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1
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: A New Look on Cursed Gold
« on: August 31, 2012, 07:01:30 pm »
Again. :P

Quote
Regardless, these solutions still come up short, although they're improvements on the original idea. The problem is that a power card can't be balanced with a fixed VP cost, for the simple reason that VP totals vary wildly from game to game, depending on the board. Dominion games can be won with 5 points and lost with 100. The difference between scores can be very small, meaning a -2 VP penalty could be decisive, or very large, making it insignificant.

Another thing is that -2VP on the card will usually hurt less than just gaining a regular Curse.  Yeah, -VP sucks, but it doesn't clog.

I never really understood the point of that line in the fan card creation guide.  I mean, isn't it a good thing that the card strength might vary a lot between games?

The point I was getting at was that it varies wildly beyond the scope of what would make for a good game.  As a trivial example, let's say you had a card as follows:

Variance
$5 - Action
When you play this, if Baron is in the supply, +3 Buys, +$20.  Otherwise, if Duke is in the supply, lose your next 4 turns.  Otherwise, if Cellar is in the supply, +$3.

To be sure, this card varies in strength from game to game.  But when it's strong, it's too strong, and when it's weak, it's too weak, and when it's just right, that's a rare thing indeed.

Obviously this is more of an extreme case than the breed of card I was talking about, but that was the idea.

Right, I agree that a card that varies too wildly with each kingdom would be bad.  But I'm not convinced that this "cursed gold" (+$3, -2VP) varies that much.  Cards whose strength varies by kingdom are fun if they don't become dominant or dead too often. 

The point that I'm trying to make is that while too much variance is clearly a bad thing, a little variance is actually a good thing, and makes a card more interesting.  If a card has no variance, then it's always either a must-buy or a must-avoid, no matter the kingdom.

To use a similar example to the one you used, let's make another absurd card:

No-Variance
$5-Action
When you play this, gain 100 VP tokens, and end the game immediately.

That card would always clearly be the dominant strategy on any board.  Thus, its variance is zero.  But it's a boring card for that exact reason.  The interesting cards (i.e. the cards that lead to interesting gameplay decisions) are the ones whose strength varies by kingdom -- as long as it doesn't get out of hand.

2
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: A New Look on Cursed Gold
« on: August 31, 2012, 05:29:55 pm »
Again. :P

Quote
Regardless, these solutions still come up short, although they're improvements on the original idea. The problem is that a power card can't be balanced with a fixed VP cost, for the simple reason that VP totals vary wildly from game to game, depending on the board. Dominion games can be won with 5 points and lost with 100. The difference between scores can be very small, meaning a -2 VP penalty could be decisive, or very large, making it insignificant.

Another thing is that -2VP on the card will usually hurt less than just gaining a regular Curse.  Yeah, -VP sucks, but it doesn't clog.

I never really understood the point of that line in the fan card creation guide.  I mean, isn't it a good thing that the card strength might vary a lot between games?  That means that this card would work well in certain strategies but not in others.  I think that's a good kind of variability (as long as it's not dominant or dead too often).

I do agree that the clogging effect of curses is much worse than the -VP.  But the -VP could still be a reasonable offset to the $5 cost for the gold. 

Forget whether the cursed-gold should function like a curse. The real question is, is this an interesting card?  I do think it has the possibility to be, since it introduces tradeoffs which you don't see on any other card yet, and so it has the possibility to create interesting decisions.  I also actually like the idea that you can trash this type of card to eliminate the downside, because it creates a situation where you have to game plan around that late trashing -- you have to keep the trasher around, and you have to ensure collision before the game ends somehow.  This would tend to work better in strong engine decks.  On the other hand, a card like this might enable Big Money because winning the province split is worth a handful of VP, so you don't need to trash the card.

3
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: A New Look on Cursed Gold
« on: August 31, 2012, 04:37:45 pm »
How about:

Cursed Gold: $0*
worth $3
-2 VP

* It costs $5 to buy Cursed Gold from the supply.

--------------------------------------------------------------

The point here is that you get your gold-plus-curse for $5, but the VP hit is big enough that you do actually want to get rid of it, and it will be bad if you can't.  What's more, the special cost makes TFB much more difficult, because once it's in your deck it's worth zero.

4
Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: Band of Misfits rules questions
« on: August 29, 2012, 03:25:23 am »
Getting back to how this compares to Possession's when-would-gain effect. The effect to "gain the card that he gained instead of him gaining it" is triggered when he gains the Province. It's not resolved yet. What should we do now with that effect? We should load it in the game state, I guess, based in the game conditions right now, so that it will be resolved no matter what happens later. So that even when he didn't end up gaining a Province, the Possessor still gains it, because it was saved in the game state. But in fact this is the opposite of what the rules tell us to do. The only thing in the game state should be that triggered effect, waiting to be resolved, and when it's resolved it's according to the game conditions at that time.

I can tell that you've thought about this much more than I have, but I don't see how your possession/trader example pokes a hole in my model.  I think we are in agreement on how this plays out: You get to choose the order to resolve these effects, since they trigger simultaneously.  That's part of the rules of the game.  The game state is changed by whichever effect you choose to resolve first, and this changes the consequences of the second triggered effect -- in this case, rendering the triggered possession effect moot. 

This doesn't conflict with my model of game-state instruction loading, at least as far as I can see.  Both instructions are loaded up, and both are triggered, and then both act on the changing game state in whatever order you prefer, as spelled out in the rules.  If you play the Trader trigger first, then the Possession only gets you a silver, since your buddy would no longer gain a Province.  I agree that the game state can change between triggering and resolution.  But that doesn't mean that you have to wait to load the instructions up.

I do agree that Golem is a stronger argument against this model, though.  In order to maintain my model and retain the behavior that we agree should happen (i.e. if you play BoM second, you choose what it will be after playing the 1st action), I'd have to admit that the wording on golem "play the action cards in either order" is somehow different than Throne room's "play it twice."  That would mean that the alternate throne room ("Play it.  Play it again") is also different from the real TR, and alternate-TR/Feast would only get you one card, because the Feast is in the trash on the second attempted play.  Even if we allow cards to be played from the trash (such that alternate-TR/Feast gains you two cards again), this model still requires a distinction between the wording of TR and the wording of Golem.

I admit this is a weak position for my model to hold.  I'm not a big fan of differentiating between "play it twice" and "play it.  Play it again". 

As I said before, I don't think there's anything fundamentally wrong with your logic.  It is self-consistent.  But it does disagree with Donald's TR/BoM[Feast] ruling.  So you either have to make a special exception, or you have to change your logic in a way such that Donald's ruling is consistent with it.  I am attempting to do the latter.  At this point, though, you've got Donald agreeing that a special exception may be the way to go, so perhaps your model will be the better one to use going forward.

5
Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: Band of Misfits rules questions
« on: August 28, 2012, 09:17:43 pm »
You are saying that a card which is in the trash can't be played. Where is your justification for that?

My justification is simply consistency.  That statement, that cards cannot be played from the trash, is consistent with all Dominion rules, including the new ones.  Your idea, while self-consistent, is different from these rules, which are also self-consistent.  If you were the creator of Dominion, you could have printed these same cards and ruled them the way you are putting forth.  But you're not the creator of Dominion, so you don't get that chance, at least not for the official rules.

You say "When you play it, it becomes a Feast, and you play the Feast twice".
But you're totally ignoring how triggering works in Dominion. You think that you can play a card twice before actually resolving what that card does. You can't. You have to wait until you've resolved it once before you can play it again. It seems even clearer to me now.

I'm not ignoring how triggering works in Dominion.  You "load up" a card's instructions into the game state before you play it the first time.  Then you resolve those instructions twice.  That is how it has worked so far, and that is self-consistent and consistent with all Donald's rulings to date.

It seems like a common way of thinking about Throne Room is that the instruction "play it twice" immediately causes it to "load" the card text of the chosen card, and then play that card, moving it to the play area, and then execute the card text twice in a row.

If that was really how it was, then that would mean that BoM doesn't work like it should at all. Think about it. What card text would Throne Room actually load? It's loading it before the card is being played, remember? Yeah, it would be BoM's card text. That would mean that it would execute BoM's card text twice, no matter what. Even if we chose to play BoM-as-Smithy the first time.

No, in order for Throne Room to play Smithy twice (after you chose BoM), it can't load any card text before the card is actually played. Which is what you would expect anyway, anything else is inventing new rules.

Let me ask you this question: What does it mean to play a card? 

According to the rule book, "To play an Action, the player takes an Action card from his hand and lays it face up in his play area.  He announces which card he is playing and follows the instructions written on that card from top to bottom."

Notice that it specifically mentions that playing a card involves taking the card from your hand.  Now, Throne room tells you to "play" a card twice.  By your assertion, if I TR (say) a smithy, the TR must first completely resolve the first playing of the smithy, and then attempt to play it again.  But that immediately fails, because that smithy isn't in my hand anymore -- it's on the table.  So how do I play it again?  Do I just put it back in my hand?  Nobody thinks that's the case.

The only consistent explanation is that I loaded up the smithy instructions when I took it out of my hand, and then I proceeded to evaluate those instructions twice.

As for how this works with BoM: BoM has no instructions.  It has card text, but it has no gameplay instructions.  Indeed, the card text tells you that when you play this card, it assumes the instructions of some other card, and that other card's instructions are loaded up and evaluated.  In the case of TR, those instructions are evaluated twice.

6
Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: Death Cart
« on: August 28, 2012, 08:16:49 pm »
I haven't played with it at all.  My concern is, is it dominant?  If death cart and rats are on the board, would this combo beat any other strategy?

7
Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: Band of Misfits rules questions
« on: August 28, 2012, 08:14:06 pm »
But if BoM were to be played as Feast and then not enter play (because of the lose-track principle), then it never leaves play after becoming Feast and therefore never turns back into BoM. (Which is madness.)

Cards aren't played from the trash.  I feel like this is the central confusion of the whole argument.  You guys are acting like cards can be played from the trash, but they can't.  The only reason you get a second card from TR/Feast is that the Feast's instructions linger momentarily in the game state.  Look, you can argue the semantics here forever.  (In fact, you seem to be on your way already!)  But if you simply accept that cards don't get played from the trash, then this whole issue disappears. 

When you "Choose an action card in your hand. Play it twice.", you're just getting caught up on the fact that you choose a BoM but play a Feast.  But that's exactly what happens.  That's how BoM works.  When you play it, it becomes a Feast, and you play the Feast twice.  You don't play the BoM again from the trash. 

I understand your semantic argument.  It is self-consistent, and it would be a viable way to interpret the rules.  But Donald's ruling is also self-consistent, and it's also a perfectly valid way to interpret the language on the cards.  Since he's the game designer, as long as his rules do not contradict themselves, they are the rules of the game.  If you are playing with your friends and you want to play BoM your way, you're free to do so.  But the official rules do make sense.

8
Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: Band of Misfits rules questions
« on: August 28, 2012, 07:26:03 pm »
Man, I do not know why you guys have to make this so complicated.  Donald's explanation makes sense.  Think of it like a program: when a card is played, its instructions are loaded into the game state and executed to the extent possible.  TR just instructs you to execute those instructions to the extent possible twice. 

In this model, BoM simply has no instructions to execute upon play.  It immediately adopts the information of some other card when it's played, and that other card's instructions are loaded up and executed.  In this case, that other card is a feast.  Because of the TR, the feast's instructions are executed twice.  It doesn't matter that the BoM reverts to a BoM when it's in the trash.  The feast's instructions were already loaded up to be played twice. 

There is no synchronicity issue here.  Cards don't get played from the trash.  More specifically, when you TR a feast, you do NOT "play it once, and then play it again from the trash".  You just play it twice.  The first time you gain a card and trash the feast, and the second time you just gain a card, because you can't trash the feast if it's already in the trash.  It doesn't matter if the feast magically morphed into a unicorn when it hit the trash.

Now, if you had some hypothetical card that said "You may play an Action card from your hand twice. Trash it. Gain an Action card costing exactly $1 more than it." then it should matter that the BoM reverted to $5 in the trash, because when you execute these instructions, you look at the card in the trash to find its price.  Oh look, we do have that card, it's called procession, and that's exactly how it works.

9
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan expansion: enlightenment
« on: August 28, 2012, 01:02:45 pm »
Several new cards added: so far a total of 6 kingdom cards, and 4 special prize-like "Trade Buildings."  Let me know what you think!

10
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan expansion: enlightenment
« on: August 27, 2012, 05:57:45 pm »
I guess the problem I have with the two halves together don't really have any weaknesses.  You're never stuck with a card that only does one when you need the other -- you can always just pick the power option you need at the time.  By comparison, the consolation prizes of cards like Baron (gain an Estate) and Menagerie (cantrip) are pretty meager.  (A higher-priced card can have a better consolation prize than these, certainly.)

Well, it's possible to remove that ability to choose.  For example, the card could read:

"reveal your hand.  If it contains no gold, gain a gold, otherwise, discard a gold and +$6."

That way, it's a little tougher to gain gold, but if you can't, you get a terminal gold instead.

11
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan expansion: enlightenment
« on: August 27, 2012, 04:26:26 pm »
It's worth pointing out that the ONLY official card to guarantee you a Gold on turns 3-4, namely Vault, requires you to discard the rest of your hand AND provides an opponent benefit.  In fact, there are very few cards that can even guarantee you a $5 card that early:  Feast is a one-shot, Explorer won't get you a Gold until you've got Provinces, and Altar and University take longer to obtain, for example.  Even high-value terminal treasures, which could be paired with a Copper or two to buy a Gold on turns 3-4, are sketchy:  Mandarin, Horse Traders, and Death Cart have funky penalties you have to work around, Baron has a condition you have to meet, and Harvest makes no guarantees about what it'll actually earn.  You might still not draw them with enough Coppers anyhow.

My conviction is that "Gain a gold; discard your hand" is too strong for $5, in which case a penalty-free "Gain a gold" is way too much, in which case "Gain a gold or do something else" is way way way too much.

The first part of Goldsmith, where you discard a Gold for +$6, seems much more reasonable, despite how scary seeing "+$6" on a card is.  Basically it turns Goldsmith into a Gold, but with two penalties:  you have to also have a Gold in hand, and you have to use up an Action for it.  Those are sharp penalties and more than make up for the cost reduction from Gold itself.  There is room in the $5 price tier, I feel, for a consolation prize of some sort for when you don't pair it up with a Gold.  But it should be a very small one -- not something that's worth more than $5 on its own.

--

Silversmith is pretty cool, but I suspect that's also too strong by a lot.  I tried this out once:

Silversmith
$5 - Action
Silver produces an extra $1 this turn.

...and it was pretty strong, possibly but not conclusively too strong for a $5 card.  This is roughly the same thing, only you get +1 Card instead of +$1 per Silver -- roughly a wash -- and +1 Action.  It's important to note that +1 Action on Silversmith doesn't allow Silversmiths to stack (as it would on the card above); nonetheless, it's enough of a buff on a card that might be too strong for $5 anyway that it's almost certainly too strong for $5 with it.

What do you think about Goldsmith as-is for $6? 

As for silversmith, I suppose you might be right that it's too strong, even at $5.  I based the card on cellar, which is why it has +1 action.  (I'm going to have to figure out a way to playtest these cards in order to determine if I'm way off on the power scale here.)

12
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Silversmith and Goldsmith
« on: August 27, 2012, 03:52:04 pm »
Goldsmith would probably be high-powered at $6, not to mention $5.  Compare cards at $5 that can get you a Gold:  Explorer, but you must reveal a Province; Governor, but everyone else gets Silver.  Being able to turn any Gold into $6 without trashing it is incredibly overpowered.  It's usually going to be better than Gold.  I'd buy this every turn for $6 and twice on Tuesdays, especially if there's a Village around.

Wait, I'm confused.  How would this be more powerful than gold?  It doesn't turn the gold into $6, it turns GS+gold into $6.  Basically, it's just a terminal gold when you have a gold in hand.

I did think about governor and explorer too.  The reason I thought this should also be $5 is that governor gives you +1 action, and explorer puts the gold in your hand when you pull it off.  Thus, goldsmith isn't "strictly better" than either of these cards. 

That being said, I can understand your logic about why goldsmith should be $6.  I actually wanted to price it at $6 so it would compete with gold, but I thought people would argue that it's underpowered at that point.

I agree with you that silversmith might need a $5 price point.  I feared that it would seem underpowered at that point, though, because it doesn't let you discard/replace anything but silver.  Thus, you'd need some significant collision (i.e. multiple silvers) to make this powerful.  That's the big difference between this and vault/secret chamber.  Those cards let you turn any card into $1, but silversmith doesn't let you do that.

13
Variants and Fan Cards / Fan expansion: enlightenment
« on: August 27, 2012, 03:14:26 pm »
EDIT: I initially posted this thread to put forth two ideas, silversmith and goldsmith.  I've decided to expand this into a fan expansion idea revolving around the enlightenment/steam age, sort of like a counterpoint to dark ages.  The theme that I'm working on is cards that change in strength with multiple plays: some cards get stronger with each successive play, while others get weaker.  Another theme is combos: many of these cards need to be paired with some other card (or card type) in order to be maximally effective.

I'm going to continually edit this first post, but only to add card ideas.  None of these cards have been playtested at all, so they are all very raw and probably quite over/underpowered.  Please post your thoughts, and as the expansion evolves, I'll post a separate thread with the modified ideas, leaving this thread in place with the original ideas for comparison.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Silversmith $5
Action
+1 action
You may discard any number of silvers from your hand.  For each silver discarded, +1 card, +$2

------------------------------------------------------------

Goldsmith: $6
Action
You may reveal and discard a gold from your hand.  If you do, +$6.  Otherwise, gain a gold.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Steam engine: $5
Action
+1 action
+1 card per steam engine in play, including this
You may immediately play another steam engine.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Scientific method: $1P
Action-reaction

When you play a potion card this turn, you may choose to receive $2 instead of $P.
------
When you discard a card other than during you cleanup phase, you may reveal this from your hand.  If you do, trash that card.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Architect: $5
Action
+$2
You may discard all Trade Building cards you have in play.  If you do, select a card from the Trade Building pile and play it immediately.
[This card uses the Trade Buildings, a set of 4 unique cards which are not in the supply.]

Trade Buildings:

   Mercenary Den: 0* (not in the supply)
   Action-Duration
   While this is in play, at the start of your turn, you may discard a copper.  If you do, all your coppers provide +$1 this turn.  Otherwise, return this card to the trade building pile.
   ------
   Do not discard this card during your cleanup phase.

   Merchant Hall: 0* (not in the supply)
   Action-Duration
   While this is in play, at the start of your turn, you may discard a card.  If you do, +$2, +1 buy.  Otherwise, return this card to the trade building pile.
   ------
   Do not discard this card during your cleanup phase.

   Community Center: 0* (not in the supply)
   Action-Duration
   While this is in play, at the start of your turn, you may discard an action.  If you do, +1 action, +2 cards.  Otherwise, return this card to the trade building pile.
   ------   
   Do not discard this card during your cleanup phase.

   Hall of Science: 0* (not in the supply)
   Action-Duration
   While this is in play, at the start of your turn, you may trash a card.  If you do, +2 cards.  Otherwise, return this card to the trade building pile.
   ------
   Do not discard this card during your cleanup phase.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Surveyor: $4
Action
Discard any number of victory cards.  +2 cards per card discarded.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sophists: $4
Action-Attack
+2 cards
Each other player with more than three cards discards a card costing more than $3 from their hand (or reveals a hand with no cards costing more than $3).

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sawmill: $4
Action
If you have a sawmill in play other than one, then +$3.  Otherwise, +$2, +1 Buy.


***********************************************************************************************

Design Thoughts:

Silversmith: The basic idea is that you get to "play" your silvers and cellar them.  This could be super-powerful when combo'ed with tactician, wharf, or any other strategy that gives you big starting handsizes.  It also makes deck drawing a bit easier, though strong deck draw engines really won't need the silversmith because they won't have too much silver (and the whole deck will be in your hand anyway).  The other obvious combo, of course, is trader, feodum, JoaT, or any other card that stuffs your deck with silver.

I haven't tested this card at all, and there are lots of possible tweaks that could change its utility.  For example, the card could allow you to cellar non-silvers, and you just don't get the $2 for those cards.  That makes it a bit more flexible.  You could also add +1 card at the beginning and maybe boost it up to $5.

Goldsmith: Originally I wanted Goldsmith to be a terminal gold that only activates if you reveal a gold in your hand.  I realized that that design would be pretty abusable with KC/TR -- KC/old Goldsmith/Gold = colony.  I fixed that issue by making you discard your gold, but you still get credit for it -- thus the +$6, which is basically $3 for the gold you discarded and $3 for the terminal goldsmith.  If that were the only clause on the card, it would be mighty weak, so I thought a decent thematic alternative was to gain a gold when you don't have a gold in hand.  The gold goes to your discard pile -- going to your hand or the top of your deck would be too strong, I think, because that basically means this card is either worth a gold right now or a gold next hand for only $5.  I feel like gaining to the discard is the right balance. 

Obviously this card is a BM enabler, but I can't tell if it would be superior to a terminal draw in that respect.  It stuffs your deck with gold, but it's slow to do that.  Like silversmith, this card would also combo well with tactician or any other card that wants treasure out of your hand, like poor house.

Steam engine: So, this card is basically a lab variant, but it also uses the cultist mechanic to make it more interesting.  I think this card is very thematic.  One or two of these cards is not very powerful at all -- probably underpowered.  But once you get a pile of these cards, they can build up a lot of steam (so to speak).  They have excellent self synergy.

One steam engine is worse than a lab.  If you chain two SE's together, then you basically get the effect of one lab +1 action, or one village +1 card.  Ok, but not great.  If you chain three SE's, then you get the same card draw as 3 labs, but you have 3 actions left for terminals instead of 1.  Once you can chain 4 or more SE's, you basically have a +actions/+cards engine in one -- very powerful.  Perhaps too powerful.  But at the same time, it won't exactly be easy to chain so many SE's, unless you have other handsize increasers available.  Note that SE's get the card drawing benefit of having other SE's in play even when they are not chained together.

Scientific Method: This card combines two ideas that I like: a reaction trasher and a card that makes potions more practical.  This card is obviously much more interesting when other potion-cost cards are around.  Then, it becomes possible to stock up on potions, because you'll be able to turn them into silvers some of the time. 

When there are no other potion-cost cards around, the on-play effect alone would be useless.  Why buy the potion to but a card which just turns potions into silver?  Consequently, the reaction effect has to be powerful enough to be useful.  I really like this reaction, but it does require some assistance: it's possible that you won't have any discarding available in your kingdom.  If that's the case, and this is the only potion card, then it's basically a dead card.  However, the card is viable if either discarders or other potion cards are available, and if both are around, then this card could be really useful. It would also be a good reaction to handsize reduction attacks -- especially torturer chains.

This is one card where I really have no idea about the proper price point.  It seems like it could be very useful in the right circumstances, but I don't think it's a power card, so I feel like $P or $1P wouldn't be too cheap.  It's not like you'd want a stack of these cards.

Architect: Okay, there's obviously a lot going on with architects.  This card combines two ideas that I've had: a faster implementation of tournament prizes, and "persistent" cards which provide a benefit but have some sort of upkeep.  The trade buildings come out faster than tournament prizes, but they are only temporary, as you lose them once you fail to pay the upkeep.  There's also some interesting interactions with other players, because only one player can have each trade building at a time.  (There should probably be two more trade buildings to make sure everybody gets a shot at one.)

Surveyor: This is a simple smithy variant.  I like this card a lot, because it's simple, but it has some interesting features.  It can be more powerful than smithy for the same money in green decks, or in decks that have other deck drawing capability.  But it has an anti-self-synergy: successive playings of this card are likely to be less powerful, because once you discard all your green, you don't get any draw out of this card.

I think it would be very interesting to see this card in a gardens/silk road deck.  This may be an alternative enabler for gardens (as opposed to gainers like workshop), or it might be effective as a smithy alternate in BM decks where the greening starts sooner.  And, as a bonus, it combos with scout!

Sophists: This is designed to be a Militia variant, specifically targeting valuable cards like gold, engine pieces, or other attacks.  To make up for the targeted nature of the card, it only hits a single card at a time.  I also gave it +2 cards instead of +$2 because I thought that would differentiate it a bit more from Militia. Still, this might be too powerful as it is, since it's pretty damaging if you chain two together.  It may need to cost $5.

Sawmill: Look, it's a woodcutter that starts to produce megabucks on return trips!  Going along with the theme of cards that change strength as you play them more, the sawmill starts out as an overpriced woodcutter.  Having one sawmill in your deck is obviously not worth it.  However, if you've put together an engine that can manage to draw multiple sawmills, then these can really pay off.  Even with the "in play" wording, this card is very strong with TR/KC, because those engines tend to give you tons of actions, and extra sawmills can turn those actions into gold.

Again, this is a card where it's hard to judge the power level.  This might be too good at the $4 price point, or it might be useless because of the need to collide multiples with a village of some sort.  Only playtesting will tell.  Still, I like the general idea of the card -- a terminal that gets more powerful after the first copy is played.

14
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Dominion Card Categories
« on: August 27, 2012, 05:00:23 am »
Well, the next logical step here is to determine the categories that we should use.  Once we've settled on the categories that are worth mentioning, the task of organizing the cards in those categories should be nearly trivial.

So here's my attempt at picking categories.  Add/subtract as you see fit.  Note that some of these list items are purely subcategories, while others are not.  Also, note that some cards fit into categories but not the subcategories.  For example, Ambassador is a junking attack, but not specifically a curser or looter.  I also think we should not list any categories which are immediately apparent, such as durations, or benefit-on-gain cards.  After all, if we have too many categories, then this index would be useless.

- Village (any card with +2 actions)
- Terminal
  - Terminal Draw
  - Terminal Silver
- Cantrip
- Drawer
- Sifter
- Attack
  - Handsize attack
  - Junker attack
    - curser
    - looter
  - Trash attack
  - Sifter attack
- Trasher
- Trash for benefit
- Gainer
- Variable effect

15
Dominion Isotropic / Council room player pages not working?
« on: August 24, 2012, 03:03:11 am »
I've been trying to see my history on council room, but whenever I look up my name, I get "internal server error."  This happens when I look up random other names as well.  Are you guys able to see your player pages on councilroom.com?

16
This set is really cool and creative.  I love a lot of the ideas that you introduce.  But I do agree with razorborne that some cards seem to be needlessly complex. 

For example, why does monacle need the treasure and the deck-filtering action and the reaction?  I think it could be good with any two of those effects, possibly rebalanced to make sure it's useful when no attacks are around.  As an even better example, why does the carpenter have the money and the gain and the reaction?  Again, I think you could have only two of these components, and this card would still be interesting and fun.

I have a similar feeling about misfit, accurst and demodel.  Why are they doing so many things?  Misfit is basically smithy + penalty + militia, but the penalty and militia components are needlessly complex.  Donald seems to be really fascist about the amount of wording on his cards, and people get on his case about this, but he's absolutely right.  It's not just the words themselves -- it's the complexity of the concept, both in terms of understanding what's going on and actually playing the card properly.

Think of the mental checklist that we have to go through if I play a couple of misfits.  "I play a village, and then I play a misfit.  Okay, draw three cards, done...now, do I have an action?  Which action should I discard?  Hmm, I guess I'll discard this one.  Now, everybody else, look at your hand...do you have actions?  If so, pick one to discard...Okay,  now I play another misfit. Hmm, this time I didn't draw any actions, but I've got a couple silvers, a gold, a copper, a HoP here...hmm, which do I want to keep?  What's my total treasure right now?  Can I buy a province?  Ok, I guess I'll toss the HoP.  Wait, did everybody else remember to discard a second action?  Oh, you discarded down to 3 before.  Okay then..."

That's a lot to think about from just playing one card.  There's a lot of checking there, a lot of decisions, and a lot of opportunities for human error.

Most importantly, I think that many of these cards can be simplified greatly without losing their creativity or originality. 

17
These "secret histories" are a fascinating look into the process of designing a successful yet complex board game.  As an amateur board game designer, I find them enthralling.  Thanks for sharing.

18
Goko Dominion Online / Re: FunSockets Live Q&A Thursday, 3PM PST
« on: August 23, 2012, 02:59:43 pm »
Post it where?

Presumably here.

It was scheduled to start nearly an hour ago.

Um.. pretty sure it's still Wednesday.

Wow I'm a moron


I once showed up at an airport a full day before my flight, and I didn't figure it out until the chick at the ticket counter pointed it out to me.  This was not in my home town, and I'd checked out of my hotel, so my buddy and I slept at the airport.  So...don't feel bad.  :P

19
Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: The Bold Predictions Thread
« on: August 23, 2012, 03:13:00 am »
In my mind, a strategy is "broken" if it's the dominant strategy on every board on which it exists.  Scavenger/stash seems like it might be close to that.  But I'm not convinced yet.

One thing we're not taking into account here is the amount of time required to acquire 3 $5 cards and two $4 cards.  Obviously that's usually pretty quick, but that process can be slowed down.  For example, double militia may only be marginally effective once the scavenger/stash combo is built, but maybe it's powerful enough to slow down the combo building phase sufficiently to beat the strategy.  Alternatively, if a full-deck-drawing engine can be built quickly enough and a militia-type attack is available, then that militia can be played every turn, effectively blocking the scavenger/stash combo from getting provinces.

IF scavenger/stash turns out to be dominant on every board without minion, then I would call that close enough to broken to be unfun. But, as NoMoreFun pointed out, Minion hard counters this strategy, so scavenger/stash definitely isn't always dominant; and if the above militia strategies are effective as well, then I'd say there are enough kingdoms which beat this strategy to make it interesting.

I will admit that I'm curious if Donald saw the scavenger/stash combo in playtesting. 

20
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Why is Curse a base card?
« on: August 23, 2012, 02:02:27 am »
I don't think thief is always bad even in 2 player games.  For example, if you play a colony game with thief and the other guy trashes his coppers in favor of better treasures, the thief suddenly becomes pretty strong.  Gank one plat and it has more than earned its place in the deck.

I just get the impression that thief is much weaker in most kingdoms than Donald intended.

21
Dominion General Discussion / Re: General Priorities
« on: August 22, 2012, 02:34:55 am »
The question is too general because there are really strong attacks and really weak attacks, and there are really strong deck improvers and weak deck improvers.  For example, I think everybody would choose a witch over an upgrade, but I think a lot of people would choose an upgrade over a bureaucrat. 


22
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Opening Village
« on: August 22, 2012, 02:30:01 am »
Often I hear people saying that opening Village is a bad idea, as the village does not give you anything until at least your 2nd reshuffle. (Let's assume there is only the plain village on the board... so no fishing, hamlet, mining, etc.)

My question is: is it always true that opening village is bad? Let say you are going for a Torturer engine, you'll need some villages soon or later. So buying 1 in the first 2 turn might save you from needing to spending 5 for a village later on. Could this kind of concern be strong enough to justify opening village?

More generally, is there any circumstance that you may open with a plain village?


If you bought a silver instead of that village, you have a greater likelihood to pull $5 to buy another torturer on turns 3-6.  Even if you do end up having to spend $5 on a $3 village later on, you're better off.  After all, you probably have $5 because of the silver you bought on turn 1-2, and if you'd bought a village instead of that silver, you'd only have $3-$4 to spend now -- and, by the way, you'd have to spend that cash on a silver, because you do need to buy money for that type of engine.

In other words, overpaying for a village on a later turn is better than overpaying for a silver on a later turn because the silver is more useful in your deck early on.

23
Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: The Bold Predictions Thread
« on: August 20, 2012, 06:56:05 pm »
Wait, why? Hermit self-trashes.

Has nothing to do with Hermit trashing, has to do with buy forfeit. It's basically like a cheaper Tac that provides the big hand on some turn in the future (perhaps the next, perhaps later).
When I read your comment I thought I made a huge error, but yes the set has a lot of trash to gain cards (Graverobber, Altar, any more?), which is a lot compared to the hundred of cards before and only having Remodel and expand that I can really think off that top of my head.  That's a pretty big let down if hermit plays outside of DA.

Maybe trash for gain isn't the only method and general gainers will help too.  Off the top of my head, sounds like only horn of plenty would be a viable method to gaining provinces outside the trash for gains.

I guess this is an obvious comment, but I bet Hermit will also be useful in kingdoms with cursers.  It basically allows you to remodel a curse into a silver (or any other useful $2 or $3), and it's much easier to stamp out curses when you can pull them from the trash.  I wouldn't be surprised if hermit is one of those cards that lets you skip buying cursers of your own if they don't fit into your strategy.

24
Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: The Bold Predictions Thread
« on: August 20, 2012, 02:00:57 pm »
Counterfeit is waaaaaay better than loan.  It lets you play the treasure twice before you trash it!  That's a huge difference, even with lowly copper.  And besides trashing copper, counterfeit is a huge megaturn-enabler where you sacrifice your treasure to gain an insurmountable lead (or end the game), and loan can't even pretend to do that.

Edit: I do agree that counterfeit might be the "redesigned" loan in much the same way we expect that noble brigand was the "redesigned" thief.

25
Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: The Bold Predictions Thread
« on: August 20, 2012, 01:31:19 pm »
Like I said in the initial reactions thread, I think you guys are missing the beauty of rats.  When you have garbage in your deck, rats turn your garbage temporarily into cantrips (until you run out of garbage), giving you much faster access to your actual trasher.  If you have a solid TfB card, you will get to play it more often for a few shuffles, and you will get the additional bonus of $4-cost garbage and +1 card when trashing that garbage.

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