As I did with Alchemy, gonna read this from the bottom up. And again, one of these is mine.
There are many cards that have both overpay and coin tokens. I didn't really like that, but there's no good reason for it so I tried not to hold it against those cards. I think I succeeded in keeping that out of any criticisms.
Taskmaster
Types: Action
Cost: $4
Take a Coin token. Play a face-up card from the Taskmaster mat. If 4 cards are face-down, flip them over. At the start of Clean-up, return all cards played this way to the Taskmaster mat face-down.
Setup: Put the randomizers for 5 cards each costing up to $4 on the Taskmaster mat face-up.
This doesn't really feel like a Guilds card to me. The only tie to Guilds is the coin token, and that's an after-thought on this card. There might also be some tracking issues with how cards are supposed to be returned to the Taskmaster mat. I play Feast from the Taskmaster mat, then Graverobber to put the Feast on top of my deck. Finally, I buy an Inn and shuffle my deck. This last step might not even be necessary, depending on how lose-track functions (I don't really want to think about it right now).
Oh, broken scenario:
Let's say all 5 cards are face up on the mat. I play 3 Taskmaster cards on my turn. I play a fourth Taskmaster. There are still no cards face down, so nothing gets flipped up. I play the fifth Taskmaster, same deal. Now all of the randomizer cards are in play (or in the trash, or maybe even in my deck, but let's just say that they're all in play). At the start of my clean-up phase, I return all 5 cards to the mat face down. They stay that way because there is no instruction to flip them face up again.
Those cards will never get flipped face up again. The next person who plays Taskmaster takes a coin token, is unable to play a face-up card (there are none), and does NOT flip over the cards because there are 5 cards face-down, not 4.
The proper fix is probably to have an instruction like, "In games using this, whenever 4 or more cards are face down on the Taskmaster mat, flip them all face up."
But anyway, the Graverobber issue and how it feels off-theme is enough for me to pass on this. I would like it a lot more as a submission to Intrigue, sans coin token, and with a fix for the Graverobber issue.
Dancer
Types: Action
Cost: $4
+1 Card. Take a Coin token. You may pay any number of Coin tokens. For each token you paid, +1 Action.
When you gain this, take a Coin token.
Pay for actions. Pretty basic idea, and I think it works alright here. It could probably do with a cost reduction, considering you need to pay $1 just to match a regular Village. Hmm, not sure though. I suppose the author made it $4 because it's a lot like Baker, except without the free +1 action and gaining the possibility of multiple +actions. Even so, I think this might work at $3, even factoring in the on-gain.
The on-gain actually makes a 4/3 split different from a 3/4 split. The 4/3 can open double Dancer while the 3/4 can't. That said, it's probably a bad idea to open with Dancer so it's not a big deal.
Sojourner
Types: Action
Cost: $4+
+$2. Name a card. Reveal the top card of your deck. If it's the named card, put it into your hand. Otherwise, discard it or put it back.
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. If you do, take a Coin token per $1 you overpaid.
As I said below for Savings, I am extremely wary of overpay for coin tokens. Donald tested it because it was obvious, and it just didn't work.
Also not a fan of the main action. It's just terminal Mystic. Mystic is so much more interesting because of its self-synergy.
Royal Guard
Types: Action – Reaction
Cost: $3
+1 Action. Choose one: Take a Coin token; or pay any number of Coin tokens and +$2 per token paid.
When another player plays an Attack card, you may discard this. If you do, take 2 Coin tokens.
The main action is a bit weak. The first choice is weaker than Candlestick Maker. The second choice can be good, but you have to keep in mind that you are also skipping on the coin token you would have gotten with the first choice. That means that the second choice is only useful if you are paying at least 2 coin tokens. If you pay a single coin token for +$2, you might as well have kept that and gained another coin token with the first choice. I like that it combos with the other coin token cards.
The reaction is simple but interesting. Getting 2 coin tokens is pretty good. I would note again that you should factor in the opportunity cost of using the reaction. Yeah you take 2 coin tokens, but you could have taken 1 coin token anyways if you had kept it in your hand, not to mention the second choice. It
is a soft counter to hand reduction attacks though.
As it is, I think Royal Guard would be OK even at $2. I like it though. I was surprised that there was no official reaction for coin tokens in Guilds. As I said for Builder (below), it would be nice to have a reaction here since there isn't an official one in Guilds.
Councilman
Types: Action – Attack
Cost: $8–
+1 Card. +1 Action. Each other player pays a Coin token. If nobody did, +1 Card and +1 Buy.
You may underpay for this card. For each $1 you underpaid, each other player takes a Coin token.
I'm not really a fan of introducing "underpay" like this. It requires additional rules to explain what it means even though most could intuit it.
I said for Highwayman (below) that attacking opponents' coin tokens seems wrong to me, though I can't really say way. Not very useful criticism and I apologize for that here, as I did for Highwayman.
Better criticism -- it doesn't seem balance-able as is, and the underpay mechanic doesn't really seem to add much to the card. Councilman itself does not produce coin tokens
except in the underpay. If there are no other coin token cards on the board, then Councilman is not much of an attack at all. It only takes away what it may or may not have handed out when it was first purchased. Without the attack, it's just Lab with +1 Buy. Not that exciting, but useful. If it were only that, the ballpark cost would be $6. So let's say you actually buy Councilman at $6... then everybody else gets 2 coin tokens. Which they can spend immediately, before you get to play your Lab+. Or if they don't, then your Lab+ is a worthless cantrip for a turn or two. There is a smudge of politics here in that, after you underpay for one, the next player(s) could spend their coin tokens and leave pressure on the last player to hold onto them in order to hinder you.
There is a weird interaction with Possession, especially in 2p. Get a bunch of +Buys and then play Possession. Spend every single Buy on a $0 Councilman, loading up the next player with dozens of coin tokens. Possess him, spend all of those coin tokens. You just got gained a bunch of strong cards for free AND guaranteed a massive possession turn.
So anyway, I don't really see it working at any price. If it's too expensive (as it is now) then you pretty much have to underpay, but the benefit to others is generally just too good compared to what you're getting. Lab+ is not that amazing. And yet you can't cost is too low because it is still a Lab+. Just doesn't really work.
Jeweler
Types: Action
Cost: $3+
Take a Coin token. Name a card. Each other player reveals his hand. If the named card is reveald, take a Coin token.
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. Take a Coin token per $2 you overpaid (rounded down).
Like Savings immediately below this, I'm wary of overpaying for coin tokens. This is a little better thanks to the 2:1 conversion. The main action seems OK. Maybe a bit too weak, though I suppose the main thing is the overpay anyway. I am wary, but it could work. Not sure at all.
Savings
Types: Treasure
Cost: $5+
When you play this, it's worth $1 per Coin token you have.
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. Take a Coin token per $1 you overpaid.
Donald has mentioned how overpay for coin tokens is crazy. I'll trust him on that one. Moreover, Savings just seems like it would be bonkers on its own, easily becoming worth more than even Platinum if there is even one other coin token card around.
Architect
Types: Action
Cost: $3+
+1 Action. +$1.
While this is in play, Victory cards cost $2 less, but not less than $0.
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. +1 Buy per $1 you overpaid.
This is $3 for Gold, as far as VP cards are concerned. Better than Gold if you have +Buy, which you sort of always do via Architect's overpay. This card seems broken to me.
Town Hall
Types: Action
Cost: $2+
+3 Actions.
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. For each $1 you overpaid, choose a card you have in play. If you discard that card this turn, put it on top of your deck.
Just +3 actions is actually a vanilla bonus that is surprisingly rare to see. I wonder if Donald ever tried it, and if so, what problems were there with it? Maybe it just wasn't interesting enough?
The overpay is alright. Basically Scheme. Not sure if intended, but I find it funny in an anti-government kind of way.
The card is kind of plain overall, but not necessarily in a bad way. Hmm.
Pawnbroker
Types: Action
Cost: $3+
Take a Coin token. You may trash a card from your hand. If you do, take a Coin token per $2 in its cost, rounded down.
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. If you do, the player to your left chooses a card in the Supply costing exactly $2 more than the amountyou overpaid. Gain it.
This should be re-worded to match Bishop.
Bishop-for-Coin Tokens is alright. I think it's strong enough to cost $4, especially considering that it gives a free coin token off the bat vs. Bishop's +$1.
The overpay is interesting. I like it.
Porter
Types: Action
Cost: $2+
+1 Card. +1 Action. You may put any number of cards from your hand on top of your deck.
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. For each $1 you overpaid, set aside the top card of your deck, putting it into your hand at the start of your next turn.
Hmm, that's actually kind of interesting. Definitely feels like a Guilds card. Like other cheap overpay cards, the main action is something that seems weak in general but can be situationally useful. Putting cards back on top is often a drawback, but Porter makes it optional and thus only ever a benefit. Situational, but still beneficial. The optional overpay is interesting, making it similar to Tactician. It has some neat self-synergy -- play Porter to topdeck some cards, then buy Porter to set some aside. I really like this.
Tiller
Types: Action
Cost: $4
+1 Action. Reveal the top card of your deck. You may pay a Coin token. If you do, put the card into your hand. Otherwise discard it and take a Coin token.
If you discard the card, this is Candlestick Maker with some filtering instead of +1 Buy. If you want to draw the card instead, it costs you a coin token. It's more costly than it seems because you also miss out on the extra coin token you would have otherwise gained. This is probably not worth $4. It is a lot more interesting at $2, though maybe a bit too similar to CM anyway.
Jubilee
Types: Action
Cost: $5
+2 Actions. Take 2 Coin tokens.
While this is in play, you can't spend Coin tokens during your Buy phase.
Not sure if this is worth $5. It's similar to Festival, trading off +1 Buy for coin tokens instead of virtual coin. I'm not sure how big an impact the restriction is. Hmm, probably comparable enough to Festival that it is worth $5. Fairly interesting.
Demagogue
Types: Action
Cost: $4+
You may discard a Treasure. If you do, +2 Cards and +2 Actions.
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. Each other player reveals 2 cards from his deck per $1 you overpaid, puts the revealed Coppers back, and discards the rest.
Stables, but with an extra action instead of extra card draw. I expect that would still be worth $5. The overpay is fairly interesting. Seems alright overall.
Bookkeeper
Types: Action
Cost: $3
+1 Card. +1 Action. At the start of your Buy phase, you may pay $2. If you do, take a Coin token.
Seems extremely weak to me. Unlikely to buy it even at $2. Sometimes you can use it to get an extra coin token, but you can't take advantage of it consistently unless you get a bunch in your deck and it's not strong enough to be worth that.
Housekeeper
Types: Action
Cost: $2+
Trash a card from your hand. Take a Coin token.
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. If you do, at the start of Clean-up, trash a card from your hand or from play per $1 you overpaid.
Simple enough. Probably just fine.
Highwayman
Types: Action – Attack
Cost: $5
+1 Buy. +$1. Take 2 Coin tokens. Each other player gives you a Coin token.
I don't really like this particular attack concept. I don't know. It's a worthless attack if nobody else has coin tokens, but Highwayman seems pretty strong even without the attack. It just doesn't feel right to me. Not really a useful criticism here, sorry.
City Councilman
Types: Action
Cost: $4+
+2 Cards. +1 Buy. +1 Card per empty Supply pile.
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. For each $1 you overpaid, trash a card from the Supply that is not a Victory card.
Looks pretty good to me. I like the overpay mechanic as a way to do trashing from the supply, which is a fairly common fan concept that never seems to work right. Making it an overpay is a good idea. It also makes surprise 3-piles a little more possible. At the same time, the emptying of piles has an additional bonus for the card itself. I like how it's all tied together.
Strike
Types: Action
Cost: $3
+1 Card. +1 Action. +1 Buy. Place a Coin token on each Kingdom pile.
When a player gains a card from a pile, he takes all the Coin tokens on it.
A token on
each Kingdom card pile. That's actually really interesting. It reminds me of Puerto Rico, even though I've only played it once, and probably some other games use a similar mechanic. Eventually somebody might want to buy that Thief. I think I might like it even more if the coin tokens were only taken on-buy instead of on-gain. Not sure.
It is probably undercosted as is, though I'm not sure. You are pretty much guaranteed to get one coin token back, maybe even two since it has +1 Buy. With other cards, you could get even more. On the flip side, it is potentially giving discounts to opponents as well. I'd probably try it starting at $4.
Other than that, my main concern is logistical. I imagine that games using Strike would run out the physical coin tokens pretty fast.
Barber
Types: Action
Cost: $4
+1 Action. Choose one: Discard any number of cards and take a Coin token per card discarded; or pay any number of Coin tokens and +1 Card per token paid.
So this is the only Barber entered, huh? Would have liked to see more, with some art of a frustrated man. I mean, everyone is bald! Would make for a good inside joke.
The action itself is fairly interesting. SC for coin tokens is a good concept, and the additional card draw option adds some interesting symmetry. The flexibility on top of being non-terminal makes me think that it is undercosted at $4, but the concept seems sound to me.
Builder
Types: Action – Reaction
Cost: $4
+2 Cards. +1 Buy. If you've played 4 Action cards this turn (counting this), take a Coin token.
When you discard this other than during a Clean-up phase, you may reveal it. If you do, take a Coin token.
It's alright. The top part heavily depends on there being non-terminal action cards around, which might not always be the case, but Conspirator is the same way. The reaction is not too bad, though it treads a little close to Crystal Ball in the
previous contest. Crystal Ball might be worth redoing with coin tokens anyway.
It would be nice to have a reaction card here because Guilds doesn't have an official one.
Investor
Types: Action
Cost: $5
Either you gain a Curse or each other player gains a Curse, your choice. You may trash a Curse from your hand. If you do, take 4 Coin tokens.
Yeah, this needs to be labelled as an Attack card.
My first thought is that this is kind of like a far less reliable Death Cart. Not a fan. With further consideration... I feel like there's no good way to play it. OK, I could gain a Curse... but then that's it. That's all. That's a waste of an action! Maybe I would do this to try to get a Curse to trash to Investor later, but a +1 Buy would do as much for me and give me the option to do something else. And it's not even reliable because you have to connect Investor and Curse, eep. So the obvious choice is to Curse everyone else, but in that case this is mostly worse than Sea Hag despite costing more. And now everyone has a free Curse that they can trash to their Investors, if they have any. You hurt them, but there's still a chance it helps more than harms. Doesn't feel good.
Bribe
Types: Action
Cost: $5+
+1 Action. Gain a card costing up to $4.
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. For each $5 you overpaid (rounded down), gain a Province.
Non-terminal Workshop to start. That's alright, though not so interesting to me. I'm just not a fan of most Workshop variants.
The overpay... huh. Overpaying by $5 isn't that great. You could have just bought a Province anyways, so it's sort of like getting Bribe for an extra $2. If you overpay by $10 then you get two Provinces, which is an overall discount. You paid $15 total and you got two Provinces (value of $16) plus the Bribe. That's alright. Could be interesting in a mega-turn strategy that just aims for one turn of massive money, without needing to worry about getting +Buy. $45 is enough to pile-drive Provinces in 2p.
Legionnaire
Types: Action
Cost: $5+
You may pay a Coin token. If you do, gain a Gold, putting it into your hand. Otherwise, take a Coin token.
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. Each other player discards a card per $1 you overpaid.
The action is alright. Take a Coin token, or pay a Coin token to gain a Gold in hand. Alternates weak and strong. It's possibly too powerful in combination with other coin token producers, but it's hard to say.
The overpay is an absolute deal breaker. Too easy to produce a powerful deck that can overpay $5 every turn and lock everyone else out. You don't even need to overpay that much if there are more than 2 players. I overpay $2, next player overpays $2. Third player is stuck with one card and can't do anything at all. Repeat. It just doesn't work.
A possible fix is to put a limit on how much a player has to discard, but then the overpay effect doesn't scale properly.
Sculptor
Types: Action
Cost: $5
+1 Action. You may discard 2 cards. If you do, name 2 cards and reveal the top 3 cards of your deck. For each revealed card you named, take a Coin token and put that card on your deck. Discard the rest.
Not sure why it's called Sculptor. The action is fairly interesting. I doubt that the initial discard is necessary because the rest of it isn't THAT powerful, especially considering the $5 cost. In the best cases, you get up 3 coin tokens and filter out junk otherwise. There is some tension there -- your deck is (at least in the early game) mostly junk that you would rather discard, but guessing correctly top decks those cards instead of discarding them. So would you rather filter them out or get coin tokens? It's an interesting choice, and you might guess wrong anyway.
I like this, though I would recommend dropping the discard at the start.
Wholesaler
Types: Action
Cost: $3
+2 Actions. +1 Buy. Put a Coin token (from the supply) on any non-Victory Supply pile.
Cards cost $1 less per Coin token on their pile, but not less than $0. When a card is gained from a pile, remove a Coin token from that pile.
Is this any different from just giving +$1? Hmm. I suppose it's different if you put multiple tokens on the same pile. If I have two tokens on a pile and then buy it, I get a discount but I only remove one token. The next purchase will still be discounted, though not quite as much. OK, that's fairly interesting.
However, I'm going to call shenanigans on theme here. It uses Coin tokens in name only -- you could use brand new Wholesaler tokens and it would play exactly the same. So this card has no overpay effect and it doesn't actually have anything to do with coin tokens. It almost kind-of sort-of has a "name a card" mechanic, but even that's a stretch. This just feels completely off-theme to me and not a fit for Guilds.
Tavern
Types: Action
Cost: $4
+1 Action. +$2. Trash a card from your hand. Pay a Coin token. If you have no Coin tokens, gain a Curse. If you gained a Curse, take 3 Coin tokens.
I'm going to guess that it's meant to be, "Pay a Coin token. If you did not, gain a Curse." As it is currently worded, if you start with one coin token, you end up having to pay it AND gain a Curse.
This is a pretty weird card. It doesn't give you a choice about paying the coin token, which means it is really weak most of the time unless you are constantly spending your tokens. When you do have tokens, this is essentially a Copper. Kind of worse, in that a regular Copper doesn't drain away your saved coin tokens. When you don't have coin tokens, Tavern gives you a nice chunk but it also curses you. Kind of an interesting trade-off, but overall I don't think it would be worthwhile.
Every play of Tavern does something bad -- it either drains away one of your coin tokens or it curses you. It's interesting thematically, but I prefer my cards that are generally helpful rather than cards that always leave a bitter taste in my mouth. Again, thematic, but it's not to my taste.
Potter
Types: Action
Cost: $4+
Take 2 Coin tokens. You may pay up to 5 Coin tokens. For each Coin token you paid beyond the first, gain a card costing up to $4.
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. If you do, take a Coin token, then play this.
OK, this is a terminal "take 2 coin tokens" unless you pay to gain cards. You can pay up to 5 coin tokens. Let's say you pay 2 coin tokens. In that case, you break even on tokens compared to when you played Potter. For your trouble, you would get to gain two cards costing up to $4. That means Potter is essentially a double Workshop. Considering the option to just take the coin tokens, as well as the option to pay 3 extra coin tokens to get up to 3 extra cards (up to 5 total), that's a LOT better than Workshop. That's easily worth $5, probably $6.
But wait, there's more. There is also an overpay. The first problem is that it doesn't scale. You can overpay any amount and it doesn't change the bonus. Therefore you would never overpay by more than $1. But then you gain a new coin token
and get to play the card? That's incredible. It means overpaying actually gives you a discount on the card. I pay $4, overpay $1, then I get $3 back in coin tokens. Net cost to me is $2. That's ridiculous. You don't get to spend any of those new coin tokens this turn, but it's still super powerful.
This just seems broken powerful to me.
Author
Topic: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #8: Guilds (Read 23750 times)