Dominion Strategy Forum

Dominion => Variants and Fan Cards => Topic started by: ploderup on May 26, 2018, 09:17:54 pm

Title: Dominion: Cults & Creeds (Looking for Feedback!)
Post by: ploderup on May 26, 2018, 09:17:54 pm
Hey, all! Thank you in advance for your feedback.

My wife and I are currently in the process of developing a "fanspansion" for Dominion, the working title being Cults & Creeds. Currently, we are exploring two game mechanics: deriving benefit from Curse cards, and more elaborate trash cards. We are both late to the Dominion game, having only been introduced to it last year. However, we have since fallen in love with Dominion and thought it would be fun to try and build an expansion together.

As of now, we have play-tested ten cards and have ideas for ten others. Given this project is still very much a work-in-progress, I am only posting only the cards that we have played with. I'll continue to add more as we solidify other concepts in the future.

Please, be brutally honest with your feedback. Again, thank you in advance for your time!

Edit (5/29/18): Thank you for your feedback! I have tried to incorporate most of the changes that have been suggested (both here, and over at r/Dominion), and wanted to post those here. Obviously, these cards still need plenty of play-testing, but I figured I would try and keep this post at least somewhat up-to-date. Please, feel free to keep commenting and critiquing.
Here's a link to the updated cards: https://imgur.com/a/qHt8zUE (https://imgur.com/a/qHt8zUE). Note, each card's image is followed by a few sentences regarding the changes that were (or remain to be) made to it.

Quote
Apostate
Action - Attack, $2

+$2
Each player (including you) gains a Curse.

Quote
Collection Plate
Action, $5

Trash a Treasure and gain a Gold onto your deck.
Each other player may choose one: trash a Treasure; or gain a Silver onto their deck and gain a Curse.

Quote
Confessional
Action, $5

+1 Action
Reveal your hand. Trash up to two cards and discard the rest. For each card trashed, +2 Cards. For each card discarded, +1 Card.

Quote
Crusade
Action - Attack - Duration, $5

+$2
Each other player discards down to three cards in hand.
At the start of your next turn: You may trash a Victory card. If you do, +$3 and each other player gains a Curse.

Quote
Exorcist
Action, $4

+$1
+1 Buy
Reveal the top 5 cards of your deck. Return the Curses to the Supply and discard the rest. For each Curse returned, +$2. If no Curses were returned, gain a Curse.

Quote
Indulgence
Action, $5

+2 Cards
You may discard a Treasure from your hand. If you do, +1 Action and trash any number of cards from your discard pile up to half the cost of the discarded Treasure, rounded down.

Quote
Martyrium
Action - Duration - Victory, $6

Set aside any number of cards from your hand face down (under this). At the start of your next turn, put the card(s) into your hand.
2 VP

Quote
Miracle Worker
Action - Reaction, $4

+1 Card
+1 Action
You may trash this. If you do, choose one: +2 Cards; or gain a Silver to your hand. You may not trash more than one Miracle Worker on your turn.
-----
When another player plays an Attack card, you may trash this. If you do, choose one: +3 Cards; or gain a Gold to your hand.

Quote
Pagan Village
Action - Duration, $3

+2 Cards
+2 Actions
At the start of your next turn, trash two cards or gain a Curse.

Quote
Tithe Box
Action - Attack, $3

+1 Buy
Gain 3 Coppers to your hand.
Each other player trashes a Treasure costing at least $3 from their hand and gains a Treasure to their hand costing up to $3 less than it (or reveals a hand with no Treasure costing at least $3).
Title: Re: Dominion: Cults & Creeds (Looking for Feedback!)
Post by: Holunder9 on May 27, 2018, 08:36:46 am
Even with dubious "good Curses" cards like Excorcist Apostate is pointless unless you direly want a terminal Silver.
Confessional is too powerful. If it said +1 Card per card trashed it would decrease handsize by one after executing the card, just like Junk Dealer and Upgrade, and the cycling could easily make it nearly as good as Junk Dealer. As it stands the first time you play it you get to trash 2 cards and increase your handsize by 1, i.e. you get the effect of Sentry and Lab.
Martyrium is a nice idea, an unlimited Haven/Gear effect. Could perhaps get away with being cheaper.
Pagan Village is broken at any price.
Tithe Box junks yourself more than the other players so why would you ever go for except for the very rare Kingdoms in which you buy Beggar for the Action and not the Reaction?
Title: Re: Dominion: Cults & Creeds (Looking for Feedback!)
Post by: ploderup on May 27, 2018, 03:02:45 pm
Thanks for getting back to me!
Apostate is probably not worth much later in game, but can offer some buying power earlier on. Do you think it'd be better w/ +$3?
Confessional definitely needs some change, be it an increase in price or something else. The biggest problem is the possibility for some crazy chain with the card: The player could play multiples and end up with an oversized hand. My instinct is just to increase the price to $6, but I'm open to any ideas. What do you think?
We'll play around with a cheaper Martyrium. Maybe set it at $5?
Care to expand on Pagan Village? It's powerful early-on, but costly later in game when a player doesn't have cards they want to trash.
Tithe Box is definitely problematic. The idea was to create a sort of reverse-Mine, that caused other players to downgrade a Treasure. Maybe we'll change "Gain 3 Coppers" to +$3.
Title: Re: Dominion: Cults & Creeds (Looking for Feedback!)
Post by: Gazbag on May 27, 2018, 04:06:48 pm
Hi! You asked for it so I'll try and not go easy on you  :P.

Apostate: In the outtakes section of The Secret History of the Dark Ages Cards (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=4318.0) Donald X talks about an attack for $3 that gave out a Curse and gained you an Estate:
Quote
- There was an attack, gain an Estate, they gain a Curse, for $3. It dominated games too much. I replaced it with Marauder, and used the Estate/Curse thing on Followers.
Apparently this card was dominating, although I think it sounds terribly weak looking at it from a modern player's perspective... Anyway, assuming he's right and that was too strong I imagine that this is also too strong as gaining a Curse isn't that much worse than an Estate and getting +$2 is significantly better than getting nothing. Either way is flooding everyones deck with Curses really a fun thing for a card to do?

Collection Plate: This should specify that you trash from hand. The 2nd option for the opponent sounds like more of an attack than anything, Silver+Curse is a really bad deal! I guess it's fine to have 1 generically strong option and one more situational one? Ignoring that the card seems okay to me, it's like a stronger Taxman with a drawback instead of an attack.

Confessional: The hand reveal seems redundant on this? In the end this is just a ridiculously powerful card, even with Holunder's suggestion of reducing it to +1 Card per card trashed it'd still completely eclipse Junk Dealer because it can trash 2 cards instead of 1 while cycling through a hefty chunk of cards... A change that I would try that also ties into the sets theme is that you only get +2 cards for Curses that you trash, it's still a reasonabl trasher in its own right but it can be a nice defence against cursing attacks or used alongside your self-cursing cards.

Crusade: Some nitpicks: Needs to specify where you trash the Victory from and I think Crusader is a better name for an Action card, Crusade sounds like more of an Event. The official cards shy away from duration Attacks that attack on the 2nd turn because people will expect to be able to block it with a Moat. If you reveal a Moat on the turn Crusade is played then you'll be defended from both turns. Aside from that, this card is doing quite a lot at once, handsize attack, Estate trashing and Cursing all at once - and it gives a lot of money while it does all this.

Exorcist: There is a card in Nocturne called Exorcist so you might want a different name for this. If there is no Cursing attack I'd have to be very desperate for +Buy to ever consider this, it's such a weak card anyway and it has a drawback!

Miracle Worker: I like the top part well enough, although the once per turn limit seems unnecessary. I'm not sure on the reaction though, the +3 cards choice is basically the same as just playing it and taking the +2 cards (apart from the 1 per turn limit) but it also stinks vs handsize attacks, I like the Gold gain better but putting the Gold into hand is also made weaker against handsize attacks. I don't know, something about that rubs me the wrong way.

Indulgence: I like this I think, the fact that you can chain them together to discard some Coppers and then discard a Silver/Gold with the last one to trash the Coppers you discarded gets around the empty discard pile problem cards like Counting House have. The power-level seems reasonably balanced to me on first glance so well done!

Martyrium: Eh, this seems so much worse than Gear. I don't find the idea of putting Victory points on unrelated Actions particularly compelling, I mean it's fine but we've seen it already in Intrigue so it just isn't very exciting, it also comes with the slight baggage of needing 12 cards.

Tithe Box: Wording nitpick, it should say '(or reveals they can't)'. Man, self junking is just so bad. I quite like the idea of a reverse Mine as an attack, but I think it's a pretty weak attack overall. The self copper junking will usually hurt you more than the attack will hurt your opponents, also scaling like this with more players is usually a bad idea.

Pagan Village: Yes this is ridiculously overpowered. When you don't have cards you want to trash this has already done its job so you can just not play it, most trashers are completely useless when you've got rid of your starting cards but with this you can choose to keep playing it if you can handle the Curses (which shouldn't be difficult given how powerful of a card this is).

A thing to consider when designing an expansion is whether you want to balance the costs and effects of the cards to mimic a real expansion, or just have a random collection of cards following a theme. E.g. most large expansions have about 3-4 villages, 3ish terminal draw cards (smithies) and so on.
Title: Re: Dominion: Cults & Creeds (Looking for Feedback!)
Post by: ploderup on May 27, 2018, 11:01:58 pm
Quote
Hi! You asked for it so I'll try and not go easy on you  :P.
Haha, I totally asked for it, and I really appreciate the feedback. Thank you!

Apostate
The idea behind this card was that it wouldn't really turn the tide of the game, points-wise at least, but would work well with cards that benefited from Curse cards (e.g. Exorcist). You're right, though: It might end up being a pain for everyone to have to wade through Curses for the rest of the game, especially in a set-up w/o any decent trashers. I'll have to keep play-testing it, but will definitely consider either adding some condition that might protect another player from a Curse (e.g. a hand with less than five cards, a hand with a Curse, etc.), or just throwing it out altogether.

Collection Plate
Just updated the wording! Gaining a Silver for a Curse was supposed to somehow represent stealing from the plate, but it has yet to happen in play-testing. Maybe it is too costly a price to pay for a Silver and should just be tossed.

Confessional
The hand reveal is just thematic. I guess it doesn't need to be there... I think I'll keep it, though. The text isn't too crunched, and it doesn't complicate anything.
I really like the idea of only applying the +2 Card bonus to Curses. I think that helps fix the card a little. Would it be too much to still give the player +1 Card per other trashed or discarded card? And maybe remove the 2 card limit on trashing...? What do you think?

Crusade
Fixed the wording on this one, as well. The card was originally titled "Crusader", but it felt too small. Since it's similar to Militia and Militia applies to a plural body of soldiers, it just felt weird calling the card "Crusader". Maybe "Crusaders"?
One user on Reddit suggested having the player trash the Victory card on the same turn in which the card is played, and then having the +$3 not apply until the next turn (and potentially having other players set a Curse aside to be gained next turn).
You're right in that the card has a lot going on, especially if I were to try and cram the second attack into the first turn somehow. I'll have to think about how to simplify it and still work w/ Moat.

Exorcist
Shoot! I thought I had checked for duplicate names, but must have missed this one. I'll definitely change it.
Exorcist actually works extremely well in small decks, as you don't need too many Curses to have one turn up in five. Another option would be to allow the player to place a card from their hand on top of their deck before revealing five. That would allow for a more definite bonus from Curses.

Miracle Worker
I didn't think about the similarity between the +Cards as an Action and a Reaction... Maybe I'll remove the +1 Card and +1 Action and just have it play as a card for trashing? That might mean it'd work better at a price point of $3... What do you think?
Really good point about the card versus hand-size attacks. I think I'm going to add an immunity to the card (like Moat's), so that the player won't have to worry about discarding anything. That doesn't help much if another Attack card is played later, but it does help a little. The other option would be having the card "set aside" until the player's next turn and offering immunity until then. I'll have to try both options and see which works better.

Indulgence
Thanks! I hadn't considered using the card to trash Coppers discarded with other Indulgence cards, but I like that!

Martyrium
Haha, maybe I'm weird but I really liked Intrigue's Action - Victory cards. This was an attempt at something like the Harem, Nobles, etc. from that expansion. My wife's a huge fan of the card, so I don't think we'll toss it out. But good point, though on the deck size. I hadn't thought of that. Maybe we'll change it up a little...

Tithe Box
Honestly, I'm not a huge fan of the card either. I'll play around w/ it a little more, but may just remove it. In the meantime, I did fix the wording. Thanks!

Pagan Village
For now, I'm going to try just increasing the card's price. Maybe it's just a lack of familiarity w/ Dominion, but the card doesn't feel that overpowered. Anything specific you would recommend changing?

I hadn't thought about trying to mimic a genuine expansion, but that's an interesting thought. Maybe after another couple of months, once we have some solid cards, we'll look into what else we might need to fill in the gaps. Thanks again for your feedback, this is really helpful!
Title: Re: Dominion: Cults & Creeds (Looking for Feedback!)
Post by: Asper on May 28, 2018, 03:50:56 am
Pagan Village has wording issues, as it doesn't say where the trashed cards come from, but that's an aside. The main thing is, it's a Lost City with an ability that actually is beneficial for a few turns. In general, don't do trashing of random cards. Trashing can be anything from being extremely useful to extremely hurtful. If it's supposed to be a benefit, give the player information before they decide to trash or make it entirely optional. If it's supposed to be a downside, make sure it hits a good card, like Knights do. As a final note, you can choose to gain a Curse even when the Curse pile is empty with the current wording.
Title: Re: Dominion: Cults & Creeds (Looking for Feedback!)
Post by: Holunder9 on May 28, 2018, 04:44:31 am
Pagan Village
For now, I'm going to try just increasing the card's price. Maybe it's just a lack of familiarity w/ Dominion, but the card doesn't feel that overpowered. Anything specific you would recommend changing?
It is hard to imagine a Kingdom where you would not open Pagan Village / Pagan Village.

It is crazily overpowered. Masquerade without the subtleties is +2 Cards and trash a card from your hand and it is one of the best terminal trashers around. Pagan Village provides on top of that 2 Actions (note that +2 Cards +2 Actions, if it existed, would have to be a $6 due to Lab and Lost City) and trashes 2 cards. The only downsides are the Duration and that this hands out Curses when you don't trash with it but as Gazbag has pointed out the latter isn't a big issue as you can trash the Curses anyway.

Sure, you can price that thing at $6 or $7 but that kind of defeats the purpose of a trasher (all 6+ expensive trashers, i.e. Altar, Forge and Expand, are not coincidentally also gainers). This is what I meant with 'broken at any price'.
Title: Re: Dominion: Cults & Creeds (Looking for Feedback!)
Post by: LastFootnote on May 28, 2018, 10:53:59 am
Apostate: In the outtakes section of The Secret History of the Dark Ages Cards (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=4318.0) Donald X talks about an attack for $3 that gave out a Curse and gained you an Estate:
Quote
- There was an attack, gain an Estate, they gain a Curse, for $3. It dominated games too much. I replaced it with Marauder, and used the Estate/Curse thing on Followers.
Apparently this card was dominating, although I think it sounds terribly weak looking at it from a modern player's perspective... Anyway, assuming he's right and that was too strong I imagine that this is also too strong as gaining a Curse isn't that much worse than an Estate and getting +$2 is significantly better than getting nothing.

I don't think you're drawing the right conclusions here. "Gaining a Curse isn't that much worse than an Estate" stops being true as the game nears its end, and a card that gives you an Estate and gives each other player a Curse depletes two piles simultaneously, hastening the game's end. If at least two players in a 4-player game get in on that, the game will end quickly with players having to scramble for points. Hence, the card "dominated games" at Donald X.'s table. That's what I assume happened, anyhow.

I don't think any of that applies to Apostate, which neither gives you a 2-VP swing nor depletes two other piles. I don't think Apostate is a great card to make, though. It looks very weak, and may often make games a real slog when someone does buy it.
Title: Re: Dominion: Cults & Creeds (Looking for Feedback!)
Post by: ploderup on May 28, 2018, 11:59:36 am
Pagan Village has wording issues, as it doesn't say where the trashed cards come from, but that's an aside. The main thing is, it's a Lost City with an ability that actually is beneficial for a few turns. In general, don't do trashing of random cards. Trashing can be anything from being extremely useful to extremely hurtful. If it's supposed to be a benefit, give the player information before they decide to trash or make it entirely optional. If it's supposed to be a downside, make sure it hits a good card, like Knights do. As a final note, you can choose to gain a Curse even when the Curse pile is empty with the current wording.

As far as wording goes, does this fix things?
At the start of your next turn, choose one: trash two cards from your hand; or gain a curse.
Or would I need to add something like "(You cannot choose an option you can't do)"? My only hesitation with adding that wording would be that, in the case that the Curse pile is empty and your hand-size is one (due to something like multiple Torturers played by other players), there would be no possible option.

As for fixing the trashing aspect of the card, I'll have to figure something out. I had assumed that trashing somewhat-random cards (the player's next hand) and then reducing the player's next hand-size to three would be more of a detriment than a positive thing, but it seems that's not the case.
Title: Re: Dominion: Cults & Creeds (Looking for Feedback!)
Post by: ploderup on May 28, 2018, 12:14:33 pm
Pagan Village
For now, I'm going to try just increasing the card's price. Maybe it's just a lack of familiarity w/ Dominion, but the card doesn't feel that overpowered. Anything specific you would recommend changing?
It is hard to imagine a Kingdom where you would not open Pagan Village / Pagan Village.

It is crazily overpowered. Masquerade without the subtleties is +2 Cards and trash a card from your hand and it is one of the best terminal trashers around. Pagan Village provides on top of that 2 Actions (note that +2 Cards +2 Actions, if it existed, would have to be a $6 due to Lab and Lost City) and trashes 2 cards. The only downsides are the Duration and that this hands out Curses when you don't trash with it but as Gazbag has pointed out the latter isn't a big issue as you can trash the Curses anyway.

Sure, you can price that thing at $6 or $7 but that kind of defeats the purpose of a trasher (all 6+ expensive trashers, i.e. Altar, Forge and Expand, are not coincidentally also gainers). This is what I meant with 'broken at any price'.

Okay, that helps me understand the problems with the card. I'm having a hard time understanding how to fix it, though. Any suggestions on what to change? Or, what do you think about these variants of the card:
Quote
Pagan Village
Action - Duration, $4?

+2 Actions
Choose one: trash two cards from your hand; or gain a Curse.
At the start of your next turn, +2 Cards.
Quote
Pagan Village
Action, $4?

+1 Card
+1 Action
Choose one: trash two cards from your hand; or gain a Curse.
Title: Re: Dominion: Cults & Creeds (Looking for Feedback!)
Post by: ploderup on May 28, 2018, 12:22:32 pm
Apostate: In the outtakes section of The Secret History of the Dark Ages Cards (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=4318.0) Donald X talks about an attack for $3 that gave out a Curse and gained you an Estate:
Quote
- There was an attack, gain an Estate, they gain a Curse, for $3. It dominated games too much. I replaced it with Marauder, and used the Estate/Curse thing on Followers.
Apparently this card was dominating, although I think it sounds terribly weak looking at it from a modern player's perspective... Anyway, assuming he's right and that was too strong I imagine that this is also too strong as gaining a Curse isn't that much worse than an Estate and getting +$2 is significantly better than getting nothing.

I don't think you're drawing the right conclusions here. "Gaining a Curse isn't that much worse than an Estate" stops being true as the game nears its end, and a card that gives you an Estate and gives each other player a Curse depletes two piles simultaneously, hastening the game's end. If at least two players in a 4-player game get in on that, the game will end quickly with players having to scramble for points. Hence, the card "dominated games" at Donald X.'s table. That's what I assume happened, anyhow.

I don't think any of that applies to Apostate, which neither gives you a 2-VP swing nor depletes two other piles. I don't think Apostate is a great card to make, though. It looks very weak, and may often make games a real slog when someone does buy it.

What about something like this:
Quote
Apostate
Action - Attack, $4

+$3?
Each player (including you) may reveal a Curse from their hand. If they didn't, they gain a Curse to their hand.
This would make the card a little more powerful, protect players from spamming of the card in the same round, and hopefully help to keep the distribution of Curses down a little bit.
Title: Re: Dominion: Cults & Creeds (Looking for Feedback!)
Post by: Asper on May 28, 2018, 03:17:15 pm
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, if you want to make sure the trashing is a penalty, you really shouldn't give the player the choice to trash bad cards.

Quote
Pagan Village, Action, some cost
+2 Cards
+2 Actions
At the start of your next turn, reveal cards from the top of your deck until you reveal one costing from 3 to 6, trash it and discard the rest.
Title: Re: Dominion: Cults & Creeds (Looking for Feedback!)
Post by: ploderup on May 28, 2018, 04:27:28 pm
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, if you want to make sure the trashing is a penalty, you really shouldn't give the player the choice to trash bad cards.

Quote
Pagan Village, Action, some cost
+2 Cards
+2 Actions
At the start of your next turn, reveal cards from the top of your deck until you reveal one costing from 3 to 6, trash it and discard the rest.

Okay, fair. Thanks for the feedback!
Title: Re: Dominion: Cults & Creeds (Looking for Feedback!)
Post by: Holunder9 on May 28, 2018, 04:40:38 pm
Okay, that helps me understand the problems with the card. I'm having a hard time understanding how to fix it, though. Any suggestions on what to change? Or, what do you think about these variants of the card:
Quote
Pagan Village
Action - Duration, $4?

+2 Actions
Choose one: trash two cards from your hand; or gain a Curse.
At the start of your next turn, +2 Cards.
Quote
Pagan Village
Action, $4?

+1 Card
+1 Action
Choose one: trash two cards from your hand; or gain a Curse.
I don't think that playing around with the timing is going to make a Lost City that trashes 2 cards sound. If you want to make an engine piece that trashes 2 cards but later, when you actually want to use the engine piece, becomes a liability and self-junks I'd try something less crazy than Lost City. A mere village is most likely also overpowered and if you put it on a terminal it directly competes with Masquerade (needless to point out, it would be bonkers on a Smithy).

So I have seriousy doubts that this works at all.
Title: Re: Dominion: Cults & Creeds (Looking for Feedback!)
Post by: ploderup on May 28, 2018, 05:06:31 pm
Okay, that helps me understand the problems with the card. I'm having a hard time understanding how to fix it, though. Any suggestions on what to change? Or, what do you think about these variants of the card:
Quote
Pagan Village
Action - Duration, $4?

+2 Actions
Choose one: trash two cards from your hand; or gain a Curse.
At the start of your next turn, +2 Cards.
Quote
Pagan Village
Action, $4?

+1 Card
+1 Action
Choose one: trash two cards from your hand; or gain a Curse.
I don't think that playing around with the timing is going to make a Lost City that trashes 2 cards sound. If you want to make an engine piece that trashes 2 cards but later, when you actually want to use the engine piece, becomes a liability and self-junks I'd try something less crazy than Lost City. A mere village is most likely also overpowered and if you put it on a terminal it directly competes with Masquerade (needless to point out, it would be bonkers on a Smithy).

So I have seriousy doubts that this works at all.

Alright, that makes sense. I'll play around w/ different ways to counter-balance it, but you bring up a lot of good points that I hadn't thought of. Thanks again, Holunder9!
Title: Re: Dominion: Cults & Creeds (Looking for Feedback!)
Post by: LastFootnote on May 28, 2018, 09:51:13 pm
What about something like this:
Quote
Apostate
Action - Attack, $4

+$3?
Each player (including you) may reveal a Curse from their hand. If they didn't, they gain a Curse to their hand.
This would make the card a little more powerful, protect players from spamming of the card in the same round, and hopefully help to keep the distribution of Curses down a little bit.

That's definitely a lot better! The question is if it works at any cost. I mean let's compare it to a hypothetical Action card that costs $4 and gives +$3, since the Curse thing hits everybody and so is a bit of a wash, at least early in the game. I think such a card would be mostly balanced, but I worry that it's bad for the game in that many players will see it as a no-brainer to open with. +$3! It's a cheap Gold! And helps me buy more Gold! I think that's the reason that there's not currently any card like that. I mean Moneylender gives +$3, but you're trashing a Copper from your hand, so you're really only up +$2 for the turn. The closest thing to this hypothetical card is Gladiator, which can give you +$3, but isn't likely to on the first shuffle. It gets more likely to hit as the game goes on. On the other hand, this hypothetical card would be a really weak $5.

But maybe the Curse part of Apostate is more powerful than that. Since you're playing it on your own turn, you'll sometimes have the ability to draw into a Curse before you play this, making it less likely to hit you than to hit the other players. So maybe Apostate would actually work at $5. That cost also means it'll get played less, since not everybody can open with it and it's harder to buy.

I think the card is worth testing, probably first at $4 like you have it, then at $5 if that's too strong.

I really like the "reveal a Curse from hand; if you can't, gain a Curse to hand" part. I think that's very clever. If it were me, I'd abandon the self-Cursing premise and try this:

Apostate: Action - Attack, $4
+$2
Each other player may reveal a card from hand. If they don't, they gain a Curse. If nobody gained a Curse, +$1.

This has the potential for a bell-the-cat problem where players want to stop you from getting the +$1, but nobody wants to gain a Curse to do it. I'm optimistic that in practice, players won't actually do that; they'll all reveal a Curse if they can. Anyway, this is what I'd personally try, but I understand if you don't want to abandon your self-Cursing part. I think your version is worth testing at $4, and then at $5 if the $4 version is too strong or makes games too sloggy.
Title: Re: Dominion: Cults & Creeds (Looking for Feedback!)
Post by: LastFootnote on May 28, 2018, 09:54:00 pm
Hmm, I did just realize an interesting thing about your new Apostate, and I'm not sure if it's a problem or not. You don't want to be the first to play one, right? Because someone plays one before you, you can reveal the Curse you got from that one, and you're almost certainly giving the player who played Apostate before you a second Curse. Hmm, it's an interesting mechanic. The more I think about it, the more I'm interested in trying it out. Or at least hearing about how it plays.
Title: Re: Dominion: Cults & Creeds (Looking for Feedback!)
Post by: ploderup on May 29, 2018, 03:04:13 pm
What about something like this:
Quote
Apostate
Action - Attack, $4

+$3?
Each player (including you) may reveal a Curse from their hand. If they didn't, they gain a Curse to their hand.
This would make the card a little more powerful, protect players from spamming of the card in the same round, and hopefully help to keep the distribution of Curses down a little bit.

That's definitely a lot better! The question is if it works at any cost. I mean let's compare it to a hypothetical Action card that costs $4 and gives +$3, since the Curse thing hits everybody and so is a bit of a wash, at least early in the game. I think such a card would be mostly balanced, but I worry that it's bad for the game in that many players will see it as a no-brainer to open with. +$3! It's a cheap Gold! And helps me buy more Gold! I think that's the reason that there's not currently any card like that. I mean Moneylender gives +$3, but you're trashing a Copper from your hand, so you're really only up +$2 for the turn. The closest thing to this hypothetical card is Gladiator, which can give you +$3, but isn't likely to on the first shuffle. It gets more likely to hit as the game goes on. On the other hand, this hypothetical card would be a really weak $5.

But maybe the Curse part of Apostate is more powerful than that. Since you're playing it on your own turn, you'll sometimes have the ability to draw into a Curse before you play this, making it less likely to hit you than to hit the other players. So maybe Apostate would actually work at $5. That cost also means it'll get played less, since not everybody can open with it and it's harder to buy.

I think the card is worth testing, probably first at $4 like you have it, then at $5 if that's too strong.

I really like the "reveal a Curse from hand; if you can't, gain a Curse to hand" part. I think that's very clever. If it were me, I'd abandon the self-Cursing premise and try this:

Apostate: Action - Attack, $4
+$2
Each other player may reveal a card from hand. If they don't, they gain a Curse. If nobody gained a Curse, +$1.

This has the potential for a bell-the-cat problem where players want to stop you from getting the +$1, but nobody wants to gain a Curse to do it. I'm optimistic that in practice, players won't actually do that; they'll all reveal a Curse if they can. Anyway, this is what I'd personally try, but I understand if you don't want to abandon your self-Cursing part. I think your version is worth testing at $4, and then at $5 if the $4 version is too strong or makes games too sloggy.

Having other players take a Curse to hurt the player's buying power is a really interesting idea. I'll definitely try it out.

The self-Cursing would hopefully serve to have the player think twice before playing Apostate, but you're right in that it still might just result in a mad rush that ends up w/ everyone's deck backed up w/ Curses. I'll playtest your idea, mine, and maybe another variant (or two) and see what happens.

Also, interesting point on the player not wanting to play Apostate before someone else... I hadn't thought of that. I'll let you know how that plays out!