Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Variants and Fan Cards => Topic started by: tristan on September 21, 2015, 04:20:34 am
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Hello. Here are some cards idea and I'd appreciate some feedback:
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/32/Coin3.png/16px-Coin3.png) - Townstreet - Action
Choose one: +2 Cards;
or +2 Actions; or +(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png)
I mainly worry about the terminal silver part of the card potentially being too strong.
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/32/Coin3.png/16px-Coin3.png) - Melee Island - Action - Attack
Every other player discards a
Treasure card or reveals a hand with no Treasure cards and takes his -(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f7/Coin1.png/16px-Coin1.png) Token.
Use the effects of one of the discarded Treasure cards at the beginning of your
Buy phase or take a Coin token.
Obviously a Cutpurse variant. I considered giving the defending player the option to take a Curse even if he has Treasure cards in his hand but decided against it because the wording would have become more complex.
The Coin token part mainly exists to make the card more decent as during most of the middlegame players will only discard Coppers so the bonus is weaker than that of Cutpurse ... and I doubt that the card hitting Gold during the endgame is strong enough (if there are Kingdom cards with virtual coins players will not opt for Gold anyway) to compensate for that, hence the Coin token.
On a sidenote, thematically I wanted to bring the cursed treasure idea into the card but mechanically it is fairly disarranged.
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2a/Coin4.png/16px-Coin4.png) - Shylock - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
While this is in play, no more than once during your turn: At the end of your Buy phase, put one Coin token for every unspent (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f7/Coin1.png/16px-Coin1.png) on your Tavern mat OR add 1/3 (rounded down) of the Coin tokens on your Tavern mat to them and take them.
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When you buy this, you may overpay for it.
For each (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f7/Coin1.png/16px-Coin1.png) you overpaid, put one Coin token on your Tavern mat.
The most complex and most tricky-to-evaluate card. As the wording might be bad I wanna clarify that you can use the effect of the card only once during your turn in order to prevent that you dissave and gain interest & later reinvest. You can either save unspent money or take the invested Coins with interest.
I think that this card provides the inverse of what Coin tokens usually do. Instead of gaining Coin tokens and then using them to gain e.g. a Province if you have 7 you now gain a Coin token when you e.g. spent 4 for a Silver and are able to use the gained Coin tokens only when you play the card again.
This obviously requires heavy playtesting but my main question before I do so is whether I should drop the cantrip part of the card, make it terminal but also drop the rule that you can only use its effect once during your turn. I find it hard to tell whether this is too powerful or whether the card in its current state (not being able to harvets the Coins and reinvest later) is too slow.
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/7/7d/Coin5.png/16px-Coin5.png) - Granary - Action
+1 Action
Set aside a card from your hand.
OR
Discard all set aside cards.
+(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f7/Coin1.png/16px-Coin1.png) for each differently named set aside card.
The main question is whether setting aside a card is weaker or stronger than trashing. In my opinion it is on average slightly stronger as setting aside Victory cards and greening earlier in the game compensates for not getting rid of the negative VPs of Curses.
The second question is how strong the Horn of Plenty / Native Village -like return of the cards idea is and whether it warrants a price increase to (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/7/7d/Coin5.png/16px-Coin5.png).
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Town street seems very weak and compares unfavorably against Steward. Melee Island should read 'each other player with five or more cards in their hand' or else it gets very, very, very powerful. Like, better than Torturer powerful.
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Town street seems very weak and compares unfavorably against Steward. Melee Island should read 'each other player with five or more cards in their hand' or else it gets very, very, very powerful. Like, better than Torturer powerful.
Town Street is my Necro variant that was obviously inspired by Steward. I am glad that you do not think that it is OP.
About Melee Island, that you can get hit by several of them is intentional. If the card has to be nerfed I will drop tits Curser ability.
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Melee Island is 3 card draws short of Torturer, it's probably fine. If it really does pose a problem in testing it could get the bureacrat treatment and have some Silver gain added to it.
Town Street compares unfavorably to Steward... one of the best 3$ cards in the game. Where are you going with that? It's like every dominion fan card has to match the power level of every official cards, including the official cards whose power levels don't match eachother. Most people don't have enough command of quantum physics for that man. Town Street is definitely not too weak to be a card. It's not even in the bottom quartile of Dominion cards. EVEN if there are other villages AND other card draw, Silver/Town Street is a better opening than Silver/Silver for games with 5$ cards you cant to grab early and the promise of an engine later on, where a silver clogs your hand but a Town Street pairs off with a terminal draw to cycle out.
Shylock is probably balanced, but man, thirds. I don't like thirds. Thirds are like the worst thing ever. I don't want to think about thirds. I never go to a board game and am like, man, this game has thirds, rounded in some direction, this is exciting. Unless the card used a different bonus for interest that doesn't involve 0.3 repeating I will probably never love it.
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Melee Island is 3 card draws short of Torturer, it's probably fine. If it really does pose a problem in testing it could get the bureacrat treatment and have some Silver gain added to it.
Town Street compares unfavorably to Steward... one of the best 3$ cards in the game. Where are you going with that? It's like every dominion fan card has to match the power level of every official cards, including the official cards whose power levels don't match eachother. Most people don't have enough command of quantum physics for that man. Town Street is definitely not too weak to be a card.
It's worse than Village, Silver and Orcale. Steward is nice because late in the game you can use is as something besides a trasher. I almost feel like I would rather have a Pawn than this. And I compared it to Steward because two of the options are the same!
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I didn't see the +2 cards option on Town Street, because of the line formatting. I was thinking it was maybe an ok (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png), though probably still weak. With all 3 options, I guess it could be a weak (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/32/Coin3.png/16px-Coin3.png), but I do think it's a problem that it so close to Steward. I think it needs something in there to make it different.
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Ratcatcher variant sounds very strong. Setting a card aside is going to be stronger than trashing one most of the time; as you start with 3 junk cards that are better to set aside than to trash. Only in games with Cursers would trashing be better. So just the top half is already a little bit better than a straight cantrip-trasher. Which, before Ratcatcher existed, I would have said is extremely powerful.
The bottom half is really good too though. Did you really mean to put all set aside cards in your hand?? Or did you mean put them in your discard? The former seems really crazy. Even if it's the latter, it just seems like a strong option towards the end of the game; this could easily get you that last Province.
Also, you should remove the last sentence completely. The rules already state that set-aside cards are scored as part of your deck at the end; they don't need to be returned to your deck. Only 2 cards contain this text out of a bunch that can cause things to be set aside at game end.
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Obviously a Cutpurse variant. I considered giving the defending player the option to take a Curse even if he has Treasure cards in his hand but decided against it because the wording would have become more complex.
Actually, the wording would be simpler:
"Each other player may discard a Treasure card. If he doesn't, he gains a Curse."
I don't think a treasure-targeting discard attack like this is a good idea, but I am sick and headachey and unable to articulate why at the moment.
The second part, "use the effects of a discarded Treasure" is just asking for trouble. First, "use the effects" isn't defined by Dominion rules, so it should say something like "play the Treasure card". But then it raises other rules questions. What happens when you gain a Victory card with Horn of Plenty? Does it make their Spoils disappear? Do you steal their Coin of the Realm? When you play their Treasure card, does it go into your play area? What happens if you buy a Mandarin? Just a lot of stuff that gets wonky when you do this kind of thing.
Melee Island is 3 card draws short of Torturer, it's probably fine. If it really does pose a problem in testing it could get the bureacrat treatment and have some Silver gain added to it.
Town Street compares unfavorably to Steward... one of the best 3$ cards in the game. Where are you going with that? It's like every dominion fan card has to match the power level of every official cards, including the official cards whose power levels don't match eachother. Most people don't have enough command of quantum physics for that man. Town Street is definitely not too weak to be a card.
It's worse than Village, Silver and Orcale. Steward is nice because late in the game you can use is as something besides a trasher. I almost feel like I would rather have a Pawn than this. And I compared it to Steward because two of the options are the same!
I agree that it's too similar to Steward, but Town Street is not worse than Village, Silver and Oracle. It's like saying Steward is worse than Silver and Oracle. Flexibility matters.
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I wasn't sure about whether Town Street should be a 2 or 3 so thanks for the clarifications about how strong it is.
About the unnamed card, you are totally right GendoIkari, the cards should go into the discard pile. It might be neat to incentivize players to trash good cards in order to get 8 different set aside cards for a Province but it might also be a crappy idea so perhaps I should drop it entirely.
About the wording of Melee Island, I fail to see the problem (of my phrasing as well as coming up with new phrases in general; you wanna do after a little bit of new stuff with fan cards). It should be pretty clear that what it meant by it is that you do as if you played the Treasure card from your hand, i.e. you virtually play a card (and thus, to pick up the examples, you also virtually trash a Spoils or a Horn of Plenty that gains a Victory card, i.e. nothing is actually trashed).
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Making Town Street a strong 2 instead of a mediocre 3 would probably make it feel different from Steward. I'm not sure I have a design philosophy issue with cards being similar to other cards though. Also, like what if someone made village, except it costed one coin more and gave + buy, wouldn't that be cray. Sorry, I get offtopic for no reason sometimes.
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About the 'set aside' card, do you think that it is worth 5?
My assumption is that, based upon Upgrade and Junk Dealer, that a pure cantrip trasher is worth 4.
More so on Upgrade to be precise, you are happy to play the card to get rid of coppers. If only Junk Dealer existed you could argue that the card is a Peddler plus a mandatory cantrip trasher so perhaps a mandatory cantrip trasher is only worth 3.
Ratcatcher is probably either a bit too cheap or delayed trashing is really worth a discount of (to be precise more than 2 due to Ratcatcher's Reserve time-flexibility) 2.
But even if a mandatory cantrip trasher is worth a bit less than 4 this is compensated for by this card as it sets aside cards so my guess is that without the Native Village/ Horn of Plenty mishmash thingy it is worth 4 and with it 5.
Making Town Street a strong 2 instead of a mediocre 3 would probably make it feel different from Steward. I'm not sure I have a design philosophy issue with cards being similar to other cards though.
What if I got rid of the terminal silver part and priced it at 2? I guess that would make it a fairly weak 2 and not really something that could play a flexible enough role in an engine (in decks with terminal draws as well as villages the card would be virtually useless).
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Maybe instead of the terminal silver bit, you could give it buys or some kind of on-gain (when you gain this, +1 Buy) or on-trash bonus ("when you trash this, gain a Silver").
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The card is good at 3$, 2$, and 2$ but without the terminal silver.
If I had all three versions proxied up, I would put all 3 randomizers into my randomizer deck when I played dominion.
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Here is another card idea I have:
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/6/6f/Coin6.png/16px-Coin6.png) - Cursed Treasure - Treasure
4$
When you play this, gain a Curse.
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When you gain this, put all the Curses in the trash on the Supply.
OR
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/b/bc/Coin7.png/16px-Coin7.png) - Cursed Treasure - Treasure
4$
When you play this, gain two Curses.
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When you gain this, put all the Curses in the trash on the Supply.
I am not sure about the correct pricing and the wording. The main idea is obviously that of a self-junker. Unlike similar self-junkers that provide a lot of money like Death Cart or Cache it does not happens when you gain the card but when you play it, i.e. later but more often.
The on-gain effect is there to prevent this card from being overpowered in the presence of Cursers and I also consider something like "when you gain this, add x Curses per player to the Supply" to prevent the self-cursing from running out too soon.
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I think the first version is not overpowered at 5$
I also think the trashing clause isn't that necessary. The game will still have plenty of decisions while the curses are in the process of running out. It will be a bit of an obvbuy once the curses are gone but I don't think the world will end. Not every game has trashing, so the trashing clause isn't going to fix every board anyway.
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Ratcatcher variant sounds very strong. Setting a card aside is going to be stronger than trashing one most of the time; as you start with 3 junk cards that are better to set aside than to trash. Only in games with Cursers would trashing be better. So just the top half is already a little bit better than a straight cantrip-trasher. Which, before Ratcatcher existed, I would have said is extremely powerful.
It is still powerful. Ratcatcher isn't a cantrip trasher, as it trashes a turn late and can only affect your hand at the turn's beginning.
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Ratcatcher variant sounds very strong. Setting a card aside is going to be stronger than trashing one most of the time; as you start with 3 junk cards that are better to set aside than to trash. Only in games with Cursers would trashing be better. So just the top half is already a little bit better than a straight cantrip-trasher. Which, before Ratcatcher existed, I would have said is extremely powerful.
It is still powerful. Ratcatcher isn't a cantrip trasher, as it trashes a turn late and can only affect your hand at the turn's beginning.
Without the bonus the card is a good 4 (a pure cantrip trasher would probably be a fair 4; Junk Dealer is after all a mandatory cantrip trasher plus a Peddler combined) / weak 5. With the bonus it is probably a good 5 but for 6 it would be too expensive which is why I leave it priced at 5.
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Ratcatcher variant sounds very strong. Setting a card aside is going to be stronger than trashing one most of the time; as you start with 3 junk cards that are better to set aside than to trash. Only in games with Cursers would trashing be better. So just the top half is already a little bit better than a straight cantrip-trasher. Which, before Ratcatcher existed, I would have said is extremely powerful.
It is still powerful. Ratcatcher isn't a cantrip trasher, as it trashes a turn late and can only affect your hand at the turn's beginning.
Without the bonus the card is a good 4 (a pure cantrip trasher would probably be a fair 4; Junk Dealer is after all a mandatory cantrip trasher plus a Peddler combined) / weak 5. With the bonus it is probably a good 5 but for 6 it would be too expensive which is why I leave it priced at 5.
I wasn't aware Junk Dealer was weak. Also the step from (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2a/Coin4.png/16px-Coin4.png) to (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/7/7d/Coin5.png/16px-Coin5.png) is pretty big.
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Ratcatcher variant sounds very strong. Setting a card aside is going to be stronger than trashing one most of the time; as you start with 3 junk cards that are better to set aside than to trash. Only in games with Cursers would trashing be better. So just the top half is already a little bit better than a straight cantrip-trasher. Which, before Ratcatcher existed, I would have said is extremely powerful.
It is still powerful. Ratcatcher isn't a cantrip trasher, as it trashes a turn late and can only affect your hand at the turn's beginning.
Without the bonus the card is a good 4 (a pure cantrip trasher would probably be a fair 4; Junk Dealer is after all a mandatory cantrip trasher plus a Peddler combined) / weak 5. With the bonus it is probably a good 5 but for 6 it would be too expensive which is why I leave it priced at 5.
I wasn't aware Junk Dealer was weak. Also the step from (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2a/Coin4.png/16px-Coin4.png) to (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/7/7d/Coin5.png/16px-Coin5.png) is pretty big.
Ehm, my point that Junk Dealer is a mandatory cantrip trasher plus a Peddler. The latter is fairly priced at 4 so a pure mandatory cantrip trasher can hardly be worth more than 4 ^^
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Ratcatcher variant sounds very strong. Setting a card aside is going to be stronger than trashing one most of the time; as you start with 3 junk cards that are better to set aside than to trash. Only in games with Cursers would trashing be better. So just the top half is already a little bit better than a straight cantrip-trasher. Which, before Ratcatcher existed, I would have said is extremely powerful.
It is still powerful. Ratcatcher isn't a cantrip trasher, as it trashes a turn late and can only affect your hand at the turn's beginning.
Without the bonus the card is a good 4 (a pure cantrip trasher would probably be a fair 4; Junk Dealer is after all a mandatory cantrip trasher plus a Peddler combined) / weak 5. With the bonus it is probably a good 5 but for 6 it would be too expensive which is why I leave it priced at 5.
I wasn't aware Junk Dealer was weak. Also the step from (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2a/Coin4.png/16px-Coin4.png) to (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/7/7d/Coin5.png/16px-Coin5.png) is pretty big.
Ehm, my point that Junk Dealer is a mandatory cantrip trasher plus a Peddler. The latter is fairly priced at 5 so a pure mandatory cantrip trasher can hardly be worth more than 4 ^^
Right, it can't be worth more than $4, but it's also probably too strong to cost $4. The same situation happened in official cards with a Lab-variant that Donald tested. I think it was called Dungeon; it was "+2 Cards, +1 action, discard a card". Almost strictly worse than Lab so it can't be be $5+, but in testing it turned out to be too strong for $4, so it was dropped.
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Ratcatcher variant sounds very strong. Setting a card aside is going to be stronger than trashing one most of the time; as you start with 3 junk cards that are better to set aside than to trash. Only in games with Cursers would trashing be better. So just the top half is already a little bit better than a straight cantrip-trasher. Which, before Ratcatcher existed, I would have said is extremely powerful.
It is still powerful. Ratcatcher isn't a cantrip trasher, as it trashes a turn late and can only affect your hand at the turn's beginning.
Without the bonus the card is a good 4 (a pure cantrip trasher would probably be a fair 4; Junk Dealer is after all a mandatory cantrip trasher plus a Peddler combined) / weak 5. With the bonus it is probably a good 5 but for 6 it would be too expensive which is why I leave it priced at 5.
I wasn't aware Junk Dealer was weak. Also the step from (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2a/Coin4.png/16px-Coin4.png) to (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/7/7d/Coin5.png/16px-Coin5.png) is pretty big.
Ehm, my point that Junk Dealer is a mandatory cantrip trasher plus a Peddler. The latter is fairly priced at 5 so a pure mandatory cantrip trasher can hardly be worth more than 4 ^^
Right, it can't be worth more than $4, but it's also probably too strong to cost $4. The same situation happened in official cards with a Lab-variant that Donald tested. I think it was called Dungeon; it was "+2 Cards, +1 action, discard a card". Almost strictly worse than Lab so it can't be be $5+, but in testing it turned out to be too strong for $4, so it was dropped.
I have no idea how a mandatory cantrip trasher is supposed to be too strong for 4 given that cards like Ratcatcher, Upgrade and especially Junk Dealer exist. How can a supposedly strong 4 (mandatory cantrip trasher) plus a 4 (Peddler) combined into one card (Junk Dealer) just be worth 5?
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Ratcatcher variant sounds very strong. Setting a card aside is going to be stronger than trashing one most of the time; as you start with 3 junk cards that are better to set aside than to trash. Only in games with Cursers would trashing be better. So just the top half is already a little bit better than a straight cantrip-trasher. Which, before Ratcatcher existed, I would have said is extremely powerful.
It is still powerful. Ratcatcher isn't a cantrip trasher, as it trashes a turn late and can only affect your hand at the turn's beginning.
Without the bonus the card is a good 4 (a pure cantrip trasher would probably be a fair 4; Junk Dealer is after all a mandatory cantrip trasher plus a Peddler combined) / weak 5. With the bonus it is probably a good 5 but for 6 it would be too expensive which is why I leave it priced at 5.
I wasn't aware Junk Dealer was weak. Also the step from (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2a/Coin4.png/16px-Coin4.png) to (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/7/7d/Coin5.png/16px-Coin5.png) is pretty big.
Ehm, my point that Junk Dealer is a mandatory cantrip trasher plus a Peddler. The latter is fairly priced at 5 so a pure mandatory cantrip trasher can hardly be worth more than 4 ^^
Right, it can't be worth more than $4, but it's also probably too strong to cost $4. The same situation happened in official cards with a Lab-variant that Donald tested. I think it was called Dungeon; it was "+2 Cards, +1 action, discard a card". Almost strictly worse than Lab so it can't be be $5+, but in testing it turned out to be too strong for $4, so it was dropped.
I have no idea how a mandatory cantrip trasher is supposed to be too strong for 4 given that cards like Ratcatcher, Upgrade and especially Junk Dealer exist. How can a supposedly strong 4 (mandatory cantrip trasher) plus a 4 (Peddler) combined into one card (Junk Dealer) just be worth 5?
Because you just can't think of cards that way. Try looking at other examples where you can add the effect of two cards together to get another one. You won't find consistency in the way they add up. How strong the effect as a whole (the strength of decks it is capable of enabling...) is the most important thing to consider.
How often is the coin you get from Junk Dealer an important part of why you buy the card? How often would Junk Dealer be important at (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/7/7d/Coin5.png/16px-Coin5.png) even if it didn't have the coin?
Just about any card can work at just about any price point because Dominion is a mostly symmetric game. Given that trashers really only enable engines and aren't actually the thing that makes them tick, I am sure this card would be fine at (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2a/Coin4.png/16px-Coin4.png), but I agree with the people who say it would be really strong at that price point. I base that opinion on the fact that I believe I would still buy it in a significant number of games if it was priced at (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/7/7d/Coin5.png/16px-Coin5.png).
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I'll elaborate a bit further on why these two cards in particular don't add up that way.
First, consider why you buy each card.
Cantrip trasher -- easy, you get it to thin your deck. By virtue of being cantrip, you cycle and are able to play other action cards while you trash down, enabling you to accelerate towards an engine. Eventually (if all goes well), you run out of stuff to trash and the cantrip trasher becomes a junk card you don't want to play. But that's OK, because one junk action is worth getting rid of all the other junk cards.
Cantrip coin -- you buy this to increase your deck's potential coin value without hurting your deck's consistency. The cantrip coin is "free" money -- when you play it, you get +$1 without lowering your handsize or losing an action that could be better spent on a powerful payload card.
Now consider Junk Dealer. Why do you buy it? Is it for (a) cantrip trashing, (b) cantrip coin, or (c) both? The answer is actually (a). While the coin is a nice bonus, it is not the reason you buy Junk Dealer. The (b) on Junk Dealer is weaker than a straight cantrip coin because your handsize is smaller afterwards. And in fact, if you wanted it for the coin, the mandatory trashing is actually a liability, especially after you run out of weak cards to trash. You buy Junk Dealer to deal with junk, and the coin is just a small bonus on top.
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So this same discussion already happened in-depth here, in regards to Hospital: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=12374.0.
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Given that trashers really only enable engines and aren't actually the thing that makes them tick, I am sure this card would be fine at (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2a/Coin4.png/16px-Coin4.png), but I agree with the people who say it would be really strong at that price point.
Claiming that a mandatory cantrip trasher is a strong 4 implies the claim that either the boni of Junk Dealer as well as Upgrade are fairly insignificant which is obviously utter nonsense or the claim that these cards are strong 5s.
Furthermore it implies the claim that either Ratcatcher would be a decent card at a price of 3 or that the disadvantages of Ratcatcher, waiting 1+ turn(s) and trashing at the start of your turn, are worth a price differential of 2.
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Now consider Junk Dealer. Why do you buy it? Is it for (a) cantrip trashing, (b) cantrip coin, or (c) both? The answer is actually (a). While the coin is a nice bonus, it is not the reason you buy Junk Dealer. The (b) on Junk Dealer is weaker than a straight cantrip coin because your handsize is smaller afterwards. And in fact, if you wanted it for the coin, the mandatory trashing is actually a liability, especially after you run out of weak cards to trash. You buy Junk Dealer to deal with junk, and the coin is just a small bonus on top.
I obviously disagree. Of course the main reason you buy Junk Dealer is to trash but its Peddler part is not insignificant. On the contrary, especially when you trash you are in dire need of coins. Trashing is after all a form of investment, you get rid of your Coppers, can buy less strong cards now but far better cards later. If another player does not trash and wins the game it is precisely because he was able to buy stronger cards while you were buys getting rid of your Coppers.
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Given that trashers really only enable engines and aren't actually the thing that makes them tick, I am sure this card would be fine at (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2a/Coin4.png/16px-Coin4.png), but I agree with the people who say it would be really strong at that price point.
Claiming that a mandatory cantrip trasher is a strong 4 implies the claim that either the boni of Junk Dealer as well as Upgrade are fairly insignificant which is obviously utter nonsense or the claim that these cards are strong 5s.
Furthermore it implies the claim that either Ratcatcher would be a decent card at a price of 3 or that the disadvantages of Ratcatcher, waiting 1+ turn(s) and trashing at the start of your turn, are worth a price differential of 2.
It's not a "price differential of 2". Costs are not linear. The difference between 2 and 4 is a lot smaller than the difference between 4 and 5.
And yeah, the bonuses of Junk Dealer and Upgrade are fairly insignificant. Upgrade doesn't even give you a bonus 7/10 of the time you play it for the trashing, and somewhat often you'd rather not have the bonus you do get 3/10 of the time (like when the only $3 is Silver and you don't want Silver, or there are Shelters and Estate is the only $2). It's still a decent $5. Junk Dealer gives you a small bonus that you pretty much always want, and it's certainly one of the strongest cards in the entire game.
I obviously disagree. Of course the main reason you buy Junk Dealer is to trash but its Peddler part is not insignificant. On the contrary, especially when you trash you are in dire need of coins. Trashing is after all a form of investment, you get rid of your Coppers, can buy less strong cards now but far better cards later. If another player does not trash and wins the game it is precisely because he was able to buy stronger cards while you were buys getting rid of your Coppers.
That's not really how it works, though. An engine is the only strategy that wants trashing every time, so if you go for trashing and your opponent doesn't and he wins, the odds are that you went for an engine strategy and he went for another strategy, and that he won because the other strategy was better than the engine.
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And yeah, the bonuses of Junk Dealer and Upgrade are fairly insignificant.
A Peddler is never insignificant. Upgrading Estates into Silver or other 3$ cards is also most of the times useful unless you play Upgrade in the middle game and the deck does not feature any half-way decent 3$ Action card.
That's not really how it works, though. An engine is the only strategy that wants trashing every time, so if you go for trashing and your opponent doesn't and he wins, the odds are that you went for an engine strategy and he went for another strategy, and that he won because the other strategy was better than the engine.
Trashing is always useful and has nothing to do with the density of action and treasure cards in your deck. I guess most of us have played ample of base games with Chapel, heavy trashing and BM.
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And yeah, the bonuses of Junk Dealer and Upgrade are fairly insignificant.
A Peddler is never insignificant. Upgrading Estates into Silver or other 3$ cards is also most of the times useful unless you play Upgrade in the middle game and the deck does not feature any half-way decent 3$ Action card.
That's not really how it works, though. An engine is the only strategy that wants trashing every time, so if you go for trashing and your opponent doesn't and he wins, the odds are that you went for an engine strategy and he went for another strategy, and that he won because the other strategy was better than the engine.
Trashing is always useful and has nothing to do with the density of action and treasure cards in your deck. I guess most of us have played ample of base games with Chapel, heavy trashing and BM.
A Peddler is not entirely insignificant, but it is fairly insignificant. It helps you hit $5 again, which is nice, but that just compensates for the fact that you had to pay $5 for the Junk Dealer instead of buying another strong $5. Yes, Upgrading Estates into Silvers is useful, but it's not always more useful than just getting rid of the card without getting the Silver, and more often than not, there isn't a $3 card that you just want a ton of copies of. Especially in the early game, it's usually crucial to thin your deck rather than turn complete junk into mildly useful stop cards.
Trashing is usually actively bad for you in alt-VP slogs and rushes, and it's nice in big money and many combos but not nice enough to spend a buy on a card that doesn't really do much for you, such as Chapel. You don't want Junk Dealers over Silvers in most types of big money decks, and you absolutely don't want the cantrip trasher over a Silver in any big money deck except maybe the mass Baker BM thing but that sucks anyway.
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Given that trashers really only enable engines and aren't actually the thing that makes them tick, I am sure this card would be fine at (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2a/Coin4.png/16px-Coin4.png), but I agree with the people who say it would be really strong at that price point.
Claiming that a mandatory cantrip trasher is a strong 4 implies the claim that either the boni of Junk Dealer as well as Upgrade are fairly insignificant which is obviously utter nonsense or the claim that these cards are strong 5s.
Furthermore it implies the claim that either Ratcatcher would be a decent card at a price of 3 or that the disadvantages of Ratcatcher, waiting 1+ turn(s) and trashing at the start of your turn, are worth a price differential of 2.
Yes to both. The bonus of Junk Dealer and Upgrade are insignificant compared to the trashing, except in a few rare cases with Upgrade. The turn delay on Ratcatcher hurts it a lot.
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The +$1 on Junk Dealer is very significant. You would often still buy it at $5 without the +$1 if it were the only trasher on the board. But in order to compete with other trashers, I think it needs the +$1. The moral of the story is that trashers tend to be among the strongest cards in the game.
A cantrip trasher at $4 might be fine power-wise. I mean, it seems unlikely that it would be any more game-breaking than e.g. Forager. Donald tested this card…
Rubbish Heap: Action, $2
+1 Card
+1 Action
You may trash this or a card from your hand.
…and found that it was too strong. But hiking the price up to $4 and/or removing the self-trashing and/or making the trashing mandatory could easily be enough to make it reasonable.
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Are trashers supposed to compete with eachother meaningfully? It seems like they usually don't. Chapel wrecks every other trasher. There seems to be a gap between lots of trashers, and it often seems like I pick up whichever trasher is highest on the trasher tier-list and totally ignore the other trashes. Some trashers seem to only see play when they are the only trasher available, like Develop. I don't know if I would want to lose the unique feel of a game that has trashing, but only an awful, slow, grindy kind, by adding +1$ or +2$ to Develop so that it is competitive with other trashers.
I think the logic for Junk Dealer isn't that it needs to +1$ to be competitive with other trashers. I think it's that +1$ means that people aren't dirt poor in games where it is the premiere trasher, so Dominion is a little more fun.
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Are trashers supposed to compete with eachother meaningfully? It seems like they usually don't. Chapel wrecks every other trasher. There seems to be a gap between lots of trashers, and it often seems like I pick up whichever trasher is highest on the trasher tier-list and totally ignore the other trashes. Some trashers seem to only see play when they are the only trasher available, like Develop. I don't know if I would want to lose the unique feel of a game that has trashing, but only an awful, slow, grindy kind, by adding +1$ or +2$ to Develop so that it is competitive with other trashers.
I think the logic for Junk Dealer isn't that it needs to +1$ to be competitive with other trashers. I think it's that +1$ means that people aren't dirt poor in games where it is the premiere trasher, so Dominion is a little more fun.
Trashers absolutely are supposed to compete with each other meaningfully. A lot of discussion went on about whether to further weaken Amulet (it once had +$1 at the top), and well it had to compete with other trashers, so it stayed strong.
Chapel is an anomaly. Develop isn't a "trasher" in the way I'm talking about; I should have said "deck thinner". You can use Develop as a deck thinner of course, but it's not a very good one. It's primarily a remodel.
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I think that the difference trashing and mandatory trashing matters quite a bit.
Let's take Upgrade. Some folks here claimed that its bonus is insignificant but IMO the advantage of the card is that you can still play it in the later part of the game and use its remodel ability. Junk Dealer on the other hand can become a dead card respectively quite risky to play.
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I'm not saying that the bonuses on Junk Dealer and Upgrade are insignificant, period. I'm saying that in the grand scheme, they are usually insignificant compared to the trashing. I even called out Upgrade specifically as having some rare cases where its bonus matters more! But by and large, the trashing matters more.
Cantrip trashing + a small bonus sits comfortably at $5. Cantrip trashing alone might work at $4, but it would be extremely powerful, possibly too powerful. The card in the OP is cantrip trashing with a bonus.
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Cantrip trashing + a small bonus sits comfortably at $5. Cantrip trashing alone might work at $4, but it would be extremely powerful, possibly too powerful. The card in the OP is cantrip trashing with a bonus.
With multiple bonuses. The setting aside instead of trashing is pretty significant I think. It's an extra 3 points at the end of the game compared to trashing usually. Then there's the other ability to get a lot of money. It's really powerful. It might work at (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/7/7d/Coin5.png/16px-Coin5.png); though I think its bonuses are at least as good as Upgrade (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Upgrade) and Junk Dealer (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Junk_Dealer).
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Cantrip trashing + a small bonus sits comfortably at $5. Cantrip trashing alone might work at $4, but it would be extremely powerful, possibly too powerful. The card in the OP is cantrip trashing with a bonus.
With multiple bonuses. The setting aside instead of trashing is pretty significant I think. It's an extra 3 points at the end of the game compared to trashing usually. Then there's the other ability to get a lot of money. It's really powerful. It might work at (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/7/7d/Coin5.png/16px-Coin5.png); though I think its bonuses are at least as good as Upgrade (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Upgrade) and Junk Dealer (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Junk_Dealer).
It is only worth an extra 3 VP if there are no Shelters and no Cursers. For e.g. with Cursers, Shelters and no other trashers this very card leads on average, compared to a normal trasher, to an extra - 5VP / - 7VP (depends on the # of players).
But this is just a special case, on average setting aside is most likely better than trashing. This is why I consider the vanilla version of the card to be a strong 4 and the version with the bonus (Gain (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f7/Coin1.png/16px-Coin1.png) for each differently named set aside card. Discard all set aside cards.) a strong 5 which is again why I am not happy with the card yet.
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Cantrip trashing + a small bonus sits comfortably at $5.
I disagree. You gotta differentiate between mandatory and normal cantrip trashing (or something like Upgrade which is a mandatory trasher but due to its Remodel ability it doesn't force-trash good cards during the later part of the game). A cantrip trasher might be a strong 4 or a weak 5 but a mandatory cantrip trasher is a balanced 4 IMO.
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Cantrip trashing + a small bonus sits comfortably at $5.
I disagree. You gotta differentiate between mandatory and normal cantrip trashing (or something like Upgrade which is a mandatory trasher but due to its Remodel ability it doesn't force-trash good cards during the later part of the game). A cantrip trasher might be a strong 4 or a weak 5 but a mandatory cantrip trasher is a balanced 4 IMO.
What "normal" cantrip trashing are you talking about? Junk Dealer and Upgrade are both mandatory trashers that sit comfortably at $5. The only other cantrip trasher is Rats, which isn't really a trasher at all. Upgrade absolutely does force you to trash cards during the late game. It sounds like you are misunderstanding how the official cards work.
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eHalcyon said what i wanted to say about Upgrade.
I think you also underestimate the use cases of setting aside cards. It allows picking up any Victory card and keeping its points without it clogging your deck. There's a reason Island removes itself from your deck and is terminal. Your card isn't, and while it's not worth VP, you can use it as often as you want. I think that even just a cantrip setting aside stuff would be okay for $5.
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Cantrip trashing + a small bonus sits comfortably at $5.
I disagree. You gotta differentiate between mandatory and normal cantrip trashing (or something like Upgrade which is a mandatory trasher but due to its Remodel ability it doesn't force-trash good cards during the later part of the game). A cantrip trasher might be a strong 4 or a weak 5 but a mandatory cantrip trasher is a balanced 4 IMO.
What "normal" cantrip trashing are you talking about? Junk Dealer and Upgrade are both mandatory trashers that sit comfortably at $5. The only other cantrip trasher is Rats, which isn't really a trasher at all. Upgrade absolutely does force you to trash cards during the late game. It sounds like you are misunderstanding how the official cards work.
Gee, of course all of this is conceptural. There doesn't exist a non-mandatory cantrip trasher (except for, very losely speaking, Ratcatcher which has the disadvantage of having to be played at the beginning of your turn) but we talk about a hypothetical, the balanced price of a hypothetical mandatory or non-mandatory cantrip trasher.
The disadvantage of mandatory cantrip trashers is that it is either a dead card as you do not wanna trash anything anymore or a risky choice (with Lookout this risk decision occurs earlier). Upgrade is a quasi non-mandatory trasher as it remodels at the same time so it dampens (if you trash a good Action card you still got it out of your current shuffle cycle so it does hurt you but not as much as having to trash the good Action card) the disadvantage of being mandatory.
I think you also underestimate the use cases of setting aside cards. It allows picking up any Victory card and keeping its points without it clogging your deck.
Obviously enabling earlier greening (at the cost of not getting rid of the negative Vps of Curses) is one of the points of the card.
There's a reason Island removes itself from your deck and is terminal.
Island also provides VPs. Without the 2VPs it is probably worth 0 or 1.
I think that even just a cantrip setting aside stuff would be okay for $5.
Could be. I am probably gonna print the card as it is and test it with and without the bonus. As the bonus is without the cantrip and probably will only be applied once during the game it is tricky to evaluate. It all depends on how often 'gifting you a bunch of coppers to buy an extra Province in the endgame' occurs.
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It doesn't just enable "earlier" greening, but getting points without what "greening" implies at all, namely clogging your deck. It's very similar to Distand Lands in that respect. Compare Distand Lands to Duchy/Cantrip-Island: Distand Lands gives one more point and does not need two cards to connect. At the same time, it costs an additional card, an action and is worth nothing if not played before the end. Admittedly, the first card you buy, the cantrip, doesn't give points - but it offers strong deck thinning, which is actually worth much, much more. After thinking a bit more about this, i tend to say that even for $5, it might be brokenly powerful.
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It doesn't just enable "earlier" greening, but getting points without what "greening" implies at all, namely clogging your deck.
As I said, it enables earlier / more frequent greening and makes alt-VP more attractive at the costs of not getting rid of the negative VPs of set aside curses.
After thinking a bit more about this, i tend to say that even for $5, it might be brokenly powerful.
I seriously doubt that it is overpowered at 5 without its bonus. You'd often rather want an integrated Peddler (Junk Dealer) or early in the game transform an Estate into a Silver instead of preserve one VP (Upgrade). The card only becomes better than trashing once you actually do green. Earlier it is strictly worse than existing cantrip trasher.
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I definitely think you're wrong about Upgrade not being a full mandatory trasher. Are you forgetting that it's gain is "exactly" (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f7/Coin1.png/16px-Coin1.png) more, not up to? If you draw a hand of 4 good cards plus an Upgrade, it's a big risk to play that Upgrade. If you don't draw a junk card that you want to trash, then you've now taken a good card out of your deck, and probably even worse, out of your current hand. You can't just replace it; you have to get something costing (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f7/Coin1.png/16px-Coin1.png) more. So sure, you can turn a good (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/7/7d/Coin5.png/16px-Coin5.png) into a Gold. But that's just a consolation at that point. You can't just trash a Province with it to save your current hand, because you can't gain a Province in return.
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Through all of the back and forth in this thread, one post stood out to me above all others as being the most true -- that it's time to print it out and try different versions to see firsthand how powerful they are. :)
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Gee, of course all of this is conceptural. There doesn't exist a non-mandatory cantrip trasher (except for, very losely speaking, Ratcatcher which has the disadvantage of having to be played at the beginning of your turn) but we talk about a hypothetical, the balanced price of a hypothetical mandatory or non-mandatory cantrip trasher.
The disadvantage of mandatory cantrip trashers is that it is either a dead card as you do not wanna trash anything anymore or a risky choice (with Lookout this risk decision occurs earlier). Upgrade is a quasi non-mandatory trasher as it remodels at the same time so it dampens (if you trash a good Action card you still got it out of your current shuffle cycle so it does hurt you but not as much as having to trash the good Action card) the disadvantage of being mandatory.
So, since all of the existing cantrip trashers are mandatory, I think it's safe to say that "normal" cantrip trashing is mandatory. Having it be optional would be a bonus.
Look, I'll lay out how existing and some theoretical cantrip trashers compare.
Basic
+1 Card
+1 Action
Trash a card from your hand.
This would be a top-tier powerful $4 card, possibly too powerful to exist at that price. It would have worked at $5 (probably being just slightly below average at that price, which is still balanced). It might be powerful enough that it should cost $2, like Chapel. That said, it's probably more interesting to not have it at all, for the same reason there's no basic $4 Peddler.
Junk Dealer
This is a very powerful $5 card. It ranked 11 in the 2014 rankings, trending way up from its first appearance on the 2013 list. It could still move up more. Trashing is the big thing here.
The +$1 is a nice little bonus, but it is only a bonus. The trashing is the main point. The bonus is consistent, always useful, but never spectacular. If you trash down successfully, you rarely want to play it late game (though sometimes you may take a risk).
Upgrade
This is also a powerful $5 card. It ranked 15 last year, trending upwards from previous years even as more cards get added to the competition. What are we to make of that? Two possibilities spring to mind, and I think the real answer is a mix of both. First, people are still underestimating how powerful trashing (especially cantrip trashing) really is. As players improve in their understanding of the game, they rank the card higher. Second, each subsequent expansion makes engines even better, so trashing is actually getting more powerful.
As before, trashing is the primary function. The TfB effect is a double-edged sword. When you trash Coppers, it is no bonus at all (unless Poor House is on the board, in which csae it is usually a major drawback that rules out Upgrade entirely!). When you trash Shelters, it is usually slightly negative (you may have to gain an Estate, or a weak $2 action that could interfere with terminal draw). When you trash Estates, it can be a really nice bonus (gaining $3 engine components) or a drawback (gaining Silver when you'd actually prefer nothing at all, which is not uncommon).
Usually the Upgrade bonus is worse than the Junk Dealer bonus, since the former is nothing ~70% of the time and mixed for the other ~30% (with the 70% nothing skewing up in the face of Curses, Ruins). Sometimes, however, you can get major work out of it. In the late-game, you can trash $4s into Duchies and $7s into Province. Sometimes you can even make ridiculous and amazing Upgrade chains (especially with Fortress and a $7 around). But this is uncommon. There's a reason why Junk Dealer ranks above Upgrade.
Rats
This barely qualifies for this list. It is a mandatory trasher, but it always gains another Rats (until the pile runs out). In effect, you are just trading (hopefully junk) cards for more Rats. Since your deck size never decreases, it doesn't play the same way as the other cantrip trashers. The Rats gain is a huge negative here. But that negative can sometimes be a positive, especially if there are other TfB around.
Ratcatcher
Very new, so jury is still out on this one. However, here are some salient points:
- The trashing is delayed by at least one turn. This is a huge drawback, slowing down the trashing a lot, especially in the early game.
- It is more likely to miss the first shuffle than not, since it misses if drawn on turn 4 or 5. It will miss even more shuffles as you trash down.
- You can only use it at the start of your turn. This limits your options.
- You can only play it every other turn at most.
- To be fair, it has a nice late-game advantage. If you're done trashing with it, you can just leave it in the Tavern forever (or until you draw that stray Curse).
- Even if it is extremely powerful, note that the $2 cost is the same as the cost for Chapel. Chapel is not a weak card. The $2 price point means that everybody can open with it without the 5/2 player being horribly set back.
Non-Mandatory
+1 Card
+1 Action
You may trash a card from your hand.
This would probably be a $5 card. Early game, it is slightly worse than Junk Dealer and about on par with Upgrade in that the bonus (over the basic cantrip trasher) is nothing or neutral. Whether you prefer this or Upgrade will likely depend on Shelters or the presence of a good $3 action. Late game, this card is free to play. It doesn't have the same high potential as Upgrade, but it is consistently non-harmful. At this point of the game, it will often be better than Junk Dealer.
Set-Aside
+1 Card
+1 Action
Set aside a card from your hand.
This is the card from the OP. It is almost certainly a strong $5 card, easily beating Upgrade and quite possibly beating Junk Dealer as well.
Early game, this is on par with Upgrade as well as the Basic and Non-Mandatory trashers. All of these cards get nothing out of removing Copper, and are ~neutral with Shelters/Estates.
Now, the drawback. The -VP from Curses will still apply at the end of the game. But you still remove them from your deck, which is the biggest problem of Curses anyway. It's also partially off-set in that you will usually get to keep the 3VP of your starting Estates. And then there are all the games without Cursing, where those 3VP are just net positive.
But the bonus is even bigger than that. Since you set aside cards, you can slim down and still take advantage of cards like Gardens, Silk Road, Fairgrounds. Most importantly, you can set aside other Victory cards, like Duchies and Provinces. You can maintain a slim deck even while greening, which means you can green much earlier. This is an incredible bonus in the mid-game, and it effectively keeps you from ever reaching a late-game state since you'll just maintain your slim mid-game deck!
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My point is that "once you actually do green" with this card is practically "whenever you please". Play a few games with Distant Lands to see what i mean, and then consider the fact this is likely stronger than it.
Also, you keep talking about Curses. Now i know when we came in contact with trashing, we all first saw Curses as the main target. I can say it took me a considerable time to grasp that trashing Coppers and Estates was actually a good thing to do. Now several years passed and i'll just say this: Trashing is NOT about Curses. What about the -3 point Junk Dealer will ALWAYS cost you when comparing the two? Curses are in every other game, but you actually think Shelters are more relevant than games without Cursers? Or rather, games without Cursers you want to play yourself. I mean, all ten Curses? You plan to trash down and not use the new potential of your deck to play a Curser yourself? Ten plays, that's quite a few shuffles for such a thin deck.
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What about the -3 point Junk Dealer will ALWAYS cost you when comparing the two? Curses are in every other game, but you actually think Shelters are more relevant than games without Cursers? Or rather, games without Cursers you want to play yourself. I mean, all ten Curses? You plan to trash down and not use the new potential of your deck to play a Curser yourself? Ten plays, that's quite a few shuffles for such a thin deck.
I read this three times and still have no idea what you are talking about.
Anyway, this card will stay at 5 as I consider a mandatory cantrip trasher to be balanced at 4. Without intending to be rude, the argument brought forth that a mandatory cantrip trasher is an superstrong 4 or even a 5 is utterly ridiculous given that it would be strictly inferior to Junk Dealer and Upgrade which are also priced at 5.
If somebody has constructive input concerning the other cards I'd appreciate it.
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Anyway, this card will stay at 5 as I consider a mandatory cantrip trasher to be balanced at 4. Without intending to be rude, the argument brought forth that a mandatory cantrip trasher is an superstrong 4 or even a 5 is utterly ridiculous given that it would be strictly inferior to Junk Dealer and Upgrade which are also priced at 5.
If somebody has constructive input concerning the other cards I'd appreciate it.
If you think that a mandatory cantrip trasher isn't super strong at $4, you might not properly appreciate the power of a trim engine.
I never said that it would be appropriate to price such a card at $5. It wouldn't be, due to the existence of Junk Dealer. But that just means that it probably shouldn't exist at any price, much like the Lab+discard card that Donald X tested at $4. It should be noted that the basic cantrip trasher is absolutely not strictly inferior to Upgrade, which I explained very clearly above. And it actually isn't strictly inferior to Junk Dealer either, because of Storyteller.
Given how you refuse to seriously consider the very constructive input everybody has given about your Upgrade variant, I don't know if you'd actually appreciate more feedback. :-\
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What about the -3 point Junk Dealer will ALWAYS cost you when comparing the two? Curses are in every other game, but you actually think Shelters are more relevant than games without Cursers? Or rather, games without Cursers you want to play yourself. I mean, all ten Curses? You plan to trash down and not use the new potential of your deck to play a Curser yourself? Ten plays, that's quite a few shuffles for such a thin deck.
I read this three times and still have no idea what you are talking about.
Anyway, this card will stay at 5 as I consider a mandatory cantrip trasher to be balanced at 4. Without intending to be rude, the argument brought forth that a mandatory cantrip trasher is an superstrong 4 or even a 5 is utterly ridiculous given that it would be strictly inferior to Junk Dealer and Upgrade which are also priced at 5.
If somebody has constructive input concerning the other cards I'd appreciate it.
If you trash your starting Estates, you are three points behind compared to when you set them aside. Considering that the use of Shelters is far less likely than a game without Cursers, and that even in a game with Cursers you are unlikely to get all Curses, i find it implausible to declare the fact that set-aside cards still contribute to your score a disadvantage.
Also, as eHalcyon pointed out, the fact that a card is too weak for $5 doesn't mean that it can't be too strong for $4.
Edit: Or to try and capture his point more accurately, it's not even about being too weak for $5, just about being weaker than an existing $5. Which leaves quite some room.
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Given how you refuse to seriously consider the very constructive input everybody has given about your Upgrade variant, I don't know if you'd actually appreciate more feedback. :-\
Discussion 101: just because somebody doesn't agree with you doesn't imply that he did not think about your arguments. ::)
For practical reasons, i.e. concerning my card, this theoretical discussiont doesn't matter much as the price will be fixed at 5 anyway and all I'll do is twiddle with the bonus, respectively add a malus if you guys turn out to be right concerning how strong the card is.
PM: On a sidenote, do you have a link to the Lab+discard card you mentioned? I went through the Outtakes and did not seem to find it.
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Given how you refuse to seriously consider the very constructive input everybody has given about your Upgrade variant, I don't know if you'd actually appreciate more feedback. :-\
Discussion 101: just because somebody doesn't agree with you doesn't imply that he did not think about your arguments. ::)
No, but when you say things like this:
Without intending to be rude, the argument brought forth that a mandatory cantrip trasher is an superstrong 4 or even a 5 is utterly ridiculous given that it would be strictly inferior to Junk Dealer and Upgrade which are also priced at 5.
and brush off a thorough comparison and explanation without so much as a quote, it really seems like you don't want to consider any less-than-positive feedback.
For practical reasons, i.e. concerning my card, this theoretical discussiont doesn't matter much as the price will be fixed at 5 anyway and all I'll do is twiddle with the bonus, respectively add a malus if you guys turn out to be right concerning how strong the card is.
Upgrade and Junk Dealer are mandatory trashing with a bonus, both very strong $5s. Your set-aside card without the +$ option is already mandatory trashing with a bonus and it would be a very strong $5, just like Junk Dealer and Upgrade. Its ability to eliminate late-game choking might even push it above.
As it is, the +$ option is just needless extra power and complexity. If you drop that, then I think it would be great to start testing at $5. And from there, I would expect that it would either prove excellent at that price or need a cost increase, given its huge mid-game utility in stashing away Provinces. That, or a drop down in price to $2 a la Chapel.
PM: On a sidenote, do you have a link to the Lab+discard card you mentioned? I went through the Outtakes and did not seem to find it.
It's mentioned in the secret history of Hinterlands (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=909.0), specifically concerning Inn, and mentioned again in passing in the secret history of Dark Ages (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=4318.0), as an outtake.
I vaguely remember seeing Donald write about it as an example of a card that can't exist at any price point (being too strong for $4 but almost strictly inferior to Lab), but I can't find it now. It may have just been a comment in some regular discussion thread.
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As it is, the +$ option is just needless extra power and complexity. If you drop that, then I think it would be great to start testing at $5. And from there, I would expect that it would either prove excellent at that price or need a cost increase, given its huge mid-game utility in stashing away Provinces. That, or a drop down in price to $2 a la Chapel.
During playtesting I first want it to stay in for thematic reasons as I named my card Granary. Of course an Action card that can once during the game provide 2-6 Gold (2 if you only set aside Estates and Coppers, 6 if you also set aside Curses, Duchies, Provinces and another Victory card or a weak Action card) is strong but I like that it incentives players to set aside a variety of cards and that it makes them become sensitive to shuffle-timing issues (you want to use this quasi one-shot effect before the game ends and before you reshuffle and draw a lot of the previously set aside cards).
If the card is too strong I will drop this very bonus or add a malus.
It's mentioned in the secret history of Hinterlands (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=909.0), specifically concerning Inn, and mentioned again in passing in the secret history of Dark Ages (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=4318.0), as an outtake.
I vaguely remember seeing Donald write about it as an example of a card that can't exist at any price point (being too strong for $4 but almost strictly inferior to Lab), but I can't find it now. It may have just been a comment in some regular discussion thread.
Thanks. Even if Donald didn't say it it is definitely correct that such a card would be too weak fpr 5 and too strong for 4.
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(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/32/Coin3.png/16px-Coin3.png) - Melee Island - Action - Attack
Every other player discards a Treasure card or reveals a hand with no Treasure cards and takes his - (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f7/Coin1.png/16px-Coin1.png) Token.
Use the effects of one of the discarded Treasure cards at the beginning of your Buy phase or gain a Coin token.
I changed Melee Island as the previous Curser version was too strong. Opening with two Melee Islands might still be too abusive, especially with 3 and 4 players, but as always only playtesting will reveal this.
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Thanks. Even if Donald didn't say it it is definitely correct that such a card would be too weak fpr 5 and too strong for 4.
No, we can't say for sure that it's too weak for $5. It might be perfectly balanced at $5, though we'd need to test it to be sure. The point is that it shouldn't cost $5 because Lab exists.
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While I totally agree with you that there shouldn't exist a strictly inferior card at an identical price I'd also like to point out that the practical chances of drawing Lab and this hypothetical Lab variant are, if you play with all expansions, around 0.002-0.003.
I also think that while Trade Route is not strictle inferior to Forager it is hard to imagine an actual deck in which anybody would buy Trade Route instead of Forager.
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While I totally agree with you that there shouldn't exist a strictly inferior card at an identical price I'd also like to point out that the practical chances of drawing Lab and this hypothetical Lab variant are, if you play with all expansions, around 0.002-0.003.
I also think that while Trade Route is not strictle inferior to Forager it is hard to imagine an actual deck in which anybody would buy Trade Route instead of Forager.
Some people don't play with all expansions, including some people who own all expansions (e.g. IIRC, Donald and LastFootnote both like to choose two random expansions and taking 5 cards from each).
Alt VP gets bought, making Trade Route a big coin payload. It happens.
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While I totally agree with you that there shouldn't exist a strictly inferior card at an identical price I'd also like to point out that the practical chances of drawing Lab and this hypothetical Lab variant are, if you play with all expansions, around 0.002-0.003.
I also think that while Trade Route is not strictle inferior to Forager it is hard to imagine an actual deck in which anybody would buy Trade Route instead of Forager.
Some people don't play with all expansions, including some people who own all expansions (e.g. IIRC, Donald and LastFootnote both like to choose two random expansions and taking 5 cards from each).
Alt VP gets bought, making Trade Route a big coin payload. It happens.
Some things that help Trade Route:
Shelters and no $2 kingdom card (Might as well buy an Estate)
VP cards in general (some more than others - maybe Island or Distant Lands?)
A lot of nonterminals (so your last action is either TR or just left unspent)
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I do not think that Trade Route is a bad card. I just find it hard to imagine a LIKELY (of course anybody can come up with an extreme deck whioch contains ample of Victory cards) concrete deck with Trade Route and Forager in which anybody would buy the former instead of the latter.
So if there are two official cards which are very similar and one is virtually always inferior to the other I do not think that there would be a practical problem (unless one plays, like EHalcyon said, with a lot of cards from one set) with "discard a Card, +2 Cards, +1 Action" at 4$ or "+2 Cards, +1 Action, discard a Card" at 5.
Obviously it would still violate a fairly obvious design principle but my point is that there are ample of official cards which are weak/strong at their price.
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/7/7d/Coin5.png/16px-Coin5.png) - Granary - Action
+1 Action
Set aside a card from your hand.
OR
Gain (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f7/Coin1.png/16px-Coin1.png) for each differently named set aside card. Discard all set aside cards.
I named and changed Granary. The easiest way would have been to get rid of the bonus but I want it to remain for thematic reasons. I also like Intrigue and cards which give you options.
Now instead of being a bit too strong as before the card might be a bit too weak ... but then again the bonus is probably stronger than Harvest (you use the second option late in the game you you have already set aside Coppers, Estates and Provinces plus curses or another Victory card: so we have a rough average of 4, respectively in Shelter games 6).
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(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2a/Coin4.png/16px-Coin4.png) - Armada - Action
+5 Cards
- (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/32/Coin3.png/16px-Coin3.png)
I wanted to do a card with negative virtual coins and a terminal draw was the obvious choice. This might be too strong so the two other options I consider is to price it at 5 or to change the coins to -4.
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Shelters and no $2 kingdom card (Might as well buy an Estate)
Just to be clear, this is a bad idea unless you are specifically trying to bump up Trade Route.
I do not think that Trade Route is a bad card. I just find it hard to imagine a LIKELY (of course anybody can come up with an extreme deck whioch contains ample of Victory cards) concrete deck with Trade Route and Forager in which anybody would buy the former instead of the latter.
So if there are two official cards which are very similar and one is virtually always inferior to the other I do not think that there would be a practical problem (unless one plays, like EHalcyon said, with a lot of cards from one set) with "discard a Card, +2 Cards, +1 Action" at 4$ or "+2 Cards, +1 Action, discard a Card" at 5.
Obviously it would still violate a fairly obvious design principle but my point is that there are ample of official cards which are weak/strong at their price.
Trade Route is kind of a bad card, but situations where it beats out Forager aren't that extreme. The difference is that Trade Route would most likely end up as a mid- or late-game payload card rather than an early-game trasher.
The Lab-with-discard is too strong for $4. Donald never tested it at $5, so yes it might be fine there. It can't exist because it violates that design principle with the existence of Lab; if you don't care about the design principle, then sure, it could very well work at $5 (pending testing). I never said otherwise!
New Granary looks alright. I don't think the difference between Estates and Shelters is that much. Yes, it makes it easier to get +$2 onto a (probably) late-game play, but the main power of the card will be in the controlled stashing away of VP cards. Native Village strategy already notes the possibility of setting aside VP cards to keep your deck clear, and that's with NV's more difficult effect that takes the top of deck sight unseen. Granary allows the choice of cards from hand, which is a huge improvement on that front.
What do you mean by negative coins? This isn't covered by Dominion rules so you'll need to clarify some things. The closest example we have is Poor House, but it never goes below 0. Do you mean for Armada to go below 0? If not, then it is extremely easy to get around the penalty. If so, then you'll have to explain it more clearly. If I have -$6 when I play Poor House, do I end up with -$2, or does the Poor House text actually raise me up to $0? How does it interact with Storyteller?
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What do you mean by negative coins? This isn't covered by Dominion rules so you'll need to clarify some things.
In Dominion you accumulate all your money income, be it from Action or Treasure cards. Having a negative value in there doesn't really change anything. If you play e.g. Armada and later play 2 Coppers during your Buy phase you have a total of -1 (-3+1+1) so you cannot buy anything. If you had played a Peddler, an Armada and 2 Gold instead you'd have a total of 4 (+1-3+3+3) and could buy a card costing up to 4.
The former example or more specifically, willingly risking to get little to no or negative total coins, is by the way what I mainly worry about. In a deck which has trash for benefit, spammers or others stuff that doesn't make buying cards the first priority Armada could be too strong as you could draw a lot of cards, use them and happily forsake some coins and thus the purchase of an expensive card.
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What do you mean by negative coins? This isn't covered by Dominion rules so you'll need to clarify some things.
In Dominion you accumulate all your money income, be it from Action or Treasure cards. Having a negative value in there doesn't really change anything. If you play e.g. Armada and later play 2 Coppers during your Buy phase you have a total of -1 (-3+1+1) so you cannot buy anything. If you had played a Peddler, an Armada and 2 Gold instead you'd have a total of 4 (+1-3+3+3) and could buy a card costing up to three.
This is by the way what I mainly worry about. In a deck which has trash for benefit, spammers or others stuff that doesn't make buying cards the first priority Armada could be too strong as you could draw a lot of cards, use them and happily forsake some coins and thus the purchase of an expensive card.
But the rules aren't clear about what it actually means to have a negative amount of money. If I have -$1 in my buy phase, can I buy a Copper? One one hand no, because $0 is more than $-1. On the other hand, as a general rule, people who are in debt can still afford free stuff. And then as eHalcyon said, what happens when you play Storyteller? How do you spend $-2 money, and when you do, how do you draw -2 cards?
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What do you mean by negative coins? This isn't covered by Dominion rules so you'll need to clarify some things.
In Dominion you accumulate all your money income, be it from Action or Treasure cards. Having a negative value in there doesn't really change anything. If you play e.g. Armada and later play 2 Coppers during your Buy phase you have a total of -1 (-3+1+1) so you cannot buy anything. If you had played a Peddler, an Armada and 2 Gold instead you'd have a total of 4 (+1-3+3+3) and could buy a card costing up to three.
This is by the way what I mainly worry about. In a deck which has trash for benefit, spammers or others stuff that doesn't make buying cards the first priority Armada could be too strong as you could draw a lot of cards, use them and happily forsake some coins and thus the purchase of an expensive card.
One one hand no, because $0 is more than $-1. On the other hand, as a general rule, people who are in debt can still afford free stuff.
There are no ambiguties and negative virtual coins are actually covered by the rules:
The player may play some or all of the Treasure cards from his hand to his play area and add to their value the coins provided by Action cards played this turn. The player may then gain any card in the Supply of equal or lesser value.
And then as eHalcyon said, what happens when you play Storyteller? How do you spend $-2 money, and when you do, how do you draw -2 cards?
You'd never play Storyteller if you had to discard cards. Sure, there is Golem and Herald but if you really have a board with Golem/Herald, Storyteller and Armada you can play it as you want to, i.e. that Storyteller translates negative coins into discarding or that you do not discard anything with Storyteller.
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What do you mean by negative coins? This isn't covered by Dominion rules so you'll need to clarify some things.
In Dominion you accumulate all your money income, be it from Action or Treasure cards. Having a negative value in there doesn't really change anything. If you play e.g. Armada and later play 2 Coppers during your Buy phase you have a total of -1 (-3+1+1) so you cannot buy anything. If you had played a Peddler, an Armada and 2 Gold instead you'd have a total of 4 (+1-3+3+3) and could buy a card costing up to three.
This is by the way what I mainly worry about. In a deck which has trash for benefit, spammers or others stuff that doesn't make buying cards the first priority Armada could be too strong as you could draw a lot of cards, use them and happily forsake some coins and thus the purchase of an expensive card.
One one hand no, because $0 is more than $-1. On the other hand, as a general rule, people who are in debt can still afford free stuff.
-1<0. Basis maths, end of story.
And then as eHalcyon said, what happens when you play Storyteller? How do you spend $-2 money, and when you do, how do you draw -2 cards?
You'd never play Storyteller if you had to discard cards. Sure, there is Golem and Herald but if you really have a board with Golem/Herald, Storyteller and Armada you can play it as you want to, i.e. that Storyteller translates negative coins into discarding or that you do not discard anything with Storyteller.
Why would you have to discard cards? I mean, it may be comparable to think of discarding a card to be the same thing as drawing -1 cards, but that's certainly not any kind rule that exists in Dominion. Actually it would be more accurate to say you put a card on top of your deck, but that's still not anything that exists in the rules.
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The former is correct while the latter is not:
The player may play some or all of the Treasure cards from his hand to his play area and add to their value the coins provided by Action cards played this turn. The player may then gain any card in the Supply of equal or lesser value.
Ha, I also just looked this up myself and found the exact same thing. So yes, I suppose the rulebook does have the answer for what to do in this situation. But it would still cause uncertainty due to the real-life issue of being able to take things that cost $0 no matter how much negative money you have. But I suppose a card FAQ would be sufficient for that one.
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Why would you have to discard cards? I mean, it may be comparable to think of discarding a card to be the same thing as drawing -1 cards, but that's certainly not any kind rule that exists in Dominion. Actually it would be more accurate to say you put a card on top of your deck, but that's still not anything that exists in the rules.
As I said, for all I care you can play however you want to if this rare instance of a Golem-ed or Herald-ed Storyteller in the presence of Armada occurs.
I do not worry about improbable combos and borderline rule issues but about whether the card is balanced and whether the idea of negative virtual coins is interesting in the first place.
But it would still cause uncertainty due to the real-life issue of being able to take things that cost $0 no matter how much negative money you have.
I do not understand the FAQ and uncertainty thingy as the rules are crystal clear on this. If people have a negative total and take a Copper or a Curse they are simply playing the game wrong.
If you refer to the habbit of thinking that you can always take a Copper or a Curse, well, this might be indeed a practical problem but I think that in my playing group people would be surprised or pissed off about a negative total that they would be quite aware that they could not even buy a Copper.
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Why would you have to discard cards? I mean, it may be comparable to think of discarding a card to be the same thing as drawing -1 cards, but that's certainly not any kind rule that exists in Dominion. Actually it would be more accurate to say you put a card on top of your deck, but that's still not anything that exists in the rules.
As I said, for all I care you can play however you want to if this rare instance of a Golem-ed or Herald-ed Storyteller in the presence of Armada occurs.
I do not worry about improbable combos and borderline rule issues but about whether the card is balanced and whether the idea of negative virtual coins is interesting in the first place.
You don't need Golem or Herald at all... you only need Storyteller. When designing any fan card, the actual rules of Dominion should be considered. A person is perfectly free to play Armada followed by Storyteller. It's irrelevant to the card design why the person would choose to play Storyteller. Maybe they wanted to just play a card to trigger Peddler or Horn of Plenty, maybe they wanted to reduce handsize for a draw-to-x. Maybe they simply wanted to play it; shouldn't matter. The fact is that it is a situation that requires a new game-wide rule to be created; not just a better wording on a card.
And there's not anything automatically wrong with creating a new game-wide rule. You can rule that it's impossible to "spend" negative coins, thus Storyteller wouldn't make you spend or draw anything. You could rule that you can spend negative coins, but because you can't draw negative cards, you just don't draw. Or could could rule that drawing -1 card means discarding 1 card, but that seems really weird. The point is you have to create a new rule in Dominion.
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I do not understand the FAQ and uncertainty thingy as the rules are crystal clear on this. If people have a negative total and take a Copper or a Curse they are simply playing the game wrong.
Put it this way... I have played thousands of games of Dominion, and I had to look in the actual rulebook to discover the specific wording of the requirements to buy a card. It's possible that I'm just a special case, but I think it's reasonable to assume that the average player would also not know the specific rule about that without looking in the rulebook first.
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And there's not anything automatically wrong with creating a new game-wide rule. You can rule that it's impossible to "spend" negative coins, thus Storyteller wouldn't make you spend or draw anything. You could rule that you can spend negative coins, but because you can't draw negative cards, you just don't draw. Or could could rule that drawing -1 card means discarding 1 card, but that seems really weird. The point is you have to create a new rule in Dominion.
As I said, my priorities are first to first determine whether negative virtual coins for a hgue card draw is an interesting idea and worthwhile in the first place and second to then balance the card.
I do not really care about how you handle Storyteller with negative coins as I randomize all card so the chance that Storyteller and Armada appear in one game are a a few per mille. If you guys have a strong opinion on that I will role with it. My intuition is that negative coins should translate into drawing 0 cards but if somebody wants it to translate into discarding cards I see nothing wrong with that. All I see is that the latter makes Storyteller as well as Armada weaker when both are present.
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I do not understand the FAQ and uncertainty thingy as the rules are crystal clear on this. If people have a negative total and take a Copper or a Curse they are simply playing the game wrong.
Put it this way... I have played thousands of games of Dominion, and I had to look in the actual rulebook to discover the specific wording of the requirements to buy a card. It's possible that I'm just a special case, but I think it's reasonable to assume that the average player would also not know the specific rule about that without looking in the rulebook first.
I have played far less and I did not know the actual text of the ruls before I read them up ... but the principle of summing up all sources of money and then using it to buy card(s) which cost as much or less than this very total was obvious to me.
That you cannot buy a card which costs 0 if you have -3 is not something that need explaining unless, bluntly speaking, you are playing with a bunch of mathematical imbeciles who are unable to deal with negative numbers. As my gaming group does not consist of mathematical imbeciles I do not worry about them not understanding that -4<0.
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And there's not anything automatically wrong with creating a new game-wide rule. You can rule that it's impossible to "spend" negative coins, thus Storyteller wouldn't make you spend or draw anything. You could rule that you can spend negative coins, but because you can't draw negative cards, you just don't draw. Or could could rule that drawing -1 card means discarding 1 card, but that seems really weird. The point is you have to create a new rule in Dominion.
As I said, my priorities are first to first determine whether negative virtual coins for a hgue card draw is an interesting idea and worthwhile in the first place and second to then balance the card.
This seems reasonable; I just think that you also need to have a third priority of deciding a rule on how the card will function in any possible situation.
I do not really care about how you handle Storyteller with negative coins as I randomize all card so the chance that Storyteller and Armada appear in one game are a a few per mille.
You may do that... other people may choose to play a kingdom with Storyteller and Armada. Others may play some games with Adventures + Fan Cards.
But as an extreme/absurd example... say I made a fan card that said "+$2. If this is the third time you've played this copy of this card this turn, Frob the snatz". Then someone asks what the rules are for how to frob the snatz in case you play King's Court on the card. And I just said "I don't care how you choose to play it; in the unlikely event that it's on the board with King's Court."
If you guys have a strong opinion on that I will role with it. My intuition is that negative coins should translate into drawing 0 cards but if somebody wants it to translate into discarding cards I see nothing wrong with that. All I see is that the latter makes Storyteller as well as Armada weaker when both are present.
I definitely think you should draw 0 cards, I'm just not sure if you should have $0 money at the end of it, or still have your $-1. Because I'm not sure if it's possible to "spend $-1 money". So you either fail to spend it, and thus draw 0 cards, or you do spend it, and still draw 0 cards because you can't draw negative. I think the discarding option makes no sense, just because one thing increases your handsize and the other decreases your handsize doesn't mean that they're the same thing. As mentioned, putting a card back on top of your deck would be more similar to negative drawing than discarding would be, but even then they are simply 2 completely different things; neither is just a negative version of the other.
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I do not understand the FAQ and uncertainty thingy as the rules are crystal clear on this. If people have a negative total and take a Copper or a Curse they are simply playing the game wrong.
Put it this way... I have played thousands of games of Dominion, and I had to look in the actual rulebook to discover the specific wording of the requirements to buy a card. It's possible that I'm just a special case, but I think it's reasonable to assume that the average player would also not know the specific rule about that without looking in the rulebook first.
I have played far less and I did not know the actual text of the ruls before I read them up ... but the principle of summing up all sources of money and then using it to buy card(s) which cost as much or less than this very total was obvious to me.
That you cannot buy a card which costs 0 if you have -3 is not something that need explaining unless, bluntly speaking, you are playing with a bunch of mathematical imbeciles who are unable to deal with negative numbers. As my gaming group does not consist of mathematical imbeciles I do not worry about them not understanding that -4<0.
You were assuming already that the rules deal with math in this case. There could have very easily have been a rule, or even just a clarification in the rules, that states "you can always buy a copper even if you don't have any money."
Again, think about real life. Basic math says that if you have $0, you cannot buy something that costs $1. If you have $5, you cannot buy something that costs $7. But if you have $-10, you CAN buy something that costs $0. Once you're talking about things that cost $0, basic math no longer applies to buying things in real life.
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You were assuming already that the rules deal with math in this case. There could have very easily have been a rule, or even just a clarification in the rules, that states "you can always buy a copper even if you don't have any money."
I were not assuming anything, I just seem to have understood the principles of the rules well enough to apply them appropriately for this card.( Now about how individual cards combo with others, well, like in all combo-intense card games I have to read that stuff up during games.)
If there had been such a rule I would have remembered it as it would have been a fairly nasty example of a badly written rule. But DXV writes decent rulebooks with general principles instead of exceptions over exceptions (card games feature ample of exceptions in the individual card section of the rules), hence ≤ instead of "you can always buy a Copper".
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Shelters and no $2 kingdom card (Might as well buy an Estate)
Just to be clear, this is a bad idea unless you are specifically trying to bump up Trade Route.
Why? Would you say buying an Estate (over nothing) to replace Hovel is that much worse than waiting to replace it with a Province? I think it hardly matters if you have trashers in the kingdom, either way.
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Shelters and no $2 kingdom card (Might as well buy an Estate)
Just to be clear, this is a bad idea unless you are specifically trying to bump up Trade Route.
Why? Would you say buying an Estate (over nothing) to replace Hovel is that much worse than waiting to replace it with a Province? I think it hardly matters if you have trashers in the kingdom, either way.
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=11388.0
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=8231.0
2 of the threads where this has been discussed at length; I know there's more too.
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I do not worry about improbable combos and borderline rule issues but about whether the card is balanced and whether the idea of negative virtual coins is interesting in the first place.
Good for you, and you're welcome to continue doing things that way. But you do need to keep in mind you're talking to people on a forum where the rulings for several official cards have been decided, and in some cases overturned, because of logical issues or gaps in the rules. And that's even after the designer of the game took significant care himself to make sure the rules were as simple and comprehensive as he could make them. So for many of us, "play it however you want" doesn't work - if something behaves ambiguously or counter to our intuition, we want to tighten it up so that it works. Which is not to say that when we argue for an altered wording or ruling on your card that we think it's bad - actually, I'd say that expressing interest in making the card work shows that we think the core concept has potential but that we want it in a form that we would feel comfortable including in a Kingdom.
And on that note, in addition to the Armada-Storyteller issue, there's also the Armada-Poor House one. If I have $-5 and I play a Poor House with 1 Treasure in hand, do I now have $-1, $-2 or $0? Same situation, but with no Treasures in hand - do I have $-1 or $0?
For that matter, I'm actually not convinced that the interpretation of Armada-Storyteller is right. If I have negative coins, how can I spend them in the first place? I would think it more likely that you have no available coins to spend, hence you would draw no cards and your coin total would stay the same.
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Just to be totally clear, I wasn't saying that having negative coins is necessarily a bad thing. I was only reminding you of cases where it's ambiguous, for which you should provide clarifications. If you don't care about and/or want to ignore these cases entirely, more power to you, but it's something that actually matters for the game. Like, if you don't want even this level of feedback, what exactly are you looking for?
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And on that note, in addition to the Armada-Storyteller issue, there's also the Armada-Poor House one. If I have $-5 and I play a Poor House with 1 Treasure in hand, do I now have $-1, $-2 or $0? Same situation, but with no Treasures in hand - do I have $-1 or $0?
There is no issue. Poor House does not lead to negative virtual coins (it is the only card with a minus sign in front of virtual coins but this is only used for internal calculation), it leads to virtual coins between 0 and 4. There is no interaction between Armada and Poor House as Poor House interacts with Treasure and not with Action cards. So in the first case you get -5+3=-2 and in the second -5+4=-1.
For that matter, I'm actually not convinced that the interpretation of Armada-Storyteller is right. If I have negative coins, how can I spend them in the first place? I would think it more likely that you have no available coins to spend, hence you would draw no cards and your coin total would stay the same.
Sounds totally reasonable.
But as I already said, for all I care folks could play (not that anybody besides me would ever play with this card in the first place) this unlikely combo however they wished to. I am all for decent rules but in the case of combo-intense card games there are always card interactions that are ambiguous or unclear and if they do not occur frequently it is not something I worry about until it actually happens.
Again, what matters far more from a practical perspective is whether the non-convexity that this very card introduces, willingly forsaking coins and thus the purchase of cards and instead using Armada to draw many card and then play actions card that gain cards or spam or whatever, will break Armada or not.
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Just to be totally clear, I wasn't saying that having negative coins is necessarily a bad thing. I was only reminding you of cases where it's ambiguous, for which you should provide clarifications. If you don't care about and/or want to ignore these cases entirely, more power to you, but it's something that actually matters for the game. Like, if you don't want even this level of feedback, what exactly are you looking for?
I already said several times that I first care about whether the idea is interesting. Then I care about whether the non-convexity breaks the card or not. If it doesn't I care about making the card balanced (price and negative coins are the obvious paramaters to change).
Then we can talk about rule issues. So far the only rule issue that occured (the other stuff was just mathematical weakness: having issues with a card which provides negative virtual coins and the resulting summing up of not merely positive numbers and lack of understanding of how Poor House works, specifically that it interacts with Treasure and not with Action cards and that the negative sign in front of a coin is used for internal calculation and does not lead to net negative coins but rather values between 0 and 4) is with Storyteller and ConMan already solved that: you cannot spend negative coins.
But even if this rule issue had not been solved I could not have cared less about it as it is an extremely unlikely combo that occurs in a few games among thousands and so it is of little to no practical relevance. As I already indicated above we have a bit of a game-idelogical difference here, mathematicians vs lawyers: I care more about technical-analytical stuff, whether the card works in general, and you more about rule tightness, whether you could play smoothly with it in all decks without facing any rule questions.
Now that the only rule question has been solved by ConMan to the technical-analytical stuff and the non-convexity problem. How frequently do you guys who have played the game far more often than me guesstimate that decks in which you can forsake card purchases and instead use more spammers or gainers or whatever during the middlegame (it is clear that the card is inferior to Smithy in the opening.) occur? This is what I guess Armada might do, of course you could also use it normally once you have enough coin generation in your deck to counteract Armada's negative coins.
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If i play Armada and then a Poor House with 4 Treasure cards in hand, do i have $0?
I'll just state Donald had a reason to introduce the "-$1" token instead of having Bridge Troll say "At the start of his next turn, each other player gets -$1". It avoids exactly the issues people are talking about, and many more that might come up in the future or with translated versions of Dominion.
I know you make this card for yourself, and that's fine. You can make any card you like. Just don't expect people to be thrilled by something that breaks Dominion's design standards - especially if a cleaner implementation is allready available.
Having said that, i think nothing's generally wrong with the concept of a card that uses up your money for draw. Some suggestions:
Armada, $5
+3 Cards
Spend up to $2 you have. +1 Cards per $ spent.
Or:
Armada, $5
+3 Cards
Take your -$1 token. If you do: +2 Cards
Or:
Armada, $4
+5 Cards
When you do your first buy this turn, you may spend $3. If you don't, trash this.
Of course, they all are all a bit redundant to Storyteller, but that's of course because the general concept is the same.
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If i play Armada and then a Poor House with 4 Treasure cards in hand, do i have $0?
To quote myself: "There is no interaction between Armada and Poor House as Poor House interacts with Treasure and not with Action cards."
Armada provides - 3, Poor House with 4 treasures 0 and the sum of that is -3.
I'll just state Donald had a reason to introduce the "-$1" token instead of having Bridge Troll say "At the start of his next turn, each other player gets -$1". It avoids exactly the issues people are talking about, and many more that might come up in the future or with translated versions of Dominion.
There are no issues except with Storyteller and this is already solved.
The -1 Coin token exists for tracking reasons (the negative coins from Ball and Bridge Troll happen in the next turn whereas Armada happens in the current turn), not because it achieves something fundamentally mechanically different from -1 Coin. ::)
The only slight difference is that a hypothetical card with "take your -1 coin token" that applies during the current turn only triggers in the current turn if you play a card which generated coins whereas "-1 coin" provides the negative coins immediately. So the former is slightly nastier than the latter.
I know you make this card for yourself, and that's fine. You can make any card you like. Just don't expect people to be thrilled by something that breaks Dominion's design standards - especially if a cleaner implementation is allready-available.
Armada does not break any design standards. If people do not understand how Poor House works or have problems with summing up positive as well as negative numbers that is their problem.
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If i play Armada and then a Poor House with 4 Treasure cards in hand, do i have $0?
To quote myself: "There is no interaction between Armada and Poor House as Poor House interacts with Treasure and not with Action cards."
Armada provides - 3, Poor House with 4 treasures 0 and the sum of that is -3.
That is plain wrong. Say I have $-4. I play Poor House with 4 Treasures. First instruction on Poor House: +$4. Cool, now I have $0. Then: "Reveal your hand. -$1 per Treasure revealed, To a minimum of $0." I cannot go below $0, which is already where I'm at, so the final outcome is $0.
You are awfully arrogant for someone who doesn't even bother reading card texts.
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That is plain wrong. Say I have $-4. I play Poor House with 4 Treasures. First instruction on Poor House: +$4. Cool, now I have $0. Then: "Reveal your hand. -$1 per Treasure revealed, To a minimum of $0." I cannot go below $0, which is already where I'm at, so the final outcome is $0.
You are awfully arrogant for someone who doesn't even bother reading card texts.
Thanks for the insult.
My mistake, I thought that Poor House provides 0-4 Coins and cannot subtract coins from previously played cards.
Well, I guess that Poor House then mitigates the negative effects of Armada so it could be a potentially powerful combo.
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To quote myself: "There is no interaction between Armada and Poor House as Poor House interacts with Treasure and not with Action cards."
Armada provides - 3, Poor House with 4 treasures 0 and the sum of that is -3.
Quoting a wrong statement doesn't make it right. Poor House can in fact cost you money. If i play Festival and then get -$6 for Poor House, i have $0, not $2. Only the sum you are left with is set to a minimum of $0, not what Poor House provides. So, Armada gives me -$3, Poor House makes it +$1, then decreases it to a lower level of $0. The fact that you misunderstand that shows that you are unaware of the rules implications your card causes, and/or the mechanics and thoughts behind existing cards such as Storyteller, Poor House and Bridge Troll.
The issue with Storyteller is "resolved" in that you made up a special rule. That's inelegant at least. Also the question whether you can buy Copper appears in every game Armada is in. You can't buy Copper, you say? That sucks, because you are supposed to always be able to buy Copper as a last resort. So it's your single sentence in the rulebook of a game that never has negative coins vs a design constant.
The fact that the token waits until you make a coin alone makes it mechanically different. As it never gets your total below zero and avoids your need for on-the-spot ruling, it's obviously also much better. Notice how it still allows buying $0 costs? Well, what'cha say about that. I may also mention that Bridge would technically make Transmute cost -$1 and a Potion if you went strictly by its wording, as that's not less than $0. It doesn't, though. Why? Because Dominion is not supposed to have negative numbers. You can break that rule, and you can make cards that require people to shoot meeples with a catapult, or whatever you want. Just don't claim it lives up to Dominion's design standards, because it doesn't.
Ninja'd by faust.
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Negative prices make no economic sense which is why they do not exist which is why your Transmute example is nonsensical.
Really wouldn't hurt the rule lawyer faction to get some mathematical, economic or technical understanding. I care about whether the non-convexity of my card leads to interesting decisions, not about whether the lawyer faction gets pissed off by it because it doesn't match their narrow view of what Dominion is supposed to have or not have. Any game designer, including Donald X, would laugh off his butt if he read the narrow-minded rule lawyer nonsense of guys like you. If an idea is interesting you change the rules to make it work (not that my card needs any rule changes, just a normal FAQ for two card combos so far).
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So, you think you speak for Donald X and when critizised by several people for the same issue smugly claim they are just "pissed off".
Please, completely unfamiliar fan card creator, forgive me talKing.
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Wait...if you have -3 coins, and Poor House gives you zero coins (because you have four treasures), isn't -3+0 still -3?
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Wait...if you have -3 coins, and Poor House gives you zero coins (because you have four treasures), isn't -3+0 still -3?
Poor House doesn't just give you 0 coins. It gives you 4 and subsequently decreases your total to a minimum of $0.
Which leaves the question, what do i get if i play two Armadas and then a -$X Poor House?
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Wait...if you have -3 coins, and Poor House gives you zero coins (because you have four treasures), isn't -3+0 still -3?
Poor House doesn't just give you 0 coins. It gives you 4 and subsequently decreases your total to a minimum of $0.
Which leaves the question, what do i get if i play two Armadas and then a -$X Poor House?
After reading the card, it looks to me (keep in mind that I am a huge noob and I've never read a rule book cover to cover) like Poor House would put your coin total back up to zero, as zero is the minimum number you can have after playing Poor House.
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As a general game design note, negative numbers are way harder for the average person to consistently correctly use than you would expect. It's one of the hurdles I personally had to overcome, understanding that. It's easy to forget that, by designing for the "average" person, that you're already excluding half of the population, and so you have to design for simpler than the "average" person to cast a wider net.
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Really wouldn't hurt the rule lawyer faction to get some mathematical [...] understanding.
Yes, that's right. I hope that once I finish my Master's degree in mathematics in 6 months time, I will finally have sufficient mathematical understanding to see that Poor House does in fact not work the way it is written on the card. I'm looking forward to that day.
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This thread is quickly becoming the Bomb.
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If someone wants to ignore a single design standard, then fine. Tristan appears to be fine with cards without a clear consistent application of the rules. If he's fine with that weakness we can talk about the other traits of the card. Don't criticize things for not being what they weren't trying to be.
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If someone wants to ignore a single design standard, then fine. Tristan appears to be fine with cards without a clear consistent application of the rules. If he's fine with that weakness we can talk about the other traits of the card. Don't criticize things for not being what they weren't trying to be.
Agreed. Though there's a difference between saying:
"I understand that there's potential rules issues or clarifications that are needed with this card. But let's not go into that at the moment, because I'd rather figure out if the concept itself is a good idea, and if it's balanced. Potential rules issues could be discussed later if this idea is something that looks good on paper."
And:
"There's no rules issues here unless you're just an idiot at math, or you don't understand basic concepts! I always play full random so there's no point in discussing what would happen if 2 particular cards are both in the set anyway. My design is perfectly consistent with all the other things in Dominion, and if you don't agree then you're just being an overly picky rules lawyer!"
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Wow. When it turns out that you were completely wrong about something (i.e. Poor House), the appropriate reaction isn't to call everybody else pissed off rules lawyers who lack economic, mathematical and technical knowledge. Especially not when you just spent a page touting your own superior understanding of game principles while those people patiently tried to correct your mistake.
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Wow. When it turns out that you were completely wrong about something (i.e. Poor House), the appropriate reaction isn't to call everybody else pissed off rules lawyers who lack economic, mathematical and technical knowledge. Especially not when you just spent a page touting your own superior understanding of game principles while those people patiently tried to correct your mistake.
I've been there. There are these fools called like Wanderwinder and Stef who try to tell me Scout is a bad card. But I showed them! ::)
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Please, completely unfamiliar fan card creator, forgive me talKing.
Oh, an argument from authority. Love it when people disqualify themselves so quickly with unscientific nonsense. Guess you must be the well reknown king of fan cards creators. ;D
Really wouldn't hurt the rule lawyer faction to get some mathematical [...] understanding.
Yes, that's right. I hope that once I finish my Master's degree in mathematics in 6 months time, I will finally have sufficient mathematical understanding to see that Poor House does in fact not work the way it is written on the card. I'm looking forward to that day.
Being familiar with all the rules and card interactions in the game is fine but it has nothing to do with what I wanna do in the first place, analyze whether the cards works in GENERAL.
So if you have something to contribute besides rule lawyering and unfriendliness and can adress the nonconvexity issue which this cards creates in all games, as opposed to a few in a thousand games in which it appears together with Poor House, I'd appreciate it.
If someone wants to ignore a single design standard, then fine. Tristan appears to be fine with cards without a clear consistent application of the rules. If he's fine with that weakness we can talk about the other traits of the card. Don't criticize things for not being what they weren't trying to be.
Can you tell me where the design standard "no negative virtual coins" is actually written or implied? Thanks.
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Please, completely unfamiliar fan card creator, forgive me talKing.
Oh, an argument from authority. Love it when people disqualify themselves so quickly with unscientific nonsense. Guess you must be the well reknown king of fan cards creators. ;D
Compared to you, yes.
Really wouldn't hurt the rule lawyer faction to get some mathematical [...] understanding.
Yes, that's right. I hope that once I finish my Master's degree in mathematics in 6 months time, I will finally have sufficient mathematical understanding to see that Poor House does in fact not work the way it is written on the card. I'm looking forward to that day.
Being familiar with all the rules and card interactions in the game is fine but it has nothing to do with what I wanna do in the first place, analyze whether the cards works in GENERAL.
So if you have something to contribute besides rule lawyering and unfriendliness and can adress the nonconvexity issue which this cards creates in all games, as opposed to a few in a thousand games in which it appears together with Poor House, I'd appreciate it.
If someone wants to ignore a single design standard, then fine. Tristan appears to be fine with cards without a clear consistent application of the rules. If he's fine with that weakness we can talk about the other traits of the card. Don't criticize things for not being what they weren't trying to be.
Can you tell me where the design standard "no negative virtual coins" is actually written or implied? Thanks.
Just so you know, there isn't a single person who agrees with you so far. You're completely losing this argument, just like you are being a total jerk. Sorry we didn't give your cards lots of praise, your highness.
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Please, completely unfamiliar fan card creator, forgive me talKing.
Oh, an argument from authority. Love it when people disqualify themselves so quickly with unscientific nonsense. Guess you must be the well reknown king of fan cards creators. ;D
It's not an argument from authority. It's me subtly implying that i think you are the same guy who behaved like a jerk before in the King-thread (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=13522.msg506963#msg506963), and who later created a new account (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=13818.msg521140#msg521140) to discuss his cards untainted from past misdeeds. Apparently i was too subtle.
I mean, really? Ignoring valid critizism? Telling us how real game designers would look down on us? How "pissed off" we are because of your cleverness? I just plain refuse to believe that fds was unlucky enough to have been struck twice with the curse of an insufferably arrogant individual like you joining the forums in such a short time.
Back then i was willing to let it slide and give you another chance, but if you think you can just keep switching usernames over and over so you can be a twit again every time, i'm not playing along with your silly little game.
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Just so you know, there isn't a single person who agrees with you so far. You're completely losing this argument, just like you are being a total jerk. Sorry we didn't give your cards lots of praise, your highness.
Pretty sure Xerxes agreed with him. Well, sort of anyway. He agreed that it's ok to not worry about all the rules interactions; I guess no one agrees that there aren't any unclear rules interactions.
Anyway, I don't think this sort of comment is constructive. Tristan is a new member here. I'll agree some of his comments have come across as hostile, but it's not like he seems like a troll or something. He just didn't know how to respond to getting unexpected responses to his posts. I think we all should try to be a bit more welcoming.
On that note, welcome tristan! I hope that your experience in this thread doesn't turn you off from our board. I've found it to be one of the more friendly places on the internet, though perhaps that's not saying much!
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Please, completely unfamiliar fan card creator, forgive me talKing.
Oh, an argument from authority. Love it when people disqualify themselves so quickly with unscientific nonsense. Guess you must be the well reknown king of fan cards creators. ;D
It's not an argument from authority. It's me subtly implying that i think you are the same guy who behaved like a jerk before in the King-thread (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=13522.msg506963#msg506963), and who later created a new account (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=13818.msg521140#msg521140) to discuss his cards untainted from past misdeeds. Apparently i was too subtle.
I mean, really? Ignoring valid critizism? Telling us how real game designers would look down on us? How "pissed off" we are because of your cleverness? I just plain refuse to believe that fds was unlucky enough to have been struck twice with the curse of an insufferably arrogant individual like you joining the forums in such a short time.
Back then i was willing to let it slide and give you another chance, but if you think you can just keep switching usernames over and over so you can be a twit again every time, i'm not playing along with your silly little game.
If this is correct then obviously my other post is void. But how do you know?
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Please, completely unfamiliar fan card creator, forgive me talKing.
Oh, an argument from authority. Love it when people disqualify themselves so quickly with unscientific nonsense. Guess you must be the well reknown king of fan cards creators. ;D
It's not an argument from authority. It's me subtly implying that i think you are the same guy who behaved like a jerk before in the King-thread (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=13522.msg506963#msg506963), and who later created a new account (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=13818.msg521140#msg521140) to discuss his cards untainted from past misdeeds. Apparently i was too subtle.
I mean, really? Ignoring valid critizism? Telling us how real game designers would look down on us? How "pissed off" we are because of your cleverness? I just plain refuse to believe that fds was unlucky enough to have been struck twice with the curse of an insufferably arrogant individual like you joining the forums in such a short time.
Back then i was willing to let it slide and give you another chance, but if you think you can just keep switching usernames over and over so you can be a twit again every time, i'm not playing along with your silly little game.
If this is correct then obviously my other post is void. But how do you know?
I don't. What i know is that:
- horatio83 did create an alternate username before. He accidentally logged in as the old one when posting about "his" cards in this thread (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=13818.msg521140#msg521140). He erased his post after being asked about it, but it's still in gkrieg13's quote.
- Tristan behaves the same as horatio83. It's a lot of little things, like using "pissed off" as a last resort to disqualify critics. How he claims other's concerns are secondary. How he arrogantly states that critics simply lack expertise to even say anything about his ideas. But the most blatant point would be how he tries to make a point by stating what he thinks "real game designers" would think of us, and that they'd share his opinion.
So, no i don't know, as i can't prove it. I just think it's awfully unlikely i'm wrong.
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I actually thought it might be horatio as well, because they both brought up the idea of convexity. I've never seen anyone else talk about it wrt Dominion cards. But tristan was talking about non-convexity of effects(?) while horatio went on about convexity of costs, so not quite the same. Without being able to know for sure, I ignored it.
This thread on its own is plenty mind-boggling. Criticising someone of argument from authority when he was basically doing the same thing with the "you're all bad at science and math" comments... the hypocrisy and lack of self-awareness is astounding.
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Ya I was pretty sure who it was at the beginning of the thread, but now I agree with Asper and am sure it's gotta be horatio.
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I don't know who this horatio guy is, but if I claim to be him do I have a shot at getting banned?
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I don't know who this horatio guy is, but if I claim to be him do I have a shot at getting banned?
It's probably ErrinF.
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\
If someone wants to ignore a single design standard, then fine. Tristan appears to be fine with cards without a clear consistent application of the rules. If he's fine with that weakness we can talk about the other traits of the card. Don't criticize things for not being what they weren't trying to be.
Can you tell me where the design standard "no negative virtual coins" is actually written or implied? Thanks.
All cards that reduce the price of cards make sure they can't go negative; all cards that use the -$1 token make sure people can't go into negative money; Poor House, the only card to give negative coins, makes sure they can't go below 0; negative numbers are not seen on any card.
It's written down, but not in text, but in the very game itself.
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I don't know who this horatio guy is, but if I claim to be him do I have a shot at getting banned?
It's probably ErrinF.
Is that the "Bomb"-guy? Although it was before my time, his tale sounded rather familiar.
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I kind of sympathize with people creating alt-accounts - I was really tempted to do it once when everyone in a forum was semi-blatantly bullying me (in a way that would be obvious to an 3rd party - like I want to mod a Mafia game, literally none joins; there's a loophole in the rules to my setup, I'm almost banned (saved by the site mod) when I try to enforce it the way it was obviously intended; games I'm in have the "random" numbers fudged against me (like I roll a d20 15 times in a row, they're all 1s)).
This isn't that germane to the current conversation, but I definitely think alt-accounts are not as immoral as most people on here think they are. It can be a way to check if there's prejudice or not. (If this is the same person, it definitely proves the "problem" is on his side - the quality of the cards, not the username, matters to us)
PPE: The concept of an alt-treasure that destroys itself is actually a really good concept. I tried to revamp his cards, but the only one that really worked out was Bomb, changed from "Trash a card in your hand and this" to "+2 Cards; Trash any number of cards in your hand and this."
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I don't know who this horatio guy is, but if I claim to be him do I have a shot at getting banned?
It's probably ErrinF.
Is that the "Bomb"-guy? Although it was before my time, his tale sounded rather familiar.
The Bomb thing was just over a year ago. And yes, it was ErrinF.
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I don't know who this horatio guy is, but if I claim to be him do I have a shot at getting banned?
It's probably ErrinF.
Is that the "Bomb"-guy? Although it was before my time, his tale sounded rather familiar.
The Bomb thing was just over a year ago. And yes, it was ErrinF.
Huh, then i just totally missed that. I checked out the thread once to see what the talk was about, but never looked at the date.
I kind of sympathize with people creating alt-accounts - I was really tempted to do it once when everyone in a forum was semi-blatantly bullying me (in a way that would be obvious to an 3rd party - like I want to mod a Mafia game, literally none joins; there's a loophole in the rules to my setup, I'm almost banned (saved by the site mod) when I try to enforce it the way it was obviously intended; games I'm in have the "random" numbers fudged against me (like I roll a d20 15 times in a row, they're all 1s)).
This isn't that germane to the current conversation, but I definitely think alt-accounts are not as immoral as most people on here think they are. It can be a way to check if there's prejudice or not. (If this is the same person, it definitely proves the "problem" is on his side - the quality of the cards, not the username, matters to us)
PPE: The concept of an alt-treasure that destroys itself is actually a really good concept. I tried to revamp his cards, but the only one that really worked out was Bomb, changed from "Trash a card in your hand and this" to "+2 Cards; Trash any number of cards in your hand and this."
I do agree there's nothing wrong with it generally. If you don't feel good anymore, i tend to say you should be allowed to make a cut and start anew.
Sadly, by now it seems that horatio83/bobanillic/Tristan/ErrinF is intentionally abusing this feature to insult people without having to face the consequences. That's why i called him out on it.
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I don't think there's any proof though? And without proof, the speculation is irrelevant and unfair as far as I'm concerned.
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I dunno man, I've heard the word convex like 9 times in my life and it's an internet forum not a court of law.
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Well I don't think tristan sounds like ErrinF really at all.
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Is it becoming a new sort of forum game to see how quickly we as a community can correctly guess that a new person bringing in fan cards to the forum is actually just Horatio83 again? Because if it is, I'm all in. Sounds fun and I can't wait for the next account.
This account is found out Horatio. Better try again when you come up with some new fan cards 8)
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Well I don't think tristan sounds like ErrinF really at all.
That's because I am ErrinF
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Well I don't think tristan sounds like ErrinF really at all.
That's because I am ErrinF
That's because we're all Wandering Winder.
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Guys, opening alt accounts is awesome! Everybody should do it! Accountability is for suckers!
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Guys, opening alt accounts is awesome! Everybody should do it! Accountability is for suckers!
Since when have you had a Magpie avatar?
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Guys, opening alt accounts is awesome! Everybody should do it! Accountability is for suckers!
Since when have you had a Magpie avatar?
It's my divine birthright!
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Guys, opening alt accounts is awesome! Everybody should do it! Accountability is for suckers!
How do you already have 46 respect?
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Guys, opening alt accounts is awesome! Everybody should do it! Accountability is for suckers!
How do you already have 46 respect?
Mostly because of this brilliant post:
LOL ENGINES SUCK!
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All cards that reduce the price of cards make sure they can't go negative; all cards that use the -$1 token make sure people can't go into negative money; Poor House, the only card to give negative coins, makes sure they can't go below 0; negative numbers are not seen on any card.
Of course prices cannot be negative. But I fail to see why negative coins should be a problem.
Asper made the point that people should always be able to buy Copper so one could easily FAQ Armada and add the little rule that if Armada leads to a total sum which is negative it is automatically put to 0 at the beginning of your Buy phase.
The idea of the card is after all not to prevent people from buying Copper but a simple trade-off between cash and cards and the resulting incentive to either buy the card fairly lately (when you have good enough cards that are able to compensate for -3) or to forsake buying expensive cards for a few turns and use an engine with spammers and gain cards and so on.
On that note, welcome tristan! I hope that your experience in this thread doesn't turn you off from our board. I've found it to be one of the more friendly places on the internet, though perhaps that's not saying much!
Thanks. I am well aware that I was not the friendliest guy in this thread but I do not think that it warranted the level of hostility leveled against me so I am definitely put off by this place.
I will probably still check in from time to time to see if there are some analytical posts that help me to improve my cards (e.g. EHalcyon helped me to understand cantrip trashers better) but after all the ad hominems in here I will most likely merely discuss them with the folks in my playing group.
Thanks again for your kind words.
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As a general game design note, negative numbers are way harder for the average person to consistently correctly use than you would expect. It's one of the hurdles I personally had to overcome, understanding that. It's easy to forget that, by designing for the "average" person, that you're already excluding half of the population, and so you have to design for simpler than the "average" person to cast a wider net.
One the one hand you are right, Dominion is a family game so its target group should include people who have issues with 6th grade maths. But on the other hand I seriouly doubt that I could not explain this card to my 11 year old cousin who is playing Dominion. Something like "it is just a negative Gold" or "you gotta add together all your coins as usual but then you gotta subtract Armada's 3 from them" is really not that complicated.
There are definitely far more compley cards out there. Possession is fairly simple rule-wise but it is definitely a bit of a mind-twister to think through it.
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(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2a/Coin4.png/16px-Coin4.png) - Settlement - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
Take an Action token.
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You can play an Action token during your Action phase to get +1 Action.
Here is another idea I am playing around with. I find it pretty tricky to come up with a new Village, there are after all already so many, but if you play with some fan cards you gotta make sure that the Village density during randomizing does not get too low, hence my motivation to do a Village.
The idea is fairly simple, it is like a vanilla Village but you can postpone the extra Action to whenever via a token. Not the most exciting thing in the world and perhaps a pretty stupid idea as it reduces randomness ... and not just pointless randomness. Iny my opinion not drawing your village when you need it despite feeling that you have a decent village density in your deck (or more generally, not drawing cards that match) and the resulting mild frustration are an essential game feeling of Dominion.
On the other hand Coin tokens did not ruin the game via getting rid of the "I have 7$ !!!" frustration.
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As usual, eHalcyon is the voice of reason. Ah well, i guess i lose nothing by it.
Of course prices cannot be negative. But I fail to see why negative coins should be a problem.
Asper made the point that people should always be able to buy Copper so one could easily FAQ Armada and add the little rule that if Armada leads to a total sum which is negative it is automatically put to 0 at the beginning of your Buy phase.
If you do it at the start of your buy phase, Treasures are (usually) unaffected by Armada. You might find a wording that triggers between playing your last Treasure and buying a card, but then you could also just have Armada's entire -$3 delayed until then, with the same lower bound of $0 Poor House has. It would have the same effect without the Poor House or Storyteller interaction.
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All cards that reduce the price of cards make sure they can't go negative; all cards that use the -$1 token make sure people can't go into negative money; Poor House, the only card to give negative coins, makes sure they can't go below 0; negative numbers are not seen on any card.
Of course prices cannot be negative. But I fail to see why negative coins should be a problem.
Asper made the point that people should always be able to buy Copper so one could easily FAQ Armada and add the little rule that if Armada leads to a total sum which is negative it is automatically put to 0 at the beginning of your Buy phase.
The idea of the card is after all not to prevent people from buying Copper but a simple trade-off between cash and cards and the resulting incentive to either buy the card fairly lately (when you have good enough cards that are able to compensate for -3) or to forsake buying expensive cards for a few turns and use an engine with spammers and gain cards and so on.
The thing, you can reverse engineer the principles of dominion by looking at the cards that have been designed. So, for example, why does Poor House not let your money go below $0? It can't be to make it better when you have lots of treasure in hand, because in that case you just wouldn't play it. The only sensible reason is that negative numbers are for some reason not good. The -1 Card and -$1 tokens are another example - the way they work is very similar to negative cards or coins, but they are designed so that that never happens.
Since all of Dominion has been designed purposely to not have negative numbers, it makes sense to stay with that trend.
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(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2a/Coin4.png/16px-Coin4.png) - Settlement - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
Take an Action token.
--------------------------
You can play an Action token during your Action phase to get +1 Action.
Here is another idea I am playing around with. I find it pretty tricky to come up with a new Village, there are after all already so many, but if you play with some fan cards you gotta make sure that the Village density during randomizing does not get too low, hence my motivation to do a Village.
The idea is fairly simple, it is like a vanilla Village but you can postpone the extra Action to whenever via a token. Not the most exciting thing in the world and perhaps a pretty stupid idea as it reduces randomness ... and not just pointless randomness. Iny my opinion not drawing your village when you need it despite feeling that you have a decent village density in your deck (or more generally, not drawing cards that match) and the resulting mild frustration are an essential game feeling of Dominion.
On the other hand Coin tokens did not ruin the game via getting rid of the "I have 7$ !!!" frustration.
The idea is fine and something that I (and probably many others) thought of when Guilds' coin towns were revealed (along with Buy tokens, of course). I personally think that Coin of the Realm covers the same concept better (saved action for when you need it) in that it doesn't require extra tokens and works somewhat differently than coin tokens, thus being unique and more interesting.
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(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2a/Coin4.png/16px-Coin4.png) - Settlement - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
Take an Action token.
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You can play an Action token during your Action phase to get +1 Action.
Here is another idea I am playing around with. I find it pretty tricky to come up with a new Village, there are after all already so many, but if you play with some fan cards you gotta make sure that the Village density during randomizing does not get too low, hence my motivation to do a Village.
The idea is fairly simple, it is like a vanilla Village but you can postpone the extra Action to whenever via a token. Not the most exciting thing in the world and perhaps a pretty stupid idea as it reduces randomness ... and not just pointless randomness. Iny my opinion not drawing your village when you need it despite feeling that you have a decent village density in your deck (or more generally, not drawing cards that match) and the resulting mild frustration are an essential game feeling of Dominion.
On the other hand Coin tokens did not ruin the game via getting rid of the "I have 7$ !!!" frustration.
The idea is fine and something that I (and probably many others) thought of when Guilds' coin towns were revealed (along with Buy tokens, of course). I personally think that Coin of the Realm covers the same concept better (saved action for when you need it) in that it doesn't require extra tokens and works somewhat differently than coin tokens, thus being unique and more interesting.
Agreed. Also Settlement is almost strictly better than Walled Village.
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By the way, I think having straight up negative coin is fine as long as it is clear how it works (which it wasn't when Armada was first posted, which is why I asked). Interaction with cards like Poor House and Storyteller need to be explained, and whether you're allowed to buy $0 cards while below $0 (the basic rules suggest you can't, but that is economically nonsensical; the rules were written with the idea that going negative would never happen; it's a design principle that Copper can always be bought).
The biggest issue is that it will be confusing to many people who will consider Bridge, Poor House, etc. and assume, not unreasonably, that it means you can never go below $0. Dominion doesn't have a concept of debt in the rules but it does say that you resolve the card as best you can when you play it. If a card tells me to discard and I have nothing left in hand, I just don't discard. It doesn't save the discard until I draw again later (e.g. in the same turn with Golem). So a reasonable interpretation of -$3 is to just pay $3 immediately if possible, but only down to flat broke 0 and ignore it otherwise.
If you don't mind the potential for confusion and clarify all those interactions, I think it's fine to test. A close comparison would be Embassy.
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There are some things that apply differently to fan cards than to official cards. The use case for a fan card is often, you print it up, you bring it to play with your friends, and you use it. Stuff like negative coin may not be worth the overhead if it's a published game where the rulebook is expected to work alone to explain how the rules for it work, but since the use case for a fan card very often involves the human that designed the card being present giving a verbal explanation and answering direct questions, higher complexity and rules ambiguity is tolerable.
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The idea is fine and something that I (and probably many others) thought of when Guilds' coin towns were revealed (along with Buy tokens, of course). I personally think that Coin of the Realm covers the same concept better (saved action for when you need it) in that it doesn't require extra tokens and works somewhat differently than coin tokens, thus being unique and more interesting.
I totally agree that Coin of the Realm is more interesting as its trade-off is harsher: it is Village-ifying terminals at the cost of being a Copper whereas Settlement has weaker benefits (just one action) and weaker "costs" (at least in the middlegame you'd rather want a cantrip than a Copper).
Another option of the card I consider. being inspired by Co0kieL0rd's Mediator (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=13625) is:
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/7/7d/Coin5.png/16px-Coin5.png) - Settlement - Action-Reaction
+1 Card
+1 Action
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When another player gains a card, you may set this aside from your hand. If you do, return this to your hand at the start of your next turn and if the other player gained
... an Action card, gain an Action token.
... a Treasure card, take a Coin token.
... a Victory card, +1 (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/9/92/VP.png/16px-VP.png).
Agreed. Also Settlement is almost strictly better than Walled Village.
Walled Village is a pretty weak 4.
The biggest issue is that it will be confusing to many people who will consider Bridge, Poor House, etc. and assume, not unreasonably, that it means you can never go below $0. Dominion doesn't have a concept of debt in the rules but it does say that you resolve the card as best you can when you play it. If a card tells me to discard and I have nothing left in hand, I just don't discard. It doesn't save the discard until I draw again later (e.g. in the same turn with Golem). So a reasonable interpretation of -$3 is to just pay $3 immediately if possible, but only down to flat broke 0 and ignore it otherwise.
If you don't mind the potential for confusion and clarify all those interactions, I think it's fine to test. A close comparison would be Embassy.
Concerning Bridge, I think one has to differentiate between prices and coins. Bridge reduces the price of cards and negative prices make no sense whereas negative coins make sense as they reduce current coins and future coins you get via playing Treasures. The card would be fairly pointless if it just reduced current coins down to zero as it'd then be a super-strong card for Big Money.
As I already said, I think it makes sense that at the end of calculating your total coins you convert a negative total into zero. Or in a hypothetical FAQ (as popsofctown said, I am the only guy who will ever use this card so I can explain it to my friends) I could write something like "Each Armada reduces your total amount of coins by 3, down to a minimum of zero." or something like this.
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There are some things that apply differently to fan cards than to official cards. The use case for a fan card is often, you print it up, you bring it to play with your friends, and you use it. Stuff like negative coin may not be worth the overhead if it's a published game where the rulebook is expected to work alone to explain how the rules for it work, but since the use case for a fan card very often involves the human that designed the card being present giving a verbal explanation and answering direct questions, higher complexity and rules ambiguity is tolerable.
When fan cards are shared here though, it opens up the possibility that other groups will try it out. In that case, the ambiguities should be addressed.
@tristan, I was just explaining why a FAQ is necessary and how people may reasonably get confused. I would actually clarify on the card itself that it's possible to go below $0 with this card, just like how Bridge, Highway, Quarry and Princess clarify that they can't reduce costs below 0. Then your FAQ can explain the interactions with Copper, Poor House, Storyteller, and whatever else may come up later.
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There are some things that apply differently to fan cards than to official cards. The use case for a fan card is often, you print it up, you bring it to play with your friends, and you use it. Stuff like negative coin may not be worth the overhead if it's a published game where the rulebook is expected to work alone to explain how the rules for it work, but since the use case for a fan card very often involves the human that designed the card being present giving a verbal explanation and answering direct questions, higher complexity and rules ambiguity is tolerable.
When fan cards are shared here though, it opens up the possibility that other groups will try it out. In that case, the ambiguities should be addressed.
I wish I could agree this happens very much at all.
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Agreed. Also Settlement is almost strictly better than Walled Village.
Walled Village is a pretty weak 4.
Yes, it is. And it's a damn shame. But that doesn't matter (unless you're just trying to replace Walled Village).
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Agreed. Also Settlement is almost strictly better than Walled Village.
Walled Village is a pretty weak 4.
Yes, it is. And it's a damn shame. But that doesn't matter (unless you're just trying to replace Walled Village).
Well, you made the comparison between the two cards. If you say that it doesn't matter now how strong they are that is fine with me.
Not that I get what the two cards do have in common besides slightly reducing (benchmark being a basic Village) the optimal village density.
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When Tristan didn't post for a while, I thought his account got deleted.
What now?
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The point is that if Walled Village and Settlement appear on the same board, there is never a reason to buy Settlement over Walled Village.
And also, a game that involves Walled Village does not feel sufficiently different from a subsequent game involving Settlement.
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Agreed. Also Settlement is almost strictly better than Walled Village.
Walled Village is a pretty weak 4.
Yes, it is. And it's a damn shame. But that doesn't matter (unless you're just trying to replace Walled Village).
Well, you made the comparison between the two cards. If you say that it doesn't matter now how strong they are that is fine with me.
Not that I get what the two cards do have in common besides slightly reducing (benchmark being a basic Village) the optimal village density.
They basically do the same thing; topdecking a village you didn't really get to use is mostly identical to getting a +1 Action token. When you play it, you draw a card to replace it and get +2 Actions, but if you don't use that second Action, it's like getting +1 Action and saving the other one for later (because you topdeck it again).
The difference is that Walled Village only works if you have no more than one other Action card in play. Your version works with any number of Action cards as long as you don't use up the extra Actions they provide.
I'd say that your version is better than Walled Village, and by that I mean that it's both stronger and probably a more fun/balanced card. But since Walled Village already exists, your new improved Walled Village shouldn't have the same cost.
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The point is that if Walled Village and Settlement appear on the same board, there is never a reason to buy Settlement over Walled Village.
Other way around.
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The point is that if Walled Village and Settlement appear on the same board, there is never a reason to buy Settlement over Walled Village.
Other way around.
Yeah, I meant to say what meant said to say meant and said to meant.
I've had trouble with words lately, posted an inverse in GD yesterday too.
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I'd say that your version is better than Walled Village, and by that I mean that it's both stronger and probably a more fun/balanced card. But since Walled Village already exists, your new improved Walled Village shouldn't have the same cost.
Well, it can hardly cost 3 as it is superior to Village and it can hardly cost 5 as it is definitely not that strong. So it has to remain at 4 and if it is thus a unintentional quasi-substitute for Walled Village I do not consider the violation of the "do not design cards which are superior to existing cards at the same price" as a serious crime in the case of Walled Village.
Despite not being mechanically as similar to Walled Village as Settlement Port is also virtually always superior to Walled Village.
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I'd say that your version is better than Walled Village, and by that I mean that it's both stronger and probably a more fun/balanced card. But since Walled Village already exists, your new improved Walled Village shouldn't have the same cost.
Well, it can hardly cost 3 as it is superior to Village and it can hardly cost 5 as it is definitely not that strong. So it has to remain at 4 and if it is thus a unintentional quasi-substitute for Walled Village I do not consider the violation of the "do not design cards which are superior to existing cards at the same price" as a serious crime in the case of Walled Village.
Despite not being mechanically as similar to Walled Village as Settlement Port is also virtually always superior to Walled Village.
You should never design a card that is strictly better than another card at the same price point. Even though Settlement isn't strictly better than Walled Village, there would be little reason to pick up a Walled Village over a Settlement.
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I'd say that your version is better than Walled Village, and by that I mean that it's both stronger and probably a more fun/balanced card. But since Walled Village already exists, your new improved Walled Village shouldn't have the same cost.
Well, it can hardly cost 3 as it is superior to Village and it can hardly cost 5 as it is definitely not that strong. So it has to remain at 4 and if it is thus a unintentional quasi-substitute for Walled Village I do not consider the violation of the "do not design cards which are superior to existing cards at the same price" as a serious crime in the case of Walled Village.
Despite not being mechanically as similar to Walled Village as Settlement Port is also virtually always superior to Walled Village.
You should never design a card that is strictly better than another card at the same price point. Even though Settlement isn't strictly better than Walled Village, there would be little reason to pick up a Walled Village over a Settlement.
I know the design principle and I happily violate it in this case as Walled Village is such a weak card. Despite lacking mechanical similarities I cannot imagine a board in which a player would pick Walled Village instead of Port and yet I think it is fine that DXV made Port after Walled Village.
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According to the Secret History of Scavenger/Chancellor, DXV kinda hints that he is somewhat ok with doing a strictly better card personally, but that he knew a lot of his fans were much more annoyed by it than he was.
And when the card in question is Google's favorite promo ehhh iunno
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There are some things that apply differently to fan cards than to official cards. The use case for a fan card is often, you print it up, you bring it to play with your friends, and you use it. Stuff like negative coin may not be worth the overhead if it's a published game where the rulebook is expected to work alone to explain how the rules for it work, but since the use case for a fan card very often involves the human that designed the card being present giving a verbal explanation and answering direct questions, higher complexity and rules ambiguity is tolerable.
When fan cards are shared here though, it opens up the possibility that other groups will try it out. In that case, the ambiguities should be addressed.
I wish I could agree this happens very much at all.
It would be nice if it happened more, but it does actually happen. I've played with quite a few of asper's and LF's cards, and LA has too.
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Agreed. Also Settlement is almost strictly better than Walled Village.
Walled Village is a pretty weak 4.
Yes, it is. And it's a damn shame. But that doesn't matter (unless you're just trying to replace Walled Village).
Well, you made the comparison between the two cards. If you say that it doesn't matter now how strong they are that is fine with me.
Not that I get what the two cards do have in common besides slightly reducing (benchmark being a basic Village) the optimal village density.
They basically do the same thing; topdecking a village you didn't really get to use is mostly identical to getting a +1 Action token. When you play it, you draw a card to replace it and get +2 Actions, but if you don't use that second Action, it's like getting +1 Action and saving the other one for later (because you topdeck it again).
The difference is that Walled Village only works if you have no more than one other Action card in play. Your version works with any number of Action cards as long as you don't use up the extra Actions they provide.
I'd say that your version is better than Walled Village, and by that I mean that it's both stronger and probably a more fun/balanced card. But since Walled Village already exists, your new improved Walled Village shouldn't have the same cost.
Maybe it should just be a replacement. I mean, noone really likes Walled Village very much anyways.
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I'd say that your version is better than Walled Village, and by that I mean that it's both stronger and probably a more fun/balanced card. But since Walled Village already exists, your new improved Walled Village shouldn't have the same cost.
Well, it can hardly cost 3 as it is superior to Village and it can hardly cost 5 as it is definitely not that strong. So it has to remain at 4 and if it is thus a unintentional quasi-substitute for Walled Village I do not consider the violation of the "do not design cards which are superior to existing cards at the same price" as a serious crime in the case of Walled Village.
Despite not being mechanically as similar to Walled Village as Settlement Port is also virtually always superior to Walled Village.
You should never design a card that is strictly better than another card at the same price point. Even though Settlement isn't strictly better than Walled Village, there would be little reason to pick up a Walled Village over a Settlement.
I know the design principle and I happily violate it in this case as Walled Village is such a weak card. Despite lacking mechanical similarities I cannot imagine a board in which a player would pick Walled Village instead of Port and yet I think it is fine that DXV made Port after Walled Village.
Any board with no trashing and a junking attack, yet an engine seems better. Walled Village makes you actually reliable. Or, you can do Smithy/BM but have 3-4 Smithies and 1-2 Walled Villages. You can keep top decking your Walled Villages until you connect them with your Smithies. Also, if you don't want someone to three pile, Walled Village would be a better buy than Port. With lots of discard attacks you want less cantrips, which Port is. In a slog it would be better, as it would let you wait until you had a turn with Workshop/Trader/Ironworks collision. There are probably more, but I think you get the idea.
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Agreed. Also Settlement is almost strictly better than Walled Village.
Walled Village is a pretty weak 4.
Yes, it is. And it's a damn shame. But that doesn't matter (unless you're just trying to replace Walled Village).
Well, you made the comparison between the two cards. If you say that it doesn't matter now how strong they are that is fine with me.
Not that I get what the two cards do have in common besides slightly reducing (benchmark being a basic Village) the optimal village density.
They basically do the same thing; topdecking a village you didn't really get to use is mostly identical to getting a +1 Action token. When you play it, you draw a card to replace it and get +2 Actions, but if you don't use that second Action, it's like getting +1 Action and saving the other one for later (because you topdeck it again).
The difference is that Walled Village only works if you have no more than one other Action card in play. Your version works with any number of Action cards as long as you don't use up the extra Actions they provide.
I'd say that your version is better than Walled Village, and by that I mean that it's both stronger and probably a more fun/balanced card. But since Walled Village already exists, your new improved Walled Village shouldn't have the same cost.
Maybe it should just be a replacement. I mean, noone really likes Walled Village very much anyways.
I like the Walled Village.
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I'd say that your version is better than Walled Village, and by that I mean that it's both stronger and probably a more fun/balanced card. But since Walled Village already exists, your new improved Walled Village shouldn't have the same cost.
Well, it can hardly cost 3 as it is superior to Village and it can hardly cost 5 as it is definitely not that strong. So it has to remain at 4 and if it is thus a unintentional quasi-substitute for Walled Village I do not consider the violation of the "do not design cards which are superior to existing cards at the same price" as a serious crime in the case of Walled Village.
Despite not being mechanically as similar to Walled Village as Settlement Port is also virtually always superior to Walled Village.
You should never design a card that is strictly better than another card at the same price point. Even though Settlement isn't strictly better than Walled Village, there would be little reason to pick up a Walled Village over a Settlement.
I know the design principle and I happily violate it in this case as Walled Village is such a weak card. Despite lacking mechanical similarities I cannot imagine a board in which a player would pick Walled Village instead of Port and yet I think it is fine that DXV made Port after Walled Village.
Any board with no trashing and a junking attack, yet an engine seems better. Walled Village makes you actually reliable. Or, you can do Smithy/BM but have 3-4 Smithies and 1-2 Walled Villages. You can keep top decking your Walled Villages until you connect them with your Smithies. Also, if you don't want someone to three pile, Walled Village would be a better buy than Port. With lots of discard attacks you want less cantrips, which Port is. In a slog it would be better, as it would let you wait until you had a turn with Workshop/Trader/Ironworks collision. There are probably more, but I think you get the idea.
Those are all things that indeed harm Walled Village more than Port, but I'm pretty sure none of them amount to enough to make Walled Village a better buy than Port. Except maybe the two card kingdom Walled Village/Smithy.
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See this seems weird to me. Someone makes a fan card that's very similar to an existing card. It's strictly better, but just barely. Then they say 1 of 2 things about it:
1. "This is a replacement for X" - Respond is "hey, this is a better version of that, neat idea."
2. "Here's my card. I know it's similar to X, but what do you think?" - Response is "You can't do this; it's strictly better than X."
It's the exact same card in both situations. It proposes the same idea. It will get played in the same way. It's a legitimate complaint that X will not get bought if the fan card is available also, but so what? Use the fan card as a replacement for X then. It just seems like it's more up to the player, not the designer, if they are going to replace X with the fan card, or use them both. Just because the creator says it's a replacement doesn't stop anyone from using both. And just because he fails to say it doesn't stop anyone from refraining from using both.
I just thought it was a bit odd to basically see replies along the lines of "this card is bad design, because Walled Village works. Now if it were a replacement for Walled Village, then that would be ok."
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I just thought it was a bit odd to basically see replies along the lines of "this card is bad design, because Walled Village works. Now if it were a replacement for Walled Village, then that would be ok."
Like you I do not worry much about cards being too similar to existing ones (just like I do not worry about fan cards with bold new ideas). But I failed to see the similarity of my card with Walled Village which is always bad so I think the criticism is justified.
I will probably stick with the Mediator-like version (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=13915.msg532441#msg532441) as it provides more interesting choices, namely how long to wait until you reveal your card. For example if you want a Coin token, which is probably often better than the Action token, you wanna wait until another player buys a Treasure card but you risk waiting until the turn of a player who has a bad hand and gains nothing during his tirn.
It might slow down play a bit though as every player has to pause for a moment after gaining a card.
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See this seems weird to me. Someone makes a fan card that's very similar to an existing card. It's strictly better, but just barely. Then they say 1 of 2 things about it:
1. "This is a replacement for X" - Respond is "hey, this is a better version of that, neat idea."
2. "Here's my card. I know it's similar to X, but what do you think?" - Response is "You can't do this; it's strictly better than X."
It's the exact same card in both situations. It proposes the same idea. It will get played in the same way. It's a legitimate complaint that X will not get bought if the fan card is available also, but so what? Use the fan card as a replacement for X then. It just seems like it's more up to the player, not the designer, if they are going to replace X with the fan card, or use them both. Just because the creator says it's a replacement doesn't stop anyone from using both. And just because he fails to say it doesn't stop anyone from refraining from using both.
I just thought it was a bit odd to basically see replies along the lines of "this card is bad design, because Walled Village works. Now if it were a replacement for Walled Village, then that would be ok."
The difference is in what you announce as your goal, and whether what you deliver lines up with it or not. If i make a card to replace another, people will rightfully expect it to be similar, and in fact claiming you made up a replacement when they have nothing in common would be weird. It's part of the idea to have only one of them, that they should be similar, and that the new one is stronger/more balanced/more fun than the other. On the other hand, if i say i made a new card, people will expect something... well, new.
I mean, let's turn your point around: I assume you would also react differently to a suggested card (which is totally different from Scout) depending on whether i claim it to be all new or a replacement for Scout, wouldn't you? I mean, if i suggest Counterfeit as a replacement, wouldn't you say that's a nice idea but doesn't make sense as a replacement? It's still the same card, right?
So yeah, it's basically that you announce something different than you serve, without claiming that either thing was generally better. You'd be surprised if a friend announces that now there will be cake just to pull out a pot with fish soup, too.
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(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2a/Coin4.png/16px-Coin4.png) - Ironsmelter - Action
Trash 2 cards from your hand.
For each...
Action card, +1 Action
Treasure card, + (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f7/Coin1.png/16px-Coin1.png)
Victory card, +1 Card.
A fairly straightforward trasher in the IronXYZ family.
Thematically Smelter implies that the card should work similar to Forge but I am not sure about this. "Trash Estate and Copper/Curse, gain 2$ card/Estate" depends on the Kingdom cards, "trash 2 Estates, gain 4$ card" is stronger whereas "Trash 2 Coppers/Curses, gain a Copper" is weaker than the pure trash version of the card. In decks with Shelters, Looters and Cursers the trash for benefit version is weaker.
It might be more interesting game-play wise though as it is a slow trasher in the early and a mini-Forge in the later part of the game. The card might be overpowered for 4 as it a trasher which enables you to nonetheless buy something on the turn, as opposed to early trashing with cards like e.g. Chapel or Steward. I am also not sure whether it is exciting enough.
Some ideas for a set of alternative Shelters:
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f7/Coin1.png/16px-Coin1.png) - Townstreet (I scrapped my initial stupid Townstreet idea after having realized that DXV nixed a similiar card) - Action-Reserve-Shelter
+1 Action
Put this on your tavern mat
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At the start of your Buy phase you may call this for +1 Buy.
This is just a modification of Co0kieL0rd's Forest Hut (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php? topic=11563.0;nowap). Forest Hut changes the openings (5/3 and 4/4; note that this is more balanced than Alms which leads to 5/4 and 4/4) and is specifically designed by Co0kieL0rd to kickstart an opening with 2 or 3 self-synergizing trashers (http://i.imgur.com/KmHY2O2.png).
My card doesn't change the opening that much (2+3or2+2/2 and 2+2/3) and reserv-ifies the Buy. It is fairly deck-dependent; with other cards that provide Buys you will most likely never call it except for your last turn whereas in decks without cards that provide buys it might be a degenerate card that you wanna use a few times.
In the presence of Peddler and Pawn or Candlestick Maker both versions are pretty strong for Shelters but I do not think that this is a big issue.
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f7/Coin1.png/16px-Coin1.png) - Lost Garden - Victory-Shelter
Worth 1 VP for every Shelter, Ruins and Curse in your deck.
Not sure about the ratio value yet. The idea of the card is to create a 'to trash or not to trash' decision. In the presence of good trashers you will never not trash but if there are some crappy trashers or expensive trashers which you can only buy fairly late in the game you might not wanna go for them. Or you might trash Curses/Ruins but stick to Lost Garden if you are only able to start trashing fairly late in the game.
I am not sure though and the card would probably work better for a normal Kingdom card (with a ratio of 2 or 3). Here it would also influence the decision of the attack card buying player and there would be the usual rush for this card in heavy junking games.
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f7/Coin1.png/16px-Coin1.png) - Crypt - Action-Reaction-Shelter
At the end of your Buy phase, trash a card you have in play.
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When you trash this, gain a village (that costs no more than 3/4).
(Necropolis and any Kingdom card that does provide 2 or more Actions is considered to be a village.)
Shelters should be weak so like Bonfire Crypt only trashes cards in play (i.e. mainly Coppers, Action-Shelters and Ruins). Its on-trash ability might be too strong in the presence of good villages, hence the potential price cap. The definition of village is ambiguous (what about Tribute or Ironmonger) so the playing group has to decide before the game in the case of amiguous villages how they wanna handle Crypt.
In case there is no village in the kingdom you can swap Crypt for Necropolis.
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Ironsmelter looks balanced. It's hard to make it nonterminal, so cantrip trasher comparisons don't really apply. It's arguably better than Moneylender, but not strictly - it basically improves flexibility. It looks quite a bit better than Stewart for early trashing, allthough unlike Stewart you can't really hold onto it forever. So, seems fine.
Lost Gardens basically reads "If you still own this at the end of the game, each Curse is worth 1 instead of -1 VP." Also Hovel, but only if Hovel isn't itself replaced. I think this would be more interesting as a whole-game-modifier, similarly to Events.
You can never gain Necropolis, so mentioning it on Crypt is moot.
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I had written a longish post ebout these cards, then my mobile farted and I lost it.
Short version:
Ironsmelter is cute, powerful, you could get rid of the +action effect since it's largely irrelevant, but I guess it's cute. I really can't see the comparison with Forge though.
The Shelters:
townstreet won't ever leave the Tavern during most games.
Hidden Garden should call a spade a spade and stop all that "The-cards-that-shall-not-be-Named" nonsense. Unless you change the ratio to 2vp/curse (net +1vp/curse), it won't do much. Even if you do, it won't do much most of the time, except, hey, free estates.
Crypt won't trash coppers unless you combo it with Storyteller or Black Market. I can't say I like how it uses an open definition to tell you what card to gain.
So overall the shelters would need to change a lot before I'd use them.
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I interpreted "1vp every 1/2 curses" as "I'm not sure if it should be one or two" since 1vp every half a curse would have been written as 2/curse. I might have interpreted this wrong though.
On rereading, I was a bit harsh with townstreet. It's ok, but in many games it would disappear turn 1 or 2 and never come back.
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You would just need 6 cards that you could gain with Crypt, so making a village to replace the Crypt instead of using the vague "gain a village" (you pointed out the problems with that phrase yourself) doesn't seem unreasonable.
Couldn't you always trash the Crypt itself when you play it? And if your new Shelters replace the old ones, you could use Necropolis to replace the Crypt when you trash it.
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Lost Gardens basically reads "If you still own this at the end of the game, each Curse is worth 1 instead of -1 VP." Also Hovel, but only if Hovel isn't itself replaced. I think this would be more interesting as a whole-game-modifier, similarly to Events.
About Lost Garden, sorry about the 1/2. It was not meant to stand for "one half" but for "either 1 or 2".
Now the card should read "Worth 1 VP for every non-Action, non-Treasure, non-Victory card in your deck." (I think that the "1 VP for every 2 ... cards" version is too weak for a Shelter and should only be an option for a normal Victory card) So Curses become just dead cards while Ruins and Shelters become Estates. Initially the card has the same worth as a Duchy so you would normally trash it (together with the other Shelters) if you could. But if there are junking attacks and no or bad trashers you might wanna stick with it (and perhaps even the other Shelters). It is not a situation which happens often but in 3 and 4 player games it sometimes occurs.
If playtesting shows that the decision is often easy to make and rarely agonizing the card is obviously pointless. It's kinda like with Hovel. If it would always make sense to trash Hovel with 2$ and no good 2$ cards Hovel would be boring.
Couldn't you always trash the Crypt itself when you play it? And if your new Shelters replace the old ones, you could use Necropolis to replace the Crypt when you trash it.
That is indeed the idea of the card, be able to exchange it for Necro (or a stronger village?).
You can never gain Necropolis, so mentioning it on Crypt is moot.
In normal games you can indeed not gain a Necropolis but with Crypt you gain. Hell, if the village-conversion ability turns out to be too strong or too automatic (I think the price caps that make sense to test are 3 and 4) the only thing that Crypt will be able to exchange itself for will be Necropolis.
Crypt won't trash coppers unless you combo it with Storyteller or Black Market.
Thanks for pointing that out. Kinda embarassing to mix up Action and Buy phase. I changed the phrasing to "At the end of your Buy phase, trash a card you have in play." I do not want a Shelter to be able to trash Estates or Curses.
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Lost Gardens basically reads "If you still own this at the end of the game, each Curse is worth 1 instead of -1 VP." Also Hovel, but only if Hovel isn't itself replaced. I think this would be more interesting as a whole-game-modifier, similarly to Events.
About Lost Garden, sorry about the 1/2. It was not meant to stand for "one half" but for "either 1 or 2".
Now the card should read "Worth 1 VP for every non-Action, non-Treasure, non-Victory card in your deck." (I think that the "1 VP for every 2 ... cards" version is too weak for a Shelter and should only be an option for a normal Victory card) So Curses become just dead cards while Ruins and Shelters become Estates. Initially the card has the same worth as a Duchy so you would normally trash it (together with the other Shelters) if you could. But if there are junking attacks and no or bad trashers you might wanna stick with it (and perhaps even the other Shelters). It is not a situation which happens often but in 3 and 4 player games it sometimes occurs.
If playtesting shows that the decision is often easy to make and rarely agonizing the card is obviously pointless. It's kinda like with Hovel. If it would always make sense to trash Hovel with 2$ and no good 2$ cards Hovel would be boring.
Ruins are Actions. All Shelters except Hovel (including yours) are Action or Victory cards.
About Crypt, there are only a handfull of Villages for $3. Village, Shanty Town, Fishing Village, Hamlet (?), Amulet (?), Native Village, probably a few more, but still $4 seems fine. I mean, it's a single chance to get an additional card, it's not thaaat strong. Necropolis isn't in the supply, but i guess naming it specifically does make clear you are supposed to be able to gain it. As you can only gain one and there is no way to get Crypt out of the trash, it should work. So, i think it's fine after all.
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Ruins are Actions. All Shelters except Hovel (including yours) are Action or Victory cards.
Thanks for pointing out another elementary mistake. So the card should read "Shelters, Ruins and Curse" instead of "non-...".
I think that it is too weak if it does not start out with a VP value of 3 and that the other idea which has been suggested (or misread because of the 1/2 thingy) of 2 VP per Curse, converting them into Estates might be too strong. Not too strong in terms of preventing players from buying Cursers (if there would be a card which handed out Estates it would probably be a weak junker but still a junker unless there is Silk Road or Gardens) but too strong in terms of making the decision of whether to trash Lost Garden or not easier.
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Shelters are meant to be weak, hardly better than Estates (and sometimes worse). I think Lost Garden would be OK as "1 VP for every 2 Curses, Shelters and Ruins in the deck". As Asper pointed out, the current wording would exclude everything except Curses and Hovels... although it is actually ambiguous, in that you can read them as separate categories (e.g. Copper and Province count because they are non-Actions, Village counts because it is a non-Treasure).
Not sure about Townstreet. Consider this background on Hovel:
Hovel is the only one that changed. Originally it was an action you could trash by discarding your hand. It turned out that trashing it turn 1-2 usually seemed like the correct play, even if you drew it with four Coppers. So that was no good. Hovel as printed has nice flavor going for it; you move out of your old Hovel and into a nice Duchy.
Townstreet is a card that essentially auto-trashes itself every time. It might still be OK in that it doesn't just remove one of your first two buys, and the single +Buy does tempt you into calling it once in a while. Still, something to be wary of.
Crypt -- Only trashing cards in play doesn't weaken it that much. In fact, it makes it a stronger Copper trasher than other options (now that it triggers at the end of your Buy phase) because you already got the +$1 from playing Copper. This is actually really strong for a Shelter and it changes the game a lot more than any other Shelter, even compared to your other ones. That said, I think it's still OK as long as you don't mind the Shelter having that much impact. Being terminal helps temper it as well.
The on-trash effect feels superfluous to me. The Copper trashing is already very significant, and the fact that it can trash itself afterwards is icing on the cake. Gaining a useful card afterwards is way overkill for a Shelter.
It doesn't help that the effect needs some awkward wording. Note that specifying Necropolis doesn't actually work as you intend. When a card says "gain", it means from the Supply by default. Otherwise, it has to specify -- e.g. Urchin says "from the Mercenary pile", Marauder says "from the Spoils pile". So how do you reference gaining a Necropolis? It's not in the Supply and it doesn't have a pile to reference. Either you'll have to be inconsistent with official wording or you'll have to do something awkward. The ambiguous definition of "village" doesn't help either.
Overall, the card is plenty interesting (maybe even too interesting!) without the on-trash effect. Just trim the fat.
For something similar to the on-trash effect that is more clearly worded, you could have another Shelter like this:
Decrepit Village
$1 - Action-Shelter
If this is not your first or second turn,
+1 Card
+2 Actions
Discard a card.
(or some other weak village effect.)
PPE:
Ruins are Actions. All Shelters except Hovel (including yours) are Action or Victory cards.
Thanks for pointing out another elementary mistake. So the card should read "Shelters, Ruins and Curse" instead of "non-...".
I think that it is too weak if it does not start out with a VP value of 3 and that the other idea which has been suggested (or misread because of the 1/2 thingy) of 2 VP per Curse, converting them into Estates might be too strong. Not too strong in terms of preventing players from buying Cursers (if there would be a card which handed out Estates it would probably be a weak junker but still a junker unless there is Silk Road or Gardens) but too strong in terms of making the decision of whether to trash Lost Garden or not easier.
It's really not too strong. Again, Shelter should be compared to Estate, so a VP value of 3 is already too high.
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It doesn't help that the effect needs some awkward wording. Note that specifying Necropolis doesn't actually work as you intend. When a card says "gain", it means from the Supply by default. Otherwise, it has to specify -- e.g. Urchin says "from the Mercenary pile", Marauder says "from the Spoils pile". So how do you reference gaining a Necropolis? It's not in the Supply and it doesn't have a pile to reference. Either you'll have to be inconsistent with official wording or you'll have to do something awkward. The ambiguous definition of "village" doesn't help either.
Totally right, I should add a line about a Necro pile and write "gain a Necro from the Necro pile", not clarify whether Throne Room counts as "village" (IMO it does not; other cards like Golem or Tribute are already excluded by the price cap at 4).
But in practical terms this is totally irrelevant as I could explain this card to my gaming group in less than a minute without any rule ambiguities remaining. As I lack the graphic talents to really design the cards and just play with mockups there is no "risk" that anybody here will actually use the card (as opposed to the really good fan card designers in here who actually provide fully designed, printable cards).
It's really not too strong. Again, Shelter should be compared to Estate, so a VP value of 3 is already too high.
First of all, the card is only worth 3VP if the other Shelters are not trashed, i.e. each Shelter does actually indirectly provide 1VP.
Second, this argument is too static. In the beginning of the game you would virtually always (again Silk Road and Gardens are the obvious exception) trash a Duchy if you could. In the presence of decent trashers you would not really want to stick with a card which is only worth 3 VP if you do not trash the other two Shelters. Now in the presence of heavy junking and / or bad / no trashing it (should) become(s) more tricky.
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It doesn't help that the effect needs some awkward wording. Note that specifying Necropolis doesn't actually work as you intend. When a card says "gain", it means from the Supply by default. Otherwise, it has to specify -- e.g. Urchin says "from the Mercenary pile", Marauder says "from the Spoils pile". So how do you reference gaining a Necropolis? It's not in the Supply and it doesn't have a pile to reference. Either you'll have to be inconsistent with official wording or you'll have to do something awkward. The ambiguous definition of "village" doesn't help either.
Totally right, I should add a line about a Necro pile and write "gain a Necro from the Necro pile", not clarify whether Throne Room counts as "village" (IMO it does not; other cards like Golem or Tribute are already excluded by the price cap at 4).
But in practical terms this is totally irrelevant as I could explain this card to my gaming group in less than a minute without any rule ambiguities remaining. As I lack the graphic talents to really design the cards and just play with mockups there is no "risk" that anybody here will actually use the card (as opposed to the really good fan card designers in here who actually provide fully designed, printable cards).
Suit yourself, but I think it's poor design philosophy to not design as if it would be official. If it's just going to be for your own group where you can personally explain away all the ambiguities, why share it publicly at all?
But that wasn't even my main argument against it. As I said, the on-trash effect is just superfluous power and complexity on a card that is already interesting without it.
It's really not too strong. Again, Shelter should be compared to Estate, so a VP value of 3 is already too high.
First of all, the card is only worth 3VP if the other Shelters are not trashed, i.e. each Shelter does actually indirectly provide 1VP.
Second, this argument is too static. In the beginning of the game you would virtually always (again Silk Road and Gardens are the obvious exception) trash a Duchy if you could. In the presence of decent trashers you would not really want to stick with a card which is only worth 3 VP if you do not trash the other two Shelters. Now in the presence of heavy junking and / or bad / no trashing it (should) become(s) more tricky.
Each other shelter already has some minor benefit which it provides instead of 1VP. If you have 1VP more on top of that, it's extra power. That's my point -- as it is now, your Shelters are actually significantly stronger than the official ones. It's fine if that's what you're going for, but it's something to keep in mind. You keep talking about an effect being too weak for a Shelter, but Shelters are supposed to be weak.
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Suit yourself, but I think it's poor design philosophy to not design as if it would be official.
It is not official so I will not design it as if it were. This would entail a totally unnecessary FAQ, super-precise definition of "village" and the Necro pile nonsense. As I already said, I think pragmatically and as I a) suck compared to other fan card designers and b) do not provide fully designed cards with images the chance that anybody else will use my card is virtually zero.
So only my playing group will play with this card and I can explain it to them in a minute. Extensive rule-lawyering that covers all border cases is thus irrelevant. I mean, gee, this is not Possession or whatever, the card is pretty simple: when you trash it you can gain a Necro or anything else with "+2 actions" printed on it that doesn't cost more than 4.
If it's just going to be for your own group where you can personally explain away all the ambiguities, why share it publicly at all?
To get feedback but certainly not in the vain hope that anybody but me will ever use it. There are technically and graphic-wise better and more experienced fan card designers here whose cards are probably used by some folks.
1VP more on top of that
Lost Garden does not provide any benefits but VPs.
The point of Lost Garden is not to make it strong just for the sake of it but to make it strong enough such that it will provide an agonizing decision in the MINORITY of games in which there is no/bad/late trashing and/or heavy junking. If I make the card too weak it will be a totally boring card which you will always want to trash. If the card doesn't do something interesting in at least some games it is pointless to have it in the first place. It is after all a substitute for Hovel and Hovel also provides a tricky "to trash or not to trash" decision when you hit 2$ early in the game.
Note that even with the current version you wanna trash Curses as they are dead cards. Even with the strong version which I do not like (2 VPs per Curse) you would trash a Curse in the middlegame as it is a virtual Estate.
So would you mind to explain how Lost Garden can be too strong? Did I miss something and is the card to good to be trashed in more instances than I think?
About your point that my Shelters are being stronger than the official ones, yes, they obviously are. But I think that a degenerate market and a post-buy copper trasher are far more useful than something which is only a Duchy or something better if you keep a lot of crap in your deck.
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The point of Lost Garden is not to make it strong just for the sake of it but to make it strong enough such that it will provide an agonizing decision in the MINORITY of games in which there is no/bad/late trashing and/or heavy junking. If I make the card too weak it will be a totally boring card which you will always want to trash. If the card doesn't do something interesting in at least some games it is pointless to have it in the first place. It is after all a substitute for Hovel and Hovel also provides a tricky "to trash or not to trash" decision when you hit 2$ early in the game.
Note that even with the current version you wanna trash Curses as they are dead cards. Even with the strong version which I do not like (2 VPs per Curse) you would trash a Curse in the middlegame as it is a virtual Estate.
So would you mind to explain how Lost Garden can be too strong? Did I miss something and is the card to good to be trashed in more instances than I think?
Hovel does not provide the tricky decision you mention. It is pretty much never a good idea to trash it to an Estate. Overall, the 3 official shelters rarely make a big difference.
The strength of Lost Garden isn't in making you not want to trash something, whether you make it a 1:2 or a 1:1 ratio. If strong trashing is available, you'll probably trash either way, just as you'd trash Estates. If no trashing is available, then it's moot. To that end, the "agonizing decision" you talk about doesn't really exist.
The actual strength of Lost Garden is in how much it weakens junking attacks, especially in the absence of sufficient trashing. At a 1:1 ratio, it does have a significant impact on cursers and looters. At 1:2, it's still something to consider even though it matters less.
As I've said repeatedly, I think it could still work with the 1:1 ratio. However, it's impact would be much bigger than any of the official shelters. If you are OK with that, great. But a 1:2 ratio is absolutely in line with the official shelters, power-wise, which is why I disagree when you say that it would be too weak. You may be overestimating how often the official Shelters make a difference.
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Hovel does not provide the tricky decision you mention. It is pretty much never a good idea to trash it to an Estate.
I disagree as this decision is deck-dependent.
If strong trashing is available, you'll probably trash either way, just as you'd trash Estates. If no trashing is available, then it's moot. To that end, the "agonizing decision" you talk about doesn't really exist.
Black and white? There is something between strong trashing and no trashing and there is also a second dimension, junking.
You might very well be right and the decision will always be simple and straightforward. But unlike you I gotta playtest the card to find it out.
The actual strength of Lost Garden is in how much it weakens junking attacks, especially in the absence of sufficient trashing. At a 1:1 ratio, it does have a significant impact on cursers and looters.
Ruins become Estates and Curses become plain dead cards. The latter is still junk and the former is only something you want in the endgame, in the presence of Silk Road / Gardens or if the deck leads to such heavy junking that nobody will be able to aim for Provinces. So in this case players now wonder whether they should buy all those junkers as they might backfire.
Is this impact too large? I seriously doubt it, not to mention that it occurs (too) rarely anyway.
You may be overestimating how often the official Shelters make a difference.
Not at all. The absence of Estates matters in some cases (Doctor, Ambassador and Baron come to mind) to a significant degree whereas the presence of Hovel or Overgrown Estate is negligible. Only Necro has a small effect upon the early game and in the absence of villages an effect upon the entire game.
I totally realize that my alternative Shelters have a larger impact. And yes, in some decks Lost Garden can have a non-trivial impact upon the entire game, on how you evaluate trashing and junking. This is the very idea of the card.
You are totally right that they might have an impact which is too large. Not too large because of some stupid "Shelters must be super-weak" dogmatism (hell, many fan cards, including msot of mine, are just straightforward variations of stuff that exists so I am glad when I can come up with something mildly new) but too large in terms of being too swingy or changing the opening too much. I'll happily get rid of them if they turn out to do that.
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Hovel does not provide the tricky decision you mention. It is pretty much never a good idea to trash it to an Estate.
I disagree as this decision is deck-dependent.
It's really not. There was a thread or two on this which I'll try to find, but the basic explanation is that it's almost always better to keep the Hovel around until you would normally green. Then you can trash it to a Province or maybe an early Duchy, which lets you start greening without adding an extra junk card to your deck. Trashing Hovel early to an Estate is as good an idea as buying an early Estate in general, i.e. not a good idea at all.
Maybe this thread (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=4508.0), but I think there was one with more math in it.
Black and white? There is something between strong trashing and no trashing and there is also a second dimension, junking.
You might very well be right and the decision will always be simple and straightforward. But unlike you I gotta playtest the card to find it out.
Huh?? I didn't say anything you didn't say yourself. Right here:
Note that even with the current version you wanna trash Curses as they are dead cards. Even with the strong version which I do not like (2 VPs per Curse) you would trash a Curse in the middlegame as it is a virtual Estate.
Ruins become Estates and Curses become plain dead cards. The latter is still junk and the former is only something you want in the endgame, in the presence of Silk Road / Gardens or if the deck leads to such heavy junking that nobody will be able to aim for Provinces. So players now wonder whether they should buy all those junkers as they might backfire. Sounds interesting to me.
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Not at all. The absence of Estates matters in some cases (Doctor, Ambassador and Baron come to mind) to a significant degree whereas the presence of Hovel or Overgrown Estate is negligible. Only Necro has a small effect upon the early game and in the absence of villages an effect upon the entire game.
I totally realize that my alternative Shelters have a larger impact. And yes, in some decks Lost Garden can have a non-trivial impact upon the entire game, on how you evaluate trashing and junking. This is the very idea of the card.
I never said it wasn't interesting. I repeat AGAIN, it could still work fine. My ONLY point was that the 1:1 ratio is stronger than the official Shelters and it has a much bigger impact than them. That's all. You are reading harsh criticism when I'm only giving a mild warning!
It still sounds like you are overstimating the impact of Shelters. Yes, of course they matter in some cases. Sometimes they matter a lot (Fairgrounds is the biggest one, IMO), but by and large they make very little difference.
A 1:2 ratio Lost Garden would still have non-trivial impact. It would just be closer to official Shelters.
I'm going to quote this part again:
I totally realize that my alternative Shelters have a larger impact.
Then we're on the same page and I don't know what you're arguing against. ::)
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The main difference is that you care about how large the impact of my Shelters is whereas I care about whether this impact leads to interesting decisions (something you flat out denied whereas I gotta test Lost Garden) and whether it is too swingy or opening changing (here the other two Shelters have more of an influence).
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The main difference is that you care about how large the impact of my Shelters is whereas I care about whether this impact leads to interesting decisions (something you flat out denied whereas I gotta test Lost Garden) and whether it is too swingy or opening changing (here the other two Shelters have more of an influence).
No, that's false. I never said it would be uninteresting. If you are referring to my comments about the decision of to trash or not, I once again point to your own analysis:
Note that even with the current version you wanna trash Curses as they are dead cards. Even with the strong version which I do not like (2 VPs per Curse) you would trash a Curse in the middlegame as it is a virtual Estate.
In other words, the decision to trash would have everything to do with the strength of the trashers themselves, not the amount of VP this shelter would provide.
Rather, the potentially interesting decisions that this could cause are rooted in how it weakens junking attacks, and whether the players should still invest in those attacks if they aren't hurting as much on the VP side.
And again, I don't really care that much about how large the impact is. I've said it ad nauseum but you just seem to ignore it -- I was only giving a warning about the bigger impact and that it was something to consider, depending on what your goal was. I said more than once that if you wanted a bigger impact than official shelters, then it's fine. I was wondering if you cared whether it was in line with the other shelters, and providing a note on the power and impact in case you did. Thus, me repeating over and over: "it's fine if that's what you're going for".
Maybe I should just give up on posting here, because you seem to take even little bits of feedback antagonistically.
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Note that even with the current version you wanna trash Curses as they are dead cards. Even with the strong version which I do not like (2 VPs per Curse) you would trash a Curse in the middlegame as it is a virtual Estate.
In other words, the decision to trash would have everything to do with the strength of the trashers themselves, not the amount of VP this shelter would provide.
"To trash or not to trash" refers to whether you wanna trash Lost Garden, not Curses (naturally you wanna trash dead cards.). ::).
Of course you are totally right that Lost Garden changes the strength of Cursers and Looters. This is interesting but not enough IMO. If the card turns out to be an autoplay during playtesting, i.e. if it is worse decision-wise than Hovel, if there is "no trash or not to trash Lost Garden", I will get rid of the card.
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Note that even with the current version you wanna trash Curses as they are dead cards. Even with the strong version which I do not like (2 VPs per Curse) you would trash a Curse in the middlegame as it is a virtual Estate.
In other words, the decision to trash would have everything to do with the strength of the trashers themselves, not the amount of VP this shelter would provide.
"To trash or not to trash" refers to whether you wanna trash Lost Garden, not Curses (naturally you wanna trash dead cards.). ::).
It's the same thing. Lost Garden is just as dead a card as Curse or Estate. But I could consider it from that perspective. If you have strong trashing and you can trash all the Curses, Ruins, etc. then Lost Garden would be worth 0 anyway. If your trashing is really weak, I speculate that the decision should be pretty simple with a 1:1 ratio. Suppose you split Curses evenly, then this card is providing VP value greater than a Province (counting the other shelters as well, for ~8VP). You wouldn't trash it unless you also thought you could trash most of your Curses. At 1:2, then its providing a more modest -- but still decent -- VP value in this situation. It would be worth ~4VP, better than a Duchy, and now it's more of a question whether you should trash it or keep it.
Edit: to be totally clear though, I still don't mean to say that it wouldn't work at 1:1. I'm only suggesting that the same kind of decision exists at either ratio, depending on the strength of the trashers and junkers available.
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I disagree about the weak trashing caase. Lost Garden is worth 8VP conditional on you not trashing your 5 Curses. As they are dead cards you do have an incentive to trash them.
So it all depends upon the timing and the strength of trashing. If there is e.g. something like Develop in the deck and players draw Develop together with Lost Garden before anybody bought a 5$ curser the question arises whether you should trash it or get rid of a Copper.
This might be a simple decision for strong players who can judge well how the game will continue but then again for strong players many decisions are obvious.
I think that the 1:2 version is more appropriate for an ordinary Victory card.