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3576

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Homage to the Best Card

« on: September 28, 2013, 09:52:24 am »

^ +1 for the final one.

3577

Mini-Set Design Contest / Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #3: Dark Ages

« on: September 27, 2013, 05:19:25 pm »

Incendiarist
Types: Action – Attack – Looter
Cost: $5
You may trash a card from your hand. If it is an… Action card, each other player gains a Ruins; Treasure card, gain a Spoils from the Spoils pile; Victory card, each other player gains a Curse.

I know I've defended this card earlier, and I still like it a lot.  Some people are worried that it can cause problems handing out both Ruins and Curses but I think this fear is completely invalid as I and a few others have argued before.  I'm a little concerned that $5 is too expensive (it just seems so much weaker than Ambassador/Marauder/Moneylender, but maybe combining them onto one card makes it worth more?).  I like the interaction with Shelters, which make the Action clause much more relevant than it otherwise would be.

Honestly, the name is terrible (is Incendiarist even a word?) and I don't know how to pronounce it so maybe it was trying to follow in the footsteps of Feodum in that regard, and also you would want the name to include "Iron", but that could be changed if it won.

Yeah, I don't think this card is going to be too strong (unless you get a whole bunch of Great Halls or something). I initially found it weird that it's not a true curser because it can't really give all 10 curses, but the same is also true for Jester. It's the treasure->Spoils thing that really makes me interested in this card.

Bargain
Types: Reaction
Cost: $1
When you would gain a card, you may discard this. If you do, instead, gain a card costing exactly $1 more than it.

My initial thought on this card was that it's too situational, but the more I think about it the more reasonable it seems.  On the surface it sounds like a Copper that you can also apply to gainers, which I guess is mostly what it is, but there's so much you can do with that, especially in the context of Dark Ages.  Like, trash a Feodum for two Silvers and a Feodum, or play Rats to turn something into a $5 card, Procession a Catacombs into a Catacombs, or Procession an Altar into a Province (and if you have another Bargain, grab another Altar to replace it on the Altar play).

The other thing is that it "blocks" junking, but I'm not sure that I actually like how it does that, since it costs $1.  Basically you can turn a Curse or Ruins into a Bargain, which is generally better than taking a Curse or Ruins, but not enough to be worth buying a Copper in most cases, so I might advocate pricing it at $2.  Alternatively, it could maybe cost $5 and gain a card costing up to (or exactly) $2 more, but maybe that changes it too much.  Either way, I think this might be my favorite submission, just because it's unique, fits the "poverty" theme of Dark Ages, and interacts so well with so many Dark Ages cards.

Yay, someone else who likes this card! I agree that this can cost $2. It's no worse than a Copper since you don't really draw this dead. It also lets this deal with junk better.

With that change, it's hard to decide whether this is a Dark Ages card or a Hinterlands card. It can really combo with DA cards, but DA cards can also be awesome with Cornucopia cards.

3578

Mini-Set Design Contest / Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #3: Dark Ages

« on: September 27, 2013, 09:36:01 am »

Stronghold
Cost: $6
Worth 1 VP for every 2 Spoils in your deck (rounded down).
When you gain this, gain 3 Spoils.

If you never use your Spoils, each Stronghold adds 4 dead cards to your deck.  IIRC there are 15 Spoils total, so it can be worth up to 7VP.  Seems like you'd stall pretty quickly if you tried to make Stronghold worth anything significant.  This seems like it would be better used just for some quick cash injection, and then the Stronghold can be fodder for TfB.  The VP might be nice near the end of the game if you can quickly gain 2 or more Strongholds, making each Stronghold a Duchy or better.  It does other interesting things to end game Duchy dancing, in that you can grab Strongholds for potential VP as well as adding economy to your deck to give you a better chance of grabbing that last Province.

I really like this.  There is a surprising amount of strategy packed into a very simple card.

I want to discuss this card a bit more.  Almost everyone seems to have dismissed it.  The issue that people are bringing up is that it turns Spoils into dead cards.  But I can think of plenty of ways that Stronghold is useful.  There will certainly be times when you need an economic boost, where 3 Spoils and a dead card are better than just 1 Gold -- particularly in the end game when you're not likely to see that Gold more than once anyway.  Stronghold itself can be given over to TfB.

It's also interesting during end game Duchy dancing.  Instead of getting a Duchy, maybe you grab a Stronghold to greatly improve your Province-buying ability.  With various Spoils-gainers, you can maintain the number of Spoils in your deck so that Stronghold is still worth points.

Then there may be games where you can play a Stronghold-specific strategy, aiming to mega-turn and get a bunch of them at once.  A single Stronghold is just 1VP, but the second one makes them 3VP each, the third 4VP each, the fourth 6VP each (unless the Spoils run out, of course).  And even if you aim to get VP out of Stronghold, you can still use your Spoils because you can gain them back with future Stronghold purchases.

If it really is too weak, a simple price adjustment might be all that is needed.  Make it cost $5.  But here's something to consider -- with $6, you can buy Masterpiece and get 3 Silvers.  This gives Stronghold and 3 Spoils.  That's actually pretty close on par, I think.  Spoils and Silver are very roughly on par, and I think the potential VP and higher value for TfB make Stronghold itself better than Masterpiece, which is just a $3 Copper.

I agree with what you're saying here. It kind of annoys me that people are saying that it turns Spoils into a deal card. Who is forcing you not to play those spoils? They're only dead if you insist on powering these up, but you don't have to bother powering these up. Just being able to get 3 spoils for the same price as Gold sounds like a good deal. The Stronghold does become dead though, but that's 1 dead card instead of 4. Hopefully, you can trash it somehow.
3 Spoils can be much better than 3 Silvers if you don't what permanent treasure in your deck.

I think we're just going to get a community designed RfB card that improves on Hatter in the end.

That would make me very happy, actually. From the secret history, I get the impression that DXV had a card like that in mind when he created the Ruins. If we come out of this contest with a card that makes Ruined Village feel mechanically different from a Confusion, I'll consider this a success.

Yeah that would be okay by me. It could just be that Donald X. didn't want to waste too much time trying to get such an idea to work.

3579

Mini-Set Design Contest / Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #3: Dark Ages

« on: September 27, 2013, 08:21:08 am »

Given the volume of submissions in this contest and people complaining about being unable to really give them all enough thought, and especially playtesting, to have an informed opinion, I was thinking that perhaps the next time someone does this they should have a preliminary round in which people vote for the cards they think have the coolest ideas that could be balanced and interesting after playtesting and tweaking. Then the the top ten(?) from this round could be further examined, discussed, and playtested by the community with the focus only on these cards. Tweaks could happen during this time. Finally, people could vote again to determine the winner that would already have proven itself. This seems like a better way to make sure that the winner is a truly interested and vetted card.

We have an entire week to playtest. If no one's going to do it in one week, I doubt they'll do it in two. That preliminary round is happening right now, informally. The cards that have the coolest ideas are the cards that are getting talked about the most, and if someone thinks a card is underappreciated, they type up a paragraph or two and post it. I'm also worried about the bias towards safe cards, but I don't think the solution is to double the amount of work LFN has to do. (Of course, the safest card this week is Mortuary, so that's pretty dope.)

Yeah, most of us don't have time to playtest our favourites. Even if we do, we might get the feeling that we're being unfair to all the cards we didn't playtest. Making the contests 2 weeks long can solve some of those issues, but it just makes the contest drag, doubling its length. This setup seems alright for now.

As a side note, I wouldn't consider Mortuary the safest card on the ballot. It looks like a simple, 1 card non-terminal trasher, but its "while in play" clause can provide you with additional card draw if you trash cards later on in your turn. That will often be from other Mortuaries, yes, but with the right mix of DA cards things might get pretty crazy. Heck, just playing a Pillage makes it give you card draw. It depends on the board in a really DA kind of way.

3580

Mini-Set Design Contest / Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #3: Dark Ages

« on: September 26, 2013, 08:53:35 am »

A few cards tried to provide other uses for the Ruins pile. One was "+1 Card +1 Action, play the top Ruins, put it on the bottom." It was cute but there's a tracking issue. I did Ironmonger instead. Another card played the top four Ruins. It gave you +$3 instead if the Ruins ran out, because what fun is that.

This quote also makes another point I was going to make, which is that Hatter is way too similar to Ironworks to be worth adding (and therefore probably so would a revision of Archaeologist to make it more like Hatter). Which is a shame, because I kind of like Hatter.

Yeah, I feel like Archaeologist is forced to go in that direction. You could spice it up by allowing the player to return Ruins to the Supply from hand (or maybe the trash); that would prevent the card from killing itself, but it would still be a retread of a card that got cut from Dark Ages for being too similar to a card from Dark Ages. The only thing I can think of is to use more explicit Dominion terms to allow more flexibility when tweaking and allow interactions with Reactions and other cards.

If I had my druthers, it would look like [cantrip or whatever] + "Gain and play a Ruins from the Supply [or trash?]. At the end of your turn, you may return any number of Ruins cards from play to the Supply in any order." Here you can play Ruins from your hand as well, and then toss them back into the Supply to clear out junk from your deck. I think that alone makes it a little more interesting than Hatter, with fewer tracking issues than Ironmonger, but otherwise it stays faithful to the Archaeologist that was submitted. I don't mean to tweak the card in the middle of the contest; I'm just saying that it can be tweaked, and people would come up with more clever things to do with this. It's definitely in the 'Indulgence' rather than the 'Hinterland' category, and if people like the idea they should vote for it with a clear conscience.
Full disclosure: not my card.

That could work, except you probably wouldn't have Ruins in your hand unless there another looter on the Board. I'd tweak it so that it can play up to 3 Ruins from either the top of the Ruins pile or your hand (and combinations of those), but only lets you return 1 of them. It's kind of unfair to ignore that the other RfB cards are actually a lot closer to the fixed Archaeologist than Archaeologist. Plus, the fixes all seem to detract from the original purpose of Archaeologist.

I think we're just going to get a community designed RtB card that improves on Hatter in the end.

3581

Mini-Set Design Contest / Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #4: Seaside

« on: September 25, 2013, 10:17:17 pm »

I have a spreadsheet of my cards ideas (I know, nerd) with 171 cards. Only 5 of those are Durations, and I only semi-like 2 of those. So, I wouldn't be surprised if I don't submit a Duration card. But, I'll be trying to come up with new cards all week, so who knows??

You crazy! This contest marks my very first attempts at a fan card.

I'm having a hard time coming up with something good for Seaside. It might be a big trap to immediately decide that your card will be a duration. It gets messy to design duration bonuses beyond simple vanilla bonuses, and the official Durations that already cover a large section of design space (mega-turn with Tactician, smoothing with Haven, engine-encouragement with Outpost, defense with Lighthouse, and various combinations of vanilla bonuses with the others).

3582

Mini-Set Design Contest / Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #3: Dark Ages

« on: September 25, 2013, 10:11:11 pm »

I feel like that Archeologist would be good with that fix that someone suggested where you only get the under the line bonus once per Archeologist.

I originally thought Archaeologist was a cantrip the played the top Ruins once, like a Ruins Ironmonger. Such a card could cost 4 like Ironmonger, and it has that top Ruins trashing too (which could be changed to putting the card at the bottom of the deck). I was able to wrap my head around that version. I was baffled when I realized how it actually worked.

3583

Mini-Set Design Contest / Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #3: Dark Ages

« on: September 25, 2013, 10:06:56 pm »

The source of the problems is that this is using Ruins in a way they weren't designed to be used. Ruins were just supposed to be junk cards, not a vanilla bonus randomizer deck.

I dunno; Donald X. cut Hatter apparently because it was too hard to track, not because Ruins simply aren't suited to that function. (Hatter is cantrip, play top Ruins and move it to the bottom of the pile. ...And honestly, I don't see that that's that much harder to track than, say, Ironmonger.)

True, but I'd be surprised if that was the only factor. What happens to Hatter in games where 2 or more players go for Cultist and Marauder?

I should have been more specific concerning my concern with Archaeologist. Archaeologist works in a way that every single card played after it can be boosted with an extra vanilla bonus decided by chance. The card doesn't actually play the Ruins, and I wouldn't even call it a Ruins-for-Benefit card, since it doesn't give you Ruins and doesn't particularly want you to have Ruins over other actions in your hand. Already, the Dominion outtake card that gave you a coin after every action you played was either really weak or really strong depending on your action density. Imagine having a card that can make every action card non-terminal. The Ruins effects weren't balanced around being a booster for any action that is played. It's worse here because the Ruins can be bought later on in the turn, potentially denying your opponent from getting the same benefit. I think that special bonuses have to be designed for such a mechanic.

3584

Mini-Set Design Contest / Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #3: Dark Ages

« on: September 25, 2013, 07:50:22 pm »

Archaeologist
Types: Action – Looter
Cost: $5
+1 Card. +1 Action. You may trash the top card of the Ruins pile.
While this card is in play, when you play an Action card, play a copy of the top card of the Ruins pile.

Yes, this is a pretty cool idea. But as is... I think it's just quite too strong. If the top Ruins card is Ruined Library, I mean this card gives you an extra +1 card per Action you play. Of course Archaeologist has to be terminal. Does it have to give +1 card? I think it shouldn't. I also think it should possibly cost $6. Good idea, though.

Yeah I have to agree that it's way too strong as written. Just having one of these in play while R. Library or R. Village is on top can lead to effortless super turns. It seems very hard to balance though. You don't know if the top 10 Ruins are all Abandoned Mine or Survivors at the start of the game. The source of the problems is that this is using Ruins in a way they weren't designed to be used. Ruins were just supposed to be junk cards, not a vanilla bonus randomizer deck. Ideally, this would interact with a non-supply "dig site pile" that consists of a bunch of unique card. That could be cool. Those kind of cards weren't allowed for this contest though.

Raid
Types: Action – Looter
Cost: $3
Choose one: Play and trash up to 2 Action cards from your hand; or gain any number of Action cards from the trash costing up to $3 and play them in any order.
When you trash this, each other player gains a Ruins.

Way too powerful for $3. This is like a Throne Room effect. Sure there's a slight chance they steal your good actions, but okay, this is just too good I tihnk at $3.

But Throne Room almost works at $3. The $3 restriction on card gains should have an effect on how this plays out, no? Also, lining up Throne Room with an action can be hard enough. This has to line up with 2 actions to make full use of the first choice.

Condottiero
Types: Action – Attack – Looter
Cost: $4
+2 Buys. +$2. Each player (including you) may discard a Treasure. If he does, he puts his deck into his discard pile and immediately reshuffles. Each other player gains a Ruins.
When you trash this, look through your discard pile. You may trash up to 2 cards from your discard pile or hand.

Clarification: Each other player gaining a Ruins is not contingent on whether or not he discards; it just always happens after the discard and shuffling effects.

A Marauder that Chancellors everybody? Okay. Well, too much like Marauder for me. Likely a very strong card.

I agree that it looks very strong

Danse Macabre
Types: Action
Cost: $4
You may play an Action from your hand for none of its effects. If you do, +4 Cards and +1 Action.
When you buy this, trash it.
When you trash this, gain 2 cheaper cards of different costs.

I really like the thought that went into this card. It's very cool, but I think it's just a bit too fancy. There's going to be a large, large number of boards where you can never get this, you just do the on-trash thing which will have its uses but be pretty marginal over all. When you CAN gain this card, I expect the top part is just extremely, extremely strong. So I think this card may very well be terribroken. Maybe if it were tweaked it would work. +4 Cards and +1 Action is SUCH a powerful effect. You would just gain lots and lots of these things and use them on themselves.

I'm in the camp that thinks this is too strong when you can gain it. This might even be able to use the gainer as a second action card, depending on the gainer.

3585

Mini-Set Design Contest / Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #3: Dark Ages

« on: September 25, 2013, 10:17:16 am »

It is quite evident to me that you can reveal this reaction all you want, but the only card which can be moved to the trash is the one of top of your discard pile.  However, I think you are probably correct that the intent was that any could be trashed.  So I would propose changing it to "when you would discard a card... trash the card instead."  The Tunnel thing is unrelated, by the way, since Tunnel does not move itself and therefore the Lose Track rule is not relevant.  It is an easy fix, so it shouldn't deter anyone from voting for this card.

You reveal Tunnel. How would you reveal a card when you lost track of it?

This is discussed in this thread. In short, the Lose-Track rule in the Dark Ages rule book simply doesn't say anything about revealing (rather than moving) cards, so even though Tunnel is lost track of for the purposes of the Lose-Track rule, you're still permitted to reveal it because the rules don't say you can't. This implies that even if you've literally lost track of where the Tunnel is, you're still permitted to reveal it, I guess, if you can find it; it's one of those cases (like Moneylender) where the game rules don't actually keep you honest.

I always just assumed Tunnel is in About-To-Be-Discarded Land, where there is no covering up and nothing is lost track of, when you reveal it. I never read the Hinterlands rulebook, so I don't know when exactly a player reveals Tunnel.

3586

Mini-Set Design Contest / Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #3: Dark Ages

« on: September 24, 2013, 10:31:27 pm »

Maybe I should have commented on all the cards at once, but this sectioning off of posts seems better.

Somehow, there appears to be even less agreement this time around.

Priestcraft
Types: Action – Attack
Cost: $5
+$2. Choose one: Trash a card from your hand; or choose a card in the trash and each other player gains a copy of that card, putting it on top of his deck.

This is terrifying with a single Curse in the trash. It becomes a SuperSea Hag for $5 that benefits you directly and can stack multiple curses on top of the deck of your opponents. And yeah, the political ruins thing too, I guess.

Miser
Types: Action
Cost: $4
Choose two: +$2; gain a Spoils from the Spoils pile; gain a Silver. (The choices must be different.)

I do agree that this smokes Explorer, but that's nothing a a balance adjustment can't fix. Or maybe, this is balanced and Explorer is just that weak. It's good, but does it belong in Dark Ages?

Charter (A)
Types: Action
Cost: $4
+1 Card. +1 Action. Trash the top card of your deck. You may gain a card from the trash.
When you trash this, +2 Cards.

Way better than Spy, but Spy ain't so great, so that's okay. It's awesome when it hits another Charter, but if you've used Herald, then you'd know that kind of collision doesn't just happen on it's own. The restrictive top-deck trashing lets this pass balance-wise, I think.

Robber Baron
Types: Action – Attack – Looter
Cost: $4
You may discard a Ruins. If you do, +$3 and each other player discards down to 3 cards in hand. Otherwise, gain a Ruins.
When you gain this, gain 2 Ruins.

Baron is fun, right? This merges Baron with Death Cart. Upon comparison
to Militia, this looks like it's best used as a defense against other looters. Perhaps this should just give $4? Seriously, this looks way worse than Militia.

Sacrifice
Types: Action
Cost: $5
Trash a card from your hand. If you do, +$2 and gain a Spoils from the Spoils pile.

Altar's other half. Simple, but in a refreshing way.

King of the Slums
Types: Action – Looter
Cost: $5
Look at the top 3 cards of the Ruins pile. Gain any number of them, putting them into your hand. Put the rest back in any order. Choose up to 3 Ruins from your hand. Play the first one three times, the second one twice, and the third one once.

Seems, uh, strong right now. I'm still not sure why Donald got rid of the ruins playing cards he tried out. Such a card might be entertaining in the end. Wording wise, this should get rid of the first-second-third notation and just say something like "play one of the 3 three times, play another one twice, and the last one once". 

Astral Conqueror
Types: Action – Attack – Looter
Cost: $5
+$2. Each other player gains a Curse and a Ruins Each other player gains a Spoils from the Spoils pile. This cannot cause a player to gain the last Curse or Ruins in the Supply.

I agree that this slogs up the game so badly."last player" should just be "any player", no?

Smelter (A)
Types: Action – Reaction
Cost: $3
+1 Action. Trash a card from your hand. Gain a card of equal cost, putting it on top of your deck.
When you would gain a Silver, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, instead, gain a Spoils from the Spoils pile.

I like this one. This lets you gain spoils over silver when you'd prefer Spoils. That effect is meaningful with gainers. Can this trash a silver to top-deck a Spoils, or is this an Ironworks/Trader blue dog thing?

Junkyard (B)
Types: Action – Victory
Cost: $5
Choose one: Trash a card from your hand; gain up to 2 cards from the trash with a total cost of up to $5 and trash this.
Worth 1 VP for every 3 Victory cards in the trash.

Like with Cemetery above, you're just helping everyone by trashing VP cards. Or, you're undoing your opponent's efforts by removing Duchies and Estates from there. At least they got to trash stuff.

Alehouse
Types: Action
Cost: $3
When you trash a card this turn, +1 Action, discard a card, +1 Card, and you may gain a card costing less than the trashed card. Trash a card from your hand or from play.

Turns every trasher into a non-terminal, sifting trasher, or sifting village, or super village in the case of Chapel, Right? If you 4 trash cards simultaneously with Chapel, do you get the benefit 4 times?

Ignoble Brigand
Types: Action – Attack – Looter
Cost: $4
+$1. You may trash a Treasure from your hand. Each other player may discard a Treasure. If he doesn't, he gains a Ruins.

I really like this one. A player on the receiving end of this may still be willing to take a ruins if it means he or she also gets a gold, because ruins aren't THAT bad. The trashing that the attacker gets may be good enough bonus to make this competitive.

Junkyard (C)
Types: Action
Cost: $4
Trash a card from your hand. Gain a card costing exactly $1 more than it, putting it into your hand.
When you trash this, trash a card from your hand. Gain a card costing exactly $1 less than it.

So you can more-or-less use this to develop another copy of this. That's neat. I dig it.

Heretic
Types: Action – Reaction
Cost: $5
Trash a card from your hand. Choose one: +1 Card per $ it costs; or +$ equal to its cost.
When one of your cards is trashed, you may trash this from your hand. If you do, put the trashed card into your hand.

An Apprentice/Salvager hybrid. With 2 copies of these, you can trash a Province for high payload and keep the Province. I'd be happy to use this a bunch in DA heavy games.

Iron Maiden
Types: Action – Attack – Looter
Cost: $4
+$2. Each other player with 5 or more cards in hand discards a card. If it is an…
Action card, he gains a Copper; Treasure card, he gains a Ruins; Victory card, he gains a Curse. He puts the gained card into his hand.
When you trash this, you may trash up to 2 cards from your hand.

Powerful, but not too powerful, I don't think, with the card going into the hand. As mentioned before, it can be block by discarding a curse like you can for Mountebank. It's even better here because it keeps you safe from all future Iron Maiden attacks until your next turn. Alright!

Satan's Workshop
Types: Action – Attack
Cost: $5
Gain a card costing up to the number of Fire tokens in your Satan Pit. Each other player may reveal a hand with 2 or fewer Treasures. If nobody does, put a Fire token in your Satan Pit. Each other player gains a Copper, putting it into his hand.
When you would trash this, set it aside. If you do, at the beginning of your next Buy phase, +1 Buy, +$1 per token in your Satan Pit, and put this into the trash.

Setup: Each player puts 2 Fire tokens in his Satan Pit.

I get that each player has to take a Copper for this to work, but that also leads to second-third-fourth player advantage, where your play of it gives you no tokens, but gives the next person to play it a token.

Bargain
Types: Reaction
Cost: $1
When you would gain a card, you may discard this. If you do, instead, gain a card costing exactly $1 more than it.

...Do I know you from somewhere. Good with gainers and tfb-gainers, and yay it costs $1 like those other DA cards. Somehow, it manages to charm me. I play a Rats and then reveal this to get a Lab instead of a Rats.

Soldier
Types: Action – Attack
Cost: $3
+1 Card. +1 Action. Each player trashes a Copper card from his hand (or reveals a hand without Copper). You may trash this. If you do, gain a Mercenary from the Mercenary pile if there are 4 or more Treasues in the trash; or gain a Madman from the Madman pile if there are 2 or more Soldiers in the trash.

Clarification: If there are 4 Treasures and 2 Soldiers in the trash, you choose whether to gain a Mercenary or a Madman.

Do I want a Badass, or a PTSD psycho. Both options seem good.

Archaeologist
Types: Action – Looter
Cost: $5
+1 Card. +1 Action. You may trash the top card of the Ruins pile.
While this card is in play, when you play an Action card, play a copy of the top card of the Ruins pile.

I thought this was Hatter when I first read it. Wording issues aside, this can be absurd with the right ruins on top, but then this is countered by itself. Another player can just use these to empty the ruins pile. Interesting.

Stronghold
Types: Victory
Cost: $6
Worth 1 VP for every 2 Spoils in your deck (rounded down).
When you gain this, gain 3 Spoils from the Spoils pile.

The VP part seems really weak, though the gaining 3 spoils thing has some value under the right circumstance

Garrison
Types: Action – Reaction
Cost: $3
Trash a card from your hand. For each $2 that it costs (rounded down), gain a Spoils from the Spoils pile.
When a player trashes a card, you may reveal this from your hand and gain the trashed card. If you do, discard this.

Clarification: If multiple players reveal a Garrison, the Garrison of the player who trashed the card gets resolved first, the other players follow in turn order. Later players can't gain the card due to losing track; Garrison can only gain the card if it is still in the trash.

Don't trash that Province with Salvager! Though perhaps one of the most evil cards I've seen (it can steal Fortresses) I like its possible interactions with other DA cards. However, others have pointed out how bad this can be for gameplay. That's a shame.

Raid
Types: Action – Looter
Cost: $3
Choose one: Play and trash up to 2 Action cards from your hand; or gain any number of Action cards from the trash costing up to $3 and play them in any order.
When you trash this, each other player gains a Ruins.

The on-play seems good, but it's nature isn't so good for activating the on-trash effect of this, since these stack poorly. But, there are other ways to trash cards, and it doesn't need the on trash at all to work.

Surveyor
Types: Action – Reaction
Cost: $4
+1 Action. You may trash a Victory card from your hand. If you do, gain two Treasures each costing exactly $1 more than it, putting one on top of your deck.
When another player buys a Victory card, you may set this aside from your hand. If you do, at the start of your next turn, return this to your hand and gain an Estate, putting it into your hand.

Similar to Cultivate, but it works one way and gets you 2 treasures. Has a neat little reaction to help it along, too.

Smelter (B)
Types: Action – Reaction
Cost: $3
You may trash a card from your hand. If you trash an… Action card, +2 Actions; Treasure card, +$2; Victory card, +2 Cards.
When you trash a card you may discard this from your hand. If you go, gain a card costing less than the trashed card.

A slow trasher, but it has a reaction that synergizes with other Smelters. I find it decent.

Condottiero
Types: Action – Attack – Looter
Cost: $4
+2 Buys. +$2. Each player (including you) may discard a Treasure. If he does, he puts his deck into his discard pile and immediately reshuffles. Each other player gains a Ruins.

Clarification: Each other player gaining a Ruins is not contingent on whether or not he discards; it just always happens after the discard and shuffling effects.

When you trash this, look through your discard pile. You may trash up to 2 cards from your discard pile or hand.
It adds the universal Chancellor effect option to soften the blow. it should benefit the attacker more than Marauder, so this is very strong. It could work, though.

Angry Mob
Types: Action – Attack – Looter
Cost: $4
+1 Action. +1 Buy. Each player gains a Ruins, putting it into his hand.
While this is in play, when you buy a Ruins, you may trash this. If you do, gain a Mob Boss from the Mob Boss pile.

Mob Boss
Types: Action
Cost: $0*
+1 Buy. Reveal your hand. For each Ruins revealed, +1 Card and +$1. You may return a Ruins from your hand to the Supply. If you do, +1 Action. (This is not in the Supply.)

That Mob Boss is really neat, though too easy to get. You'll want that extra ruins once you have the Boss, and everyone can easily get a Boss of their own (well, not if there is only 5). So, Angry Mob is more of a fun game changer than an attack.

Charter (B)
Types: Treasure – Attack – Looter
Cost: $5
Worth $2. When you play this, each other player gains a Ruins, putting it into his hand.

That's one mean charter! A straightforward attack that makes use of Ruins junking to become non-terminal. A decent balance twist on a junker.

Danse Macabre
Types: Action
Cost: $4
You may play an Action from your hand for none of its effects. If you do, +4 Cards and +1 Action.
When you buy this, trash it.
When you trash this, gain 2 cheaper cards of different costs.

You can't even gain this without a gainer. And can you even trash a card before gaining it? When you can get it in your deck, it's just so strong, turning itself and another action card (even a Ruins or the gainer you used to get it) into a Lab. That random trash effect isn't worth having an awkward second horizontal line for, but others have suggested wording tweaks.

Garderobe
Types: Action – Looter
Cost: $2
+1 Action. +$2. Gain a Ruins, putting it into your hand. You may play an Action card from your hand costing up to $3.

How strong/weak is this? Either way, I find it quite interesting.

Drug
Types: Action – Victory – Looter
Cost: $5
+1 Card. +1 Action. +$1. You may gain a Ruins. If you do, +1 Card. You may gain a Ruins. If you do, +1 Action.
Worth –3 VP if every other player has fewer Ruins than you.

Ruins-Hamlet. Adds another layer of strategy to the game, and it's a fine one too. Everyone loves Ruins, or at least they want to love Ruins. Why can't Ruins just stay bad for the rest of Dominion's days?

Street Sweeper
Types: Action – Looter
Cost: $4
+2 Cards. +1 Action. Trash a card.
When you trash this, gain a Ruins.

Even if this costed $5 and discarded first, it would still be way stronger than Junk Dealer,and Junk Dealer is already so good. +1 card is just going to be better than +$1 on a non-terminal most of the time. Naturally, you use this like you would Junk Dealer, not like you would Lab. With that in mind, the on-trash penalty is nothing to really be concerned about.

Blood Feud
Types:
Action – Attack – Looter
Cost: $4
Choose one: +1 Action, +$1, and each player (including you) gains a Ruins, putting it in his hand; or reveal up to 3 cards from your hand, play the revealed Action cards in any order, then trash all the revealed cards.

Hehe, this one looks so cool. They work well together when they collide too; The first one puts a Ruins in your hand, and the second one trashes it. Playing Procession with this sounds like something I'd like to try, though that might just end in a big mess.

Barrister
Types: Action – Attack
Cost: $5
+2 Cards. Each player (including you) reveals the top 2 cards of his deck; you may choose a revealed Treasure for him to trash. He discards the rest. You may gain a Treasure from the trash.
Setup: Replace one of each player's starting Coppers with a Claim.

Claim
Types: Treasure
Cost: $0
Worth $1. When you play this, look through your discard pile. You may trash a Claim from your discard pile or hand. If you do, gain a Gold, putting it into your hand.

Clarification: In a 6-player game, the starting player does not replace a Copper with a Claim.

So this fixes Thief, and introduces cute little Claims that can turn into Gold. That's nothing major. It's just a little extra something that adds to Barrister's charm.

Mendicant
Types: Action – Looter
Cost: $2
+1 Card. +1 Action. Gain a Ruins, putting it into your hand. You may play any number of Ruins from your hand. If you played two or more, +1 Card.

Garderobe's cousin. May need some balancing work. Whether you like this or not all depends about how you feel about RtB (Ruiins for Benefit).

3587

Mini-Set Design Contest / Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #3: Dark Ages

« on: September 23, 2013, 08:57:57 pm »

So, I've noticed a lot of the cards here are pulling a Catacombs by having an extra on trash effect. Sometimes they work together with the rest of the card, and other times they just seem random. Either way, they often don't add too much to the overall function of the card. Also a lot of RtB cards (Ruins for Benefit). It's getting harder and harder to pick favourites.

My comments on roughly the first half of the list.

Cultivate
Types: Action – Victory
Cost: $5
+1 Action. Choose one: Trash a Victory card from your hand and gain a Treasure card costing up to $1 more; or trash a Treasure card from your hand and gain a Victory card costing up to $2 more.
This is worth 3 VP if there are at least 4 differently named Victory cards in the trash; otherwise it's worth 1 VP.

The +1 Action addition seems good here. a sort of Treasure/VP card leapfrog thing here, worth extra points if this and 3 other types of VP cards are in the trash. I wouldn't count on that happening in a game where this is the only kingdom
VP card. Even so, it's not bad.

Cemetery
Types: Victory
Cost: $5
Worth 2 VP plus 1 VP for every 2 differently named Action cards in the trash.
When you gain this, trash a card from your hand other than a Cemetery.

There's a weakness with this mechanic. Your opponents can take advantage of your hard efforts to trash your action cards to boost these up by simply buying them. It's not like Duke, where you can gain an advantage by winning the Duchy split. This is just a communal super-Duchy stack that you ideally want your opponents to power up, like with Forager.

Patrol
Types: Action – Reaction
Cost: $3
Discard any number of cards. Draw until you have 5 cards in hand.
When you discard a card from your hand other than during a Clean-up phase, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, either trash that card, or put it on top of your deck.

This can only trash 1 card at a time? That's a bit disappointing. I though this was like a super Chapel when you lined up 2 of these. Still, the on play is nice, though I have no comments on the balance.

Model Village
Types: Action
Cost: $4
+1 Card. +2 Actions.
When you trash this, you may trash a card from your hand. If you do, gain a card costing up to $2 more than it.

Tracking issues aside, I don't know. The on-trash effect only seems useful as a defense to trashers (similar to Catacombs' on-trash generally). I'd rather get a Fortress so as to keep my valuable village.

Tribal Man
Types: Action
Cost: $5
Gain a Spoils. Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal an Action card. Choose one: Put the card into your hand; or play the Action, trash it, and gain a card costing less than it.
When you trash this, gain an Action card costing at most $5 that is not a Tribal Man.

Procession-golem. In theory, it could work. You get a nice bonus for hitting another Tribal Man with it.

Disciple
Types: Action
Cost: $4
Look through your discard pile. You may reveal a Tresaure from it and put it into your hand. You may trash this and another copy of Disciple from your hand. If you do trash two Disciples, gain a Savior from the Savior pile.

Savior
Types: Action
Cost: 0*
+1 Action. You may put your deck into your discard pile. Look through your discard pile and put a card from it into your hand. You may return this to the Savior pile. If you do, play an Action card from your hand three times. (This is not in the Supply.)

Disciple's on-play is weak but not terrible. You're  really looking to collide them for a Savior, whose power is probably stronger than Madman's. So having this be weaker than Hermit is good. Madman fans should like this. Treasure Map haters probably won't. I'm neither of those, I don't think.

Renovate
Type: Action
Cost: $4
Trash a card from your hand. You may gain a card costing up to $1 more than the trashed card, putting it into your hand. If it is an Action card, play it.

Seems really strong, actually. Maybe it should cost $5, like an alternate Band of Misfits?

Brick
Types: Treasure
Cost: $5
Worth $1. When you play this, trash a card you have in play. Gain a card costing exactly $1 more than it.
When you trash this, gain a Copper, putting it into your hand.

Cards that Trash a card in-play can be risky design-wise with Fortress, but Fortress/Brick is certainly not broken. Kinda like a non-terminal half-Remake.

Bricklayer
Types: Action
Cost: $4
Trash any number of differently named cards from your hand. +1 Card per card trashed.

First Brick, not Bricklayer *chuckle*. Has its laser-sight on Ruins. Still feels like a Cornucopia Chapel or something.

Deathmonger
Types: Action – Reaction
Cost: $3
Trash the top card of your deck. You may trash the top card of your deck.
When any player (including you) trashes cards, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, that player puts the trashed cards into his hand.

This blocks itself, potentially making slogs even sloggier. This can possibly be tweaked to lessen the "terminal Tournament" issue.

Carpenter
Types: Action
Cost: $5
Trash a card from your hand and gain a cheaper card, putting it into your hand. +$ equal to the cost in coins of the gained card.
When you trash this during your Action phase, +1 Action.

This is neat. It encourages you to trash better cards (such as a DA card with a good on-trash effect), and can be better than Salvager if you do so. It's $5 cost properly reflects it's strength. It's on-trash effect is cute, but not necessary.

Necromancy
Types: Action – Attack
Cost: $5
Choose one: Gain an Action or Treasure card from the trash, putting it into your hand. Play it immediately. At the end of the turn, trash that card; or each other player reveals the top 2 cards of his deck, trashes one of them costing from $3 to $6, and discards the rest.
When you gain this, you may trash a card costing up to $6 from the Supply if there is not a copy of it in the trash.

Why does this have that on-gain effect? Barring Rogue and Graverobber, it basically lets players buy $6 cost cards like Goons and Grand Market for $5. Also, this is what Rogue and Knights were actively trying not to be: A card that lets you trash-attack your opponents constantly. This doesn't get trashed when it trashes another player's Necromancy, either. In an engine, this has the potential to be even deadlier than a Saboteur engine, except this doesn't even suck most of the time.

Ravage
Types: Action – Attack – Looter
Cost: $5
You may discard a card. If you do, +1 Action. Each other player with 3 or more cards in hand reveals his hand and discards the card with the highest cost in coins (you choose in a tie). If he discarded a Victory card, he gains a Ruins, putting it into his hand.

Discarding a card to make this non-terminal is a small price to pay for such a powerful attack. That is, if you're first player. All it needs is a larger hand size limit, say 4.

Junkyard (A)
Types: Action – Looter
Cost: $5
+1 Action. You may gain a Ruins, putting it into your hand. Discard any number of cards. +1 Card per card discarded. +1 Card per Action card discarded. You may trash this.
When you trash this, +2 Cards.

This is a super Cellar with Ruins in hand, and can trash itself for an even bigger boost. Well costed at $5, meaning you choose this over Cultist in order to defend against it. Good without other looters too, letting you gain a Ruins to see your handsize decrease. Interesting.

Mortuary
Types: Action
Cost: $5
+1 Action. Look through your discard pile. You may trash a card from your discard pile or hand.
While this is in play, when you trash a card costing $2 or more, +1 Card.

Gives the Rats on-trash effect to all cards costing $2 or more. When this is the only trasher, if you're not trashing cards from the discard pile frequently, then this is going to be weaker than Junk Dealer and Apprentice. Surely this can be much more in the context of Dark Ages heavy games, where you often see more expensive cards getting trashed. Also
seems good for triggering the on-trash effects of other cards.

Pact
Type: Treasure
Cost: $2
Worth $0. When you play this, trash it. For each Pact in the trash, gain a Spoils, putting it into your hand.
When you buy a Pact, each player gains a copry of it (you get 2 copies total).

Woh-woh-Woah! Admittedly messy for 5+ player games, but otherwise this looks like a fun little experiment that I'd be interested to see the results of. "Junking" players with spoils doesn't seem like something that seriously discourages engines either.

Ferret
Types: Action
Cost: $4
You may trash this. If you do, +$ equal to the cost in coins of an Action card in the trash that you choose.
While this is in play, when you buy a card, gain a Ferret from the Supply or trash.

Suicidal Salvagers that multiply like rats (and maybe like Rats, too). Not sure what to think here.

Incendiarist
Types: Action – Attack – Looter
Cost: $5
You may trash a card from your hand. If it is an… Action card, each other player gains a Ruins; Treasure card, gain a Spoils; Victory card, each other player gains a Curse.

It's best move is trashing estates. It can also ruins-retaliate. Doesn't seem that OP to me actually. The Spoils gaining adds a nice touch, too.

3588

Dominion Articles / Re: Musings about Taxman

« on: September 23, 2013, 04:14:32 pm »

I would add comparisons to Beaurocrat, and, obviously, mine.

Speaking of Bureaucrat, I remember playing a weak board with no real engine potential where I opened Bureaucrat then got a Taxman or two. Bureaucrat gives silver, Taxman turns the Silver into Gold, and both slow down your opponent a bit. It seemed solid

3589

Mini-Set Design Contest / Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #3: Dark Ages

« on: September 23, 2013, 01:23:34 pm »

And the ballot is up! A lot of cool cards this time around. If I missed your card or got it wrong, PM me ASAP!

You weren't kidding when you said there were a lot of cool cards. My poor card submission.

Also, Smelter(B) is missing it's cost.

3590

Simulation / Re: Dominiate: a Dominion simulator that runs on the Web

« on: September 23, 2013, 09:45:34 am »

So, uh, BM-Smithy handily beats BM-Masquerade on Dominiate. I thought BM-Masquerade was supposed to be really good.

Well, first thing is that the Smithy deck has Colonies. Also, the masq deck neither plays the endgame at all well, nor actually plays the tactics of masquerade super well.

Thanks for the insight. I was suspicious about the Masquerade bot trashing copper when it would otherwise have $8 to spend, and it does that. I doubt I would have noticed the Colonies gaining of Smithy, but removing Colonies for BM-Smithy had next to no effect on win%.

I suspect that you didn't reset the simulation - you have to do this, or it will just tack on the new games on top of what was already established, rather than starting again with your new script.

No, I was sure to reset the simulator results, and removed both Colonies and Platinums from BM-Smithy Buy priorities. BM-Smithy still wins with over 60% winrate with the default buy rules in Dominiate.

However, changing the buy rules of Masquerade to match the ones used in Geronimoo's Simulator makes it win against the default BM-Smithy bot in Dominiate. Only after adjusting the buy rules of the BM-Smithy bot similarly do the two strategies have a roughly 50-50 win%

3591

Simulation / Re: Dominiate: a Dominion simulator that runs on the Web

« on: September 22, 2013, 08:46:55 pm »

So, uh, BM-Smithy handily beats BM-Masquerade on Dominiate. I thought BM-Masquerade was supposed to be really good.

Well, first thing is that the Smithy deck has Colonies. Also, the masq deck neither plays the endgame at all well, nor actually plays the tactics of masquerade super well.

Thanks for the insight. I was suspicious about the Masquerade bot trashing copper when it would otherwise have $8 to spend, and it does that. I doubt I would have noticed the Colonies gaining of Smithy, but removing Colonies for BM-Smithy had next to no effect on win%.

However, Masquerade-BM seems to have a slight edge against Smithy in Geronimoo's simulator, where it holds on to copper when I needs the extra copper to buy Province or even Gold.

3592

Simulation / Re: Dominiate: a Dominion simulator that runs on the Web

« on: September 22, 2013, 05:30:51 pm »

So, uh, BM-Smithy handily beats BM-Masquerade on Dominiate. I thought BM-Masquerade was supposed to be really good.

3593

Simulation / Re: Dominiate: a Dominion simulator that runs on the Web

« on: September 22, 2013, 03:29:42 pm »

BM+Monument is dead even with the simple Rebuild Strategy, and so is DoubleJack.
DoubleMountebank beats it 60-40. i fear I havwe to start thinking about what to do again when I see Rebuild on the board.

My thoughts exactly. Gulp.

I've been saying for a while that some simple BM strategies are the way to compete with rebuild. However, I don't exactly buy that this simulator is playing rebuild near optimally....

The Rebuild bots I wrote aren't even close to optimal. They pay no attention to the cards in their draw pile, the Duchy split, the VP totals, etc. It's easy to write nearly-optimal BM strategies, but it'll take a lot more Dominiate code to produce a bot that plays a halfway decent Rebuild game. If anyone does write a better version, send me the Dominiate code and I'll add it to the server.

Comparing DoubleJack or Monument-BM to RebuildSimple wouldn't be meaningful even if the bot was smarter. RebuildSimple doesn't use any terminals. Adding just one Jack gives you the RebuildJack strategy, and even that's enough to beat DoubleJack 60-40.

Though the Rebuild bots may not be playing optimally, it's interesting that Chapel/Young Witch really goes to town of RebuildSimple and even has a slight edge over RebuildJack. That's not the case for Witch/Chapel and Mountebank Chapel. I guess the results would be very different depending on the Young Witch Bane.

3594

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Band of Misfits theory

« on: September 22, 2013, 01:43:28 pm »

I've understood pretty much all along why you get a $6 card from Processioning BoM.  What I still don't understand is why, if you play BoM as Feast, you have to play it as Feast both times.

Because it never leaves play. Nevermind.

I remember someone giving a plausible explanation for this. You can see Throne Room/Procession as looking at the chosen action card to receive its "marching orders".

Think of it this way: When playing a card twice, TR/Procession looks at a card, Highlights the on-play effect, copies that highlighted text and pastes it into some aside program code to execute, then pastes it again right below the identical block of code, then executes that program. After that, procession continues with the rest of its instructions, which is INDEPENDENT of the play-twice program. The rest of its instructions is only concerned with the current state of the originally selected card.

Edit: so that aside code needs to have a connection to the originally selected card. In computer terms, you'd pass a reference to the selected card or something. This could use a non-computer lingo translation.

3595

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Really bad card ideas

« on: September 21, 2013, 03:35:52 pm »

Can we please not make alienating posts like that?

And whose the one who suggested the card idea in the first place?

My card idea was about exchanging articles of clothing leading to mismatched outfits.  I didn't joke about forcing sexualized women to disrobe against their will.

No, but you have to remember that Dominion is cursed with having an edge case for everything, and half of them involve possession.

3596

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Really bad card ideas

« on: September 21, 2013, 01:48:37 pm »

Can we please not make alienating posts like that?

And whose the one who suggested the card idea in the first place?

3597

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Really bad card ideas

« on: September 21, 2013, 10:00:18 am »

Band of Covers v.1
$5 - Action - Attack
Choose one: +3 Cards; Trash up to 4 cards from your hand; Choose an Action card in your hand. Play it twice; +$2
Each other player discards down to 3 cards in his hand.

3598

Mini-Set Design Contest / Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #2: Hinterlands

« on: September 20, 2013, 01:09:02 pm »

I wanted the top part to at least be a cantrip, so that you wouldn't be afraid to get multiples of these. It needed a bit more than that, but a simple $1 coin would be too strong. I figured I can make the coin conditional so as to favour large handsizes and sifting.

I don't think a simple $1 would be too strong (Peddlers at $5 are moderately weak but infinitely practical), but a flat +$1 would have made it into nothing more than a Peddler on play, for which I also would not have voted favorably.

But, when you consider that mining a Copper into a Silver increases the net coin in your deck by 1 without adding any additional bloat, it's as if you're buying 2 Peddlers for 5, at least early, except 1 of them can only draw treasure and is tied to the mined treasure card. I think the on-play has to be pretty weak to make that work. It also has to cost 5, otherwise a Mountain Dwellers/Silver opening eclipses a Silver/Silver opening.

I only playtested it after submitting it. What would really make this better is to make the effect on-gain and give it the ability to mine cards in hand as well, but with the mined card being discarded. I don't feel much like resubmitting the card for the next challenge without popular demand, though.

3599

Mini-Set Design Contest / Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #3: Dark Ages

« on: September 18, 2013, 09:01:23 pm »

So now that the first Hinterlands challenge is over, how is Dark Ages working out for everyone? I had my card finalized sometime last week. I can't find anything to change about it. I just wish it was actually a Dark Ages card.

3600

Mini-Set Design Contest / Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #2: Hinterlands

« on: September 18, 2013, 08:12:00 pm »

It's interesting that two of the most debated cards were submitted by WanderingWinder (Used Land Salesman) and -Stef- (Hinterland).

I also noticed that. Where is -Stef- to comment anyway?