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1

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Rising Sun pre-orders available, also more info!

« on: April 15, 2024, 10:52:13 am »

Card name predictions: Ninja (as above), Monk, Shrine, Samurai

I don't know how accurate these would be in medieval times.

Oh, and a Prophecy: Scout Is Great Again

Samurai are late 1100s-1800s, and Renaissance is ~14-1500s.
Ninjas enter the historical records in 1400s.
Dominion straddles a very wide range of dates. Empires themed to the Roman Empire is nearer to the birth of Christ, but, again, Renaissance is 15/16th century.
Ninjas and Samurai fit alright.

Heck, the Piratey cards of Plunder and Seaside point to the golden age of piracy, circa 1700, and Schwerin Cathedral, featured on Church, was finished in 1893.

Empires is a notable exception to Dominion’s time period, and the Schwerin Cathedral was literally a mistake. The artist finished the card art before anyone checked to see if the cathedral was actually medieval-era.

Wasn't Church's art a deliberate anachronism so that it would be recognizable as the modern Schwerin Cathedral?

Yes, according to the wiki the card name and art were a "prize" in a German/Austrian Dominion competition, to commemorate the winning German state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The card is actually called "Schweriner Dom" in German.

2

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Rising Sun pre-orders available, also more info!

« on: April 13, 2024, 02:35:00 am »

I’ve thought for a while that Potion would be a bit better if it came with +Buy. Makes the Potion more interesting if you wanted the Alchemy card but couldn’t trash the Potion, and also opens up the edge cases where even if you don’t care about the Alchemy card, you might be desperate enough for +Buy to purchase the Potion anyways.

Looking forward to Shadow cards. Maybe they shuffle face-up and play themselves automatically?

More debt is interesting. Wonder if they’ll expand in a new direction entirely or if they’ll be more vanilla-leaning.

I think a separate back, as with Stash, is more likely. It would be too easy to forget (or intentionally "forget") to put them face-up when shuffling. But I agree that it sounds like they play themselves automatically. So perhaps there's a special back, and when the top card is a Shadow card, and/or when you draw a Shadow card, it automatically plays itself? Cards that play themselves automatically could have some interesting strategic questions, as, depending on what they do, there might be times when you don't want to play them

I was thinking similar that they might just automatically go into play when drawn no matter how/when they are drawn.  If this were the case, you wouldn't need a special back to the card.  You wouldn't know when one was going to come out until you drew it.  I could see that as being described as "leaping out of your deck" ...and into play.

This would require players to both be honest, and to always notice a card as they draw it.

Yeah, and Dominion already has a long history of requiring verification for cards with special conditions, as with Shanty Town requiring you to reveal your hand, or Cutpurse having "or reveals a hand with no Copper". It would be weird at this point to have a whole new type of card being on the honor system so to speak

True, but if they were a special color to remind you to play them, and they were almost always cards you wanted to play I don't think the "honor system" would be an issue.  It would be more of a detriment to you if you didn't play them rather than your opponent.  I'm just really skeptical of the alternate back hypothesis, I got the impression from discussions about Stash that that wasn't something Donald wanted to do again.

If they were "almost always cards you wanted to play" then you wouldn't need a special type for them

What do you mean?  Special types rarely have anything to do with whether or not you want to play a card.  There are lots of cards that you would almost always want to play.  Special types are typically tied to special rules mechanics that only apply to that type of card.  In this case, the speculation is that the shadow type causes cards to be instantly played automatically as soon as they're drawn..

He's just saying that there wouldn't be a reason to come up with a new type that forces you to play a card when you draw it, if it were a card you want to play every time you draw it anyway. Like, imagine if Market had a special type or extra rule that said "whenever you draw this card, you must play it immediately". The rule would have very little effect on game play, because you were going to play that Market anway. Thus, for Shadow cards to make sense as a new rule, it must be on cards you might not want to play (assuming that the rule/type forces you to play them).

You can't always play Market immediately whenever you draw it, only if it's your turn and you're in your Action phase. If Shadow cards can/must be played immediately when drawn (in whatever phase, whether it's your own turn or not), they do need a special type, even if they're always helpful.

3

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #215: Getting Engaged

« on: April 10, 2024, 11:26:34 am »

ggs

also funny reform interaction:
it says "kingdom pile" not "non-Victory kingdom pile" so you could move fawning to provinces and win the game instantly

Not quite, base cards like Provinces aren't kingdom cards. 

4

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #215: Getting Engaged

« on: April 09, 2024, 03:17:12 pm »

Demonstration
Action
$5
Gain a card costing up to $5. Each other player reveals a card from their hand, all at the same time. The person (in the case of a tie, every person) who revealed the highest-costing card trashes it and gains a copy of the card you gained.

This is too weak at least in 2p games where it usually helps the opponent more than the player (the only revealed card is automatically the highest-costing).

And in multiplayer, there may not be a highest-costing card, e.g.when Golem and Gold are revealed.

5

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #215: Getting Engaged

« on: April 04, 2024, 04:08:46 pm »

I think this card has a big problem, in that the Action cards that are available might not be helpful played on another player's turn (if they give +Actions, +Buys, or +$, those are all useless) but even plain +1 Card +3 Actions isn't that overpowered for $3; it's already worse than Port.

I don't think that's very problematic. Even among base game Actions, all but Festival do something useful on another player's turn, and at least for the terminal Action cards, the opponent will usually be happy to play them then if they lack the +Actions to play them on their own turn.

6

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #213: GREEN

« on: March 17, 2024, 04:34:41 am »

Combos with Border Village!

Did not realize that, but if you're willing to bloat your deck with 8 Villages and 8 Estates, then sure, go for it. Eight stop cards is a lot after all.

It’s more kind of scary that if you can empty one pile on your turn and then have $4 leftover,
you just win — nearly  insta-empty the final two piles and get 8VP (in a two player game). most times at least two border villages will be gone already.

If you want to design around this, you could say “gain a card costing up $6 you have not gained this turn”

However, I personally just think that it’s fine to leave that killer combo in and keep current phrasing — even if it’s a dominant combo, it would result in fairly quick games so you can just play another game without the combo. I like the card as is.

This combo only ends the game if the number of BV's left is exactly equal or exactly one less than the number of Plains. So even with both cards in the kingdom, it will only occasionally work.

7

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #212: Three's Company

« on: March 13, 2024, 05:23:35 am »

Vase Merchant (Action, $3)
+$2
If you have unused Actions, (not Action cards), +1 Card.
-
In games using this, Silvers are Action cards producing +1 Card, +2 Actions instead of $.

I wonder if making silver be "also action cards producing +1 Card, +1 Villager instead of $" would make this card more interesting

because currently, you get just such infinite number of villages with this card. Its a bit much.
Maybe the card should remove the "in games using this" and have the silver modification part happen when you play it.
Maybe have the card say "play any number of differently named treasures from your hand, +1 Money for each differently named one" instead of its usual effect.

I don't see a big problem with having unlimited Villages available. It's a nice change once in a while, similar to random 2P games with two Village piles, and less game-changing than Champion.

Removing actual Silvers from the supply could also change the opening substantially, in an interesting way: Opening double VM instead of double Silver risks terminal collision, and similarly when you open VM +another terminal card.

8

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #212: Three's Company

« on: March 05, 2024, 04:26:33 am »

That's an intriguing idea, but isn't it almost always worse than Village? When you get more than 2 Actions, you usually don't need them, and vice versa. Basically the only case where HV is better than Village is when you have exactly one Action in hand, which has terminal draw, and where you then draw more than one other Action.

9

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Inherited is underwhelming and needs to be eliminated in the third edition

« on: February 27, 2024, 06:26:12 pm »

Random, yes, but not swingy. Both players start out with the same Inherited card (with the exception of the Knight pile being chosen, which would indeed be very swingy), so there's no element of chance in getting it, unlike, say, certain strong $5 cards where a 5/2 or 2/5 opening can be a massive advantage. Inherited discard attacks can add an element of swinginess to the opening, but most Inherited cards are the opposite of swingy

I'm not sure I agree with this! If the Inherited card is a terminal silver, for example, the difference between a 6/3 opening and a 5/4 opening can be very important (and the two possibilities are almost equally probable, unlike the relatively low-probability 5/2 opening in an ordinary game). If the inherited card draws, having it on your first turn vs. your second turn can have major implications for reshuffle timing.

With a terminal silver instead of the 3rd Estate, a 6/3 opening (i.e. drawing 4 Coppers with the silver) has probability (7 over 4)/(9 over 4) = 35/126= 27,78%. That's higher than 16,67% for 5/2, but still far below 50%.

10

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.

« on: February 24, 2024, 12:41:57 pm »

How do you feel about cards that sometimes have effects which will be irrelevant in some games? (Like Footpad, some games you wont be able to gain in action phase). Do you care about how small the chance is of this happening, do you look to not have many of these, or do you just not care at all (footpad is basically 2 way different cards in the 2 scenarios) Just your general thoughts

At the moment there are 37 cards that have the “When you gain another card” triggered effect.
And A LOT more other triggered effects.
All of them will be irrelevant sometimes, that’s just part of the game.
(https://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Triggered_effects#When_you_gain)

They don't have the 'in an Action phase' clause.

Correct, but the question specifically was "cards that sometimes have effects being irrelevant in some games".
Footpad was just an example.

But unlike Footpad, most of the 37 cards' effects (e.g. Blockade, Watchtower, Tiara, Trader,...) aren't irrelevant in any kingdom, because they also trigger on buying cards, which you can do in any game.

Very few of those can ever be irrelevant (e.g. Labyrinth would only be irrelevant in a game without extra gains AND without extra buys, which is much more unlikely than a game without Action phase gains).

However, besides Moat and other Attack Reactions, Conspirator and Market Square are other examples of cards with irrelevant effects in a significant number of kingdoms.

11

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

« on: February 24, 2024, 07:41:44 am »

Working on a Dark Ages 2nd edition for my own amusement. I didn't get rid of Rats but I changed it subtly, and now it has a normal 10 card supply pile (freeing up some space). Now there's a way to trash Rats even in a game without any other trashers (thematically, the Rats starve and die once there's nothing for them to eat). The returning to pile means the Rats are always there.

This sounds interesting. But it's still very dangerous to play it with an all-Rats hand, since you'll have to trash the card it draws unless it's also a Rats. So you could easily be forced to trash a Province with it.

Maybe switch the order of card draw and trashing to prevent this?

12

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

« on: February 24, 2024, 07:33:49 am »

I'm curious what a proper price for a 'regular-sized' turnip would be. 
That is:
Turnip
+1 coffers
+1$ per coffers you have. 
It would then be a strictly better silver, so probably $5?
Maybe even $6.

I'm afraid Turnip wouldn't work as a kingdom card at any price, since it's too easy to turn them into super-Platina if you have 3 or more copies, which would be a boring one-card strategy. (Huge Turnip works as a Reward because you can only get one copy, or occasionally two in multiplayer.)
Maybe you could make a split pile where one card gains coffers and the other card gives +1$ per coffers you have...

13

Dominion General Discussion / Re: New 2e Cornucopia/Guilds cards are shown in the rule book

« on: February 21, 2024, 04:31:33 pm »

If Jester reveals a Ferryman, Chris de Burgh will be happy

14

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #211: Not Your Ordinary Village

« on: February 17, 2024, 05:05:17 pm »

Good points on Maid but I'm personally much more irritated by the grammar error than the mechanical issues (it costs)

I read "it cost" as grammatically correct past tense, referring to the price the card had when it was gained, not the price it currently has (this accounts for edge cases like Destrier, which becomes $1 cheaper immediately after being gained).

15

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Return all copper to the supply

« on: February 05, 2024, 04:08:23 pm »

One general method which works in 3 different ways:
Trash all starting Coppers, gain them by (1) trashing Lich, (2) playing Treasurer or (3) Shaman's start of turn ability, revealing Trader to exchange them for Silvers.

16

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #209: Next Time, Last Time

« on: January 21, 2024, 05:03:46 pm »

Opinions on changing my card to make gaining provinces less likely with cost reduction? Should I do the basic "non-victory" limitation or something else?

I'm not sure if you need to change it just for this interaction, but IMO the simplest change would be to just replace the $7 limit by $6. There's very few cards costing $7, so the difference rarely matters without cost reduction. And according to the wiki, there's no official gainer with a $7 cost limit, the highest explicit cost limit is $6 (Smugglers, Wish).

Unrelated question: How does the card work when you use a Villager with more cards in play than the cost limit? Do you gain a card with that cost (i.e. a $7 card with more than 7 cards in play in your current version), or do you not gain a card at all?

17

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #206: Evolution

« on: December 09, 2023, 04:49:19 am »

.           

.           

Moon Temple • $3* • Treasure
+$2 and +$1 for every three tokens on your T-mat (round).
-
When you buy this, if you T-mat has less than five token, add a token. This cost $1 more per token on your T-mat.

.           
This is a simple Treasure that starts out very much like a Silver and progresses through Gold to more if you can buy enough, although the other players may prevent you. The following table demonstrates the evolution.

Purchase    Cost     Worth
 1st             $3       +$2
 2nd            $4       +$2
 3rd             $5       +$3
 4th             $6       +$3
 5th             $7       +$3
 6th             $8       +$4
 7th             $8       +$4
 8th             $8       +$4
 9th             $8       +$4
10th            $8       +$4
.           

Since Moon Temple is strictly better than Silver (by potentially becoming a Gold+), I think it should have a starting cost of at least $4.
Otherwise, you could open double MT on a 3/4 start and have 3 "Golds" in your deck with the first $5 buy on T3/4.

18

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #205: Permission Requested

« on: November 27, 2023, 04:25:08 pm »

I don’t get this. It just oscillates to and fro and an extra Buy is quickly (in 3P game literally on T2) worth a Province. In a 2P game greening will start on T3 so the game will be over on T6.

At least in a 2P game, you would hesitate to buy AC as soon as there's six tokens on it, since your opponent would then be the first one to get a Province from it - and possibly the only one, since they can just wait until the last turn of the game to get the $8 Eye for an extra free Province. The game won't become a Province rush unless both players want it to.
I think it's an interesting interactive card in 2P. But I'd consider setting up the Eye with 2 or 4 tokens instead of 3, to make the first AC buy of the game a more difficult decision. With 3 tokens at set-up, if you're the first to buy the Event and it oscillates to and fro, you'll also be the first to gain a Province from it (since the token is added before the gaining).

But I agree that AC can be broken in multi-player games. There, if two (or more) of your opponents will just snatch it from each other each turn, you must join in if you don't want to lose.

It would be nice if the concept could be salvaged to also work in multi-player games. Maybe only allow a player to buy AC if their right neighbour has the Eye? That way each buy of AC would be a difficult decision instead of an automatic one in multi-player.

19

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #205: Permission Requested

« on: November 22, 2023, 07:23:43 am »

Night Market | Action - Duration | $4
The next time you buy a Curse, trash this.

While this is in play, you can't buy Provinces, and at the start of your turns +$1 +1 Buy

I don't think it's too strong in most kingdoms, but I could see it leading to un-fun games when combined with fast cursing. Suppose no one wants to buy one of the last Curses and lose their Night Markets just to preserve their ability to buy Provinces later. Then all players end up unable to buy Provinces which promotes three-piling on, say, Curses, Duchies, and Estates.

If this turns out to be problematic, you could add a clause that Night Markets are also trashed when the curse pile empties.

20

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.

« on: September 06, 2023, 07:01:07 am »

I like Donald X's suggestion of "offer a tie," since I was thinking about the potential issues with something like Collection+Stampede where the game can be unending (are there any other two card combo cases?).

You can replace Stampede by another Horse gainer for another (usually weaker) unending two card combo. There are also older two-card combos that can lead to unending "infinite VP" situations, e.g. Fortress/Bishop and King's Court/Monument. (The latter needs a trasher in the kingdom, but so does Collection/Stampede).

All of your examples tend to benefit from more engine-building however, it is basically never optimal to stop gaining cards. This is different with Collection/Stampede, which is the main problem with that combo.

With a golden deck of 5 Fortresses and 4 Bishops, gaining other cards does not help you at all once the Bishops are all gone. Gaining any VP card or terminal card hurts you since it increases the risk of not being able to play all your Bishops each turn. (Adding e.g. a Lab and a 5th Bishop may increase your average VP/turn, but if both players do this, you just get another stalemate.) Of course there are boards where building an engine from the start can win before the golden deck is ready, but not every board supports a stronger engine.

Also you can Collection/Stampede without a trasher. 10 Horses is enough to draw all your starting cards plus 5 Collections.

Right, but only if you manage to buy 5 Collections without a single Silver or other support card in your deck, which would take a very long time without shuffle luck. I suppose you can buy two Silvers in the opening and only get three Collections instead of five, for a 30VP/turn golden deck.

In the end, Collection/Stampede is clearly the strongest unending two-card combo (due to Stampede's anti-engine clause and  the highest VP gain per turn), but it's not the only one.

21

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.

« on: September 04, 2023, 07:13:24 am »

I like Donald X's suggestion of "offer a tie," since I was thinking about the potential issues with something like Collection+Stampede where the game can be unending (are there any other two card combo cases?).

You can replace Stampede by another Horse gainer for another (usually weaker) unending two card combo. There are also older two-card combos that can lead to unending "infinite VP" situations, e.g. Fortress/Bishop and King's Court/Monument. (The latter needs a trasher in the kingdom, but so does Collection/Stampede).

22

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #196: If a card is in the kingdom...

« on: August 25, 2023, 06:31:29 pm »

That sounds interesting. But I would increase the cost to $3 (at least) as Nomad Village is similar in strength to Village: It's better when revealing an Action, weaker when revealing a Treasure, and roughly equivalent when revealing a VP card or a Curse. NV's below-the-line effect also makes the card stronger.

23

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #188: Make a Wish

« on: May 30, 2023, 11:43:59 am »

Can we pretend that airplanes in the Night sky are like Shooting Stars? I could really use a Wish right now, Wish right now, Wish right now.

A Night-Reaction that can gain and play exactly one Wish per turn but only if you didn't gain any cards beforehand (and playing Wishes during your Night phase usually isn't as helpful). However, if you catch sight of a Shooting Star before Nighttime (via revealing), you can get your Wish early.

No idea on cost, $5 felt like too much, but maybe that's right? You don't really want these in multiples.

I think $4 is a better cost than $5 for this, as it is strongest in the opening, and a $5 cost would give 5/2 openings a huge advantage. This is very strong in the early game but usually becomes a dead card later in the absence of "reveal" triggers.

24

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #187: The Law Falls Silent

« on: May 23, 2023, 11:49:24 am »

This is true, but I think the card would be better reworded to reflect this. The current form is not ideal anyways, as it has a dividing line that shouldn't be there. I would suggest

Move your Sanction token to a supply pile. At the start of your next turn, take it back and +$3.
Until then, when any player plays a card from that pile, they first take 2D.

The Copper sanctioning is still a problem and can lock people out of the game if you have a $5/$2 opening.

Whelp I really was tired when I made this. Missed both the horizontal line (?!) and the fact that it can hit Coppers. I very much want it to hit custom Treasure cards but not Copper/Silver/Gold. So "Kingdom supply pile" should do it.  And it shouldn't have the attack type; it's an attack like Embargo that doesn't have the type bc the interaction with moat is awkward

Updated Version (it's fine if this doesn't make it into the contest anymore).

I think it could be an Attack just like the other duration attacks Blockade and Swamp Hag are. The only difference to those two cards is that TB can also hurt the player themself, but this is rarely relevant when sanctioning an Action, and Moat clearly states that it only reacts to another player playing an Attack, not to your own Attack. TB hurts the opponents badly e.g. when sanctioning the only village or a strong cantrip.

Unrelatedly, you don't need a token if TB sets aside a copy from the pile instead (like Blockade, but returning it to the pile next turn).

25

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #187: The Law Falls Silent

« on: May 22, 2023, 11:36:51 am »

Last!



FAQ: if blocked by Moat, you don't get to move/place the token.

So one player's Moat protects all other players in multiplayer games? That's very unusual, no other Attack works like that AFAIK. Shouldn't Moat just protect the player revealing it from taking debt?