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Messages - gambit05

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26

My Submission:

   
Overlook
$4 – Action - Duration
Quote

     Either now or at the start     
 of your next turn: Look
 through your discard pile.
 You may play an Action
 card from it.


“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” - Proverb

It's a verry cool reference ^^
Since it's a sort of super-cantrip, maybe it should cost $3 no?
$4 seem a litle bit expensive for this effect, especialy if you compare it to Throne Room (witch also "copy" an action card).

I agree that this is a $3. Sure, later in the game it is better than Sage but unlike Sage, you cannot open with this to sift and cycle.

I've spent (and still do) way more time on thinking about the cost of the card than about its ability. What "scared" me was the ability to relatively often play a powerful terminal drawer at the start of the next turn, like Smithy or Witch (which could have been gained just in the current turn). Aside of games where the whole deck is drawn, Overlook should be quite reliable to pick a good card from the discard. It has of course the drawback of being a Duration if the ability is used for the next turn. On the other hand, I don't see a big difference of (strong) $3 and (weak) $4 cost cards and I guess that Overlook would be frequently bought at $4 anyway.

Are you still convinced that $3 is the better cost?

27

An issue with this might be the size of the Horse pile. It only takes 5 Farrier plays revealing Gold to empty to empty the pile. In a multiplayer game, that could leave one player perpetually stranded without Horses.

It's not that difficult to empty the Horse pile in certain Kingdoms with Livery as well, for what it's worth.  In any case, it's unlikely to happen before your first Farrier play (each of your opponents would need to play Farrier, reveal a high cost card, and not play any Horses in order to empty the pile). 

That said, maybe a cost limitation on the revealed card wouldn't hurt to minimize the risk of snowballing.  For instance, if you're already ahead and were able to buy a Colony, revealing it with Farrier to gain 11 Horses increases the chances of you being able to find both Farrier and Colony again in subsequent turns.

Victory cards are not targets of Farrier. A cost limitation might be difficult in the context of the rules of this contest round.

28
My Submission:

Update: Based on the comments of Shael and segura, I changed the cost to $3, but without any other changes (so, the original version is not documented).

   
Overlook
$3 – Action - Duration
Quote

     Either now or at the start     
 of your next turn: Look
 through your discard pile.
 You may play an Action
 card from it.


“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” - Proverb


29
A quick idea i got: Faithful hound meets band of misfits. It's probably pretty weak without its reaction, which is why i added it.

I think this is strongest late game, when you have a lot of douchys or provinces. But early game, you might want two or three if there is no thinning.
This probably likes sifters a lot, and village Green of course. I imagine that it should combo with faithfoul hound a bit.



Edit 2: (v7)



On play ability has been buffed: You can now, for example, discard a douchy and play a powerful 5$ card.

Added an "When you gain this, you may exile a card in hand". I think this is unique, very late game, you might want to buy a Srcribe over and estate as you could exile a victory card in hand. This should also give workshops a sort of unique thinning on the boards it's on.
Buffed Scribe

I think you are trying too many things on one card. I would remove the Treasure part from the top and one of the parts below the line, at least.

30
Jasmine (Treasure, $4)

When you play this, gain a card costing less than the most expensive card you played this turn that's still in play (including this).
If it's a Victory card, trash this.

A Horn of Plenty variant that always gives you a Silver (for example) at the very least.

This may have a problem with different currencies, i.e. what is more expensive, a Golem or a Goons?

Also, I think you don't need the "When you play this" anymore. See for example the newest version of Ill-Gotten Gains.

Edit: LastFootnote said basically the same, just 1 minute earlier.

31
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Some Fan Card Games I've Played
« on: May 17, 2021, 02:05:46 am »
Talking about card names, I noticed the art of Pier, which I came across just a few days ago when I looked for art of one of my cards. Is there a Pier anywhere on that art?

32
Congratulations to LastFootnote for the win and venusambassador for the runner-up, and welcome to the Forums!

Many thanks to 4est for your excellent assessment of the cards.

With respect to my card, Scriptorium: I was aware of the potential craziness that can occur when other players play their copies immediately. My guess is that in the majority of the cases, it wouldn't differ from the more safe way of separating the "reactions" of the active player vs. the opponents. It definitely needs some play testing with real players to see how often crazy situations would occur. If that is only once in a while, then I would keep it as it is. By the way, the wording for separating the "reactions" isn't too complicated and requires just one additional line, e.g. ..."You may play... Each other player may set aside..." I just thought I go for the spicier version here. Anyway, thanks for the evaluation.


33
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Some Fan Card Games I've Played
« on: May 16, 2021, 05:05:28 am »
Nice idea to present fan-made cards in Action. I really like it. I have some comments on a few of the cards of your last Kingdom:


My Hidden Village was useful. Maybe a bit strong for $3, even though the actual village portion is a pretty lackluster "+2 Actions; +$1". I came up with this before Ways were a thing, but I think it's still different enough. It helps that no Way gives +3 Cards. Anyway I may bump it up to $4. I'm interested in people's opinions.

I have a related card Town Musician, which got a different wording in the mean time, but without changing its functionality. However and importantly, I increased the cost to $5, because I felt it was way too strong for $4. At $5 it seems to be fine. I didn't took the time to directly compare the strength of Hidden Village versus Town Musician, but I have the feeling that Hidden Village is too cheap for $3. In contrast to Town Musician, it is non-terminal on its own and because it is so cheap, it can be easily used on other copies of itself. I don't know whether this helps, but at least it doesn't hurt.



We each got a copy of my Committee. It succeeded in providing player interaction and giving us both interesting choices, but I think it needs tweaking. When choosing for the other player, we never chose to give them +2 Gems, which would have effectively allowed them to make the next two choices themselves. My hope was that that would happen at least once so that the player could then choose between perpetuating their own choices by sometimes choosing to get more Gems. If you have a Gem and you choose +2 Gems every other time, the other player can't ever make decisions for you. But as it stands, I think I'm going to reduce it to +1 Gem. That way it can instead be: I choose about half the time and they choose about half the time. Maybe it can cost $2 or $3 at that point, dunno. X-tra did make me trash a good card once this game, so that was cool.

How do you get the first Gem when no other Gem gainers are in the Kingdom?

What about this:

Quote

+2 Cards
You may spend a Gem to
choose one: +1 Action; or
    trash a card from your hand.   
Otherwise, +1 Gem and the
player to the left chooses
for you.


Either way, I feel that this card is quite strong early in the game as it is either a Lab or a trasher. With my version I suppose that a player can first let the other player decide to accumulate some Gems in order to be more flexible later in the game. At least it seems that my version offers more interaction between players in relation to spending and gaining Gems.



Finally we have my Spelunker, which was obviously super broken in a game with trashing, which this game had. X-tra was drawing 4 cards with it on the regular. So I'm going to try fixing it up a bit, probably giving a Ruins when you draw 4 cards instead of when you gain a Spelunker.

Do you really consider replacing Rubble with a Ruins?

I think, this card will be strong anyway, when trashing is available and rather weak without Copper trashing. What about getting 2 Rubbles on gain or 1 Rubble (instead of a Ruins) when 4 cards are drawn? Either way, I like the connection to Rubble, and I think this connection is what makes the card more interesting.


34


Here's my submission for the week.  Scaffolding comes in a pile of 12 cards.

I've toyed around with a few versions, but it still feels a bit unrefined.  The idea behind Scaffolding is a temporary card in your deck that will help you gain additional cards to accelerate and improve your deck. 

If you play a Scaffolding and don't have any others in play, you could trash it to gain two $2-cost cards, which might be nice if there are good $2-cost cards like Pixies in the Kingdom.  If you already have a Scaffolding in play, you could play another Scaffolding and trash it to gain two cards costing up to $4 (including more Scaffoldings).  If you have two in play, you could play a third Scaffolding to trash it and gain two cards costing up to $6.  The duration-draw is primarily intended to help you find additional Scaffoldings in your deck, but could also provide some additional flexibility as the card might otherwise be a bit weak.

I also prefer to return it to the Supply. I don't think length is a problem. The last line of the current text just has one word in it. Also, I would change the order, i.e. the "next turn" option as the second option.

35

My Submission:

 
Scriptorium
$5 – Action
Quote

Gain an Action card costing
    up to $5. Each player may set   
 aside a copy of it from their
 hand and either plays it now
 or at the start of their turn.


I like this, but I think it would be simpler if they just always played it at the start of their next turn.

Thank you! Before I start to (hopefully) discuss the pros and cons of "now" and/or "next turn", I would like to cautiously ask whether you are aware that this is meant to be for "each player".

I just realized that I forgot the word "next".

36
My Submission:

Update: With a more precise wording, without changing functionality

 
Scriptorium
$5 – Action
Quote

Gain an Action card costing
 up to $5. Each player
     (including you) may set aside     
 a copy of it from their hand
 and either plays it now or at
 the start of their next turn.




Original submission:

 
Scriptorium
$5 – Action
Quote

Gain an Action card costing
    up to $5. Each player may set   
 aside a copy of it from their
 hand and either plays it now
 or at the start of their turn.


37
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #113: Power Up!
« on: May 01, 2021, 02:17:36 pm »
Reconstruction has some similarity to my Kingsman card and its associated Equipment cards, which I have presented here (and which are unfortunately ignored). In a similar way, I would try to gradually upgrade Reconstruction, i.e. use Ruins already before the pile is empty. It's power then increases over time with more Ruins in Exile. Don't ask me about the details...

Edit: I just saw this:

However, the biggest flaw that I see (especially for this particular contest) is that this card won't play the same for everyone in most cases.  Even if each player buys one copy and plays it the same number of turns before the Ruins pile is empty, so that they have the same number of Ruins on their mat, it's improbable that they'll have the same Ruins on their mat.  This means that each person will have a different set of options for how to play it

This makes it hard to fit to the rules of this contest round.

38
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #113: Power Up!
« on: May 01, 2021, 10:01:59 am »
The second 'up to' is certainly not required. The problem with your phrasing is that you say 'costs up to [...] more plus [...]', i.e., you finish saying 'up to 1$ more' and then modify that later. faust's wording is more correct in that it says 'up to [...] more'. it depends on whether you value awkwardness vs. imprecision. I agree that faust's phrasing is very awkward.

A much better phrasing would be 'up to X more than it, where X is one plus the number of Refurbish in the trash', but sadly dominion cards don't use X phrasings.

Tricky!

Butcher's wording is:

"...costing up to the cost of the trashed card plus $1 per token removed."

So, in analogy, it could be:

"...costing up to $1 more than the cost of the trashed card plus $1 per Refurbish in the trash."

or simplified:

"...costing up to $1 more than it plus $1 per Refurbish in the trash."

Edit: or:

"...costing up to $1 more per Refurbish in the trash plus $1."

Still a bit odd, but I think less awkward than faust's wording.

39
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #113: Power Up!
« on: May 01, 2021, 09:28:27 am »

Quote
Refurbish - $4
Action

Trash a card from your hand. Gain a card costing up to $1 plus $1 per Refurbish in the trash more than it.

A simple Remodel variant that can get quite powerful.

EDIT: Changed the wording. It is still a little bit confusing, but I couldn't find a better way to put it.

I am not an Expert of English language, but for me the following looks less confusing:

"Gain a card costing up to $1 more plus up to $1 more per Refurbish in the trash."

Not sure whether the second "up to" is required.

40
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #113: Power Up!
« on: May 01, 2021, 05:29:21 am »


Theatre "plays the part" of whatever cards are missing from the supply, be it draw cards, villages, or extra buys. If your kingdom is missing draw, this is a lab for $5, missing +actions, this is a village at $3, lost city for $6, market square for $3, etc. The more the supply lacks, the stronger, and more expensive, this card is. Meaning on boards with draw, actions, and buys, you can buy this as a cantrip for $2, empty the respective piles, and then this card effectively becomes the card you just emptied.

I rolled 50 sample kingdoms to get a quick feel for the number of conditions that one would expect Theatre to have met at the start of the game in any given kingdom. In 22 boards, none of the three conditions were met (there were draw, village, and +buy cards in the supply). In 20, one was met. In 7, two were met. And in only 1 were there no cards with +2 cards, +2 actions, or +1 buy. This means that in a plurality of games, this starts out as a cantrip, with room to get stronger as supplies empty. On average this card costs ~$3.5 at the start of the game.

This card is one taken from my Industrialization expansion, found here, I hope that is acceptable as to the fan card contest rules.

I remember this card from when you presented it in your set expansion thread. I like it more than the last time, but I am not sure whether you've changed something.

How do you count optional, conditional and hidden (covered cards in mixed piles) abilities? I think, I have asked the latter part the last time and wasn't happy with your definition that hidden cards are not in the Supply, or something like that.


41
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #113: Power Up!
« on: May 01, 2021, 05:12:26 am »

My Submission:

   
Hunter
$3* – Action

Quote

+2 Cards
+1 Card per empty Supply pile.

     You may trash this to gain a card     
costing up to $1 more than it.

---------------------------

This costs $1 more per
empty Supply pile.


I do like the idea of these cards that "power up" costing more based on the power up, like Community and Hunter as I think it makes an interesting decision on when to buy - getting them early when they might be weak, but at a discount, for their later powered up state. So you've got my vote there.

But I might suggest trying to avoid being strictly better than any of the official cards during any of the "ages" of the card;  i.e. In Hunter's case, with one empty supply pile, it is is "strictly better" than Smithy.

You mean like how City is strictly better than both Laboratory and Lost City when Supply piles are empty?

Sure, good point. There is a difference though. When supply piles are empty, City is (effectively) strictly worse at the same cost. So strategically you need to decide whether to buy the card early at a premium or wait until it's powered up.

In the case of Hunter (and Community), if you get the card early, it's at a discount, instead.

Put another way, City is strictly worse, then strictly better. Changing costs cards should try to be balanced (and therefore not strictly better or worse) at all "ages". (at least, in my opinion)

While Hunter has something in common with City, obviously, there are quite some differences too. Getting Hunter early at a discount is easy to achieve as it is cheap, but if you want to keep it until it becomes powerful, it comes with a huge drawback. Only getting +2 Cards from Hunter for the most part of a game doesn't look like a good deal. Think of Moat in the absence of Attacks for a cost of $3. But hey, Hunter has a one-shot self-remodeling function. As segura has pointed out, this has the inevitable consequence that you cannot call the discount Hunter anymore your own. On the other hand, it brings you one step closer to the desired stage of emptying piles. You just need to buy a Hunter again at some point.

Then you compared a level 2 Hunter with Smithy and argued that it shouldn't be strictly better. I'd say it actually should. Otherwise, it wouldn't be worth to gain Hunter at any stage of a game (as compared to Smithy). Gubump also mentioned City versus Lab and Lost City, and rightly so. A level 2 City has to be better. So, the real question is not whether a level 2 Hunter should be better (or not) than Smithy, but rather, how much better can it be, in order to be balanced. I have no answer to this question (yet). I have designed Hunter from scratch yesterday and after 6 games in a "I play solitaire for 3 players" mode, I came to the conclusion that it is interesting enough to be presented here, and also interesting enough to get more play testing. Then the future will hopefully show whether it will work in a balanced way.

Another comparison I have made is with the Traveller lines. Like an upgraded Hunter, you don't get a Champion early in the game. In some Kingdoms they will be weak (i.e. they do not come to the stage of being effective), whereas in other games, they can be powerhouses (i.e. they quickly become effective).

42
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #113: Power Up!
« on: April 30, 2021, 01:05:14 pm »

My Submission:

   
Hunter
$3* – Action

Quote

+2 Cards
+1 Card per empty Supply pile.

     You may trash this to gain a card     
costing up to $1 more than it.

---------------------------

This costs $1 more per
empty Supply pile.



43
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #113: Power Up!
« on: April 30, 2021, 08:45:43 am »

Ha, I blame pandemic brain! Somewhere in there, I had the thought that someone must have posted something along these lines at some point (I'm at least happy that this version is not EXACTLY the same as your posted version)

So, if you want to enter it this, this week, I will happily retract it and come up with something else.

If you don't want to enter it, I'd like to keep it as I do think it has a lot of potential. But would also retract if you ask me to.

Feel free to present the card in this contest. Good luck!

44
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #113: Power Up!
« on: April 29, 2021, 03:59:45 pm »
A Community starts out small but over time grows and adds value to your Dominion:



Quote
Community - Victory - $4*

Worth 2 per empty Supply pile.
-
This costs more per empty Supply pile.


When you first get this it isn't worth anything, but as there will always be at least 1 empty pile, it's lowerst end game value is 2 VP.

So at purchase time, you're either getting:
• a double estate for the the price of 2 estates (but in 1 card)
• a Duchy + 1 VP for the cost of a Duchy + $1
• an alternative Province
• some other possibilities for crazy games with extra empty piles (or 5 or 6 player games)

I'm hoping the interesting point is trying to decide when to buy; if you buy them early, you can get what dould eventually be a Province for only $4! But it will junk your deck.

Feedback welcome, always.

It seems you have a bad memory. I've posted this concept last summer and you even commented on that card:

Dike looks fun.

I was wondering if it might be better at 3* (and cost $2 more per empty pile).

So it would be $1 cheaper with no piles, and $1 more expensive with 2 empty piles.

At that time, I replied that I have to test which version is the most interesting and then after ~20 games, I came up with this:



Funny, isn't it?


45
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #112: Steal the Show
« on: April 29, 2021, 07:59:25 am »
As far as I can see it, at least 2 players have to hit $5 to gain an Ambush (despite the fact that early on, other $5 cost cards easily have a higher priority), then at least the player who will be at the receiving end later, had to play their Ambush in order to gain a Purse, and that Purse has to cycle through the deck to be in that players hand, and at the same time another player has to play an Ambush. In the mean time, quite a lot has happened to the players decks. To me that looks like most official Attack cards are too swingy and devastating then.
By early I meant having your first Purse trashed before you can even play it, which seemed frustrating. My real critique though was the attack either does nothing, or does something very strong, but there isn't much middle ground. If it could hit other stuff, such as Silver, then I would be much more on-board.

I did like your cards BTW.

Thank you very much for your replay and that you like the cards.

While the attack itself might do nothing (isn't this the case for a lot of attacks?), the attacking player always gets something, either a Purse or +2 Coffers.

Edit: Sad.

46
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #112: Steal the Show
« on: April 29, 2021, 05:47:32 am »

   

Ambush/Purse by gambit05
Purse is a sweet design, and I like the idea of gaining and attacking the purses of others, but it's too swingy in the current form. If someone kills your Purse early, you're losing $2 and a trash that turn. That's too devastating for something out of your control.

Unfortunately my cards do not get much love anyway, but could you explain me what you would consider "early" in this context?

As far as I can see it, at least 2 players have to hit $5 to gain an Ambush (despite the fact that early on, other $5 cost cards easily have a higher priority), then at least the player who will be at the receiving end later, had to play their Ambush in order to gain a Purse, and that Purse has to cycle through the deck to be in that players hand, and at the same time another player has to play an Ambush. In the mean time, quite a lot has happened to the players decks. To me that looks like most official Attack cards are too swingy and devastating then.

47
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #113: Power Up!
« on: April 29, 2021, 04:56:57 am »
Iron Throne
Action - $5

Reveal the top X+1 cards of your deck.
Play the revealed Treasures and Action twice and discard the rest.
—————————————————————
X is the number of empty Supply piles.


The card could be too strong and might have to cost $6. Also the wording is slightly too "mathematical", so if anybody has a smoother way to formulate this I appreciate it.

Maybe:

Quote

     Discard the top card of your     
deck. If it's a Treasure or an
Action card, play it twice.
Repeat this for each empty
Supply pile.


As soon as there are piles empty, it becomes less powerful as you cannot choose the order of the cards you can play, and you will have a higher miss rate. On the other hand, that might keep it at a lower cost.

48
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #112: Steal the Show
« on: April 24, 2021, 11:46:12 am »
My Submission:

   
Ambush
$5 – Action - Attack
Quote

Each other player trashes
a Purse from their hand
(or reveals they can’t).

          Choose one: Gain a Purse;           
or gain a Purse from the
trash; or +2 Coffers.

 
Purse
$3* – Treasure
Quote

$2

            Trash a Copper you have             
in play, for +1VP.

(This is not in the Supply.)


Update (25. April 2021): I realized that there is no need for Copper trashing of Purse being optional.

Original Purse:


49
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #112: Steal the Show
« on: April 21, 2021, 09:45:50 am »

I don't think your card meets the criteria that you "must gain something".  If no one returns a Horse, then you do not gain anything.

If this is true, then Thief wouldn't be eligible either, although it was shown in the original post, just below the title.

50
I agree with most of what segura said about Businessman, except:
Quote from: segura
...  discarding one card hurts more than 1 Debt.

I think in more cases than not, discarding a card is less harsh than taking 1 Debt, e.g. discarding a Victory card or a Curse, picking up the discarded card again, preparing for a draw to X, etc.

Also, I would try to say it more politely.

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