Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Variants and Fan Cards => Topic started by: Tables on June 16, 2020, 03:55:22 am
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As said, I dreamed this one up, so likely it would need heavy tweaking to be playable - and you'd probably just end up with Projects once you're done balancing and playtesting it anyway - but it seemed at least interesting enough to think about so I thought I'd post it. It seems kind of like a cross between how wonders work in Civilisation or Through the Ages, and Dominion projects anyway.
Wonders are a new kind of Horizontal card that can be built. They tend to be very expensive (think 15+ coins), but unlike regular cards you do not have to pay in one go. Instead everyone has their own supply towards building the wonder, and you can use a buy to put any amount of money towards the wonder. Once someone has spent equal to the wonder cost, they build it and gain its benefits for the remainder of the game. Everyone else who had partially built it gets compensation, probably Coin Tokens equal to half of what they had spent.
As for Wonder effects... I didn't dream up any. I expect they would be worth some reasonable number of VPs, as well as some permanent ongoing benefit that's likely stronger than a typical project. So for example, maybe something like a double Bridge effect (cards cost $2 less on your turn, but not less than $0). Or something like "at the start of each turn, +1 card, you may discard any number of cards, then draw that many." Basically, strong effects that might be worth investing into and racing to complete, strong enough that you have a chance to catch up once you complete them but also not so strong that you can just instant-win by completing them.
Feel free to suggest ideas, or to point out all of the less obvious reasons of why it just wouldn't work (which is probably the reality - if my conscious brain is bad at games design I can't imagine my subconscious is any better)
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I like the idea. I don't think you need to compensate players who haven't finished building the Wonder yet--getting the Wonder at the end should be enough payoff. I think you're right that they would basically be very good projects, something like Citadel level. If I could buy Citadel over multiple turns, it would be fine if it cost more than 8, although I'm not sure of a good cost--maybe around 12 is what I'm thinking off the top of my head.
The practical part of actually making the physical card work would be a bit difficult, since there's a tracking issue with how you track how much each person had paid towards the Wonder. I think you could use the normal coin tokens if you have 6 copies of each Wonder (just hand a copy to someone once they start paying towards it).
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I guess it somewhat undermines the idea, but I think high debt cost projects would do the trick, which is something really expensive that you can buy over time.
Taking inspiration from TTA you could make wonders cost a specific number of coins per step. For example, one Wonder could cost 6/6/6, which would be 3 buys of 6 coins, and then you could have a "when you pay for this, X" effect as compensation. A good effect for this would be gain a card up to $4 or something
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Here's a mock-up of a simple concept, just a bunch of VP tokens.
(https://i.imgur.com/gBll69b.png?1)
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I guess it somewhat undermines the idea, but I think high debt cost projects would do the trick, which is something really expensive that you can buy over time.
Taking inspiration from TTA you could make wonders cost a specific number of coins per step. For example, one Wonder could cost 6/6/6, which would be 3 buys of 6 coins, and then you could have a "when you pay for this, X" effect as compensation. A good effect for this would be gain a card up to $4 or something
Right, I thought of Debt for the cost instead, but it's actually pretty different--you get the effect right away and are forced to pay it off in the next turns, whereas with paying over time gets you flexible pays and the effect later.
Something similar to the 6/6/6 stage costs could be okay, but I kind of prefer being able to pay variable costs for the Wonder. Both methods have their own characteristics. I was thinking about also comparing the cost to Pilgrimage, which is 4/4 but with the condition that you have to pay over multiple turns.
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I've had a similar concept (tentatively named Enterprises) that were basically two stage projects.
You didn't get the effect until you completed both stages and you marked the completion of each stage with one of your project cubes (so IRL practice, you'd only have one enterprise - and no projects - per game; or add components).
I think more than two stages is tricky, because you have to make them extra powerful and then you get to the swingy-ness of them.
In my concept, you didn't het any benefit until complete, but I could also imagine it being that the benefit increase with each stage (and then you could have more stages, even).
I never came up with any specific examples, though.
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Here's a mock-up of a simple concept, just a bunch of VP tokens.
(https://i.imgur.com/gBll69b.png?1)
That's obviously bad: you get the VPs of 2.5 Provinces while having to play less than you would have to pay for 2 Provinces and get to keep the VPs out of your deck.
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Here's a mock-up of a simple concept, just a bunch of VP tokens.
(https://i.imgur.com/gBll69b.png?1)
That's obviously bad: you get the VPs of 2.5 Provinces while having to play less than you would have to pay for 2 Provinces and get to keep the VPs out of your deck.
You can only buy it once, so I made it better than average.
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Here's a mock-up of a simple concept, just a bunch of VP tokens.
(https://i.imgur.com/gBll69b.png?1)
That's obviously bad: you get the VPs of 2.5 Provinces while having to play less than you would have to pay for 2 Provinces and get to keep the VPs out of your deck.
You can only buy it once, so I made it better than average.
Tables specified that you can spend several Buys to work on a Wonder. Your card on the other seems to be intended to be just a straightforward Victory card.
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Here's a mock-up of a simple concept, just a bunch of VP tokens.
(https://i.imgur.com/gBll69b.png?1)
That's obviously bad: you get the VPs of 2.5 Provinces while having to play less than you would have to pay for 2 Provinces and get to keep the VPs out of your deck.
You can only buy it once, so I made it better than average.
Tables specified that you can spend several Buys to work on a Wonder. Your card on the other seems to be intended to be just a straightforward Victory card.
You do't get the effect until completion, and I assume that, like projects, Wonders are only intended to be completed once. Project cubes could be used for this.
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Here's a mock-up of a simple concept, just a bunch of VP tokens.
(https://i.imgur.com/gBll69b.png?1)
That's obviously bad: you get the VPs of 2.5 Provinces while having to play less than you would have to pay for 2 Provinces and get to keep the VPs out of your deck.
You can only buy it once, so I made it better than average.
Tables specified that you can spend several Buys to work on a Wonder. Your card on the other seems to be intended to be just a straightforward Victory card.
You do't get the effect until completion, and I assume that, like projects, Wonders are only intended to be completed once. Project cubes could be used for this.
You still don't seem to get that it makes zero sense to ever skip this (unless there is a quick 3-pile) as it has a great VP/Coin ratio and does not junk your deck. That's why the card is strategically utterly boring.
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This is pretty similar to what I thought Projects would be, except with a fixed cost per buy, with multiple buys required.
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I probably should clarify - each Wonder can only be built once per game. Like Wonders in games like Civ or TtA or similar. Hence the compensation mechanic idea - if someone else finishes a wonder you've invested slightly towards, you get a little bit back, but less than what you put in. In Civ for example you get half of the invested production back, so if you've spend 100 production towards the Pyramids and someone else finishes it, you get +50 production extra next turn. 1 coin token per 2 coins invested seems reasonable at first thought, but might actually be a little too much compensation, if so it could maybe be dropped to 1 token per 3 coins invested or similar.
I like the idea of having the wonder have cost stages, so instead of spending random spare buys+coins, you have to actually invest a specific amount.
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I would rather do it like in TTA (each player is building on an individually drafted Wonder) or the same as in TTA but symmetrically as it is always the case in Dominion (i.e. all players can build on the same Wonder, which is mechanically more sound but thematically awkward).
The resource compensation thing from the Civilization games (in Alpha Centauri you could switch production towards another Wonder) is unlikely to work well in Dominion, those wasted Buys and Coin are gonna hurt no matter what.
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Mimicking the Civilization wonders behavior, there might be a Builder mat per player. This version does not consume Buys on building, not sure if it should.
At the Buy stage, you may pay any number of $ to put that amount of Coffers on your Builder mat. When you have the number of Coffers on the Builder mat greater or equal to the cost of a Wonder, you may discard all the Coffers from there and take the Wonder.
When some other player takes a Wonder, you may discard all the Coffers from your Builder mat to gain a card costing in $ up to the number of Coffers discarded.
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Here's a mock-up of a simple concept, just a bunch of VP tokens.
(https://i.imgur.com/gBll69b.png?1)
That's obviously bad: you get the VPs of 2.5 Provinces while having to play less than you would have to pay for 2 Provinces and get to keep the VPs out of your deck.
You can only buy it once, so I made it better than average.
Tables specified that you can spend several Buys to work on a Wonder. Your card on the other seems to be intended to be just a straightforward Victory card.
You do't get the effect until completion, and I assume that, like projects, Wonders are only intended to be completed once. Project cubes could be used for this.
You still don't seem to get that it makes zero sense to ever skip this (unless there is a quick 3-pile) as it has a great VP/Coin ratio and does not junk your deck. That's why the card is strategically utterly boring.
I'm just helping to build the pyramid.
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You guys have presented interesting ideas! I’d like to have a crack at this as well, mish-mashing just about everything here. Plus, drawing some heavy inspiration from Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization and even tossing a little bit of Sid Meier’s Civilization in there.
What if Wonders were buildable by all players as some kind of long-time project on a Landscape card in the Supply? Some have suggested that already. The Wonder would have multiple stages to be built and everyone could contribute, using a Buy during their Buy phase. If so, they’d put a wooden cube on the next build step of the Wonder. And oh, of course, no more than 2 Wonders per game, as usual !
There would need to be some compensation for contributing. Wonders would grant you a little something for building a step. Once completed, the Wonder will give an additional bonus to whoever built the most steps for that Wonder. It could even be multiple players in case of a tie. Therefore, those who invested the most in that Wonder reap the bigger benefits, as opposed to having the last contributor run away with the whole deal by building that last step out of shuffle luck.
Finally, building a Wonder seems like a no-brainer. And even a little too easy. What if there was an additional Supply pile akin to Potions in games using Wonders? I thought of builders and they would cost (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/32/Coin3.png/16px-Coin3.png). You cannot build a Wonder step unless you have a Builder in play. So building a Wonder step would require a Builder, a Buy and the step’s (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/6/6d/Coin.png/16px-Coin.png) cost. Kind of like, again, buying a Potion Kingdom card. This would require further investments for those who want to partake in the construction of a Wonder. And would require better deck control because of those stop Builder cards.
To illustrate this crazy idea, here are some mock-ups of Wonders:
(https://i.postimg.cc/dQYrbGrV/Great-Wall-V1-EN.png)
(https://i.postimg.cc/wqJD4wtr/Mount-Saint-Michel-V1-EN.png)
(https://i.postimg.cc/hSXLTDKc/Alc-zar-of-Segovia-V1-EN.png)
And a Builder could look like this:
(https://i.postimg.cc/csPQcpJY/Builder-V1-EN.png)
Wonders could have a backside with “4+ players” written on it. There could be more build steps on these so that they’d scale better in crazy 6-player games for instance.
Does this idea seem too fiddly, annoying or overly-complicated for not much? Whatcha think?