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Messages - Thinkaman

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1
Forum Games / Re: WitchHunt - Polling for Interest (Mafia, Open)
« on: April 24, 2017, 02:16:14 pm »
Most of the time when I've played no-flip, there's been no ambiguity about exactly which roles are in the game.

Yeah, no-flip games are usually open.  Most players I know, including myself, tend to think closed no-flip games feel kinda "sloppy" in gameplay.

The other thing I was used to in IRL Werewolf was hidden voting, so the whole idea of wagon analysis being a thing was very alien to me at first.

Wow, I've seen a lot of variations but never private ballot.  Seems like it would heavily encourage passive scum play?  Big power advantage to scum; I imagine these games would require a relatively small scum team?

One thing I have seen that seems pretty bad in the opposite way is final words--people getting to give a minute-or-so statement immediately after they die.  This would be awful in flip, but is still pretty bad in no-flip too; it makes the priest in particular pretty degenerate.

There are tons of voting mechanic variations, but a weird thing I see sometimes is "scum votes double-blind, only kill if they agree." I dislike this a lot, because it harshly inhibits newbie, weak scum teams.  This warps win-rates a lot (new players can't kill at all, advanced players kill just fine--impossible to balance around), artificially encourages bussing newbies to an uncomfortable extreme, and almost always devolves at high level play to scum killing via a preset list rather than in response to the state of the game. (Which is just boring!)

because we didn't allow night-time Werewolf communication, so they only killed if more than one wolf attacked the same person... otherwise it showed up the next day as an injury, which went away in time for the next night. Mostly we looked at patterns of injuries as an indicator, plus any claimed PRs.

Yeah, that!

Though injuries are a more interesting take on it.  Even more punishing to newbie scum, but allows plenty of room for bluffing and wine.

WitchHunt has some of that vibe in that all our survivals are ambiguous-but-explicit. ("SpaceAnemone survived a kill last night.") There's a lot of reasons we do that, though it's rather heavily pro-town in a vacuum.

Oh, and being alive at the end was part of everyone's stated wincon, which also altered the game a lot.

Oh wow, that's a completely different game honestly.  Very political!

A lot of traditional mafia perspectives/strategies degenerate in such a political setting.  Like, cop should probably never claim ever, unless to win the game that turn?  It also heavily discourages bussing, and introduces SUPER obnoxious kingmaker among the scum team to not just out each other.  Gross!

2
Forum Games / Re: WitchHunt - Polling for Interest (Mafia, Open)
« on: April 24, 2017, 02:00:27 am »
Meta-talk time!

So there's two really interesting divides separating mafia communities: Online vs. IRL, and Flip vs. No-Flip.  In both cases players tend to have a heavy bias towards whichever side there were first given a deep introduction to, and players who haven't been exposed to much of the opposite side at all often go so far as to express bewilderment that the other side even exists: "How do people even play that way?"


Many online players with little or no IRL experience see IRL play as some sort of silly party game where everyone decides kills for giggles, and regard it as pointless without vote tracking and a fully public record. "It might as well be random."

Many IRL players with little or no online experience see online play as this pointless exercise devoid of body language, facial reads, and the animated half of argumentation, where determining lies is fundamentally impossible. "It might as well be random."

Obviously both assumptions are ridiculous and demonstrably false, and anyone who feels a compulsion to leap forward and defend their personal preference as the One True Way can be safely ignored.


The same is true for Flip vs. No-Flip.  I was introduced to mafia in a No-Flip context over a decade ago, and for about a year tried to insist that No-Flip was objectively superior.  I eventually had to admit that both have significant pros and cons, and high quality games can absolutely be run in either.

Flip games tend to be more newbie friendly, with their fast and clear feedback loop.  They tend to encourage "shallow" bussing; it's harder to get away with never voting for fellow scum, forcing new players to be at least a little dynamic.  Flip Games also ensure a very steady source of information to fuel daily discussion, and ensures rising tension as town misses and draws closer to certain loss.

No-Flip games have more paranoia, and more (or at least more diverse) game-states to consider at any given time.  While they are more forgiving of greedy "crappy" scum play, they are also more rewarding of longer-term conspiracies: Scum can construct more elaborate narratives and alternate histories, particularly when early bussing scum and setting them up as a martyr.  No-Flip games tend to limit town's ability to play very well or perfectly, by always allowing consideration of universes where their assumptions are wrong.  Additionally, it's a bit harder to play cop in a No-Flip game (and easier to fake-claim cop), in a way I think it probably healthy.

Ultimately, I stuck with No-Flip over the years primarily because it afforded a broader design space for town info.  There's a limit to how much hard data you can give town before the game is solvable (or just really skewed), and Flip is a very large expenditure within that power budget.  No-Flip lets us distribute that amount of town-power in a bunch of other smaller ways, more directly tied to individual player agency.


In terms of meta, all I'll say is that new players who have played exclusively Flip games previously tend to overvalue the Gravedigger (in terms of value to town and as a scum target) to a pretty extreme degree, which can lead to interesting clashes if there are experienced players in the group who, well, have a different perspective.

3
Forum Games / WitchHunt - Polling for Interest (Mafia, Open)
« on: April 19, 2017, 02:25:00 pm »
Intro - Dominion is probably my favorite "board game", and I was a long-time lurker on f.ds since literally before the Dark Ages. (I think Alchemy had just come out when I started reading?) I don't play much online because I miss isotropic too much, but this place has always had a brilliant community I love reading articles from.  I was teaching some new players the ropes recently, and found myself lost in the wiki and forum posts like the old days.

I felt an urge to contribute myself, but anything clever I have to add about Dominion has already been said better by someone else.  Then I noticed that lots of people had mafia quotes or results in their signatures, and got an idea.

So, I enjoyed a lot of random mafia games growing up, and just shy of 10 years ago I started running a personal variant deemed "WitchHunt." I kept iterating on it and well, here we are.

tl;dr:
  • Fully Open setup
  • 7-25+ players
  • Unique role for each player, bifurcated from team alignment
  • Dead players participate - A collective night action for dead players on each team
  • Strictly two teams - No Kingmaker, Recruitment, ect.
  • No Flip
  • Explicit but Ambiguous Survivals (Last night, theory somehow survived.)
  • Mod-supported/enforced soft-hammers ("deadline votes" standard)

There's a variety of other design goals (improving day 1, universal player agency, clear scum target prioritization, avoiding game end at night rather than lynch) that I could go on and on about, but you get the gist.

I'd copypasta the rules/roles here, but Laura's art is really good so hey: just check out the Official Rules Page with all the pretty pictures.  All the cards + rulebook are there, even an ugly moderator app.


At the risk of making an outrageously arrogant claim, I'm relatively confident that this is the "best" mafia/werewolf/whatever setup. (Shoutouts to The Resistance, which is also excellent but scales better down instead of up.)


IRL game at GDC 2016.

At this point I've probably personally ran about 2000 games; some online, some IRL. (There are no mechanics employed that inhibit either, such as reaction-based decisions for online or private day actions for IRL.) I run about 100 every GenCon in the middle of the deduction alley hallway. It's made to be played a lot. (At the atomic level, much of the design is akin to competitive fighting games.) A number of people in the main STL test group played 500+ IRL games, and a few guys from the old Sirlin.net community played a couple dozen forum-based ones.


These guys. They played... a lot.

We've been through over 360 roles, and let me tell you, there were some bad ones.  I kept a spreadsheet of everything that was tried, so there's a lot of Secret History to be had.


Picture of cumulative prototype decks circa 2015.

At the demands of my friends I ran a successful Kickstarter two years ago, and the game got picked up for publishing by Level99. So now I'll be walking around and see my random mafia setup on the shelf at a game store, or on Amazon or BGG, and it's weird. I never thought I'd make a published "board game", but apparently it just happens. (I could hotlink all those proper nouns, but I don't want to be That Guy.)


Actual Real Objects That Exist™.
See, it's shrink-wrapped, so you know it's good.



Anyway, that's the story.  I haven't hosted a forum-based instance of the game in 2-3 years, because maaan, it's a lot of time to do properly! (I like giving a QT to every player.) When I could go to a convention and run 50 IRL games in less time, the calculus seems wonky, you know?

But I have gotten a lot of personal enjoyment from this community even just from lurking, and you guys seem like one of the more skilled mafia sub-communities I have seen.  So screw it; I'm game to run one for old time's sake, if people are interested.

Cheers!

4
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion Fan Card Contest
« on: October 28, 2011, 08:38:48 am »
I'll stand up and say I STILL think it's situational, and sorta weak. I mean, if villages don't fit into my strategy, I'm really wasting a lot of tempo to buy this, so I probably really won't have that lead to try to end the game with.

I mean... the same applies to (most) villages in general.  The utility of extra actions itself is naturally situation, you have to need it and build around it.  Buying a $4 card you don't want for the bonus it has is not going to put you in the lead very often, no.  I think that's in line with expectations.

At the end of the day for general purpose, that's what it is: a Village with a bonus.  The card archetype is pretty well establish and not unusual.  As far as general utility goes, think of it as a Worker's Village alternative.

As for being situation, I'm still not entirely sure we're on the same page.  Riot-rush is a pretty consistent strategy that wins in a respectable number of turns, enough to consistently beat Big Money and many common mono-card strategies.  Most boards will have a counter or three, but having rock doesn't nullify scissors into being a non-factor.  It just means that people have to consider rock.

Like, if I open Village Riot, it's not uncommon for someone to respond with say Bishop on a board where Bishop might not otherwise be their first choice.  That's interesting!

Having said that, the reason I really don't like the card is that it's most-of-the-time ineffectual, and when it is useful, it degenerates the game in a way. I mean, with remodel and salvager and apprentice, you're really paying a price to get that tempo. With this, you can do it at will.

Your comparisons with the listed cards make me think you are fixated on the Province depletion, which is sort of a red herring--just the minimum utility it brings to all decks: the power to "hammer" in a win.  The $1 "bonus" you get with your Village.

It's similar to how the ability to trash the card with something like chapel for 2VP is a really tiny, token advantage.  Like okay, that's cute and all (I once saw it win a close game that otherwise tied on Provinces) but it's not the central function of the card--just a novel way of using it.

If you were talking about Riot-rush being degenerate, I understand the worry as it was indeed a major design concern.  Rushing strategies and mechanics that enable them are by nature prone to minimal gameplay.  While shorter games will always have potentially fewer decision points, the two really key decisions at work (how many Village Riots to buy, how soon to trash Duchies) do vary non-trivially in response to both the board and player decisions.  A couple playtesters were quite bad at playing the strategy, because they struggled with these choices.  Others, like the guy I ran into, were quite good at it.  I think if you play with it you will find the Rush strategy entertaining, magnitudes less algorithmic than something like Gardens+Workshop.

Edit:
Ah okay, I didn't really think of the power of trashing other village riots from the supply. That's interesting then. I do wonder though whether the card is too dangerous, since it's not altogether obvious to any of us here what the card is for.

Well, I think that guy is a little biased.  He was the one who discovered the full extent that Warehouse synergizes with it, so he had a pretty memorable impression of the potential power level. 

5
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion Fan Card Contest
« on: October 27, 2011, 10:41:58 pm »
I just saw a playtester, and told him some other players found Village Riot to be "weak and situational".

Quote
Wait... You mean the unstoppable demon machine?

Not the words I would have used, but pretty funny.

6
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion Fan Card Contest
« on: October 27, 2011, 05:26:17 pm »
So wait, your primary concern was making sure your card wasn't worse than Fishing Village--the same Fishing Village that is used in winning decks more frequently than any other card? :P

7
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion Fan Card Contest
« on: October 27, 2011, 04:34:32 pm »
And responses!

First, thanks for everyone who spent the time to write up reviews, of all the card.  It's a non-trivial amount of work!

Ceres (Village Riot): Speeds up the game if you have the right cards, and could be turned into an endgame 2 VP (net) if you decide to get rid of it. Didn't hate it, didn't quite love it enough.

Ceres:
I liked this one too. It's basically a pure stack depleter. But it seems too specific to certain situations.

Normally I'm not a fan of supply-trashers, but here it's interesting that you have to have a copy of it in your hand in order to do it.  That suggests you'd tend to use it when you're rushing a pile, because you're more likely to have copies in your hand and, therefore, more likely to want to deprive your opponents of them.  Still, I think this would be an extremely situational thing to want to do, and I'm not sure I understand the synergy between the supply-trashing, the village piece, and the on-trash piece.

Ceres - Thought it was a nice take on the "end game accelerant for $4". I don't know how often you'd use the trashing clause though. 2 dead cards is a lot for a net gain of 2 vp. Seems a tad weak, but I still like it a lot.

I like this a lot and I think I voted for it. I like the idea of a "spiteful" card, where you depleting a pile of a useful card. It could be used, for example to ruin a Gardens deck. It's a way to fight certain card hoarding, while you could - perhaps - pursue another strategy. The trick is, of course, how many do you buy of the card you with to spite? I voted for this one, because I thought it was interesting. I don't think the card's tactics could work effectively (but perhaps it could, I'd need to test it), but it would be fun to try. I had a similar card in mind at one point and might revisit this concept at another time.

The overall feedback was pretty straight forward: "Depleting piles is weak and situational, regardless of how novel it is."

Man, my playtesters are gonna crack up when I tell them this.

So, I've played/watched about 80 games with this card, with the majority of other standard cards.  Long story short, this card is really powerful!  As the secret history mentioned, the card actually got nerfed beyond it's listed entry for being too powerful, but I submitted the pre-changed text because I figured it was more elegant and no one would be able to tell.  Heh, irony.

So, what does this card do?  Hint: It's not really about depleting random piles to prevent people from getting stuff, any more than Chapel is really about trashing Curses.

When two people play who haven't seen the card, they largely ignore it (with sentiments like you guys expressed) besides just fitting it into their engine.  Then in the end game someone realizes there are 3 Provinces left and they can burn 2, buy 1 this turn.  So the game suddenly ends, and both players are like "whoa".

And man, this still isn't the real point of the card.  That's just the generic value it brings to any deck, terminal end-game control.

Then the first time people play against someone who actually knows the card, they again ignore it and then just get destroyed when their opponent rushes 5, depletes the others for 10 VP, finishes the Duchies (Estates died ages ago) and wins the game turn 13 score 16-3.  Sometimes the victim panics and tries to buy Duchies or the remaining Villages, but this only seals the deal.  They are just blown away, they can't believe it happened.

So then they try cursing attacks... and the Riot deck wins even more!  It just depletes all the Curses instead of Estates, sometimes speeding up more than it slows down.  At this point some think the card is just way too good.

So they try other stuff against it.  Obviously really crazy fast+powerful strategies beat it, those god-tier combos.  Gardens and Island beat it, and can use Village Riot to their own ends.  Ghost Ship beats it most the time.

Then they start trying weird cards against it, and the Riot strategy just chokes and falls apart.  A wide array of misfit cards crush attempts to Riot-rush, Saboteur being the undisputed king.

So now you've got this end-game accelerator that creates a large number of counter-based scenarios.  While the card itself is a big one-player advantage due to its speed, the counters it creates are a huge 2-player counter-advantage. (Especially since Riot-rush pretty much demands using your opening; it can't wait.)

The good news too is that Riot-rush is actually really fun to play, way more than most single-card strategies.  Knowing whether to buy/trash 4/5/6 and how many Duchys to trash are really key decisions that must be made correctly!  Select cards like Warehouse, Baron, Workshop, Ironworks, Great Hall, or others can also amplify it moderately. (Less than you might think, but some! Enough to re-evaluate your planned counter.)

Simply put, I submitted this card for a reason--the same reason we've played with the card so much: it's really powerful, totally shakes up boards, is really flexible. (It has a really potent focused strategy and yet general value to every deck via Province trashing option.)

Ironically, this "path of discovery" that makes this card so good made it a pretty awful choice for an at-a-glance contest.  Oops, my bad.

Anyway, props again to Davio for doing this!
   
Edit:
This was a great read.  My interest is piqued, even though I still can't quite envision it playing on a generic board.

Just to be clear, the core Riot-rush algorithm is really basic: Buy 5 Village Riots ASAP, with Silver when you have to.  Trash Supply Estates as you do this.  Once you have 5 Village Riots, trash the Remaining Village Riots.  Then/otherwise buy/trash Duchies.  Hey look, the game is over and I won!

Edit 2:
Oh yeah, funny story that's worth a laugh.  So in one playtest game, one guy starts a Riot-rush and his savvy opponent immediately committed some counter-strategy, rushing early VP faster than the Riot deck could match.

...so... the Riot-rush guy gets up to 5 Village Riots, shrugs, and uses them to build a typical draw engine for buying Provinces.  Trollolololol...

8
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion Fan Card Contest
« on: October 27, 2011, 03:49:32 pm »
Code: [Select]
Village Riot: Action, $4
+1 Card
+2 Actions
Reveal a card from your hand.  Trash a copy of it from the Supply.
----------
When you trash this, gain a Duchy and a Curse.

Secret History

Since this card is all about brevity, I'm going to be ironic and try to write an entire secret history for a single card.  The good news is that this card does have a history, since it's been playtested a lot and given a ton of attention.

I wanted to make a card that trashed stuff from the Supply, to have fun implications with the termination conditions.  After all, a lot of the value various Dominion cards have varies based on how long the game lasts (just look at Colony) so a general-purpose card that potentially shortens the game sounded very interesting.

The top half the of card has never changed, and initially that's all there was to the card.  This quickly proved to be too weak and too niche.  It's pointless to invest in game termination control if you don't have an early VP lead, so the card was only attractive on boards featuring such tools. (Village Riot heavy decks could normally end piles on turn 13-15.) In fact, the only single-card combo that was able to consistently beat big money in early playtesting was Baron.

I wanted this to remain a $4 Village for sure, which drastically narrowed options for improvement.  For example, it can't generate VP tokens, and it can't have any serious economic power without obtuse conditionals.  So it needs to somehow allow you to get early VP by itself, at an appropriate power level.  Basically, the card needs to be at some limited level a self-sufficent strategy.

Thus began the long development of the mono-Riot deck.

The first train of thought was making the card worth one VP.  This was never seriously tested because it made no sense: "This is a riot, all about destroying stuff!" The problem with this route is that the early game advantage is moot, since other players can trivially grab them in their deck regardless of your shenanigans.

A $4 1VP Village is still a cool idea though.  Someone go get on that.

So the first *real* train of thought was a VP benefit for trashing itself--get a big riot going, make a big mess of the Supply, and get some VP.  Boom, there's your strategy.  We tried handing out Estates, and it was the worst thing ever.  Pitifully weak/slow, and it felt so redundant because half the time you are trashing Estates anyway; it clashed with itself.

Obviously we moved on to Duchies, suspecting it would be way too good.  Surprise: It was!  Simple riot decks just ran over everything, consistently hitting ~16-20 VP on turn 13/14.  Sure, lots of combos can beat that, but this is still too good for a *single card*.  Furthermore, the first-player advantage proved to be pretty big--not enough to be a fundamental problem, but enough to require a more exact balance target than usual.  The good news was, playing the deck was fun and had some non-trivial optimization decisions--so we're on the right path.

I thought a Duchy+Curse would be a clever solution: 2 VP, double the deck clogging!  This moderated the mono-deck slightly (poor decisions were more harshly punished), but it was still a serious threat.  It could consistantly beat BMU and was doing well against simple stuff like Smithy.  Strong cursing attacks actually lost to it consistently in testing! (The Riot deck could just deplete the Curses extra fast in place of Estates, and then end the game even sooner--sometimes with even more VP!) Cards that could beat the deck were an odd bunch.  Saboteur just destroyed it over and over, which was hilarious.  Bureaucrat always did well.  Ghost Ship won more than it lost, I think.  Cutpurse went 50-50 or so.  Bishop and Island were good, and Council Room did okay.  Duchy rush sometimes worked, and sometimes sealed one's doom.  Once in a blue moon the Village Riot player would face some non-sustainable early strategy meant to head him off, and just go build a normal engine with his Villages instead.

Now we're getting somewhere, but I wasn't comfortable with a Village being this dominant.  I kept thinking of Bureaucrat, and how it beat the deck by slowing it down.  The big problem with this deck was the one two-punch of getting 5 Villages Riots by turn 9 and then having lucky runaway turns where you play a bunch of them and get a 6+ VP swing as you end the game.  So maybe we need to slow the card down naturally?

Thus for awhile the card had an extra "putting your choice of the two on top of your deck." added to slow it down.  It moderated the deck slightly, but some of the testers complained.  Maybe it wasn't so bad as a potent strategy.  After all, it is sort of fun to play, certainly more-so than most rush strategies.  The final decision point for me was reverting to the simple version and playing some games against Monument--the Monument chips made the exact difference between winning and losing.  I figured hey, how perfect can you get.

So that's that.  At least, for mono-Riot.

But you can also use the card as a catalyst for an existing early strategy, like Gardens, Baron, Bishop, or what-not.  You can also use it in a competing deck to sabotage these strategies, although this is dangerous. (Trash Duchies from the Supply to cut off a Duke strat.)

And of course the elephant in the room is that the card's primary purpose is to trash Provinces or Colonies when you are ahead.  This is both really fun to do and really devestating, but there really isn't much to say about it.  It just is what it is, and the card did it from day 1.  How was the card considered weak then?  The catch is that buying a $4 basic Village is not generally condusive to getting significantly ahead, unlike say Salvager.  It feels super powerful, but it doesn't actually change the outcome in a high number of games.

Oh yeah.  You can also use it to play 2 terminal actions.  Huh, look at that.

9
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion Fan Card Contest
« on: October 27, 2011, 03:43:24 pm »
Time for the obligatory text-dump.  Then I'll post a "secret-history".


Aphrodite
---------
So it's a Monument bank, with a crazy cost and wacky type-changing mechanics.  This card feels like a trap; "Man, if I get a lot of these $9 card, golly--you are in for it now!" This card is too slow for Colony games, much less normal ones.

Bacchus
-------
So uh, this applies during Cleanup (whether intended or not), so it's basically "skip a turn, get 5 VP."  Which is simultaneously incredibly lame and overpowered.

Let's assume it doesn't work that way.  So this card does nothing on boards without a draw engine?  And it makes cantrips kinda sort terrible?  And it's terminality clashes sharply with everything you would ever want to play it with?  This just doesn't work like anyone wants it to.

Ceres
-----
What a curious, attractive, and obviously well-tested card.

Demeter
-------
I've done a lot of testing with alternative Victory Point stuff, and I can tell you immediately that this is way too exponential, way too fast.  All competing strategies can't compete with this; I buy 6 of these with 10 Curses and hey that's 110 VP.  4 with 6 curses is already 42 VP.  That's 4 $6 cards, matching 7 Provinces.  All other victory conditions are made obsolete.

It's a good design in isolation but way too good as currently formulated.  I also dislike how exclusionary it is to all other strategies; even Fool's Gold tolerates other cards way more than this.

Playtest!

Epona
-----
Simple enough.  A flexible opening--Village greatest hits?  I was going to say it's interesting, except it isn't.  But that's okay!  Contrary to popular belief, the point of cards is not to be interesting, but to make Dominion a fun game.  This Village, like Pawn, contributes modestly to that. 

It might be best to think of this card as an alternative, mostly superior Silver.  I bet it would be bought by winning decks at a rate even higher than Fishing village.  I'm a tad worried that such a flexible, potent Village would have a negative impact on the Action economy.

Fortuna
-------
Targetted attack, super political, requires all Treasure playing to be one-at-a-time with awkward mindgame consequences.  This sort of gameplay might be interesting in a 2-player game built entirely around it, but it's totally foreign to Dominion.

Did I mention it's a targetted attack?  Do not pass Go, ect.

Glycon
------
Okay so, I like the idea a lot, but man.  While I haven't playtested it, this just seems like it would be absurd.  Market for $2?  Market might be the single card that would be most broken at $2; an economic cantrip with +Buy?  Never hurts in any quantity and enables bulk buying of 2s.

So every game people buy as many of these as they dare, and then wait to see who takes a leak in the punch bowl.  In a 2 player game, I don't know if I see this happening?  You buy 4, maybe 5 or 6 if they are uncontested, and neither side has much incentive to invest in hurting you both equally.  So we're all just playing this game with bonus Markets.  Hm.

It's pretty political in 3-4 player, or at least can be in a non-trivial number of games.

You could word it like an inverted City to clean it up, maybe.  Is discard a card at 1 empty pile really needed?  Also, how much does it hurt the card if you take away the +Buy so it doesn't feed itself in a really demanding way?  I mean, cantrip +$1 for $2 is still biscuits and gravy.

As it stands, this makes 2/5 really strong.  I'd buy this at $3 for sure.

There's a really good design going on here, but I think it's facing some non-trivial development hurdles.

Hermes
------
I have two reactions to this. "This is interesting." and "Oh God no, please no." Like, has this been playtested?  I can't imagine it being fun, in 80% of games you are just going to have this obnoxious lame duck phase tacked on.

Iris
----
Why isn't this an Attack?  This is a really, really obnoxious card with Minion.  It's basically a better Militia for $3...  Obnoxious opening implicaitons.  The fact that it can hit you is odd since it normally won't apply, and when it does it will often be trivial?

Jupiter
-------
Basic, elegant, and almost cute.  Dual-purpose modest trasher and basic village, at a fair price.  It's one of the best Villages as it stands, but maybe that's okay? 

I do have one gripe though.  Non-terminal trashing, especially early, is a non-decision.  Normally the pursuit of trashing has certain implications, both buying the trasher and playing it has an opportunity cost and thus they add interesting decisions to the game. (Upgrade achieves smilar by being a different kind of trasher, and being a powerful expensive card competiting with other powerful expensive cards.) This card bypasses most trashing decision-making.

Why not "when you gain this"?  It makes the card marginally stronger, but who cares.  It allows cute combos and I see no reason not to.

Kratos
------
Whoa!  Now I like crazy and bold, but this might be crossing the line.  It's cute with trashers and dangerously powerful with drawers, but attacks are where this really gets in trouble.  Like, just look at Witch, Torturer, or something cheap like Masquerade.  Abolishing the Action economy is just too significant here, way too many boards are going to degenerate.  It's very centralizing, like a certain other $7--but King's Court gets away with it because it's less consistent and thus takes a little longer to hit critical mass.

I feel like this card should get some alternate award, like "Most Crazy".  It made me think pretty hard about the implications, more than any other!

Luna
----
Interesting.  Modestly powerful but mostly end-game; seemingly cost well.  The only hang-up is that a lot of the decision making it creates isn't really compelling; discard something I'd like to play, for an economically decent reward?  Compare that to Salvager, where the stakes are way higher and the decisions are thus more awesome.  Helping the winners win more (even more than most cards) is also kinda annoying.  Still, good.

Minerva
-------
This is good but I feel I'd want to playtest it.  I'm worried about the end-game power, but appreciate that the set-aside mechanic is covering the crazy cases.  It's just so powerful late game, in spite of being decent early game.

It's slightly unclear, as worded, if "otherwise gain as Estate" refers to not electing to set aside a Victory card, setting aside one that isn't an Estate/Duchy/Province, or both.

Nox
---
Let's see...  Targetted, political attack?  Anti-fun mechanic?  Really nasty implications with Gold?  Your own attack hits you twice?  Really silly degenerate cases involving Copper?  I elect to Nox Nox, forever.

This is why we playtest things!

Osiris
------
So this is really interesting, but a big concern; getting into an Osiris war is an indefinite game state.  So red flags go up before I can even start to analyze this.  Why not trash it, why does it have to go back to the Supply?

As a $0 no-benefit terminal, this is kinda uninspiring.  Why not make it $2-4 and give it a modest benefit, so people get at least somewhat excited about it and start fighting over it?

Pluto
-----
I like this, but suspect it isn't very good as stands.  "Lab for everyone" is not something I'd ever pay for, sans Militia/Ghost Ship/Possession shenanigans.  The option to give everyone a Lab to give yourself a Village is pretty dubious, but I guess it can't hurt.

This could cost $2 and it'd be fine; still weak and usually unattractive, actually.  I like the premise and it's elegant as stands, but it needs to offer some more concrete relative benefit.

Quirinus
--------
Super Thief!  Problem is, I don't like Thief.  This card is less dubious--it clogs your enemy's deck rather than thin it.  But uh, how fun is that?  Thief games are, for all their faults, wet and wild, willy and wacky.  Everyone's deck is thinned of Copper, and you start throwing good Treasures around!  Here everyone just sits around with their increasingly bloated Copper decks.  Since Quirinus is afforable with Copper-based decks, and the money it provides is a small defense against itself, so hey guess what everyone is gonna be buying more of.  This just doesn't sound fun, regardless of the card's power level.

Roma
----
So we've got a big set of effects that I don't really care about.
-Discard a victory card, okay great, but gain a cheaper Victory card?  On top of my deck?  Ew.  And I have to do this?
-Discard an action, ew.  Why would I want to do that?  Actions are for having fun!  Playing a $5 card to discard an action you don't want to gain a Silver is not exciting.
-Discard a Treasure, alright I better get something awesome.  Curse attack?  Wait, Witch does this except you get +2 Cards; here I have to discard a treasure?  Weak!
-Discard a curse to draw +1 Card and give out Coppers?  Again, how is this not a terrible version of Witch?

The effects aren't fun and the cost is way off.  I wouldn't buy this card as written at $4.

Sol
---
Uh, what.  This is silly nonsense; an arms race that leaves us back where we started, but with terrible un-fun decks?  A bonus point for comedy at least.

Terra
-----
Fun alternate draw engine.  Problem is, you normally need a surprisingly high critical mass of them to work; 1 out of 3 cards?  I mean, to chain you need 2 in your 6 cards.  And unlike traditional raw drawing power, the cards you are cycling are going back into the draw source as you reshuffle, so it's diluted.  I'd want to playtest this to see just how much slower mid-game it is than Lab.

It's also crazy with TR (and KC) in a fun way Minion could only dream of.  Really attack resistant, really trasher dependant.  Loves Cellar, Warehouse, SC/Vault, I think I'm starting to warm up to this card, its presence on a board is interesting--even if it's not as cool or elegant as Menagerie... none of these cards are!

Of these cards, the only ones that I could really justify voting for were Epona, Luna, Terra, and Jupiter--the rest either had some cardinal sin, too narrow of a scope, or had some development concerns (and named Glycon).  I think I put Jupiter in honorable mention due to the lack of gameplay it brought to the table, Epona in 3rd for being too centralizing, Luna in 2nd by default, and Terra in 1st because it creates more gameplay than Luna.

Time to talk about my card!

10
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion Fan Card Contest
« on: October 21, 2011, 07:35:29 pm »
Masked names is the more professional choice and a pretty sound call.  It does have real implications of course, but what can you do eh. (Would you consider Hinterland's Jack-of-all-Trades the same without its name?  I don't think I would.)

There's some other questions to consider as well.  If we had never heard of Chapel, and it was on this list, would we correctly identify its value to the game?  Half of us would probably veto it for being useless without curse attacks, and the other half would veto it as grossly undercost. 

What about Gardens?  Watchtower?  Monument?  Outpost?  Fool's Gold, Crossroads, Trader, Tunnel?  I personally enjoy Possession, but if I saw it on this list I'd probably give it last place without a second thought.  If someone tried submitting Tournament, we'd probably laugh them out of town.

All of these cards are of course fantastic, some even the best of what Dominion has to offer.  However, we have only become familiar with the gameplay, variety, and strategy they add to the game through experience.

It's just something to ponder.  Don't let me rain on any parades.

11
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Create a card inspired by another game
« on: October 21, 2011, 01:12:12 pm »
Outbreak (Action, $6)
+4 Diseases
This game is now cooperative.

12
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Conquest - the 4s
« on: October 01, 2011, 09:58:30 pm »
But I LIKE treasures! One of the things I don't like about now is that there are so many games where very action-heavy strategies are really good. This gives slight help to the money, and it's only really slight. Honestly, you have to do a LOT of work even in BM to make this better than a 4-cost duchy.

But Treasures are static, regardless of how much they can be enjoyed; there is only really one Big Money, with very minor deviations. (Compared to action decks, which there are several archtypes with several major variations.) All this card does is make BM stronger--this is bad not because Treasures or BM is bad/dumb/evil or any nonsense like that, but because it doesn't actually add much of anything to the design space.

It's not strictly better because it costs 4 instead of 3. This is not a problem at all.

Wow, major brain fart.  This is why I get for attempting logical analysis at 5am.  Apologies!

Yeah, 5 is too much. But I'm a little worried it's a little too good for 4, 'cause its lesser card advantage amounts to you playing non-cursing witch and then a non-cursing young witch after... well, that warehouse effect can be pretty strong, especially with 8 cards in your hand to choose the 2 least important from.

Well it's weak card advantage and a gimped Warehouse in one.  The catch is that Warehouse is only a good card because of its non-terminality--"shifting" on a terminal is not very desirable.  I think you will be in the ballpark on this one.

I don't have much explanation for you. I wanted another reaction-to-discard, and this is what I came up with.

Why?

Consider me still super skeptical that this is a beneficial mechanic we want in the game--I am very suspicious that this is a case of novelty for the sake of novelty.

Yes, it has to cost 4. I mean, it's honestly going to usually be better than bureaucrat, I think, and that costs 4. And while it would kill your turns 3/4 to open double this... by your third reshuffle, you have tremendous staying power and have caught up all that tempo. Would it be broken powerful? Not usually, I guess, but it just doesn't feel like a 3.

You have only "caught up" if the Silver/Silver start didn't buy any $5s or $6s on the second cycle. (They have almost a half chance of getting a $6!) In many cases, the Silver/Silver opening starts the 4th cycle at the advantage.

And that's just comparing straight BMU.  +Silver is actually not good for an engine deck, slowing them down considerably. (theory had that good article on this, covering it in detail) And no matter how you slice it Silver is just plain undesirable in Colony games.

You compare it to Bureaucrat, but that's an attack!  And attacks are really good!  Bureaucrat isn't a very potent attack, but it's still non-trivial and the attack half of the card is much, much more significant than the piddly "gain a silver for your next turn" half.

I think you're drastically underrating copper. Copper is often a good card to have, actually. Okay, almost never great, but at the same time, this isn't helping the guy playing it. Maybe this is a little too strong, but I doubt by much. Copper is such less cloggy than estates. Of course, I might be the biggest connoisseur for copper there is - just look at my council room page, I have effect with of 5.33! At any rate, I find it a little harder to believe that this is stronger than sea hag. So you haven't convinced me yet.

I mean, unless it's a Gardens/Duke game or there's Counting House running amok, Copper is *always* a step away from your goal.

You say "Oh, well this doesn't help you, so it's not that good." This would be completely correct, if it were a terminal.  But as a cantrip, all the rules change.  If you pay an Action and get nothing, that's a setback.  If you pay nothing and get nothing, who cares?  You can do it as much as you want with no cost.

BRB playing 5 Familiars.

Sea Hag is the most powerful $4, but there's several reasons why it is okay at a "cheap" price.  First, it's terminal.  Second, it gives no advantage. (Which again, matters when it costs you your sole Action.) Third, it's damage does *not* scale linearly.  If you buy a bunch of Sea Hags and somehow *do* manage to play all of them at once, sure they get 3 Curses but only 1 card lost from their next hand.

Despite all of these checks, some people would *still* have a reasonable argument against Sea Hag as a $4 card. (I don't know how much of it I'd agree with, but the argument could be made.)  Then you've got this card, which has zero of those checks on Sea Hag.

Like seriously, for a fair perspective forget about Sea Hag--comparing non-terminals to terminals is almost always pointless.  Compare it to Spy, and you can really see how it's a magnitude beyond appropriate.  This just not something the game can allow in a spammable format.

Definitely too strong, as others have already said.  It might even be a $6 card.

Yeah, I'd buy this all day at $5 on a lot of boards.  Any Colony game with this (and no Gardens or such) would be so obnoxious...

But that loses all the fun, while also letting you play dual-type victories for both benefits, which isn't something I want you to be able to do. I love the mine/mint interactions, and I don't think they're THAT strong, really. It's good with scout, which I love because scout is dreadful, but as is, it's not really great with great hall or nobles and no benefit at all for harem. And to actually play this with any of the other actions, you need some kind of village. So mostly it just takes an action and makes your pure-greens silver, and I guess your mixed ones too if you want.

No, that loses the token novelty.  Guys like us who spend free type typing paragraphs about hypothetical Dominion cards on message boards, sure--we Johnnies love us some novelty.  But that doesn't automatically make something good.

The Mine case is quite strong yeah.  The Mint case is almost definitely too strong, it's an absurdly powerful combo that is only held in check by the Village requirement.  It even trashes your Estates and Coppers to make the combo easy!

I think hybrid Victory cards should definitely count, simply on grounds that it's sort of confusing and maybe counter-intuitive otherwise.

I like the Scout interaction too, but it's easy to get distracted and compromise broader quality for isolated cases--the job of this card should be to be a good card, not redeem Scout or Transmute.  Obscure card type interactions combos that are actually interesting make up <20% of boards.

In addition to these Mint cases we should be wanting to avoid and the Scout ones we'd like to have, we have a bunch of pseudo-trivial interactions like Farming Village and (Ad)Venture.  These interactions aren't really cool, interesting, bad, desirable, or undesirable in any way outside of token novelty.  All they really are is a minor pain to remember--oh right, when I play these cards, I have to go check if I played an Agriculture yet or not so I can resolve it properly.  It's just a forgettable annoyance.

And of course we've got the Thief/Pirate Ship specter that we *have* to kill, taking with it funky stuff like Tribute and Rabble.

At the end of the day, dynamic type-changing simply turns out to be more bad than good.  Maybe next time, Scout.

I'm pretty sure it's a terrible opening. But okay, 2 and an action for a gold, is that really that bad a deal? I mean, it's not great, but I think it's possible.

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm confident it's a bad opening and a viable card. (Like Mint! Ha!) I just suspect it might be boring and not add much to the game?  I'd want to playtest it not for power concerns, but to see how it interacts with various boards and impacts/creates strategies.

13
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Conquest - the 4s
« on: October 01, 2011, 06:22:03 am »
4 is perhaps my favourite cost to design for, so at least to a certain extent, this is the heart of the set. Anyway, here are the first few:

I hesitate to say something that might be construed as "your perspective is wrong", but I'm gonna interject a note on viewing costs in general.

In my mind, there are 2 categories of cards in Dominion: weak cards and strong cards. (Maybe there is also "junk", a third level below weak.)  Weak cards cost 2, 3, or 4; strong cards cost 5, 6, or 7.  There is almost no difference between 2/3/4, nor 5/6/7.  There is a canyon between the two categories--the grand canyon, filled with lava.

Costing a card at 5, 6, or 7 is mostly just a matter of "How early do we want people to be able to purchase this?" so that's easy.  Costing a card at 2, 3, or 4 is a function of how beneficial the card is when spammed, whether or not we want to permit it as a double opening, and if we want to allow purchase as part of a 5/2. 

Chapel and Lighthouse are really powerful weak cards but they cost $2 because there is no reason for them not to.  Then you've got stuff like Treasure Map which has to cost 4 because allowing a double-TM opening defeats the point no matter how you balanced the reward.  Then you've got say Lab which is a really powerful strong card, but it's okay at $5 because getting it early isn't a concern.  Meanwhile on most boards Forge isn't that amazing compared to other strong cards, but it has to be $7 because it can't be freely allowed into the game that fast.

I'm probably preaching to the choir here, since the pope has said all of this before.  The point of this long-winded preface is that I won't be looking at these as "the heart of the set", or meat-and-potatoes.  I'm going to be looking at these as just weak cards that for some reason can't be $3. (or $2)

Depository
Victory         4
Worth 1 VP for every 5 treasures in your deck (round down)

So 10 seconds ago I thought this was a fantastic idea, 5 seconds ago I thought it was actually a bit lame, and now I hate it.  This is an alarming subjective trend.

Here's the problem: This is very similar to Gardens/Vinevards, except that Gardens/Vineyards is fun.  Gardens/Vineyards has the impact it does because making a cool and fun Gardens/Vineyards deck is how you feed it.  Your buying engine Woodcutters and Workshops, your game-ending Estates and Great Halls, your token 3rd-pile Havens and Pawns, all that fun stuff counts.  These factors and their flexibility are what ultimately makes these alternate victory cards soooo cool.

But then here well, all there is to it is "maybe get +buys for coppers" and "be biased in favor of Big Money."  Yawn.  At the end of the day... Actions are fun, Treasures are lame.

Regent
Action         4
+$2
Name a card. Reveal cards from the top of your deck until you reveal the named card. Put that card back on top and discard the rest.

Donald X pointed out that this is strictly superior to Chancellor, and that really, really bothers some players.

Good news is, I'm not that guy.  Bad news is, as a designer, I share Donald's terror of that guy.  I suspect he knows where I sleep, and you too.  You can see it in his OCD eyes.  In fact I'm 99% sure that if you attempt to push this card, he will try to sneak into your house at night and delete it from your hard drive.

The Strictly Superior Suburban Slasher is not a joke, and should be taken seriously.

Medical Tent
Action         4
+2 Cards
Discard any number of cards
+1 action for every card discarded this way

Seems pretty good.  It's presumptive of me to say this without playtesting, but this is probably a good example of a well cost card.  It's powerful, but not nearly powerful enough to cost $5+.  However, since that power comes from it being a spammable engine enabler, we can't have it costing $3.

I always worry about cards that give lots of actions (beyond a basic +2 village), since the value of mass actions is so wildly variable.  But it's not a concern worthy of shooting down cards for.

Swing
Action         4
+4 Cards
Discard 2 Cards

First I thought this was too powerful, then too weak, and now I've just concluded that I'm too stupid to properly guess.

I think I like it though, for sure.  It's very dynamic since it has implications with a lot of cards.  It's definitely better than Smithy for combos.  It's like, this:Smithy::Smithy:Envoy.  And that's neat!  It burns through your deck faster but gives you less card advantage.  Definitely cost correctly at $4.

Looter
Action-Reaction      4
+1 Card
+1 Buy
+$1
You may discard a card. If you do, +1 Action
___________________________________________
Whenever you discard a card, you may set this aside from your hand. If you do, +1 card and return this to your hand at the beginning of your next turn.

I'm so confused about the name.  Looter should be an attack, right?  I mean, it's a bad guy who takes stuff.

I'll be honest, I don't understand anything about this card mechanically either.  So it's like a Market, but you have to discard to get the Action.  Why?  Oh, but it has a reaction on discard.  Why?  It gives you this self-perpetuating +1 Card.  Why?

Come to think of it, this card is absurdly powerful.  With discard procing cards in your deck, this is almost better than Alchemist.  So it's either a super engine that can't be stopped once it hits critical mass, or it's a mediocre and random $4 grab bag of stuff.  You've got some explaining to do before I bite on this one.

Expedition
Action         4
+1 Card
+1 Action
Gain a silver

Hmm, I think I like this.  It's narrow and varies a lot in utility (on a lot of boards it would never get touched), but elegant. 

Does it have to cost $4 though?  It's spammable, but how powerful is it really?  Buying this twice as an opening is not promising at all for your turn 3/4 buys...

Exhaust
Action-Attack      4
+1 Card
+1 Action
Every other player gains a copper

Truth be told, I don't think this is probably too powerful, at least on most boards. You guys probably think it is, and I have some nerfs ready when you're proven right.

Yeah, we need to talk.

So first off, cards that give people junk are *really* powerful.  A Copper is not nearly as bad as a Curse (or Estate), but it's still *really* bad!

Second, spammable attacks are both obnoxious and really powerful.  Comparable Spy attack strength to terminal attacks--it's not in the same ballpark, or even the same sport.  Makes sense, since palying 5 Spies is easy and playing 5 Witches is, thankfully, super hard.

Familiar is the exception that proves the rule.  The only way a strong, cantrip attack can exist in any sane way is with a high cost involving potions.  Getting Familiars requires two entire deck cycles, and that's just for one!  Your ability to actually get Familiars to spam as you'd like is super constrained by the economics of Potions.

And here you are proposing a cantrip junker you can get as an opening--any opening!  Sorry chief: Three minutes in the penalty box for this one.

Agriculture
Action         4
While agriculture is in play, victory cards gain the treasure type (in addition to their other type(s)) and can be played as treasures for $2

Okay, this is awesome.  I'm trying to think of a good reason why this sucks and shouldn't exist, and I really hope I fail.  Hmm, gimme a moment, this might take awhile.

Okay, I found something, but it's an easy fix.  This let's Thief/Pirate Ship trash enemy Victory cards!  Make it only work on yours and we are golden.

This is crazy good with Scout, Great Hall, Nobles, and Harem.  But that's all okay.  Mint and Mine really push it, but we can give it a pass.

I haven't really considered the power level yet.  This might work better as a non-terminal $5+ card?  Just thinking out loud, I have no idea.

Edit--As fun as type modification interactions are, we can remove all the fringe cases by just dropping it: "While Agriculture is in play, Victory cards in play produce +2 money; during the Buy phase, you may put Victory cards from your hand into play."

Moneybreeder
Action         4
Discard a silver. If you do, choose one: gain a duchy or gain a gold.

I feel like this is sort of an uninteresting alternate economic path.  It's just seems like a really boring way to use your Action and $2?  It's also a surprisingly poor opening, I'm almost certain.

14
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Expansion: Locomotion
« on: September 27, 2011, 03:49:53 am »
As written, only "Terminus cards themselves" count for zero when on the mat.  The other cards are returned. (Terminus cards return too, but they were not around at the time their value changed.)

15
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: How much does information cost?
« on: September 27, 2011, 03:47:31 am »
Yeah, this affects very few cards, and even fewer specific combinations where it introduces a meaningful choice.  Sure, maybe I can see in advance that you can block my Montebank... but how much is that information going to drastically change my decisions?  Maybe I get to use a marginally superior terminal action?  Like if I have Tournament, knowing if you have a Province or not is of zero value 99% of the time. 

More cards "attack" the top of opponent decks than specific cards in hands.  Thief, Tribute, and Pirate Ship give you a significant reward based on this state as well, so it matters.  Hence, Spy/Scrying Pool.

16
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Conquest - The 3s
« on: September 27, 2011, 03:40:44 am »
Deflection
Action - Attack      3
+$2
Name a card type. Every other player discards a card of that type (or reveals a hand with none), then draws a card.

I really like this concept. What you must note is that they draw a card whether or not they discarded one. This suggests to me that the card is too weak as is, and I need some tweak to make it viable. Suggestions?[/b]

This is like, 70% political. (If say Embargo is 20% political.) Red flag already going off.

I don't like that this card is unreliable in two dimensions; it makes the cost for failure really steep!  And when it does hit, it can be just devastating in a way that makes Torturer and Ghost Ship blush.  I mean think about it turn 3/4, it's a coin flip that is going to potentially devastate their entire opening.  Huuuge player 1 advantage statistically, it's nasty.

Villages let this card chain in really obnoxious ways too; also works with any other reveal-opponent-hand card.

Mercenary
Action-Attack      3
+$1
Each other player either discards a treasure card or gains a curse

This seems scary strong, more or less a Cutpurse that costs only $3 but is much stronger late game.  Only producing $1 is a small price to pay.  I might open with two of these, since double Cutpurse is just too nasty.

Rage
Action-Reaction      3
+1Buy
+$2
Discard 1 card
_____________________________
Whenever you discard a card, you may reveal and discard this from your hand. If you do, +2Cards

I bet discarding from hand is a much narrower mechanic across the existing cards than you'd guess.  Hamlet, Cellar, Warehouse, Tournament (kinda), Minion, SC, HT, Vault, and Baron (kinda) are the only cards featuring it in a self-controlled manner.  It is much better with most of them, and a resounding meh otherwise.

It's an okay defense against discard attacks--not great, since often I'd rather have 3 good cards than 2 good cards + 2 more random ones.  It's a meh defense agaisnt Curses/junk, not nearly as strong as HT.  It's a weird double-defense case against Montebank.  I don't think that's bad, it's just odd.

Its defense against discard attacks becomes much weaker in multiplayer.

Overall, I can't say I like reaction-to-hand-discard.  It's narrow and wildly variable across other cards.

17
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Conquest (WW's Fan Double Expansion) - the 2s
« on: September 27, 2011, 02:10:07 am »
I'm totally unconcerned about squire being bad with Lab and Smithy. So what? Every card doesn't have to have synergy with every other card. And just because you really like using those cards for engines doesn't mean everyone else does, or that there's no room for other kinds of engines. Where I am really concerned is about it being not useful enough often enough, and too strong when it is good. But I'm actually not so concerned about that even. The best kind of combo among what you've pointed out looks to be some kind of village-vault-squire, and that will give you $5 and a 5-card hand. Well, I'm not too worried about that, 'cause it's a 3 card combo from three different sets which doesn't totally break the game anyway. Well, okay, village could be any village, vault could be secret chamber (I don't understand how cellar is really that good here)... maybe you're right. We'll see in playtesting.

Vault/SC is the meanest case, but it's really good with all ~15 basic non-terminals.  Pretty much any of them at all, from Fishing Village to Upgrade--then you've also got village combos with hand reduction actions like trashers and BM.  All this is maybe too good for a typical $2 card, sure, but it's not the end of the world.

The issue is how mediocre it is with everything else.  Like, in the absence of those really great cases, it's just pointless.  It's a draw engine card that you can't build a "real" draw engine with.  The idea of an engine is to power through your deck faster and get to play more stuff.  Typically this means drawing your entire deck, which this card is counter-productive dead weight against.  You could almost imagine it working like Minion which is sort of a weird alternate draw engine, but Minion only really works because it combos with itself.  This card is only really enabled in that sort of way by a couple cards, unlike say Smithy which can build a draw engine with any of like 15 Villages.

I mentioned Celler because it's a good non-terminal lets you churn though your deck and find more hand-reducing non-terminals like it.

Servant's village: Unexciting? Maybe. I'm okay with that. The comparison here is fishing village, which it is except for the duration, which almost always makes it worse. But then it only costs 2. I'm not concerned, though it's obviously not spectacular. Again, playtesting will help.

I'm just not understanding why this card exists though.  It's not that it commits some cardinal sin--it's that what it offers isn't something I as a player want in my deck.  Normally if you offered me a random $2 card for free during a game of Dominion, I'd take it--only exceptions might be Moat, SC, and Herbalist about half the time.  But unless unless there's no other Villages at all and I badly need one, I'd never take a free +2 Actions +1 Coin card. (Just like I wouldn't normally take a free Copper.)

Bronze: Well, I've already posted my thoughts above. I expect even with the modified version, it's not going to be all that great all that often, but I do think it is interesting enough. We'll see - needs playtesting.

Your changed Bronze proposal is a lot more docile and has a lot of fun utility.  It's a worse but functional Haven that gives you $1!  This is great because Haven is great.  This version is not a self-perpetuating super strategy, and instead has fun plays and interactions with all sorts of other cards and decks.

Novice
Action         2
+1Action
Gain a card costing up to $3

I'm not sure why this costs $2?  You are right about the variance, but it's not a big enough problem to worry about--you are still going to have semi-interesting $3 options on a majority of boards.  Non-terminal Silver gain is nothing to scoff at.

This is a really powerful pile-emptying machine of course.  Like, to a kind of absurd level that slightly outpaces even Ironworks.  That's not innately bad, but it's something to consider.  Again, $2 is probably too low, else +Buys compound the effect pretty hard.

Renew
Action         2
+1 Card
+1 Action
Discard your deck.

Chancellor doesn't do much because as an opening Chancellor is your more valuable card, and a terminal blocking other valuable cards.  A $2 non-terminal Chancellor is super powerful.  I'd buy it at $3, for sure.

Assassin
Action-Attack      2
+$1
Every other player reveals their hands. Choose a card for them to discard. Then each player draws a card.

Ew, targeted discard.  I think someone else mentioned that Donald wrote some stuff on why this was found to be a dead end filled with hurt feelings and tears.  It's high variation, kinda slow, and encourages bland, defensive deck construction.

Also this is *crazy* strong at $2!  Throw some Villages with these bad boys and man--they better have good trashing or hands are going to suck.

Oh, and multiplayer games are just going to get obnoxious with this, in ways Torturer and friends can only dream of.

Thinkaman:  Some great observations all around.  I'm not sure I entirely agree your aversion to mixing money and villages, though.  Villages are engine cards, and the ultimate goal of an engine is to accrue money, so if the engine cards themselves generate money (see: Minion, Bazaar), then that's a good thing, right?  But you're right that it would be one of the last choices for a Village-type card, because the modest $ boost isn't worth the drawing loss.

The catch is that money on a cantrip is a different animal than random money on some card like Chancellor.  That's why Peddler, Treasury, Market, Grand Market, Bazaar, and Conspirator are so great and cost as they are.

Besides Lighthouse and Fishing Village--which are as they are to be satisfying Durations--there is only one non-terminal card in all of Dominion that gives money without +1 Card.  That card, Festival, is a special case built around a +Buy; giving money with Actions doesn't make total sense, but a +Buy is an interesting resource and what goes with +Buy?  Money!  It's not random money thrown on, it's a built-in Woodcutter.

The +Buy on Festival is like pancakes--pancakes are good with chocolate, and they are also good with bacon, so maybe we can have all three at once. (Even if chocolate and bacon alone is still unnatural and weird.)

18
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Alms
« on: September 27, 2011, 01:13:08 am »
Interesting, I like this.  It seems a tad weak, but maybe that's okay?  $2 cards rarely rival a max City after all.

I think the only thing bothering me about it is how often the card does nothing.  Barring unmatched TR/KC, every Action in Dominion generally does *something* in a typical hand.  It's cool that it can do a lot, and it's more cool that it can do it in a lot of different combos/decks, but turns where it does nothing are a drag.

Would a "If none of these apply, +$1 money." consolation prize be undesirable?  $1 for a terminal action is about as pathetic as it gets, but in this case I think it might make the card feel a lot better while hardly pushing any power limits.

19
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Interacting with the Trash
« on: September 27, 2011, 01:03:44 am »
I think rinkworks already covered everything that needs to be said:  Super high variance with a terrible common case, no matter the implementation.  The Trash is just not an interesting place in 95%+ of games.

Also, thumbing through the trash and considering every last card is slow and indecisive in a very un-Dominion way.  It just doesn't match the existing pace of the game.

20
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Expansion: Locomotion
« on: September 27, 2011, 12:59:27 am »
Terminus is pretty interesting and super powerful as written at $5.  It's the combined super child of Duke and Island--like seriously, it's a Duke that "trashes" and also works with Estates, only requiring you to carry out the Actions to make it work.  You pretty much have to contest them.  Making it $6 would slow it down considerably and make it a lot more reasonable on general boards, if my hunch on the current power level is right.

21
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: A Noob's Expansion - Come Rip it Apart...
« on: September 26, 2011, 08:44:20 am »
Servant's Quarters seems pretty functional, though it's obviously very similar to Moat. (probably superior?) I'm not sure how much it contributes, from the sound of it you only have it around because you feel it needs to be.  I bet you can get an alternative reaction that can fit better.

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Pauper's Feast is cool, just for the ability to trash your trasher.  That's narrow sure, but cool.  Gaining a 4-cost on trash is less cool and also a tad narrow (mostly important in certain openings) but has merit.  All in all, two sort-of narrow options make for a card that brings something to most boards.

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Bailey is auto-veto'd for being a cantrip moat.  It totally trivializes attacks, as why wouldn't you just buy a boatload of them?  Heck, it even gives you +Buys and costs $2 to enable just that.  No cantrip reactions; keep those guys terminal.

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Excursion is really narrow, even if this set has boatloads of hybrid victory cards.  All the other uses are super obscure.

Also, Dominion currently has no discard pile touching cards except for Counting House; consider why.  Digging and freely selecting a card from discard is a really slow interruption!  Counting House gets away with it because it's a terminal $5 cost with no decision making that has the virtue of opening up an entirely new type of strategy.  In general, it's not something we probably want to do.

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Villa seems kinda weird.  My first reaction was "what's this +1 coin doing here?"  My second was "Why don't you just discard the victory card(s) for +Card(s), wouldn't that be cleaner?" My third was "Oh, wait that let's you chain Villas--except wait, you don't want to do that in the first palce because you are still losing cards."

You we end up with this unreliable Village-Warehouse hybrid that gives you +1 money.  I'm having trouble thinking of boards where I'd want this, or broad combos I would get excited about working it into.

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Summon is a great card!  Elegant, clean, powerful--but like all good cheap powerful cards, it's power comes from opening the way for the big guns.

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Wooden Bridge is really interesting.  It's more narrow than Bridge but much better at achieving the Omega Bridge.  This is okay, because Omega Bridge is *that* interesting. (It's practically an alternate win condition!)

I didn't notice the 1 cost minimum thing first.  At first I didn't like it, but I think it's cool upon reflection.  The niche interactions with Copper and Curse are unexpected, but kinda cool.  No reason to throw this out that I can see.

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Bribed Official... steals a high value Treasure from their hand and into yours?  From *all* players?  Or gains you a Silver/Potion in hand?  I've gotta be missing something, because this is pants-on-head crazy powerful.

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Shyster seems really strong for a non-terminal $4 attack.  I mean, we're looking at a Spy level of power here.  This guy ain't exactly Torturer or Montebank, but he's still spammable and unlike say Spy, his sting really stacks with that spam.

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Cabal is strange.  I believe Donald mentioned in the Intrigue Secret History about testing Harem values and having just really terrible success with 1 value versions.  Bottom line is, no one wants Copper, so you are looking at Cabal only as a potential strict alternative to Silver. 

If there is a good opening $3 out, then that's easy.  Otherwise, it's easy the other way.  So there's really no decision making added by the card, just interactions with certain targeting cards?  Meh, I'm not sold.

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Silver Vein is more interesting.  I can't even begin to figure this one out, despite its relative simplicity.  Hilarious combo with SC/Vault.  It's probably like Gardens, where it's dominant if enabled and dubious if not. (And that's okay!  If it isn't like that, you need to nerf it until it is.)

This (Silver Vein) would need so much playtesting, but it deserves it.

22
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Expansion: Locomotion
« on: September 26, 2011, 07:58:47 am »
Coal Mine is crazy strong, and has anti-synergy with everything including itself.  At best, it's like a non-interactive Pirate Ship.  At worst, it actively discourages all players from buying fun cards.

It's way strong with cheap cantrips, makes +Buy cards bad, and is a pretty self-contained strategy by itself.  Playing Big Coal Mine is more or less just a better Big Money that can compete on Colonies and Dukes.  Probably not desirable?

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Conductor is really confusing to read thanks to it's nested conditionals.  All else aside, that has to go.

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with this attack, but it's not really that compelling either.  It's sort of an odd combo--a weak Montebank mixed with a Cutpurse?  I'm not sure it merits adding a new fat-free Curse card to the game.  On that note, you would really need 10/20/30 copies of it if you want it to scale at all evenly in multiplayer.

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Funicular is really powerful!  Neat and simple concept, but might need some power tweaking.  It could cost 5 as written and I'd still buy several.  Keep in mind that at +5 cards it becomes really easy to draw your whole deck and then some, getting you those Treasure right back.  Just have a few villages around and it's off to the races.

Consider Council Room, for comparison.

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Handcar is political and scales like crazy with number of players.  On the whole though, Copper-trashing cantrip isn't really compelling, especially when--as written--it has occasional "crap I don't have coppers in my hand but there are some in my deck, should I play this?" AP.

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Junkyard feels weak, even for a non-terminal $2 cost.  It just feels like a raw deal, as it's rare to actually have the surplus needed to make this remotely valuable--again, even by $2 standards.  It's especially awkward early game, when you can't play it after your Woodcutter or Herbalist.

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I think Repairs is going to be a lot more narrow than you might expect; on so many boards it's just not going to have an important use.  A good $2 option helps it a lot, but in general there isn't much use for it outside of fringe cases like Peddler.  Non-terminality isn't enough to make it better than Remodel, which isn't exactly the strongest $4 in the universe.

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Steam Engine is slick, I love it.

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Manifest confuses me.  So it's a Reaction to an attack that does nothing but gives you $2 after jumping through a couple of hoops?  Oh, or +2 cards, I see.  That's still not very compelling, it doesn't compare favorably to Moat or Silver.  The only thing working for Manifest is fringe interactions with Treasures, Black Market style. 

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Depot Village is interesting, hmm.  Not sure how fun it would be to play, but the value of it is interesting.

I'd be curious to see direct comparisons with Mining Village.  It would go great with trashers almost like a Haven alternative, and might even be a really wacky combo with Baron. (I'd want to play that and see.)

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Bandits is really high variance, even more than Thief. (Which is saying something...) The steeper cost and higher late-game benefit makes it scale even more badly across number of players.  Personally I wouldn't investigate this direction much further.

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So uh, Caboose is crazy good.  You said you nerfed it, but it's still amazing.  Free Golds!  None of that Hoard Duchy/Estate-buying nonsense, these suckers come with Havens and Villages!  The +Buy lets it combo with itself, which is probably good and fun... but only makes the power level issues worse.  Try higher costs?

23
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Conquest (WW's Fan Double Expansion) - the 2s
« on: September 26, 2011, 06:56:29 am »
I think the ones posted end up missing the mark.  I'll try to be constructive as possible, but tone on the Internet is frequently lost--please imagine this post voiced by Mr. Rogers.

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Squire is deceptively narrow.  It combos *extremely* well with non-terminal, non-replacing actions (of which there are about 15) and not so much with anything else until you get villages involved.  Then you've got a bunch of mediocre combos (any non-draw card) and a few crazy ones (Vault, SC, Cellar) again.  It has fun interactions with Minion, Hamlet, and Black Market, but the variance is generally high all around.

The big problem then becomes, beyond being crazy good on some boards and pointless on others, the value by which it decreases future engine components.  It's one thing to have that terminal action you bought make all other terminals look less appetizing, but it's another for Squires to penalize Labs and Smithies.  It's just lame, because those are fun cards.  For a lot of decks in the late game, Squire will become a card players dislike seeing; something like Chapel or Sea Hag can get a free pass here, but not an engine functionality card like this.

The mechanic works on Watchtower by being one function out of three, and it works on Library because the high cost enables it to fight variance through a way higher worst-case value.  I'm not sure there's room for it as a cheap non-terminal.

Somebody already mentioned the big wording mishap, heh.

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Servant's Village is pretty unexciting, since people want money to go with their Actions about as much as they want chocolate with their bacon.  This is why Fishing Village has to be so fantastic in reality, in order for the player to feel good when they play it. (It all works out because then optimizing around your chocolate-covered-bacon makes for an interesting game.)

So with this Servant's Village, you've got this card that no one wants to buy unless they need Actions, and if that's the case then they are going to heavily prefer any other Village.  The only advantage to this card is that it's cheap so you can buy them in bulk, except that you really don't want them in bulk?  I mean, chocolate-covered-bacon might be okay once or twice, but I'm not picking up a family pack at Sam's or Costco.

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Bronze suffers from the same problem as Squire, but x10: it makes other fun cards less fun.  Hitting actions is just going to be so annoying; it's a weak engine card you can't use in an engine.

Also, from a pure power-level perspective it's quite bad.  The average money supplied by non-chaining Bronze will always be less than 2, and in many decks it will be less than 1.6. (thus making it detrimental to Province acquisition.)  The less you commit yourself to a Bronze-focused strategy, the more sharply they will become burdens on your deck.  At least Black Market makes it way better, which is cute.

So you've got a card that is great in a dedicated thin deck with +Buy, and terrible otherwise.  Cards that combo exclusively with themselves (and in this case, Vault/Bank) are dead ends; you want to shoot for self-comboing cards like Minion (where you get to mix fun non-terminals in) or Lab (where it's only the means to your true end aka other fun stuff).  If the only contribution of Bronze to the game is The Bronze Deck, it's not really worth including.

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I think my main point of advice spanning these three is that $2 cost cards by nature need to be kinda tertiary.  Except for Chapel, which is $2 for very special reasons, all the $2 cards are not primary or even secondary deck components, but tertiary.  They are typically afterthoughts that add an almost trivial benefit at a trivial cost.

That doesn't mean they have to be insignificant (Courtyard, Hamlet, and Haven have a pretty big universal impact) or even weak (Lighthouse is quite powerful, even as an alternative opening to Silver), just that they should have the goal of getting out of the way for the other cards--the ones whose cost allow them to have some real fun.

I'd be interested in seeing your non-2 cards.

24
Simulation / Crazy Idea: Genetic Algorithm for Dominion Simulator?
« on: September 13, 2011, 07:07:36 am »
Now that we have super cool simulators by the super cool Geronimoo and now also rspeer, we could potentially get something really crazy going.

Here's a novel flash "game" you might have seen before: http://boxcar2d.com/

It generates random cars and races them.  After so many, it creates a new generation of cars constructed with properties weighted according the the results of the last batch.  In theory, each generation gets better and better, converging to an optimal state.  The algorithm defines how many cars are in each batch, how many and what magnitude of "mutations" occur, and

It's not much of a stretch to see how this applies to Dominion simulation.  Take n strategies, play them all against each other 100/1k/10k times, and then do it again with random mutations of the winners.

I'm pretty sure this could find the optimized Big Money buy pattern consistently--and possibly even find finer grained tuning than we are aware of.  The algorithm would just endlessly add, change, and reorder purchase conditions until it find something better than the old best.  We can further use this to investigate optimal base strategies for any given card (given a defined play logic of course) or combination of cards, such as a full set of 10.

Of course, as the complexity space widens combinatorically by adding more mutation options, it will take longer to converge in any meaningful way. (A 10-card set would take ages to investigate all important combinations.) However, we are talking about a program that could be left to run freely, and one whose work is easily and informally distributable. (The RAM requirements would not scale, and the partial results could be shared just like any other existing simulator templates.)

Now, unless the mutation degree is set excessively high, a genetic algorithm would never make the simultaneous intuitive leaps to find a strategy like Workshop-Gardens from scratch; it would continually find that Workshop is bad incrementally and that Gardens is bad incrementally, and never evolve a good deck with both.  To investigate that sort of strategy, we would have to give it Workshop/Gardens as a starting point.  The key is that the point of this wouldn't be to "solve Dominion", just investigate optimal behavior in given sub-fields we define.

Any interest in this sort of thing?  Especially among super cool people?

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