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1

Variants and Fan Cards / A Dragon in Dominion!

« on: December 15, 2017, 09:47:40 am »

To my surprise, I haven't seen any Dominion fan cards named Dragon on this forum for a long time... or ever. This might be because no mere mortal dares make a card based on such a fearsome creature without giving it an effect to match its grizzly renown.

Well, I think I found such an effect. It's so strong it has to be at the bottom of a split pile to be delayed. Dragon Tamers assemble on top to come to your protection, provided you can pay them.



Now behold the terrible creature lurking below! Here to bring great wealth unto the player who summoned it, and devastation upon the others!



So the Dragon is at the bottom of a split pile, expensive, even further delayed and a blocking card comes with it... it better had a huge impact!



To some it might feel that your turn phases should never be touched by any attack. I say with the right limitations you can do it. In the end it's all about the fun, though. This isn't going to be for everyone. But I'd be glad to hear your feedback - positive and negative - anyway.

Just to clarify, there are 5 Dragon Tamers and 5 Dragons, just like in a normal split pile.

And yes, you can absolutely choose to skip Clean-up on your turn - you don't get to discard cards from play or your hand (but you don't draw 5 cards either). This might occasionally be the best decision, particulary if you plan to end the game this turn anyway.

The card images were made using Violet CLM's Dominion Card Image Generator v1.3 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=16622.0) and I'm very happy with the results It's an awesome program. I wasn't pleased with the image it generated for the Ravaged state so I made my own using GIMP (I was too lazy to replace the "Event" line at the top right, oh well).

2

Variants and Fan Cards / Card ideas: Church, Cathedral and Dome

« on: August 09, 2016, 11:24:32 am »

Hey guys, here's just a random idea I had a while ago and just found in my files. I have no idea if these would work out this way, or any at all. But they look interesting to me and I'd like to hear some opinions before I possibly go to test these.

Church, $5, Action
+1 Action. Choose one: Trash any number of cards from your hand; or gain a Silver, putting it into your hand.Setup: Add Cathedral and Dome to the Kingdom.

Cathedral, $7, Action/ Attack
+2 Cards. +1 Actions. Return all Curses from the trash to the Supply. Each other player gains a Curse.You can’t buy this if you don’t have 3 or more Churches in play.

Dome, $8, Action
Gain a Victory card. Each other player gains a Victory card costing up to $3 less than it.You can’t buy this if you don’t have at least a Cathedral and a Gold in play.

3

Variants and Fan Cards / The In(n)side Job - a short story for a fan card

« on: July 02, 2016, 04:43:25 pm »

The In(n)side Job

I just arrived here the day before yesterday but I already knew this was not an ordinary place. The innkeeper seemed to be a very earnest man. “The people’ve had enough,” he said, a little somberly.
I did not want to appear all too interested so I just replied, “they always wish for better times,” hoping for more.
The innkeeper went on, “they are done waiting. Now it’s time to act. They won’t stand Duke Lombard’s oppressive reign any longer.”
I snickered, “Lombard’s what?”
He scowled at me. “And what are you up to?” he replied.
“Oh, you know, I travel a lot. Bring me another beer and I’ll tell you all about it.”

So the afternoon went, and as the setting sun heralded the evening, the inn filled with townsfolk. In the midst of the noise I overheard snippets of a conversation between the innkeeper and the local blacksmith.
“Who’s in?” asked the latter.
“Teuton the butcher. Varya the baker. I think, most of the fishermen,” the innkeeper reported.
“And Roman?”
“The steward? I’m not sure.”
“How many council members…?”
I looked around and spotted the fishermen in a corner of the tavern. Next to me sat a few vagrants who arrived here at roughly the same time as me. One looked back at me and, if I was not mistaken, winked briefly. But I had a considerable amount of drink so my memory is porous.

The next day I entered the inn early in the morning with a shiver of cold. I assumed I had slept outside but I could not remember. When I was about to sit down at the counter, the innkeeper spoke to me, “You haven’t paid last night. Six pints, that’s twelve copper coins.”
I pretended grabbing for my purse, then said, “Oh curses! A thief must’ve cut my purse. Alas, but a beer will console me for my loss. I can pay you next week.”
“I’ve had enough with all you drunkards and ne’er-do-wells!” the innkeeper grumbled, “Get out!”
I wanted to talk back but suddenly I felt a firm grasp on my right shoulder. The smith’s sturdy arm dragged me back and away from the counter. “Out with you, or else!” he yelled.
I stumbled outside where the vagrants were just being chased off by the townsfolk – farmers, fishers, even miners. I also recognised Teuton the butcher among them. I followed a tramp and stopped him and said, “What did you hear?”
“Same as you,” he answered. “Should we warn Lombard?”
“You should tell his advisor. Meet him at the farmer’s market at noon.”
“Understood,” he replied and trotted away.

I left the town but it didn’t take long until I reached the next village. I asked a wine merchant for the local inn and he said, cordially, “why, friend, I was just heading there. Come with me.”
We got along well with each other and as soon as we entered at the tavern, the wine merchant – his name was Vandal – loudly, but friendly, ordered two glasses of wine. I would have preferred beer but you don’t reject free drinks. After a while, my tongue was loosened, and I whispered mysteriously to the innkeeper, “there is a revolt going on in that town in the north right now.” Vandal and the innkeeper bided in silence. “Bring me another beer and I’ll tell you all about it.”

   

Innkeeper, $6 <2>, Action, Attack, Reserve
+2 Cars. +2 Actions. Each other player gains a Drunkard from the Drunkard pile, putting it on their Tavern mat. Put this on your Tavern mat.At the start of your turn, you may call this, to look through your discard pile, reveal up to 4 Action cards from it and shuffle them into your deck.

Drunkard, $0*, Reserve
At the start of our turn, you may discard this from your Tavern mat and take <2>.While this is on your Tavern mat, you can’t call any cards. (This is not in the Supply.)

There are 12 Drunkards in the Drunkard pile.

I wanted to make a card that somehow attacks the Tavern mat. A way to do this is to have it keep Reserve cards from being called. Obviously, this card has to be a Reserve as well so that there's always a target for the attack. It also has to be powerful enough so that you want to go for it despite the possibility of it being blocked temporarily. So Innkeeper is pretty strong, bearing a lot of resemblance to Inn whose on-gain effect would be a nice thing to call for. Drunkard, the "Tavern junk", has to give you penalty severe enough so that you don't call it automatically to get it off your mat. However you don't get punished for keeping Drunkards in your Tavern which gives you the option of ignoring Reserves and going for another strategy. Even without the attack effect, though, Innkeeper is good enough on its own. And if your opponent mirrors you, it has its own bane built-in.

4

Dominion General Discussion / Beginners' mistakes

« on: June 22, 2016, 09:28:29 am »

Reading Titandrake’s noteworthy article (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=14869.msg573060#msg573060) about concealing information in (online) Dominion games, I was reminded about the typical mistakes beginners and casual players make, particularly in real life games. I wanted to share my experiences on this issue. The purpose of this is not to rant about beginners but to find solutions how to best teach them to avoid certain mistakes, even if they don’t plan to become regular, advanced players. I don’t want to address rules violations, such as putting trashed cards into their discard pile, where the only correct move is to call their attention to it and rectify, but rather small errors and bad habits that impair our game experience.

(1) Slamming your whole hand on the table. While not technically violating the rules, although it looks like they are playing their Estates along with their actions and treasures (can’t wait for my first Inheritance game irl, yay!), they unnecessarily leak information and often find themselves having difficulty with playing cards like Secret Chamber (which is already confusing enough as a card) and Conspirator (with all cards spread out chaotically it’s hard to keep track of their play order). With base cards, or the simpler cards of the expansions, this doesn’t usually matter. I just feel like they’re ill-prepared for the more complex cards that interact with the size and content of your hand. But maybe this is something people can just learn later when they’ve already played a few games and they’ll be fine.

(2) Those who don’t throw all their hand cards on the table in the buy phase usually do the opposite; they briefly flash their hand (sometimes only the treasures) and then grab a card from the supply. There seem to be only these two types of beginner play styles. Obviously, there’s an accountability issue here, but when I remind them of the fact that the other players need to see how much money they played each turn, I might come across as a stiff rule-nazi. The best thing I can do is spread out the cards I played so each is visible individually, ideally also counting my total money aloud while playing treasures one after another. Do you guys think this is important in games with beginners or am I going a step too far? I mean, it’s not rare people miscount their money (happens to everyone), and it’s not like I win all games regardless of them sometimes buying more than they can afford. Especially in 4-player games I find it difficult to keep track of each player’s points and deck quality. So I'd like to think that at least everyone knows what they can afford on their own without me having to scrutinize every move they make.

(3) Putting cards gained during their action phase into their play area. Starting not later than in the mid-game phase, when people play multiple Villages, Smithies and Workshops in whatever order, with gained Villages and Smithies laying amongst their played copies, this can get very confusing; “What did I play? How many actions do I have left? I forgot to shuffle my gained cards in…” Some people (not only beginners) have their discard pile sitting next to, sometimes in the middle of, their play area, and when it contains only one or two cards, how do you tell they’re not played cards? Usually, players know where their discard pile is but the other players might not, and disorder ensues again. I am exaggerating here. Usually nothing happens, it’s just annoying to me and I always recommend separating your discard pile and play area with your deck in between the two. Am I the only one?
 
(4) Counting remaining actions after having played all their Villages and some of their terminals, instead of counting them after playing each action. Though I realize this is something not everybody has an easy time doing while they’re busy thinking about how to play their cards or what to play at all. It’s also not really hurting, just time consuming which has already led to games lasting way longer than expected, people getting tired and saying afterwards that Dominion takes such a long time to play when most you do is thinking. I guess, only time and experience will make for faster turns and more enjoyable games. You, as a beginner, just have to get through this unpleasant phase where you have no clue what to do and lose almost inevitably to advanced players during your first couple of games. This is an issue with Dominion as a game, anyway; it has a steep learning curve, even if you just play with Base cards.

So what do you guys think? Am I being too hard on beginners? What are your experiences and how do you help people avoid mistakes and play comprehensibly while also retaining the fun of the game?

5

Variants and Fan Cards / Flash cards

« on: June 14, 2016, 09:34:14 am »

Greetings, fellow fan card enthusiasts!

A while ago, I have come up with a new concept for non-attack player interaction on Dominion cards. (In Contrast, most of these cards turned out to be attacks.) I finally got down to make some images to have them ready for playtesting. Beware though, as all of these cards are completely untested as of when this was posted. Enjoy and please leave a comment!

Flash cards cards are recommended for games with 3 or more players. Several of them use the term “to flash a card”, meaning to put a card from one’s hand on the table face down and, when all players requested to do this have done so, simultaneously reveal it and put it back into one’s own hand, unless otherwise instructed.

Blueprint, $2, Action
+1 Action. +$1. Each other player flashes a card. Gain a card with cost exactly equal to that of a card with the highest cost in $ revealed. Each other player gains a card costing the same as the card with the lowest cost in $ (or tied for lowest) revealed.

Seeker, $3, Action/ Attack
+1 Card. +1 Action. Each player flashes a card. If you flashed the only Action card, +1 Action. Otherwise, each other player with 4 or more cards in hand discards the flashed card.

Gleemen, $4, Action/ Attack
+$2. Each player flashes a card. Each other player who flashed a card that shares a type with another revealed card gains a Curse.

Preside, $4, Action/ Attack
Each other player flashes a card and trashes it if it’s a Copper. If any Copper was trashed, gain an Action card costing up to $5. Otherwise, gain a Duchy and each other player gains a Copper.

Iron Smelt, $5, Action
Each other player flashes a card while you flash a card per other player. If the total cost of your cards is higher than the total cost of the other players’ cards, +3 Cards and +1 Action. Otherwise, +$3 and +1 Buy.

Older versions are listed below for reference.

Blueprint, $2, Action
+1 Action. Each player flashes a card and gains a non-Victory card with cost exactly equal to that of a card with the lowest cost in $ revealed.

Gleemen, $4, Action/ Attack
+$2. Each player flashes a card. Each other player who flashed a card that doesn’t share a type with another revealed card gains a Curse.

Iron Smelt, $5, Action
Each other player flashes a card while you flash 1 card for each other player. If the total cost of your cards is higher than the total cost of the other players’ cards, +$3 and +1 Buy. Otherwise, +3 Cards and +1 Action.

Cardinal, $5, Action/ Attack
+4 Cards. Each player (including you) with 5 or more cards in hand flashes 2 cards. If the total cost of their revealed cards is $5 or more, they discard one of them. Otherwise, they discard both.

6

Variants and Fan Cards / Dominion: Seasons

« on: January 10, 2016, 06:24:06 pm »

Greetings, fellow fan card enthusiasts!

Dominion takes place in medieval Europe which has been exposed to the vicissitudes of the Seasons, more so than our modern society. This is not accurately reflected in the gameplay, though. Asper and I proudly present this small expansion that introduces a turn-based card modification mechanic to Dominion.

Dominion: Seasons is a set that wants to change the way games take course and forces the players to adapt their strategy to the current game state. As the game progresses, Seasons change and Season cards get different effects. With this feature come a new level of strategical depth and a unique game style.

Each game that includes one or more Season cards uses the Season mat (see below) on which the progress of Seasons is marked with a Season marker. The game starts in Spring, section 1. After each full turn (e.g. after the last player in turn order took their turn) the Season marker is moved forward one section. After each 5 turns a new Season begins. Summer starts in turn 6, Fall in turn 11, and Winter in 16. After turn 20 it is Spring again.



The set consists of 12 cards (we might add one more) and 1 event. Most of them have been thoroughly tested although we always gladly welcome more playtesting and feedback. Asper and I will present a new card with in-depth commentary every three days or so. Additionally, the next post will be an overview of the set’s contents as a whole.

7

Variants and Fan Cards / Co0kieL0rd's other cards

« on: July 23, 2015, 05:05:59 pm »

Hello everyone!

Maybe some of you wondered what happened to severeal of the cards that I took out of my set Roots and Renewal. For those who care, here's my show space for all the cards that didn't make it into Roots and Renewal or were taken from the set due to redundancy or not fitting in. I'm also going to add new cards that aren't supposed to be in a set here. Please free to discuss or play with my cards.

Click on an image to enlarge.

                                                

8

Variants and Fan Cards / A Traveller with 2 different routes

« on: July 13, 2015, 05:03:34 pm »

I want to make a Traveller which can be exchanged for 2 different higher stages and came up with these 5 cards that are complementary to each other. There are two different Traveller chains interlocked here: Petty Lord > Protector > Savior, and Petty Lord > Robber Knight > Warlord. They can only be exchanged under certain conditions which shouldn't be too hard to meet as the cards in the chain help with that. There's five of each of Petty Lord's upgrades, just like with Page and Peasant.
Some of them interact with the trash and/or the Supply so they would fit my set pretty well. But I realise a Traveller chain is one of the hardest things in Dominion to balance and implement and requires a lot of playtesting. I would welcome any help and suggestions.

Click on an image to enlarge.

            

Petty Lord, $4, Action/ Traveller
+1 Card. +1 Action. Return a card from the trash to the Supply. If it costs $0, +$1.At the start of Clean-up this turn, you may choose one: if there is at least 1 Victory card in the trash, exchange this for a Protector; or, if there are no cards in your hand, exchange this for a Robber Knight.

Robber Knight, $5*, Action/ Attack/ Looter/ Traveller
Trash up to 2 cards from your hand. If you trashed exactly 2, gain a Gold. Each other player gains a Ruins.When you discard this from play, if there are at least half as many empty Supply piles as there are players (rounded down), you may exchange this for a Warlord. (This is not in the Supply.)

Warlord, $7*, Action/ Attack
+4 Cards. Trash a non-Victory card from the Supply. Each other player with 5 or more cards in their hand reveals their hand and discards a card costing the same as the trashed card. Then each other player discards down to 3 cards in their hand. (This is not in the Supply.)

Protector, $5*, Action/ Traveller
Reveal up to 4 cards from your hand. +$1 for each differently named card revealed.When you discard this from play, if there are at least twice as many Ruins in the trash as there are players, you may exchange it for a Savior. (This is not in the Supply.)

Savior, $7*, Action
Do this twice: Name a card and reveal cards from your deck until you reveal the named card, then put it into your hand and discard the rest. (This is not in the Supply.)

9

Game Reports / Monument as a counter to Possession

« on: July 07, 2015, 05:31:46 pm »

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20150707/log.516e0c71e4b082c74d7d0d79.1436304183181.txt

Kingdom: Crossroads, Sage, Urchin, Monument, Procession, Remodel, Smithy, Explorer, Market, Possession

Colony board. My opponent gained a Possession in turn 11. At this point, I was already ahead in VP via Monument. He started possessing me anyway and kept buying and playing more Possessions. I forfeited my original plan of going for Possession (or Platinum or Colony) and just kept buying Monuments and discarding my Potions to his Mercenaries to deny him more Possessions. In the end, I ended the game by piling Monument, Procession and Explorer, yes, Explorer!

Obviously my opponent made several huge mistakes, and kept repeating them: playing my Monuments and attacking me with Merc before possessing. My guess is that Possession is just a big trap here, as the Monument "defense" is so effective. Should Possession generally be ignored when the opponent has Monuments?

10

Variants and Fan Cards / Card idea: only 1 copy in the Supply at a time

« on: May 21, 2015, 09:37:55 am »

People seem to have stopped replying in the thread about my expansion set "Roots and Renewal" That's why I post my new ideas as new topics instead. I will stop it, if my set gets replies again.

Here's a card that's very simple, contrary to my usual designs, but has a unique property; under normal circumstances, there's at most 1 copy of it in the Supply at a time. This implies that you can only buy one copy of it per turn and, more importantly, when you bought a copy, that pile is empty at the end of your turn! So Refugees offers strong pile control by merely existing in the kingdom. Is it balanced? Heck if I knew

Refugees, $4, Action
+2 Cards. Choose one: +$1, or trash a card from your hand.Setup: Put this onto the Refugees mat. At the start of each player’s turn, if the Refugees pile is empty, put a card from the Refugees mat into the Supply.

11

Variants and Fan Cards / Cabal and Turncoat: handsize attack and non-Supply junking

« on: May 19, 2015, 02:03:04 pm »

This is my newest idea; a card that junks other players once when you buy it (similar to IGG), and when you play it, other players have to trash a copy of that specific junk card from their hand. Here's the catch: whenever the junk card (which is not in the Supply) is trashed, it gets topdecked, so in most games it's stuck in your deck. To make this less harsh, the junk cards are cantrips. The two cards could look like this:

   

Cabal, $5, Action/Attack
+$2. Each other player reveals their hand and trashes a Turncoat from it.When you buy this, each other player gains a Turncoat from the Turncoat pile.

Turncoat, $0*, Action
+1 Card. +1 Action.When you trash this, put it on top of your deck.
(This is not in the Supply.)

Opinions and suggestions are welcome

12

Variants and Fan Cards / Season cards

« on: April 21, 2015, 11:57:22 am »

So here's the idea:

Season cards involve a Journey token-like cycling mechanism that affects all players. There are 4 Seasons (named 1, 2, 3 and 4) which can be represented by a correspondent number of tokens of any kind. The game always starts in Season 1 and it is always the same Season for all players. Advancing a Season means from 1 to 2, from 2 to 3, 3 to 4, and from 4 back to 1.

Here are two cards which utilise that mechanism:

Datcha, $4, Action/ Victory/ Season
+1 Card. +1 Action. Advance a Season (the game starts in Season 1). | Worth VP equal to the current Season.

Plantation, $4, Action/ Season
+$ equal to the current Season. If the current Season is 1 or 2, +2 Actions. If the current Season is 3 or 4, +2 Buys. Advance a Season (the game starts in Season 1).

I have thought long and hard about their costs. They both might be too cheap at $4 but the jump to $5 is so big and they might be too expensive, then. The reason I think so is that other players have as much control over the advancement of the Seasons as you do. Theoretically, those cards benefit the players more in the opposite playing order (which I consider a good thing, as there are more cards giving the first player an advantage).

13

Dominion Articles / The 10 words card summary challenge

« on: March 26, 2015, 05:03:32 pm »

In the recent thread on Hunting Grounds (link=topic=12719.msg471143#msg471143 date=1426434735), Stef casually came up with the idea of summarizing a specific card and/or giving strategic advice for its use in only 10 words. Apart from 3 different articles on HG, this is the best thing that came out of that thread for me. Why not make it a challenge? Try to be as focussed on the main strengths and abilities of the card as possible, you've only got 10 words. No more and no less.

Stef set the bar with his strategic summary on Hunting Grounds:

Play in deck drawing engines. Overbuild when you can trash.

The other day at work I couldn't stop thinking of such 10 word summaries myself. I will collect my own ideas as well as all valid entries of other people below in this post. Hopefully, it will be an interesting read. Oh, and if you disagree with any of the summaries, especially mine, I'm happy to complement or replace it with a better one.

Ambassador: As all suspected. Not only history shows, Ambassadors love war. (hvb)
   Rarely ignore. Get two. Return two coppers over one estate. (JW)
Apprentice: Great with gainers or other expensive trashers, but not Copper (iguanaiguana)
Baron: Buy is key. Good in 2nd shuffle. Or bad. (Eevee; 9 words)
Black Market: If there's something you need, they've got it. (Donald X.);
   Doesn't matter what's in it. Often good in engine decks. (Eevee)
Border Village: Buy this and get a free Torturer. Step three: profit! (Jack Rudd)
Cache: Gain this when Copper is easily trashed or actually useful. (Co0kieL0rd)
Contraband: Good when you have options. Play it before other treasures. (eHalcyon)
Coppersmith: Not worth it without reliable draw, extra buys, action surplus. (Co0kieL0rd)
Duke: Buy all Duchies first. Usually better than Provinces, especially uncontested. (qmech)
Fairgrounds: With some effort, it's a personal pile of cheap provinces. (liopoil; 11 words)
Familiar: Often overestimated; Potion hurts tempo. Watch out for faster strategies. (eHalcyon)
Fortress: Village. Synergy with trash for benefit. Defence against trashing attacks. (Co0kieL0rd)
Goons: Virtually never skippable. Only question is engine or Goons/money. (jaybeez)
Hermit: Sanity is madness well-directed: early; often; with replacement gained. (SheCantSayNo)
Hunting Grounds: Play in deck drawing engines. Overbuild when you can trash. (Stef)
Ironworks: Premier Workshop variant. Pair with cost reduction for fun times! (jaybeez)
King's Court: Only ignorable if there is no +buy or draw. Awesome! (hvb)
Masterpiece: Best Feodum enabler; mediocre to bad otherwise. (werothegreat; 7 words)
Oracle: Draws quality over quantity. Decent for cycling. Attack is relevant. (markusin)
Outpost: Double turns if you can kick off with three cards. (liopoil)
Pearl Diver: Increases chances of drawing good cards earlier, but sometimes useless. (Co0kieL0rd)
Peddler: Get its price down to zero, then buy it up. (Jack Rudd)
Possession: High opportunity cost; often ignorable. Don't overbuild. Beware Ambassador, Masquerade.
Prince: Buy as engine enabler. Otherwise prefer Province. Good when ahead. (faust)
Rats: Have a plan to trash these, or do not buy. (werothegreat)
Rebuild: Strong fast engines can beat it. Not many other things. (Eevee)
Scout: Don't buy this ever. Oh wait, I need ten words. (werothegreat)
   No, no, no, no, no.  No.  Good God man, no. (Witherweaver)
Scrying Pool: Mandatory with just a sliver of support for action density. (liopoil)
Sea Hag: Prioritise topdecking Curses until empty, then trash this dead card. (Co0kieL0rd)
Stonemason: Overpy, gain many Action cards. Trashes and provides pile control. (Co0kieL0rd)
Tactician: Enough virtual coin means you can play one every turn./Remember to keep something to discard, or you are screwed. (Kirian)
Torturer: Chains hurt.  Feels worse than it is. Don't always discard. (eHalcyon)
Village: Basic card to increase terminal action capacity of a deck. (Co0kieL0rd)
   Enables playing more cards. Necessary, but only for engines. (Eevee)
Watchtower: Synergizes with every card on the board, except for some. (liopoil)
   Squire, Goons or Rats in the plain? Lookout for Watchtower! (hvb)
Wharf: Excellent engine and Big Money enabler. Almost always buy it. (Co0kieL0rd)
Whishing Well: Good if it's the only draw on board available. Practise with it. (hvb; 11 words)
Witch: You always buy Witch, the hard part is choosing when. (Titandrake)

14

Rules Questions / Embargo tokens on an empty pile

« on: March 13, 2015, 09:27:49 am »

I haven't found a thread about this: Do Embargo tokens (or any kind of tokens) remain on a Supply pile even when it has been drained empty? I mean, it could happen that a card gets returned to that pile via Ambassador and everyone defends against it with Lighthouses and there are still Curses left in the Supply.

15

Variants and Fan Cards / Card idea: Siege and Castle (setup change)

« on: March 10, 2015, 03:05:12 pm »

Greetings, folks!
I've come up with this idea for a set of two cards that interact with each other. I'm just introducing the two mechanisms here, the cards haven't been tested or polished, yet. Please have a look at them. I will explain the idea below.

Siege, $5, Action/Attack
+1 Card. +1 Action. Each other player reveals the top 3 cards of their deck. If they revealed a Castle, they may pay a Castle token. If they didn’t, they trash a revealed Castle. They discard the rest.Setup: Add a Castle to each player’s deck.

Castle, $3, Action/Victory
+1 Card. +1 Action. Take a Castle token.Worth 1VP per Castle token you have.

With Siege in the Supply, each player starts with a Castle in their deck. This brings multiple changes with it;
(1) Each time you play the Castle, you basically score points. You can play it before your first reshuffle, and the more often, the better. (I might need to adjust the points-to-token ratio.)
(2) There's an eleventh card in your starting deck. It's a cantrip so it doesn't mess up your first reshuffle but there might be some edge-cases where this matters a lot.
(3) You start with a card in your deck that costs $3. Similar to LastFootnote's Domains, this can grant you an early trash-for-benefit bonus.

In order to stop your opponents from scoring points via Castle tokens, you need to buy Sieges (or other trashing attacks). Sieges are spammable to make hitting Castles easier but they are otherwise unreliable and weak attacks that provide no immediate benefit to the attacker (which I'm not so happy with). Siege still looks kinda stronger than Spy so it costs $5.

Two notes concerning the wording of Siege: it says "they trash a revealed Castle" so in the rare case they reveal two Castles (Rogue, Grave Robber,...) they only have to trash one; and it says "They discard all un-trashed cards" (better sounding suggestions?) so they discard a revealed Castle that hasn't been trashed, as well.

I would gladly appreciate it if you guys answer these questions:
Do the cards look interesting and fun?
Do they look practical?
Do they look balanced?

16

Variants and Fan Cards / Losing track of revealed cards

« on: February 24, 2015, 05:46:36 am »

I have a rules question concerning the interaction between two cards I made.

   

What happens if Suburbia gets revealed by Royalty? If you choose to set it aside, Royalty loses track of it so Suburbia does not get discarded. Royalty says "Gain a card costing up to $2 more than one of the discarded cards". He expects to find Suburbia in the revealed area and fails to discard it but does he still make you or the other player gain a card because gaining is not linked with the condition that anything was discarded? Or does he not gain anything because no card was actually discarded?

17

Variants and Fan Cards / Dominion: Roots and Renewal

« on: July 29, 2014, 06:42:42 pm »

11/7/2017

Greetings, fellow fan card enthusiasts!

Roots and Renewal has been in development for over three years now, and little remains of my first card creations today. I’m constantly coming up with fresh ideas that fit the set’s core concepts. This is why it’s still far from finished and any feedback and practical experiences are greatly appreciated. This thread is being updated regularly, with frequent adjustments to cards, so check back from time to time so you don’t miss anything!

A huge thanks goes to Asper for countless fun and interesting test games and plenty of feedback. Also thanks to Fragasnap and LastFootnote for their help and everybody else who keeps coming back and leaves a comment every now and then.


Dominion fan expansion: Roots and Renewal

Roots and Renewal has the following themes:

• Interaction with the Supply
• Manipulation of the opening turns
• The Prime token mechanic (see next paragraph)

The Prime token increases the cost of all cards from the pile it's placed on by $1 and annuls all previous, current and future cost reductions of those cards. As soon as the Prime token is removed from that pile, this effect is made void retroactively, meaning that all past and current cost reductions now apply to cards from that pile even if they are result of resolving cards that have been played when the Prime token was still there.
There is only one Prime token, shared by all players. When a player is by a card, event or landmark instructed to move the Prime token he may choose to move it to the pile it’s currently on (hence leaving it there).

Kingdom cards

                                                           


Split pile

   

Extra cards

                      

18

Variants and Fan Cards / (Self-)Cursing Attack Card: Juggler

« on: March 05, 2014, 07:07:02 pm »

Hello and good evening, folks. I came up with an idea of how to do something interesting with Curses. It's definitely a funny and weird concept but I like it a lot and it seemed balanced in the first playtests.

Name:      Juggler
Type:      Action/ Attack
Cost:      $5
Text:      + 2 Cards. Every player (including you) discards a Curse from his hand. If he doesn’t, he gains a Curse, putting it in his hand. You may return a Curse from your hand to the supply. If you don’t, + $2.

So this is a $5-curser who also curses the attacker and gives the other players the option to defend themselves by discarding a Curse. The attacker can either immediately return the Curse to the supply or keep it in his hand for + $2 in addition to the + 2 cards he’s drawn before. If he keeps the Curse in hand and manages to play another Juggler in the same turn, he can discard the Curse so he doesn’t get another one. Since he won’t return this Curse to the supply (because he discarded it), he would get the $2 this time.
The attacked players, on the other hand, might want to keep the Curse they gained in their hand to discard it during their turn when they play Juggler so they don’t gain a Curse and get $2.

This card offers interesting choices each time you play it or defend against it. And while it doesn’t make Curse itself a better card, it certainly gives it some unique way of handling it. It’s all about “juggling” with Curses – moving them from your hand to the supply, into other player’s hands and from there into discard piles. Since you can always return them to the supply, the Juggler’s little game never ends if you don’t want it to.

So what do you think?

19

Variants and Fan Cards / Victory/ Reaction card: Cursed Manor

« on: March 04, 2014, 04:51:05 pm »

Hello and good evening, folks. I had this idea for a Victory card that yields VPs according to the amount of Curses in your deck. I'm probably not the first with such an idea. However, its reaction ability, which allows you to gain a Curse when another player does, should give it a somewhat unique character.

Name:      Cursed Manor
Type:      Victory/ Reaction
Cost:      5
Supply:      8 (2 players) or 12 (3 or more players)
Text:      This card is worth 1 VP per Curse in your deck, but no more than 10 VPs. | When another player gains a card from the supply costing 0, you may discard this from your hand. If you do, gain a copy of that card.

Clarifications

• Curses still count as -1 VP
• The reaction effect works for Coppers and Ruins, too. If you desire these cards, you may gain them with Cursed Manor
• You cannot gain Spoils, Madmen or Mercenaries with this, since they are not in the supply
• If another player gains a card whose cost has been reduced to 0 due to Bridges or Highways being in play, you may use the reaction to gain a copy of it. Similar applies for Peddler.

With the limit of 10 VPs per copy Cursed Manor, one player cannot have more than 70 VPs in a two-player game or 110 VPs in a game with three or more players, respectively, with CM and Curses alone. This is still a huge amount so every player should try to get as many Manors as possible so as not to allow one player to amass too many VPs. However, the VP limit prevents players from benefitting from having more than 10 Curses in their deck (each additional Curse will reduce VPs by 1).

Regardless of the amount of players, if you have less than 4 Cursed Manors, each Curse you gain (up to 10) increases your total VPs by 2 at best, so this is strictly worse than buying Duchies straight ahead. If you have exactly 4 Cursed Manors, each Curse increases your VPs by 3. That’s still worse than Duchies because the latter require that you have fewer total cards in your deck. With 5 CMs, each Curse is worth 4 VPs. With 6 CMs, each Curse is worth 5 VPs, etc.

I playtested this in different kingdoms while forcing at least one player to go after Manors and Curses rather than Provinces or Duchies. With a rush strategy and +buys or strong gainers, that player would always win with a huge lead. It is important not to let one player get all the Cursed Manors. With fewer than 6 CMs, a player has virtually no advantage without other green cards. If there's no +buy available, Big Money ad Provinces is usually better. If players are forced into a slog, CMs and Curses could be the sheet anchor.

Synergies
•   +Buy
•   Gainers, especially Altar
•   Remodel and similar cards
•   Cursers
•   Strong card drawers
•   Sifters
•   Island, Native Village to set aside cards

Antisynergies
•   Strong trashing
•   Trashing attacks, including Swindler which will hit Curses frequently and turn them into Copper
•   Handsize reduction attacks (?)
•   Duke, esp. with few players, can acquire more VPs through fewer cards and cost-collides with Cursed Manor

I would like to hear some opinions on this card. Regarding cost, functionality, its situational usefulness. What do you think?

20

Rules Questions / Swindler hits 0*-cost card

« on: March 03, 2014, 11:19:48 am »

Hello folks, I'm new here and recently became a huge fan of dominion. I was planning on registering in the forum anyway, and now I come here with a specific question. I could not find an answer in the rulebooks, the wiki nor the forum...

If a Swindler hits a 0*-cost card like Spoils, Madman or Mercenary, a) does the card go into the trash or back in its pile outside the supply, and b) does the attacking player get to choose a 0-cost card for the victim to gain or does the victim gain nothing because the trashed card's cost does not equal 0?

Best regards!