Dominion Strategy Forum

Dominion => Puzzles and Challenges => Topic started by: blueblimp on April 18, 2012, 02:54:29 pm

Title: "Name a card, and do X"
Post by: blueblimp on April 18, 2012, 02:54:29 pm
From dougz's AMA on reddit (http://www.reddit.com/r/dominion/comments/sf5y1/i_wrote_and_run_the_isotropic_dominion_server_ama/c4dlhdn):
Quote
Once there was a card that said in part, "name a card, and do X" (sort of like Wishing Well). But what X was meant it was always effectively deterministic which card you would name; assuming you were trying to win the server could have 'named' the card for you, saving you a click. Donald wanted it to do that, but I was like, "no, it says to name a card, so you have to name a card". Later that card got dropped so it's not an issue any more, but I'm still a stickler for things like that.

The puzzle: figure out what this card might have been!
Title: Re: "Name a card, and do X"
Post by: blueblimp on April 18, 2012, 02:56:09 pm
One idea:

Name a card. Reveal all cards in your draw deck and discard, then discard them. If one of the revealed cards was the named card, gain a card costing up to its cost in coins.
Title: Re: "Name a card, and do X"
Post by: WanderingWinder on April 18, 2012, 02:57:14 pm
One idea:

Name a card. Reveal all cards in your draw deck and discard, then discard them. If one of the revealed cards was the named card, gain a card costing up to its cost in coins.


I don't see how that works. Sure, you always pick your most expensive card, it seems, but that doesn't seem deterministic enough to me...
Title: Re: "Name a card, and do X"
Post by: blueblimp on April 18, 2012, 02:59:30 pm
One idea:

Name a card. Reveal all cards in your draw deck and discard, then discard them. If one of the revealed cards was the named card, gain a card costing up to its cost in coins.


I don't see how that works. Sure, you always pick your most expensive card, it seems, but that doesn't seem deterministic enough to me...

I agree, it's probably too hard to name the card usually. Good point. Also, the card could easily be reworded to not use naming, and then it'd be easier to play. So that's probably not it.
Title: Re: "Name a card, and do X"
Post by: Voltgloss on April 18, 2012, 03:17:49 pm
Two possibilities from the "Secret History of Donald X." board, though I'm not convinced they're deterministic enough...

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Cutpurse: This started out as "Cards cost $1 less this turn, then $1 more until your next turn." That doesn't have the same timing as the other duration cards - it goes away at the end of the previous player's turn, rather than at the end of your turn. The developers didn't like that. I replaced it with "+$2, name a treasure card, each other player discards it." That was quite strong. You don't have to discard Gold very many times before you're sick of it. I reined it in by having it only hit Copper. It's still quite annoying if multiples get played against you early on.

I suppose you could have the server auto-name the highest-value treasure card that your opponent has in his/her deck?  But surely a player with this card would watch the opponent's play to see if said card(s) have been played so far this shuffle, and if so, name a cheaper treasure card (that has at least some chance of being in the opponent's hand). 

Another possibility:

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- There was a card, +$2, name a type, dig for it, put it on your deck. It cost $3. You can almost always name a type that isn't in your deck if you want, so it's "strictly better" than Chancellor. This really bothers some people (Anthony Rubbo being one of them). It had to be worse in some way and I didn't want it to be worse.

Sort of the first idea in reverse, but frankly even less deterministic, especially given the "name something you don't even have" utility.
Title: Re: "Name a card, and do X"
Post by: Donald X. on April 18, 2012, 04:18:26 pm
The answer:

It was a victory card worth 1 VP per 3 copies you had of whatever action card you had the most copies of. Only, the simplest way to phrase these things is to have you pick the action card. So you would always pick whatever you had the most of, but the isotropic version still had you pick.

It was also a reaction card, with various reactions. It never had fans and is a Dark Ages outtake. I managed to do Tunnel as a Victory-Reaction card instead so hooray.

Title: Re: "Name a card, and do X"
Post by: Voltgloss on April 18, 2012, 04:39:29 pm
The answer:

It was a victory card worth 1 VP per 3 copies you had of whatever action card you had the most copies of. Only, the simplest way to phrase these things is to have you pick the action card. So you would always pick whatever you had the most of, but the isotropic version still had you pick.

It was also a reaction card, with various reactions. It never had fans and is a Dark Ages outtake. I managed to do Tunnel as a Victory-Reaction card instead so hooray.


Very interesting.  I wonder if we can expect to see a theme in Dark Ages of cards that reward you for collecting multiple copies of the same Action card.  The opposite of Cornucopia's variety theme.  After all, a time of plenty (Cornucopia) is the opposite of a time of scarcity (Dark Ages).
Title: Re: "Name a card, and do X"
Post by: Davio on April 19, 2012, 03:22:20 am
Maybe a VP card dependent on your Treasures. Take that, engine builders!  ;D

Interest $4
Treasure - Victory


+$1
----
Worth 1 VP for every 4 Treasure cards in your deck (rounded down).

Title: Re: "Name a card, and do X"
Post by: jimjam on April 19, 2012, 04:11:43 am
^That sounds overpowered even without the treasure and $1 status.
Title: Re: "Name a card, and do X"
Post by: michaeljb on April 19, 2012, 04:33:16 am
^That sounds overpowered even without the treasure and $1 status.

I agree, but I do hope for a Victory card based on that idea. We already have Vineyard and Silk Road, so something with Treasures would be nice.
Title: Re: "Name a card, and do X"
Post by: Davio on April 19, 2012, 05:40:41 am
Well I spent the whole 1 minute thinking about it. :)
Title: Re: "Name a card, and do X"
Post by: Quadell on April 19, 2012, 08:30:50 am
Cache, cache, cache.  :)
Title: Re: "Name a card, and do X"
Post by: jotheonah on April 19, 2012, 05:18:35 pm
^That sounds overpowered even without the treasure and $1 status.

I agree, but I do hope for a Victory card based on that idea. We already have Vineyard and Silk Road, so something with Treasures would be nice.

I vaguely recall this being discussed before. The problem is that collecting lots of treasures is so easy as to be trivial. I mean, every game has a huge supply of Treasure cards that can be obtained for free. Any game with the proposed Treasure-dependent victory card in it would just automatically become a textbook big money game, and that's just not that interesting.
Title: Re: "Name a card, and do X"
Post by: jomini on April 21, 2012, 11:50:41 am
Ehh, it would depend upon the price point of the VP card. For instance, if the VP card cost 5 or less, then it will be far better to treat this as a gardens/goons type game where maximizing +buy is better than maximizing cash value. So opening something like hamlet/market would be far better than haven/mountebank. Certainly you'd almost always buy coppers with spare buys.

This would, of course, finally make talisman massively effective, which is almost always terrible in BM type games.
Title: Re: "Name a card, and do X"
Post by: jimjam on April 21, 2012, 03:46:18 pm
I can't imagine the card bringing much to the table that Gardens doesn't. After all, the only difference is maybe like a few actions and estates. And it would likely be a must-buy in most games with Counting House.

It would be interesting if it counted non-copper treasures, or the number of treasure types you have at least say..3 of.
Title: Re: "Name a card, and do X"
Post by: ChocophileBenj on May 18, 2012, 05:23:28 pm
But it means this card is worth 3 VP at most, and only if you manage to get 9 actions... ugh !
And trying to reach 6 of a kind is not very stimulating... why not 2 copies ?

And how does it work with Cornucopia cards ? ^^