Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

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.

1

Dominion: Nocturne Previews / Re: Dominion: Nocturne announced!

« on: August 04, 2017, 01:37:23 am »

Such cards would require different backs.

Or honesty.
Or a requirement to reveal your hand during Cleanup if any Nights are being used.

Giving them different backs would also work, though. It's not an option I'd considered, but it's kinda cool in its own way. Stash revisited!

"Honesty" is the only option among the three that is not viable. Dominion is a fairly algorithmic game, it doesn't assume away cheating but makes it impossible via its rules.
I agree that the second option, revealing your hand to show that you have no Night cards, à la the wording of cards like Cutpurse, would be a more cleaner option that differently coloured backs as this runs into the issue of card information in the draw pile being potentially revealed without any deck inspection going on.

2

Dominion: Nocturne Previews / Re: Dominion: Nocturne announced!

« on: August 04, 2017, 12:47:44 am »

What if we take that literally, and there's no choice: if you have a Night card in your hand after your Buy phase, you must play it?

Such cards would require different backs.

3

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Werewolf

« on: August 03, 2017, 12:51:34 pm »

I think that there is a reason that there aren't any trashers that cost more than 5. You wanna trash early but often hit 6 fairly late.

Well there's Altar. And Forge. And Expand. And maybe others I'm forgetting.

My mistake. But I still don't think that a cantrip trasher for 6 is the best idea. Unlike those Remodel variants and the "pool-trasher" Forge you often want two cantrip trashers and it might not be worthwhile to get them for 6.
But perhaps I am just too conservative, being not used to Peddler variants that cost more than 5.

4

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The swingiest card ever

« on: August 03, 2017, 12:50:39 pm »

You can easily hedge yourself against the risk of getting a Warrior trashed by an opponent's Warrior via buying several Pages.
Warrior is a fairly harmless attack and in my experience less swingy or devastating than some Knight Kingdoms.

5

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Werewolf

« on: August 03, 2017, 12:37:51 pm »

I think that there is a reason that there aren't any trashers that cost more than 5. You wanna trash early but often hit 6 fairly late.
I also think that the card does too much: Peddler plus optinal trasher plus Soldier's attack.

6

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Revolution

« on: July 29, 2017, 04:59:29 pm »

Innovator, Action, 5$
+1 Action
+2$
Lose any amount of $. Gain a card costing at most the amount you lost to your hand.

Without support from other +Action +Money cards, one copy of this card gains you a card costing up to $2, which seems *really* weak for a $5.  Multiple copies let you gain a bigger card, but at the cost of also copper-stuffing yourself.  I think at least it needs "You may".

It certainly should be "you may". An alternative would be a version that takes debt:

+1 Action
+2$
(If you have no ,) you may gain a non-victory card costing up to 8$ to your hand. Take  per $ the card costs.

This version is far too strong; it's better than a Grand Market and a Capital (minus 1 buy) put together on one card.

I admit that the +2$ together with the gaining to hand are too much and one should be dropped.

Even if you drop the "to hand", it's still close to strictly better than Grand Market.
If you only drop the +$2 instead, it's far better than Capital when used on non-Victory cards, but can't be used on Provinces, which might or might not be balanced.
Either way, the card seems too similar to an existing card to me; thus I'd rather stay closer to Asper's original card. What about adding a Storyteller-like clause to it?

Innovator, Action, 5$
+1 Action
+2$
You may play a Treasure from your hand. Pay any amount of $. You may gain a card to your hand costing at most the amount you paid.

This would be close to a non-terminal Armory even if you only play a Silver, and potentially far better with more virtual $.

Saying this was almost strictly better than Grand Market is like saying Candlestick Maker was close to strictly better than Market. You can't just ignore a +1 Card on a nonterminal Action card. That's not to say I don't like the Treasure suggestion.

You potentially gain a card to your hand, hence Holger's comparison to Grand Market.

7

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Revised versions of published cards

« on: July 29, 2017, 03:47:08 am »

I think Adventurer should cost $2, no joke. It takes a lot of work to make it good, like Poor House. Arguably it takes even more work than Poor House, though the upper bound on its power is also higher. Anyway, yeah, $2. That's my unofficial official recommendation.

I totally agree. At first it sounds crazy that a formerly-existing 6 would be balanced at 2. But Adventurer has a simple problem: it is a terminal payload card that is only good if you have decent Treasures in your deck. If you play BM you could also just draw those Treasures with terminal draw. If you play an engine you either don't wanna clog your deck with Treasures or, e.g. if you get them on the way via something like Soothsayer, you don't wanna waste terminal space on a terminal payload card as the Gold in your deck already does the trick.
So the card becomes only useful in rare cases like Platinum games or alt-VP where digging for Treasures becomes important due to all the green in your deck.

Something like Poor House might require more work than Adventurer (trashing, extra Buys, decent village support) but it is not at its core such an inconsistent card.

8

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Neat card interactions that were useful in the game you found them in.

« on: July 23, 2017, 02:36:55 am »

The attack, while it can be good, sometimes doesn't do a whole lot.

For the 2nd point, the attack can actually be quite powerful in this situation if you can use it to prevent your opponent from firing.

The second claim is closer to the truth. Discarding the best card from hand is a nasty attack. But the benefical part of Pillage is not that brilliant. Absent gainers you rarely want more than one or two of those and use them to kick-start your economy, not to maintain it (which wouldn't work as you'd have to spend nearly all the coins you get from the two Spoils to buy another Pillage).

With gainers on the other hand (be it University, Artisan, Workshop variants plus Highway or trash-gainers like Lurker, Graverobber amdRogue) you don't have to spend 5 coins to get 6 one-shot coins which is why with such gainers Pillage can become the main payload in an engine.

9

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Realms

« on: July 22, 2017, 04:20:31 am »

The mechanism is interesting but it requires you that you play with several cards from this set, otherwise some cards will do nothing.

Blacksmith is a simple and good card.
Foreign Market is probably a bit weaker than Market and crazy in the presence of Peddler.
Godly Thunderbolt is, at least in the absence of other trashers, too much of an opening auto-buy.
I don't understand Network. Do you exchange 2 cards between hand and reserve hand or also first draw 2 cards?
Royal Census doesn't clarify what "set down" means. If you mean discard this is pretty weak compared to Throne Room.
Madman's Shanty's effects should be switched. In BM you want the double Lab whereas in an engine you want the Lost City.
But even then it is still fairly weak as it is hard to trigger. Probably only good as a defense against handsize attacks and here it compares unfavourably to Menagerie (which is admittedly a strong card).

Madman's Shanty would be crazy if you can get it to be the last card in your hand.  Too crazy.  +5 cards, +3 actions, +$1 That almost makes me want two torturers to be played against me!

All it would do then is to refill your hand up to 5 plus the equivalent of two Villages and a Peddler. A great defense against two Torturers but that's about it.

10

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What will the next Dominion expansion be???

« on: July 13, 2017, 11:25:19 am »

You can only play cards during your turn (Caravan Guard)

Will we see new cards that do this? Would it be fun to have a reaction negate its own action cost? like:

5 Cargo Ship
+3 cards
-------------
When another player plays an attack you may play this card from your hand.

(since it is not your turn you are not spending your starting action)

Interesting idea but probably too strong. Caravan Guard's reaction only converts a delayed Peddler into a Peddler whereas this converts a Smithy into a double Lab.

11

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What will the next Dominion expansion be???

« on: July 13, 2017, 04:45:44 am »

I guess that more Reserve cards will appear, Landmarks seem unlikely but perhaps some permament Events without VP tokens, and perhaps some kind of merger card, i.e. an expensive card that plays like two cheaper cards.

Cards that cost 2 Buys to buy
Cards that cost 2 actions to play

This sounds interesting but it should be guaranteed that extra Buys respectively villages are present in the Kingdom. You could easily do that via split piles with the villages respectively + Buy cards on top. So perhaps Donald might do the concept after all as it has now become possible to implement via the help of another mechanism

12

Dominion General Discussion / Re: If there were alternative terms for TfB, I'd switch over immediately

« on: July 12, 2017, 04:17:53 pm »

Waht about Replace then? Junking, trashing and gaining; juasher, trunker or gunksher?

13

Dominion General Discussion / Re: If there were alternative terms for TfB, I'd switch over immediately

« on: July 12, 2017, 07:26:02 am »

Cards like Remodel play fundamentally differently from cards like Forager.

If you define TfB to be just anything that gives some kind of benefit from trashing out of some misguided sophomoric attempt at literalism, the term is useless.

There are more precise ways to define what cards like Remodel do, however none of them roll of the tongue or make intuitive sense like TfB, so people say TfB.

This.

14

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Antiquity (WIP! Please help!)

« on: July 10, 2017, 04:15:13 pm »

My hunch is that this is too good for 3 and too weak for 4 (unless there is a 5 of which you want more than two copies) as the build-up would take too long.

15

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Antiquity (WIP! Please help!)

« on: July 10, 2017, 01:08:44 pm »

About Shipwreck, the first version is not that interesting. You'd rather have a Woodcutter than gift Silvers, even with hand-size attacks. So this is probably only bought when you desperately need something with an extra Buy
Action trashing is fairly narrow.
About the last version, the one-shot Bank is pretty good and potentially too good for 2. Then again you have to use the extra Buy and 2 to "refill".

I don't understand Anthropologist unless you mean "costing up to $3 more"
Otherwise this would only offer the option to choose among a 3, 4 and 5 (and sometimes a 6 or 7) and not the option to choose among several 4s or 5s.
I like the idea of a Band of Misfits like build-up card but this might be a card that switches quickly from very bad too very good (the only reasonable prices are 3 and 4).

More on the irrelevant side, if this were implemented digitally you would have to prevent taking Anthropologists via Anthropologist lest you get infinite loops.

16

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The swingiest card ever

« on: July 08, 2017, 06:47:41 am »

Black Market can be extremly swingy and game-deciding if you e.g. gain a junker or trasher while no junker or trasher is present in the Kingdom.
On the other hand this only happens sometimes and it is partially mitigated by a huger Black Market deck which makes it more likely that the seemingly unlucky player will later also find a card of a category that is not present in the Kingdom.

17

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2016 Edition: $6 Cards

« on: July 04, 2017, 05:52:58 am »

If some cards/events were always better than others Dominion would be a nearly solved, boring game.

18

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The swingiest card ever

« on: July 03, 2017, 01:17:47 pm »

I would say that swingiest card is cultist. Cultist bm is often dominant and given how fast it is one couldn't recover from losing ruin split 7-3 unless there is vineyard.

I don't disagree with that but I think that this is overdetermined by the fact that Cultist is overpowered.

That isn't surprising as card needs to be strong to affect outcome in significant manner. Otherwise I could say that scout was very swingy as you could remove three estates with it or none.

I don't agree entirely. You are right that a weak and swingy card is not really relevant as its risk does not impact the game much. But I don't think that the opposite is true, i.e. that a swingy card has to be strong to  really impact the game. Swindler and Tournament are in my opinion medium power level cards and unlike Cultist not crazily overpowered and yet a single play of them can significantly change the game.

19

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The swingiest card ever

« on: July 03, 2017, 08:37:58 am »

You keeping assessing it as a doom-bringing junking attack instead of +2VP, so I guess we aren't making any progress on that front.

I already said it can decide games. Surely we all here know something of the ways in which it can decide games. But thanks for the update.

I don't think that your snarkiness is warranted.

I would say that swingiest card is cultist. Cultist bm is often dominant and given how fast it is one couldn't recover from losing ruin split 7-3 unless there is vineyard.

I don't disagree with that but I think that this is overdetermined by the fact that Cultist is overpowered.

20

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The swingiest card ever

« on: July 03, 2017, 02:42:34 am »

If there is nothing in the Kingdom that can counter the handsize (while a draw engine can of course deal with handsize attacks there are not that many explicit counters to them: only Guide, Diplomat, Menagerie and Shanty Town come to mind) and junking attack (no trasher or sifters and you are doomed if you cannot mirror a Curser) good play does not save you and luck does not matter above the degree that it matters for Dominion in general.

In a game without Landmarks or alt-VPs that difference of 2VPs per Followers play can be crucial to the score.

21

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The swingiest card ever

« on: July 02, 2017, 08:29:51 am »

Your concept of "double attack" is just a misunderstanding of what Followers does to VP and deck size, since it's self-junking. Followers' effect is in fact weaker than Goons because the curses can be trashed or blocked, and also the first few times it's played the player would prefer to not gain estates.

Sure, most of the times (i.e. unless it is late in the game when you'd actually want Estates) you'd prefer Followers to be a pure Curser. But it is still an attack and in Kingdoms without trashers the 2VP difference is permanent.
I'd agree though that most of the times (you don't always buy two cards with Goons in play and 2 Cards is a bit better than 2 Coins) Goons is slightly better than Followers.

Trusty Steed, being used most of the times as a Lost City, is also more or less a hypothetical 6/7 (of course you cannot really prize prices, that's just a rough benchmark).

Of course this is all just academic, the crucial element is that Goons is available to everybody while there is only one Followers and in some Kingdoms getting Followers can be the game deciding moment.

22

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The swingiest card ever

« on: July 02, 2017, 04:26:18 am »

The draw of Followers is more significant than any "double attack" aspect.

Other way around. Without the double attack it would be something worse than Moat.

23

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The swingiest card ever

« on: July 01, 2017, 02:51:28 pm »

Followers is best understood as a weaker version of buying the only Goons off the black market.  It has no buy and the net VP effect of curses can be trashed. Good players know how to not be slowed down too much by its Militia attack.

Followers is the only double attack in the game and thus the strongest attack card. Unless there are other Cursers in the Kingdom (Cursers are rarely weak; even in a Kingdom with Chapel you might go for that Witch) such that the Curse pile is (nearly) empty and there are decent ways to defend against handsize attacks which has probably less to do with player strength than with the particularities of the respective Kingdom.

24

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Revised versions of published cards

« on: June 30, 2017, 07:26:01 am »

I'm rambling, but the point I'm trying to make is that this Gold vs. Manor/Harem vs. Duchy thing is just a total non-issue. The actual issue is whether Manor is too strong at $5 compared to other Kingdom cards. And man, I just really doubt that it is.

I think that if you were only playing with Base and Intrigue Harem would be totally fine but from a retrospective all-expansions perspective you are totally right: engines have become more frequent, making a Treasure-Victory card a bit worse, and 5s are often situationally better than Gold anyway.

25

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Revised versions of published cards

« on: June 29, 2017, 06:32:56 am »

Interesting changes.
I think that Harem is often underrated and pricing it at 5$ would basically make it a Duchy substitute, i.e. the tricky decision between Gold-Harem and later Harem-Duchy becomes less tricky and more trivial.
The non-trashing clause on Possession makes the card easier to understand but at the cost of making all trash-for-benefit cards quasi-defenses against Possession.
I like your Harvest buff, it is not too much and it now nicely interacts with cards like Vassal or Chariot Race.