Dominion Strategy Forum

Dominion => Variants and Fan Cards => Topic started by: emtzalex on July 11, 2021, 07:45:43 pm

Title: Fan Card Mechanics Week 15: Level Up
Post by: emtzalex on July 11, 2021, 07:45:43 pm
For Week 15, I wanted to adapt Violet CLM's Project cards.

Project cards are works in progress. The archetypal Project card starts out weak but can be made strong by repeatedly investing in it. When you buy a Project card, you have a choice: either you gain the card as usual, or you add one of your Project tokens to that card's supply pile. (This still counts as buying a card for the purposes of e.g. Merchant Guild or Contraband.) The number of Project tokens each player has on a given supply pile is referred to as that player's level of that pile; each supply pile therefore starts out at level 0. There is no hard limit on how many Project tokens a player can have, in total or on any given supply pile, though specific cards may stop accruing benefits after specific levels.

As you can see, this was posted in 2016, before Renaissance was released (in 2018) and Project landscapes were introduced. To avoid confusion, I am going to suggest these be renamed as Level cards, and the tokens be called Level tokens. Other than the name change, I don't want to change any of the rules. I would restate those rules and add the following clarifications:
Violet CLM designed a number of Project card as samples:

Redecorate (http://shemitz.net/static/dominion3/?title=Redecorate&description=Trash%20a%20card%20from%20your%20hand.%20You%20may%20gain%20a%20card%20costing%20up%20to%20%24%20equal%20to%20your%20Redecorate%20level%20(but%20not%20more%20than%20%244)%20more%20than%20it.&type=Action-Project&price=%243&preview=&picture=http%3A%2F%2Fhgtvhome.sndimg.com%2Fcontent%2Fdam%2Fimages%2Fgrdn%2Ffullset%2F2014%2F1%2F18%2F0%2F3-21-feng-shui-curved-walk-2.JPG.rend.hgtvcom.1280.960.jpeg&color0=0&color1=0) is a Remodel that starts out almost useless (although the "you may" wording means it can at least kill coppers) but can be built up to an Expand or beyond.
Entourage (http://shemitz.net/static/dominion3/?title=Entourage&description=%2B1%20Card%0A%2B1%20Action%0A%2B%20%241%0A-%0AWhen%20you%20buy%20this%20card%2C%20gain%20a%20non-Victory%20card%20costing%20%24%20equal%20to%20your%20Entourage%20level%20before%20the%20buy.&type=Action-Project&price=%244&preview=&picture=https%3A%2F%2Fbyronsmuse.files.wordpress.com%2F2014%2F01%2Fisabeau-with-court-attendants-shown-in-a-19th-century-print.jpg&color0=0&color1=0) spends a while burdening you with junk (its on-buy effect is triggered when you put a Project token on it) before letting you gain it two at a time, or better.
Boom Town (http://shemitz.net/static/dominion3/?title=Boom%20Town&description=%2B1%20Card%0A%2B1%20Action%20per%20level%0AGain%20a%20Project%20card%20that%20all%20other%20players%20have%20lower%20levels%20of%20than%20you.&type=Action-Project&price=%244&preview=&picture=https%3A%2F%2Fladyfi.files.wordpress.com%2F2014%2F04%2Fmining-huts.jpg&color0=0&color1=0) gradually becomes a village or better, but also helps you with anything you may be specializing in.
Initiate (http://shemitz.net/static/dominion3/?title=Initiate&description=Level%20%E2%89%A5%201%3A%20%2B1%20Action%0ALevel%20%E2%89%A5%202%3A%20%2B1%20Card%0ALevel%20%E2%89%A5%203%3A%20%2B1%20Buy%0ALevel%20%E2%89%A5%204%3A%20%2B%20%241%0ARepeat%20after%20every%20fourth%20level.%0A-%0AAt%20all%20times%2C%20this%20costs%20%24%20equal%20to%20the%20current%20player%27s%20Initiate%20level.&type=Action-Project&price=%24%3F&preview=&picture=http%3A%2F%2Forig10.deviantart.net%2F45e2%2Ff%2F2011%2F297%2F8%2F6%2Fmedieval_scribe_1_by_bardulf-d4dtpxo.jpg&color0=0&color1=0) is cheap but mostly useless until level 4, when it becomes a bargain Market with potential to grow even further. May be worth gaining before leveling.
Arsonist (http://shemitz.net/static/dominion3/?title=Arsonist&description=If%20level%202%20or%20above%2C%20%2B%20%243.%20Otherwise%20remove%20one%20of%20each%20other%20player%27s%20tokens%20from%20Supply%20piles.%0A-%0ASetup%3A%20Place%20a%20Project%20token%20on%20a%20Supply%20pile%2C%20or%20place%20your%20%2B1%20Buy%20token%20on%20an%20Action%20Supply%20pile.&type=Action-Attack-Project&price=%245&preview=&picture=http%3A%2F%2Fwww-tc.pbs.org%2Findependentlens%2Fwp%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2015%2F08%2Flittle_hope_was_arson-01-press-1920x830.jpg&color0=0&color1=0) allows you to mess with whatever cards your opponents have been leveling.
Sellsword (http://shemitz.net/static/dominion3/?title=Sellsword&description=%2B%20%241%0ADraw%20one%20card%20per%20level%20of%20the%20second%20highest%20level%20of%20Sellsword.%0AIf%20all%20other%20players%20are%20lower%20level%20Sellswords%2C%20each%20other%20player%20discards%20down%20to%203%20cards%20in%20their%20hand.&type=Action-Attack-Project&price=%244&preview=&picture=https%3A%2F%2Fstaticdelivery.nexusmods.com%2Fmods%2F110%2Fimages%2F19733-3-1341167892.jpg&color0=0&color1=0) is less effective than Militia but gains drawing abilities if other players compete with you for it.
College (http://shemitz.net/static/dominion3/?title=College&description=%2B1%20Card%20per%20level%0A-%0AWhen%20you%20buy%20a%20card%20you%20may%20discard%20this%20from%20your%20hand.%20If%20you%20do%2C%20place%20a%20Project%20token%20on%20the%20Supply%20pile%20of%20a%20card%20costing%20less%20than%20the%20bought%20card.&type=Action-Reaction-Project&price=%244&preview=&picture=http%3A%2F%2F3.bp.blogspot.com%2F-3o7iZNiIPho%2FU-OVBSX916I%2FAAAAAAAAk2A%2FUTTqdmFqQOM%2Fs1600%2FHarry-Potter-in-Oxford-06a.jpg&color0=3&color1=0) is a drawer that wants you to buy expensive cards before you start playing it.
Caravansary (http://shemitz.net/static/dominion3/?title=Caravansary&description=At%20the%20start%20of%20each%20of%20your%20turns%20while%20this%20is%20in%20play%2C%20%2B%20%242%2C%20%2B1%20Buy.%0A-%0ADuring%20your%20cleanup%20phase%2C%20you%20may%20remove%20one%20of%20your%20Project%20tokens%20from%20the%20Caravansary%20Supply%20pile.%20If%20you%20do%20not%2C%20discard%20this.&type=Action-Duration-Project&price=%242&preview=&picture=http%3A%2F%2Ffullhdpictures.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2016%2F02%2FDifferent-Caravan-Wallpaper.jpg&color0=4&color1=0) needs at least one token on it before you start, but then carries money indefinitely into the future until you finally want it.
Sunken City (http://shemitz.net/static/dominion3/?title=Sunken%20City&description=%2B2%20Cards%0A%2B2%20Actions%0APut%20this%20on%20your%20Tavern%20mat.%0A-%0AYou%20may%20discard%20this%20from%20your%20Tavern%20mat%20when%20you%20add%20a%20Project%20token%20to%20a%20Supply%20pile.&type=Action-Reserve-Project&price=%244&preview=&picture=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FjU11bP9MChI%2Fmaxresdefault.jpg&color0=5&color1=0), like Encampment, disappears after you use it, but the moment you place a token somewhere you've got any number of sunken cities back in your deck again.
Ore (http://shemitz.net/static/dominion3/?title=Ore&description=%0A%2B%20%241%0A%2B%20%241%20per%20level%0A&type=Treasure-Project&price=%246&preview=%24%3F&picture=https%3A%2F%2F62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com%2Ffiles%2F29988%2Farea14mp%2F9836vjfv-1377579794.jpg&color0=1&color1=0) is as straightforward a project card as it gets, a criminally overexpensive Copper that can be made better than Gold.
Smeltery (http://shemitz.net/static/dominion3/?title=Smeltery&description=%0A%2B%20%241%0APay%20%24%20equal%20to%20your%20level%20(no%20more%20than%20%243).%20Take%20one%20coin%20token%20per%20%24%20paid.%0A&type=Treasure-Project&price=%244&preview=%241&picture=http%3A%2F%2Fmsnbcmedia.msn.com%2Fi%2FMSNBC%2FComponents%2FPhoto%2F_new%2Fpb-120307-gold-jm-08.jpg&color0=1&color1=0) turns coins into coin tokens, but only if you invest in it first.
Tithe (http://shemitz.net/static/dominion3/?title=Tithe&description=%2B%20%244%0A-%20%242%20per%20level%0A-%0AWhen%20you%20gain%20a%20Victory%20card%20while%20this%20is%20in%20play%2C%20place%20a%20Project%20token%20on%20Tithe.&type=Treasure-Project&price=%245&preview=%24%3F&picture=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wikihow.com%2Fimages%2F3%2F3c%2FIdentify-Old-Coins-Step-9-Version-2.jpg&color0=1&color1=0) gives you a lot of money in short order, but slows down the moment you get too greedy with it.
Memorial (http://shemitz.net/static/dominion3/?title=Memorial&description=%2B%20%243%0A-%20%241%20per%20level%0A-%0AWorth%202%20%25%20per%20level%20(but%20no%20more%20than%206%20%25)&type=Treasure-Victory-Project&price=%247&preview=%24%3F&picture=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dphotographer.co.uk%2Fusers%2F2488%2Fthm1024%2Fp1660299ce.jpg&color0=2&color1=2) is a pricier Gold that turns into a cheaper Province.
Ramparts (http://shemitz.net/static/dominion3/?title=Ramparts&description=Add%20a%20Project%20token%20to%20Ramparts.%0A-%0AWorth%204%20%25%20if%20no%20other%20player%20has%20a%20higher%20level%20of%20Ramparts%20than%20you%2C%20otherwise%202%20%25.&type=Action-Victory-Project&price=%244&preview=&picture=http%3A%2F%2Fphotoeverywhere.co.uk%2Fbritain%2Fconwy%2Fconway_castle3214.JPG&color0=2&color1=1) is a self-contained bidding war.

edit: fixed Ramparts link

Here are three of those cards, edited to use the updated language.

(https://i.imgur.com/UxFRbwPh.png)   (https://i.imgur.com/mbHjwqLh.png)   (https://i.imgur.com/Hys2Rtrh.png)


For the contest, design a Kingdom card pile that uses the Level mechanic. Please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.

EDIT: Whoops, forgot to give details about the actual contest. Once again, my main judging criteria is whether I would be excited to see in a Kingdom? Important factors for me are:

balance -- is the card useful, but not overpowering (both in general and in a variety of Kingdoms)
playability -- the card is fun to play and works in more than one type of deck
simplicity -- this doesn't always mean fewer words; a card with lots of text that, once you understand it, can be easily and intuitively be played is better than one with four lines of text that is hard to understand
topicality -- the card (or cards) uses the mechanic in an interesting way

The deadline for submissions will be 23:59 UTC / 7:59 p.m. Eastern/Forum time on Sunday, July 18, 2021.
Title: Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 15: Level Up
Post by: The Alchemist on July 11, 2021, 11:10:47 pm
This sounds just like Unjer's "Progress" cards. We've been playtesting a bunch of them in the Discord.
Title: Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 15: Level Up
Post by: fika monster on July 12, 2021, 04:15:19 pm
This sounds just like Unjer's "Progress" cards. We've been playtesting a bunch of them in the Discord.

Ive also been playtesting them. I dont mind that they are similar: Its super hard to come up with something completely new
Title: Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 15: Level Up
Post by: emtzalex on July 12, 2021, 04:41:08 pm
This sounds just like Unjer's "Progress" cards. We've been playtesting a bunch of them in the Discord.

Ive also been playtesting them. I dont mind that they are similar: Its super hard to come up with something completely new

I'm not on Discord that much, and I haven't seen them.
Title: Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 15: Level Up
Post by: fika monster on July 12, 2021, 04:53:43 pm
This sounds just like Unjer's "Progress" cards. We've been playtesting a bunch of them in the Discord.

Ive also been playtesting them. I dont mind that they are similar: Its super hard to come up with something completely new

I'm not on Discord that much, and I haven't seen them.

Both me and Annie/the alchemist told Umcher, the author of Progress cards: They dont seem to mind. Even if they had minded, i wouldnt have blamed you or anything.
Title: Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 15: Level Up
Post by: The Alchemist on July 13, 2021, 03:49:08 am
Unjer's Progress is a landscape card you can buy. It's buy neutral and costs $1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4 for a total of 10 levels of Progress. Here are a few of their cards:

(https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/449166977991180299/859155673525780522/Oil_Well_2.png) (https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/449166977991180299/858848341370208316/Railroad_10.png) (https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/449166977991180299/858427164441706567/Shipment.png) (https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/449166977991180299/858376740396859392/Foundry_1.png) (https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/449166977991180299/857796510259085332/Steam_Engine_1.png)

These aren't the final versions I don't think, just what I had on hand. Hopefully they can post their set.
Title: Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 15: Level Up
Post by: emtzalex on July 13, 2021, 04:23:17 am
Obviously this is a very similar design space. As I said, these cards were initially created by Violet CLM back in 2018, and I used it as I found it interesting.
Title: Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 15: Level Up
Post by: spineflu on July 14, 2021, 10:45:28 am
Mechanic question: absent of cards that change levels on their own, can you only level up while there are cards remaining in the pile (ie, can you still buy a level when that pile is empty)?
Title: Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 15: Level Up
Post by: emtzalex on July 14, 2021, 11:53:30 am
Mechanic question: absent of cards that change levels on their own, can you only level up while there are cards remaining in the pile (ie, can you still buy a level when that pile is empty)?

That's an interesting question. Nothing in the original posts on Violet CLM's progress cards discussed this, but my inclination is to say no.

As the rules currently exist, you cannot buy a card from an empty supply pile then just fail to gain it because there are not cards there (which you might actually want to do in the context of, say, Goons) the way you could buy an Event (like Wedding) and fail to gain the card if the pile is empty. Also, some piles have cards of differing costs, making it hard to know what the price should be (of course, you could make it a rule that Level cards can't be in those kinds of piles).

That being said, if you want to make a card where you can buy and level up from an empty pile, that is fine, just mention it in the comments.
Title: Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 15: Level Up
Post by: spineflu on July 14, 2021, 12:13:03 pm
(https://trello-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com/6019de42b869588d9701fbff/60ef0c81cc21d38dc96434e0/f951a023c6492a633d79b03d847c3578/image.png)
Quote
Carnavale • $3* • Action - Level
Cards cost $1 less this turn, per level.

Gain a card costing up to $2 (after the price change).
-
On your turns, this costs $1 more per level.

potential super-inventor that can't gain itself (without some other source of price reduction.)
An assumption I made here is the "level" talked about is always the player in question's level with that specific card, rather than anyone's/any card's level - I think this is a mechanic-wide assumption, and should probably be revised with a different keyword that better denotes ownership, but for playtesting + the sake of the contest, i'm just using "level".
Title: Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 15: Level Up
Post by: emtzalex on July 15, 2021, 10:54:09 am
We're a couple hours past the halfway point. Just a quick reminder (since I initial forgot to include it in the OP), the deadline for submissions is 23:59 UTC / 7:59 p.m. Eastern (Forum) time on Sunday, July 18, 2021.
Title: Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 15: Level Up
Post by: Aquila on July 15, 2021, 01:52:55 pm
(https://trello-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com/5f5a8e8e7ed38b522f25641a/5f9bd66b012b49424958b5f2/1613cbdc45203fb7b74af7e8578e4a8e/Aristocrat_(1).png)
One of the main advantages I see to this mechanic is it can create an ongoing interesting decision throughout the game between gaining a copy and powering up the copies you have. Having the level up price be the same as the card's cost is elegant and it would be great if it can work.
Another thing I noted is how the Adventures tokens (or really Pathfinding, Lost Arts, Training and Seaway) are similar to levelling up. They're a good power gauge, and maybe the more interesting level-up effects will not simply be extra vanilla because they exist.

This entry might need to cost a bit more, looking through extra cards to find a target is rather potent. Also, some kind of level cap could be defined...
Title: Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 15: Level Up
Post by: emtzalex on July 15, 2021, 02:13:08 pm
Another thing I noted is how the Adventures tokens (or really Pathfinding, Lost Arts, Training and Seaway) are similar to levelling up. They're a good power gauge, and maybe the more interesting level-up effects will not simply be extra vanilla because they exist.

This is actually the origin of the idea. I did not want to quote Violet CLM's entire OP announcing these, but:

In any case, I was thinking about Adventures earlier and its use of +1 Card, +1 Action, etc. tokens to make supply piles better, but only for individual players. Those tokens are all pretty generic because they have to be, but what if you could tailor the tokens to specific supply piles? So I whipped up a few quick illustrations of that idea.
Title: Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 15: Level Up
Post by: mxdata on July 15, 2021, 03:28:56 pm
(https://trello-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com/6019de42b869588d9701fbff/60ef0c81cc21d38dc96434e0/f951a023c6492a633d79b03d847c3578/image.png)
Quote
Carnavale • $3* • Action - Level
Cards cost $1 less this turn, per level.

Gain a card costing up to $2 (after the price change).
-
On your turns, this costs $1 more per level.

potential super-inventor that can't gain itself (without some other source of price reduction.)
An assumption I made here is the "level" talked about is always the player in question's level with that specific card, rather than anyone's/any card's level - I think this is a mechanic-wide assumption, and should probably be revised with a different keyword that better denotes ownership, but for playtesting + the sake of the contest, i'm just using "level".

How would that cost-increasing work with cost-reducers?  E.g., suppose you have 4 Highways in play and one level token - how much does Carnavale now cost?  I can see two interpretations:


Which would be the correct interpretation? I'm thinking the first, based on the wording of Fisherman's reduction clause, i.e., "this costs $3 less" rather than "this costs $2". I'm assuming that the reason it's worded that way is that "this costs $2" would override other cost-reducers, implying that cost-changing on a card comes after other cost-reducers
Title: Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 15: Level Up
Post by: spineflu on July 15, 2021, 04:41:53 pm
(https://trello-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com/6019de42b869588d9701fbff/60ef0c81cc21d38dc96434e0/f951a023c6492a633d79b03d847c3578/image.png)
Quote
Carnavale • $3* • Action - Level
Cards cost $1 less this turn, per level.

Gain a card costing up to $2 (after the price change).
-
On your turns, this costs $1 more per level.

potential super-inventor that can't gain itself (without some other source of price reduction.)
An assumption I made here is the "level" talked about is always the player in question's level with that specific card, rather than anyone's/any card's level - I think this is a mechanic-wide assumption, and should probably be revised with a different keyword that better denotes ownership, but for playtesting + the sake of the contest, i'm just using "level".

How would that cost-increasing work with cost-reducers?  E.g., suppose you have 4 Highways in play and one level token - how much does Carnavale now cost?  I can see two interpretations:

  • It costs $1 - the base price is $3, that's reduced by $4, but it can't go below $0, so it's reduced to $0, then the level increases it to $1
  • It costs $0 - the base price is $3, the level increases it to $4, then the Highways reduce it by $4, to $0

Which would be the correct interpretation? I'm thinking the first, based on the wording of Fisherman's reduction clause, i.e., "this costs $3 less" rather than "this costs $2". I'm assuming that the reason it's worded that way is that "this costs $2" would override other cost-reducers, implying that cost-changing on a card comes after other cost-reducers

oh no are we having this thread again (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=20827.0)? I'd say it costs $0 - you calculate Carnivale's cost first, with levels, then apply any effects (highways, etc). same deal as fisherman.
Title: Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 15: Level Up
Post by: grrgrrgrr on July 16, 2021, 03:08:30 am
(https://trello-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com/6019de42b869588d9701fbff/60ef0c81cc21d38dc96434e0/f951a023c6492a633d79b03d847c3578/image.png)
Quote
Carnavale • $3* • Action - Level
Cards cost $1 less this turn, per level.

Gain a card costing up to $2 (after the price change).
-
On your turns, this costs $1 more per level.

potential super-inventor that can't gain itself (without some other source of price reduction.)
An assumption I made here is the "level" talked about is always the player in question's level with that specific card, rather than anyone's/any card's level - I think this is a mechanic-wide assumption, and should probably be revised with a different keyword that better denotes ownership, but for playtesting + the sake of the contest, i'm just using "level".

You know that "Carnivalle" itself can be an other source of cost reduction, right? Or if you throne Carnivalle, the second one can gain itself. Personally, I'd say "All cards other than Carnivalle cost $1 less this turn". Unless you actively want to make Carnivalle more expansive if you fail to play any Carnivalles.
Title: Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 15: Level Up
Post by: spineflu on July 16, 2021, 07:19:07 am
(https://trello-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com/6019de42b869588d9701fbff/60ef0c81cc21d38dc96434e0/f951a023c6492a633d79b03d847c3578/image.png)
Quote
Carnavale • $3* • Action - Level
Cards cost $1 less this turn, per level.

Gain a card costing up to $2 (after the price change).
-
On your turns, this costs $1 more per level.

potential super-inventor that can't gain itself (without some other source of price reduction.)
An assumption I made here is the "level" talked about is always the player in question's level with that specific card, rather than anyone's/any card's level - I think this is a mechanic-wide assumption, and should probably be revised with a different keyword that better denotes ownership, but for playtesting + the sake of the contest, i'm just using "level".

You know that "Carnivalle" itself can be an other source of cost reduction, right? Or if you throne Carnivalle, the second one can gain itself. Personally, I'd say "All cards other than Carnivalle cost $1 less this turn". Unless you actively want to make Carnivalle more expansive if you fail to play any Carnivalles.
yeah i know. thats fine. inventors can just gain eachother like they're going to an inventor's conference. this, less so.
Title: Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 15: Level Up
Post by: mxdata on July 16, 2021, 05:58:42 pm
(https://i.imgur.com/CmfkxBK.png)
Quote
Warlord
Action - Level - Attack
$2
+1 Card
+1 Action
Each other player discards cards until the number of cards in their hand is one per token less than five, then draws to three cards.
-
When you gain this during your buy phase, +1D per level.

A cantrip attack whose severity depends on the number of level tokens you have. With no levels, it's nothing more than a simple cantrip most of the time. With one level, it's like Urchin, without the possibility of gaining a Mercenary. With two levels, it's a Militia attack. At three levels, it becomes like Legionary when you reveal a gold - discard to 2 then draw to three. At four levels, it's incredibly harsh - discard down to one card then draw to three. And at five or more levels (I can't think of any reason you'd put more than five), you're forced to discard your entire hand then draw three, like an even meaner Minion

Note that the "draw to three" is separate from the discarding, so that if another player already had fewer than three cards, such as from repeated Torturer attacks, then they'd get to draw to three

Level cards are really difficult to establish a cost for, because once you've invested in leveling it up, the cost to gain another copy is the same, no matter how many levels there are, and I'm really not sure if this cost is fair. As it is, you have to spend a total of $6 and 3 buys to gain your first Militia-strength version, for example, and a total of $12 and 6 buys to gain a copy at maximum strength, so that's a pretty significant investment. However, once you do, each additional card only costs $2. However, if I bumped it up to $3, then the first Militia-strength card would cost effectively $9 and 3 buys and the first maximum strength would amount to $18 and 6 buys. This also means that the value is dependent on how much +buy is available. If there's no +buy, then you have to sacrifice actually gaining a card to level it up, but if there's lots of +buy, then it becomes really easy to use an extra buy to level the card up. It might make sense in some cases to have a below-the-line clause such as "when you add a level, +1 Buy", but I think on an attack like this, it's better not to have such a clause

EDIT: Added a debt clause to make higher-level copies more expensive. It still costs $2 to level it up, no matter how many levels, but at maximum strength, an additional copy costs $2+5D. "During your buy phase" added to avoid shenanigans with Swindler and the like. I had to phrase it as "when you gain this" instead of "buy" because "buy" would make it apply to adding a level token as well. This clause wouldn't work too well with Possession - since the person gaining the card is not the person whose buy phase it is, no one gains any debt, but that's the only card I can think of where that would be a problem
Title: Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 15: Level Up
Post by: emtzalex on July 16, 2021, 08:04:14 pm
48 Hour Warning!!!

There are about 48 hours left (as of a few minutes ago).
Title: Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 15: Level Up
Post by: fika monster on July 17, 2021, 04:59:49 am
A lab variant. Powers up the more you buy it, but you have to keep fueling it.
 added the +1 Buy treatment to it. Now either you could pile this on a turn, but have a load of junk in your deck, or you could spent a lot of excess money on powering it up.

(https://i.imgur.com/rT8rIN8.png)

Edited it per peoples suggestions.
For some reason Card image generator isnt working for me right now, so just imagine this

VOLATILE LABORATORY
2 Debt Action - Level
+1 Action
++1 Card per level you have. Reduce your level by one.
-
When you buy this, +1 Buy
Title: Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 15: Level Up
Post by: grrgrrgrr on July 17, 2021, 06:04:40 am
A lab variant. Powers up the more you buy it, but you have to keep fueling it.
 added the +1 Buy treatment to it. Now either you could pile this on a turn, but have a load of junk in your deck, or you could spent a lot of excess money on powering it up.

(https://i.imgur.com/rT8rIN8.png)

Adding this +1 buy-on-purchase effect to a card that only costs $2 is always sketchy, as a Ferry or singular Quarry can reduce this card's cost to $0. This interaction is downright broken in this case, because it enables to power up Volatile Laboratory infinitely and then snatch all VLs away entirely for free.

It's otherwise a cool idea, but you gotta do something about that (just removing and making the card your typical it-needs-+Buy-to-be-truely-amazing card is probably just fine. Alternatively, you could add an overpay effect).
Title: Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 15: Level Up
Post by: spineflu on July 17, 2021, 09:40:55 am
A lab variant. Powers up the more you buy it, but you have to keep fueling it.
 added the +1 Buy treatment to it. Now either you could pile this on a turn, but have a load of junk in your deck, or you could spent a lot of excess money on powering it up.

(https://i.imgur.com/rT8rIN8.png)

Adding this +1 buy-on-purchase effect to a card that only costs $2 is always sketchy, as a Ferry or singular Quarry can reduce this card's cost to $0. This interaction is downright broken in this case, because it enables to power up Volatile Laboratory infinitely and then snatch all VLs away entirely for free.

It's otherwise a cool idea, but you gotta do something about that (just removing and making the card your typical it-needs-+Buy-to-be-truely-amazing card is probably just fine. Alternatively, you could add an overpay effect).
could also just make it cost 2 debt so it dodges cost reduction but in practise (ignoring gainers) still costs $2.
Title: Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 15: Level Up
Post by: naitchman on July 17, 2021, 11:55:44 pm
Here's my submission (there are 20 cards in this pile):
(https://i.imgur.com/sLmsDvW.png)
Kind of like an experiment but it can get better (costs more though). I think this is a good use of levels bc it's not overpowered if you level up too much (drawing your deck isn't really that crazy).
Title: Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 15: Level Up
Post by: emtzalex on July 18, 2021, 12:06:35 am
20 Hour Warning!!!
(I'm a few minutes late again. The deadline for submissions is still 23:59 UTC / 7:59 p.m. Eastern (Forum) time on Sunday, July 18, 2021.)


Here are the submissions so far:

spineflu's Carnavale
Aquila's Aristocrat
mxdata's Warlord
fika monster's Volatile Laboratory
naitchman's Breeder
Title: Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 15: Level Up
Post by: Gubump on July 18, 2021, 12:41:18 am
20 Hour Warning!!!
(I'm a few minutes late again. The deadline for submissions is still 23:59 UTC / 7:59 p.m. Eastern (Forum) time on Sunday, July 18, 2021.)


Here are the submissions so far:

spineflu's Carnavale
mxdata's Warlord
fika monster's Volatile Laboratory
naitchman's Breeder

You're missing Aquila's Aristocrat (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=20851.msg873298#msg873298).
Title: Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 15: Level Up
Post by: emtzalex on July 18, 2021, 12:56:04 am
20 Hour Warning!!!
(I'm a few minutes late again. The deadline for submissions is still 23:59 UTC / 7:59 p.m. Eastern (Forum) time on Sunday, July 18, 2021.)


Here are the submissions so far:

spineflu's Carnavale
mxdata's Warlord
fika monster's Volatile Laboratory
naitchman's Breeder

You're missing Aquila's Aristocrat (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=20851.msg873298#msg873298).

Fixed it. Thanks.
Title: Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 15: Level Up
Post by: emtzalex on July 18, 2021, 08:03:41 pm
The contest is now closed
Title: Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 15: Level Up
Post by: Violet CLM on July 19, 2021, 11:53:31 am
Oh I just saw this topic, how cool! I've idly thought about this mechanic from time to time since 2018 and wondered if it would have been better if the rule had been, uh, using this terminology, "when you buy a Level card, add a Level token to that card's supply pile in addition to gaining it." Something like that. That would take away the choice factor but it would sure be much faster. Ofc this way you can have only individual cards include that, "when you gain a $cardname by buying it" or whatever.
Title: Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 15: Level Up
Post by: The Alchemist on July 20, 2021, 02:46:03 am
I know the contest is closed, so feel free to ignore this incredibly late submission if you've already started judgement. If so my apologies.

(https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/797106542360002570/866932762670006283/Assembly.png)

Since Fugitive is normally cited as needing to cost between $4 and $5, this card is a great way to make a card like that a Supply pile, on top of being able to make a card Stronger than Forum available without it needing to be prohibitively expensive. Takes 3 investments of $4 to make it a stronger-than-forum, but by then you might just want more Fugitives. Its an interesting tradeoff one will have to make between having more sifters or stronger sifters, so I can see it being a fun card to play with. Considering dropping the price to $3 though.
Title: Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 15: Level Up
Post by: emtzalex on July 21, 2021, 10:30:04 am

Fan Card Mechanics Week 15: Level Up



(https://trello-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com/6019de42b869588d9701fbff/60ef0c81cc21d38dc96434e0/f951a023c6492a633d79b03d847c3578/image.png)
Quote from: Carnavale
Carnavale -- $3*
Action - Level

Cards cost $1 less this turn, per level.
Gain a card costing up to $2 (after the price change).

On your turns, this costs $1 more per level.
Carnavale by spineflu

An interesting take on discounters in general and Inventor in particular. The cost increasing effect creates a potentially interesting dilemma: whether to buy and gain first or start leveling up. However, the card is pretty useful from the jump, especially if there are any $2 cantrips, which reduces the risk of opening with it (if you end up playing it before you can add a level). Once there is one token, it will always get you at least a Silver, and if you add more tokens it can quickly become a powerful gainer and discounter. Also, because both effects are on-play, if you can use a Throne Room (or variant thereof), you can double the effect. With just 3 tokens the second play will gain you a Province.

In theory, the increasing cost makes each token harder to add. However, while (absent other discounting) this doesn't self-gain, it does self-discount, meaning (again, absent other price changing) that in any turn it is played, the first buy costs $3. Combined with any decent +Buy, and it is not at all unfeasible to imagine  player repeatedly playing a Forager or Market Square then this, and buying both this (adding a token) and another, discounted card. While doing so would slow down deck development at first, by the time a player hit level 3 it would be a wash (except that Carnivale takes up a spot in your hand), and thereafter it's a net discount. Even if a player doesn't get it up to being a Province gainer, at just 4 tokens it gives you a Gold/Duchy/Fairgrounds, and cuts the cost of Provinces to $4. This effect can be further exacerbated by the presence of Quarry or Ferry, which can push that cost down to $1.

In games without +Buy, it is somewhat weaker. The choice to add a level (or buy another copy) later in the game at $3 is going to be a tough one with a hand full money (and everything else on discount), while paying full price at higher levels may seem too burdensome. Nevertheless, it is not hard to imagine opening with this, adding a token at $3 and $4. That results in a Princess without a true +Buy, but with a gainer (which functions as a virtual +Buy). If you spring for putting on a token at $5 (or forego one Princess buy) it then gains $5 cards and discounts the non-Kingdom cards by one level (e.g. Gold to Silver, Province to Duchy). The fact that you have had to make 3 purchases prior to that keeps it from being broken, but it still is a powerful tool that seems like it would be hard to pass up in most games.






(https://trello-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com/5f5a8e8e7ed38b522f25641a/5f9bd66b012b49424958b5f2/1613cbdc45203fb7b74af7e8578e4a8e/Aristocrat_(1).png)
Quote from: Aristocrat
Aristocrat -- $3
Action - Level
Reveal one card from the top of your deck per level. Choose one of the revealed Actions. Discard the rest, then play the Action twice.
Aristocrat by Aquila

I like this card a lot. It combines two of my favorite effects (the choice-of-draw from Border Guard/Raze and throne variants). I also like the use of the Level mechanic as a way to adjust its power. I liked that that is variable, and I'm not sure there is a good alternative. There's not really a card price to tie it to (as with Raze) and City's empty Supply pile mechanic is probably to slow.

I certainly don't think it needs any kind of ceiling. No matter how many tokens you put on it, I'm not sure that it is ever strictly better than Golem, which comparably requires multiple purchases (the a purchase of a Potion at $4 and then another purchase of Golem at $4+), and that can go as far into your deck as you need. At 4 purchases of $3, this only shows you the top 3 cards of your deck (and, of course, you also have to have bought whatever Action card you are going to play). The ability to choose from among more than one card is strong, but not strong enough to make Raze or Border Guard cost more than $2. Heck, no matter how powerful this gets, it's never even strictly better than Throne Room (which works in cases when you've drawn or played all of your Actions, while this does not).






(https://i.imgur.com/CmfkxBK.png)
Quote from: Warlord
Warlord -- $2
Action - Level - Attack
+1 Card
+1 Action
Each other player discards cards until the number of cards in their hand is one per token less than five, then draws to three cards.

When you gain this during your buy phase, +1D per level.
Warlord by mxdata

A cantrip attack at $2 seems way too dangerous. There is no cost to playing it, and this can pretty easily turn into one of the most destructive attacks in the game. The only attack that makes you discard your entire hand is Minion, and that gives the target back 4 cards, and also requires the attacker to discard--although if played right that is to the attacker's benefit. Legionary's attack is conditional and attached to a terminal card. Also, the reason Legionary's attack is better than Militia's is that Militia leaves you with the 3 best cads in your hand, while Legionary leaves you with the 2 best, and one random card from your deck; here, at 5 tokens opponents are left with 3 random cards from their deck.

Also, as was pointed out with fika monster's card, the $2 cost with these is dangerous, as a simple Ferry or Quarry reduces the cost of it to $0. It isn't as big a problem here, as yours does not give the +buy, but it nevertheless turns each Buy a player has into another level (and it's not hard to imagine a player opening Ferry/Worker's Villager or Forager/Quarry). While this is somewhat mitigated by the debt penalty, because this is a cantrip there is not much downside to putting one (or more) into your deck before powering it up (especially at $2, where you are not even foregoing buying a Silver, even without cost reduction). You can also remodel Coppers and Curses into it, meaning even after you add levels, on many board you will still be able to easily get copies of it.

Overall, I think this becomes extremely oppressive much too quickly and easily. I think the idea of a scaling attack has potential, but I think this is just too powerful.





(https://i.imgur.com/jVqdFq0h.png)
Quote from: Volatile Laboratory
Volatile Laboratory -- @2
Action - Level
+1 Action
+1 Card per level you have. Reduce your level by one.

When you buy this, +1 Buy/
Volatile Laboratory by fika monster

When I started thinking about this card, it made me think of the "Secret History" of Horses.

Quote from: Secret History of Horse link=http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Horse#Secret_History
The other idea was for a particular way to do "+1 Card token (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Token)s." I considered them for Renaissance (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Renaissance), but it didn't sound great to have a pile of tokens you could constantly consider cashing in for cards. What I ended up doing for Renaissance was Sinister Plot (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Sinister_Plot), which just happens at the start of a turn. But another approach was to have a pile of One-shot (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/One-shot) Labs (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Laboratory) you could gain. It was like a +1 Card token, except different in all the ways it's different - you can only use it when drawing it, you can Remodel (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Remodel) it, and so on. There wasn't room for a big pile of those in Renaissance, though it got Experiment (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Experiment). So this was another thing to try right away, and right away I liked it. Horse itself started and ended costing (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/32/Coin3.png/16px-Coin3.png), but I tried having it cost (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png), to make it weaker with trash-for-benefit (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Trash-for-benefit). I preferred it being stronger there.

Here, you have found a new way to create a new version of the +1 Card token, the Level tokens on Volatile Laboratory. As with Ride, buying one of these to add a Level token will later result in your drawing an additional card. However, the is a massive difference between this card and Horses, Experiments, or Sinister Plot tokens. With each of those, for every extra card you draw, you must "cash in" one of your tokens. Horses/Experiments are returned to their respective piles, and the tokens on Sinister Plot are all returned as well. Here, when you play your Volatile Lab, you get one card per token you have (minus one, since you are playing a card to make it happen), but you only need to cash in one of your tokens. This means that, as long as you continue to invest in it by adding a token after each play, the other tokens can be used an unlimited number of times. There is also a disadvantage to this compared to those cards, which is that you have to pay a kind of tax, once per copy of Volatile Lab you buy (which is required for you to access the tokens, but does not itself give a token), and once per play, as playing the card from your hand is functionally -1 Card (which is why Horse gives you +2 Cards to net +1). However, these taxes are little compared to the massive advantages.

Of course, there are ways to use Experiment/Horse more than once, namely by using a Throne variant, but those inherently require interactions with other cards, and will at most play the card 3 times using Kings Court. But you could easily use many of these tokens far more than 3 times each. It would not at all be hard to put, say, five tokens on this and then gain one, spending $12 distributed over as many turns as you need (or, with the +Buy, as few as you want). If you committed to replacing a token every time you used it, you would have a card that gave, in effect, +5 Cards, +1 Action, -$2, not as a one-shot but to be played once per shuffle, for the rest of the game. You can also get more of them for 2 Debt each (although they would not chain well on the same turn, since each would give you one card fewer and still cost -$2 to get you back, so you would not want to get too many). Plus, before long, on the turns you used it you would very likely hit a number well above $10, meaning in a Provinces game you could frequently not only replace the token spent, but add more tokens for the following play of the card.

I do like the idea, but I think it needs to be nerfed. I think the most obvious way to do it would be to take away the +1 Buy. If that's too harsh, you could switch it back to costing coins, and make the +Buy contingent on the player actually spending $2. This will prevent players from adding an unlimited number of tokens, but also require players to actually hit $2 to add or gain (and not, for example, be able to pay $1 on one turn and $1 on the next). This was definitely a good effort, but I think it ended up being a bit too powerful.






(https://i.imgur.com/sLmsDvW.png)
Quote from: Breeder
Breeder -- $4
Action - Level
+2 Cards
+1 Action
Return this to the Supply.

When you gain this, gain another Breeder per level (that doesn't come with another).
Breeder by naitchman

This is a fun idea, and I really like it. The comparison to Experiment is obvious, and I do like the innovative way of using the Level tokens to adjust the card's power. However, I think you have overpriced it, as I don't think your version is better than the original. The two cards are identical in function on-play, so the only issue is which version gets you more copies per buy. With Breeder, you will have to Buy it at least twice to add Level tokens before buying it for a gain in order to ever get more copies than you would from just buying an Experiment (as at Level 0 you always get fewer, and at Level 1 you get the same number, but have used one of your buys not gaining any). My sense was that it was going to frequently be hard to catch up, so I decided to look at the numbers:

(https://i.imgur.com/fzOIuvF.png)

This presumes you buy Breeder a certain number of times to add tokens, then start buying it to gain cards. As you can see, none of them get ahead of Experiment before the 7th buy. In addition to it being questionable how frequently that will ever happen, you are also pushing the gaining of any of them back, delaying the point at which it helps you hit higher totals to let you improve your deck. And it increases the chance that you will end up buying these and not getting to use them because the game ended. There might be some circumstances where you would prefer to get this type of card later in games and in larger batches (especially if you have a Royal Seal or the like). But I don't think that's enough to make these cost more. In games with both Breeder and Experiment, I think it would be very rare to choose investing in these as opposed to just using Experiment.

Now, I actually think one potential design element of Level cards is the ability to strengthen your future deck without adding any cards to it (in that way it bears some similarity to VP tokens). You can add Level tokens before putting the then-weak card into your deck. However, I don't think that reasoning applies as well here, as gaining non-terminal Actions that always let you increase your handsize by 1 is something you want in virtually every context and fairly consistently throughout the game. But the core idea behind the card is a good one.





(https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/797106542360002570/866932762670006283/Assembly.png)
Quote from: Assembly
Assembly -- $4
Action - Level
+1 Card
+1 Action
+1 Card per level, then discard a card per level.
Assembly by The Alchemist

This is a really solid entry. While the leveling function is certainly significant, it never becomes too overpowered, as the player ultimately ends up with the same number of cards in their hand. There are also some degree of diminishing returns, as at some point you are almost always able to get exactly what you need into your hand, and further sifting doesn't help.

Another thing I really like about this card is the fact that (as you suggested) it sets up an interesting choice on an ongoing basis between buying for gain and buying for a level token. Would you rather have 2 Fugitives or 1 Forum? Probably 2 Fugitives. Would you rather have 3 Fugitives or 2 Forums? Maybe a harder call, but if you take the Fugitives, the next choice is between 4 Fugitives and 3 Forums, at which point you probably add the token. There's kind of a Duke/Duchy dynamic, in that each time you purchase one, it makes buying the other more appealing.

Definitely a solid card design and would have been a real contender if it had been submitted by the deadline.


Title: Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 15: Level Up
Post by: emtzalex on July 21, 2021, 10:32:38 am
The Results

Thanks to everyone who participated. I think each of you came up with a pretty interesting way to use these cards. I am going to have further thoughts on the mechanic, but one of my initial impressions in doing this judging was that pricing these can be tricky. They have to be relatively inexpensive (because they are generally terrible to useless unleveled, but if they are too expensive leveling them becomes difficult), but that will often mean that in the presence of +Buy cards (something that happens quite unreliably in Dominion, in my experience), there will be the capacity to level them up much more frequently (especially when suppimented by cost reduction). That probably calls for some degree of limitation on how powerful they will get (like Aquila's card, which scales to increase your choices, but only lets you throne one card) or find some way to make it so players can't repeatedly power up the card on the cheap (like spineflu's cost adjusting). Otherwise, the cards swing substantially in their utility based on the absence or presence of +Buy (as does at least one official card, Peddler).

With that in mind, here are the results:

Runner up: spineflu's Carnavale

Winner: Aquila's Aristocrat
Title: Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 15: Level Up
Post by: emtzalex on July 21, 2021, 10:45:26 am
I know the contest is closed, so feel free to ignore this incredibly late submission if you've already started judgement. If so my apologies.

(https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/797106542360002570/866932762670006283/Assembly.png)

Since Fugitive is normally cited as needing to cost between $4 and $5, this card is a great way to make a card like that a Supply pile, on top of being able to make a card Stronger than Forum available without it needing to be prohibitively expensive. Takes 3 investments of $4 to make it a stronger-than-forum, but by then you might just want more Fugitives. Its an interesting tradeoff one will have to make between having more sifters or stronger sifters, so I can see it being a fun card to play with. Considering dropping the price to $3 though.

Sorry, I somehow missed this before. I will try to give you feedback later today/tomorrow (but I've already decided on the winner).
Title: Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 15: Level Up
Post by: Aquila on July 21, 2021, 02:11:53 pm
Lovely, thanks! I'll prepare the next contest now and try to choose something simple. This felt like a mechanic where once you know what design principles it needs to follow (card price, base power, level up power, etc.) a lot can be done with it. I did a WDC entry which basically used the level up mechanic, and it had a different 'level 1' and 'level 2' effect, something we didn't see here.
Title: Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 15: Level Up
Post by: emtzalex on July 22, 2021, 12:15:01 am
I know the contest is closed, so feel free to ignore this incredibly late submission if you've already started judgement. If so my apologies.

(https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/797106542360002570/866932762670006283/Assembly.png)

Since Fugitive is normally cited as needing to cost between $4 and $5, this card is a great way to make a card like that a Supply pile, on top of being able to make a card Stronger than Forum available without it needing to be prohibitively expensive. Takes 3 investments of $4 to make it a stronger-than-forum, but by then you might just want more Fugitives. Its an interesting tradeoff one will have to make between having more sifters or stronger sifters, so I can see it being a fun card to play with. Considering dropping the price to $3 though.

Sorry, I somehow missed this before. I will try to give you feedback later today/tomorrow (but I've already decided on the winner).

I updated the Judging entry to include Assembly. Great design.
Title: Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 15: Level Up
Post by: emtzalex on August 04, 2021, 01:46:47 am
So, I have wanted to share some designs, along with my thoughts, since before the contest ended, but I have been super busy at work. I wanted to do the judging first, and have not had time to put this post together since.

As VioletCLM suggested in the OP, the fact that these tokens are specific to each card means they can do more or less anything that is possible in the game. They can increase or decrease a bonus or penalty; they can add to, subtract from, or otherwise alter a card's cost, or it's on-buy, on-gain, or on-trash effect; they can correspond to the price of another card that can be gained, trashed, Exiled, or

Despite this seemingly limitless potential, the cards actually appear to have at least one fairly significant limitation. Both in judging the contest and designing my cards, one big challenge I noticed was pricing. On one hand, these cards cannot be too expensive, as (at least in the "standard" design of a card that requires leveling up at least a couple of times to be effective) they will require multiple buys to work, and for anything costing more than $4 that is not going to be realistic in many if not most games. On the other hand, especially in the context of Action cards, the existence of Ferry and Quarry means there is a non-negligible possibility of discounting the cost by $2 without great difficulty. This, in turn, means that if the card costs $2 or less, every +Buy is another level. If multiple levels produces too powerful of an effect, the cards can become broken when combined with that discounting. The ultimate effect of this is that a sizeable portion of these cards end up costing either $3 or $4. While there is nothing inherently wrong with that, it is something I don't love about them.

While the contest was going I designed a number of these.  Like fika, my first idea was to some sort of Lab variant or other scaling non-terminal card gainer. The first thing I came up with was this:

(https://i.imgur.com/cLCIsR6h.png)

Quote from: Salon
Salon -- $7*
Action - Level
+2 Cards per level
+1 Action

During a player's Action phase, this costs $3 less.

The idea here is that it is accessible at $4 to gainers and remodelers, but in order to add levels and make it into a more effective card, it requires hitting $7 during the Buy phase. The most obvious problem is that, absent the ability to gain cards outside of the Buy phase, this will always be $7, and is much too expensive (even with a discount).

My next idea was to use a scaling cost, as spineflu and mxdata did in their submissions. Here, I came up with this.

(https://i.imgur.com/usQqylRh.png)

Quote from: King's Men
King's Men -- $1*
Action - Level
Once per level: +1 Card, +1 Action.

During your turns, this costs $2 more per level.

I did kind of find an elegance to the various price points. At $1 it's a vastly overpriced dead card, at $3 it's a somewhat overpriced cantrip, at $5 it's a slightly discounted (losing the on-buy penalty) Lost City, at $7 it's a strongly-underpriced double-Lost City, etc. However, I think a fairly obvious strategy (especially in the presence of early +Buy from cards like Pouch or Forager) is to level it up once, buy/gain a number of these at $3 (putting non-harmful cantrips into your deck), then leveling it up twice more at $3 and $5, getting the insanely powerful double Lost Cities without ever having had to hit a significant price point.

Another way I thought about using the mechanic was finding alternative ways to put level token on cards. One option there was to use an Heirloom, which every player will receive and which always collides in Kingdoms with the other card. So I decided to go with a very expensive double Lab and an heirloom which can give you the level tokens you need to make it cheaper.

(https://i.imgur.com/Tut81Yjh.png)

Quote from: Ivory Tower
Ivory Tower -- $9*
Action - Level
+3 Cards
+1 Action

During your turns, this card costs $1 less per level.
Heirloom: Scholarly Tome

(https://i.imgur.com/n6VJQAmh.png)

Quote from: Scholarly Tome
Scholarly Tome -- $0
Treasure - Heirloom
Choose one: +1 Card per Ivory Tower level; or +$1; or put a Level token on the Ivory Tower pile.

I'm actually not sure if $9* is a high enough baseline, but the card image generator doesn't like 2 digit numbers with asterisks by them.
Separate from wanting to work on a scaling lab variant, another mechanic I wanted to mix with these was split piles. Because the Level tokens go onto the pile, they would (I presume) apply to both cards in the pile. This creates the potential for some interesting interactions and strategic choices. Players will want to put their level tokens on the pile in anticipation of getting the bottom card, but they may not have much incentive to buy the top card, yet if they never buy any of the cards, the tokens are useless. I came up with a fairly simple pair of cards, the first being a scaling village and the second a scaling lab (in a standard 5/5 split pile).

(https://i.imgur.com/kuqe3dhh.png)

Quote from: Dormitory
Dormitory -- $3
Action - Level
+1 Card
+1 Action per level

(https://i.imgur.com/WKs5jIYh.png)
Quote from: Lecture Hall
Lecture Hall -- $3
Action - Level
+1 Card per level
+1 Action

I think these need play-testing, as I still feel very unsure about how strong they are and how they would actually play.

Finally, I wanted to make a kind of scaling Pawn variant, giving a choice of one vanilla bonus per level. To juice it up I added a weak gainer, but one that self-gains, allowing players to use their buys to level up while using the on-play ability to add more to their deck.

(https://i.imgur.com/upjx95ah.png)

Quote from: Rookery
Rookery -- $3
Action - Level
Choose up to one per level: +1 Card; +1 Action; +1 Buy; +$1; gain a card costing up to $3. The choices must be different.

One benefit to these is that, of course, they don't get any more powerful after 5 level tokens are placed onto them.

During the contest, when people were initially slow to post, I started to wonder if the mechanic was not as versatile as I had thought when I chose it. In order to test that question, I decided I would try to make a Level card with every official card type that can be found in at least two Kingdom card piles (i.e. no exclusively non-Supply types like Spirits and no single pile types like Castles). I eventually came up with designs for every type, and I am posting most of them here. I actually came up with 2 Traveller lines, but neither is yet ready to be posted.

The first type I went for was an Attack. Like mxdata, I wanted the strength of the attack itself to scale, but I thought that discarding a card per level would be too strong. Ultimately I came up with a cross between a Villain and a Militia, requiring a more expensive card per level if players want to end up with more than 4 cards, but never forcing a player to go below three. 

(https://i.imgur.com/QrJzfcFh.png)

Quote from: Irregulars
Irregulars -- $3
Action - Attack - Level
+1 Buy
+1 Coffers
Each other player may discard a card costing at least $1 per level. If they don't, they discard down to 3 cards in hand.

This card may still be too weak. I think I might add "non-Victory" to the single card discard. I should probably also specify that it is the level of the player playing the attack card, not the level of the player discarding.

I also designed a Reaction...

(https://i.imgur.com/a6sI6P1h.png)

Quote from: Trained Bear
Trained Bear -- $3
Action - Reaction - Level
+1 Card per level

When another player buys a card costing less than $1 per your level, you may play this from your hand.

...and a couple of Durations...

(https://i.imgur.com/BsP5opHh.png)

Quote from: Supply Ship
Supply Ship -- $4
Action - Duration - Level
+$2
At the start of your next turn, gain a card to your hand costing up to $2 per level.


(https://i.imgur.com/bdMsaA4h.png)

Quote from: Docks
Docks -- $5
Action - Duration - Level
At the start of each of your turns for the rest of the game, if the level is then at least...
one, +1 Buy
two, +1 Action
four, +1 Card
(This stays in play.)

I like Docks, although I am uncertain if it is too strong or too weak. The nice part is that you add levels after getting the card, and still get the improvement on the following turn. (And yes, that's the same painting for both of them, zoomed in on the ship for the former).

I also designed a Command card (although I am thinking it should maybe be $2 per level).

(https://i.imgur.com/JRr6uxNh.png)

Quote from: Officer-in-Training
Officer-in-Training -- $4
Action - Command - Level
Play a non-Command Action card from the Supply costing up to $1 per level, leaving it there.

I'm putting the rest in chronological order in which it's expansion was released. I came up with a Looter that combines the Ruins' vanilla bonuses (or deck manipulation) into a single effect. (You may notice that this version 0.4; that isn't because I have messed with the design a great deal, as it has largely remained the same; instead the card has had several different names, including Refugee Camp, Lamentations, and Rack).

(https://i.imgur.com/3N6av33h.png)

Quote from: Archeologist
Archeologist -- $2
Action - Looter - Level
If the number of Ruins on your Archeologist mat is less than the level, gain a Ruins, then put it onto your Archeologist mat. Otherwise, play each card from your Archeologist mat in any order, leaving them there.

I really like this card. One of the reasons I feel comfortable setting it at $2 is that not only will adding levels not endlessly strengthen the card, but (unlike Rookery), adding too many levels is guaranteed to brick it. A player has to be very careful about adding levels as the Ruin pile gets lower. That being said, I recognize that it can be swingy and hard to gauge early on (due to uncertainty around which Ruins a player will get), but I think it has a lot of potential.

Next was Adventures and Reserve cards...

(https://i.imgur.com/6kftn58h.png)

Quote from: Librarian
Librarian -- $4
Action - Reserve - Level
+1 Card
+1 Action
Put this on your Tavern mat.

At the start of your turn, you may call this for +1 Card per level.

This is easily my least favorite card here, and I considered not posting it. (As previously mentioned, I am not yet posting the Traveller cards I designed, as they are not ready). As with Docks, it seems to me that this has some interesting potential, since you can add levels while it sits on your Reserve mat. This might actually be a space to test a mechanic that consumes level tokens (like fika's did), perhaps requiring a certain number to call the Reserve card.

Next is Empires and its cards with the Gathering type. (Empires also has split piles, which I used and posted above, but that isn't a type that is listed on the card).

(https://i.imgur.com/64SFbZ9h.png)

Quote from: Almonry
Almonry -- $3
Action - Gathering - Level
Choose one: gain a card costing up to $1 per level and add a VP the Almonry Supply pile; or if there are more VP on the pile than your Level tokens, take the VP from the pile.

This is a kind of silly card. I was going for a card version of Alms, and I am mostly amused by the potential for this pile to be spilling over with a ridiculous number of different kinds of tokens. I do like that the higher you make the level, the harder it is to gain the VP tokens.

Next comes Nocturn, with three new types, Doom, Fate, and Night.

(https://i.imgur.com/b64KrYeh.png)

Quote from: Raven
Raven -- $3
Action - Attack - Doom - Level
+2 Cards per level
Discard down to 5 cards in hand.
Each other player receives the next Hex.

I actually really like this as a way to limit the strength of tying +Cards to the level. It will generally just serve as a terminal sifter, with the side effect of mitigating handsize attacks (but with a detriment to other drawing).

(https://i.imgur.com/ibx1HFIh.png)

Quote from: Fairy Ring
Fairy Ring -- $3
Action - Fate - Level
Receive a Boon.
+1 Card per 2 levels (round down).
If your level is an odd number, +2 Actions.
If your level is greater than that of all other players, +$2.

Given their reputation for mischief, I though Fairies would be perfect for some loopy effects. You get an extra card every 2 levels, but each time the number of cards goes up the effect goes from village to terminal. That said, the +$ bonus incentivizes players to keep pushing the card upward (and, of course, there's a 1 in 12 chance of getting an extra action, 1 in 6 if you have a Village Square).

(https://i.imgur.com/KTWA8dfh.png)

Quote from: Up All Night
Up All Night -- $4
Night - Duration - Level
Choose one: put a Level token on the pile of a Level card you have in play; or set aside a card you would discard from play this turn costing up to $1 per level, and if you did, at the start of your next turn, play it.

Finally, a Night card. I struggled a bit with these, but ultimately I like UAN's ability to add levels as an on-play option. Whether or not that is broken with respect to other cards depends somewhat on what exists, but the only one that gives me pause is Salon.

I also tinkered with Treasures. Here is the only one I liked at all:

(https://i.imgur.com/CVMG59Dh.png)

Quote from: Option
Option -- $1
Treasure - Level
+1 Buy
+$1 per level, then take 1 Debt per 2 levels (round down).

This effectively turns buys into future coins, but the debt effect means that it gets stronger more slowly.

Finally, I also designed two Victory cards. To me, there were a couple of obvious ways to go with this. Either a scaling Victory card that gets stronger per level or a fixed VP card that gets cheaper per level. Here is what I came up with for those:

(https://i.imgur.com/vvM9o0Bh.png)

Quote from: Utopian Community
Utopian Community -- $3
Victory - Level
Worth 1VP per 2 levels (round down).

When you buy this, +1 Buy per $2 you spent (round down).


(https://i.imgur.com/MPIxlOUh.png)

Quote from: Exclusive Retreat
Exclusive Retreat -- $4*
Victory - Level
2VP
-
During your turns, this costs $1 less per level.

Ultimately, despite some clear limitations, I do think this is a design space with a ton of potential.