Dominion Strategy Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length

Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

Messages - simval

Filter to certain boards:

Pages: [1] 2
1
Ack! Only 2 Canadians? That's even less than last year. We at least had a team of 4 and 2 standby's last year.

A sad day for Canadians.

2
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Tomb - Gambling for a Draw or a Curse
« on: December 09, 2014, 10:53:20 pm »
Hmm. If you want the Curse penalty, maybe the card naming could strictly affect that rather than the draws?

"Name a card. Reveal the top three cards of your deck and put them into your hand. If none of them were the named card, gain a Curse."

Not so bad, but it's more radical. At least with the first version you could reveal 4 cards, and would usually draw only 1 or 2 (when it's 3 or 4, it's usually Copper). Now it's a super-lab with a big penalty that's harder to dodge. Thus, more luck is involved.

I think the current version is okay. Though, you should decide on either drawing the cards or putting them into your hand (for the wording).

Touché. That gives us.

Quote
Tomb - Action $3
+ 1 Action
Name a card. Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. You may put any number of matches into your hand. Discard the rest. If you put more than 2 cards into your hand that way, gain a Curse.

Still really good in the beginning : drawing copper and sifting estates ! However you risk losing your other buy in the discard. And obviously you can't draw a huge amount of money if you don't have a way to deal with the curse. Going right in my playtest file...

3
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Tomb - Gambling for a Draw or a Curse
« on: December 09, 2014, 07:11:06 pm »
I feel like adding on a "possible one-shot" effect to it is just making it way overly-complex. Even if it's slightly better for balance.
I feel the same.

I also don't get why the penalty is needed. You want to reward deck tracking. Whoever tracks his deck draws more cards, he gets rewarded. Whoever doesn't doesn't draw cards, he gets punished.

Alright, it's true that putting a bunch of effects on top of each other is just complicated for the sake of it. No good in that ; ''keep it simple stupid''.

Silverspawn is also right by saying that failing to draw any cards is already a big penalty (however, now at least you know what's on the top of your deck, if you have another Tomb). Taking out the Curse penalty might be a good idea then, but I'm pretty attached to it.  ;D

A self-curser is a concept that hasn't been explored so much : you have Death Cart which is a self-looter, but that's pretty much it (I think). Also, the Curse goes well with the theme of the card, because raiding a Tomb isn't the holiest of things to do. So, how can we implement the Curse while keeping the card balanced ?

Faust's idea of punishing the players who draw too much is actually really thematic (''don't go too fat into the tomb !'') and works well. However, I don't want it to punish players who guess well, I want it to punish players who draw too much. That's different. So, what about...

Quote
Tomb - Action $3
+ 1 Action
Name a card. Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. You may draw any number of matches. Discard the rest. If you put more than 2 cards into your hand that way, gain a Curse.

So at turn 3, my hand is Tomb-Estate-Copper-Copper-Copper. I name copper, I reveal : Copper-Estate-Copper-Copper. Since it states ''you may'', I can draw two coppers and have +$2 or three coppers for an early Gold, but this Gold comes with a price : a Curse. That's a lot less swingy in the early game, because the difference between drawing two coppers or revealing 4 bad cards isn't so big.

The only thing I'm not sure is the discarding, since I liked the fact that the Tomb would leave $3 cost (like other Tombs) on top of your deck, allowing strategies built around silvers.

4
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Tomb - Gambling for a Draw or a Curse
« on: December 09, 2014, 12:59:55 pm »
A lot of comments ! Thanks a lot.


Do you think it's still so good that people would always open with Tomb no matter what ?

In the early game you might be able to compare it to Smithy. Early on you don't care that Smithy is terminal; it's not going to likely draw other actions anyway. So Smithy draws you 3 cards, mostly copper Tomb draws you 2-4; all Copper. So based on that, it doesn't sound overpowered as an opener. It's not doing much more than Smithy anyway. Of course you can't double-open Smithy, and even if you could you wouldn't want to. With this, double-opening is probably a pretty good opener most of the time. But I don't think it's automatic.

Besides, this can always happen:
(Bad Luck Brian)

Thanks for the comparison with Smithy. It's not an automatic opening for sure, but I think your comparison is another reason to price it at $3 : at $4 it's just a dangerous smithy in the beginning (and at $3 you can open Tomb-Tomb, and it doesn't discard itself, like I said earlier).
The Bad Luck Brian thing isn't likely to happen, because you'd need a hand of Tomb-Copper-Copper-Copper-Copper. If I had that in hand I probably wouldn't even play my Tomb, since my deck would be full of estates. Or in fact I would probably play it and name Estate, as to not draw a hand with three estates, a copper, and something. As soon as you have at least one estate in hand, Tomb becomes less swingy, because there is at least one Copper on top of your deck in such a case.

I think it's an interesting concept, but there are some issues with it.

1. Swinginess: Yeah, it's incredibly swingy. Assume a game where both players open Tomb/X. It's already so much better to draw it T3 because it won't cause a reshuffle. Then, if I play it T3, draw 3 Coppers, get a Goons, and you play it T3, reaveal 3 Estates/X, it's already game over.

2. Punishing yourself: I guess that's in the very concept, and I don't mind it much, but there are definitely players who don't like cards that punish you.

3. Power level: Opening Tomb/nothing already guarantees hitting $5 during the second shuffle; I don't think any other $3/$4-cost can do that. As such, I think it's close to a must-buy, at least in kingdoms with key $5/$6 costs (and these are common)

4. Encouraging uninteresting strategies: Which strategies work best with this card? Those who rely on spamming the same card over and over - Minion, Governor, that kind of stuff.

Overall, I think I like the concept, but maybe it could be better with a little twist... I'll think of something.

A great reply. :D I'll address each or your point :

1. As I said earlier, the player naming copper and revealing 3 Estates/X is playing dangerously, he's supposed to know that it can happen. However, you are right that it may be to swingy in the beginning of the game.

2. You are right, but it's the whole point of the card. And we don't mind doing that, the people I play with thinks it's a fun concept.

3. Like someone pointed earlier : Death Cart guarantees you a lot of money soon enough, Feast guarantees a $5, Count is pretty good at it too... Etc.

4. You are right. However, I think it mostly encourages strategy based around $3-cost cards, since it doesn't discard those. I can't say I'm particularly concerned by this as most power cards that you want in multiple are of $5 cost.

I think "matches" is perfectly clear. There are other wording problems though. It's better if you finish describing a process before you get to something else, if possible. In this case, first say what you do with the cards, then describe the penalty.

I would suggest this wording:

Quote
+1 Action
Name a card. Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. Put the matches into your hand. Put the cards costing less than 4$ back in any order. Discard the rest. If you didn't draw any cards this way, gain a curse.

Thanks, definitely a better wording.

I believe the card is too strong without the penalty. To do it without penalty, I'd suggest something like this:

Quote
+1 Action
Name a card. Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. Put one of the revealed card that is the named card into your hand. Put the rest back in any order.

As I said earlier, the point of the card is to punish yourself, so nope. Good idea though.

For the penalty, I think it would be much more interesting if it punished you for guessing "too good" instead of "too bad" (because having guessed bad already is a penatly). I imagine something like this:

Quote
+ 1 Action
Name a card. Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. Put the matches into your hand. Discard the rest. If you put more than 2 cards into your hand that way, gain a Curse.

That's not a bad idea actually, but it kind of goes against the point of the card too. The idea of this expansion is that you have a lot of interaction with your deck or your discard, so in order to play optimally, you need to know what's in your deck. It's like if the point behind Chancellor (which is not a really good card, if I might add) became a whole expansion. So. For Tomb, I wanted a card that :

a. Rewarded good players, players paying attention to what's in their deck;
b. Punished players playing too randomly;
c. Didn't cost much.

That's the three main points. One might say that the whole ''anti-sifter'' thing of discarding the $4+ cards seems to be one of my goals too, but not really. It was more something I added to balance the card and, even if I like the idea, if it doesn't fit here I can always re-use it later as a penalty somewhere else. What I like in your last idea, faust, is the fact that it reduces swinginess a lot by punishing players who are having a lot of luck. However, it's going against my main objective (the a) by punishing someone playing well.

My idea would be to make it a one-shot when it's too good :

Quote
Tomb
Action - $3
+ 1 Action
Name a card. Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. Put the matches into your hand. Discard the rest. If you put more than 2 cards into your hand that way, trash this card. If you didn't draw any cards, gain a Curse.

So opening Tomb/Tomb is still a good opening, but if you name Copper and draw a bunch of them (as in 3 or 4), you lose your Tomb too. And it still punishes the player who play without thinking and just name randomly. What do you think ?

5
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Tomb - Gambling for a Draw or a Curse
« on: December 09, 2014, 12:04:05 am »
So, it's a Wishing Well you don't want?

Not really, since it can draw a lot better. +$3 (with copper) and +$4 (two silvers) were frequent. With Wishing Well, maybe it's just me, but I seem to be missing the named card every time I play it.  :P

Have you tried naming Copper a lot? Sounds like it would be pretty powerful that way, like, I don't think I would ever not open Tomb if I had a 4/3 opening (outside Hermit/Market Square games etc).

Yes, and naming copper is in fact super good. However, even if you get +$4, buying Gold and other expensive cards is dangerous since you can miss them by playing tomb later.
So that's a lot like Sage : an early Sage is pretty much always super great with good $4 cards (like Sea Hag for instance), but it gets worse later.

Do you think it's still so good that people would always open with Tomb no matter what ?

6
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Tomb - Gambling for a Draw or a Curse
« on: December 08, 2014, 10:37:58 pm »
                     
The initial post is full of text, maybe it's hard to comment on the right thing. Here's the picture.

Comments are welcomed !

7
Variants and Fan Cards / Tomb - Gambling for a Draw or a Curse
« on: December 07, 2014, 11:47:26 pm »
Hi ! :)

I had two games today with my sister and two friends. Putting the other card I recently presented on hold, we playtested a card I designed. I don't have the card picture in this computer right now, but I'll put it later. Without further ado, here it is :

So the first version was...
Quote
Tomb
Action - $3
+1 Action
Name a card. Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. If there are matches, draw them. If there are not, gain a Curse.

So that was pretty straightforward. Keeping on with my ''interaction with your piles'' theme, the goal of this card is too force you to keep track of your deck... But with great rewards if you do !

However, it had a problem : where do you put the cards that you don't draw ? We quickly ruled that you could put them back in any order on top of your deck. The first game played with this made it clear that it was really good ! In the beginning, always naming copper was at least a +$1, and really often it was a +$3, which is awesome for a non-terminal. The card became weaker and weaker as the game went on, but we each built decks that could build around Tomb's weakness (one of my friends had an awesome deck full of silvers and nobles and was drawing both of them like crazy).

My two options were to weaken the card or put it a $4. I like the fact that it kind of combos with itself, but in a risky way, so I decided to leave it at $3 (so you can open double Tomb). Here's the updated version :

Quote
Tomb
Action - $3
+1 Action
Name a card. Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. If there are matches, draw them. If there are not, gain a Curse. Discard the other cards costing $4 or more and put the other ones back on the top of your deck in any order.

So. This card was quite fun to play. Really stressful, you always wanted to name your powerful cards, like golds, but since you don't have much of those cards, it's a big gamble : you don't want the curse ! Pricing it at $3 was a great choice, because you don't lose your other Tombs in the discard when you reveal them with a first Tomb. An obvious combo was with powerful $3 cards : Masquerade and Silvers were my choice for this game and it worked quite well. I was discarding a lot of Band of Misfits and Fortress, but the strong drawing (a couple of silvers is a lot of money) was helping me staying alive.

Combos :
Strong $3.
Mystic.
Courtyard (if you can play a village before).
Scout (!!)
Cards playing stuff from your discard... (in coming in my expansion)

So. What do you think about this card ? Any obvious combos I missed ? Any big problem with the card ? It is priced low and has a huge potential, but I think that it can also hurt you a lot. Not sure if the actual balance is right. Comments are welcomed. :D

8
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Playing cards from discard pile ?
« on: December 05, 2014, 12:20:42 am »
That's interesting, but I think it's too powerful. That's basically "pick any card from your deck, play it", which is awesome. Pair a bunch of those with a strong curser or trasher and you can ruin your opponent. See the thread on "pseudo Demonic Tutor : Hound", because it looks a lot like that, but as a village.

It's like a sage, but without the disadvantage of tripping on silvers and Victory cards. However, I think that the idea of combining it with scavenger or chancellor is really good. Right now, with the +1 card, it is not possible though, and you'd still need a village before so you can play your scavenger/chancellor AND Forest Village.

Maybe making it "+2 actions ; you may draw a card. Look through your discard..." That could be cool.

9
Tournaments and Events / Re: Dominion Team World Cup II Signups
« on: December 02, 2014, 02:01:02 pm »
I'll probably be more of a weight for our team, but hey, it'll be fun, and if it helps Canada get enough players, why not ?

Goko name : Simval
Country : Canada
Sets : none

10
Tournaments and Events / Re: Dominion Team World Cup II ?
« on: November 23, 2014, 07:06:36 pm »
I might be interested in playing in this. I'm not that good, but I read some articles and play a lot... so why not ?

I'm Canadian !

11
Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Easy Puzzles
« on: November 21, 2014, 09:16:33 pm »
Here's an easy puzzle:

What do these cards have in common?

Embargo
Pirate Ship
Treasure Map
Golem
Crossroads
Fool's Gold
Rats
Black Market

And which cards should also be on this list?
Interesting. Was really confused at first, but I believe it's self-referencing themselves by name.

Others: Native Village, Trade Route, Duchess, Madman, Spoils, Cultist

Still confused. Was this the good answer ? Isn't every card referencing to itself ?

I think it's supposed to be explicit.  That is, the card text explicitly contains the card name. For example, Smithy doesn't say "Smithy", it only says "+3 cards". Cultist actually references "Cultist".

Ooooooooooooooooooooh ! I was stuck thinking about the card's name.

12
Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Easy Puzzles
« on: November 21, 2014, 07:14:45 pm »
Here's an easy puzzle:

What do these cards have in common?

Embargo
Pirate Ship
Treasure Map
Golem
Crossroads
Fool's Gold
Rats
Black Market

And which cards should also be on this list?
Interesting. Was really confused at first, but I believe it's self-referencing themselves by name.

Others: Native Village, Trade Route, Duchess, Madman, Spoils, Cultist

Still confused. Was this the good answer ? Isn't every card referencing to itself ?

13
Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Easy Puzzles
« on: November 20, 2014, 11:46:34 pm »
Here's an easy puzzle:

What do these cards have in common?

Embargo
Pirate Ship
Treasure Map
Golem
Crossroads
Fool's Gold
Rats
Black Market

And which cards should also be on this list?

Easy ? I tried really hard but couldn't find it. At one point I was calculating the number of sentences on every card...  :o

14
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: "Gain a card"
« on: November 20, 2014, 11:16:41 pm »
Actually, a Gainer costing something like $9 or $10 but which power would only be ''Gain a card'' might be balanced. It would be super long to build up to it, but once you have it and can play it a lot, you can basically win the game in a turn or two.

However, the risks of it being broken in certain games (with KC/Bridge and then KC/Gainer for example) might be too high.

15
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Playing cards from discard pile ?
« on: November 15, 2014, 07:22:32 pm »
@Silverspawn : Yeah, sorry my post came out weirdly. I totally got your point about the fact that having a discard pile is not reliable, but was wondering about the power level at the same time, so it got mixed up. Your post was helpful, though.

If we compare it to Herald, at first both seem to have the same problem : if you don't have a discard pile when you buy herald, you can't use its top-deck power. However, even if you don't have a discard this turn, if you play an Herald, there's a chance that you'll pick an Action card on top of your deck anyways. So there's a way to get that +2 Cards +2 Actions.

Now Forest Village... Like you said, sometimes you just won't have a discard pile, especially because if you have an engine which can draw your whole deck, it's all gonna be in your hand. The obvious way to solve this is to be able to discard some cards, in which way you get +1 Card +2 Action - you play the action card you discarded, you pick a card and +1 Action too. The power comes from the fact that you can choose exactly which Action card you're going to play.

We're getting something here, I think : Forest Village looks bad with an engine that can pick your entire deck, but it's actually pretty good, since you'll make sure that, even when you start greening and you can't draw your whole deck, if you have a way to sift (Storeroom, Cellar, Warehouse...), you'll probably be able to play exactly the Actions you want to play.

So it's definitely not ''flip a coin, hope you're lucky''. However, I'll keep your opinion in head while playtesting it, just to make sure (after all you're more experienced than me).

@LastFootnote : Yeah, good idea. If we make the discarding optional, playing it from your hand or the discard is pretty much the same. However, I think I'll try pacovf's idea of making the discarding compulsory, in which case that doesn't work (if you have no Actions in hand other than this, you still need to discard a Treasure or something).

@pacovf : Excellent idea, I'll try this.

Ok so I now have two versions. One at 4$ and one at 5$.

Quote
Forest Village
4$ - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
Discard a card. Look trough your discard pile, you may immediately play an action card from it.

Quote
Forest Village
5$ - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
Look trough your discard pile. You may play an Action card from your discard pile or hand.

I feel like the first one will be extremely powerful with Torturers or cards like that, but the compulsory discarding might be just annoying enough in the early game to balance it. The second one solves this by competing with strong attacks at 5$.

16
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Playing cards from discard pile ?
« on: November 15, 2014, 04:50:00 pm »
Thanks for all your replies. This is all very helpful information !

@Awaclus : Thanks for the analysis. It is a very different card you are right.

@Silverspwan : True, that's another problem. Maybe giving Forest Village the ability to discard something might help this ? I still think it could be really strong. Consider the following :

T5 I play Torturer
T6 Forest Village, which plays my Torturer from the discard, then plays another Torturer.
T7 Forest Village, which plays Forest Village from my discard, which plays a Torturer from my discard. (Re-shuffle, draw a Torturer). With the 2 actions I have, I play 2 other Torturers.

Isn't that extremely strong ? But making it a 5$ action might help.... Hm. Ok, let's try :

Quote
Forest Village
5$ - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
You may discard a card. Look trough your discard pile, you may immediately play an action card from it.

That might work... I should playtest it. Do you see any big problem ? If not I'll try it like this.

17
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Playing cards from discard pile ?
« on: November 15, 2014, 04:08:41 pm »
[...] So, yea I think it's too powerful. But there are two more problems. one, it's not clear if you are allowed to look through your discard pile, two, it's not clear if you are allowed to play treasure/victory cards with this.

You are right concerning the two problems, but that is easy to fix, it's just that I forgot to clarify it. My main goal here is really to create a Village that has an interaction with your discard pile ; a village which works better if you know manage to play it when you know there is something good in your discard pile. Should it be a 5$-cost ?

Something like...

Quote
Forest Village
5$ - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
Look trough your discar pile, you may immediately play an action card from it.

Is that interesting ? At 5$ it competes with strong terminals like Witch or Torturer, so maybe that would keep it in check ?

PS : I feel like your card is not really good. It's pretty much a cantrip that can, sometimes, draw exactly what you want. That's more a 3$ in my book (it's like a better version of Wishing Well, which isn't that strong), but I'm not sure.

18
Variants and Fan Cards / Playing cards from discard pile ?
« on: November 15, 2014, 03:42:47 pm »
Hi !

It's been a while since I posted in this forum : I had presented myself and posted a bit but only lurked for a couple of months after. However, me and my dad started playing Dominion like crazy this month and it got me back to designing fan cards. I had this idea for a card, but I'm not sure if it would be balanced :

Quote
Forest Village
4$ - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
Play a card from your discard pile.

I'm making this fan extension and one of the theme is going to be ''interactions with your piles'', either the deck or the discard pile. I think this form of Village is extremely interesting, since it's like a normal Village but you came aim to play certain actions.

However, it might be too good if you manage to have something like torturer in your discard pile every turn. What do you think ? Should it be nerfed ?

19
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Dominion oxymorons.
« on: July 02, 2014, 05:05:34 pm »
Not really an oxymoron, but an ironic phrase :

Prince of witches.

20
Variants and Fan Cards / Making cards in GIMP - Font
« on: July 02, 2014, 04:58:15 pm »
Hi !

I haven't posted on the forum for a while, but I still came and lurked a little. I got Dark Ages, started talking about creating cards... one thing led to another and I'm making them in GIMP.  ;D

However, I have a problem : I find GIMP fonts to be really ugly. I didn't dowload Optimus Princeps (Font for the car title) nor the one for the card's cost - though I have no clue what it is - because my Times New Roman looks really ugly. The letters are slim and small, it almost looks like a Courrier New-type font.

I put a picture in attachments (yes it's in french, but the content of the card doesn't matter... for now ;) )

So I have two questions...
-How can I solve this in GIMP ?
-Which other program can I use instead of GIMP, knowing I don't want to buy Photoshop ?

Thank you very much !  :D

21
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Next Featured Article - you decide!
« on: January 04, 2014, 12:25:09 am »
Not sure exactly how that works, but I guess I have the right to do this. I'd like to nominate Tribute if has not been already featured.

Really cool card that is sometimes hard to get working.

22
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Redistrict v3.0
« on: January 03, 2014, 01:07:39 pm »
Great design, it not always easy to create good 2$ cards.

23
Introductions / Re: Where am I ?
« on: January 03, 2014, 01:05:45 pm »
Thanks everyone for the advice and the warm welcome ! I'll take a look at Goko, hoping it won't have too many problems.

Oh and thanks for all those +1s, it looks funny to have my first post ever being in the week's best... :P

24
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Discussion: The Reaction That "Attacks Back"
« on: January 03, 2014, 12:13:08 pm »
Quote
I think the chance at gaining a Conscripts via a reaction still has the problem of making a lot of kingdoms less interesting because the "attack back" is so much stronger than many attacks. Strategies that rely on playing a weak attack almost every turn are likely to get ignored. Spy, Bureaucrat, Scrying Pool, Urchin, Pirate Ship, Thief, Oracle, Fortune Teller, Minion, etc. all get neutered pretty badly.   And many of these are the types of attacks that do NOT need to be weakened further in two player games. Gaining a Conscripts to the discard pile is more balanced against the stronger attacks, but I don't think this reaction is going to be good on net for overall interesting-ness.

I think your points are well made. But also take into account that the player who plays the Attack can also buy this Reaction. So when he plays a weak Attack, he's not necessarily just provoking a stronger backlash. He's potentially starting an arms race that he himself may benefit from.

Maybe. But why would this work here but not other attack back cards ?

Because usually, the attack back cards are something like "Discard this, the attacking player gains a curse." It's a negative effect created by a reaction card.

In our case, however, the "attack back" is itslef considered an attack, but delayed, so the original attacking player can react to it, gaining a conscripts too.

25
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Redistrict v3.0
« on: January 03, 2014, 12:02:48 pm »
I quite like it !

I understand the costing logic, for not gaining free Redistrics, but I think 2$ for a good trash-for-benefit like that is not a lot.

However, it could balance itself... Make this clearer for me please :

Let's say I have a hand of Copper-Copper-Silver-Redistric-Village, or something like that, and use the redistric to trash a copper. The way fhe card is worded, I'd get a 1$ card... but there are none on the board so I get nothing. After that I trash redistric so I get a card costing 1$ more than the one I gained... which doesn't exist.

So basically Redistrict just doesn't work with coppers and curses, right ? That's a really interesting mechanic. I quite like it. It's woth testing, definitely !

Pages: [1] 2

Page created in 0.06 seconds with 18 queries.