be unable to buy anything. And again, only one copy of it will stop it from stacking and brutally destroying a hand.

[soulnet]

Harlot
$2 - Action
(maybe +1 Card - haven't decided yet)
+3 Actions
You only draw 4 cards (instead of 5) in this turn's Clean-up phase.

I'm not sure how this would interact with Outpost though.
Also considering adding "If you play another action this turn" before the drawback, just in case you Golem into Harlot and have no actions in your hand, don't want to penalize if you don't use any of the extra actions.

I have missed this one before. I think even with the +1 Card, the penalty is really really bad. Plain +3 Actions seems ok for $2 without any penalty.

[Awaclus]

At first, I thought that Harlot gave +3 cards with the penalty and that it was a pretty interesting and powerful card. After I RTFC, I'm thinking that it sucks power-wise.

[Showdown35]

At first, I thought that Harlot gave +3 cards with the penalty and that it was a pretty interesting and powerful card. After I RTFC, I'm thinking that it sucks power-wise.

Well, it is only $2... but ok, I can play with the power. So you really think +3 Cards, +3 Actions and the 4 card draw at cleanup isn't ridiculously powerful for $2??

Im thinking this:

$2 - Action
+2 Cards, +3 Actions
If you play another Action this turn, you only draw 4 cards in this turns Clean-up phase.

[Awaclus]

So you really think +3 Cards, +3 Actions and the 4 card draw at cleanup isn't ridiculously powerful for $2??

No, I really think that it's ridiculously powerful at any price. I misread "+3 actions" as "+3 cards", so it would've been just a cheap Smithy with a penalty.

[soulnet]

At first, I thought that Harlot gave +3 cards with the penalty and that it was a pretty interesting and powerful card. After I RTFC, I'm thinking that it sucks power-wise.

Well, it is only $2... but ok, I can play with the power. So you really think +3 Cards, +3 Actions and the 4 card draw at cleanup isn't ridiculously powerful for $2??

Im thinking this:

$2 - Action
+2 Cards, +3 Actions
If you play another Action this turn, you only draw 4 cards in this turns Clean-up phase.

This is really really powerful, because you can play multiples and only pay the penalty once. Loading up on these guys would probably be a good idea in almost every board, and mostly counteract the 4 cards a turn (and more). Also, it would not work well with Outpost as written.

I would go with +3 Actions only. That is a fine card, some cards have to be simple.

[scott_pilgrim]

I like the general idea of Harlot (though the interaction with Outpost still needs to be worked out), but I think it works best on a terminal.  A non-terminal (especially since it's cheap) is asking you to stack them, and since the penalty doesn't stack, it would be tricky to get it balanced right.  If you really want it to be a village, then I think it should be a non-drawing Village to make them harder to stack, something like +3 actions, or +2 actions, +$2 (the latter might be too strong, not sure).  Actually that makes it a really interesting combo with draw-up-to-X type cards, since not only is it a disappearing village, which draw-up-to-X likes, but the next turn 4-card hand is also something that draw-up-to-X can negate.  Another option is to make it more expensive and then maybe it's okay to be a drawing Village.  Or if you like self-synergizing cards, you could try something like "Choose one: +3 actions, or draw until you have 5 cards in hand".  I'm not sure I like that it would be a remedy to its own drawback though.

I feel like I just spat out a list of ideas, hopefully that's helpful though.  I'm not quite sure what space it's trying to fit into in your set (i.e. if it has to be $2, or has to be a village, etc., because of what else is in your set), so that would affect where you go with it.  If you can, I suggest making it terminal, or if not, make it more expensive, but if neither of those work, I think the original +3 actions version is fine.

[Showdown35]

I like the general idea of Harlot (though the interaction with Outpost still needs to be worked out), but I think it works best on a terminal.  A non-terminal (especially since it's cheap) is asking you to stack them, and since the penalty doesn't stack, it would be tricky to get it balanced right.  If you really want it to be a village, then I think it should be a non-drawing Village to make them harder to stack, something like +3 actions, or +2 actions, +$2 (the latter might be too strong, not sure).  Actually that makes it a really interesting combo with draw-up-to-X type cards, since not only is it a disappearing village, which draw-up-to-X likes, but the next turn 4-card hand is also something that draw-up-to-X can negate.  Another option is to make it more expensive and then maybe it's okay to be a drawing Village.  Or if you like self-synergizing cards, you could try something like "Choose one: +3 actions, or draw until you have 5 cards in hand".  I'm not sure I like that it would be a remedy to its own drawback though.

I feel like I just spat out a list of ideas, hopefully that's helpful though.  I'm not quite sure what space it's trying to fit into in your set (i.e. if it has to be $2, or has to be a village, etc., because of what else is in your set), so that would affect where you go with it.  If you can, I suggest making it terminal, or if not, make it more expensive, but if neither of those work, I think the original +3 actions version is fine.

Thanks for all the suggestions!  I did want it to fill the village role, and while i dont need another $2 card, I did want it to be cheap.  I did really like the "draw 4 cards at clean-up" concept paired with the actions, so im going to try to keep it at that, just going to play around with the other bonuses. I didnt want card drawing on it at all because of the drawback not being cumulative and stacking them would essential negate it, so I'm going to try it without any draw, maybe just +$1 or something.  I figured at $2, the potential to play a whack of actions was worth the harsh drawback, and with no draw, theresnot an incentive to load up on copies.

[soulnet]

I would go with +4 Actions. It will usually still be worse than Village, but explosive (maybe also swingy) at times. It is kind of a small and reversed Tactitian: Have a great turn now, a worse one next turn.