Dominion Strategy Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length

Show Posts

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

Topics - rinkworks

Filter to certain boards:

Pages: [1] 2 3
1
Mini-Set Design Contest / MOVED: Crusader
« on: March 01, 2013, 09:39:59 am »

2
Mini-Set Design Contest / Mini-Set Design Contest: RinkWorks Cards!
« on: October 09, 2012, 05:21:36 pm »
The final ballot for the community set (which I'm still valiantly persevering in calling a "mini-set" despite that it has long since grown out of that label) consists of cards created by myself (and, in some cases, my brother; in most cases, we've both been involved in refining them). 

I wasn't originally going to contribute to the set, due to the conflict of interest of competing in a contest I'm running.  But this thread has discussion about that, culminating in this:  a ballot with only my cards on it and a "none" option.  If "none" wins, no card from this ballot will be included in the set.

You may vote for "none" as if it were a real card.  Give it 3 points if you want, or give it and a bunch of actual cards 1 point each, whatever crazy combination you like.  As the description for "none" says, I will interpret a "none" vote as meaning, "The set as it has turned out doesn't need any of these cards," so please don't feel reluctant to vote "none" for fear it will offend me.

I have included what I think are my best and most interesting cards, whether or not I think they'd be appropriate additions to the set.  Most of them, in particular the more unique ideas, have appeared somewhere in this forum before, so regular readers of the Variants subforum expecting to see a lot of new cards will be disappointed.

We have playtested them all to varying degrees.  I'm confident about most of them and optimistic about the remainder, but it's important to recognize that even extensive playtesting is imperfect and can result in mistaken conclusions.  All it takes is for one particular strategy to be missed for a card that looks good to turn out broken.  All I'm saying is that they've passed some initial testing.

--

Voting Rules:

Each person may cast votes as follows:  For each Challenge, you may fill your ballot out in one of two ways:

(1) Award 3 points to one entry.  Award 1 point to any number of other entries.
(2) Award 2 points to each of two entries.  Award 1 point to any number of other entries.

Submit your votes via PM to me by Tuesday, October 16, 2012, 10am EDT in the following format:

Quote
Challenge 1

3 CardName
1 AnotherCardName
1 StillAnotherCardName
1 AnotherCardNameGoesHereToo

Challenge 2

2 CardName
2 AnotherCardName
1 StillAnotherCardName

Please use the above format!  One card per line, with the number of votes given before it, and no extra punctuation or anything.  This will make it easy for me to copy-and-paste your votes into the format my vote-counting script needs it to be in.

As a voter, you may use whatever criteria you wish in determining what your votes will be.  Be as forgiving or particular as you like concerning conformance to standard Dominion terminology.   For all winning cards, there will be a chance to tweak the wording as a community, if necessary, before they are canonized.

--

None
Vote for this if you don't want to have any of these cards in the set.  I won't take offense if you do this -- I'll assume a vote for "None" means "Your cards are clearly awesomeness incarnate; it's just that the set doesn't need any of them."


Healer
$2 - Action
+1 Action
Reveal cards from the top of your deck until revealing a Victory or Curse card or until revealing 4 cards, whichever comes first.  If you revealed a Victory or Curse card, trash it or discard it.  Put the other revealed cards back on top of your deck in any order.


Lockbox
$2 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
--
While in play, at the start of your buy phase, you may trash this card.  If you do, +$2.


Architect
$3 - Action
+3 Cards
+$2
Put 3 cards from your hand on top of your deck.


Matador
$3 - Action-Attack
+2 Cards
Each player (including you) reveals a card from his hand.  He discards it or puts it on top of his deck, your choice.


Museum
$3 - Action
+$1
You may choose a card from your hand that you do not already have a copy of on your Museum mat.  Place it on your Museum mat.
If you have at least 4 cards on your Museum mat, you may trash 4 of them and gain a Prize (putting it on your deck) and a Duchy.


Street Sweeper
$3 - Action
Choose one:  +2 Cards; or look through your discard pile and put one card from it into your hand.


Auction House
$4 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+1 Buy
Trash a card from your hand.


Banquet Hall
$4 - Action-Victory-Reaction
Choose one:  +1 Card, +1 Action; or +2 Cards.
--
When another player plays an Attack card, you may set this aside from your hand.  If you do, +1 Card, and return this to your hand at the start of your next turn.
--
Worth 1 VP


Magistrate
$4 - Action-Reaction
+$2
Look at the top 3 cards of your deck.  Discard any number of them.  Put the rest back on top in any order.
--
When another player plays an Attack card, you may set this aside from your hand.  If you do, look at the top 3 cards of your deck, discard any number of them, put the rest back on top in any order, and at the start of your next turn return this to your hand.


Archivist
$5 - Action
+1 Action
Choose one:  Draw up to 6 cards in hand; or +$1 and discard one or more cards from your hand.


Highwayman
$5 - Action-Attack
+3 Cards
+1 Buy
Each other player with 5 or more cards in hand chooses one:  He discards down to 3 cards in hand, or he discards his hand and draws 4 cards.


Huckster
$5 - Action-Duration
At the start of your next turn, +1 Buy and +$3.


Hunter
$5 - Action
+1 Action
+$1
Look at the top card of your deck and choose one:  Put it in your hand and discard the top card of your deck; or discard it and +1 Card.


Sailboat
$5 - Action-Duration
Discard two cards.
At the start of your next turn, +2 Cards and +$2.


Sorceress
$5 - Action-Attack
Each other player gains a Curse.
If one or more supply piles are empty, +1 Card and +1 Action.
If two or more supply piles are empty, +1 Card.


Grand Bazaar
$6 - Action
+1 Card
+2 Actions
+$2
--
You can't buy this if you have any Copper in play.


Royal Scepter
$7 - Action
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal an Action card.  Discard the other revealed cards.  Play the revealed Action card twice.

3
There are currently 26 cards in the set.  That's pretty full already.  But what the heck -- it's not like we're constrained by any practical limits, right?  So let's top the set off with a couple more.

What follows is a ballot of runners-up from the 18 challenges of this competition.  Not all of them, however -- I skewed the selection in favor of those card creators who don't already have cards in the set.  There was probably no way to strike this balance to everyone's satisfaction, so I don't expect everyone to be entirely happy about it, but it was a balance that felt right to me, and I went with it.

The logic is as follows:

* Every card placing 2nd in a challenge is included in the ballot below if its author does not already have MULTIPLE winning cards in the set.  Most 2nd-place cards got included this way, but a couple did not.

* Every card placing 3rd in a challenge is included in the ballot below if its author does not already have ANY winning cards in the set.  The majority of 3rd-place cards got included this way, but several did not.

Using this algorithm, 27 cards qualified for this runners-up round.  That makes for a smaller ballot than usual, but according to voters they're the best of the cards that didn't land spots in the set.  Since the real names have already been revealed, it didn't make sense to use aliases this time, so they appear here under their real names.  Of course the winners can be renamed if there seems to be a particular reason to do so.

After the vote, the top 2 cards will be inducted into the set.

--

(Actual ballot deleted, so that users will not be confused between the original versions of the cards and the final ballot.)

Authors of cards in this round have been given a chance to make revisions to their cards.  Those revisions are complete now.

--

The Ballot
The Results

4
Submission Rules

* Submit no more than one card per person per challenge.  You do not need to submit for all challenges if you don't want to, but of course you can't win if you don't compete.
* Submit your cards to me via this forum's messaging system.  Submissions made after each week's deadline cannot be accepted.
* Each card you submit must have a name, a cost, a list of types, and the exact wording that should appear on the card.  Also include a brief description of any special design considerations (e.g., Stash having a unique back), but do NOT include any other information, such as strategic commentary or examples about it would play.
* Although you must submit names for each of your cards, the names will not be listed on the voting ballots, so make sure your card's appeal does not depend on your choice of name.
* I will accept revisions to your contest entries provided they are submitted to me before the deadline.  If you submit a revision to an entry you have previously submitted to me, resubmit your revised card(s) in their entirety.  That is, don't tell me "Oh, can you make that +2 Cards say +3 Cards instead?"  Just resubmit the full card.
* Only submit cards that are your own design.
* You may submit cards that have been previously posted here in this forum, including those that have been refined by the community as a whole, provided you can still claim that the central conceit of the card -- and the majority of its final version -- is yours.  This applies to cards previously posted, however -- if your submissions aren't already posted on his board, please refrain from doing so until after the results have been announced.
* A single card might conceivably qualify for multiple challenges within this series.  However, you may not submit the same card for more than one concurrent challenge.  That is, if you have submitted a card to one challenge, you may not submit it to another challenge until the results of that first challenge have been announced.
* Do not disclose your submissions publicly, either in this thread or elsewhere

--

The deadline for this week's challenges is Thursday, September 27, at 10am EDT.

--

Challenge #17 - Reaction Card

Objective: Create a card that has the "Reaction" type.  The card may have other types as well.  The card text must clearly specify the event or events that may activate the reaction card and what the reaction card does when activated.

The trigger event for the Reaction may not be an event that already exists on an official card that is NOT a Reaction.  For example, since Nomad Camp is not a Reaction card, you may not submit a Reaction card with the trigger event "When you gain this...."

Although there are no other restrictions in the rules for this challenge what the event(s) might be, some possible trigger events can introduce practical problems playing them out, so keep this in mind if you choose an event that isn't already used by one of the official Reaction cards.  For reference, here are the various trigger events used by the official Reaction cards:

* When another player plays an Attack card...
* When you gain a card...
* When you would gain a card...
* When you buy a Victory card...
* When another player gains a Province...
* When you discard this other than during a Clean-up phase...
* When one of your cards is trashed...

Official Examples: Moat, Secret Chamber, Watchtower, Horse Traders, Fool's Gold, Trader, Tunnel, Beggar, and Market Square.

Official Non-Examples: Non-Reaction cards with on-buy, on-gain, on-trash, while-in-play, or other similar event-based behavior.  Examples include Lighthouse, Nomad Camp, Border Village, Mint, Cultist, and many others.  These cards are not eligible, because they do not have the Reaction type, and nor would they be eligible if they were given the Reaction type but left otherwise unchanged.

--

The Ballot
The Results

5
Mini-Set Design Contest / Mini-Set Design Contest, Challenge #17: +Buy!
« on: September 20, 2012, 02:06:49 pm »
Submission Rules

* Submit no more than one card per person per challenge.  You do not need to submit for all challenges if you don't want to, but of course you can't win if you don't compete.
* Submit your cards to me via this forum's messaging system.  Submissions made after each week's deadline cannot be accepted.
* Each card you submit must have a name, a cost, a list of types, and the exact wording that should appear on the card.  Also include a brief description of any special design considerations (e.g., Stash having a unique back), but do NOT include any other information, such as strategic commentary or examples about it would play.
* Although you must submit names for each of your cards, the names will not be listed on the voting ballots, so make sure your card's appeal does not depend on your choice of name.
* I will accept revisions to your contest entries provided they are submitted to me before the deadline.  If you submit a revision to an entry you have previously submitted to me, resubmit your revised card(s) in their entirety.  That is, don't tell me "Oh, can you make that +2 Cards say +3 Cards instead?"  Just resubmit the full card.
* Only submit cards that are your own design.
* You may submit cards that have been previously posted here in this forum, including those that have been refined by the community as a whole, provided you can still claim that the central conceit of the card -- and the majority of its final version -- is yours.  This applies to cards previously posted, however -- if your submissions aren't already posted on his board, please refrain from doing so until after the results have been announced.
* A single card might conceivably qualify for multiple challenges within this series.  However, you may not submit the same card for more than one concurrent challenge.  That is, if you have submitted a card to one challenge, you may not submit it to another challenge until the results of that first challenge have been announced.
* Do not disclose your submissions publicly, either in this thread or elsewhere

--

The deadline for this week's challenges is Thursday, September 27, at 10am EDT.

--

Challenge #17 - +Buy

Objective: Create a card that offers at least +1 Buy each time it is played.  The card need not always give +Buy, but it must always (rare edge cases excepted) be possible for the player to choose to get +Buy by playing the card.

Official Examples: Numerous cards that give +Buy flat out, such as Festival, Baron, Salvager, and Contraband.  Pawn and Squire, because the player is always free to choose the +Buy options on these cards.  Hamlet, because the player may choose to discard a card to get +Buy except in the rare circumstance where the player no longer has any cards in hand.  Tactician, even though the +Buy is only offered on the next turn. 

Official Non-Examples: Spice Merchant, because not having a Treasure in hand to trash happens a bit too often to be considered an edge case.  City, because not getting +Buy out of that card is common.  Workshop, Black Market, Possession, and other sources of "pseudo-buys" (as they are sometimes called), because that's not good enough.

--

The Ballot
The Results

6
Mini-Set Design Contest / Playtesting: Pawn Shop
« on: September 17, 2012, 10:07:22 am »
I was worried about this card.  Cards that allow a good buy/gain in the same turn as heavy trashing tend to be powerhouses (Masquerade; Trading Post, when bought early; Forge, except that it costs $7).  Pawn Shop allows this on an unprecedented scale:  trash 3-4 Coppers and get a $3-$4 card too?  Surely Pawn Shop needed to cost $5.

But I think it's just fine, mainly because unless you have help, you tend not to be able to use it much.  After that first turn trashing 3-4 Coppers, you're lucky if you get to do that again.  More likely you get to trash 1-2 Coppers a couple more times (so good $2 cards are important) and then it's a dead card.  It's definitely a great early buy, but $3 is fine.  It passes the "open with two" test that $3 cards must pass:  since one Pawn Shop becomes a dead card quickly, two Pawn Shops become dead even more quickly.

Of course there is the other option -- breaking a card up into Coppers.  That's a much more situational use, good with alt-VP (especially Gardens) and maybe once in the end-game as a last-ditch move to pull in an extra green card.  As it's generally worse than Salvager (no +Buy, no Copper flooding), I'm not too worried about that one.

I did experiment with breaking up Estates into Coppers in the early game.  On its own, that's probably a bad move, for the same reason that, generally speaking, you'd rather return two Coppers with an Ambassador than one Estate.  But if those two Coppers can then be used by Pawn Shop to gain a better card later, maybe it's a good idea.  My tests were too sketchy to be conclusive on this point, but it definitely did not play as sweetly as the idea perhaps sounds.

But all that changes with the right combos in place.  I played Pawn Shop on a Tactician turn and trashed 6 Coppers for 1 Gold.  Obviously that was amazing.  I'm not worried about it -- it's a power combo that's fine being a power combo -- and there is a cost to delaying the use of Pawn Shop until you've got a combo (whatever it might be) set up in the first place.

Bottom line, this card is really nice, and after some cursory testing I can't find any flaw with it.

7
Mini-Set Design Contest / Playtesting: Academy
« on: September 17, 2012, 09:56:55 am »
I played Academy (formerly known as "Conference Room") against an AI last night.  My suspicion was that the other-player benefit was too strong, and I think my test bore that out.  I have a proposed fix, but first let me go into more detail.

If you think about it, the opponent benefit is roughly the equivalent of playing this on your own turn:

+2 Cards
+1 Action
Discard a card.

...because when it's not your turn and someone is triggering this for you, you don't need the cantrip part to replace the card slot and action that it consumes.  So you're left with just "+1 Card, discard a card."  Anyway, recently Donald X was saying that he tried out a card like this at a cost of $4, and it was slightly too strong for a $4 card.  That surprised me, but I could see why:  you almost always have, in a hand of five, a green card you don't mind getting rid of, and if you don't, you probably have a Copper you don't mind discarding when it means you can have a Gold or something instead.  But, true, it's strictly weaker than Laboratory, so let's call it a $4.5 effect.

Well, Academy gives you a $5 effect and your opponents a $4.5 effect, which is net-positive but doesn't seem like a great use of the opportunity cost to pick one up.

In one of my test games, I set up a 3-player game against two AI players, which were set up to pile-drive the Academy pile, and I played a money game without buying any.  Soon, the AIs were each able to play 4-5 Academies per turn.  What that meant is I essentially got to play with my 5 best cards every turn, because I got to filter 10 times between turns.  I bought 6 Provinces in 12 turns, winning the game easily.  Interestingly, one of the AI players got 4 Provinces in 12 turns, which is remarkable on its own -- he was getting benefit from his own Academies, plus the ones bought by the third AI player, who only ended the game with 2 Provinces due to a couple of random bad buys.

Obviously this isn't conclusive in itself:  just because pile-driving Academies isn't a winning strategy doesn't mean some number of Academies employed differently wouldn't be better.  And I also have to concede that the AIs were not designed to stop playing Academies once they'd reached $8 (although I believe I reached $8 after roughly as many plays as it took them).  But it's not a promising sign, and I can't personally envision a situation where I'd want to buy an Academy for myself.  As surmised above, receiving the opponent benefit of an Academy felt roughly like getting a free Laboratory.  I blew through several green cards, replacing them with Coppers or better, and by the time I had to discard Coppers, I was pretty much already at (or well above) the $8 Province-buy threshold.

I did play another game or two wherein I actually bought Academies.  Those were more difficult to distill in words, but they certainly felt wrong.

But I think I know a promising way to fix this:

+2 Cards
+1 Action
Each other player may draw a card.  If he does, he discards two cards.

This is a much lighter opponent benefit and, perhaps just as critically, one that doesn't scale as well with multiples, such that a chain will cause your opponents to match the benefit you get yourself.

It resembles the Vault penalty but is still stronger, as the draw happens first.

I also like the symmetry:  You go down a card (Academy taking up a slot in your hand) and up two cards.  Opponents go up a card and go down two cards.

More importantly, I think it preserves the spirit of the original card people voted for.

But I confess I haven't tested that variation yet.  It's just something that came to mind and held up under speculative scrutiny.  Thoughts?

8
Dominion General Discussion / Dark Ages benchmarks
« on: September 12, 2012, 11:36:02 am »
I'm a little surprised not to see any BM+X benchmarks for Dark Ages cards yet.  Or maybe I haven't been looking in the right places.  I'm extremely curious to know, for example, how Hunting Grounds + BM is (4 cards is great; competition with Gold at that price level isn't) and Catacombs + BM is (probably almost as good as Embassy) and also less obvious but still simple things like:

* Beggar/Gardens - as compared with other Gardens-rush enablers.
* Beggar/Duchy/Duke rush - Competitive?  Better or worse than HT/Duke?
* Armory/Gardens - As compared with Workshop/Gardens and Ironworks/Gardens in particular.

Anybody know?

9
Submission Rules

* Submit no more than one card per person per challenge.  You do not need to submit for all challenges if you don't want to, but of course you can't win if you don't compete.
* Submit your cards to me via this forum's messaging system.  Submissions made after each week's deadline cannot be accepted.
* Each card you submit must have a name, a cost, a list of types, and the exact wording that should appear on the card.  Also include a brief description of any special design considerations (e.g., Stash having a unique back), but do NOT include any other information, such as strategic commentary or examples about it would play.
* Although you must submit names for each of your cards, the names will not be listed on the voting ballots, so make sure your card's appeal does not depend on your choice of name.
* I will accept revisions to your contest entries provided they are submitted to me before the deadline.  If you submit a revision to an entry you have previously submitted to me, resubmit your revised card(s) in their entirety.  That is, don't tell me "Oh, can you make that +2 Cards say +3 Cards instead?"  Just resubmit the full card.
* Only submit cards that are your own design.
* You may submit cards that have been previously posted here in this forum, including those that have been refined by the community as a whole, provided you can still claim that the central conceit of the card -- and the majority of its final version -- is yours.  This applies to cards previously posted, however -- if your submissions aren't already posted on his board, please refrain from doing so until after the results have been announced.
* A single card might conceivably qualify for multiple challenges within this series.  However, you may not submit the same card for more than one concurrent challenge.  That is, if you have submitted a card to one challenge, you may not submit it to another challenge until the results of that first challenge have been announced.
* Do not disclose your submissions publicly, either in this thread or elsewhere

--

The deadline for this week's challenges is Monday, September 17, at 10am EDT.

--

Challenge #16 - Treasure Card

Objective: Create a card of type "Treasure."  It may have no other types.

Official Examples: Philosopher's Stone, Loan, Quarry, Talisman, Contraband, Royal Seal, Venture, Hoard, Bank, Horn of Plenty, Cache, Ill-Gotten Gains, Counterfeit, Spoils, Stash.

Official Non-Examples: Harem, Diadem, and Fool's Gold, because these cards also have other types.

--

The Ballot
The Results

10
Mini-Set Design Contest / Mini-Set Design Contest, Challenge #15: $2 Card!
« on: September 10, 2012, 09:25:03 am »
Submission Rules

* Submit no more than one card per person per challenge.  You do not need to submit for all challenges if you don't want to, but of course you can't win if you don't compete.
* Submit your cards to me via this forum's messaging system.  Submissions made after each week's deadline cannot be accepted.
* Each card you submit must have a name, a cost, a list of types, and the exact wording that should appear on the card.  Also include a brief description of any special design considerations (e.g., Stash having a unique back), but do NOT include any other information, such as strategic commentary or examples about it would play.
* Although you must submit names for each of your cards, the names will not be listed on the voting ballots, so make sure your card's appeal does not depend on your choice of name.
* I will accept revisions to your contest entries provided they are submitted to me before the deadline.  If you submit a revision to an entry you have previously submitted to me, resubmit your revised card(s) in their entirety.  That is, don't tell me "Oh, can you make that +2 Cards say +3 Cards instead?"  Just resubmit the full card.
* Only submit cards that are your own design.
* You may submit cards that have been previously posted here in this forum, including those that have been refined by the community as a whole, provided you can still claim that the central conceit of the card -- and the majority of its final version -- is yours.  This applies to cards previously posted, however -- if your submissions aren't already posted on his board, please refrain from doing so until after the results have been announced.
* A single card might conceivably qualify for multiple challenges within this series.  However, you may not submit the same card for more than one concurrent challenge.  That is, if you have submitted a card to one challenge, you may not submit it to another challenge until the results of that first challenge have been announced.
* Do not disclose your submissions publicly, either in this thread or elsewhere

--

The deadline for this week's challenges is Monday, September 17, at 10am EDT.

--

Challenge #15 - $2 Card

Objective: Create a card costing $2.

Official Examples: Chapel, Cellar, Courtyard, Pawn, and many others.

Official Non-Examples: Peddler, because although it can cost $2, it does not always cost $2.

--

The Ballot
The Results

11
Variants and Fan Cards / Villages!
« on: September 06, 2012, 05:06:06 pm »
Inspired by Dark Ages' Knights cards, I decided it would be neat to have a pile of unique Village cards.  Why Villages?  One, they all serve generally the same function in a deck, so -- much as with Knights -- being deprived of any particular one probably isn't a big deal, as any of the others will usually serve as well.  Two, I've had several ideas for village cards that seem fun but not quite worth making into a proper stack of 10.  But when all combined into a single stack, each individual card feels more interesting.

I've playtested all of these against an AI.  I'll be playing with these in real, face-to-face games tonight, and I'll report back afterward, but for now, here they are.  It is very deliberate that I changed up the types (including an Attack, a Duration, a Victory, etc) and prices (mostly $4s but some $3s).


Coastal Village
$4 - Action
+2 Actions
Look at the top 3 cards of your deck.  Put one into your hand and put the others on top of your deck in any order.


Selected draw.  (This is an idea I took from the "How many niches are left for villages?" thread here.)

Hunter's Village
$4 - Action
+2 Actions
Look at the top card of your deck and choose one:  Put it into your hand and discard the top card of your deck; or discard it and +1 Card.


Weaker selected draw than Coastal Village, but with some filtering to make up for it.  (The discard component of the first option is not important from a mathematical perspective, but it's good for fun:  the player gets to see if they made a smart or foolish decision and glory or agonize accordingly.)

Shipping Village
$4 - Action/Duration
+1 Card
+2 Actions
At the start of your next turn: +1 Action


One of the stronger ones, I suspect.

Town Hall
$4 - Action/Victory
+1 Card
+2 Actions
--
Worth 1 VP


Great Hall with a bonus.

Encampment
$4 - Action
+1 Card
+2 Actions
Reveal your hand.  If it contains no Actions, +1 Card.


Shanty Town plus.  Fires less often (because the first card you draw might be an Action card) but still only fires at all when the Village effect would otherwise go wasted, so I don't think it's too strong.  In Big Money, it's a Laboratory, but then so is Shanty Town.

Municipality
$3 - Action/Attack
+2 Actions
+1 Buy
+$1
Every other player reveals the top card of his deck and either discards it or puts it back, your choice.


A unique attack can't be too strong, or it could decide the game.  But a slap on the wrist is fine.  This is also the +Buy Village.  Lack of card draw, though, essentially means this is a Copper-with-a-bonus, so I think $3 is fine.

Trader's Village
$3 - Action
+2 Actions
+$1
Trash a card from your hand.


Another Copper-with-a-bonus Village.  Lack of draw balances the trashing effect, which, even being mandatory, would be too much of a bonus for the $4 family of drawing Villages.

Prospector's Village
$4 - Action
+1 Card
+2 Actions
Look through your discard pile.  Select a card from it and put it on top of your deck.


Village plus Scavenger.  The lack of a Chancellor effect means it whiffs a lot, especially if you've build a drawing engine out of all these villages.  But it's pretty good in the right circumstances.

Underground Village
$3 - Action
+2 Actions
Discard up to 3 cards from your hand.  +1 Card per card discarded.


Cellar with a Village effect.  Limiting the number of cards you can discard was possibly unnecessary, since Cellar itself has no limit and still works as a $2 card.  But, I dunno, I think adding an Action to a filtering card is a bigger deal than adding one to most cards would be, just because of the likelihood you'll pull in a bunch of Action cards.  Having the limit felt safer to me.

Outskirts
$4 - Action
+1 Card
+2 Actions
--
When you gain this, gain a card costing less than this.
--
When you trash this, +3 Cards.


I wanted an on-gain Village and an on-trash Village, and then I realized it might be pretty cool if they were on the same card.  I know Donald has a personal rule that he won't make a card with more than one horizontal line, but I liked the symmetry of having a simple vanilla card that had a bonus at each end of its life.  The name "Outskirts," of course, is purposely evocative of "Border Village."

12
Dominion General Discussion / Best $0-$1 cards?
« on: August 30, 2012, 11:12:44 am »
Seems like we've got enough now that we could have such a list, despite that only one of them is a kingdom card.  What would it look like?  This is my stab at it, but note that I haven't played Dark Ages yet and can only surmise about many of these.

The Good - Usually provides some benefit and often provides great benefit.

1. Followers
2. Trusty Steed
3. Mercenary
4. Princess
5. Madman
6. Bag of Gold
7. Diadem
8. Spoils
9. Poor House

The Bad - Usually detrimental to your deck but provides situationally desirable benefits.

10. Copper
11. Necropolis
12. Abandoned Mine
13. Survivors
14. Ruined Market

The Ugly - Virtually always bad cards.  Except in edge cases, benefits are limited to mitigating the damage they do to your deck.

15. Ruined Library
16. Overgrown Estate
17. Hovel
18. Ruined Village
19. Curse

13
Dominion General Discussion / X-with-a-bonus!
« on: August 29, 2012, 12:29:47 pm »
This is another card categorization post.  Someone mentioned in the Dark Ages previews that Scavenger was an upgraded Chancellor, and that was odd, particularly since the $3 and $4 cost tiers aren't greatly different from each other.  But there are a number of card-with-a-bonus cards, including at those prices, and I thought it would be interesting to try to enumerate them all.

To qualify for the list, there must be some card Y that does all the good things some card X does, plus more, with no additional drawbacks.  That's not quite restrictive enough, because I don't feel like Market is a Pawn-with-a-bonus card or that Laboratory is a Wishing-Well-with-a-bonus card, so I'm going to use some reasonable judgment to prune the list down to what feels right.

Improved $3 Cards

Silver - Royal Seal ($5), Stash ($5), Harem ($6)
Chancellor - Scavenger ($4)
Woodcutter - Nomad Camp ($4), Bridge ($4), Festival ($5)
Workshop - Ironworks ($4), Armory* ($4)
Village - a long list of oft-discussed and well-understood cards I need not reiterate here

Improved $4 Cards

Smithy - Torturer ($5), Rabble ($5), Margrave** ($5), Catacombs ($5), Hunting Grounds ($6), Nobles ($6)
Remodel - Expand ($7)
Throne Room - King's Court ($7)
Militia - Goons ($6)
Young Witch - Witch ($5)
Peddler*** - Market ($5), Bazaar ($5), Treasury ($5), Highway ($5), Junk Dealer ($5), Grand Market ($6)

--

It's really interesting how few cards there are on this list, though there are a lot of pairs of cards that don't quite qualify here, like Secret Chamber/Vault, Lighthouse/Fishing Village, Market/Grand Market, and Spy/Scrying Pool.

In particular, note the utter lack of improved $2 cards.  I'm certain it is by design that the $2 cards tend to do unique things (Embargo, Moat, Beggar, Pearl Diver, Crossroads, and Haven, for example) so that they will be worth buying when you want those effects.

--

(*Most benefits have edge cases that turn them into drawbacks, but it's worth pointing out that Armory is not nearly as good for Gardens rushes as Workshop, even accounting for the price difference.)
(**Here again, Margrave's attack can be a penalty but is generally a benefit.)
(***Peddler doesn't cost $4, and in fact its price feature means that Peddler itself is a "Peddler-with-a-bonus."  I include it here only because "Peddler-with-a-bonus" is an understood and useful term, and $4 is generally accepted as its balanced price point.  But if you want to be a stickler here, call it "Oasis-with-a-bonus."  Then people will tell you that Oasis is like a Peddler that activates Tunnel, so it ought to be the other way around anyway.)

14
Submission Rules

* Submit no more than one card per person per challenge.  You do not need to submit for all challenges if you don't want to, but of course you can't win if you don't compete.
* Submit your cards to me via this forum's messaging system.  Submissions made after each week's deadline cannot be accepted.
* Each card you submit must have a name, a cost, a list of types, and the exact wording that should appear on the card.  Also include a brief description of any special design considerations (e.g., Stash having a unique back), but do NOT include any other information, such as strategic commentary or examples about it would play.
* Although you must submit names for each of your cards, the names will not be listed on the voting ballots, so make sure your card's appeal does not depend on your choice of name.
* I will accept revisions to your contest entries provided they are submitted to me before the deadline.  If you submit a revision to an entry you have previously submitted to me, resubmit your revised card(s) in their entirety.  That is, don't tell me "Oh, can you make that +2 Cards say +3 Cards instead?"  Just resubmit the full card.
* Only submit cards that are your own design.
* You may submit cards that have been previously posted here in this forum, including those that have been refined by the community as a whole, provided you can still claim that the central conceit of the card -- and the majority of its final version -- is yours.  This applies to cards previously posted, however -- if your submissions aren't already posted on his board, please refrain from doing so until after the results have been announced.
* A single card might conceivably qualify for multiple challenges within this series.  However, you may not submit the same card for more than one concurrent challenge.  That is, if you have submitted a card to one challenge, you may not submit it to another challenge until the results of that first challenge have been announced.
* Do not disclose your submissions publicly, either in this thread or elsewhere

--

The deadline for this week's challenges is Monday, September 3, at 10am EDT.

--

Challenge #14 - Self-Synergizing Card

Objective: Create a card that synergizes or combos with itself in such a way that playing the card might be more effective or powerful when prior copies of the card have already been played.

Because self-synergy is difficult to define in black and white terms, no card will be refused eligibility.  However, voters will be charged with judging not just card quality but their conformance to the spirit of this objective as described above.

Note that this definition of self-synergy is a distinct concept from a card that is merely helpful to play in multiples.  For example, playing multiple Villages might be a good idea, because you can get a lot of +Actions that way.  But playing one Village doesn't generally enable you to play another to better effect.

For this challenge, no rules clarifications are permitted.  This is to avoid a situation where a rules clarification may suggest a non-obvious self-synergetic use for the card and leave voters to guess about a non-obvious self-synergetic use for other cards.  (However, there is no reason self-synergy for any or all of the submitted cards can't be discussed after the ballot is announced, including by the authors of the cards.)

Because all cards will be considered eligible for this contest, I will not list any non-examples.  Instead, I'll list a few sample arguments for some official cards that fit the spirit of this contest.

Better-Than-Linear Yields:  Bridge (cost-reduction and +Buys both stack, resulting in exponential benefits when multiples are played).  Goons (VPs-per-buy and +Buys both increase, resulting in exponential benefits when multiples are played).  King's Court (after one, play a card three times; after two, play three cards three times).  Fool's Gold (playing one quadruples the benefit of any others you play).

Compounding Draw: Crossroads (draws cards to power up other Crossroads).  Madman (draws cards to power up other Madmen.)

Subtle Self-Synergy: Stables (playing one successfully increases the chance that you'll have Treasure cards with which to play others successfully).  Mystic (one failed Mystic play guarantees the second will succeed).  Conspirator (playing a Conspirator as your second action activates successive Conspirators).  Native Village (play some to stow cards away, then another to draw them all into your hand).  Bank (playing one increases the value you derive from any others you can play).  Cartographer, Apothecary (a second play of each of these cards enables you to draw a specific card out of the next four in your deck).  Cultist (playing one means you can play others without consuming Actions).  Rogue (play one to put something good in the trash, then another to take it back out).

Single-Card Engines:  Minion (playing a Minion to cycle is more effective if you've already played some for cash).  Hunting Party (playing a Hunting Party is generally going to be better at finding your key cards -- or other Hunting Parties -- if you've already played some to draw copies of junk cards into your hand).  In this category, the line between "card that is good to spam" and "card that powers up successive copies" is especially fine, but it's there.

Unlikely Cases For Self-Synergy: Outpost, Counting House (they have no effect when stacked).  Militia, Ghost Ship, Fortune Teller (repeating the attack portions of these cards doesn't compound the severity of the attack).  Scout (each play of Scout decreases the likelihood that another Scout will be as helpful).  Laboratory (because although each play of a Laboratory increases the likelihood that you'll have another to play, the benefit you get from playing each Laboratory is the same).

Wrong Kind of Self-Synergy: You might say that University self-synergizes, because it gains you Actions and also gives you +Actions to play them.  Yes, but how does University enable or power-up playing other copies of itself?  There are a number of cards whose different components synergize with each other, but that's not the kind of self-synergy I'm looking for here.

I'm going to put Treasure Map in the "wrong kind of self-synergy" category too, because although you do need another copy of itself to get the four Golds, you don't play that second copy.  Grand Market and Peddler each help you buy more copies more easily when you play some, but they don't change the effectiveness of successive copies you play.

Still, these are nuances that voters will have the freedom to work out for themselves and come to their own conclusions about.

--

The Ballot
The Results

15
Submission Rules

* Submit no more than one card per person per challenge.  You do not need to submit for all challenges if you don't want to, but of course you can't win if you don't compete.
* Submit your cards to me via this forum's messaging system.  Submissions made after each week's deadline cannot be accepted.
* Each card you submit must have a name, a cost, a list of types, and the exact wording that should appear on the card.  Also include a brief description of any special design considerations (e.g., Stash having a unique back), but do NOT include any other information, such as strategic commentary or examples about it would play.
* Although you must submit names for each of your cards, the names will not be listed on the voting ballots, so make sure your card's appeal does not depend on your choice of name.
* I will accept revisions to your contest entries provided they are submitted to me before the deadline.  If you submit a revision to an entry you have previously submitted to me, resubmit your revised card(s) in their entirety.  That is, don't tell me "Oh, can you make that +2 Cards say +3 Cards instead?"  Just resubmit the full card.
* Only submit cards that are your own design.
* You may submit cards that have been previously posted here in this forum, including those that have been refined by the community as a whole, provided you can still claim that the central conceit of the card -- and the majority of its final version -- is yours.  This applies to cards previously posted, however -- if your submissions aren't already posted on his board, please refrain from doing so until after the results have been announced.
* A single card might conceivably qualify for multiple challenges within this series.  However, you may not submit the same card for more than one concurrent challenge.  That is, if you have submitted a card to one challenge, you may not submit it to another challenge until the results of that first challenge have been announced.
* Do not disclose your submissions publicly, either in this thread or elsewhere

--

The deadline for this week's challenges is Monday, September 3, at 10am EDT.

--

Challenge #13 - One-Shot Card

Objective: Create a one-shot card.  This is a card that trashes itself, returns itself to its pile, or sets itself aside permanently when played.  The card must always do this when played; it can't, for example, only trash or return itself under certain circumstances, or if the player chooses a particular option.  You may only submit a single card -- that is, you can't submit multiple cards that work together (such as Pillage and Spoils).

You may not include an event clause that undoes the effect of the trashing/returning.  For example, "When you trash this, gain a copy of this card from the trash."

Official Examples: Feast, Embargo, Treasure Map, Island, Pillage.

Official Non-Examples: Mining Village, because you don't have to trash it when you play it.  Horn of Plenty, because it only trashes itself if you use it to gain a Victory card.  Hermit, because it only trashes itself if you don't buy something when it is in play.  Madman, only because you'd need to submit Hermit as well, to specify how Madman cards are gained, and Hermit is ineligible.  Spoils, for the same reason, and even though Pillage is eligible, you can't submit multiple cards (Pillage plus Spoils).

--

The Ballot
The Results

16
Mini-Set Design Contest / Playtesting: Retort
« on: August 23, 2012, 05:26:44 pm »
As with Aqua Vitae, I played a couple of test games against AIs to see how this card played.  As a reminder:

Retort
$4P - Action
+3 Cards
+1 Action
Discard a card.  If it is a Potion, +1 Action.


I played two games, one with no Villages where I loaded up on terminals and used Retort chains to draw Potions (I bought 3 total) to discard.  My terminals were Swindlers, Horse Traderses, and I think a Courtyard or two, and probably something else I'm forgetting.  Anyway, I wound up buying too many, as I did wind up with terminal clashes a bit more often than I'd have liked.  However, the Retorts were pretty good at giving me extra Actions when I had them; the card draw and the extra Potions generally meant that I had them to discard when necessary, though not always.

When I did not have a Potion to discard, I ALWAYS had something else I wouldn't miss -- Estates, usually.  Possibly a dead terminal once or twice, but basically just Estates, and then Provinces once I started buying those.

On my second game, I tried not bothering with multiple terminals at all.  I bought a kicker (Council Room, for the +Buy), two Potions total, and massed Retorts for a drawing engine.  Otherwise, I just bought Treasure and ultimately Provinces (once I only had $5 and so bought a Jester).  I was expecting the drawing engine to be too easy to set up, since the net +2 Cards with filtering is way better than Alchemist's flat +2 Cards.  But it was fine -- reasonably strong, but not too much at all.  I think this was because the Retorts were too expensive to mass, and of course they don't set themselves up for your next turn like Alchemists do.

So, so far, I am happy with this one and think it's pretty much spot-on.

17
Mini-Set Design Contest / Playtesting: Aqua Vitae
« on: August 23, 2012, 03:12:07 pm »
I played a couple of test games of this against an A.I.  It felt super strong to me overall, and I wonder if it needs a nerf or a price boost.

First game wasn't so bad, although it kind of felt like it.  Familiar and Alchemist were also on the board.  I got an Aqua Vitae and a Familiar, in that order (perhaps the wrong order), and then alternated between Alchemists and more Aqua Vitaeaeae (that's the plural, right?).  Lack of +Buy kept me to one Province per turn, but I could have exceeded that if there had been +Buy available.  Anyway, it ramped up really quickly, with the Aqua Vitae generally being a Gold or better.  Extra Potions, to make sure I could get more Alchemists and Aqua Vitaeaeae, didn't hurt me at all, and nor did the Curses I got from enemy Familiars.  The deck just breezed right through that stuff.

Second game had Worker's Village for seamless +Buy and Apothecary, to mass Coppers for the Aqua Vitae cards.  4 Provinces in 13 turns.  The game ended with me getting 6 Provinces in 16 turns.

Granted the strength of both games depended on me having the right combos available (Alchemist and Apothecary), but Potion cards will tend to show up with other Potion cards, depending on how you select the kingdom cards, and so I wonder if this is just too good.  Or is it just appropriately strong?

Certainly more testing and more opinions will be required before we can know.

18
Submission Rules

* Submit no more than one card per person per challenge.  You do not need to submit for all challenges if you don't want to, but of course you can't win if you don't compete.
* Submit your cards to me via this forum's messaging system.  Submissions made after each week's deadline cannot be accepted.
* Each card you submit must have a name, a cost, a list of types, and the exact wording that should appear on the card.  Also include a brief description of any special design considerations (e.g., Stash having a unique back), but do NOT include any other information, such as strategic commentary or examples about it would play.
* Although you must submit names for each of your cards, the names will not be listed on the voting ballots, so make sure your card's appeal does not depend on your choice of name.
* I will accept revisions to your contest entries provided they are submitted to me before the deadline.  If you submit a revision to an entry you have previously submitted to me, resubmit your revised card(s) in their entirety.  That is, don't tell me "Oh, can you make that +2 Cards say +3 Cards instead?"  Just resubmit the full card.
* Only submit cards that are your own design.
* You may submit cards that have been previously posted here in this forum, including those that have been refined by the community as a whole, provided you can still claim that the central conceit of the card -- and the majority of its final version -- is yours.  This applies to cards previously posted, however -- if your submissions aren't already posted on his board, please refrain from doing so until after the results have been announced.
* A single card might conceivably qualify for multiple challenges within this series.  However, you may not submit the same card for more than one concurrent challenge.  That is, if you have submitted a card to one challenge, you may not submit it to another challenge until the results of that first challenge have been announced.
* Do not disclose your submissions publicly, either in this thread or elsewhere

--

The deadline for this week's challenges is Monday, August 20, at 10am EDT.

--

Challenge #12 - Non-Terminal Draw Card

Objective: Create a non-terminal drawing card.  This is a card that may be used to increase your hand-size from what it was before it was played from your hand, while also offering exactly +1 Action.  The card must never add more than +1 Action, but there is no maximum to how many cards it can add to your hand.  The card need not always increase your hand-size, but this should be a primary function of the card.  A Duration card increasing the size of a future hand instead of the current one is acceptable, so long as you still get +1 Action on the current turn.

"Draw up to X" cards are not permitted for this challenge.

Official Examples: Laboratory, Wishing Well, Scout, Caravan, Apprentice, Apothecary, Scrying Pool, Alchemist, Menagerie, Hunting Party, Stables, Governor.

Official Non-Examples: Spice Merchant, because although it offers +2 Cards and +1 Action, the fact that you have to trash a card from your hand means that your hand-size will not have increased after playing the card.  Warehouse, because although it offers +3 Cards and +1 Action, the required discarding means you wind up with fewer cards in your hand than before you played it.  Nobles, because although it offers +3 Cards and extra Actions, it doesn't offer both at the same time, and in any case when it gives extra Actions it gives +2 Actions instead of +1 Action.  Cultist, because although it allows you to play another Cultist, it doesn't give you +1 Action.  Wharf, because although it increases the size of a future turn, it doesn't provide +1 Action when played.

--

The Ballot
The Results

19
Submission Rules

* Submit no more than one card per person per challenge.  You do not need to submit for all challenges if you don't want to, but of course you can't win if you don't compete.
* Submit your cards to me via this forum's messaging system.  Submissions made after each week's deadline cannot be accepted.
* Each card you submit must have a name, a cost, a list of types, and the exact wording that should appear on the card.  Also include a brief description of any special design considerations (e.g., Stash having a unique back), but do NOT include any other information, such as strategic commentary or examples about it would play.
* Although you must submit names for each of your cards, the names will not be listed on the voting ballots, so make sure your card's appeal does not depend on your choice of name.
* I will accept revisions to your contest entries provided they are submitted to me before the deadline.  If you submit a revision to an entry you have previously submitted to me, resubmit your revised card(s) in their entirety.  That is, don't tell me "Oh, can you make that +2 Cards say +3 Cards instead?"  Just resubmit the full card.
* Only submit cards that are your own design.
* You may submit cards that have been previously posted here in this forum, including those that have been refined by the community as a whole, provided you can still claim that the central conceit of the card -- and the majority of its final version -- is yours.  This applies to cards previously posted, however -- if your submissions aren't already posted on his board, please refrain from doing so until after the results have been announced.
* A single card might conceivably qualify for multiple challenges within this series.  However, you may not submit the same card for more than one concurrent challenge.  That is, if you have submitted a card to one challenge, you may not submit it to another challenge until the results of that first challenge have been announced.
* Do not disclose your submissions publicly, either in this thread or elsewhere

--

The deadline for this week's challenges is Monday, August 20, at 10am EDT.

--

Challenge #11 - Dual-Type Card

Objective: Create a dual-type card.  The complete type specification must be one of the following:

* Action-Victory
* Action-Victory-Reaction
* Action-Attack-Victory
* Action-Duration-Victory
* Treasure-Victory
* Treasure-Reaction
* Victory-Reaction

No other type combinations are eligible.

Official Examples: Great Hall, Nobles, Harem, Island, Tunnel, Fool's Gold.

Official Non-Examples: Everything else.

--

The Ballot
The Results

20
Mini-Set Design Contest / Playtesting: Production Village (Challenge #7)
« on: August 07, 2012, 12:22:13 pm »
I jumped the gun on this a little bit and playtested Production Village before I even knew for sure that it was going to be the winner.  I haven't had a chance to playtest it in a game with another human player, but I did implement the card in an A.I. and played a few games against that.

First two games were disappointments, despite that I set the first up with non-drawing terminals to set it up.  It played like an ordinary Village most of the time.  The problem is that I wasn't able to make use of its power unless I had sufficient density that I'd have two in hand, and then I only saw it on the second play.  For example, in a hand of PV, PV, Woodcutter, Navigator, X:

- Play PV (draw 1 card).
- Play Navigator.
- Play PV (draw 2 cards).
- Play Woodcutter.

So when they collide together, you get an average of +1.5 Cards instead of +1 Card apiece.  It isn't enough to make a Village tree with weak terminals a viable strategy, because you still need drawing to get enough actions into your hand to play them, but if you draw in any other way than the PV's themselves, you'd be better off playing with vanilla Villages.

I don't remember which actual terminals I used in that first game, but among them were a mix of strong (Mountebank) and weak (Woodcutter, IIRC) ones.  Anyway, my conclusion was that on this kind of board, PV wouldn't be worth going for unless vanilla Village was.  And on that specific board, it wasn't, so PV wasn't worthwhile either.  I'm not even so sure that Mountebank, strong a card as that is, was good enough.  The presence of Mountebank just means that you'll be getting junked up too, which means the chance of getting PV-PV-Mountebank-Mountebank hand is slim.

Second board was a more random mix, and I couldn't find a place for PV either.

Third game, PV was a jawdroppingly powerful superstar.   The key card in that game was...Goons.  PV+Goons was amazing in two ways.  One, Goons is THE non-drawing terminal to try to play multiples of with Villages.  So not only is that something you want to try to do, but the fact that Goons doesn't draw means that PV is the best Village to do it with.  Goons also covers several other key engine components such as +Buy (so using Worker's is less important) and $ (so using Bazaar/Festival is less important).  There was a trasher in the kingdom too, so I was able to clear out the stuff that kept my PV's and Goonses from colliding.

Two, PV is THE defense against the Goons attack itself.  Having to discard down to 3 cards in hand is probably actually a benefit, as you can discard weak cards and perhaps draw better ones when PV gets you back up to 5.  Unlike Watchtower and Library, using a PV to draw back up doesn't consume an action.

One might argue that this is too strong a defense, since it actually helps you to get hit by a hand-size attack.  Well, I dunno.  It's not dramatically stronger (if at all) than Trader vs. Curser, for example.  It's just a really good combo.  Against other discard attacks, the defense may or may not be worth going for.  On some boards, you might not even want it against, say, Militia:  it's the fact that Goons is a must-buy almost every time Goons is on the table that makes PV, in turn, such a powerhouse in combination.

Finally, to speak more generally about non-terminal "draw up to X cards, probably the fan card I've tested more extensively than any is my Archivist card.  I'm pretty convinced it's balanced.  But there's no question that PV is the more situational of the two, ranging from "weaker than Village" to "probably a must-buy" from board to board.

Although they didn't come up in my test games, it occurs to me that buying this card opens the door for your opponent to go for Council Room.  For example, say you have a PV in your hand.   You'll probably play it first next turn, in which case you'll draw a card.  But if your opponent plays Council Room, you draw that card and then don't draw an additional card when you play PV on your turn.  Well if you're gonna get that card anyway, then your opponent's Council Room has no benefit for you -- so he gets his +4 Cards, +1 Buy for free!

Finally, one more combo that didn't come up in my test games:  Hamlet.  On the surface, Hamlet is a good enabler here.  Discard stuff with Hamlet, draw replacement cards with PV.  I have a sneaking suspicion that as cool as this sounds, it's a nombo.  The problem is that PV gives you extra Actions, but if you have a Hamlet, you're already getting extra actions.   So all PV is doing for you is providing replacement cards that your Hamlet gave you.  Is that so much better than Worker's Village+Cellar?  You do end up a card higher with Hamlet+PV (though WV+Cellar lets you replace more cards if desired), but I suspect this is still a Village Idiot-style pursuit.  You don't want to load up on Hamlets and PVs just because they power each other up -- there's got to be something more to the picture.

Anyway, my general conclusions:  I lament that the card perhaps doesn't shine all that often; that said, I think there are tons of cards much narrower than it, and it works even if you can't pair it up with power enablers.  Based on what little playtesting I've given it thus far, I think it's a good card, balanced enough, and correctly priced.

21
A common complaint about Alchemy is that, as a small expansion, there aren't that many Potion-cost cards.  Alchemy games therefore tend not to feel as different from each other as non-Potion games do.  It's time to remedy that.  For Challenge #10, submit a Potion-cost card of your own!

--

Submission Rules

* Submit no more than one card per person per challenge.  You do not need to submit for all challenges if you don't want to, but of course you can't win if you don't compete.
* Submit your cards to me via this forum's messaging system.  Submissions made after each week's deadline cannot be accepted.
* Each card you submit must have a name, a cost, a list of types, and the exact wording that should appear on the card.  Also include a brief description of any special design considerations (e.g., Stash having a unique back), but do NOT include any other information, such as strategic commentary or examples about it would play.
* Although you must submit names for each of your cards, the names will not be listed on the voting ballots, so make sure your card's appeal does not depend on your choice of name.
* I will accept revisions to your contest entries provided they are submitted to me before the deadline.  If you submit a revision to an entry you have previously submitted to me, resubmit your revised card(s) in their entirety.  That is, don't tell me "Oh, can you make that +2 Cards say +3 Cards instead?"  Just resubmit the full card.
* Only submit cards that are your own design.
* You may submit cards that have been previously posted here in this forum, including those that have been refined by the community as a whole, provided you can still claim that the central conceit of the card -- and the majority of its final version -- is yours.  This applies to cards previously posted, however -- if your submissions aren't already posted on his board, please refrain from doing so until after the results have been announced.
* A single card might conceivably qualify for multiple challenges within this series.  However, you may not submit the same card for more than one concurrent challenge.  That is, if you have submitted a card to one challenge, you may not submit it to another challenge until the results of that first challenge have been announced.
* Do not disclose your submissions publicly, either in this thread or elsewhere

--

The deadline for this week's challenges is Thursday, August 9, at 10am EDT.

--

Challenge #10 - Potion-Cost Card

Objective: Create a card with a Potion component in its cost.  This is the only eligibility requirement for this challenge; however, I would like to do something unusual here and take a moment to expound on what makes a well-designed Potion-cost card.  Feel free to elaborate, expound, disagree, or correct by posting to this thread.

There are, of course, many ways to make a good Potion-cost card, presumably including ways other than those exhibited by the official cards.  Perhaps the most important design consideration is to consider if the card might be worth going for even if it's the only Potion-cost card in the kingdom.  That usually (but not necessarily!) means the card would be good to have multiples of, ensuring that the Potion in your deck will be good for more than a single use.  Examples of good Potion-cost cards:

(1) Non-terminals, especially cantrips or better, with stackable effects.  (University, Scrying Pool, Apothecary, Alchemist, Familiar)
(2) Treasure cards.  (Philosopher's Stone)
(3) Victory cards.  (Vineyard)
(4) Terminal actions that don't suffer as much as terminals typically do when they collide.  (Golem, which might easily draw non-terminal Actions and thereby allow a second colliding Golem to be played; Transmute, which can be used on another Transmute.)
(5) Actions that are so powerful that their availability needs to be limited beyond what a high cost will achieve.  (Possession in particular, but most of the other Potion-cost Actions fall into this category too.)

Official Examples: I don't need to make a list this time, right?

Official Non-Examples: Nor a list for these?

--

The Ballot
The Results

22
Challenge #9 is to make a Terminal Silver card.  This challenge has restrictions above and beyond what its name implies, too, as it denies you the right to include special rules or anything but on-play behavior.  It'll be tricky to come up with a good card under such restrictive parameters, but that's sort of the point.  If you prefer the more broad challenges, though, you may find #10 -- to be posted momentarily -- more to your liking.

This challenge has a rule change:  Previously, you couldn't submit the same card to more than a single challenge (although I forgot about the rule and permitted this in a couple of cases).  The new rule is that you can't submit the same card to more than one challenge that is still running.  If you submitted a card to a challenge whose results have been posted, it's fair to resubmit it to another challenge.

Meanwhile, your votes for Challenges #7 and #8 are due Monday, August 6, at 10am EDT.  Get your votes in early, as there will be other Dominion-related things to do that day (Dark Ages previews!).

--

Submission Rules

* Submit no more than one card per person per challenge.  You do not need to submit for all challenges if you don't want to, but of course you can't win if you don't compete.
* Submit your cards to me via this forum's messaging system.  Submissions made after each week's deadline cannot be accepted.
* Each card you submit must have a name, a cost, a list of types, and the exact wording that should appear on the card.  Also include a brief description of any special design considerations (e.g., Stash having a unique back), but do NOT include any other information, such as strategic commentary or examples about it would play.
* Although you must submit names for each of your cards, the names will not be listed on the voting ballots, so make sure your card's appeal does not depend on your choice of name.
* I will accept revisions to your contest entries provided they are submitted to me before the deadline.  If you submit a revision to an entry you have previously submitted to me, resubmit your revised card(s) in their entirety.  That is, don't tell me "Oh, can you make that +2 Cards say +3 Cards instead?"  Just resubmit the full card.
* Only submit cards that are your own design.
* You may submit cards that have been previously posted here in this forum, including those that have been refined by the community as a whole, provided you can still claim that the central conceit of the card -- and the majority of its final version -- is yours.  This applies to cards previously posted, however -- if your submissions aren't already posted on his board, please refrain from doing so until after the results have been announced.
* A single card might conceivably qualify for multiple challenges within this series.  However, you may not submit the same card for more than one concurrent challenge.  That is, if you have submitted a card to one challenge, you may not submit it to another challenge until the results of that first challenge have been announced.
* Do not disclose your submissions publicly, either in this thread or elsewhere

--

The deadline for this week's challenges is Thursday, August 9, at 10am EDT.

--

Challenge #9 - Terminal Silver

Objective: Create a Terminal Silver card that conforms to the following constraints:

(1) The card type must be "Action" or "Action-Attack."  No other type or dual-type combinations are permitted.
(2) The card must provide exactly +$2 each time it is played; never any more or less.  Receipt of the +$2 cannot be conditional in any way.
(3) The card must be a terminal; that is, it must never provide +Actions.
(4) The player must have one fewer card in his hand after playing the card than he did beforehand.  Edge case exceptions to this rule are permitted.
(5) The card may not gain any Treasure cards to hand.  (Gaining them elsewhere is fine.)
(6) The card must not have a horizontal line in the card text.  To put it another way, it may only have "on play" effects; no "while in play," "on buy," or "on gain" effects are permitted.  Additionally, it may not have any special rules (Duchess, Embargo) or setup instructions (Black Market).

Official Examples: Chancellor, Woodcutter, Militia, Swindler, Cutpurse, Navigator, Monument, Mountebank, Jester.

Official Non-Examples: Festival, because it provides extra Actions.  Steward, because the player may choose not to receive the +$2 bonus.  Conspirator, because sometimes the card provides +1 Action and replaces itself in your hand.  Minion, because it provides an extra Action and gives the player the choice not to receive the +$2.  Explorer, because it gains a Silver (or Gold) to hand, rather than giving +$2, and doesn't leave your hand size down a card.  Merchant Ship, because it has an "Action-Duration" type.  Goons and Haggler, because they have "while in play" effects.  Nomad Camp, because it has an "on gain" effect.  Duchess, Embargo, and Black Market, because they have special rules listed below a horizontal line.  Silver, Royal Seal, and Stash, because they are Treasure cards.

--

The Ballot
The Results

23
This will probably be one of the hardest challenges in this series, but I'm sure we're all up to it.

--

Submission Rules

* Submit no more than one card per person per challenge.  You do not need to submit for all challenges if you don't want to, but of course you can't win if you don't compete.
* Submit your cards to me via this forum's messaging system.  Submissions made after each week's deadline cannot be accepted.
* Each card you submit must have a name, a cost, a list of types, and the exact wording that should appear on the card.  Also include a brief description of any special design considerations (e.g., Stash having a unique back), but do NOT include any other information, such as strategic commentary or examples about it would play.
* Although you must submit names for each of your cards, the names will not be listed on the voting ballots, so make sure your card's appeal does not depend on your choice of name.
* I will accept revisions to your contest entries provided they are submitted to me before the deadline.  If you submit a revision to an entry you have previously submitted to me, resubmit your revised card(s) in their entirety.  That is, don't tell me "Oh, can you make that +2 Cards say +3 Cards instead?"  Just resubmit the full card.
* Only submit cards that are your own design.
* You may submit cards that have been previously posted here in this forum, including those that have been refined by the community as a whole, provided you can still claim that the central conceit of the card -- and the majority of its final version -- is yours.  This applies to cards previously posted, however -- if your submissions aren't already posted on his board, please refrain from doing so until after the results have been announced.
* A single card might conceivably qualify for multiple challenges within this series.  However, you may not submit the same card for more than one challenge.
* Do not disclose your submissions publicly, either in this thread or elsewhere

--

The deadline for this week's challenges is Monday, July 30, at 10am EDT.

--

Challenge #8 - Non-Attack Interaction

Objective: Design a card that is not an Attack card but that, when played by one player, allows or requires at least one other player to act.  The card may not be "targeted" in the sense that it allows the player to choose which opponent(s) are affected.

Official Examples: Cards that only affect the player to the left:  Tribute, Envoy, Contraband, Possession.  Cards that affect all other players:  Council Room, Masquerade, Bishop, Vault, Tournament, Governor, Duchess.

Official Non-Examples: All Attack cards, because they are Attack cards.  Smugglers, because it allows you to do something based on what another player did, rather than allowing other players to act at the time you play it.  All the official Reaction cards, for the same reason.  Embassy and Ill-Gotten Gains, because they only allow other players to act when someone buys it rather than when someone plays it.   City and Trade Route, because although those cards can affect other players, they don't allow other players to act when played.

--

The Ballot
The Results

24
You knew this one was coming sooner or later:  the Village challenge!  I'll post Challenge #8 in a separate thread momentarily.  Meanwhile, your votes for Challenges #5 and #6 are due Thursday, 7/26/2012.

--

Submission Rules

* Submit no more than one card per person per challenge.  You do not need to submit for all challenges if you don't want to, but of course you can't win if you don't compete.
* Submit your cards to me via this forum's messaging system.  Submissions made after each week's deadline cannot be accepted.
* Each card you submit must have a name, a cost, a list of types, and the exact wording that should appear on the card.  Also include a brief description of any special design considerations (e.g., Stash having a unique back), but do NOT include any other information, such as strategic commentary or examples about it would play.
* Although you must submit names for each of your cards, the names will not be listed on the voting ballots, so make sure your card's appeal does not depend on your choice of name.
* I will accept revisions to your contest entries provided they are submitted to me before the deadline.  If you submit a revision to an entry you have previously submitted to me, resubmit your revised card(s) in their entirety.  That is, don't tell me "Oh, can you make that +2 Cards say +3 Cards instead?"  Just resubmit the full card.
* Only submit cards that are your own design.
* You may submit cards that have been previously posted here in this forum, including those that have been refined by the community as a whole, provided you can still claim that the central conceit of the card -- and the majority of its final version -- is yours.  This applies to cards previously posted, however -- if your submissions aren't already posted on his board, please refrain from doing so until after the results have been announced.
* A single card might conceivably qualify for multiple challenges within this series.  However, you may not submit the same card for more than one challenge.
* Do not disclose your submissions publicly, either in this thread or elsewhere

--

The deadline for this week's challenges is Monday, July 30, at 10am EDT.

--

Challenge #7 - Village

Objective: Design a Village card.  This is a card that must provide the player with at least +2 Actions each time it is played.  A Duration card may instead or in addition provide at least +1 Action on a future turn (e.g., Tactician).  Receipt of the extra Actions may be optional so long as it is within the player's control to receive it or not (e.g., Nobles, Hamlet), barring only marginal edge cases (i.e., deck with only a Hamlet in it; Tactician as the last card in hand).

Official Examples: All cards with "Village" in the name, Festival, Shanty Town, Nobles, Bazaar, University, City, Hamlet, Inn, Trusty Steed, Tactician.

Official Non-Examples: Crossroads (because only the first play per turn gives extra Actions); Tribute (because the player can't control whether he gets extra Actions from it); Golem (because although it allows you to play two Action cards, it doesn't give you Actions).

--

The Ballot
The Results

25
Mini-Set Design Contest / Card pseudonyms for Challenges 5 and 6
« on: July 19, 2012, 11:25:37 pm »
The card pseudonyms for Challenge #5 are missing first names, and the ones for Challenge #6 are missing last names.  As a little bonus game, tell us the complete names of these cards.  (Use spoiler tags!)

Pages: [1] 2 3

Page created in 0.081 seconds with 16 queries.