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Messages - iangoth

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1
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Clasic_Cards #4 - Zombie
« on: July 20, 2012, 07:52:38 am »
With the +$2, I'm a little worried that this card is too close to a strictly-better duchess. The fact that you can gain duchesses for free is probably enough to compensate, though.

I'm not sure why you're comparing this specifically with Duchess. Their effects aren't that similar, Duchess costs $1 less, and plenty of actions cards costing $3 provide $2 + an effect.

Sorry, misread your card. I somehow thought it cost $2, like duchess.

2
Robeson is strictly better than Chaplin, and I like the idea, but I'm having trouble deciding which is fairer for the $4 price point. The weird part that I *didn't* expect is that this is the first time we've had one submission strictly better than another at the same cost (that I've noticed, anyway).

I think there were a few others. In the terminal draw challenge, kennel (cost $5, +6 cards, lose your next turn) was strictly worse than captain (cost $5, +3 cards, You may draw up to three additional cards. For each card drawn this way, discard a card at the end of your clean-up phase. [this was my card, incidentally]). In the peddler variant challenge, there were like half a dozen variants of +1 card, +1 action, +$1, trash a card. Surely some were strictly better than the rest.


Quote
Chaplin
$4 - Action
+3 Cards
+1 Action
Put two cards from your hand on top of your deck.
Seems weak when compared to Courtyard.  You lose a card in exchange for an action, and the loss of the card (this keeps your hand at 5 cards) probably makes the action less valuable.

...

Quote
Robeson
$4 - Action
+4 Cards
+1 Action
Put 3 cards from your hand on top of your deck.
Courtyard variant.  I like Courtyard more.

I think you misunderstand both of these cards. Neither would play even slightly like courtyard. Courtyard is really a terminal draw card that lets you set up your next turn a bit. These cards are cantrips designed mainly to be engine support, and I think both have more in common with warehouse (because they let you see a ton of cards and pick what you want. Especially good for things like connecting your village and terminal draw) and cartographer (because they let you see ahead into your deck and order them). Of course, the fact that these cards don't sift like a warehouse or cartographer should change the way they play and feel substantially.

Another way to look at it--Chaplin and Robeson let your retroactively optimize your shuffle luck.

Good points.  Fine then, these seem like weaker versions of warehouse or cartographer, and Chaplin seems like a much weaker version of Robeson.

Overall, I would guess warehouse is better overall than either of these cards, but then again, warehouse is a pretty damn good card. Robeson could easily be better overall than cartographer (which is solid, but pretty expensive for a support card). Robeson/Chaplin should be different enough from warehouse and cartographer that you can't just call it a weaker version of either, though.

You're right, Chaplin is definitely strictly worse than Robeson. If I had to guess, I'd say Robeson is a strong $4 and Chaplin would be better priced at $3. These things are hard to judge without playtesting, though, so I could be way off.

3
Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Guaranteed Delayed Provinces
« on: July 20, 2012, 06:52:57 am »
Here's one:

treasure map x2, copper, smithy, smithy

T1) play the treasure maps
T2) buy province
T3) play smithy if in your hand, buy province. It's guaranteed.


Edit: Didn't see that DG beat me to it, more or less.
Edit2: Well, maybe not. DG's can fail, depending on the 5th card. province-gold-gold-treasure map x2 on T3 won't buy a province

4
Quote
Chaplin
$4 - Action
+3 Cards
+1 Action
Put two cards from your hand on top of your deck.
Seems weak when compared to Courtyard.  You lose a card in exchange for an action, and the loss of the card (this keeps your hand at 5 cards) probably makes the action less valuable.

...

Quote
Robeson
$4 - Action
+4 Cards
+1 Action
Put 3 cards from your hand on top of your deck.
Courtyard variant.  I like Courtyard more.

I think you misunderstand both of these cards. Neither would play even slightly like courtyard. Courtyard is really a terminal draw card that lets you set up your next turn a bit. These cards are cantrips designed mainly to be engine support, and I think both have more in common with warehouse (because they let you see a ton of cards and pick what you want. Especially good for things like connecting your village and terminal draw) and cartographer (because they let you see ahead into your deck and order them). Of course, the fact that these cards don't sift like a warehouse or cartographer should change the way they play and feel substantially.

Another way to look at it--Chaplin and Robeson let your retroactively optimize your shuffle luck.


5
Bebe is very similar to Olive.  The "play it immediately" clause would be very neat -- you can have a mini-Black Market effect! -- but it may also cause you to "play" Victory cards.  That might also be cool, but it has no precedent, hmm.

I imagine you would just try to play the vp card and fail, then it goes to your discard pile by default. If you did "play" the vp cards, it could make a difference for horn of plenty, and maybe a few fan cards, but I can't think of anything else. Could be fun in those cases, though.

6
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Clasic_Cards #4 - Zombie
« on: July 19, 2012, 07:36:34 pm »
Interesting idea. The similarities to embargo are obvious, but I think it's sufficiently distinct. Some thoughts:

I feel like the reveal/choose mechanic needs to go. Not because it's too political or anything, but because it weakens the card too much. If you can only block action cards your opponent already has, there's a good chance he wasn't planning to buy more, anyway. You should just be able to pick a pile to block. It's probably wise to restrict it to action (or maybe kingdom) cards, though, because a) putting one of these on the provinces would be really obnoxious, let alone two or three, and b) it helps keep the feel distinct from embargo. I'll assume you can move a zombie to any action card supply pile for the rest of my comments.

With the +$2, I'm a little worried that this card is too close to a strictly-better duchess. The fact that you can gain duchesses for free is probably enough to compensate, though.

The blocking effect could be much stronger in multiplayer, because often nobody would want unblock a pile for fear of giving their opponents an advantage.

This card should swing the balance toward big money, since the money player will probably have the actions he needs before you can block them.

This card counters itself pretty strongly, because you aren't impeded by the zombies on the turn you play it. The only alternative counter is to buy the zombie on top of the pile you want to get at, so either way, you end up with a zombie in your deck. Generally, I don't like that sort of thing. I'd like there to be an alternate way to get rid of the zombie. Paying extra $ to get the card might work, but isn't very thematic. Maybe discard an action card to lure away the zombie?

7
Mini-Set Design Contest / Re: Renaming "Herald"
« on: July 19, 2012, 06:40:18 pm »
How about Beach?

-It suggests a parallel with Island, which is a somewhat related card.
-Like a tea house, a beach can be a place of respite.
-Things wash up on the beach. You could find a used action card, or even lost treasure.
-There should be a ton of options for artwork.

8
Which is the point of buying it.  You're not looking to give them Curses, you want them to not take the Embargoed option because you don't want to play against it. 

I understand that. I just think that's pretty awful. You can force your opponent to not choose a certain strategy, which you can't do either.

Really the only time I buy it is when I only have $2 and I'm not worried about not being able to play it, or my opponent already started a strategy that lives and dies buy one certain card.

There are other uses which you may not have considered. You can use embargo to solidify an early lead. For example, If you get an early gold, you might be able to embargo the golds before your opponent can get one, or you might embargo the silvers, knowing your opponent will have a hard time getting to gold without more money.

Late game, if you're ahead, you can embargo the duchies and/or estates to make it near impossible to catch up.

Opening with an embargo can be a strong option, especially for player two, when there are two strong strategies on the board. Wait to see what your opponent picks, embargo it, then pursue the other one.

Simply using embargo to block cards you don't like is a valid use, too. Even the best of us have cards we just don't play well, or if you're not willing to admit that, then at least you can block cards with a high luck factor.

9
Game Reports / Re: A nice develop game.
« on: July 18, 2012, 06:38:32 pm »
Yeah, in retrospect, I agree, opening jack and developing silvers probably would've been better. Also, if I remember correctly, I ran out of things to upgrade at the end, which is why it took so long to close out. Clearly I misplayed a bit, but the core strategy was basically right.

10
I was kind of assuming you'd adjust the wording to compensate. After all, the obvious intention of the original wording is to say, "gain a card costing exactly $1 per copy of this card you have in play." Just use something like that and you'd be fine.

11
Game Reports / Re: A nice develop game.
« on: July 18, 2012, 04:40:28 pm »
Here's a game where I use develop to support a vineyards strategy, alongside remake, upgrade, and transmute.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120617-170034-6b1be68f.html

12
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Clasic_Cards #3 - Investigator
« on: July 18, 2012, 04:19:35 pm »
It's not really in the spirit of Dominion to choose who you interact with. A relatively unique aspect of the game is that it manages to create an interesting multiplayer experience with little to no politics. People who want that kind of political interaction are probably going to prefer a game like Settlers of Catan.

Edit: Also, if it wasn't clear from Schneau's post, if a player is targeted by an investigator, every player who goes before him can re-investigate him and know exactly what to pick. That's not a desirable mechanic.

13
Dominion General Discussion / Re: $104
« on: July 18, 2012, 04:01:41 pm »
Really? I got something... different.

14
Dominion General Discussion / Re: $104
« on: July 18, 2012, 03:46:47 pm »
$117 (mostly kc'd pirate ships) for an 8-colony 111 point megaturn:

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120606-072749-95a43986.html

15
Funny, looking back at my rankings, I actually put nomad camp over walled village, too.

16
True enough

17
I'd take a plain village over a nomad camp 80% of the time.

18
Action:$0*
+1 Action
You may trash this card. If you do, gain two cards costing the same as the cost of this card when it is trashed.
---
During your Action Phase, this card costs $1 more per copy of this in play (Including this).

Whaddya think?

Interesting idea, but there are a number of issues that need to be addressed. A couple thoughts:

-This card is worthless without a strong engine. You have to pretty much be able to draw your deck to make them work. They're likely to be weak even then--compare to horn of plenty.
-If you want to this card, you really have to commit. They're useless until you get large numbers of them.
-You'd probably have to double the number of copies in the supply to make this card work. First of all, if both players go for them, neither will be able to gain much of use. Second, if you want this card at all, you'll probably want to use this card to gain copies of itself. Third, if you can't replenish your supply, you'll quickly end up trashing this card to gain silver. Fourth, it should be extremely easy to pile out.

I think making this card a cantrip is the best chance to make the concept workable. Of course, if you do that you need to raise the cost.

19
A lot of it comes down to perception rather than objective strength. People see walled village and think, "This card sucks! It's hardly better than a regular village!" But hey, you're probably going to buy most of your villages with $4, anyway. When you need extra actions for your engine, you're not thinking, "Aww man, all I've got is walled village. I guess I better go for big money + bureaucrat instead." when you've got $4 and a choice between village and walled village, you don't say to yourself, "I better take vanilla village. It's just so much better than walled village!"

Nomad camp get's a bit of the opposite effect. People think, "This on-gain effect is really neat! I can use this to get a 4/5 opening, and I can buy these late to shore up my economy as I green!" These are some cute and sometimes useful abilities, but it doesn't change the fact that it's a woodcutter at heart, and 90% of what it really does is provide a +buy when there's nothing better around. Which isn't all that bad, but you're way more likely to want a walled village.

20
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Secret Agent
« on: July 16, 2012, 07:08:31 pm »
Edit: never mind what I wrote. I suspect with this version it would still be easy to gain provinces.

21
Mini-Set Design Contest / Re: Mini-Set Design Contest, Part 2!
« on: July 16, 2012, 06:27:07 pm »
Well, then at best it's a smithy.

22
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Secret Agent
« on: July 16, 2012, 06:26:12 pm »
You mean "If it is a victory card, you may not gain it?" That would work, although it would still let you gain potion cards, which was what I was really getting at with the cost restriction idea.

23
Mini-Set Design Contest / Re: Mini-Set Design Contest, Part 2!
« on: July 16, 2012, 06:06:09 pm »
I don't think Rhinoceros is that weak at all; I really like it! Do realize you can play more than one in a turn, and get the penalty only once. It's not my card, by the way :)

That's true, but drawing only three cards next turn is a huge penalty--worse than getting ghost shipped--and its cost makes it only slightly easier to buy than smithy. To put it in perspective, a single rhino nets you +0 cards, possibly doing more harm than good since it converts non-terminal draw (from the clean-up phase) to terminal draw. This means big money + rhino will suck. Probably worse than pure big money. But it's also bad for engines since you're likely to have a dead turn after every rhino play.

24
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Secret Agent
« on: July 16, 2012, 05:46:34 pm »
Interesting idea. I like that it somewhat favors the second player. This card probably needs to cost $5, though, even with the victory card restriction. Generally, this card will be better than explorer because after the first few turns, the chance that your opponent has nothing better than a silver is quite small, and you'll be able to gain better than a silver, most of the time. As written, the card is still likely to be unfair with potion cards. Imagine having your opponent take a copy of your possession when he never even bought a potion. A cost restriction like "Choose one card in his hand costing $6 or less. Gain a copy of it..." would address that problem.

25
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Card idea - Self-countering Sea Hag
« on: July 16, 2012, 05:16:41 pm »
In general, I don't think self-countering attacks make the game more interesting. They reduce the strategy space and encourage mirror strategies because attacking and defending become one and the same.

Your particular variant probably wouldn't be a huge problem since all players are probably going to buy a sea hag anyways, but it's not enough stronger than the official sea hag to cost $5.

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