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101

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.

« on: June 05, 2022, 05:33:16 am »

I’m guessing 450 cards plus metal tokens and mats is a no-go.

You don't really need mats for Coffers... just put the coin tokens on the table next to your deck. As all other uses of coin tokens do have mats (Villagers, Favors, the removed Pirate Ship), there's no risk of confusion.

I suppose 450 cards plus coin tokens would still be more expensive to produce than most other expansions, though. FWIW, in Germany there was (is?) a mixed box with Alchemy and Cornucopia.

102

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Seaside 2E and Prosperity 2E Update Packs

« on: June 05, 2022, 05:20:52 am »

Does someone know when/whether RGG will publish the update packs in German? With Base and Intrigue, they combined all new cards into an extra 14-card "expansion" in Germany, but didn't sell either update pack separately AFAIK.

BTW, doesn't RGG have a German-language website? I couldn't find it with a web search, and RGG's English website doesn't have a button to switch languages/countries either...

103

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Seaside and Prospeirity 2nd Editions

« on: June 03, 2022, 10:29:27 am »

I expect many casual players don't even get the idea to open double Ambassador to aggressively get rid of your starting cards, because they tend to underestimate deck-thinning.

And not making any progress can easily happen with remaining cursers like Witch - I hate to remember my base-only 4 player games where everyone bought a Witch or two early. A friend of mine accidentally played 2 player games with all 30 curses in the pile (!), and didn't mind it much.

From my own casual plays with friends, Contraband was quite popular with them, even though they unintentionally made it even weaker by playing it after their other treasures...
The replacement sounds better for "good" players, but for casual players the original might be more fun IMO. It feels more interactive than many attacks to be able to prevent an opponent from buying a Province (or a Gold or a cheaper card), without knowing which card they want or can afford..

104

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #153: Prosperity Revised

« on: June 01, 2022, 12:27:58 pm »

Update 1:

Risky Bet
Action - 3$
You may play a treasure costing up to $5 from your hand twice. For each $1 it would give you, instead get $1, +1 card, +1 action. You cannot play any more copies of it this turn.

A storyteller variant that can turn coppers into a lost city of sorts, and similar for other treasures, but you are barred from playing more copies of the card. limited it to 6$ treasures cause platinums are so expensive and good that the drawback doesn't matter there.

Unsure about the power level of this card: On some boards, it seems super strong, and its drawback doesn't matter really (like if you just got one gold or plunder anyway). On others, especially ones you can't thin and get rid of coppers, it seems weak as you can't play the other coppers you draw. But i like the core concept a lot.

Treasures/combos its busted with potentially:
Capital (12 Cards and actions!!! and gold wtf); Stockpile(?); Some heirlooms like goat; Counterfeit; philosophers stone, but that seems fine tbh cause that card sucks; and of course, capitalism.

Potential ideas to fix it: Remove the money gain, similar to storyteller; Change the "$6" treasure limitation to "treasure that gives $2"

i await feedback.[/size]

Updated to V2

It's still far too strong IMO: whenever you play it with Silver, RB effectively becomes a card giving +4 cards, +4 actions and +$2, i.e. three Labs, three Villages and two Peddlers put together in one $3 card.  The drawback hardly mitigates this, since you don't have to buy many Silvers to reliably draw one in an engine.

Compare with Merchant, which only becomes a single Peddler when colliding with silver.

105

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 1

« on: June 01, 2022, 07:17:10 am »

It's part of a standard recommendation: don't put cards with setup instructions in the Black Market deck unless that setup instruction is already included in the kingdom.

That sounds reasonable, but has this ever been stated as an "official" recommendation by Donald/RGG? The original card's FAQ didn't mention anything like this, as there were no other cards with setup instructions back then.

Also, Charlatan does not really have a "setup instruction" as it doesn't add any extra piles/tokens/mats to the game. It only changes the playing rules for Curses, which are in every kingdom anyway.

106

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 3

« on: June 01, 2022, 07:03:48 am »

I'm not going to miss either Royal Seal or Talisman. I'm pretty surprised at Goons being removed but the replacement card is quite a good substitute especially as I was never really fond of the attack part of Goons. I quite like the other replacement cards too.

Glad that Hoard stayed, and approve of the tweaks to it and Quarry.

One thing that puzzles me is that although Prosperity started with the same number of cards as Base Game, Intrigue and Seaside, it has not increased the number of cards in the set by one, remaining at 25 rather than 26. Hence I thought there would only be two more cards removed from this collection, rather than three.

Prosperity has two extra piles (Colony and Platinum) which take up space. All expansions have a total number of cards (including blanks) divisible by 50, and most have a total number of cards divisible by 100 (presumably due to printing issues). So a single extra kingdom card was possible for Base, Intrigue and Seaside (since those sets each had 11+ blank cards or unnecessary "base card randomizers"), but not for the already "full" 300-card Prosperity set.

I would have liked the set to be increased to 350 (or even 400) cards by keeping some of the removed cards, though. I'd have liked to keep Venture and Loan at least, and Contraband is a fun interactive card for casual players...

107

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 1

« on: May 30, 2022, 03:34:25 pm »

"DXV confirmed it on discord: if you put Charlatan in the Black Market deck, Curses will be Treasures (and of course the recommendation is to not put it in the deck)."

The ruling makes sense, but why is that not recommended? It could make for an interesting change in a game with other cursers, where they give out better junk but don't have to compete with Charlatan as a kingdom card.

108

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Builder / Conqueror

« on: May 30, 2022, 01:42:46 pm »

One thought about original Rebuild is that you may have a deck with few Victory cards (i.e. strong deck, all other things being equal) and it still works.
With a card that expands Victory cards from your hand, you want to green earlier than you normally would to make the card powerful enough, making your deck more sluggish. Wouldn’t that tone down the power of a cantrip Victory card "expander"?

It depends on the board. On a BM board Rebuild-from-hand (Rfh) would indeed be weaker than original Rebuild since it's harder to line it up with a VP card unless you green very early. But on an engine board where you draw (most of) your deck, you can still reliably play Rfh six times (on the starting Estates) before you need new fodder for it, at which time your engine can probably support the extra VP cards; or you can just mill the Provinces instead to rush for an 18 VP win.

109

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #153: Prosperity Revised

« on: May 30, 2022, 04:52:30 am »

Updated my submission

I think a bigger version of Mine is a no-brainer for Prosperity. Works especially well with treasures that cost 5, and 4 in the case of a Platinum game, which thankfully there's plenty of in Prosperity. The last part is mostly to make sure it's better than Mine on boards with no treasures of interesting values, but I didn't want to make it too strong, as to incentivize players to use the full boost when able.

Unfortunately I can't properly playtest this as I don't have access to Prosperity, and Platinum games is an important part of the card, so balance might be off. After all, Mine is pretty weak.

Edit notes: (also edited the above text slightly to be more accurate with the updated version of the card)
- Also works well with cost-reducers(turning coppers into gold) now when it's a 5 boost rather than 4.
- The last part is now a pretty significant part of the card, but feels very fitting with the money theme of Prosperity.
- The second gained card goes to you discard pile, should this be written out? If so, is "(to discard)" well formulated enough or do you have to write something longer?

Old version:

Gaining a second copy of the upgraded card is a great idea. It makes Central Mine more interesting and more different from Mine. Now I'm actually surprised Donald hasn't used this idea for a Remodel variant yet (well, there's Develop, but it's rather unfun to gain an additional "downgraded" card).

Turning a Gold into two Platinums is probably the strongest use of this new version, probably better than colliding two Treasure Maps. But then, Central Mine and Gold cost $6 while Treasure Map only costs $4.

For the wording, I would use "gain another copy of the gained Treasure (to your discard pile)". Technically, the bracket is not necessary since gained cards go to discard by default. But since the first gained card does go to hand, I would add it for clarification.

110

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Builder / Conqueror

« on: May 29, 2022, 07:36:44 am »

How about replacing +2 cards with +1 card +$1?

That sounds more reasonable, but is probably still too strong.

Comparing your card e.g. to Distant Shore (which also costs $6, but is much harder to access than a full-pile $6 card): Already after two successful plays (rebuilding Estate to Duchy or Duchy to Province), it nets you 4 to 6 VP without penalty, while DS only gives 2+2*1= 4 VP at the cost of two additional junk cards (which de facto reduce DS from a Lab to a cantrip after the first play, and make it even worse afterwards).

Also, a non-digging Rebuild isn't automatically worse than a digging one: Whenever you have an engine that draws your deck or a substantial portion of it, you have a better chance of an Estate/Duchy in your hand than in the rest of your deck. And you'll often have a choice which card to trash, another significant advantage.

I think I would try your card as just a cantrip non-digging Rebuild at $6 (or without any draw at $5). It's certainly more interesting to rebuild from your hand than from digging, as you need other card draw to make it useful.

111

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #153: Prosperity Revised

« on: May 27, 2022, 05:18:20 pm »

I think a bigger version of Mine is a no-brainer for Prosperity. Works especially well with treasures that cost 2,4,7 and 5 in the case of a Colony game, which thankfully there's plenty of in Prosperity. The last part is mostly to make sure it's better than Mine on a boards with no treasures of these values, but I didn't want to make it too strong, as to incentivize players to use the full 4 boost when able.

Unfortunately I can't playtest this as I don't have access to Prosperity, and Colony games is an important part of the card, so balance might be totally off. After all, Mine is pretty weak.

I think this would be even weaker than Mine due to the higher cost - in most games (especially full random) the full $4 increase is rarely or never usable. (FWIW, Prosperity 1E doesn't have any $2 Treasure, and only one very weak $7 Treasure.) 

I think you could at least allow for a $5 increase, making it a kind of severely restricted Altar that gains to hand (as Altar can also trash estates and curses and gain Actions, it's much more flexible). Turning the occasional $4 treasure into Platinum is strong but hardly overpowered for a $6 card.

112

Rules Questions / Re: Lich + Duration Attacks

« on: May 27, 2022, 09:12:25 am »

In fact, I think the only way to force another player to gain the curse pile with Blockade is in rare situations when that player already has a Duration gainer in play, e.g. a Princed JoaT where you Blockade both the Silver and Curse piles, or a Cobbler where you Blockade all non-empty supply piles costing at most $4.

Otherwise it's not possible, not even when two players try to collaborate against a third player in multiplayer.

113

Rules Questions / Re: Lich + Duration Attacks

« on: May 27, 2022, 07:32:26 am »

In your scenario, the other players can't buy anything for 10 turns, but they can still gain cards with Blockade or other gainers (SH only triggers on buying a card). And if there's another curser on the board, they can still curse you (and each other) undisturbed for 10 turns.

If there's another curser on the board, they can curse each other for one turn.

Huh? Almost all other cursers (like Witch, Mountebank etc.) give out curses on play to those players whose turn it isn't (ignoring rare playing-out-of-turn combos). So Blockade doesn't usually trigger when someone plays a curser, which the other players can do for 10 turns in GendoIkari's scenario.

The only exception (that I can find) is Black Cat, which can be played out-of-turn by itself. But since its cursing is dependent on another player gaining a victory card, it's unusable in this situation since gaining a victory card is already fatal itself.

114

Rules Questions / Re: Lich + Duration Attacks

« on: May 26, 2022, 07:14:10 am »

Correct. You don't get a turn when you normally would, so "your next turn" is after each opponent has had 2.

Interesting. This can make for very strong Lich combos on boards where the Attack cannot be mitigated (e.g. Swamp Hag with no trashing available).

Step 1, play Swamp Hag (with an extra actions).
Step 2, play Blockade, gaining a Curse.
Step 3, play King's Court-King's Court-Lich-Lich-Lich

Step 4, enjoy as your opponents choose to either do nothing for 10 turns in a row, or gain every Curse. Works best in a 3-4 player game, where gaining all the Curses is far worse than a 2-player game, and forces your opponents into a game of chicken where no one wants to buy a card because it helps every other opponent way too much.

I assume this is a general rule and the "skipped turns" are ignored by all duration cards in play, not just attack durations? E.g. playing a Wharf and a Lich in the same turn still gives you Wharf's duration effect on your next actual (non-skipped) turn.

Yeah, the "Start of your next turn" just doesn't happen until your actual next turn.

Thanks for confirming.

In your scenario, the other players can't buy anything for 10 turns, but they can still gain cards with Blockade or other gainers (SH only triggers on buying a card). And if there's another curser on the board, they can still curse you (and each other) undisturbed for 10 turns.

115

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

« on: May 25, 2022, 05:37:30 pm »

Adventurer would probably work with just a reduced cost; I think I'd try it at $4 (or even $3); this might make it a reasonable BM card (in engines, it's still usually worse than Moat).

I think Adventurer should cost $2, no joke. It takes a lot of work to make it good, like Poor House. Arguably it takes even more work than Poor House, though the upper bound on its power is also higher. Anyway, yeah, $2. That's my unofficial official recommendation.

I've finally tried to estimate Adventurer's strength if it cost $2, playing with it in a few IRL solo games. The result was that $2-Adventurer BM takes 13 turns to get 4 Provinces on average, and 15 turns to get 5 Provinces.

(In those games, it wouldn't have mattered if it cost $3 instead, since I never happened to have a $2 turn.)

This is better than Smithy-BM, which averages 14 turns to 4 Provinces according to the Wiki. Does someone know how many turns stronger (non-Attack) BM cards need to get 4 or 5 Provinces?

I've also tried a few solo games of $2 Adventurer+Spice Merchant BM, since I expected SM to be one of the best supporting Action cards for Adventurer. But surprisingly, this strategy took slightly longer to get to 4 resp. 5 Provinces than $2 Adventurer-BM alone...

Huh, that's interesting! Stronger than I expected, but maybe not crazy? Or maybe it needs to cost $4. Of course probably it just shouldn't exist at any cost, since it seems to really only work in money decks.

From my "simulation", I expect it's actually fine at $2 - one turn less than BM-Smithy doesn't sound overpowered to me, though I'd still like comparisons to stronger BM cards if someone has simulated those. But I should mention that my sample size was only n=3 pure Adv.-BM games, so the "real" average number of turns may be somewhat higher or lower than my result.

Increasing it to $4 would only marginally weaken pure Adventurer-BM (you could still open Adv.+Silver with 4/3, and you usually get enough $4 or $5 turns on which to buy further Adv.s you want), but it may significantly weaken any combos with other $3-$5 cards, and with extra buys.

116

Rules Questions / Re: Lich + Duration Attacks

« on: May 25, 2022, 05:13:47 pm »

Correct. You don't get a turn when you normally would, so "your next turn" is after each opponent has had 2.

Interesting. This can make for very strong Lich combos on boards where the Attack cannot be mitigated (e.g. Swamp Hag with no trashing available).

I assume this is a general rule and the "skipped turns" are ignored by all duration cards in play, not just attack durations? E.g. playing a Wharf and a Lich in the same turn still gives you Wharf's duration effect on your next actual (non-skipped) turn.

117

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Seaside 2E Preview 3

« on: May 18, 2022, 06:06:51 pm »

What surprises me the most is that now Seaside, the 3rd set, has a way to play Action cards (and Night cards) in your buy phase. I guess it's not that much of a problem rules-wise, but I've always seen that as at least a 12th set thing, potentially confusing to newer players. But I'm sure Donald knows what he's doing!

And additionally, Sailor can also let you play a Treasure (Astrolabe) in your Action phase (if you gain it during your Action phase, e.g. with Smugglers).
I think it's the only card that allows you to play all three types of playable cards (Actions, Nights and Treasures) in the "wrong" phase.

118

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Seaside 2E Preview 1

« on: May 18, 2022, 05:42:14 pm »

I really hate to say this, but... Astrolabe looks like Woodcutter 2.0. There doesn't seem to be a reason to buy it over Silver unless you need the +Buy.

Being non-terminal and only a stop card half of the time makes it quite a bit better than Woodcutter (and Silver, for that matter).

I'm not seeing it. If you're drawing your whole deck, you need two of them to get the same $ that one Silver gives you.

Of course you'll only gain it when you need the extra buys Astrolabe provides, otherwise Silver is preferable.
On boards without Attacks (and no draw-to-x cards etc.), it's strictly better than Lighthouse thanks to the +buys. But maybe Astrolabe could have also cost $2.

119

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Seaside 2E Preview 2

« on: May 18, 2022, 04:20:27 am »

According to the german promotional photo, Island, Native Village, and its mats are confirmed to stay.
Also one of the replacement cards is going to be an Action-Duration-Reaction, called "Piratin" (female pirate) as seen here.

The mats are also confirmed by Donald's 3rd preview post, as Island and NV still refer to them.

120

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Seaside 2E Preview 2

« on: May 18, 2022, 04:11:02 am »

Is there a place for just taking 4-5 Tide pools, and taking half as many turns?  That's a huge penalty, of course, but it seems relatively easy to set up, and if there's no other way to build an engine, it might be competitive with the money deck.  It's definitely more compelling than trying to do the same thing with Lich.

Well, you already need to play 3 TPs in one turn to get an effect comparable to Lich (net +6 cards vs. net +5 cards +1 Action). So your deck needs to be small enough that you can reliably draw >3TPs per non-skipped turn for this to be better than Lich. Probably doable with good trashing available.
To prevent shuffling, you could leave the last 5 cards undrawn in your deck, which however might contain a TP or two...

121

Rules Questions / Re: Blockade

« on: May 17, 2022, 09:35:55 am »

Swamp hag seems especially brutal. Can't buy *anything* without gaining the whole curse pile? I think getting a curse myself is well worth putting my opponent in that situation.

Indeed, and unlike Black Cat or Caravan Guard it doesn't require setting up your next turn (or hoping for shuffle luck).

On boards without other gainers, this comes close to a new 2-card pin: The first player who can reliably play a Blockade and Swamp Hag each turn can prevent their opponent from buying a card without gaining the curse pile for as long as they're willing to gain a curse each turn themself. The opponent can only gain cheap cards by playing Blockade themself, but they cannot pin the first player back since this would require gaining a Blockaded Curse with Blockade.

122

Rules Questions / Re: Blockade

« on: May 16, 2022, 06:47:13 pm »

Caravan Guard -> Way of the Mouse -> Ambassador threatens your opponent with gaining the card against their will.  Would that be enough to prevent anyone from playing an attack card?  And then you can eventually Ambassador the Curse back.

Even without Caravan Guard, there are other ways to play Ambassador on your turn (like Black Cat). So players would have to avoid gaining any Victory card on their turn as well.

Black Cat doesn't even need Ambassador (which may well be removed from 2E as well) to give out Curses on opponents' turns. The question is whether it's worth it to gain a Curse yourself with Blockade instead of a $4 card, in order to prevent the opponents from buying VP cards, should you have a Black Cat in hand during their turn (which you may or may not be able to set up in advance, depending on the kingdom). I suppose you'd only do it in the end game, when it really hurts not to be able to gain VP cards during your turn.

123

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

« on: May 14, 2022, 07:32:35 am »

Adventurer would probably work with just a reduced cost; I think I'd try it at $4 (or even $3); this might make it a reasonable BM card (in engines, it's still usually worse than Moat).

I think Adventurer should cost $2, no joke. It takes a lot of work to make it good, like Poor House. Arguably it takes even more work than Poor House, though the upper bound on its power is also higher. Anyway, yeah, $2. That's my unofficial official recommendation.

I've finally tried to estimate Adventurer's strength if it cost $2, playing with it in a few IRL solo games. The result was that $2-Adventurer BM takes 13 turns to get 4 Provinces on average, and 15 turns to get 5 Provinces.

(In those games, it wouldn't have mattered if it cost $3 instead, since I never happened to have a $2 turn.)

This is better than Smithy-BM, which averages 14 turns to 4 Provinces according to the Wiki. Does someone know how many turns stronger (non-Attack) BM cards need to get 4 or 5 Provinces?

I've also tried a few solo games of $2 Adventurer+Spice Merchant BM, since I expected SM to be one of the best supporting Action cards for Adventurer. But surprisingly, this strategy took slightly longer to get to 4 resp. 5 Provinces than $2 Adventurer-BM alone...

124

Weekly Design Contest / Re: WDC 151: Now or Later

« on: May 07, 2022, 06:42:32 pm »

Dock - Project - Cost: 7 At the start of you Buy phase choose one: +$1; or put a token here and at the start of your turn remove it and +$1.

Feedback is appreciated.

I don't think Dock should cost $7, considering that Canal costs the same.

Then what should it cost? In many games without +Buy this is (with a few exceptions) better than Canal. It guarantees a Key effect, and it can store it for a turn in advance, which is significant smoothing. True, it is less good in engines where you will gain several engine parts in one turn, but I believe that those only happen about half the time. Can it cost 6?

I think I'd try it at $6. I don't think it's stronger than Hireling. +1 Card at start of turn is usually better than +$1 or occasionally +$2 per turn (though Hireling costs an Action and takes a shuffle to get into play). OTOH, it's clearly better than Treasury at $5.

Canal is stronger not only in most games with reasonable +buy, but also with Workshop variants: Gaining a $5 instead of a $4 is big advantage...

125

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Prosperity 2E

« on: May 07, 2022, 09:56:19 am »

I can't begin to imagine a Dominion in which King's Court has been removed.

i can. the card was always real good, but as the general strength level of the general action card increased, so too did the comparative strength of a/several KCs. The comparative strength of a KC now eclipses the "interesting decision of whether to scoop that or a try to speedrun provinces while your opponent does KCs", and replacing it with something that comes with a Snow Condition (ignoring amy +whatevers) or other limitation puts it back on a more equal footing that preserves the original race condition. It's a centralizing, ignore-at-your-own-peril card.

I think a reasonable but simple nerf could be to just forbid KC to play another copy of itself. This would prevent stacking KC's, which is insanely stronger than e.g. stacking Throne Rooms (playing TR on TR only gives you + 1 Action compared with playing the 2 TR's separately, it doesn't increase the number of other Action cards you can play with it like KC-KC does).