Dominion Strategy Forum

Dominion => Variants and Fan Cards => Weekly Design Contest => Topic started by: spineflu on October 09, 2021, 08:07:07 pm

Title: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: spineflu on October 09, 2021, 08:07:07 pm
Contest 131: Novel Ways to Overpay
this might be a weird/hard one

Overpay (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Overpay) is one of the rarer mechanics in Dominion; only four canon cards have it, and three of them use it in the same way - do a thing for each extra $1 you spend. Only Stonemason does something different, where it can meaningfully use potions for overpay.

Your goal for this is to design a Kingdom pile that uses overpay in a way that none of the cards from guilds do (it's fine if you and another member end up using it the same way in your entry). The effect you get can be something we've seen before - sometimes you need something to pile out the silvers, right? - but the way in which the overpay is performed should be novel. For instance, maybe you make a card that has a downside if you don't overpay. Or a bonus if you do. Maybe you make a card that does a 2:1 overpay ratio (make sure to include how you're rounding). Or 1:2, if you're feeling bold. Or something entirely different from those.

Your entry must be a non-split pile / non-unique pile kingdom card. It can use non-supply piles, and should use types/mechanics from canon dominion - fan mechanics are fine as long as you're ok with including a short write up describing how they're used. Please no landscapes this contest.

Please study the existing (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Stonemason) four (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Doctor) overpay (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Masterpiece) cards (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Herald) for how to word your overpay segment. I understand overpay is inherently wordy and will not be docking points for longevity, provided you can keep your card under ten or so lines. It may behoove you to keep the on-play portion brief if your overpay clause is long though.

Contest will close out on the 16th / 24 hr warning on the 15th.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: The Alchemist on October 09, 2021, 10:43:01 pm
Does this count as a novel way to overpay?

(https://imgur.com/Y96p5tz.png)

Bibliothecary:
Someone has to maintain the libraries! Archaic name for librarian, this card nets out to a terminal Discard 2, Draw 3, unless you've managed to shrink your handsize by playing non-draw actions first that is. And hey, here are some villagers to help you out with that!
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: spineflu on October 09, 2021, 11:02:53 pm
Does this count as a novel way to overpay?

(https://imgur.com/Y96p5tz.png)

Bibliothecary:
Someone has to maintain the libraries! Archaic name for librarian, this card nets out to a terminal Discard 2, Draw 3, unless you've managed to shrink your handsize by playing non-draw actions first that is. And hey, here are some villagers to help you out with that!

nah, that's the same "pay $1 extra for 1 <thing>" that I want you to avoid in your designs. It's a cool card, but that's specifically the type of overpay I want you to avoid for this contest. That is, the prize (villagers, in this case) isn't the novelty I want you to pursue in your design.
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: JW on October 10, 2021, 12:06:26 am
Isolated Village
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2a/Coin4.png/16px-Coin4.png) - Action
+1 Card and +2 Actions.
You may spend a Villager to trash a card from your hand.
When you buy this, +1 Villager and you may overpay for it. If you do, for each (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f7/Coin1.png/16px-Coin1.png) you overpaid, +1 Villager (max 4). If you don’t, each other player gets +1 Villager.

Clarification: you can’t overpay by $0. But you could overpay by (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/7/7a/Potion.png/9px-Potion.png) so that other players do not get +1 Villager.
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: emtzalex on October 10, 2021, 01:37:17 am
Updated Submission:
(https://i.imgur.com/7nb0lx4h.png)



Quote from: Scoundrel
SCOUNDREL
ACTION
Cost: $5+
+3 Cards
You may play from your hand an Action card from the pile with your Cur token on it.


When you buy this, you may overpay for it. If you did, gain an Action card costing the amount you overpaid and move your Cur token to its pile.

                                                                

My new submission is Scoundrel. Discussed at the new post here (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=20925.msg879335#msg879335).



My old submission (withdrawn):
(https://i.imgur.com/sJ3InmTh.png)
Quote from: Topiary Garden
TOPIARY GARDEN
VICTORY
Cost: $3+
Worth 1VP per 10 tokens on your Topiary mat (round down).


When you buy this, you may overpay for it. For each $1 you overpaid, add three tokens to your Topiary mat.

                                                                
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: lompeluiten on October 10, 2021, 02:50:46 pm
$2 Developing Village
+2 Actions
-
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. If you did, return to your action phase and +1 action. For each $1 you overpaid, draw an card.

You can kickstart your engine again if it just needs an little boost.
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: xyz123 on October 10, 2021, 03:09:04 pm
Totem
Action $4

+1 Card
+1 Action
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
While this is in play, when you buy a non-victory card you may overpay $1 per $2 it costs (round up). If you do gain a copy of it.



- Don't know if this is in the rules for this or not, so apologies if it isn't.
- I am finding this quite difficult to price.
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: spineflu on October 10, 2021, 04:07:07 pm
Totem
Action $4

+1 Card
+1 Action
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
While this is in play, when you buy a non-victory card you may overpay $1 per $2 it costs (round up). If you do gain a copy of it.



- Don't know if this is in the rules for this or not, so apologies if it isn't.
This qualifies, this is a novel way to use overpay. If you use this with, say, Masterpiece, do you also do Masterpiece's overpay (that is, is it double dipping)? Or are the two forms of overpay separate?
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: xyz123 on October 10, 2021, 04:45:24 pm
Totem
Action $4

+1 Card
+1 Action
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
While this is in play, when you buy a non-victory card you may overpay $1 per $2 it costs (round up). If you do gain a copy of it.



- Don't know if this is in the rules for this or not, so apologies if it isn't.
This qualifies, this is a novel way to use overpay. If you use this with, say, Masterpiece, do you also do Masterpiece's overpay (that is, is it double dipping)? Or are the two forms of overpay separate?

If you have enough money available you can use either or both overpay options.

Note though that the additional card from Totem is gained, not bought, so you can only use the overpay option on the card you initially bought, not the second copy gained with Totem. This only makes a difference with Stonemason though.
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: Gubump on October 10, 2021, 08:06:37 pm
Totem
Action $4

+1 Card
+1 Action
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
While this is in play, when you buy a non-victory card you may overpay $1 per $2 it costs (round up). If you do gain a copy of it.



- Don't know if this is in the rules for this or not, so apologies if it isn't.
This qualifies, this is a novel way to use overpay. If you use this with, say, Masterpiece, do you also do Masterpiece's overpay (that is, is it double dipping)? Or are the two forms of overpay separate?

If you have enough money available you can use either or both overpay options.

Note though that the additional card from Totem is gained, not bought, so you can only use the overpay option on the card you initially bought, not the second copy gained with Totem. This only makes a difference with Stonemason though.

That doesn't really answer spineflu's question. What he meant was, if you buy Masterpiece and overpay by (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png), do you gain an extra Masterpiece and 2 Silvers, or would you have to overpay (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png) for Totem's effect and another (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png) for Masterpiece's overpay separately? I gather from your "if you have enough money available" qualifier that you intend for the latter?
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: emtzalex on October 10, 2021, 10:24:24 pm
This looks too good relative to Province.
Let us assume an average of 4 Provinces per player. This is the same as buying Topiary Gardens 4 times while overpaying 5 each time such that there are 60 tokens on the mat. Now the Topiary Gardens are worth as many VPs as Provinces with the additional feature that you can buy further 6VP cards for $3.

It's true that buying 4 of these at $8 makes them worth the number of VP as a Province (and creates the opportunity to buy another at $3), but I disagree that this makes them better. When you buy a Province you have a guaranteed 6VP (absent it getting Swindled into a Peddler or Prince; Topiary Garden is much more vulnerable to Swindler). With this, the first 3 TGs you buy at $8 are not guaranteed to end up being worth 6VP, which makes buying one instead of a Province a potentially risky prospect. And because in 2 or 3 player games there are 4 TGs per player (and fewer games with more players), there is a non-negligible chance that you will not get the chance to buy a 5th one (or even a 4th).

Also, think about how this would happen practically. Imagine we are playing a 2 player game and you and I each have bought 3 Provinces at $8. If I hit $7, what am I going to do? Buy a Gold? A Duchy? I have an extremely strong incentive to buy a 4th TG at $7. Now, if you buy a 4th for $8, I've got a pretty big problem, but I would have had that anyway unless I was going to hit $8 on the following turn. If you don't hit $8 the turn after I buy the penultimate TG, you nevertheless have an extremely strong incentive to buy one at whatever you can spend, because if I buy that 5th one at $4, I now have 5 TGs worth 6 VP each. Thus, I think actually getting 4 TGs at $8 is going to be extremely rare.
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: AJL828 on October 10, 2021, 11:44:05 pm
(https://i.imgur.com/ZB5zAFnh.jpg)

Uproar
Action ($4)

+1 Card
+1 Action
You may discard 2 cards for +2 Cards.
-----
When you buy this you may overpay for it. If you overpaid at least:
$1: Each other player Exiles a Curse.
$2: Each other player with 5 or more cards in hand puts a card from their hand onto their deck.

The on play is a weaker version of forum, as you only get to draw 1 card before having to decide what to discard (it is optional at least). The main idea of the card however, is the overpay. I wanted to try making an on-gain "attack" that was dependent on overpaying. Because players could potentially gain a few of these in a turn, I wanted to keep the attacks fairly on the light side, since the card itself is a cantrip and won't junk you up like IGG might.
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: xyz123 on October 11, 2021, 03:04:32 am
Totem
Action $4

+1 Card
+1 Action
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
While this is in play, when you buy a non-victory card you may overpay $1 per $2 it costs (round up). If you do gain a copy of it.



- Don't know if this is in the rules for this or not, so apologies if it isn't.
This qualifies, this is a novel way to use overpay. If you use this with, say, Masterpiece, do you also do Masterpiece's overpay (that is, is it double dipping)? Or are the two forms of overpay separate?

If you have enough money available you can use either or both overpay options.

Note though that the additional card from Totem is gained, not bought, so you can only use the overpay option on the card you initially bought, not the second copy gained with Totem. This only makes a difference with Stonemason though.

That doesn't really answer spineflu's question. What he meant was, if you buy Masterpiece and overpay by (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png), do you gain an extra Masterpiece and 2 Silvers, or would you have to overpay (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png) for Totem's effect and another (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png) for Masterpiece's overpay separately? I gather from your "if you have enough money available" qualifier that you intend for the latter?

Sorry, yes it is the latter.
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: Timinou on October 11, 2021, 07:32:33 am
(https://i.imgur.com/ZB5zAFnh.jpg)

Uproar
Action ($4)

+1 Card
+1 Action
You may discard 2 cards for +2 Cards.
-----
When you buy this you may overpay for it. If you overpaid at least:
$1: Each other player Exiles a Curse.
$2: Each other player with 5 or more cards in hand puts a card from their hand onto their deck.

The on play is a weaker version of forum, as you only get to draw 1 card before having to decide what to discard (it is optional at least). The main idea of the card however, is the overpay. I wanted to try making an on-gain "attack" that was dependent on overpaying. Because players could potentially gain a few of these in a turn, I wanted to keep the attacks fairly on the light side, since the card itself is a cantrip and won't junk you up like IGG might.

The way I read this is that if I overpay by $2, my opponents would both Exile a Curse and suffer the mini Ghost Ship attack (since I’ve fulfilled both overpay conditions).  Is that the correct interpretation?
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: AJL828 on October 11, 2021, 11:00:28 am
(https://i.imgur.com/ZB5zAFnh.jpg)

Uproar
Action ($4)

+1 Card
+1 Action
You may discard 2 cards for +2 Cards.
-----
When you buy this you may overpay for it. If you overpaid at least:
$1: Each other player Exiles a Curse.
$2: Each other player with 5 or more cards in hand puts a card from their hand onto their deck.

The on play is a weaker version of forum, as you only get to draw 1 card before having to decide what to discard (it is optional at least). The main idea of the card however, is the overpay. I wanted to try making an on-gain "attack" that was dependent on overpaying. Because players could potentially gain a few of these in a turn, I wanted to keep the attacks fairly on the light side, since the card itself is a cantrip and won't junk you up like IGG might.

The way I read this is that if I overpay by $2, my opponents would both Exile a Curse and suffer the mini Ghost Ship attack (since I’ve fulfilled both overpay conditions).  Is that the correct interpretation?

Yep, that’s the intention. The effects stack since both overpay conditions are fulfilled.
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: anordinaryman on October 11, 2021, 02:48:12 pm
Here's a wild one

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

Quote
Town Square | Victory | $1
Worth 1% if you have no Duchies.
-
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. If you do, +1 card per $2 you overpaid (rounded down) and set aside any number of Action cards from your hand that cost equal or less than the amount you overpaid. Return to your Action phase and play the set aside cards in any order.

Town Square's really want a +1 Buy (a natural synergy with your Market Square, perhaps), but isn't entirely useless without one (although often it is).

If you pay for Town Square with $6 and a Potion, you then draw 2 cards (overpaid by $5 and divide by 2 and round down), then set aside any action cards from hand that cost 5P or less, return to your Action phase and play all the set aside cards in any order. If you pay for Town Square with $2, well you can play a Poor House after you played all your Treasures. Nice.

Basically this lets you overpay for a sort of Villa/Calvary fushion to save a turn. Although you're going to need a lot of $ to make it shine. And then Town Square sits dead in your deck as a fairly weak victory card. It's strictly worse than estate as a Victory Card, which is why it costs less. Also $1 felt like the best base cost for this over-pay mechanic.

Open to feedback, of course. This is verbose as hell but I don't think I can simplify the wording anymore. It's less interesting to me as just a card drawer, and too weak as just an Action player.
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: Freddy10 on October 11, 2021, 03:00:04 pm
This looks too good relative to Province.
Let us assume an average of 4 Provinces per player. This is the same as buying Topiary Gardens 4 times while overpaying 5 each time such that there are 60 tokens on the mat. Now the Topiary Gardens are worth as many VPs as Provinces with the additional feature that you can buy further 6VP cards for $3.

It's true that buying 4 of these at $8 makes them worth the number of VP as a Province (and creates the opportunity to buy another at $3), but I disagree that this makes them better. When you buy a Province you have a guaranteed 6VP (absent it getting Swindled into a Peddler or Prince; Topiary Garden is much more vulnerable to Swindler). With this, the first 3 TGs you buy at $8 are not guaranteed to end up being worth 6VP, which makes buying one instead of a Province a potentially risky prospect. And because in 2 or 3 player games there are 4 TGs per player (and fewer games with more players), there is a non-negligible chance that you will not get the chance to buy a 5th one (or even a 4th).

Also, think about how this would happen practically. Imagine we are playing a 2 player game and you and I each have bought 3 Provinces at $8. If I hit $7, what am I going to do? Buy a Gold? A Duchy? I have an extremely strong incentive to buy a 4th TG at $7. Now, if you buy a 4th for $8, I've got a pretty big problem, but I would have had that anyway unless I was going to hit $8 on the following turn. If you don't hit $8 the turn after I buy the penultimate TG, you nevertheless have an extremely strong incentive to buy one at whatever you can spend, because if I buy that 5th one at $4, I now have 5 TGs worth 6 VP each. Thus, I think actually getting 4 TGs at $8 is going to be extremely rare.
I totally disagree. Absent trashing attacks, your card is strictly better than Province.

So it will be very centralizing in nearly all Kingdoms, i.e. players will build up their engines more than in an ordinary Kingdom and then try to massively overpay for Topiary Gardens (a player overpaying less than $5 for them is not a strategic equilibrium as the other players can simply go for Provinces then)-
There is no reason to go initially for the inferior and less flexible Provinces.

This does not lead to good play. It is called alt-VP for a reason, it should be a real choice and not a virtually always mandatory strategic path.

You will also need a lot of tokens, won't be better to adjust the numbers to gain less tokens when overpaying?
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: NoMoreFun on October 11, 2021, 04:48:51 pm
Token
Action - $2+
+$3
+1 Buy
Return this to the supply
____________
When you buy this you may overpay. Either way, gain a card costing less than the total amount you paid for this card.

Example: If you buy it and don't overpay, gain a card costing $0 or $1. You can overpay $1P, making the total cost you paid
$3P, so you can gain an Apothecary ($2P).
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: JW on October 11, 2021, 06:15:25 pm
Company Town
Action - $2+
+1 Card
+2 Actions
____________
When you buy this you may overpay. Either way, gain a card costing less than the total amount you paid for this card.

Example: If you buy it and don't overpay, gain a card costing $0 or $1 after you do. You can overpay $1P, making the total cost you paid $3P, so you can gain an Apothecary ($2P). It has the same functionality as Border Village if you overpay $4, except the village costs $2 instead of $6 so it's worse for TFB (i.e. it isn't "strictly better" than Border Village)

The issue I see with this card is that it is strategically too simple. There are plenty of times when, even aside from Company Town, you have more $ than a card you want to buy costs. Company Town makes all of those situations into "have a free Village" until the pile runs out, which it generally would quickly.   
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: Xen3k on October 11, 2021, 06:53:00 pm
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51578487291_9be8debc2f_b.jpg)

Quote
Ritual Attendant - $3+
Action - Attack - Fate - Doom
Receive a Boon. Each other player receives the next Hex.
----
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. For each $1 you overpaid, discard the top Boon and Hex. You may remove 1 Hex and/or 1 Boon discarded this way from their pile.

A cheap/weak attack that can be made better by thinning the Boon and Hex piles. I am not sure if it is priced correctly for the ability to get both a Boon and hand out a Hex, but the randomness early on should make it harder to maximize the effectiveness of either part. Hate buying a single Ritual Attendant to get rid of the most damaging/beneficial cards from each pile is definitely an option. I originally tried having it have a base effect of +1 Buy or +$1, but was not sure if it could stay cheap enough for the overpay ability to be used. Feedback is more than appreciated.
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: spineflu on October 11, 2021, 07:25:21 pm
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51578487291_9be8debc2f_b.jpg)

Quote
Ritual Attendant - $3+
Action - Attack - Fate - Doom
Receive a Boon. Each other player receives the next Hex.
----
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. For each $1 you overpaid, discard the top Boon and Hex. You may remove 1 Hex and/or 1 Boon discarded this way from their pile.

A cheap/weak attack that can be made better by thinning the Boon and Hex piles. I am not sure if it is priced correctly for the ability to get both a Boon and hand out a Hex, but the randomness early on should make it harder to maximize the effectiveness of either part. Hate buying a single Ritual Attendant to get rid of the most damaging/beneficial cards from each pile is definitely an option. I originally tried having it have a base effect of +1 Buy or +$1, but was not sure if it could stay cheap enough for the overpay ability to be used. Feedback is more than appreciated.
to be clear, the removed boons/hexes don't get shuffled back in?
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: Xen3k on October 11, 2021, 07:32:20 pm
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51578487291_9be8debc2f_b.jpg)

Quote
Ritual Attendant - $3+
Action - Attack - Fate - Doom
Receive a Boon. Each other player receives the next Hex.
----
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. For each $1 you overpaid, discard the top Boon and Hex. You may remove 1 Hex and/or 1 Boon discarded this way from their pile.

A cheap/weak attack that can be made better by thinning the Boon and Hex piles. I am not sure if it is priced correctly for the ability to get both a Boon and hand out a Hex, but the randomness early on should make it harder to maximize the effectiveness of either part. Hate buying a single Ritual Attendant to get rid of the most damaging/beneficial cards from each pile is definitely an option. I originally tried having it have a base effect of +1 Buy or +$1, but was not sure if it could stay cheap enough for the overpay ability to be used. Feedback is more than appreciated.
to be clear, the removed boons/hexes don't get shuffled back in?

Correct, they are removed from their respective piles.
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: Gubump on October 11, 2021, 09:17:33 pm
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51578487291_9be8debc2f_b.jpg)

Quote
Ritual Attendant - $3+
Action - Attack - Fate - Doom
Receive a Boon. Each other player receives the next Hex.
----
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. For each $1 you overpaid, discard the top Boon and Hex. You may remove 1 Hex and/or 1 Boon discarded this way from their pile.

A cheap/weak attack that can be made better by thinning the Boon and Hex piles. I am not sure if it is priced correctly for the ability to get both a Boon and hand out a Hex, but the randomness early on should make it harder to maximize the effectiveness of either part. Hate buying a single Ritual Attendant to get rid of the most damaging/beneficial cards from each pile is definitely an option. I originally tried having it have a base effect of +1 Buy or +$1, but was not sure if it could stay cheap enough for the overpay ability to be used. Feedback is more than appreciated.

Shouldn't this fail to qualify for the same reason as The Alchemist's Bibliothecary? It's also a "pay (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f7/Coin1.png/16px-Coin1.png) for 1 thing" overpay.
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: Xen3k on October 11, 2021, 09:25:09 pm
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51578487291_9be8debc2f_b.jpg)

Quote
Ritual Attendant - $3+
Action - Attack - Fate - Doom
Receive a Boon. Each other player receives the next Hex.
----
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. For each $1 you overpaid, discard the top Boon and Hex. You may remove 1 Hex and/or 1 Boon discarded this way from their pile.

A cheap/weak attack that can be made better by thinning the Boon and Hex piles. I am not sure if it is priced correctly for the ability to get both a Boon and hand out a Hex, but the randomness early on should make it harder to maximize the effectiveness of either part. Hate buying a single Ritual Attendant to get rid of the most damaging/beneficial cards from each pile is definitely an option. I originally tried having it have a base effect of +1 Buy or +$1, but was not sure if it could stay cheap enough for the overpay ability to be used. Feedback is more than appreciated.

Shouldn't this fail to qualify for the same reason as The Alchemist's Bibliothecary? It's also a "pay (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f7/Coin1.png/16px-Coin1.png) for 1 thing" overpay.

I tried a version of this design that revealed the top "X" number of cards from the Boon and Hex pile, allow you to remove one revealed card from each pile, then discard the rest. The wording was ridiculous and convoluted. Unfortunately the "for each $1 paid" format is just more concise. Either way the design does not let you get more things for each $1 paid, just look at more cards from each pile. I understand if it does not qualify as is, but the replacement will be a wall-o'-text if I try to keep this design.
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: spineflu on October 11, 2021, 11:11:43 pm
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51578487291_9be8debc2f_b.jpg)

Quote
Ritual Attendant - $3+
Action - Attack - Fate - Doom
Receive a Boon. Each other player receives the next Hex.
----
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. For each $1 you overpaid, discard the top Boon and Hex. You may remove 1 Hex and/or 1 Boon discarded this way from their pile.

A cheap/weak attack that can be made better by thinning the Boon and Hex piles. I am not sure if it is priced correctly for the ability to get both a Boon and hand out a Hex, but the randomness early on should make it harder to maximize the effectiveness of either part. Hate buying a single Ritual Attendant to get rid of the most damaging/beneficial cards from each pile is definitely an option. I originally tried having it have a base effect of +1 Buy or +$1, but was not sure if it could stay cheap enough for the overpay ability to be used. Feedback is more than appreciated.

Shouldn't this fail to qualify for the same reason as The Alchemist's Bibliothecary? It's also a "pay (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f7/Coin1.png/16px-Coin1.png) for 1 thing" overpay.

not quite - the things are flattened into one thing (well, one removal from each pile) regardless of how much you overpay. If someone wanted to make a "for each $1 you overpay, reveal the top card of your deck. Put one of the revealed cards onto your deck, and discard the rest", that would also qualify. The intermediate step scales at 1:1, but the end step is ∃:1.
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: Gubump on October 12, 2021, 01:24:53 am
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51578487291_9be8debc2f_b.jpg)

Quote
Ritual Attendant - $3+
Action - Attack - Fate - Doom
Receive a Boon. Each other player receives the next Hex.
----
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. For each $1 you overpaid, discard the top Boon and Hex. You may remove 1 Hex and/or 1 Boon discarded this way from their pile.

A cheap/weak attack that can be made better by thinning the Boon and Hex piles. I am not sure if it is priced correctly for the ability to get both a Boon and hand out a Hex, but the randomness early on should make it harder to maximize the effectiveness of either part. Hate buying a single Ritual Attendant to get rid of the most damaging/beneficial cards from each pile is definitely an option. I originally tried having it have a base effect of +1 Buy or +$1, but was not sure if it could stay cheap enough for the overpay ability to be used. Feedback is more than appreciated.

Shouldn't this fail to qualify for the same reason as The Alchemist's Bibliothecary? It's also a "pay (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f7/Coin1.png/16px-Coin1.png) for 1 thing" overpay.

not quite - the things are flattened into one thing (well, one removal from each pile) regardless of how much you overpay. If someone wanted to make a "for each $1 you overpay, reveal the top card of your deck. Put one of the revealed cards onto your deck, and discard the rest", that would also qualify. The intermediate step scales at 1:1, but the end step is ∃:1.

Isn't that how Stonemason works too, though? Its intermediate step is determining the cost of the gained card, so its intermediate step scales at 1:1, but the end step is ∃:1. Or does this count as unique because overpaying with (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/7/7a/Potion.png/9px-Potion.png) does nothing, unlike Stonemason?
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: faust on October 12, 2021, 02:16:27 am
(https://i.imgur.com/cZySnaM.png)
Quote
Séance - $P+
Night/Duration

You may reveal a hand without Treasures. If you did, and you have exactly $0, +3 Cards at the start of your next turn.

When you buy this, you may overpay for it.

Unfortunately, the card generator does not seem to support Potions with the overpay symbol.

Clarification: "exactly $0" means that it won't trigger if you have unspent P.
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: spineflu on October 12, 2021, 07:08:15 am
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51578487291_9be8debc2f_b.jpg)

Quote
Ritual Attendant - $3+
Action - Attack - Fate - Doom
Receive a Boon. Each other player receives the next Hex.
----
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. For each $1 you overpaid, discard the top Boon and Hex. You may remove 1 Hex and/or 1 Boon discarded this way from their pile.

A cheap/weak attack that can be made better by thinning the Boon and Hex piles. I am not sure if it is priced correctly for the ability to get both a Boon and hand out a Hex, but the randomness early on should make it harder to maximize the effectiveness of either part. Hate buying a single Ritual Attendant to get rid of the most damaging/beneficial cards from each pile is definitely an option. I originally tried having it have a base effect of +1 Buy or +$1, but was not sure if it could stay cheap enough for the overpay ability to be used. Feedback is more than appreciated.

Shouldn't this fail to qualify for the same reason as The Alchemist's Bibliothecary? It's also a "pay (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f7/Coin1.png/16px-Coin1.png) for 1 thing" overpay.

not quite - the things are flattened into one thing (well, one removal from each pile) regardless of how much you overpay. If someone wanted to make a "for each $1 you overpay, reveal the top card of your deck. Put one of the revealed cards onto your deck, and discard the rest", that would also qualify. The intermediate step scales at 1:1, but the end step is ∃:1.

Isn't that how Stonemason works too, though? Its intermediate step is determining the cost of the gained card, so its intermediate step scales at 1:1, but the end step is ∃:1. Or does this count as unique because overpaying with (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/7/7a/Potion.png/9px-Potion.png) does nothing, unlike Stonemason?

that and stonemason is ∃:2 under typical circumstances
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: Timinou on October 12, 2021, 09:06:06 am
Submission withdrawn

I hope this qualifies:

(https://i.imgur.com/NZ4BAzr.png)

Quote from: Strongroom
+$2
Discard any number of cards for +1 Coffers each.
-
When you buy this, you may overpay for it with Coffers.  For each Coffers you overpaid, +1 Card at the start of your next turn.

Rules clarification: Strongroom breaks the rule about having to spend your Coffers at the start of your Buy phase.  So for example if you have Merchant Guild(s) in play and bought cards before buying Strongroom, any Coffers gained from the previous buys can be used to overpay for Strongroom.  However, you cannot spend Coffers for anything other than overpaying (so for instance, if you only have $3 left, you cannot spend a Coffer to be able to afford Strongroom).

The idea here is to be able to convert Coffers into draw using the overpay ability.  The card itself is a terminal Silver that can be useful for hitting certain price points early in the game, since you are likely to collide it with your starting Estates.  Strongroom is a stop card, so you probably don't want to buy it too often or else you could clog up your engine.  Stocking up on Coffers to get the most use out of the overpay ability might be wise (or just spend those Coffers on buying good draw cards).  There are good synergies with other cards that give you +Coffers, and especially with Swashbuckler. 

Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: faust on October 12, 2021, 09:56:17 am
I hope this qualifies:

(https://i.imgur.com/NZ4BAzr.png)

Quote from: Strongroom
+$2
Discard any number of cards for +1 Coffers each.
-
When you buy this, you may overpay for it with Coffers.  For each Coffers you overpaid, +1 Card at the start of your next turn.

Rules clarification: Strongroom breaks the rule about having to spend your Coffers at the start of your Buy phase.  So for example if you have Merchant Guild(s) in play and bought cards before buying Strongroom, any Coffers gained from the previous buys can be used to overpay for Strongroom.  However, you cannot spend Coffers for anything other than overpaying (so for instance, if you only have $3 left, you cannot spend a Coffer to be able to afford Strongroom).

The idea here is to be able to convert Coffers into draw using the overpay ability.  The card itself is a terminal Silver that can be useful for hitting certain price points early in the game, since you are likely to collide it with your starting Estates.  Strongroom is a stop card, so you probably don't want to buy it too often or else you could clog up your engine.  Stocking up on Coffers to get the most use out of the overpay ability might be wise (or just spend those Coffers on buying good draw cards).  There are good synergies with other cards that give you +Coffers, and especially with Swashbuckler.
This doesn't really need overpay wording, and would be shorter if it just said "when you buy this, return any number of Coffers for +1 card each at the start of your next turn". It also has tracking issues, as there's nothing to remind you of the card draw, so it should either draw at the end of the turn you bought it, or gain Horses.

Finally, the on-play ability is too strong, being able to gain 4 Coffers per play. Imagine a Strongroom-only play:
T1/T2: Open Strongroom/Silve.
T3/T4: Buy another Strongroom, use Strongroom to gain 4 Coffers.
T5-T7: Use both Strongrooms to now have 12 Coffers.
From here on out, discard 4 if you have Strongroom in hand, otherwise buy Province. You should have 4 Provinces by turn 12-13.
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: Timinou on October 12, 2021, 10:16:42 am
I hope this qualifies:

(https://i.imgur.com/NZ4BAzr.png)

Quote from: Strongroom
+$2
Discard any number of cards for +1 Coffers each.
-
When you buy this, you may overpay for it with Coffers.  For each Coffers you overpaid, +1 Card at the start of your next turn.

Rules clarification: Strongroom breaks the rule about having to spend your Coffers at the start of your Buy phase.  So for example if you have Merchant Guild(s) in play and bought cards before buying Strongroom, any Coffers gained from the previous buys can be used to overpay for Strongroom.  However, you cannot spend Coffers for anything other than overpaying (so for instance, if you only have $3 left, you cannot spend a Coffer to be able to afford Strongroom).

The idea here is to be able to convert Coffers into draw using the overpay ability.  The card itself is a terminal Silver that can be useful for hitting certain price points early in the game, since you are likely to collide it with your starting Estates.  Strongroom is a stop card, so you probably don't want to buy it too often or else you could clog up your engine.  Stocking up on Coffers to get the most use out of the overpay ability might be wise (or just spend those Coffers on buying good draw cards).  There are good synergies with other cards that give you +Coffers, and especially with Swashbuckler.
This doesn't really need overpay wording, and would be shorter if it just said "when you buy this, return any number of Coffers for +1 card each at the start of your next turn". It also has tracking issues, as there's nothing to remind you of the card draw, so it should either draw at the end of the turn you bought it, or gain Horses.

Finally, the on-play ability is too strong, being able to gain 4 Coffers per play. Imagine a Strongroom-only play:
T1/T2: Open Strongroom/Silve.
T3/T4: Buy another Strongroom, use Strongroom to gain 4 Coffers.
T5-T7: Use both Strongrooms to now have 12 Coffers.
From here on out, discard 4 if you have Strongroom in hand, otherwise buy Province. You should have 4 Provinces by turn 12-13.

Submission withdrawn

You're right about this not needing the overpay mechanic.  As for the other points you've raised, do you think this would sufficiently address them?
(https://i.imgur.com/uR9ktXc.png)
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: X-tra on October 12, 2021, 01:59:57 pm
I don't normally bother with the overpay mechanic, but sure, why not. Let's try something.

(https://i.postimg.cc/LHtD1YTS/Logs-v1.png)

Hope this qualifies.
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: JW on October 12, 2021, 03:04:12 pm
I don't normally bother with the overpay mechanic, but sure, why not. Let's try something.

(https://i.postimg.cc/LHtD1YTS/Logs-v1.png)

This is a very clever implementation, but it seems too strong because it provides so many buys and coins at little cost (just adding one mediocre card to your deck). For example, $20 and 1 buy becomes $32 and 16 buys.
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: X-tra on October 12, 2021, 03:17:55 pm
This is a very clever implementation, but it seems too strong because it provides so many buys and coins at little cost (just adding one mediocre card to your deck). For example, $20 and 1 buy becomes $32 and 16 buys.

I thought of that too. The benchmark here of course is paying the normal (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/4/47/Coin8.png/16px-Coin8.png) for a Province, but you overpay first for a Logs. The end result is that you get a Log and a Province for (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/4/47/Coin8.png/16px-Coin8.png). But it scales pretty scarily indeed. In the situation you described, you go from double Province to quadruple Province. It is not nothing.

The idea is there. The most natural way to tweak the power level (after playtesting, of course) is to change the cost of Logs. It could be tried at (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/7/7d/Coin5.png/16px-Coin5.png), for instance. The problem is that the initial barrier of usefulness becomes harder to cross. If you yield (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/9/98/Coin20.png) in a turn, you're already doing good and Logs merely accelerate that good deck you've got going.



Edit: Here's a graph to better illustrate how the (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/6/6d/Coin.png/16px-Coin.png) and Buy correlate to the amount you paid for Logs.

(https://i.postimg.cc/W4zwhkRV/Logs-Graph.png)

As we can see, it takes $36 (no icons for that one I'm afraid) to pileout all 8 Provinces. Cool beans!
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: JW on October 12, 2021, 04:44:46 pm
The idea is there. The most natural way to tweak the power level (after playtesting, of course) is to change the cost of Logs. It could be tried at (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/7/7d/Coin5.png/16px-Coin5.png), for instance. The problem is that the initial barrier of usefulness becomes harder to cross. If you yield (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/9/98/Coin20.png) in a turn, you're already doing good and Logs merely accelerate that good deck you've got going.

I think a more natural way to tweak the power level is to limit the number of times it will play itself no matter how much you overpay for it (e.g., plays itself a maximum of 8 times). Changing the cost to $5 limits how often it gets bought at all without substantially changing its extreme power when you can generate very high (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/6/6d/Coin.png/16px-Coin.png).
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: Freddy10 on October 12, 2021, 05:24:31 pm
I hope this qualifies:

(https://i.imgur.com/NZ4BAzr.png)

Quote from: Strongroom
+$2
Discard any number of cards for +1 Coffers each.
-
When you buy this, you may overpay for it with Coffers.  For each Coffers you overpaid, +1 Card at the start of your next turn.

Rules clarification: Strongroom breaks the rule about having to spend your Coffers at the start of your Buy phase.  So for example if you have Merchant Guild(s) in play and bought cards before buying Strongroom, any Coffers gained from the previous buys can be used to overpay for Strongroom.  However, you cannot spend Coffers for anything other than overpaying (so for instance, if you only have $3 left, you cannot spend a Coffer to be able to afford Strongroom).

The idea here is to be able to convert Coffers into draw using the overpay ability.  The card itself is a terminal Silver that can be useful for hitting certain price points early in the game, since you are likely to collide it with your starting Estates.  Strongroom is a stop card, so you probably don't want to buy it too often or else you could clog up your engine.  Stocking up on Coffers to get the most use out of the overpay ability might be wise (or just spend those Coffers on buying good draw cards).  There are good synergies with other cards that give you +Coffers, and especially with Swashbuckler.
This doesn't really need overpay wording, and would be shorter if it just said "when you buy this, return any number of Coffers for +1 card each at the start of your next turn". It also has tracking issues, as there's nothing to remind you of the card draw, so it should either draw at the end of the turn you bought it, or gain Horses.

Finally, the on-play ability is too strong, being able to gain 4 Coffers per play. Imagine a Strongroom-only play:
T1/T2: Open Strongroom/Silve.
T3/T4: Buy another Strongroom, use Strongroom to gain 4 Coffers.
T5-T7: Use both Strongrooms to now have 12 Coffers.
From here on out, discard 4 if you have Strongroom in hand, otherwise buy Province. You should have 4 Provinces by turn 12-13.

You're right about this not needing the overpay mechanic.  As for the other points you've raised, do you think this would sufficiently address them?
(https://i.imgur.com/uR9ktXc.png)
I did a simulation with the following strategy:
- buy province if you can (use coffers)
- buy stronghold if you can (don't use coffers)
- buy silver if you can (don't use coffers)
On half of the games, You get 4 provinces by turn 13, and by 15 on 90%
At $5, the average is 15 turns
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: LibraryAdventurer on October 12, 2021, 07:16:53 pm
Quote
Suspension Bridge
$4 - Action
+2 Cards.
This turn, all cards other than Suspension Bridge cost $1 less.
-
You may overpay for this. For each $1 you overpaid, +1 Buy. If you overpay at least $3, gain a Suspension Bridge, set it aside, and play it at the start of your next turn.

(If you overpay at least $3, you get 2 Suspension Bridges, the one you bought + the one you gained with the overpay. You also get +3 Buys (or more if you overpaid more).)
(I'm thinking this wouldn't qualify if it only had the +buy overpay, but I think it will as it is.)
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: Gardoomalion on October 13, 2021, 11:45:13 am
Quote
Theatre
Action
Cost (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2a/Coin4.png/16px-Coin4.png)

+(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png)
This turn, when you buy a card, you may overpay for it. If you did, put on its pile as many of your Actor tokens as you overpaid in (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/6/6d/Coin.png/16px-Coin.png).

Actor token rule:
When you play a card, you may remove your Actor token from Supply pile of the same type. If you did, instead of following the instructions of the card played, play a non-Duration card from that pile, leaving it there.

(https://i.imgur.com/DdFZle7.png)
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: spineflu on October 13, 2021, 12:04:37 pm
Quote
Theatre
Action
Cost (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2a/Coin4.png/16px-Coin4.png)

+(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png)
This turn, when you buy a card, you may overpay for it. If you did, put on its pile as many of your Actor tokens as you overpaid in (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/6/6d/Coin.png/16px-Coin.png).

Actor token rule:
When you play a card, you may remove your Actor token from Supply pile of the same type. If you did, instead of following the instructions of the card played, play a non-Duration card from that pile, leaving it there.

(https://i.imgur.com/DdFZle7.png)

and, just to clarify, you're picturing the overpay for this also not stacking, like AJL828 upthread? (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=20925.msg879162#msg879162)

Like
Scenario A (non-stacked overpay): I play a theater and buy a Masterpiece and overpaid $2, I choose whether I want two silvers, or to put two actors on it, or one silver and one actor.
or
Scenario B (stacked overpay): I play a theater and buy a Masterpiece and overpay $2 - I put two Actors on it and gain two silvers.
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: Gardoomalion on October 13, 2021, 12:22:17 pm
Quote
Theatre
Action
Cost (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2a/Coin4.png/16px-Coin4.png)

+(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png)
This turn, when you buy a card, you may overpay for it. If you did, put on its pile as many of your Actor tokens as you overpaid in (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/6/6d/Coin.png/16px-Coin.png).

Actor token rule:
When you play a card, you may remove your Actor token from Supply pile of the same type. If you did, instead of following the instructions of the card played, play a non-Duration card from that pile, leaving it there.

(https://i.imgur.com/DdFZle7.png)

and, just to clarify, you're picturing the overpay for this also not stacking, like AJL828 upthread? (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=20925.msg879162#msg879162)

Like
Scenario A (non-stacked overpay): I play a theater and buy a Masterpiece and overpaid $2, I choose whether I want two silvers, or to put two actors on it, or one silver and one actor.
or
Scenario B (stacked overpay): I play a theater and buy a Masterpiece and overpay $2 - I put two Actors on it and gain two silvers.

Yes, like AJL828 upthread.
Scenario A
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: Aquila on October 13, 2021, 12:38:24 pm
(https://trello.com/1/cards/616707d90506ed8f0d2501fb/attachments/616709409ac3b661e2124e58/download/Forbidden_Text.png)
Quote
Forbidden Text - Action, $3+ cost.
+1 Action
Draw until you have 7 cards in hand. Return this to its pile.
-
When you buy this, you may pay $4 more to gain a Madman.
It would be nice and elegant if the overpay could be $3 more, but comparing Madman at default 4 Cards 2 Actions against Experiment I don't think a bundle of Forbidden Text and Madman could get away at $6. And I don't want to go to $8.

Edit: simplified text (box only for those who can see the mock-up) to 'pay $4 more'. I could even make it 'when you gain this, you may pay $4...', but I'll stick to on-buy to be more true to overpay.
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: Timinou on October 13, 2021, 03:08:08 pm
I hope this qualifies:

(https://i.imgur.com/NZ4BAzr.png)

Quote from: Strongroom
+$2
Discard any number of cards for +1 Coffers each.
-
When you buy this, you may overpay for it with Coffers.  For each Coffers you overpaid, +1 Card at the start of your next turn.

Rules clarification: Strongroom breaks the rule about having to spend your Coffers at the start of your Buy phase.  So for example if you have Merchant Guild(s) in play and bought cards before buying Strongroom, any Coffers gained from the previous buys can be used to overpay for Strongroom.  However, you cannot spend Coffers for anything other than overpaying (so for instance, if you only have $3 left, you cannot spend a Coffer to be able to afford Strongroom).

The idea here is to be able to convert Coffers into draw using the overpay ability.  The card itself is a terminal Silver that can be useful for hitting certain price points early in the game, since you are likely to collide it with your starting Estates.  Strongroom is a stop card, so you probably don't want to buy it too often or else you could clog up your engine.  Stocking up on Coffers to get the most use out of the overpay ability might be wise (or just spend those Coffers on buying good draw cards).  There are good synergies with other cards that give you +Coffers, and especially with Swashbuckler.
This doesn't really need overpay wording, and would be shorter if it just said "when you buy this, return any number of Coffers for +1 card each at the start of your next turn". It also has tracking issues, as there's nothing to remind you of the card draw, so it should either draw at the end of the turn you bought it, or gain Horses.

Finally, the on-play ability is too strong, being able to gain 4 Coffers per play. Imagine a Strongroom-only play:
T1/T2: Open Strongroom/Silve.
T3/T4: Buy another Strongroom, use Strongroom to gain 4 Coffers.
T5-T7: Use both Strongrooms to now have 12 Coffers.
From here on out, discard 4 if you have Strongroom in hand, otherwise buy Province. You should have 4 Provinces by turn 12-13.

You're right about this not needing the overpay mechanic.  As for the other points you've raised, do you think this would sufficiently address them?
(https://i.imgur.com/uR9ktXc.png)
I did a simulation with the following strategy:
- buy province if you can (use coffers)
- buy stronghold if you can (don't use coffers)
- buy silver if you can (don't use coffers)
On half of the games, You get 4 provinces by turn 13, and by 15 on 90%
At $5, the average is 15 turns

Thanks for the feedback!  Is this with the second version I posted?  Seems like it would be fine at $5, but I feel like the overpay would be less likely to be used.

I will probably withdraw this from this week's contest, since as faust pointed out, it doesn't need the overpay mechanic and could be worded much simpler.  In any case, I appreciate your input - I will keep it in mind if I repurpose the card for a future contest.
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: Timinou on October 13, 2021, 03:46:24 pm
New submission

Please let me know if this doesn't qualify, spineflu.  The only "novelty" here is that you can only overpay for Carnival if you have at least one other copy in play.

(https://i.imgur.com/njBcfgk.png)
EDIT: Fixed text

Rules clarification: You are not obligated to overpay an amount based on the number of Carnivals you have in play.  For instance, if you have 3 Carnivals in play, you can overpay by $1 to only take 1 VP token from the pile.
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: JW on October 13, 2021, 04:21:16 pm
New submission

Please let me know if this doesn't qualify, spineflu.  The only "novelty" here is that you can only overpay for Carnival if you have at least one other copy in play.

(https://i.imgur.com/wuESdx8.png)

How do (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/9/92/VP.png/16px-VP.png) get added to the pile? To me, this just looks like Market for $3.
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: Timinou on October 13, 2021, 06:03:42 pm
New submission

Please let me know if this doesn't qualify, spineflu.  The only "novelty" here is that you can only overpay for Carnival if you have at least one other copy in play.

(https://i.imgur.com/wuESdx8.png)

How do (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/9/92/VP.png/16px-VP.png) get added to the pile? To me, this just looks like Market for $3.

Oh oops...it should add it each time it’s played, but it’s only a Market if there are no tokens on the pile.  I’ll fix it.
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: spineflu on October 13, 2021, 06:10:27 pm
New submission

Please let me know if this doesn't qualify, spineflu.  The only "novelty" here is that you can only overpay for Carnival if you have at least one other copy in play.

(https://i.imgur.com/wuESdx8.png)

yeah, putting a barrier to entry like "you can only overpay when this is in play" or "overpay by exactly the amount of these in play" (side note: is that what this is saying? If I have, say, three in play, can I overpay by $1 to only snag one vp?) qualifies
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: emtzalex on October 13, 2021, 07:21:14 pm
This looks too good relative to Province.
Let us assume an average of 4 Provinces per player. This is the same as buying Topiary Gardens 4 times while overpaying 5 each time such that there are 60 tokens on the mat. Now the Topiary Gardens are worth as many VPs as Provinces with the additional feature that you can buy further 6VP cards for $3.

It's true that buying 4 of these at $8 makes them worth the number of VP as a Province (and creates the opportunity to buy another at $3), but I disagree that this makes them better. When you buy a Province you have a guaranteed 6VP (absent it getting Swindled into a Peddler or Prince; Topiary Garden is much more vulnerable to Swindler). With this, the first 3 TGs you buy at $8 are not guaranteed to end up being worth 6VP, which makes buying one instead of a Province a potentially risky prospect. And because in 2 or 3 player games there are 4 TGs per player (and fewer games with more players), there is a non-negligible chance that you will not get the chance to buy a 5th one (or even a 4th).

Also, think about how this would happen practically. Imagine we are playing a 2 player game and you and I each have bought 3 Provinces at $8. If I hit $7, what am I going to do? Buy a Gold? A Duchy? I have an extremely strong incentive to buy a 4th TG at $7. Now, if you buy a 4th for $8, I've got a pretty big problem, but I would have had that anyway unless I was going to hit $8 on the following turn. If you don't hit $8 the turn after I buy the penultimate TG, you nevertheless have an extremely strong incentive to buy one at whatever you can spend, because if I buy that 5th one at $4, I now have 5 TGs worth 6 VP each. Thus, I think actually getting 4 TGs at $8 is going to be extremely rare.
I totally disagree. Absent trashing attacks, your card is strictly better than Province.

So it will be very centralizing in nearly all Kingdoms, i.e. players will build up their engines more than in an ordinary Kingdom and then try to massively overpay for Topiary Gardens (a player overpaying less than $5 for them is not a strategic equilibrium as the other players can simply go for Provinces then)-
There is no reason to go initially for the inferior and less flexible Provinces.

This does not lead to good play. It is called alt-VP for a reason, it should be a real choice and not a virtually always mandatory strategic path.

I don't think this is totally correct either (and it's different from your initial point). First, not every Kingdom supports an engine. Without one going for Topiary Garden at high numbers is far less certain than Provinces. Nor am I convinced that building an engine guarantees a win. If a BM deck can buy 6 Provinces before an engine gets its first giant TG, than there still won't be time to catch up (and on the turn the BM player hits $3 she can just buy TGs to keep them away from the other player, especially if she has decent trashing). The most obvious official equivalent I can think of is Dominate, which does not automatically guarantee a win for a player who builds an engine  (although that is far from perfect, since with Dominate you have to hit $14, and $13 is no better than $8 (or $11 in a Colonies game), plus buying Dominate depletes the Provinces pile more quickly).

That said, your posts have gotten me thinking about this extensively, and I actually think the bigger risk is that these get bought almost automatically at $7, $9, or $10. I'm not sure that this would be a consistently winning strategy, but I'm also not sure that it wouldn't be. I actually do think this has a lot of potential, but I also think it needs extensive playtesting to ensure that it is balanced (and not totally broken), so I'm withdrawing it as my submission. I'll update my OP and post a new card.


You will also need a lot of tokens, won't be better to adjust the numbers to gain less tokens when overpaying?

This is true. I went with tokens on a mat since that is the mechanic the closest official card (Pirate Ship) uses, but obviously this would require way more tokens. I was thinking that this could probably be tracked with dice or a counter of some sort (and a set including this card might come with a TG counter rather than a TG mat).
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: emtzalex on October 13, 2021, 07:30:43 pm
My new Submission:
(https://i.imgur.com/7nb0lx4h.png)



Quote from: Scoundrel
SCOUNDREL
ACTION
Cost: $5+
+3 Cards
You may play from your hand an Action card from the pile with your Cur token on it.


When you buy this, you may overpay for it. If you did, gain an Action card costing the amount you overpaid and move your Cur token to its pile.

                                                                

I am withdrawing Topiary Garden and submitting Scoundrel instead. Scoundrel is a conditionally terminal draw card. If it can find its partner in crime, it can be played from your hand. The overpay mechanic functions as a virtually +Buy, and (more importantly), moves your Cur token to a pile, setting the card that Scoundrel allows you to play. If you can hit $10, you can get 2 Scoundrels, and they will chain with themselves.
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: Freddy10 on October 13, 2021, 10:14:05 pm
Does this qualify?
(https://i.imgur.com/WSqKOEo.png)
It's a lost city while you have tokens, otherwise it's a necropolis.
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: spineflu on October 14, 2021, 12:35:35 am
Does this qualify?
(https://i.imgur.com/WSqKOEo.png)
It's a lost city while you have tokens, otherwise it's a necropolis.

No; while this does have a novel cooldown/decay mechanic, the overpay portion is the standard 1:1. It's a cool card - keep it around in case it fits another contest - but not what's called for by this prompt.
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: Timinou on October 14, 2021, 11:55:49 am
New submission

Please let me know if this doesn't qualify, spineflu.  The only "novelty" here is that you can only overpay for Carnival if you have at least one other copy in play.

(https://i.imgur.com/wuESdx8.png)

yeah, putting a barrier to entry like "you can only overpay when this is in play" or "overpay by exactly the amount of these in play" (side note: is that what this is saying? If I have, say, three in play, can I overpay by $1 to only snag one vp?) qualifies

Thanks for confirming!  The intention is that you are not obligated to overpay an amount based on the number of Carnivals in play.  So yes, if you have three in play, you can overpay by $1 to only snag one VP.
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: Freddy10 on October 14, 2021, 07:01:49 pm
An "online only" card (I think this also does not qualify, but just for fun):

(https://i.imgur.com/AeY6V1E.png)

Inspired by Sage, and strictly better unless cost reduction.
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: emtzalex on October 14, 2021, 10:19:27 pm
An "online only" card (I think this also does not qualify, but just for fun):

(https://i.imgur.com/AeY6V1E.png)

Inspired by Sage, and strictly better unless cost reduction.

I think the overpay function should say:

Quote
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. This copy costs the amount you overpaid.

Otherwise, every copy of the card in the game changes (since they all have that language), like Wayfarer.

Regarding this being strictly better than Sage, while that might be true on-buy (in that if you spend $3 on it, it is strictly better in that it will grab all of the cards Sage will, as well as potion and debt cost cards), if you get one of the cards using a gainer, Sage is better. But even in the absence of gainers, I don't think it is strictly better in the way that is usually a cause for concern in card design.

If a new card is strictly better (or strictly worse) than a card that cost the same as it, then in a hypothetical kingdom that includes both of them, the strictly worse card will never be bought. This effectively turns a 10-card Kingdom into a 9-card Kingdom. But here, it is not hard to imagine that players might opt for a Sage instead of a $3 Guru not only when using gainers, but also where they might want to leave Gurus to buy at different price points (especially in multi-player games). Thus, I don't think the usual strictly-better issue exists (at least not to the same degree).
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: 4est on October 14, 2021, 11:40:14 pm
(https://i.imgur.com/4kaQEFS.png) (https://i.imgur.com/FY8hF44.png)

Here's my entry this week. This was definitely one of the tougher contests.. Seller (lol hopefully that's not confusing at all) is either a Woodcutter or a Peddler depending on if you have the Deed or not. The Deed is an Artifact worth 5VP at the end of the game and you take it by overpaying more than the last person, making a nice little minigame. It should hopefully change hands both in the early game to upgrade your Sellers (while downgrading your opponent's) and in the late game for the point swing.
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: The Alchemist on October 15, 2021, 09:19:30 am
I don't really get this prompt.
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: spineflu on October 15, 2021, 12:17:51 pm
I don't really get this prompt.
like in terms of mechanics, or in terms of why you'd want to impose the restrictions?
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: Freddy10 on October 15, 2021, 01:25:57 pm
I think the overpay function should say:
Quote
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. This copy costs the amount you overpaid.
Otherwise, every copy of the card in the game changes (since they all have that language), like Wayfarer.
It's true that all have the "this costs [...]", but they aren't triggered since the "when" condition only applies to the one you are buying. (Like the when trash abilities of Fortress or Hunting Grounds)
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: spineflu on October 15, 2021, 06:09:21 pm
24 hour warning
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: scolapasta on October 15, 2021, 06:25:25 pm
Here's an updated version of a card I had posted once before:

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

Quote
Endowment - Treasure - $2+
If you have at least 1 Coffers on your Coffers mat, +$2.
-
You may overpay for this. For each $1 you overpaid, trash a Copper from your hand. For each Copper you trashed, +1 Coffers.

Feedback always welcome (and encouraged!).
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: The Alchemist on October 15, 2021, 10:02:08 pm
I don't really get this prompt.
like in terms of mechanics, or in terms of why you'd want to impose the restrictions?
Like, I'm not understanding the logic behind what's considered novel and what's not. There are several here that are still "for each $1 you overpaid" and I just don't get it.
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: spineflu on October 15, 2021, 11:48:26 pm
I don't really get this prompt.
like in terms of mechanics, or in terms of why you'd want to impose the restrictions?
Like, I'm not understanding the logic behind what's considered novel and what's not. There are several here that are still "for each $1 you overpaid" and I just don't get it.

so some, like Endowment, give two things - copper trashing, and coffers - so that's a $1:2 ratio
some, like ritual attendant, give one thing max (with better selections for overpaying more, but still only one thing)
and some do a $1:1 ratio but include novelty some other way, like adding overpay to other cards, or limiting its availability in a "when you have this in play and you buy one, you may overpay" way.

what's verboten is the $1:1 thing ratio on a card itself, with no frills, no complications. Like if you changed Bibliothecary to be "When you buy this you may overpay. For each $2 you overpay (round down), +2 Villagers.", it would qualify, since now it has a complication.

does that clarify the prompt?
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: spineflu on October 16, 2021, 10:41:49 pm
closing the contest now;
will have judging done soon
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: spineflu on October 18, 2021, 04:09:25 pm
The Winner is scolapasta's Endowment
The Runners Up are X-tra's Logs, LibraryAdventurer's Suspension Bridge, and NoMoreFun's Token
Honorable Mention are lompeluiten's Developing Village, Xen3k's Ritual Attendant, faust's Séance, and anordinaryman's Town Square

Here's the individual judging/feedback. Sorry this took so long; I took some minor (mostly) grammatical liberties - dividing lines, linebreaks between vanilla stuff, etc - with some of your cards to make them more Dominionesque in their grammar, hopefully changing the effect as little as possible.

Quote
Isolated Village • $4+ • Action • author: JW
+1 Card
+2 Actions
You may spend a Villager to trash a card from your hand.
-
When you buy this, +1 Villager and you may overpay for it. If you do, for each $1 you overpaid, +1 Villager, to a maximum of 4. If you don't, each other player gets +1 Villager.

A village that comes with extra actions and can turn the villagers into worshippers (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=20616.msg861610#msg861610) for $4 is pretty strong, although I guess if you're buying it at $4 it does come with a drawback. I think there's probably a more graceful way to do the limit - "you may overpay up to $4 more than the price" or something.
Themewise I think there's some dissonance from the name to the effect - after all, with more actions things are more seen as Bustling, right? - but maybe if it were to explicitly convert villagers into worshippers that'd be better.



Quote
Scoundrel • $5+ • Action • author: emtzalex
+3 Cards
You may play from your hand an Action card from the pile with your Cur token on it.
-
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. If you did, gain an Action card costing the amount you overpaid and move your Cur token to its pile.
$10 to turn Scoundrels into Smithy-Cultists. Or $7 to turn them into collision-dependent superlabs if there's a $2 cantrip on the board. Cultists are quality in the slogs they themselves cause - I can't imagine how this'd wreck shop in a game with no junk, maybe a little +Buy action.
Themewise, I'm not seeing the connection to scoundrel-y-ness? I'd expect it to be something like a petty attack - oracle-esque or maybe cutpurse, which, at $5 is not great.



Quote
Developing Village • $2+ • Action(? - inferred/not specified) • author: lompeluiten
+2 Actions
-
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. If you did, return to your Action phase and +1 Action. For each $1 you overpaid, draw a card.

I love this. It should probably also give a +1 Buy when you overpay for it (lest you return to your action phase and have to skip your buy phase because there's no plus buy on the board.) I really like how it turns into junk/junk-adjacent afterwards. Fantastic job.



Quote
Totem • $4 • Action • author: xyz123
+1 Card
+1 Action
-
While this is in play, when you buy a non-Victory card, you may overpay $1 for every $2 it costs (round up). If you do, gain a copy of it.
A card that unlocks overpay on other stuff (but doesn't do much on its own) is very cool. I'm not sure this needs the non-Victory restriction, if you could find a way to lock out provinces + colonies (or just live with the strength). I really like this, and I think you did a fine job pricing it. A design like this might be a better way of doing Potion-cost cards - "While this is in play, you may buy potion-cost cards". Certainly gets in the way less than a Potion.



Quote
Uproar • $4+ • Action • author: AJL828
+1 Card
+1 Action
You may discard 2 cards for +2 Cards
-
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. If you overpaid at least $1, each other player Exiles a Curse. If you overpaid at least $2, each other player with 5 or more cards in hand puts a card from their hand onto their deck.
That on-play is weaker than forum, but not much. I wish the overpay-attack was a little better integrated into the card. This might be a good candidate for mixing with Annie's Curse Tokens/(https://cdn-icons-png.flaticon.com/512/92/92034.png) (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=20918.0) Themewise I'm not sure what Coven-y cursing and a minor haunting have to do with an uproar.



Quote
Town Square • $1+ • Victory • author: anordinaryman
Worth 1% if you have no Duchies.
-
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. If you do, +1 Card per $2 you overpaid (rounded down) and set aside any number of Action cards from your hand that cost equal or less than the amount you overpaid. Return to your Action phase and play the set aside cards in any order.

I really like this card also. Similar vibes to lompeluiten's Developing Village, it's mostly-junk, and it has the fun side effect of wrecking the "exactly $1 more" flavor of remodel as de-junkers. Like with lompeluiten's, if this is backtracking, it should really give +1 Buy.
Themewise, I'm not sure 'Town Square' really fits - that brings to mind Market Square or a village - but that's just theme *shrug*



Quote
Token • $2+ • Action • author: NoMoreFun
+$3
+1 Buy
Return this to the supply.
-
When you buy this you may overpay. Either way, gain a card costing less than the total amount you paid for this card.
I like the idea of a pile with overpay not really emptying (or, at least, refilling), keeping the overpay in play as a strategy for the duration of the game, rather than running out like Stonemasons tend to. I also really like the subtlety of the penalty here when you don't overpay.
From a theme perspective, this might need a different name - too similar to Coin Tokens, Adventure Tokens, etc.



Quote
Ritual Attendant • $3+ • Action - Attack - Fate - Doom • author: Xen3k
Receive a Boon. Each other player receives the next Hex.
----
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. For each $1 you overpaid, discard the top Boon and Hex. You may remove 1 Hex and/or 1 Boon discarded this way from their pile.
I really like the idea of thinning the boons/hexes. You could actually thin out the entire Boons pile if this is in a game with Druid, but maybe that's a feature rather than a bug. I'm not sure I like how this can remove both a Boon and a Hex - I think it should force specialization, something like "For each $1 you overpaid, reveal the top Boon or Hex. Trash one of the revealed Boons or Hexes and discard the rest." Basically my qualm is with the "and/or" - commit to the or, imo. Having it trash it, which unconventional, prevents the question of "oh it's removed from the game, like, for the rest of the game?" and there's nothing really that touches a Boon/Hex in the trash, so it's safe to do.
At $3+, this is kind of expensive for what it does. Remember that if this is contested, it's probably not going to be Locusts or War or one of the "Heavy Hitter" hexes that stays in, it'll tend towards a middle-power level one.
That's all to say, that this is good and i like it, but with revisions.



Quote
Séance • ^+ • Night - Duration • author: faust
You may reveal a hand without Treasures. If you did, and you have exactly $0, +3 Cards at the start of your next turn.
-
When you buy this, you may overpay for it.

Now this is a novel way to overpay. I'm not sure the potion cost works for it - kinda hard to make this proc when you don't have a potion - but this is a really neat take on Den of Sin. Not a ton to say about it. It was kinda funny, ShardOfHonor's response to "hey potion symbols and overpay plusses don't work well together on the generator" - "yeah don't do that."



Quote
Logs • $4+ • Action • author: X-tra
+1 Buy
+$2
This turn, you can't buy Logs.
-
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. For each $1 you overpaid, play this.

This was sorta borderline, ruleswise, but I allowed it given that playing it turns off the ability to Buy (or overpay) for it. If a card that enabled overpay qualified, a card that disabled it also qualified.
That said, DAMN, this is its own ridiculous Tfair-style combo. I hope you playtest/develop this concept further, this is a card that had a similar "wow" effect to Populate or wot Chameleon for me, having to woman_doing_math.jpg out the possibilities
(https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/facebook/000/021/464/14608107_1180665285312703_1558693314_n.jpg)



Quote
Suspension Bridge • $4+ • Action • author: LibraryAdventurer
+2 Cards.
This turn, all cards other than Suspension Bridge cost $1 less.
-
You may overpay for this. For each $1 you overpaid, +1 Buy. If you overpay at least $3, gain a Suspension Bridge, set it aside, and play it at the start of your next turn.

This is a really slick card with a Tfair overpay. I hope, when I play with it, I remember to buy enough village support for the Suspension Bridges to not clog my deck with them.



Quote
Theatre • $4 • Action • author: Gardoomalion
+$2
This turn, when you buy a card, you may overpay for it. If you did, put on its pile as many of your Actor tokens as you overpaid in $

Quote
Actor tokens
When you have Actor tokens on a pile, when you play a card with the same types as that pile, you may remove an Actor token to play a non-Duration card from that pile instead, leaving it there.

So Actor tokens as a concept might need some re-tooling - specifically, you might want to have them only target Action cards/piles, and maybe even strictly non-Duration ones at that. I don't know if this is the best use for them, but it certainly is a way to get them onto piles.



Quote
Forbidden Text • $3+ • Action • author: Aquila
+1 Action
Draw until you have 7 cards in hand. Return this to its pile.
-
When you buy this, you may pay $4 more to gain a Madman.
Not exactly the standard overpay text but I think, given the fixed overpay amount, that it's a pretty good way of doing it. Succinct.
I also think a one-shot library that returns to pile (letting you get access to Madmen, who also return to pile) throughout the game is kind of too much? Like if it self-trashed instead, you'd have to be more judicious about when you used it - there's a max 10 madmen uses in non-hermit + this games, so you'd create more risk, yeah?

Thematically, this has fantastic cohesion. Great work.



Quote
Carnival • $3+ • Action - Gathering • author: Timinou
+1 Card
+1 Action
If there are no % on the Carnival Supply pile, +1 Buy and +$1. Add +1% to the Supply pile.
-
When you buy this, you may overpay. For each $1 you overpay, up to the number of Carnivals you have in play, take 1% from this Supply pile.

I rephrased the bottom portion a little, let me know what you think.
I think this should drop the "if there are no % on the Carnival Supply pile" portion. That's only going to trigger a fraction of the times it's played, tend towards not proccing, and if the pile is emptied, not matter, since no one can overpay to take the VPs away - it's adding a whole lot of length on a card that doesn't need it, and swapping from a conditional statement to an unconditional one means casual players are going to screw it up.
That said, conceptually, this is a cool card. Maybe refine it a bit more.



Quote
Guru • $0+ • Action • author: Freddy10
+1 Action
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal one that does not cost less than this. Put that card into your hand and discard the rest.
-
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. On your turns, this costs the total amount you've overpaid for Gurus.
I know you entered this just for fun, but I tweaked the wording a little to make it work in paper - you track the total amount you've overpaid with like, player-colored d20 trackers (such as those used in mtg) (https://www.amazon.com/Magic-Gathering-Spindown-Set-Five/dp/B00U2V9DBO/ref=asc_df_B00U2V9DBO/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312133084246&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=10774723428562009365&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9005661&hvtargid=pla-598490175284&psc=1) or even coin tokens. I think that's a better suggestion than having individual cards with different prices, sort of a general rule of dominion card design that cards with the same name are identical (and the impetus for the 2019 errata around Inheritance). I think it's going to suffer from the same problem as Sage - once you start greening, it hits green.



Quote
Seller • $4+ • Action • author: 4est
If you have the Deed, +1 Card, +1 Action, and +$1; Otherwise, +1 Buy and +$2.
-
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. If you overpaid (in $) more than the number of Coin tokens on the Deed, take the Deed.
Quote
Deed • Artifact
When scoring, +5%
-
When you take this, add Coin tokens on this to match the amount (in $) you overpaid.
I like the concept on this. I don't love the soft terminality - the times when this is a contested pile and one person ends up with a deck full of wood cutters while the other ends up with a deck full of peddlers? That's gonna be a feels bad moment.
Also I think having this at $4+ is real rough, since you're going to be overpaying for them at least once - $5 woodcutter is gonna feel Real Bad, and letting the winner of that particular tug of war get a free 5vp is rough. It might be more balanced if having the Deed counted against your score, although maybe that just means everyone avoids the pile.



Quote
Endowment • $2+ • Treasure • author: scolapasta
If you have at least 1 Coffers on your Coffers mat, +$2.
-
You may overpay for this. For each $1 you overpaid, trash a Copper from your hand. For each Copper you trashed, +1 Coffers.

This is a really clever alt-Silver. I think, had this been released in a pre-Delve / pre-Stockpile world, there'd be some balking at the price. I was thinking this imbalanced the opening too hard, but it's actually just really good and clever and subtle. This might be too much in Swashbuckler games, but maybe that's fine.


Thanks for playing, I'm sorry the prompt was a hard/weird one, with questions going right up til the buzzer. I'll try to pick something where everyone can enter next time.
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: emtzalex on October 19, 2021, 12:09:56 pm

Quote
Scoundrel • $5+ • Action • author: emtzalex
+3 Cards
You may play from your hand an Action card from the pile with your Cur token on it.
-
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. If you did, gain an Action card costing the amount you overpaid and move your Cur token to its pile.
$10 to turn Scoundrels into Smithy-Cultists. Or $7 to turn them into collision-dependent superlabs if there's a $2 cantrip on the board. Cultists are quality in the slogs they themselves cause - I can't imagine how this'd wreck shop in a game with no junk, maybe a little +Buy action.
Themewise, I'm not seeing the connection to scoundrel-y-ness? I'd expect it to be something like a petty attack - oracle-esque or maybe cutpurse, which, at $5 is not great.

Thanks for the feedback/judging. In terms of the theme, when I made it I thought I vaguely remembered some olde timey quotation that was something like "you can tell a scoundrel from the company he keeps" or not to trust someone who keeps the company of a scoundrel. Having now searched the interwebs, this does not seem to actually exist.

In terms of substance, I am wondering whether I wonder if the price point is too high (it's probably no accident that all of the official Overpay cards cost $2-$4). Absent a $2 cantrip or discounting (there is some potential for this to be quite wicked with Highway), you can only trigger this when you hit $8. While there could be some analogy there to Pathfinding, I tend to think of that as a somewhat niche landscape that is unplayable in a non-negligible portion of games. And while that might be acceptable with landscapes (see Tomb), I do feel like it is less so for one of the 10 Kingdom cards. I am now thinking it maybe should have had a $3+ cost and given +2 Cards (and maybe prohibited putting the token on itself).
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: spineflu on October 19, 2021, 01:24:03 pm

Quote
Scoundrel • $5+ • Action • author: emtzalex
+3 Cards
You may play from your hand an Action card from the pile with your Cur token on it.
-
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. If you did, gain an Action card costing the amount you overpaid and move your Cur token to its pile.
$10 to turn Scoundrels into Smithy-Cultists. Or $7 to turn them into collision-dependent superlabs if there's a $2 cantrip on the board. Cultists are quality in the slogs they themselves cause - I can't imagine how this'd wreck shop in a game with no junk, maybe a little +Buy action.
Themewise, I'm not seeing the connection to scoundrel-y-ness? I'd expect it to be something like a petty attack - oracle-esque or maybe cutpurse, which, at $5 is not great.

Thanks for the feedback/judging. In terms of the theme, when I made it I thought I vaguely remembered some olde timey quotation that was something like "you can tell a scoundrel from the company he keeps" or not to trust someone who keeps the company of a scoundrel. Having now searched the interwebs, this does not seem to actually exist.

In terms of substance, I am wondering whether I wonder if the price point is too high (it's probably no accident that all of the official Overpay cards cost $2-$4). Absent a $2 cantrip or discounting (there is some potential for this to be quite wicked with Highway), you can only trigger this when you hit $8. While there could be some analogy there to Pathfinding, I tend to think of that as a somewhat niche landscape that is unplayable in a non-negligible portion of games. And while that might be acceptable with landscapes (see Tomb), I do feel like it is less so for one of the 10 Kingdom cards. I am now thinking it maybe should have had a $3+ cost and given +2 Cards (and maybe prohibited putting the token on itself).

yeah that would've been better received; while the pathfinding-on-a-lab comparison kinda works, that requires both being in the kingdom to pull off (and doesn't give you a copy of the card the turn you enable it)- this, as long as there was some sort of village/cantrip at $3 or less, always had it at $8, and at $10 could always chain on itself.
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: scolapasta on October 19, 2021, 02:19:11 pm
The Winner is scolapasta's Endowment

Quote
Endowment • $2+ • Treasure • author: scolapasta
If you have at least 1 Coffers on your Coffers mat, +$2.
-
You may overpay for this. For each $1 you overpaid, trash a Copper from your hand. For each Copper you trashed, +1 Coffers.

This is a really clever alt-Silver. I think, had this been released in a pre-Delve / pre-Stockpile world, there'd be some balking at the price. I was thinking this imbalanced the opening too hard, but it's actually just really good and clever and subtle. This might be too much in Swashbuckler games, but maybe that's fine.

Oh wow! This was pretty unexpected. But awesome! I do think there's some fun with this one, balancing out your desire to spend your Coffers, while needing to keep at least one behind.

Anyway, I'll work on coming up with an idea and post the next contest some time today or tomorrow.
Title: Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
Post by: emtzalex on October 27, 2021, 02:21:29 am
I am now thinking it maybe should have had a $3+ cost and given +2 Cards (and maybe prohibited putting the token on itself).

yeah that would've been better received; while the pathfinding-on-a-lab comparison kinda works, that requires both being in the kingdom to pull off (and doesn't give you a copy of the card the turn you enable it)- this, as long as there was some sort of village/cantrip at $3 or less, always had it at $8, and at $10 could always chain on itself.

Here is how I ultimately decided to implement this. The +2 Cards makes it more like Imp, while making the price points for setting the tokens ($5-$9) more reasonable:

(https://i.imgur.com/v2xfk9wh.png)
Quote from: Tutor
TUTOR
ACTION
Cost: $3+



+2 Cards
You may play from your hand an Action card from the pile with your Pupil token on it.


When you buy this, you may overpay for it. If you did, gain a non-Tutor Action card costing the amount you overpaid and move your Pupil token to its pile.
                                             





I had a few other ideas for novel means of overpaying. The first is somewhat similar to Tutor/Scoundrel, but instead of playing one card from your hand, it is a command card that plays the gained action card from a mat.

(https://i.imgur.com/d2XaPqch.png)
Quote from: Volkhv
VOLKHV
ACTION - COMMAND
Cost: $3+



Play a card from your Volkhv mat, leaving it there.

When you buy this, you may overpay for it. If you do, gain a non-Command Action card costing the amount you overpaid onto your Volkhv mat.
                                             

The next idea was to do a riff on Wine Merchant's Reserve function, with the amount needed to discard them going up with each copy of the card you have on the Tavern mat.


(https://i.imgur.com/PbHqaGvh.png)
Quote from: Glass Merchant
GLASS MERCHANT
ACTION - RESERVE
Cost: $5+



Put this on your Tavern mat. If you did, +4 Cards, +1 Action.

When you buy this, you may overpay for it. If you overpaid at least $1 per Glass Merchant on your Tavern Mat, discard all of them.
                                             

I wanted to make the vanilla bonuses conditional (unlike with Wine Merchant, Encampment, Horse, etc.), mainly because it would be too powerful with Overlord/Necromancer/etc. It has the added bonus of making the text less compact. 


Like AJL828, I had the idea for an overpay Attack. This is what I came up with (it's important to remember for this one that, according to the official rules, you cannot overpay $0, so you can't just buy this at $5 and kick the other players' Coppers):


(https://i.imgur.com/yPr6tgHh.png)
Quote from: Council of Thieves
COUNCIL OF THIEVES
ACTION
Cost: $5+



+2 Actions
+$2


When you buy this, you may overpay for it. If you do, each other player reveals their hand and discards each card costing the amount you overpaid.