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1

Non-Mafia Game Threads / Re: The Necro Wars

« on: April 07, 2024, 04:25:02 am »

Thank you all for the great answers, I have some replies brewing but now they have become too complicated to manage on my phone, so expect them to come in a few days when I can get my computer set up.

2

Non-Mafia Game Threads / Re: The Necro Wars

« on: April 04, 2024, 12:28:00 pm »

I can no more say that killing innocents, or betraying your friends is wrong than say that one and one makes three.

Oops, I messed this one up haha. Meant to say "right".

3

Non-Mafia Game Threads / Re: The Necro Wars

« on: April 04, 2024, 12:24:49 pm »

If I understand you correctly, you mean that if the only reasonable explanation for a phenomenon is supernatural, you should automatically dismiss it and search for a natural explanation. I would argue that this is fallacious, "naturalism of the gaps". This methodology doesn't help you at all in finding and knowing about supernatural phenomenon, in case they exist. If you have sufficient evidence that they don't, that's one thing, but otherwise, it seems wrong to rule them out because of your faith in naturalism.

What I mean is that the difference between natural and supernatural in how most people use these terms is that the things we understand are natural and the things we don't understand are supernatural. Supernatural explanations are hence impossible, because if we don't understand our explanation, we don't have an explanation. More literally, anything that affects the natural universe is a natural phenomenon by definition and anything that doesn't doesn't matter. In principle, it would be possible for there to be an agentic being similar to what people might call a god, or the spirits of dead people could sometimes stick around and haunt places, or humans could have a mysterious energy flowing through them that keeps them healthy when it flows the right way, but if we had actual evidence of any of these being true, they would just be natural phenomena.

When you define natural and supernatural that way you are missing the point. A lot of supernatural phenomenon are usually easily explained, although the explanations invoke a power that isn't easily observed. "How did the oracle know that?" - She was given revelation from a spirit with more knowledge than her. "How was the Red Sea split?" - YHWH did it. Here the supernatural distinction is important - the Red Sea doesn't spontaneously split, but a supernatural power did it. Claiming that that would be natural is missing the point of the distinction. What's natural is what's regular, what's possible to recreate and predict by simple observation. The methodology for intervention by supernatural beings is different. "Okay, the Red Sea split. How do we explain this?" Regular empiric science fails here, because you can't recreate it, but when you take into account the religiohistoric context, "YHWH did it" makes the best contender for an explanation. Why? The being that appeared to Mose in the burning bush used that name, claiming to be the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the forefathers of the Israelites, to whom he had revealed himself 400 years earlier. Then he said that he would deliver the Israelites from the slavery of Egypt, then the ten plagues came over Egypt in the way Moses had described by the command of God, and then the Israelites were released. When something happens that is impossible to explain using the naturalistic sciences, using the religious methodology to give an explanation is the most reasonable way, and in that case, calling the explanation "natural" doesn't make sense.

Another application of the religious methodology: I could give you a lot of evidence that parts of the Bible are of supernatural origin, that they are historically reliable, that it is psychologically helpful and so on, but the only reason I can give for why I believe it is true in its entirity is this: God has gained my trust.

4

Non-Mafia Game Threads / Re: The Necro Wars

« on: April 04, 2024, 11:01:04 am »

EM theory

It does make a lot of sense that the brain should work this way, although I don't think that it is the entire picture. If you exhaustively studied EM field computation and patterns in the brain, you still wouldn't be able to understand consciousness physically. What differentiates EM field patterns and computation from digital computation in such a drastic way as to give the first capability to experience but not the second?

5

Non-Mafia Game Threads / Re: The Necro Wars

« on: April 04, 2024, 10:40:41 am »

There are many objections I could raise against naturalism, but my chief one would probably be the fact that some parts of essential human experience cannot correspond to entirely physical phenomena. If you call man's sense of right and wrong, for instance, an illusion, what trust can you have in any other mental faculty? I can no more say that killing innocents, or betraying your friends is wrong than say that one and one makes three. But if the first one has no basis in what is real, what trust can I have in that the second one isn't an illusion? This is of course an entirely philosophic argument, which may be weaker in your eyes than for instance the Kalam Cosmological argument, but this comment is getting far too long now.

So you have to differentiate between the qualia of moral judgment, i.e. what it feels like to have moral intuitions, and whether these have any truth to them -- and I'm not sure what precise point you're making. Are you saying the qualia is difficult to explain, i.e., the fact that we have a sense of right and wrong? Or are you saying that the sense of right and wrong clearly has some truth to it, and the difficult part is to explain the source of this truth in a physicalist universe? Those would be two very different points.

My point is that all reasoning presuppose that the qualia we experience can tell us stuff about reality, and that we aren't decieved, at least about the laws of logic. The laws of logic, for example, are metaphysical and real, as well as the laws of morality. My point was that saying one of these qualia does not correspond to reality (I hope I am using "qualia" in the right way here) is sawing off the branch you are standing on.

Non-metaphysical objective laws of morality don't make sense to me, at least sans a creator or guided evolution. If morality is unchanging (which we suppose it to be when judging the sins of history), it must have existed before humans evolved. What made humanity evolve to give us the qualia of pre-existing moral laws, which are common to all men? And if moral laws evolved alongside us, in what way can it be objective, other than in the way that we have it in common?

6

Non-Mafia Game Threads / Re: The Necro Wars

« on: April 04, 2024, 03:43:29 am »

If you couldn't explain consciousness without invoking religion, that would be one thing, but I think you can.

If you can't explain something without invoking religion, you can't explain the thing at all.

If I understand you correctly, you mean that if the only reasonable explanation for a phenomenon is supernatural, you should automatically dismiss it and search for a natural explanation. I would argue that this is fallacious, "naturalism of the gaps". This methodology doesn't help you at all in finding and knowing about supernatural phenomenon, in case they exist. If you have sufficient evidence that they don't, that's one thing, but otherwise, it seems wrong to rule them out because of your faith in naturalism.

EM field theory

Interesting! What does this theory entail? What prevents strong EMP's from messing with consciousness, incase it exists in the electromagnetic field, and how do you explain the fact that electric stimuli in the brain seem unable to affect some integral parts of the conscious experience? "There is no place in the cerebral cortex where electrical stimulation will cause a patient to believe or decide" - Wilder Penfield, Mystery of the Mind, as quoted in part one of Irreducable Mind.

There are many objections I could raise against naturalism, but my chief one would probably be the fact that some parts of essential human experience cannot correspond to entirely physical phenomena. If you call man's sense of right and wrong, for instance, an illusion, what trust can you have in any other mental faculty? I can no more say that killing innocents, or betraying your friends is wrong than say that one and one makes three. But if the first one has no basis in what is real, what trust can I have in that the second one isn't an illusion? This is of course an entirely philosophic argument, which may be weaker in your eyes than for instance the Kalam Cosmological argument, but this comment is getting far too long now.

7

Non-Mafia Game Threads / Re: The Necro Wars

« on: April 03, 2024, 04:36:32 pm »

Isn't it crazy that you can literally sever the corpus callosum (primary synaptic connection between both hemispheres) and consciousness is almost unaffected, and none of the academically theories of consciousness bother to have an explanation? Isn't that the just absolutely nuts? It's like if you had a phenomenon where each object spontaneously repairs itself once it's cut for the first time, and all the physicists are like "nah that doesn't seem important; our theory doesn't need to explain that"

That seems hard to explain without invoking an incorporeal soul. InspiringPhilosophy has a really interesting series called "The Irreducable Mind", where he talks about consciousness, and argues for Christian dualism from discoveries like this one. (I would argue philosophically and biblically, a three-part model of human consciousness makes the most sense, but that's another kind of argument.)


Entirely unrelated, have you seen the game Balatro, silverspawn? It's kind of like deckbuilding poker.

8

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions

« on: October 13, 2023, 08:21:00 am »

Possession and Avoid allows you to essentially pull the best three cards (and any Possessions they may have) out of their deck for a mere 2 coins.

And with enough Avoids, you just lock them out of the game by giving them a 0 card hand. Similar to the “trash everything” trick you can do with Possession.

Does that really work? - after reshuffling 0 cards, do you not attempt a new reshuffle since you still have cards left to draw?

Edit - Just read the wiki - "You might leave so many cards in your discard pile that you don't have enough to draw; this does not trigger another shuffle, you just draw what you can."

9

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

« on: October 06, 2023, 04:26:53 pm »

it's just kind of like a non-event

Well of course, it's a Trait not an Event after all.

I'm sorry to go out of topic Snorka, but, is the suit on the man in your signature getting... larger?

10

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Snorka's fan card repository

« on: September 28, 2023, 04:21:10 am »

So if I understand Disguise Artist correctly, you can move your mimic token twice with two of them, and cause cost reduction on two piles?

11

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Enlightenment

« on: September 27, 2023, 04:24:35 am »

Wow, that's a lot of cards! I've only skimmed through them, but here's a few thoughts

A lot of these cards cause you to draw cards in your buy phase. That is often a lot weaker than drawing in the action phase, since you might draw some unplayable action cards. I suppose that's intended? But the cards don't really offer solutions in themselves.

The four-way split pile makes sense, since you're guaranteed to have the ability to play treasures in your action phase in the kingdom, but I see some power level issues. Track is really underwhelming compared to Mill, since it always reduces your hand-size. Maybe just slapping on +1 Card would make it more viable? This card could be done with only one dividing line, and should be done with the VP under the line, like this:

+1 Card
+1 Action
You may discard a victory or action card for +$1.
This turn, when you play a Treasure card, +1 Action
--
1VP

Also, for some reason it is missing the Grounds typing

I think you meant that Plow should reveal cards from the top of your deck, instead of from your hand? In that case it is pretty strong in the opening, it's better than Doctor at getting rid of your starting estates, as well as giving two actions. The fact that there are only four in the pile makes it tough for the last people in a 5 or 6 player game, as well as the ability to get bricked out if your opponent rotates the pile before you get any.

About Executive, I think it is really overpriced. Allies has a really similar card, Town, which costs $4, and might even be a bit stronger. Your card would be fine at $3, i think.

You have a few reactions here, all of which have some problems. When a reaction is triggered, nothing is really stopping you from revealing it any number of times, sometimes getting multiple effects. This makes it so that you can gain any number of coppers from Marsh, and drawing any number of cards from Mana or Ballista. At least Mana here should be rephrased like Horse Traders, which draws a card and makes sure to only do it once per Horse Traders you have.

The same thing applies to Scoundrel, letting you turn all non-victory cards your opponent buys into coppers. (There have been a lot of problems with the "when you would gain" phrasing, so I would recommend you to use the Exchange mechanic instead, like on the post-errata Trader) Also, it is unclear if you or the victim chooses which card they gain. There is another problem here: this is an attack that doesn't count as an Attack, which makes it impossible to block. The only other cards like that in the game i know of are Masquerade and Maelstrom, which usually don't hurt that much.

Then there's Ballista, a reaction that harms the attacker. This makes your opponents think extra about when they play their attacks, but there are some problems with having a reaction harm the attacker. I'd recommend reading the Fan Card Creation Guide: https://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=699.0

12

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Some fan cards that I've played with a lot

« on: September 27, 2023, 03:19:13 am »

who are the card's authors? I like to include the card's authors on cards i print.

Both of these are mine, forgot to mention.

13

Variants and Fan Cards / Some fan cards that I've played with a lot

« on: September 26, 2023, 02:05:23 pm »

In december 2020 I printed out a few fan cards, which I've been playing with a bit, and two of them stood out to me, and they are Refinery and Scum Village.

Refinery
4 - Action
+$2
Trash a card from your hand. Draw a card per $ it cost, then discard that many.

Simple, but it just flows really nicely. It's a bit like Masquerade in the trashing and retaining tempo, but a bit more powerful in the opening, since it guarantees 5$ and a trash unless you bottomdeck it, and in most cases you get to trash an estate and get a perfect deck cycle. The possibility to tfb out of bad hands in the late game makes it useful throughout the whole game, but sometimes you don't want to trash and miss out on some buying power. It feels strong, but not overpowered.
Because this is almost a no-brainer in the opening, maybe it makes some games less interesting, but I may also be a bad judge when comparing it to other strong trashers.

Scum Village
4 - Action
+2 Actions
Reveal a card from your hand. Reveal cards from the top of your deck until you reveal a card with the same cost as that card. Put it into your hand and discard the rest.

So it's a village that searches for a card with the same cost as a card you have in your hand. This can make for some really good consistency in some decks, if you have enough cards of a price class, as well as a drawer or another payload in that price class. If you draw this in a hand with no cards in that price class, though, it can be hard to recover.
I first printed this one at $3, but pretty quickly, with tips from people on this forum, bumped it up to 4$, which might have been a slight buff as well, since it can reveal itself to find some other cards, as well as avoiding silver.

I printed a few other cards as well, but I haven't played with them as much, so I don't have too much to say about them.

14

Non-Mafia Game Threads / Re: The Necro Wars

« on: April 08, 2023, 04:24:47 pm »

does the universe expect me to actually read stuff? i can't do that! reading is so hard

400 pages in, Kaufmans novel has reached a level of such utter ridiculousness that its very difficult to stop reading

15

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Card Fusions

« on: March 17, 2023, 10:20:43 am »

Heads up: because of the bottom option this is strictly better than Conclave. (+2$, +2 Actions)

Stower - Action - 5$
Discard any number of cards, then draw that many. You may Exile this to Exile your hand. If you did, +$1 per card you exiled.

I don't really like this, because having a one-time thinner at $5 maybe isn't great for balance. Maybe it's just to swingy in of itself.

16

Rules Questions / Re: Reckless

« on: December 20, 2022, 02:53:15 am »

Oh okay.

17

Rules Questions / Re: Reckless

« on: December 20, 2022, 02:36:06 am »

Shouldn't the first revealing of Moat be valid for the second following of Soothsayers instructions?
Moat tells you to be unaffected by the played Attack card, and Reckless tells you to follow the instructions of played Reckless cards twice. To me that seems like the card does the thing twice. For the Moat to only affect the first round of instructions you have to say that "this" (the first run-through) "is what Soothsayer does, and this" (the second run-through) " is what Reckless does." But Reckless just tells you to follow the instructions twice. If it had said "After you play a Reckless card, follow its instructions again" then the second play would have been solely because of Reckless. The current wording seems functionally equivalent to if the card text had been printed twice on Soothsayer, in which case the Moat  would count for both run-throughs.

18

Game Reports / Won against the hard bot on this crazy board

« on: September 23, 2021, 06:26:04 am »

Failed to publish image so I will just explain what happened.

Board:
Vineyard, Apothecary, Scrying Pool, University, Castles, Chariot Race, Philosophers Stone, Temple, Archive and Groundskeeper
Labyrinth and Orchard

I got some SP's and an University while trashing down with Temple. The bot quickly got three Chariot Races and started some pseudo-big money strategy. While I realized that I maybe had trashed down too much and lost economy, the bot had trashed down so much that I couldn't get any coins from my Chariots. While they got a 'golden deck' of a single Temple, I made a deck which got a Groundskeeper and a Vineyard about every turn. Since the bot didn't gain any cards I spent about 20 turns emptying the Groundskeeper, Vineyard and Estate piles.
Resulting points: me: 233, the bot: 33

19

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.

« on: September 21, 2021, 07:43:42 am »

How soon will Allies be available to play online?

20

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #129: In Play

« on: September 21, 2021, 06:55:49 am »

I have made a submission already that I'm going to keep, but the contest made me consider another card idea:

Some Name - $?
Action
If you have more than X cards in play, +1 card, +1 action.

Otherwise, if this is the first [Some Name] you played this turn, and the previous turn wasn't yours, take another turn after this one.

Not sure what the best way to balance it would be in terms of the number X and the cost. But I think it's kind of neat. If you are lacking in inspiration this week, feel free to steal this idea  I would like to see how it does.

Also, should it be a Duration?

If you look at Outpost it should be a Duration.

21

Game Reports / Re: King's Court + Goons and Peddler and tactitian

« on: September 16, 2021, 05:10:40 pm »

I once played something similar with my brother (who was like 5 years old then) and he started crying

22

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 20: Season 2 Finale (One plus One)

« on: September 13, 2021, 02:06:24 am »

Mustang
$3* - Dawn
+2 Cards
Return this to its pile.
-
When you discard this, you may reveal it to put it on top of your deck
(This is not in the supply)

The thought is this: Beneficiary lets you for example pay to play cards you bought this turn at the start of your next turn, alternatively just accelerating your deck with a Ghost-like effect. Living Grounds lets you slightly mitigate the tempo loss of gaining a Victory card by gaining a Dawn horse, but it might backfire on you. The interaction between Beneficiary and Mustang is twofold: playing actions at the start of your turn minimize the risk of drawing Mustang dead, and if it flips Mustang, you can topdeck it and be guaranteed to be able to play it during your next turn.

So is Mustang like Tunnel, a Reaction that triggers when it's discarded 'other than during Clean-up'? Do you also want it to react when discarded from hand at Clean-up? Either way it needs the Reaction type.

It is supposed to work at clean-up, but that might be a bit too confusing. You're right in that it needs the reaction type. I'll fix that now.

23

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 20: Season 2 Finale (One plus One)

« on: September 11, 2021, 06:27:55 pm »

Here's my submission. It uses Suppliers and Edicts from this season and Dawn cards from the first one.

Beneficiary
$3 - Supplier-Duration
+1 Buy
+$1
$2: Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal an Action  card. Set it aside under this and discard the rest. Play it at the start of your next turn.

Living Grounds
Edict
Whenever you gain a Victory card, you may gain a Mustang.

Mustang
$3* - Dawn-Reaction
+2 Cards
Return this to its pile.
-
When you discard this, you may reveal it to put it on top of your deck
(This is not in the supply)

The thought is this: Beneficiary lets you for example pay to play cards you bought this turn at the start of your next turn, alternatively just accelerating your deck with a Ghost-like effect. Living Grounds lets you slightly mitigate the tempo loss of gaining a Victory card by gaining a Dawn horse, but it might backfire if you draw it dead. The interaction between Beneficiary and Mustang is twofold: playing actions at the start of your turn minimize the risk of drawing Mustang dead, and if it flips Mustang, you can topdeck it and be guaranteed to be able to play it during your next turn.

24

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Neat card interactions that were useful in the game you found them in.

« on: September 10, 2021, 03:08:30 pm »

Tactician + way of the animal that draws 2 cards + KC gives a guaranteed double tactician and it's actually easy to pull of and really strong

Or Throne Room, Tactician and Way of the Owl (draw to 6) lets you continue your turn after playing TR-Tac.

25

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Really bad card ideas

« on: September 06, 2021, 04:35:11 am »

5-D Chess With Multiverse Time Travel - Action - $4+
+2 Cards
+1 Buy
If this is the same turn you bought this card in any timeline, +1 Action.
-
When you buy this, you may overpay any amount of $, to put it in your discard pile that many turns ago.