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2826
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Card Ideas: most playtested
« on: March 09, 2012, 01:21:43 am »
Lucky Break - 2$
+1 Card
+1 Action
Return a card from your hand to the supply. If you did, gain a card costing the same amount as the returned card and put it into your hand.
Interesting. I suggest playtesting with Ill-Gotten-Gains, Border Village or Peddler.

Not that different from the interaction of Salvager with these, right?

2827
Dominion General Discussion / Re: A real wtf moment.
« on: March 07, 2012, 04:06:37 pm »
If you played Bishop, and he trashed a Curse from his hand to force a tie, then he'd still win if he had fewer turns.

That brain fart also made me not realize that this scenario cannot happen. If you play Bishop, you're guaranteed +1 VP.

Well, unless you trash a Victory card...

2828
Rules Questions / Re: Haggler+Black Market
« on: March 07, 2012, 04:04:42 pm »
Thanks for the replies. I checked on isotropic solitaire and it agrees with what you guys are saying. My confusion comes from the fact that haggler doesn't actually say from supply

When you gain a card, unless otherwise explicitly specified, it comes from the supply.

2829
I agree that Apprentice doesn't make any sense.  Especially since one of the best things to do with your Apprentice is to get enough of them that you can use one to trash another.  What kind of sense does that make?

See the thread I linked to above:

Apprentice. What happens in The Sorcerer's Apprentice? When the broom gets out of control, Mickey Mouse chops it into many pieces—and then each piece comes back to life as a full-sized broom. In other words, the apprentice trashes one broom, and gets back many more brooms for his trouble. The same thing happens with Dominion cards.

2830
Bad fit: Throne Room, building this lets you play an action card twice. Okay, why? I don't get the name connection at all.

Donald actually answered this in <a href="http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=919.msg13967#msg13967">a related thread</a>:

So there are several cards in Dominion where the relationship between the name of the card and what it does in the game (or its relationship to other cards) is obscure at best: What does a throne room have to do with doing something twice?
The idea behind Throne Room is, that when the king gives you an order directly, man, you hop to it.

2831
Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Most Buying Power on Turn 4
« on: March 05, 2012, 10:26:01 am »
To be clear, define buying power as the most you would be able to spend on a single card during the buy phase of Turn 4.

(As an example, playing Lighthouse, Bridge, 3 Coppers would give you 6 buying power - $1 from Lighthouse, $2 from Bridge, and $1 from each copper.)

Strictly speaking, in that example you're only able to spend $5. How about defining it as "the listed cost of the most expensive single card you're able to buy"?

2832
Mandarin/Mint opening with Venture on the board also has possibilities.

2833
Just trying to toy with some new ideas...

Investment
Cost: 4
Treasure
Worth $4
When you gain Investment, put it on your Investment mat.
When a player gains a Province, trash all Investment from the supply. Each players shuffle their Investment cards from their Investment mat to their decks, then remove all Investment mat from the game.

It's worth noting that as written, this has a screwy/broken interaction with Thief. I'm not sure what to do about that.

2834
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: A slightly different card idea... Bluff.
« on: March 01, 2012, 02:28:29 pm »
(The card artwork would be a cliff overlooking a river.)

2835
It's often commented that Scout is a weak card, but it's a lot stronger within the context of Intrigue. If the cards you're picking up with Scout are Harems and Nobles, it's—well, it's still not that strong (notwithstanding this surprisingly decent Scout/Harem deck I put together not too long ago), but it's a lot more useful than if you're just picking up, say, Fairgrounds with it.

So this started me wondering: what cards are a lot less effective if you're playing them in a game made up of mostly cards from the same expansion than with an average random set? For instance, consider Philosopher's Stone: Alchemy has a lot of cards which increase handsize and/or encourage long action chains, but doing either of these weakens Philosopher's Stone. So Philosopher's Stone is probably on average more useful with non-Alchemy cards in the kingdom than with other Alchemy cards (though its Herbalist combo is pretty good). Similarly, University is not all that much use in a kingdom full of Potion-costing non-terminal actions.

2836
Dominion General Discussion / Re: The defining cards of the sets
« on: February 29, 2012, 11:17:59 pm »
V3ck, that's brilliant. The only thing I'd add is, Familiar is also the only curser which gives +action (which is on-theme).

2837
Dominion General Discussion / Re: The defining cards of the sets
« on: February 29, 2012, 05:28:29 pm »
Prosperity: I'm torn here between Goons and King's Court. The former is an expensive card that grants VP chips; but the latter is a $7 card—a variety unique to Prosperity—and very evidently a bigger-and-badder version of a humble card from the base set. And neither of them is a special Treasure, so neither of them sums up Prosperity as a whole.

Bank?

Maaaaybe. I mean, yes, it fits into both the themes of "special treasure" and "$7 card", but I feel like it doesn't do a great job of showing off the kinds of strategies that Prosperity enables.

2838
Dominion General Discussion / Re: The defining cards of the sets
« on: February 29, 2012, 05:21:09 pm »
Oh, and Promo: Black Market. A ridiculous card with a bizarre effect that only seems to make sense outside the regular expansions.

2839
Dominion General Discussion / Re: The defining cards of the sets
« on: February 29, 2012, 05:19:22 pm »
I think the way I want to interpret this question is as what cards are most characteristic of their sets—which ones do the best job of embodying the theme(s) of the set and/or the strategies they enable.

Base: Smithy. The simplest card in Dominion, and the enabler for the most basic winning strategy against which all others are measured.
Intrigue: Nobles. A mixed-type Victory card which offers a choice of on-play effects, embodying the two new concepts that Intrigue introduced to the world of Dominion.
Seaside: Wharf. The Smithy of Duration cards, and a powerful enabler for both big-money and engine strategies.
Alchemy: Scrying Pool. The card that emphasizes just how much Alchemy lets you do with a deck full of Actions.
Prosperity: I'm torn here between Goons and King's Court. The former is an expensive card that grants VP chips; but the latter is a $7 card—a variety unique to Prosperity—and very evidently a bigger-and-badder version of a humble card from the base set. And neither of them is a special Treasure, so neither of them sums up Prosperity as a whole.
Cornucopia: Menagerie. Not only does it reward variety in a straightforward way, it also has combo potential with many of the other cards in the set that cause you to discard from hand.
Hinterlands: Border Village. It has an on-gain effect, and its on-gain effect is an additional gain—thus allowing you to trigger further on-gain effects, and representing the thick-deck strategies that Hinterlands encourages.

2840
Game Reports / Re: Alternative VP Battle
« on: February 29, 2012, 11:14:28 am »
I tend to think of Oasis in the following terms: it's a cantrip that turns any other card into copper. So it benefits your deck to the extent that you're likely to draw it with cards that are worse than Copper. Whether or not doing so is better than Silver in that case depends on how much you're willing to slow down your cycling.

2841
Game Reports / The megaturn that didn't happen
« on: February 29, 2012, 11:03:42 am »
A kind of amusing Sea Hag / City game between me and Cruton:

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120227-190319-5176e1b1.html

So okay, a Sea Hag game means the Curses are likely to run out, so Cities are valuable. Universities are a useful way of acquiring Cities because it's arguably easier to hit $2P than $5 consistently in a heavy Sea Hag cursing game. Toward the midgame, Cruton starts using University to snarf up a bunch of Council Rooms. Clearly this is leading up to some megaturn where Cruton uses fully-powered-up Cities to play a bunch of Council Rooms and then grab several Provinces.

But our decks are so clogged up that what actually happens is this: after the last City is gained, there is exactly one turn on which a level-2 City is played. That's the turn on which the last Curse is gained. Cities are now fully-powered! But neither of us ever gets any Cities in hand after that; instead, Cruton buys the last University on the next turn to end the game on piles. Final score: 2 to –2.

2842
Also, on another slightly unrelated note one of my favourite things to do multiplayer is have Torturers and Masq with some +actions. Hit them with the torturer first...and then the Masq, they discard down to 3 good cards, and then a good card gets passed around the table, messes up everyones strategies.

If they have reason to expect you're going to do this, they'll just take the Curse from Torturer and pass that around instead. The best discard attack to pull this stunt with is Margrave.

2843
Dominion General Discussion / Re: How thematic are the expansions?
« on: February 24, 2012, 10:29:09 am »
I'd also point out Cornucopia has another subtheme you missed: Cards which help you get variety into your deck(/hand). Of which there are: Remake, Tournament, Young Witch, Hunting Party, Jester. Arguably also Horse Traders (it draws a card in it's reaction and can discard duplicates with it's action).

Hm, I guess so. That seems like a pretty loosely defined category, but I can see the argument for Jester and Remake fitting the "variety" theme. Actually, there's kind of another subtheme of cards which can cause you to discard things as a consequence of playing them (Hamlet, Young Witch, Horse Traders, Tournament), which I wasn't sure I wanted to count either.

Quote
Regarding the bigger basic cards from Prosperity, I'm not really sure I count City and Goons, but I would certainly count Worker's Village (Village with +buy). City isn't really just a village, it's something completely different, although yes it is just an improved village in the end. Goons also, is really not just an improved Militia/Woodcutter, it's buy effect is it's defining ability. But strictly speaking I guess I'd include them.

I don't really count Worker's Village as a "bigger and badder version of Village"; it's just a Village which also does something else, in the grand tradition of Bazaar (Village plus money), Farming Village (Village plus filtering), Mining Village (Village plus optional trash-for-cash), and so on. City on the other hand really is a bigger and badder version of Village—although a fully powered-up City is in a class by itself, it starts every game as nothing more than a Village clone. So I really do feel like that makes it describable as "just like Village, only more powerful", in a way that Worker's Village isn't (it has a bonus, but doesn't really feel powerful in that way). But this is all splitting hairs about subjective impressions. I take your point about Goons, though.

2844
Dominion General Discussion / How thematic are the expansions?
« on: February 24, 2012, 03:16:26 am »
So, each box of Dominion cards is associated with one or more structural gameplay themes. It just occurred to me to wonder how thoroughly each collection is shaped by its theme(s): how many cards actually fit in?

Basic Dominion:
About 13 out of 25 cards are the simplest way to accomplish some basic Dominion task. (Chapel, Gardens, Laboratory, Militia, Moat, Smithy, Spy, Village, Witch, Woodcutter, Workshop, arguably Cellar and Remodel.)

Intrigue:
About 7 out of 25 cards offer a choice of multiple distinct effects. (Ironworks, Minion, Nobles, Pawn, Steward, Torturer, and for Tribute the choice is random.)
4 more have variable effects in other ways. (Baron and Mining Village let the player choose whether to activate their abilities; Conspirator and Shanty Town have different effects depending on the circumstances in which they're played.)
3 out of 25 are playable Victory cards. (Great Hall, Harem, Nobles.)

Seaside:
8 out of 26 are Duration cards. (Caravan, Fishing Village, Haven, Lighthouse, Merchant Ship, Outpost, Tactician, Wharf.)
7 more have effects on the next turn by setting up the top of the deck. (Ghost Ship, Lookout, Navigator, Pearl Diver, Sea Hag, Treasure Map, Treasury.)

Alchemy:
10 out of 12 require Potions to purchase. (Alchemist, Apothecary, Familiar, Golem, Philosopher's Stone, Possession, Scrying Pool, Transmute, University, Vineyard.)
4 out of 12 interact in some special way with Action cards. (Golem, Scrying Pool, University, Vineyard.)

Prosperity:
3 out of 25 give Victory tokens. (Bishop, Goons, Monument.)
8 out of 25 cost $6 or more. (Bank, Expand, Forge, Goons, Grand Market, Hoard, King's Court, Peddler.)
8 out of 25 are special Treasures. (Bank, Contraband, Hoard, Loan, Quarry, Royal Seal, Talisman, Venture.)
5 out of 25 are obviously bigger and badder versions of cards from the basic set. (City, Expand, Goons, Grand Market, King's Court; plus honorable mention to Platinum and Colony.)

Cornucopia:
5 out of 13 interact in a special way with having a variety of cards. (Fairgrounds, Harvest, Horn of Plenty, Hunting Party, Menagerie.)
2 more increase the variety of cards available in the game. (Tournament, Young Witch.)

Hinterlands:
9 out of 26 do something special when you buy or gain them. (Border Village, Cache, Embassy, Farmland, Ill-Gotten Gains, Inn, Mandarin, Noble Brigand, Nomad Camp.)
4 more have effects that are triggered when another card is bought or gained. (Duchess, Fool's Gold, Haggler, Trader.)

So obviously Alchemy has the highest percentage of cards that are on-theme in some way, by virtue of the very large number of Potion cards; but its structural theme of Actions is a fairly small subset of the expansion. Prosperity has multiple quasi-related themes, and 17 out of its 25 Kingdom cards participate in at least one of them. Seaside's "next-turn" theme has the highest percentage for a single identifiable theme other than Potions, with 15 out of 26 cards.

Finally, Intrigue and Hinterlands both have a subtheme of Kingdom cards which are or interact in a special way with Victory cards. (Baron, Duke, Great Hall, Harem, Nobles, Scout; Crossroads, Duchess, Farmland, Fool's Gold, Silk Road, Tunnel.) Since they both fit this theme to the same extent, you can't really count it as a specific expansion theme for either of them; but it is striking.

EDIT: Let's add Dark Ages!
7.1 out of 35 Kingdom cards do something when trashed. (Catacombs, Cultist, Feodum, Fortress, Hunting Grounds, Rats, Sir Vander, Squire; plus Overgrown Estate.)
13 out of 35 trash other cards. (Altar, Count, Counterfeit, Death Cart, Forager, Graverobber, Hermit, Junk Dealer, Knights, Procession, Rats, Rebuild, Rogue; plus Mercenary.)
4 out of 35 trash themselves. (Hermit, Knights, Pillage, Urchin; plus Hovel.)
4 out of 35 interact with the trash or trashing in other ways. (Forager, Graverobber, Market Square, Rogue.)

2845
Rules Questions / Re: Trader and gaining multiple cards at once
« on: February 24, 2012, 02:20:16 am »
What happens when there are zero of something that you should gain?  For example, if you buy a cache and there are NO coppers left, could you still reveal Trader to gain two Silver?

No; the gamestate has to be such that, if you didn't reveal Trader, you'd actually gain something.

2846
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Hidden Village: an after-the-fact village
« on: February 23, 2012, 04:14:43 pm »
How about:

+1 Card
+1 Action
__________
Hidden Village does not cost an action to play. (You may play it with no actions remaining.)"

This version would need to cost $4 though since its strictly better than Village.

It's really not, though.  There are at least two ways in which it is inferior:

1. (Hidden) Village, Copper, Copper, Copper, Copper.  Play (H)V, draw a Smithy.  Play Smithy, draw three cards.  If your Village was a vanilla Village, you'd have an extra action with which to play something your Smithy drew.  If your Village was a Hidden Village, you are out of actions and can't play anything.

I think Kuraku256's version doesn't have that issue, since it's got that "does not cost an action to play" stipulation. That said, I think the versions which don't have that stipulation, and therefore do collapse in the draw-into-Smithy scenario, are more interesting.

2847
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Hidden Village: an after-the-fact village
« on: February 21, 2012, 04:26:21 pm »
I kind of feel like you could make a case that "You may play this during your Action phase even if you have no actions remaining" would still leave you with 0 actions afterward—playing it would take you down to –1 actions, and then the +1 Action brings you back up to 0, since you're still opting to play it as an action yourself. Whereas having a card get played as a result of a Reaction ability is more like having it get played as a result of Golem or Throne Room and thus not reduce the Action count. That's my intuition, anyway, though I'm not sure how far I'd be willing to defend it.

2848
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Hidden Village: an after-the-fact village
« on: February 21, 2012, 02:26:33 pm »
Yeah, I totally buy that rationale for $3; the card does seem not-quite-as-good-as Fishing Village, for instance.

I think it kind of has to be a Reaction, though, doesn't it?

2849
Variants and Fan Cards / Hidden Village: an after-the-fact village
« on: February 21, 2012, 02:54:34 am »
Picking this up from a discussion in an unrelated thread, here's my idea for an after-the-fact village:

Hidden Village
$4: Action-Reaction
+1 card
+1 action
----------
During your Action phase, if you have 0 actions remaining, you may reveal this from your hand and play it.

(Thanks to Robz888 for thinking of the name "Hidden Village".)

The idea is that playing a terminal draw action and then revealing Hidden Village has the same effect as playing Village and then your Smithy (or whatever), but Hidden Village is easier to use because you're more likely to have it in your hand when you need it. Pst suggests a variety of other minor ways it may be more useful than regular Village, which seems to justify the $4 price point; but it's not strictly better, so a $3 price could be justifiable too.

2850
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Anagrams
« on: February 21, 2012, 12:05:05 am »
Alchemist: The Claims
("I can synthesize a universal solvent! I can convert lead into gold! I have discovered the secret to eternal youth!")

Ambassador: Or Amass Bad
(That's what the card does, all right.)

Contraband: Don't Ban Car
("Aw, man! I really wanted to buy a Car!")

Embargo: Go Bar Me
("I dare you. Just put an Embargo token on Car and see what I'll do.")

Familiar: I Am Frail
(All those curses are bad for your health.)

Forge: Gofer
("Hey, you! Go get me something whose cost is exactly the sum of these other costs!")

Gardens: Dangers
(All those geese wandering around the gardens biting people, for example.)

Great Hall: All Gather
(Plenty of space in the hall for everyone.)

Hamlet: Thelma
("Hey hon, what can I do for you? One action and one buy? Sure thing, hon, I'll just need two cards.... Have a nice day, now.")

Harem: Am Her
(...and her, and her, and her...)

Minion: No, I'm In!
(Those four new cards are in a hurry to push out your old hand.)

Native Village: At All I've Given
(...You're going to give it back now, right?)

Saboteur: Beat Sour
(How you feel when your opponent King's Courts it on you.)

Spice Merchant: The Nice Cramps
(What you feel when you draw it with no Coppers.)

Transmute: Turns Meat
(...into Gold? Or maybe into a Duchy?)

Treasure Map: Me, A Trap? Sure!
(Sure!)

Tribute: Rebut It
("I hereby intend to prove that when your opponent plays Tribute it does not, in fact, hurt you.")

Woodcutter: To Crude Two
(They're sawing that tree pretty crudely, anyway.)

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