Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Variants and Fan Cards => Topic started by: exfret on January 15, 2022, 06:32:36 pm
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This is probably my favorite of the cards I've designed. Posting it here in case anyone wants to try it out. From playtesting it seems pretty good so I don't know if it can get much better mechanically, but definitely I could probably theme it differently. Any thoughts on the theming?
(https://i.imgur.com/ReJJ3ci.png)
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I think this will still be very strong even with the drawbacks.
I don't think there's anything wrong with the theme (although I'm sure you could find better art...).
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Clearly overpowered.
The first two copies you play are Lab+Fugitive whereas the third and fourth copy you play are Forums.
First of all, you round down, so the first copy is actually double lab. That being said, you take debt, too, so it's not actually any of those. Sure you can make all these comparisons, but playtesting hasn't shown any problems with it. Maybe it's just always worth it to get two or so copies, but there's still the decision of whether to get more, so I don't see a problem with that.
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I think this will still be very strong even with the drawbacks.
I don't think there's anything wrong with the theme (although I'm sure you could find better art...).
Yes, it's certainly a "strong" card, though I don't think strength is the way to think about it. Since it scales with how many you play, the strategic question is about how many versus whether to buy or not to buy.
I'll see if it can fit in some sort of modern day expansion of mine then. And yeah, I'll be less lazy about the art hehe.
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The strength of the card really depends on how your deck is set up, which then depends on the kingdom. If you have Chapel, Festival, and Hunting Grounds, then you can very easily build a strong engine and this card will make it even better (likely buying 1 or 2 of them). If you have Chapel, and not many engine components available, and run mostly Big Money, getting your "coin density" of your deck up to 2 or higher, then this card becomes super strong too, and you could probably afford getting a few of them.
But if you have no trashing in the kingdom, and maybe even cursing, then your coin density may never even get much above 1 (or in some cases, not even that high). At that point, the +3 Cards, take 1 Debt ends up averaging out to just being +2 cards, and then it's very similar to a Lab (on average... some turns it would be better, other turns worse). But unlike a Lab, you couldn't get very many of these, because when they collide they become that much worse (although in this hypothetical setup, you could probably just discard those initial estates and all the curses you've received, so maybe not quite so bad).
Is it strong for $5? Probably. Is it broken? Likely not. Have you tried playing it with "round up" instead of "round down"?
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People should just not allowed to say 'overpowered'. Say not 'chapel is overpowered', say 'chapel is going to be bought every game and that's bad because ???'
That said, in this case this is plausibly a real problem because it trivializes what draw to buy first. I don't expect that this particularly shows up in playtesting; I expect you just bought the card and it was fun to play with.
Just make it cost 6$?
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The strength of the card really depends on how your deck is set up, which then depends on the kingdom. If you have Chapel, Festival, and Hunting Grounds, then you can very easily build a strong engine and this card will make it even better (likely buying 1 or 2 of them). If you have Chapel, and not many engine components available, and run mostly Big Money, getting your "coin density" of your deck up to 2 or higher, then this card becomes super strong too, and you could probably afford getting a few of them.
But if you have no trashing in the kingdom, and maybe even cursing, then your coin density may never even get much above 1 (or in some cases, not even that high). At that point, the +3 Cards, take 1 Debt ends up averaging out to just being +2 cards, and then it's very similar to a Lab (on average... some turns it would be better, other turns worse). But unlike a Lab, you couldn't get very many of these, because when they collide they become that much worse (although in this hypothetical setup, you could probably just discard those initial estates and all the curses you've received, so maybe not quite so bad).
Is it strong for $5? Probably. Is it broken? Likely not. Have you tried playing it with "round up" instead of "round down"?
I really like this analysis (in addition to silverspawn’s comment). It’s much more useful than pointing out a card is “too” strong. I will admit in playtesting a little more, I’ve realized it was probably too much of an auto-grab as is, since the first one playing as a double lab is just too good most of the time. I’ll try with rounding up.
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The strength of the card really depends on how your deck is set up, which then depends on the kingdom. If you have Chapel, Festival, and Hunting Grounds, then you can very easily build a strong engine and this card will make it even better (likely buying 1 or 2 of them). If you have Chapel, and not many engine components available, and run mostly Big Money, getting your "coin density" of your deck up to 2 or higher, then this card becomes super strong too, and you could probably afford getting a few of them.
But if you have no trashing in the kingdom, and maybe even cursing, then your coin density may never even get much above 1 (or in some cases, not even that high). At that point, the +3 Cards, take 1 Debt ends up averaging out to just being +2 cards, and then it's very similar to a Lab (on average... some turns it would be better, other turns worse). But unlike a Lab, you couldn't get very many of these, because when they collide they become that much worse (although in this hypothetical setup, you could probably just discard those initial estates and all the curses you've received, so maybe not quite so bad).
Is it strong for $5? Probably. Is it broken? Likely not. Have you tried playing it with "round up" instead of "round down"?
I really like this analysis (in addition to silverspawn’s comment). It’s much more useful than pointing out a card is “too” strong. I will admit in playtesting a little more, I’ve realized it was probably too much of an auto-grab as is, since the first one playing as a double lab is just too good most of the time. I’ll try with rounding up.
I really like the concept of a card that gets worse the more copies you have of it. :)
If you change it to rounding up, I think the power level will be fine: The first two copies played each turn will usually be somewhat better than Lab ("Lab+Fugitive-Peddler"), while any further copies don't give any net card draw: The third and fourth copy are just sifters, strictly worse than Forum (+3 cards, +1 Action, discard 2 cards, +1 debt); and any further copies actually reduce your handsize and are strictly worse than Warehouse.
So Research Lab is great for increasing your handsize, but usually doesn't allow you to draw your deck without some other card draw.
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The strength of the card really depends on how your deck is set up, which then depends on the kingdom. If you have Chapel, Festival, and Hunting Grounds, then you can very easily build a strong engine and this card will make it even better (likely buying 1 or 2 of them). If you have Chapel, and not many engine components available, and run mostly Big Money, getting your "coin density" of your deck up to 2 or higher, then this card becomes super strong too, and you could probably afford getting a few of them.
But if you have no trashing in the kingdom, and maybe even cursing, then your coin density may never even get much above 1 (or in some cases, not even that high). At that point, the +3 Cards, take 1 Debt ends up averaging out to just being +2 cards, and then it's very similar to a Lab (on average... some turns it would be better, other turns worse). But unlike a Lab, you couldn't get very many of these, because when they collide they become that much worse (although in this hypothetical setup, you could probably just discard those initial estates and all the curses you've received, so maybe not quite so bad).
Is it strong for $5? Probably. Is it broken? Likely not. Have you tried playing it with "round up" instead of "round down"?
I really like this analysis (in addition to silverspawn’s comment). It’s much more useful than pointing out a card is “too” strong. I will admit in playtesting a little more, I’ve realized it was probably too much of an auto-grab as is, since the first one playing as a double lab is just too good most of the time. I’ll try with rounding up.
I really like the concept of a card that gets worse the more copies you have of it. :)
If you change it to rounding up, I think the power level will be fine: The first two copies played each turn will usually be somewhat better than Lab ("Lab+Fugitive-Peddler"), while any further copies don't give any net card draw: The third and fourth copy are just sifters, strictly worse than Forum (+3 cards, +1 Action, discard 2 cards, +1 debt); and any further copies actually reduce your handsize and are strictly worse than Warehouse.
So Research Lab is great for increasing your handsize, but usually doesn't allow you to draw your deck without some other card draw.
I tried it with rounding up and it did wonders! The card feels a lot more enjoyable now that the first one doesn't just seem like an autobuy. Thanks for the suggestion!
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I like the card and the fix, but the image really looks like a toaster
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I like the card and the fix, but the image really looks like a toaster
Here's a public-domain image you could use instead that would be somewhat more thematically consistent with Dominion:
http://www.italianrenaissanceresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/RP_1061-1-300x196.jpg
(http://www.italianrenaissanceresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/RP_1061-1-300x196.jpg)
Enea Vico, The Academy of Baccio Bandinelli, 1550s, Engraving,
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I like the card and the fix, but the image really looks like a toaster
I will never be able to unsee this.
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I like the card and the fix, but the image really looks like a toaster
I will never be able to unsee this.
I literally thought it was a toaster. Can't figure out what else it would be lol.
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I like the card and the fix, but the image really looks like a toaster
I will never be able to unsee this.
I literally thought it was a toaster. Can't figure out what else it would be lol.
It's the research lab graphic from Civ VI. (so probably not even public domain).