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26

Variants and Fan Cards / This turn, if you have played "Ceremony" X times...

« on: December 03, 2015, 06:12:25 pm »

This is probably a Really Bad Card Idea, since it's a lot of complexity for questionable depth. But it is a fun thought exercise.

Ceremony
+Action
This turn, if you have played Ceremony...
Once: Look at the top two cards of your deck; you may trash any of them; discard the rest
Twice: +3 Cards
Three times: You may play an Action card from your hand twice
4 or more times: Gain a card costing up to $1 per Ceremony you’ve played this turn
$4 - Action

FAQ would note that the steps do not stack, i.e. when I play my second Ceremony this turn I get +3 Cards, +Action, but I don't do the trashing from step 1.

Questions to discuss:
-Does a "Ceremony" deck have special challenges and corresponding rewards?
-What powers would you give the card at each step? Do you like my choices; why or why not?
-What is the optimal power curve of the card at each step? All 4 steps ~worth the $4 price tag? First steps overpriced, then ramping up? Odd steps drool, even steps rule?

27

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Two Embargo-esque Events

« on: November 21, 2015, 11:53:16 pm »

Haha welp, don't mind me, I'll just keep accidentally necro-ing old ideas. Anyway I can see why DXV wouldn't try the Rotation idea, it's fairly weird, especially with Adventures first introducing Events. You only want so many Inheritance/Mission-level things going on.

I don't mind Setup instructions being obtuse on first read. "Kingdom card pile" and "Supply pile" are obscure, but you go to the FAQ and play it once- then it should be fairly obvious with the cards on the table. I could probably still improve the wording.

28

Variants and Fan Cards / Two Embargo-esque Events

« on: November 20, 2015, 07:45:06 pm »

This one's pretty simple, and I'm sure others have tried something similar. It's not very strong; if you need a Levied card, you just buy it anyway, since giving an opponent $1 is not so bad. The fiance and I played with it last night, priced at $4. We both Levied Cultists, but there were other options, like Native Village, which probably would have made more money. Even underpowered, we thought the Event added depth to the Kingdom.

The card must be bought to trigger the Tax, so that you don't just Levy Curses. Plus there's nice counter-play with gainers. I specified non-Victory, which may not be necessary, but I thought Levying the Provinces would just go on your to-do list near the end of every game.

The tax could be a drawn card, of course that would be much stronger. You could make it cost $2, but I think that would be too good for many $5/2 splits. You could give it +Buy, but my gut says an event that makes you money should eat a buy.




FAQ:

• This event causes there to be an extra pile in the game, but not in the Supply, called the Fallow pile. Cards from the Fallow pile cannot be bought or gained. During setup, randomly select an extra Kingdom card pile to be the first Fallow pile.
• When someone buys the Crop Rotation event, they switch the Fallow pile with a regular Kingdom pile of their choice. Cards from the old Fallow pile are now Kingdom cards and part of the Supply (so can be bought, gained, and count towards the end-game condition). Cards from the old Kingdom pile are now Fallow cards and have left the Supply (so cannot be bought nor gained).
  
• Basic Supply piles (Copper, Silver, Gold, Estate, Duchy, Province, Curse, and any added to the Kingdom such as Platinum from Dominion: Prosperity) cannot be made Fallow.
• Cards that have been gained from a pile that is now Fallow continue to work as usual.

Whoa! Can you do that? Have a pile that only exists sometimes? You can; I'm doing it right now. I'm very excited about this idea, but haven't tested it yet.

At first, the idea was to designate two piles that would switch in and out (the two crops) and they'd be the same price and be assigned somehow like the Bane. I was trying to write all that in one poor event and began to wonder why it needed any extra restrictions. Why not just, there is an 11th pile, and you can put it in the Supply instead of one that is there. Did you want that juicy King's Court? Too bad, now it's a Pearl Diver, I hope you brought an extra $2 to get KC back!

It's an event with +Buy, but if you want to buy a valuable card and then banish it that same turn, you'll need to bring an extra buy yourself. Plus, including the +Buy makes it so you can always get the Fallow card if you're willing to fork over the extra cash.

The mechanic of removing a pile from the Supply may cause some weird interactions, but it should be no worse than Black Market. What happens to an exchanged Traveler when bought from the Black Market? Anyway, you can buy a Rats and rotate them out so you don't have to gain more Rats (until someone else rotates them back to mess with you). That sounds like a party to me.

29

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Exercise of thought about a Kind Witch.

« on: November 10, 2015, 06:58:55 pm »

Interesting. If this card is non-terminal at all, you have to think about how it will accelerate the game, since you will likely distribute and trash a large number of curses per round. If you make the card Lab-y, you have to be cautious about the strength of the Attack, because people will get the card just for the Lab.

30

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Next-turn Village

« on: October 30, 2015, 06:05:18 pm »

Actions now, Cards later is boring, it's too automatic. Cards now, actions later combines the uncertainty of terminal draw with the flexibility of engines, that makes it interesting. Villages, labs, and terminal draw are all very saturated in terms of design space, so you gotta do something spicy if you're only working with these two vanilla bonuses.

I think 4 is cheap for this version, although I see the arguments. Personally I compared District to Lost City, considering the loss of reliability to be approximately equal to Lost City's penalty (imo $4->$5 is a bigger leap than $5->$5+Lost City Penalty)

If I was gonna try another version, I would try +3 Cards, next turn +1 Action. Even that is probably a little too automatic, just load up on this Lab-variant + a good payload and away you go.

31

Variants and Fan Cards / Next-turn Village

« on: October 29, 2015, 06:53:53 pm »

In a previous post I offhandedly threw out a duration that is terminal this turn, but gives +actions next turn. It's an interesting concept in its own right, so I shortlisted this simple version:

District
+2 Cards
At the beginning of your next turn, +2 Actions
$5 Action - Duration

We played this in 3 player with the following kingdom (random - District replaced Rebuild):
Shelters
Amulet, Chancellor, Scheme
Bureaucrat, Conspirator, Rats
Bandit Camp, Catacombs, District, Storyteller

As you can see, it was a strong engine deck without +buy or attacks, so things were pretty straightforward. I bought mostly District at $5, after starting with one Bandit Camp for reliability. My dad ignored District and went traditional Catacombs + Bandit Camp. My fiance went Rats and was a non-factor, haha. I won, mostly on account of greening on the correct turn.

The presence of another village (+Necropolis) and Scheme made this a very mild test for District. I was never pinched into playing it terminally, and I would say I had some good luck too. It would be interesting to try in a kingdom with lower reliability.

What do you think?

32

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Strange attack idea

« on: October 23, 2015, 06:07:37 pm »

OK, one more try:

Racketeer
Until your next turn, when another player resolves an Action card, if he has 3 or more cards in play, he gains a Copper.
At the beginning of your next turn: discard any number of cards, then +1 Card per card discarded.
$5 Action - Attack - Duration

I think this version solves some of the problems:
- Much easier to tell at-a-glance if playing your next action will penalize you. So it's not as tedious to resolve.
- Copper junking self-balances the effect of the card, sort of like Mountebank. When you get lots of coppers, you're less likely to hit the three action-card threshold again.
- Hits Durations (including itself) a bit harder, since they count towards cards in play, so it will definitely discourage stuff like Double Tac.
- Copper is pretty innocuous as far as junking goes, so there's lots of ways to deal with it besides just sighing and playing BM. Some form of engine that handles the influx of coppers is probably still best on most boards.

33

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Strange attack idea

« on: October 21, 2015, 05:02:11 pm »

The problem with discarding at the end of the action phase is that it doesn't really hurt an engine player at all- the engine will still find the best 3 treasures in his whole deck plus whatever Peddlers he has. It actually hurts BM more.

34

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Strange attack idea

« on: October 20, 2015, 04:04:19 pm »

I keep mulling over this concept. Haven't had a chance to playtest yet, but my gut says that the discard version is situational, and frustrating when it's good. Turning back to junking, Curses are too strong for something that can hit so many times in one turn. How about Coppers or Ruins? Here are some variants:

Profiteer
Until your next turn, when another player resolves an Action card, if he has 5 or more cards in hand, he gains a Copper.
At the beginning of your next turn, +$3.
$5 Action - Attack - Duration

Skirmisher
Until your next turn, when another player resolves an Action card, if he has 5 or more cards in hand, he gains a Ruins.
At the beginning of your next turn, discard any number of cards, then +1 Card per card discarded.
$5 Action - Attack - Looter - Duration

The basic setup of these versions feels really solid to me. You can fight the attack in a number of ways: directly with reactions, indirectly with heavy trashing, or indirectly with a stealthy deck that stays under 5 cards. But the attack is still dangerous enough that you need to consider it.
You can mix and match the benefits for balance and flavor. Cellar will be strong with 5 cards at the start of your turn, and putting sifting on a junker might be a bit automatic. Nonetheless, I think the Looter version looks promising, as long as you're comfortable with using Ruins on a fan card and having that sweet quadruple card-type (Dame Josephine sends her regards).

Charlatan
Until your next turn, when another player plays an Action card, he first gains a Copper, putting it on top of his deck.
At the beginning of your next turn, +$2.
$5 Action - Attack - Duration

This is almost certainly too imposing to exist, as it eviscerates many fun decks, but I'm putting it out there because I think the implementation of the Attack is kind of neat.

35

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Strange attack idea

« on: October 13, 2015, 07:47:13 pm »

Nice mockup LF! I think this is on my shortlist to test also. With pure +coin the card really screams BM+Warlord to me but knowing the relative strength of engine vs BM, engine+Warlord may still be stronger. If Warlord buffs BM too much, I would try reverting to +action +$1.

I like that it's actually pretty bad in the early game.

Some potentially interesting kingdom partners:

• Hunting Party
• Tunnel
• Wharf, Tactician, or other mondo draw
• Warehouse, Cellar, or other sifters
• Council Room, Lost City, or Governor

36

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Strange attack idea

« on: October 13, 2015, 03:12:59 pm »

I like Faust's suggestion! Then the bottom would be something like

While this is in play, after another player resolves an Action card, if he has more than 5 cards in hand, he sets aside a Curse; at the end of that player’s turn, he takes one of the set-aside Curses and returns the rest to the Supply.

It could have some weird interactions with other Cursers when the pile is low. Like if you have to play a few Smithies to find your Witch, by the time you get it all the Curses are set aside and the Witch can't pass any out, even though you end up putting them back in the supply.

Also, the penalty doesn't have to be Curses.

Warlord
Now and at the beginning of your next turn, +1 Action, +$1.
While this is in play, after another player resolves an Action card, if he has more than 5 cards in hand, he discards a card.
($4) Action - Attack - Duration

You can change the handsize limit to get the right power level. My biggest concern with this version is that it might be annoying to resolve over and over (actually applies to any version that can hit more than once each turn).

37

Variants and Fan Cards / Strange attack idea

« on: October 12, 2015, 07:53:05 pm »

Shamaness
Each other player takes his Thunder token. Now and at the beginning of your next turn, +1 Action, +$1.
-------
Directly after any other player with a Thunder token resolves an Action card, if he has more than 5 cards in hand, he loses his Thunder token and gains a Curse.
($4) Action - Attack - Duration

I was pondering an Attack that could punish Wharf-y mega draws without sending the game into a boring slugfest.

• Does this concept seem like it might successfully implement the idea?
• The wording is butts and it seems like a token is required. Could it be more elegant?
• Would a game with this Attack be fun?

38

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Convolucid's Cards (Equality)

« on: September 25, 2015, 02:50:49 pm »

I edited Handmaiden's text. In retrospect, it's pretty obvious what "same cost" the card is talking about; it's the cost of the discarded card, there's no other possibility. Thanks for the help, folks!

The political nature of Demagogue is... a thing, sure. I'm mostly ok with it.If there's two power strategies on the board with Demagogue, yeah, you have to choose which one to target. But the third player can already affect that balance in lots of ways. For example, say one of the power 5s is Minion, the player that doesn't go for Minions has a big advantage compared to a similar situation with only two players. I don't feel like Demagogue skews this too much further.

Unless you're just trying to be an ass, but then it's no worse than Taxman, Swindler, Pillage... there's a comfortable precedent here for me.

39

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Convolucid's Cards (Equality)

« on: September 24, 2015, 05:18:24 pm »

I've struggled a lot with the wording for Handmaiden ("same cost as the discarded card"?). The Oasis comparison is interesting- I'd definitely say it's weaker though. In our experience you don't exchange anything ~50% of the times you play a Handmaiden. It's not very reliable, which makes it tough to stuff your deck with them. Duchy exchange sounds really awesome but we haven't seen it happen much; it would be interesting to see if the card is too strong in situations where a Duchy rush is viable.

I think Demagogue ranks just below the middle for fives (they can't all be the best card, heh). I don't think I can give it +Action. Demagogue has to force hand-reveal so that you avoid honor rules. So, if you play a second Demagogue, it's a Pillage that you don't even have to trash, and also might draw you cards! Obviously this can still happen in an engine, but I have to at least make you work for it.

40

Variants and Fan Cards / Convolucid's Cards (Equality)

« on: September 24, 2015, 03:23:29 pm »

Here are three of my fan cards that my IRL group has deemed good enough to play with regularly. I hope FDS likes 'em too! The working title of the "expansion" is Equality- I haven't worried too much about keeping a theme, but it's a bit present.

          Rulebook

• You must choose which card to discard before looking through your discard pile.
• The card you put into your hand can be the one you just discarded. If your discard pile did not contain a different card with the correct cost, this will be your only option.

I haven't printed this one out yet, but we've played it enough to say it works. As a $2, I like that it's simple, often weak, and occasionally awesome. Sometimes you draw it right at the start of the shuffle and it's just a copper. Other times you draw it with a bunch of terminals, and get to swap something out for a village! Of course it also excels in games with lots of junk or weak trashers.

          Rulebook

• If you trash the card from your deck, you must also trash a card from your hand if you can. If your hand is empty, just trash the card from your deck.
• If you choose to keep the card from your deck, it goes into your hand, as well as a Copper which comes from the Supply. If there are no Coppers left, just put the card from your deck in your hand.
• If your discard pile and deck are empty when you play this, there is no card to look at and so you cannot trash it. You try and fail to put the card in your hand, but still gain a Copper that goes to your hand.

Trashers with +Action are pretty uncommon, but the unreliability of the deck reveal offsets the increased reliability of +Action (see Lookout).

+Card +$1 +Action is the "bad" option, the copper makes it worse than plain Peddler. This plays differently than IGG, taking you on a roller coaster of junking / trashing which gets goofier with each Bathhouse you buy. It's loads of fun, and the "bad" option is never bad enough to avoid playing the card. But the card is way stronger if you pay attention to your deck.

IMO my best card, Bathhouse is well-loved by our irl group

          Rulebook

• You can name any card, even one that is not in the Supply.
• All copies of the named card are discarded. If you name Copper and your opponent has a hand containing 5 Coppers, they must discard all 5.
• After everyone has discarded the named card, you draw until you have 5 cards in your hand, while your opponents draw until they have 4 cards in hand.
• Each player draws cards to reach the specified hand size regardless of how they got their current hand size. For example, if one opponent has less cards due to Torturer, they will draw back up to 4 cards even if they didn’t discard anything because of Demagogue.

At one point in my card-brainstorming process, I landed on the idea of incorporating Go Fish into some cards. I tried a lot of variations and the discard attack is the only one that survived. It's powerful and flexible, but situational and skill-intensive.

The post-attack draw to X keeps the attack from being brutal, especially in repeated play. The self-discard often dissuades you from just naming the best card on the table. These conditions allowed me to avoid awkward requirements on which card you can name. Of course, if you're clever you can nail an opponent's linchpin card, which feels awesome.

Discarding from yourself also creates some interesting, less pugilistic options. Sometimes the best move is to name Estate, even if it might help your opponents. It would be fun to play this card with Tunnel; we haven't forced that playtest yet (all random all the time ).


Looking forward to your comments and (gentle) criticism

41

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Attack that's played out of turn

« on: September 23, 2015, 06:10:46 pm »

Well, what's your alternative?

Exactly what Fragasnap posted 
I think you price it at $2; compare to other cheap draw with no +action (Courtyard, Moat). Dungeon's fine, but the combination with CG is a lot cooler than either by itself.
Also I'd call it Dirigible; it flies away!

42

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Attack that's played out of turn

« on: September 22, 2015, 01:21:07 pm »

I don't think any of us think CG is too weak... it's just not very interesting, especially given the complexity of the new mechanic.

This is the first time we've ever seen a Duration that you can accelerate like CG, so it's underwhelming for this cool new concept to be applied to... one coin. The only less exciting bonus would be a Buy.

You try the card the first time and confirm that yes, getting that extra coin one turn sooner makes a difference. But the risk/reward is so mild that after the initial realization, there's not much to think about. I think that's why many of us feel underwhelmed.

43

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Attack that's played out of turn

« on: September 21, 2015, 07:16:29 pm »

Caravan Guard is quite inelegant, and also kind of boring. It seems so obvious to me that the card shouldn't have +action; you could load a lot more power on the rest of the card, it's a lot more exciting to use as a reaction, and you don't get the ugly explanatory text. So I wonder if it was tested and just doesn't work for some reason.


Anyway, here's my stab at the out-of-turn attack (created before seeing this thread).

Gladiator- $4
Each other player with 4 or more cards in hand places a Treasure card from his hand on top of his deck, or reveals a hand with no Treasure cards.
At the beginning of your next turn, gain a Silver, putting it in your hand.
-------
When another player plays an Attack card, you may play this from your hand.
Action - Attack - Duration - Reaction

I tried to solve some of the problems with the class (political, difficult to resolve, don't want too much crossfire). It's not high on my list for testing, but  the thread's right here so hey

44

Dominion General Discussion / Re: How do you feel about Champion?

« on: June 15, 2015, 07:21:18 pm »

My irl group strongly dislikes the Page line, but it's not Champion's fault. By the time you get infinite actions, you've earned it, and besides it's cool.

That said, there's a lot of things about the sequence that, in combination, make it frustrating:

• I don't think Champion is mandatory. But, if you decide to race for Champion, then starting late is foolish. Also, losing your TH/Warriors is losing the game...
• So you have to buy multiple Pages, fast. Which means you have to opt in, early and hard. Before the game really shapes up, all your eggs are in this basket...
• But Warrior is random, really random! Which card(s) will she flip? Whose Warrior is shuffled near the top of their deck? Who drew their backup Pages as fuel for the Warrior? If sifters are on the table, we all see them- they just accelerate the random selection of the best Warrior.
  (Side note: Even the number of Silvers gained by TH is random, and those could affect the outcome by burying your Warrior in Silvers or absorbing enemy Warrior hits. It goes both ways, but there are more wrenches in this engine than engine parts.)

Sometimes you lose a Dominion game through sheer bad luck. A mature person accepts this, and doesn't let it dampen their enjoyment of the game. But losing the Warrior battle doesn't just suck for the usual reasons:

• Now the victor has a Champion, so when the victim plays his Warriors who have straggled behind, they can't even hit back. Ouch!
• Now the victor has a Champion, so when she plays her whole deck every turn, it includes playing her backup Warriors, who continue to mutilate her already downtrodden victims.
• Travellers are a slow strategy. When you lose to a Page mirror, you are frequently in for >30 minutes of bitterness.

I've been a winner, loser, and bystander in a Warrior battle. In 1v1 I guess you just resign, but in 3+ the victim is stuck there, knowing they have lost, and with nothing to do for the rest of the game because their deck was shuffled in the wrong order and then ripped to shreds. It's not fun for anyone at the table.

45

Dominion General Discussion / Re: IRL Adventures stories

« on: May 29, 2015, 04:46:11 pm »

Well, it's not so much that the second Chapel was bad as that I also got a Silver without any benefit to her. IIRC it was a Minion game, so getting Chapel and Messenger and hitting 5 so fast was pretty neat.

46

Dominion General Discussion / Re: IRL Adventures stories

« on: May 27, 2015, 07:06:40 pm »

I managed to pull a cute trick with Messenger recently. My gf went first with $3, so she bought a Chapel, naturally. Seeing this, I bought something else with my $3 and used my $4 to get a Messenger and hand her a second Chapel. She was upset but also grudgingly impressed

47

Dominion General Discussion / Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #8: Horse Traders

« on: May 14, 2015, 06:45:21 pm »

Is it just me, or is Horse Traders a relatively-uninteresting card? 

Maybe it comes off as boring because its effects could be described as normalizing:
-It gets you to five on the first shuffle, almost always.
-It makes many attacks behave as though they never happened

But the way it does these things is pretty interesting:
-it's not Moat, but is effective against almost every attack
-the atomic power of +$ vs -cards is generally unfavorable, but you can play the system in many cases
-what percentage of the power budget of the card is devoted to the reaction, in general?

48

Dominion General Discussion / Re: IRL Adventures stories

« on: May 14, 2015, 12:31:47 pm »

We had one game with Page and Ranger. My sister and I both went for it, but she had turn order. Her Warrior killed one of my travelers and she got to Champion first. It was a slaughter after that

49

Dominion General Discussion / Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #8: Horse Traders

« on: May 14, 2015, 12:22:34 pm »

Pillage- probably not!
Admittedly, you don't buy Urchin for Urchin.

  Dammit, all I was trying to say was that HT is good against Junkers too.

50

Dominion General Discussion / Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #8: Horse Traders

« on: May 13, 2015, 08:35:09 pm »

Right. Down to 4 is best, duh! You got an extra card, and didn't suffer at all from the attack. Why did your opponent go for these cards with HT on the board?

Let's get constructive. Do you think HT is generally worth buying against, say, Witch?