After my last submission I received a lot of good and helpful feedback. Trekking forward, I now have the product of said feedback! This, of course, is just a prototype card.
From the suggestions I changed the Era symbol on the top left to something less busy, changed some of the fonts, and spruced some other cosmetics up a bit.
Thank you again for the feedback.
I suspect that the picture just becomes an unrecognizable blob of brown and black. Simpler, where the outline of the important thing shows up with more contrast, would be better.
There's a lot of text, which is probably pretty small when printed. The worst is the word "Populating" which is medium blue on light blue. I can guarantee I wouldn't be able to read that in the real card size. The medium purple on light blue also has too little contrast. Make the blue background paler, and when using anything other than black on it, it should still be fairly close to black, and not be any shade of blue.
I assume that the tab headings -- Build, Huts, Order, Migration, Modify, Scouting Expedition -- are exactly the same on cards of this type? If so, it isn't that important that they are readable. If there are different words for different cards, then these need to have more contrast, too. You've made the gradient such that its darkest part is right where I need to see in order to read the words. You might consider reversing the gradient, so it's lighter in the middle and darker on the edges, and also just make it all paler.
I notice that you used a sans-serif font for the blocks of text, but a serif font for the tabs. This is typically backwards: Serifs help a person read larger amounts of text, but are unnecessary when there is only one or two words. However, both font choices are pretty readable, so I have no issue with them.
For me the card is hard to look at/read, it is pretty though. When I pulled up the card my eyes wanted to go everywhere at once which is partly what makes it hard to look at. It feels like there is a lot going on with the card between the image the background and the blue and the text. The blue and the background and the image all kind of blend in together.
Without out knowing too much about your game is it possible to reduce the amount of text? I ask because one of my first thoughts was there was a lot to read and start to gloss over the words, by the second set of wording I lost interest in what the card was saying.
The blue/black symbols got lost in the background for me.
Now saying all of that I like the detail of the card, I like how it is laid out and for a prototype is seems polished and does make me want to know more about the game
Less text, more contrast.
The card is very difficult to read as it is. It's too crowded and all sort of blends together.
I like that a lot better. For me the new card is easier to read and the simplified design is good. I like how the picture looks and moves into the text box, it is a good transition for me. I can read the text better and I like the green fading into the black
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Thank you for all of your insight. After some thought I decided to make a pretty big change to the base mechanic of the game so it has been a bit scary. BUT, it was a great transition! Instead of each card having multiple abilities with different option types (build, direct, order, modify ect.) Each card will have ONE option type such as the Market Place above which exercises the Build option (noted by the hammer next to the title). Though, I still needed a way to balance cards with higher power by giving low power cards more flexibility/options.
Sooooo, I traded it out the multiple options mechanic with an upgrade mechanic. So instead, you can either pay the first cost in the text box and gain just the first ability or pay the additional costs to make the card better/more flexible. This still balances the options vs. power relationship (higher power = less upgrades; lower power = more upgrades) without the crowded options. This to me looks much cleaner with one text box holding the additional upgrades.
Thank you again and let me know what you think of the updated card in the OP.