Dominion Strategy Forum

Dominion => Variants and Fan Cards => Topic started by: jonaskoelker on April 08, 2018, 08:29:26 am

Title: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
Post by: jonaskoelker on April 08, 2018, 08:29:26 am
The basic idea is this:

Shield
Action — Reserve
Cost: ?
[some on-play ability]

When another player plays an Attack card, you may call this. If you do, you are unaffected by that Attack.

Regarding the cost and on-play, I'm thinking something like

Shield
Action — Reserve
Cost: (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png)
+1 action
+2 cards
Discard 2 cards.
Put this on your Tavern mat.

When another player plays an Attack card, you may call this. If you do, you are unaffected by that Attack.



Where Lighthouse (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Lighthouse) gives you The Field's Gift (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/The_Field's_Gift) and Moat (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Moat) nets you The Sea's Gift (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/The_Sea's_Gift), this gives you The Wind's Gift (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/The_Wind's_Gift). They all cost (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png), and the Boons are balanced so this is balanced, right? ;) — more seriously, Dungeon (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Dungeon)ing seems like a reasonable minor bonus that isn't present on any canon attack-blocker.

The most interesting aspect of Shield that leaps out at me is that it interacts very differently against attacks that are spammed vs. attacks that are played once per turn—archetypal examples are Minion (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Minion) and Mountebank (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Mountebank). It's probably fine against Mountebank and not so much against Minion, unless you pick up a large pile of shields.

In deck-drawing engines, it plays different from Lighthouse: you need two Lighthouses to block all attacks, but one Shield per attack you want to block. It also becomes weaker the more players there are: you need one Shield per attack-per-turn per player. The strength of Shield is of course that you can play it any time before the attack happens and be protected, rather than just the turn before or after the attack is played. Also, it has self-synergy: each Shield helps you cycle to your other Shields :)

The on-play effect provides some modest after-the-fact mitigation of topdecking and junking attacks, but it's probably not something you want to keep in hand after being hit by Militia, unless the sifting is key to kicking off. Against Relic, Minion and other random-smaller-hand attacks (such as... I'm drawing a blank), the sifting might be good though. That is, the on-play ability of Shield has a Watchtower (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Watchtower)-like quality in that it interacts differently with different types of attacks.
Title: Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
Post by: Holunder9 on April 08, 2018, 09:38:47 am
The basic idea is this:

Shield
Action — Reserve
Cost: ?
[some on-play ability]

When another player plays an Attack card, you may call this. If you do, you are unaffected by that Attack.

Regarding the cost and on-play, I'm thinking something like

Shield
Action — Reserve
Cost: (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png)
+1 action
+2 cards
Discard 2 cards.
Put this on your Tavern mat.

When another player plays an Attack card, you may call this. If you do, you are unaffected by that Attack.



Where Lighthouse (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Lighthouse) gives you The Field's Gift (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/The_Field's_Gift) and Moat (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Moat) nets you The Sea's Gift (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/The_Sea's_Gift), this gives you The Wind's Gift (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/The_Wind's_Gift). They all cost (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png), and the Boons are balanced so this is balanced, right? ;) — more seriously, Dungeon (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Dungeon)ing seems like a reasonable minor bonus that isn't present on any canon attack-blocker.

The most interesting aspect of Shield that leaps out at me is that it interacts very differently against attacks that are spammed vs. attacks that are played once per turn—archetypal examples are Minion (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Minion) and Mountebank (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Mountebank). It's probably fine against Mountebank and not so much against Minion, unless you pick up a large pile of shields.

In deck-drawing engines, it plays different from Lighthouse: you need two Lighthouses to block all attacks, but one Shield per attack you want to block. It also becomes weaker the more players there are: you need one Shield per attack-per-turn per player. The strength of Shield is of course that you can play it any time before the attack happens and be protected, rather than just the turn before or after the attack is played. Also, it has self-synergy: each Shield helps you cycle to your other Shields :)

The on-play effect provides some modest after-the-fact mitigation of topdecking and junking attacks, but it's probably not something you want to keep in hand after being hit by Militia, unless the sifting is key to kicking off. Against Relic, Minion and other random-smaller-hand attacks (such as... I'm drawing a blank), the sifting might be good though. That is, the on-play ability of Shield has a Watchtower (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Watchtower)-like quality in that it interacts differently with different types of attacks.
Concerning to the Boons you mentioned, Lighthouse provides an additional Coin next turn, Moat draws one card more and Shield provides an extra Action so I don't really understand these comparisons.
That said, a cantrip Reserve Moat is probably too strong (you could argue that Shield's on play is situationally weaker than a cantrip). I think there are two principal ways to fix that. Either make the Reserve Moat terminal, e.g. a terminal Silver, or creation some interaction, e.g. a split pile with the Reserve Moats on top and some Attack card underneath and the Reserve Moats have to be called and trashed to defend.
Title: Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
Post by: GendoIkari on April 08, 2018, 12:51:53 pm
I like the decision that this gives to the other player. If my opponent has one of these on their tavern mat, and I have multiple attacks I could play, I can choose which one to play first, hoping that they use the shield so I can then play the better attack. Meanwhile, if your the one with a shield on your mat, and your opponent plays a weakish attack, you have to decide if you think they're going to play a stronger attack next. Good choices to make.
Title: Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
Post by: trivialknot on April 08, 2018, 01:38:18 pm
The first thing that jumps out to me about Shield is, you can't call it unless opponents play attacks.  So if the on-play effect is too strong, then opponents will be disincentivized from ever playing attacks, since they don't want to allow you to get Shield off your mat.  And if it's too weak, then it's basically useless when there aren't attacks.  I'm not sure where the happy medium is.
Title: Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
Post by: GendoIkari on April 08, 2018, 01:40:46 pm
The first thing that jumps out to me about Shield is, you can't call it unless opponents play attacks.  So if the on-play effect is too strong, then opponents will be disincentivized from ever playing attacks, since they don't want to allow you to get Shield off your mat.  And if it's too weak, then it's basically useless when there aren't attacks.  I'm not sure where the happy medium is.

Good point. Maybe it needs to ability to also just call it for no benefit at the start of your turn or something.
Title: Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
Post by: jonaskoelker on April 08, 2018, 05:18:01 pm
You can't call [Shield] unless opponents play attacks. [implications ... where's the sweet spot]

Maybe it needs to ability to also just call it for no benefit at the start of your turn or something.

These thoughts were going through my head as I was thinking about the on-play ability. I would prefer a Shield that only lets you take it off the mat when your opponent plays attacks, though balancing the on-play becomes really tricky.

Taking it off the mat: it could also just be discarded?

A cantrip Reserve Moat is probably too strong (you could argue that Shield's on play is situationally weaker than a cantrip). I think there are two principal ways to fix that. Either make the Reserve Moat terminal, e.g. a terminal Silver, or creation some interaction, e.g. a split pile with the Reserve Moats on top and some Attack card underneath and the Reserve Moats have to be called and trashed to defend.
Most attacks are terminal; if I make it a terminal Silver, defending against most attacks will cost the same terminal space as playing the attacks, but Shield will be cheaper than most attacks. That seems okay. Also, Duchess (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Duchess) and Embargo (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Embargo) are terminals Silvers for $2 with a benefit—but Mountebank (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Mountebank) is also a terminal Silver with a benefit and it costs a lot more. Eh, the other attack-blockers cost $2, pricing Terminal Silver Shield at $2 is probably a fine place to start.

Speaking of other attack-blockers, I didn't even compare Shield to Guardian. Meh, Guardian is pretty similar to Lighthouse.

[Which attack to play first, whether to block weak attacks or not] Good choices to make.
Oh that's really cool, I hadn't considered that!

[Boons?!]
Moat, Lighthouse and Guardian all provide some small benefit beyond blocking attacks. Boons are small benefits, and there are boons whose benefits are pretty close to exactly those of Moat and Lighthouse. Oh hey, this is also true of Shield. That's really all.

I said that Moat nets you +1 card. Actually you get +1 card twice (gross) and with Lighthouse you get the $1 twice and +1 action only once, so it's not exactly like getting two boons in both cases, but it's close.

[Idea: split pile]
I'm sure one could design a great Reserve moat split pile. In the case of Shield and my one other design, I've tried to make cards that would fit into a single canon expansion; split piles and Reserve cards have not (yet) appeared in the same expansion. My particular aims are really the only reason why I wouldn't do that, and now you know I have those aims :)

Anyways, let me just write up the revised idea:

Shield, Revised
Action — Reserve
Cost: (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png)
+(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png)
Put this on your tavern mat.

When another player plays an Attack card, you may call this. If you do, you are unaffected by that Attack.
At the start of your turn, you may discard this from your tavern mat.

With the other unmatting mode, the phrase that comes to me is "At the start of your turn, you may call this", and it's not obvious that "if you do, nothing happens" is implicit—it sounds like someone forgot to write the "if you do" part.

I like this version of Shield too. Great inputs, guys :)
Title: Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
Post by: ClouduHieh on April 09, 2018, 01:18:11 am
I’m making my own fan based expansion it’s called snow line. Anyway I have several reserve cards in this expansion. One of them might be of some interest to this thread. It’s called fur coat.
Fur coat
+1 Action +2💵
Put this on your tavern mat
When another player plays an attack
You may call this and gain a card
Costing up to 5💵
Cost 4 Action-Reserve
Some players will think twice about playing attacks if fur coats in the game. I’m making this card
Useful against a particular card in the snow line expansion. It’s called blizzard. Blizzard is a duration attack card. When it’s in play until your next turn no one can buy action cards. And if blizzard is played by multiple players. Your going to want a fur coat. Or some other cards from the real expansions. Like lurker, hermit, and armory for instance. Blizzard only prevents actions from being bought. So it shouldn’t be overwhelmingly powerful.
Title: Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
Post by: jonaskoelker on April 09, 2018, 09:01:19 am
[...] Fur coat [...]
Cute, I like it. If you can't get it off the mat without your opponent playing an attack, the reward to you when your opponent plays an attack includes "you can play Fur Coat" again—similarly to the first version of Shield.

Given that it doesn't interfere with the attack, it might not have the problem Shield would have—although, it does punish your opponent for playing an attack by way of rewarding you, so it might still have a (slightly different) version of the same problem.

Blizzard is a duration attack card. When it’s in play until your next turn no one can buy action cards.
If you build a deck-drawing engine and you get two Blizzards in play on alternating turns, your opponent can no longer build their engine unless there are gainers on the board. If there's also an attack which really hurts money-ish strategies—Militia (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Militia) and Marauder (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Marauder) are fine—your opponent is just dead. That sounds pretty powerful to me. Like, bananas broken.

If two players build engines that do this and they get there simultaneously, it's obviously symmetric, so I guess maybe the effect of this lockdown is to amplify the benefit to getting your engine up and running first. If your opponent can't reliably deliver their Blizzard you can still continue building, although more slowly than otherwise.

See also the sticky thread.
(5) Try to avoid cards that encourage uninteresting strategies. You probably don't want to disincentivize creative or otherwise interesting play. As a trivial example, let's say you had a Duration card that prohibited other players from playing action cards while it's in play. This would cause all your opponents' Action cards to be dead cards. How would they defend against this? By not buying action cards and pursuing a money strategy instead. That, in turn, would discourage you from using your new Duration card in the first place, and the game would degenerate into a simple race for money.
Yours says buy, not play, so it's different, but... in strategic impact it might be similar enough that I would encourage extensive playtesting (said the guy from his glass house).

Hmmm, the you-can't-buy-actions thing is a Hex. That gives me an idea...
Title: Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
Post by: ClouduHieh on April 09, 2018, 10:59:06 pm
Yeah your right that it’s useless if you can’t call off the tavern mat if there’s no attack. But usually most reactions and like reactions are basically useless if there’s no attacks. Most players don’t buy reactions if there’s no attacks in the first place. And a lot of times there are cards that are almost useless to buy unless you have +2 actions. Like margrave or torturer I don’t bother buying them if there isn’t a village or something. Cause a lot of times you’ll draw actions anyway with those attacks. But there might be times where fur coat will useless. But my snow line expansion has 10 different attack cards and 7 of them are in the supply and there’s only 25 all together in the supply.dont worry there’s 2 other reactions as well. So the chances that there won’t be any attack cards are slim for a random game anyway. When I play with my friends we usually just choose anyway. I love attack cards even when I’m being attacked.

So fur coat is just there to give you a big benefit if you do get attacked and you’ll likely only have a couple in your deck or on your tavern mat in 3 or 4 player game. And if everyone is playing attacks you won’t always have fur coat on your tavern mat to save you. And if it does deter players from playing attack cards it’s to your benefit either way. And you didn’t waste your turn putting it on your tavern mat since you get +1 action and +2💵.

So that was the plan for fur coat anyway. A useful defense. Otherwise just another card you don’t bother buying. Like I’ll gotten gains if chapel is also in the game, I’ll gotten gains is useless. Since you only get 1 treasure when play it and you probably don’t want the copper unless your playing with, Coppersmith, apothecary, counting house, or with a card from my snow line expansion called copper mine. Yeah that’s right I love copper strategies too. I once played online when apothecary and chapel were in the game together. The other player was using chapel. And about halfway was wondering why I wasn’t playing with chapel. Anyways he lost by a landslide!
Title: Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
Post by: ClouduHieh on April 09, 2018, 11:08:47 pm
Oh the cool thing about blizzard here I’ll just show you.

Blizzard

Gain a card costing up to 3💵
Until your next turn no one can
Buy action cards
At the start of your next turn
Gain a card costing up to 6💵
To your hand.
Cost 5 Action-Attack-Duration

So even if fur coat is not in the
Game you can still gain a lot
Of actions. It just makes everyone buy a blizzard. So even everyone is blizzard ing each other. You can still gain actions. I made this card mostly to make one of my friends play with it. Cause he’s not into the attack cards as much as I am.
Title: Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
Post by: Holunder9 on April 11, 2018, 02:30:38 pm
Oh the cool thing about blizzard here I’ll just show you.

Blizzard

Gain a card costing up to 3💵
Until your next turn no one can
Buy action cards
At the start of your next turn
Gain a card costing up to 6💵
To your hand.
Cost 5 Action-Attack-Duration

So even if fur coat is not in the
Game you can still gain a lot
Of actions. It just makes everyone buy a blizzard. So even everyone is blizzard ing each other. You can still gain actions. I made this card mostly to make one of my friends play with it. Cause he’s not into the attack cards as much as I am.
You might want to consider posting your ideas in a new thread instead of spreading them over several existing ones to increase readability.

About the card, while gaining a $3 can be a liability in many Kingdoms (might often be Silver self-junking) the Delusion attack is very strong and the hand-gaining of a $6 is very similar to Cobbler and Artisan. So overall far too strong.
Title: Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
Post by: ClouduHieh on April 12, 2018, 07:09:19 pm
Perhaps. However there are so many Attack cards in my expansion your going to need a powerful card to keep the game going. Plus it’s for me and my friends to enjoy. So as long as we have fun. It doesn’t matter if a card is too powerful or to weak. Even the creator of dominion has had had to remove some cards because they were too weak. And if used kings court on a saboteur, in a 4 player game it became way to powerful. Especially if a few duchies were some of the cards trashed. Or a few royal carriages for that matter with saboteur. Creating your own cards is about trial and error. I have to make a few mistakes. Otherwise I’ll never learn from them. And the only reason why I’m showing you guys my cards is cause I’m bored 😐 you can criticize me you all you want. Cause my cards won’t be perfect anyway. Here’s a list of all my Attack cards. So it will slow the game down. Just not as much as nocturne does.
Yeti, wolves, blizzard, weasel, freezing forest, avalanche, churl, sell sword, outlaw, hedge knight, mad scientist, and village idiot.
Title: Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
Post by: Jack Rudd on April 12, 2018, 08:42:56 pm
Oh the cool thing about blizzard here I’ll just show you.

Blizzard

Gain a card costing up to 3💵
Until your next turn no one can
Buy action cards
At the start of your next turn
Gain a card costing up to 6💵
To your hand.
Cost 5 Action-Attack-Duration

Imagine I am player 1 and you are player 2. I get a 5-2 split, you get a 3-4. I open with Blizzard and get to play it on turn 3.

I may be wrong, but I don't think you're buying an action ever in that game.
Title: Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
Post by: Holunder9 on April 13, 2018, 03:17:26 am
Creating your own cards is about trial and error. I have to make a few mistakes. Otherwise I’ll never learn from them. And the only reason why I’m showing you guys my cards is cause I’m bored 😐 you can criticize me you all you want. Cause my cards won’t be perfect anyway.
Sure which is why posting your cards here is about avoiding some errors that other people spot. You don't learn much when somebody praises your cards, except that you are perhaps not totally off, whereas you do learn something from criticism.

So it will slow the game down. Just not as much as nocturne does.
You might want to explain why you think that Nocturne leads to slogs. There are not particularly many attacks (and Hex attack are less nasty than junking attacks) and Heirlooms often speed up the game.
Title: Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
Post by: ClouduHieh on April 13, 2018, 09:27:15 pm
First of all you you can still gain action cards thru blizzard, fur coat, sled dogs ect. Also their is a reaction that is basically a moat like reaction that blocks blizzard as well has a strong action turn. When you play it as an action. So it’s not impossible to buy action cards. With blizzard in the game.
And I did take the criticism to heart. Assuming my relative remembers blizzard is going cost 6 instead of five so no one is going to be able to get right off the bat. Plus I have another card that is like lurker. So there’s multiple ways to get actions in this game. And there’s even swindler variation as well but better. So it’s true blizzard may cause some problems. But at least there’s other ways around. In fact it was thanks to blizzard that I came up with so many cards. And there’s another attack card that I like more than blizzard. It’s called avalanche!

Now for nocturne

So it took forever to figure out how to play with the cards. If I was to play it with my friends it would take all day to explain it too them. They still have a hard time understanding alchemy, dark ages and empires. There not ready for nocturne and probably never will be. Plus I watched Tom vases explain it and it’s the only expansion he hates he said it work take a couple of extra hours to with seasoned pros. And most of my friends see Dominion as a game to play once in awhile not even every week. Maybe once a month at most. Plus it would probably take an extra hour to set up and put away. So I’ll only play nocturne online. That’s why I’m creating snow line. Because it’s similiar to adventures and they all love adventures. Nocturne is only for die hard dominion fans. And I’m the only one in my group that is. There’s still some cards in nocturne that I don’t fully grasp yet and there’s still 2 landmarks from empires I don’t get either.
Title: Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
Post by: Holunder9 on April 15, 2018, 01:47:39 am
Shield, Revised
Action — Reserve
Cost: (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png)
+(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png)
Put this on your tavern mat.

When another player plays an Attack card, you may call this. If you do, you are unaffected by that Attack.
At the start of your turn, you may discard this from your tavern mat.
This looks solid now. I don't think that situations in which Shield and no Attack cards are in the Kingdom and you frequently want to play a terminal Silver will often arise (I don't think I ever had a Duchess) which is why I consider the last line to be practically unnecessary. But it is probably a better, fail-safe design like this.
Title: Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
Post by: NoMoreFun on April 15, 2018, 07:03:18 am
What would be tactically interesting is if you were immune to attacks while it was on the mat, but it had positive effects that made you want to call it off the mat
Title: Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
Post by: jonaskoelker on April 15, 2018, 02:53:06 pm
What would be tactically interesting is if you were immune to attacks while it was on the mat, but it had positive effects that made you want to call it off the mat
I think a permanent Lighthouse (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Lighthouse) can potentially be quite strong, though it obviously varies from board to board. It can create situations where some cards (attacks) become too weak at their price point, so you're effectively playing a 10-minus-n-card kingdom.

If I were to pursue an idea like this, I think I would do something like the following:

NoMoreFun's Shield
Action — Reserve
Cost: ?
[very mild effect, like +1 action, maybe. But Duplicate doesn't need any on-play benefit, so maybe nothing.]

When another player plays an Attack card, call this, and you are unaffected by that Attack.
At the start of your turn, you may discard this from your tavern mat. If you do, [reasonably strong effect].

The key idea is that the calling is mandatory. That way, it's not a permanent Lighthouse; with enough spamming, you can overcome a pile of shields. It also makes any attack a way of preventing [reasonably strong effect], so it might cause weaker attacks to see play.

It's probably not going to be great against Minion (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Minion) stacks; you're going to need more shields than they have Minions to get [reasonably strong effect], and exactly as many to not be hit by the attack. Against some engine that likes to payload a single [whatever attack], it might be fine though.
Title: Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
Post by: Holunder9 on April 15, 2018, 03:26:30 pm
The main idea of adding some effect when you call it without being attacked is to make the card more interesting in Kingdoms without Attacks so I don't think that the call-effect has to be particularly strong. For e.g. you could (you shouldn't as it'd be boring compared to Gladiator, this is jsut a random example) simply change your version and add +1 Coin when you call it without being attacked and increase the price to $3 or $4.

I don't think that calling to defend when attacked should be mandatory; given that there already exist 2 Duration Moat variants it kind of defeats the purpose of a Reserve version. Lighthouse and Guardian are non-terminal and defend against several attacks so why nerf your terminal Reserve version that only defends against one attack (and thus decreases in strength in multiplayer games) even more via force-call?
Title: Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
Post by: jonaskoelker on April 17, 2018, 04:48:12 pm
The main idea of adding some effect when you call it without being attacked is to make the card more interesting in Kingdoms without Attacks
I think NoMoreFun's idea was to have a card with a strong while-on-mat effect and a similarly strong call-from-mat effect, forcing you to make a non-trivial choice, accepting that it becomes easier the fewer and weaker the attacks.

so I don't think that the call-effect has to be particularly strong. [For example, a bit more money might be OK but boring compared to Gladiator.]
I think it has to be approximately as strong as not calling it, on average across random kingdoms, for the choice to be non-obvious and thus interesting. If the effect is "you're immune to attacks until you call this", the on-call effect has to be correspondingly strong, and I'm not sure a delayed Gold is strong enough. Swamp Hag (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Swamp_Hag) is strong because cursing is strong, Secret Cave (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Secret_Cave) is cantrip but eats three cards, Raider (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Raider) costs a lot more and has an attack but is not a particularly strong card.

While perma-Moat is the weaker of Champion (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Champion)'s abilities (most of the time?), it's still pretty strong and Champion is really hard to get into play. Hm...

I don't think that calling to defend when attacked should be mandatory [...] it kind of defeats the purpose of a Reserve version. [...] why nerf your terminal Reserve version that only defends against one attack (and thus decreases in strength in multiplayer games) even more via force-call?
Because I think perma-Moat is... 'too strong' is almost right; I think it makes the game worse by removing elements from it. Forced call seems like it could be interesting to work with/around, provided the on-call effect is reasonably-strong enough. It preserved one aspect of NoMoreFun's suggestion, which is that whether you're defended against the first attack or not is not a function of your calling decisions.

I guess, though, at this point it's almost equivalent to a duration: "mild effect now // at the start of your next turn, reasonably strong effect — when someone else plays attack, discard this from play". Also, if I stack multiples, in almost any way of phrasing forced-call you end up calling all your forced-call cards.

Hmm... non-trivial :)
Title: Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
Post by: Holunder9 on April 18, 2018, 03:28:12 am
If the effect is "you're immune to attacks until you call this", the on-call effect has to be correspondingly strong, and I'm not sure a delayed Gold is strong enough.
My mistake, I did not get that you talked about a hypothetical perma-Moat.
I don't think NoMoreFun's suggestion of a permanent defense Kingdom Reserv card is good as it would just kill all attacks.
The other part of his suggestion, giving it a stronger on-call effect, is worthwhile to be pursued though.
Title: Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
Post by: jonaskoelker on April 18, 2018, 12:52:53 pm
My mistake, I did not get that you talked about a hypothetical perma-Moat.
Cool, I figured there was some kind of misunderstanding going on.

I don't think NoMoreFun's suggestion of a permanent defense Kingdom Reserv card is good as it would just kill all attacks.
I agree, which is why I tried something vaguely in that direction. I don't like my result all that much, but I think it's better for the game than "while on mat, you're moated".

The other part of his suggestion, giving it a stronger on-call effect, is worthwhile to be pursued though.
One I think I might like is "[start of turn, may call, for] +1 card". Maybe +2 cards, or <+2 cards, discard a card>, or something like that, combined with no on-play benefit.

At +2 cards, an interesting comparison is to Enchantress (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Enchantress). Enchantress gives you both two cards and a one-card counterspell (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=442039), where +2-cards-Shield gives you one or the other. The Enchantress counterspell effect is chosen by your opponent, constrained by "it has to be in their starting hand"; the Shield counterspell is chosen by you, constrained by "has the 'Attack' type", and it's partial (they still get +$2 from their Militia).

Does that make Shield (costed at $3) stronger or weaker than Enchantress? Man, I dunno, weaker probably? Depends on the kingdom strength of available attacks, and the reliability you can get. With a no-trashing village/smithy engine and weak attacks, Enchantress looks way better; with Chapel, Dungeon, Port and Rabble, maybe Shield starts to look more interesting? Maybe? One of the strengths of Shield, and Reserve cards in general, is that you time when you get the benefit. In the Shield-vs-Enchantress comparison, this implies that you can choose when to bear the cost of having to spend an action getting it back on the mat where it can draw you cards.

Shield is designed such that it could fit into Adventures; the design space I'm exploring here is similar/close to that covered by Guide (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Guide) and Hireling (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Hireling). Maybe I should look for some other on-call benefit.

Hm; maybe the real reason I'm not happy is that I feel it takes the focus away from Shield being a Reserve Moat. And maybe I'm wrong about that.
Title: Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
Post by: Holunder9 on April 18, 2018, 01:08:09 pm
One I think I might like is "[start of turn, may call, for] +1 card". Maybe +2 cards, or <+2 cards, discard a card>, or something like that, combined with no on-play benefit.
Without any on-play benefit it should be at least 2 cards. I don't think that there is anything wrong though with +2 Coins, +1 Card when called. Without any on-play benefit it becomes an expensive defense in attack-intensive and you mentioned that you want to keep the focus on this card being mainly a Reserve Moat.
Title: Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
Post by: dbclick on April 18, 2018, 02:39:04 pm
How about making it an Action - Reserve - Duration with an optional call? That would mostly solve the multiplayer scaling issues.
Something like this (wording isn't perfect):

Shield, Duration-style
Action — Duration — Reserve
Cost: (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png)
+1 Action
+1 Card
Put this on your Tavern mat.

At the start of your turn you may discard this from your Tavern mat. If you do, +2 Cards then discard 2 cards.
When another player plays an Attack card, you may first call this to be, until your next turn, unaffected when other players play Attack cards.



Discarding it from the Tavern mat solves the tracking issue - if it's in front of you, its protecting you from attacks. This also speeds it up slightly when used for filtering.
Title: Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
Post by: Holunder9 on April 18, 2018, 02:58:05 pm
As worded this is a Reserve, not a Duratio (you probably have in mind that this becomes a Duration after being called, laying in your play area like a Duration card, but technically it is not).
The play effect is too strong, cheap cantrip are easy spammable and thus kill all Attacks (even a mere non-terminal like Lighthouse can kill off Attacks).
The call-effect is far too strong, making it a delayed Forum (and, ignorign the defense aspect, arguably better than Dungeon).
The call-to-defense thing makes the defense part of this strictly better than Lighthouse or Guardian.

I thought that the idea of a Reserve defense was to have a trade-off between the flexibility of only defending when needed  and then only being able to defend once.
Title: Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
Post by: dbclick on April 18, 2018, 07:25:02 pm
Thanks for the feedback!

As worded this is a Reserve, not a Duratio (you probably have in mind that this becomes a Duration after being called, laying in your play area like a Duration card, but technically it is not).
It's a Duration card so it doesn't clean-up on the turn it's called (unlike Coin of the Realm and Royal Carriage which clean up on that turn - this is to provide tracking for whether its protecting you). It's also a Reserve because it goes to the Tavern mat and can be called/discarded from there. Really just semantics, but I think the Duration type here is correct.

The play effect is too strong, cheap cantrip are easy spammable and thus kill all Attacks (even a mere non-terminal like Lighthouse can kill off Attacks).
It's possible that having it be a cantrip is too powerful due to the filtering, but It should probably be non-terminal. It could simply be reversed to have it discard first, then draw and keep the cantrip. Defense in Dominion is pretty weak overall, but I could see it being a cantrip could result in a fair number of people spamming it enough to block all attacks (which still wouldn't be terrible because of the general opportunity cost of doing so).

The call-effect is far too strong, making it a delayed Forum (and, ignorign the defense aspect, arguably better than Dungeon).
Dungeon filters on the turn it's played. This wouldn't — it's worse in that regard. Also, the value of delaying an effect to the next turn devalues it significantly so having it cost less isn't as overpowered as you might think. It may be something that could bump the cost up to 3 if playtesting showed that. Or potentially, as previously stated, discard first then draw.

The call-to-defense thing makes the defense part of this strictly better than Lighthouse or Guardian.
That's the idea. It provides no benefit while on the mat and so you have to weigh the cost of it sitting there versus calling it, unlike Guardian, which you can buy at any time and have it apply immediately instead of having to buy, cycle, and play it before use. Lighthouse gives you 2 coins across 2 turns, so this is different; it could be better sometimes, other times no.

I thought that the idea of a Reserve defense was to have a trade-off between the flexibility of only defending when needed  and then only being able to defend once.
The reason I proposed this idea is that the defend-only-once property scales terribly between different numbers of players. You still can only defend on the rounds you need to (which forces you to track your opponents decks more). If this is too powerful, then you could make it not a cantrip in some way, like removing the +1 Card aspect. Possibly make it terminal with some bonus, but I like the idea of not having to take a terminal slot in your turn for defense, which I think would make it too costly to use.

If I were to weaken it, I'd do something more like:

Shield, Duration-style v2
Action — Duration — Reserve
Cost: (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png)
+1 Action
Put this on your Tavern mat.

At the start of your turn you may discard this from your Tavern mat. If you do, discard 2 cards then +2 Cards.
When another player plays an Attack card, you may first call this to be, until your next turn, unaffected when other players play Attack cards.



I'd love to playtest both.
Title: Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
Post by: Holunder9 on April 19, 2018, 04:36:44 am
Defense in Dominion is pretty weak overall
Totally disagree. I have lost games in which the opponent went heavy on Guardian, a card I considered before far weaker than Lighthouse. It is not really surprising that non-terminal defense is strong as Attack cards are often very strong (even with very good trashing you rarely want to skip junkers).

Quote
Dungeon filters on the turn it's played. This wouldn't — it's worse in that regard.
+1 Action +2 Cards discard 2 Cards is not always superior to a mere cantrip as it decreases handsize. That's they key difference between Forum/Fugitive and Warehouse/Dungeon. You can never get too much of the former which is why you always take a Forum "for free" (e.g. when you hit 13 with just one Buy) whereas too many Dungeons can hurt your deck.

If I were to weaken it, I'd do something more like:

Shield, Duration-style v2
Action — Duration — Reserve
Cost: (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png)
+1 Action
Put this on your Tavern mat.

At the start of your turn you may discard this from your Tavern mat. If you do, discard 2 cards then +2 Cards.
When another player plays an Attack card, you may first call this to be, until your next turn, unaffected when other players play Attack cards.
I think that Lighthouse is far too strong. It could easily cost $3 as it is better than Silver in decks that want a high Action card density and it non-terminally defends against terminal attacks, easily shutting down all Attacks. So I wouldn't use it as benchmark for Moat variants. But as this version of the card provides little benefit (the Cellar-style sifting seems pretty weak) I think it is OK compared to the first version which was easily a $4.
Title: Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
Post by: jonaskoelker on April 19, 2018, 01:43:38 pm
[assessment of Dbclick's Shield]
I thought that the idea of a Reserve defense was to have a trade-off between the flexibility of only defending when needed  and then only being able to defend once.
I more-or-less agree with your assessment.

The key dynamic I had in mind when thinking up Shield was the decoupling between the timing of the defense play and the attack play. That is, I can play Shield three turns before you play your Mountebank and it still works, unlike Moat/Lighthouse/Guardian, for any (positive) value of three. The fact that it also creates interesting decisions in case of multiple different attacks is frosting on top of the cake, from my perspective.

I don't know whether I should be unhappy that it's worse in multiplayer. One way of making it stronger which perhaps runs the risk of making it less interesting is something like "when another player plays an attack, you may call this. If you do, name a card. Until the start of your next turn, attacks by copies of the named card don't affect you."

That way, one Shield defends against every player's first Militia, not just your left opponent's first Militia, while requiring a second Shield to also defend against their Witch. The problem is that it also defends against the second, third, etc. Militia (or Witch, if you picked Witch). Maybe that's not a problem?
Title: Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
Post by: dbclick on April 19, 2018, 07:52:47 pm
I definitely agree that the card I proposed is very different. It would be tricky to have the one you proposed scale up for multiplayer (hence why I put forth my idea).

I think mine has the core dynamic of having to decide whether to save it for defending attacks the next round or discard it now for a slightly better turn. Which is an interesting dynamic, but a different one.

The other issue with defending against individual attacks is it only becomes interesting in games that have multiple attacks coming your way that stack (say like most junking attacks, or Hexes).
In order for the Shield-defend-once to be the most meaningful, I have to be in a game where:

It seems like Shield would be less meaningful in Kingdoms without those properties.

The modification you put out for naming a card to defend against is interesting in that you have to have multiple copies of Shield loaded to make it work against multiple named attack cards. However, it still has the issue of having the above requirements needed to be useful except it gets even narrower by eliminating single attacks that stack from the picture (e.g. junkers):

For my card, I was going for something that would be somewhat useful and interesting in the majority of games. Not saying yours is worse, just narrower.
Title: Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
Post by: crj on April 19, 2018, 10:34:12 pm
Having seen the discussion of a strong card that gives defence while on your Tavern mat, but is balanced by good effects if kept in circulation, it occurs to me that an alternative is a card that gives strong defence while on your Tavern mat, but is balanced by hurting you while it's there.

The example which first occurred to me:

Shield, Action-Reserve
Cost $2

+1 Action
Put this on your Tavern mat
----
While this is on your Tavern mat:

When another player plays an Attack card, it doesn't affect you.

At the start of your turn, discard a card or gain a card costing $0. Then you may call this for +1 Card.
Title: Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
Post by: Holunder9 on April 20, 2018, 02:21:48 am
Getting a Champion after the first shuffle is crazy. The cost is also too low as it is the same effect of the weakest attacks in the game: handsize attacks that only make you discard one card (Urchin, one Soldier).
Title: Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
Post by: crj on April 20, 2018, 01:42:41 pm
I've not playtested it, but I reckon it might produce an interesting dynamic.

Yes, the negative effect of keeping my version of Shield in reserve is only the same as the weakest attacks. That's deliberate. If the effect of Shield was the same as that of the strongest attacks, it wouldn't be protection in any meaningful sense.

Note also that you get the downside even if you haven't been attacked. Is it still worth it to protect against an attack every other round, say?

If start player buys it on turn 1, do you even buy the attack? Conversely, if nobody buys any attacks, do you regret having wasted your first buy on a card that's even more dead than the other $2 defences?
Title: Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
Post by: Holunder9 on April 20, 2018, 01:55:45 pm
Yes, the negative effect of keeping my version of Shield in reserve is only the same as the weakest attacks. That's deliberate. If the effect of Shield was the same as that of the strongest attacks, it wouldn't be protection in any meaningful sense.
True that. Which is why a good version of your Shield would be somewhere between those two extremes that'd make the card broken.
Title: Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
Post by: dbclick on April 20, 2018, 01:57:10 pm
crj has an interesting concept (hurt yourself or be hurt by others), but I'm not sure the card proposed could make games interesting enough to be worth it.
I'm inclined to agree with Holunder9 on this one. It seems like it would be too strong to have unlimited defense so early with such a cheap penalty.

If the interplay crj suggests occurs, then most of the interesting decisions are over after the opening, and worse, the card just sits there doing nothing in many games (either due to the stalemate or the lack of major attacks). To me, it's not that hard to see if you should keep it on your mat or not. You're also not having very much fun when you have to hurt yourself and it would be pretty painful in multiplayer: if everyone keeps it on their mat in a stalemate the game feels like it's getting slowed down.
Title: Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
Post by: Holunder9 on April 20, 2018, 02:02:50 pm
If start player buys it on turn 1, do you even buy the attack? Conversely, if nobody buys any attacks, do you regret having wasted your first buy on a card that's even more dead than the other $2 defences?
We talk about a card that totally undoes an entire, interactive card category for the sake of what, a little metagame about getting Attacks or not? The dominant strategy is probably for neither player to get either Shield or an Attack; you don't want Shield as it sucks while it is on your Tavern mat and you don't want an Attack as it just gets weakened by Shield.

There is a reason cool cards like Plunder or Champion are not available on turn 1, they would obviously be far too powerful.