Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

701

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: December 27, 2020, 12:26:26 pm »

My issue with Magi is how much it scales with player count. It gets exponentially stronger the more players there are.

702

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Venus, a fan expansion by Carline

« on: December 27, 2020, 12:29:53 am »

I think Librarian compares too favorably to Wharf, which is already a broken . All you need to get +3 Cards now and next turn (which is twice as strong as Wharf's +2 Cards now and next turn) is set aside a card that costs , which is a very small drawback for what you get out of it. And it only gets stronger from there. I think it would be more balanced if you had to trash the set aside card.

703

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Industrial Revolution Expansion!

« on: December 26, 2020, 03:05:51 pm »

Since my previous comment was mainly just on wording and clarifying some things, this time I'll talk about balance and what I actually think of the cards effect-wise.

This is probably my favorite card in the whole expansion. I like how well it balances itself based on the Kingdom; the only option that's overpowered is if it happens to be a Lost City variant, but that's so unlikely that it's probably balanced regardless (and that Kingdom would probably be really hard to play without Theatre, if it's both the only Village and the only drawer). Fantastic job on this one.

This is a weird one. I think it's probably too weak. It looks really powerful at first, but the + effect is probably going to completely cripple your current turn. It kind of neuters your current turn, but gives you more Coffers the better your current turn is. You don't get to make use of even one of the Buys or the cost reduction very often because of the large amount of debt that it gives you. Giving you a few Coffers on top of a pseudo-Inventor's effect (weaker than Inventor, since Inventor's cost reduction is Throne-able) is a small consolation prize for skipping a turn. On the other hand, you can spend all the Coffers to get rid of the Debt, and the +2 Buys make it probably strong enough to cost . Just writing this, I've actually talked myself out of thinking this is weak. I think this is probably fine at .

I think this is probably too strong. It's like a Chapel on steroids, that can even turn itself into a once it runs out of cards to trash, which is something no other pure trasher can do. It seems at first like it costs enough that it would be hard to hit the cards you'd want to trash by the time you bought it, but the fact that it can trash from the discard as well makes that not so much the case, and probably makes it a bit too swingy as well.

Like I said before, I still think this is way too strong to cost just more than Junk Dealer. If it's too weak at because you can't collide it with cards you'd want to trash it by then, then it probably just isn't balance-able at any cost.

This one is interesting. It's both a Smithy and an Ambassador at once; and it can be even stronger than that, since it makes opponents discard a card! (Although it can also be weaker, by e.g. returning a Copper and opponents discard Victory cards.) The Smithy effect even helps it get cards you'd want to return to the Supply into your hand. It looks too strong at first because of all this, but then you realize that since the opponents gain the cards to their hands, they can just return it with their own Infantries themselves. This is another one of the most well-designed cards in this expansion, IMO.

This is another really interesting one. It might be a bit too swingy, though. It's not very consistent, but it's very strong when it works.

This is probably too strong. Since it's terminal, it's quite easy to avoid its drawback by just not having any unused Actions afterwards anyway, and it's also broken by Villagers. It's stronger than it would be if it were a one-shot instead of using up all your unused Actions, and even a one-shot version would probably be too strong compared to Pillage due to the ability to gain cards with no cost restriction. It's also very swingy; you could have all opponents have nothing but Coppers and Estates, and then your opponent Bob plays it when you have a Platinum in hand.

This one is another interesting one. I like how it looks through your deck instead of your discard pile so that it's more likely to be useful (even in decks that don't draw themselves, you're more likely to have a large deck than a large discard pile). This is another one of my favorites from this expansion.

I don't really have anything to say about this one. It's just kind of meh, in my opinion. I think it's balanced, but it doesn't really do anything particularly exciting.

I don't really have any comments on this one either. "Laboratory, but big" doesn't really excite me all that much.

I think this is way too strong. Since it gives you +, just one of the many possibilities it can have is +3 Cards, +1 Action, a double-Lab, and it doesn't have the Smog-gaining drawback like Factory does. And this is strictly better than that, by a huge margin. It also looks like analysis-paralysis in card form. Of course, the goal of the game is to get Victory cards, so unless you're playing with Platinums and Colonies, people probably aren't going to buy the + cards over Provinces very often.

Just like Stock Exchange, this is too analysis-paralysis-y. It's probably balanced, though.

This is an interesting drawback. Not a particularly exciting card, though. Vanilla effects aren't very thrilling most of the time.

This compares too favorably to Oil Refinery to cost just more than it; it's a cantrip by itself instead of a Ruined Village, and its special ability is way stronger. Getting +1 Card and +1 Action added onto even incredibly weak effects is already better than Labifying them (for the most part), and Public School does it to ALL Action cards instead of just copies of one. This is probably the strongest card in the whole expansion, even relative to its cost.

If triple Lab + gain a Smog costs , double Hunting Grounds + superterminal + gain a Smog can probably cost or even . Steel Foundry's effect is honestly weaker than Factory's, even without the -1 Action effect.

Don't really have anything to say about this one, other than this one is definitely not going to be bought in a Province game. By the time you're getting , you need to be buying Provinces which are worth more and cost less.

This would be pitiful even without eventually becoming a one-shot (plus, if you actually need to play a 5th Slum, you have way too many terminals and are probably losing, and badly). Unless you have the Diadem, there's a point at which getting more +Actions stops being helpful and starts being pointless.

This is better than Slums, but not by much. You need to spend so many buys acquiring them for them to be useful that you likely won't be able to get the kinds of cards you'd want to draw in the first place (i.e. payload cards) in the meantime.

No sane person would actually use the below-the line effect. It takes three of these just to get them to average out to a Silver, and 5 (an entire hand's worth) to average out to a Gold, and both of those things are very unlikely to happen. Just look at Fool's Gold, which only costs more; it's leagues better than Banknote. It takes 6 Banknotes just for them to catch up to the power of the same amount of Fool's Golds, and Banknotes don't even have the option of turning into a much better card (real Gold) on certain conditions!

This is one of the few balanced ones of your -costs. Don't really have anything else to say about it.

This is too dependent on the Kingdom. It's terrible without trashing Attacks (which are super-rare) or TFB, but broken with them.

This is the other balanced -cost. I like this one.

No comments.

No comments.

This is way too strong. Gaining a Smog doesn't make up for how much stronger it is than Chapel at the same price. Especially since you can use the Smogs as Power Plant fodder.

This is too weak. Just Exiling with no other benefit is very slow, and to get a benefit, you have to Exile something you generally don't want to Exile and the Kingdom is fairly likely to not even have any Attacks.

This is another of my favorites. Good job on this one!

The name is kind of a mouthful. I'd name it "Vents" or something like that.

Another of my favorites.

No comments.

I still don't really think this needs to exist. The more Buys you already have, the less you need more Buys, so there isn't really any reason to buy more than one or two of these, and at that point it might as well be a project, and then it would just be Fair.

704

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Equipment, Cabinet and Moral

« on: December 23, 2020, 09:28:36 pm »

"Equip with this" is grammatically incorrect, so all of the Equipment cards should say "Equip this." I think it should also be a capitalized keyword a la Exile.

705

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Set Expansion Contest

« on: December 23, 2020, 01:19:49 pm »

Baba Yaga • $4 • Action - Duration - Fate
Reveal the top two Boons; choose one to receive and put the other on the bottom of the Boons.

At the start of your next turn, gain a Will-O'-Wisp to your hand. If you cannot, gain a Wish and trash this.

(ignoring Exorcist,) Imp has Devil's Workshop & Tormentor; Ghost has Haunted Mirror; Will-O'-Wisp only has the boon that randomly gives you one. Ta-da, a Will-O'-Wisp gainer. And once you run out the Will-O'-Wisps, a Wish gainer that won't whammy you like Leprechaun does.

What was the rationale behind putting one of the Boons at the bottom of the pile rather than discarding it?

i couldn't remember whether "discard" was the preferred nomenclature and didn't want someone to add it to their deck vis a vis their own discard pile. this makes it unambiguous.

It could say “...put the other in the Boons discard pile” or something along those lines.  In any case, it doesn’t have much practical difference except in situations where there are 2-3 Boons in the draw pile and you play Baba Yaga twice.  You will draw the bottom-decked Boon again.  It could be helpful in some situations but in others could give the player one less choice.

yeah i tried that wording, it was clear but it also shrank the font size, which i don't wanna do.

Pixie says "discard the top Boon," and nobody was confused about whether that meant they put it in their own discard pile or a Boon discard pile. It's plenty clear if you just say "discard the other."

706

Rules Questions / Re: Livery + Destrier

« on: December 23, 2020, 02:41:25 am »

I'm pretty sure the answer is that you do gain a Horse, because at the time that you gained the Destrier, it cost $4.  The fact that after you gained it, its price changed, isn't relevant to Livery's instructions (of course, it does become relevant if you buy a second Destrier after that, since the second Destrier would be $2 at the time of gaining)

That makes sense. Thanks.

707

Rules Questions / Livery + Destrier

« on: December 23, 2020, 02:10:48 am »

If I play a Livery, and Destriers currently cost , then when I buy a Destrier, do I gain a Horse? Or does the fact that Destriers now cost mean that I don't get a Horse? In other words, is the cost of the Destrier evaluated for Livery purposes before or after gaining it?

708

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Industrial Revolution Full Dominion Expansion!

« on: December 23, 2020, 12:25:43 am »

It counts cards in play this turn or how many times it was played? The last would be hard to track.

The bonuses are cumulative?

I would assume that the bonuses are cumulative because otherwise it would say 2 times, 3 times, etc. Also it wouldn't be hard to track since you can always recount the number of Boom Towns in play to see how many coins and Buys you get from the card (unless you have cards that trash from play and are playing irl).

As it's worded, it's based on how many Boom Towns are currently in play, and doesn't care about how many times you played them (i.e. Throne Room variants don't increase the power of individual plays). I assume that's how it's intended to work.

709

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Industrial Revolution Full Dominion Expansion!

« on: December 22, 2020, 07:28:38 pm »

Theatre: As worded, it's somewhat ambiguous whether, for example, Steward, counts since Steward doesn't always instruct you to receive at least 2 Cards, or 2 Actions, etc. I would phrase this as:

If there are no other cards in the Supply whose text contains...
+2 or more Cards, +1 Card;
+2 or more Actions, +1 Action;
+Buy amounts, +1 Buy;
...

This wording also makes it clearer that Cellar doesn't count (either with 1st edition wording or 2nd).

Entrepreneur: As of the 2019 Errata, you don't need to specify "but not less than ."

Meeting House: I think this is too much strictly better than Junk Dealer to only cost more. It's strictly better in three ways: Trashing is optional instead of mandatory, +Coffers are almost strictly better than + (Storyteller and Black Market are the only edge cases I'm aware of), and it can give .

Artillery: Is it intentional that you can play it as your last Action and trigger its attack by spending all 0 of your remaining Actions? If not, it should say "If you have any remaining Actions, you may spend all of them to..."

Stock Exchange: This needs to say "and discard any number of cards." As worded, it sounds like you choose between Actions, Buys, , and discarding, rather than being able to do multiple. It should also say "Choose one for each (you can repeat choices):..." "For each, choose one" should allow you to execute each choice before making the next. Similar reasoning for why "for each card discarded, gain a card costing up to " would be different (and a lot worse) than "gain a card costing up to per card discarded."

Public School: This needs to specify timing. If you want it to trigger before playing (which I assume is probably your intent), it needs to be "when you play an Action card, you first get +1 Card and +1 Action," and similarly for playing non-Copper Treasures (although it matters less for the Treasure case). On the other hand, if you want it to trigger after resolving, it needs to be "directly after you finish playing an Action card other than this, +1 Card and +1 Action." You can drop the "other than this" if you want it to trigger on itself, but it would probably be too strong if it triggered on itself.

Slums: Unless it's intentional that it counts other players' Durations, it needs to say "that you have in play."

Worker: This wording has accountability issues; there's no way to prove that you aren't just playing a Worker that you already had in hand. This is how I would phrase this:

Reveal a number of cards from the top of your deck equal to the number of Workers you have in play. Set aside any number of revealed Workers and put all the other cards into your hand. Play the set aside Workers.

Banknote: I second LittleFish in saying that this should have "In games using this:" in the bottom text.

General Store: To be more in line with official cards, this should say "Gain three cards with a total cost of up to ."

Statue: "Copper" should be capitalized.

Street Market: "Copper" and "Treasure" should both be capitalized. It should also be worded as "Reveal your hand. +1 Buy per non-Copper Treasure revealed."

Power Plant: +1 Card should be in-line text (see Oracle).

Boom Town: This should be phrased

If the number of Boom Towns you have in play (including this) is:
2+, +1 Card
3+, +1 Action
...

Salesman: This can probably be scrapped since Fair exists.

All cards that gain Smogs don't need to specify "from the Smog pile" as of the 2019 Errata. For all cards that mention "the Supply," "Supply" should be capitalized.

710

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Venus, a fan expansion by Carline

« on: December 22, 2020, 06:38:12 pm »

I think Looters are rare enough for it to be reasonable to just allow Ruins to be an edge case that makes Buffoon weak. Especially since they're only in one expansion.

Also, someone in the Dominion Discord pointed this out about another playing-Victories-as-Actions fan card posted there, which also applies to Touch of Life: I think it's too broken to allow Provinces to be played since they can then be gained with Pilgrimage, Changeling, or Kiln.

711

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: December 22, 2020, 01:46:33 am »

Edit: Added Looter to the card type.

Archaeologist
+1 Action
You may Exile a Ruins from your hand or the Supply. Put this on your Tavern mat.
-
When you play an Action card, you may call this to play any number of differently named Ruins on your Exile mat, leaving them there.

At it's most basic level, this can be used to get rid of Ruins from your deck; however, it can also be used to turbo-charge an Action card that you play on your turn.  I've priced it at $2 because it takes a bit of work and you are somewhat at the mercy of how the Ruins deck is shuffled.

Rules clarification: You can play the differently named Ruins on your Exile mat in any order.  I'm not sure if that needs to be on the card, or if it is self-explanatory.

1. This should copy the wording of Coin of the Realm and Royal Carriage's call effects: "Directly after you finish playing an Action card, you may call this..."
2. Is it intentional that you can play an Archaeologist and then immediately call it on itself?
3. This card has a similar design flaw to Card tokens (the hypothetical Coffers of +Cards): Once you get both a Ruined Village and a Ruined Library in Exile (and you don't even need the Village if called after playing a non-terminal), players will almost always just call it as soon as they have the opportunity and have Actions left over, which kind of defeats the purpose of it being a Reserve card. Unlike the other vanilla effects, you pretty much always want +Cards as soon as possible rather than saving them for the opportune moment.
EDIT:
4. I think this is too swingy based on the way the Ruins pile is shuffled. If Alice gets to Exile a Ruined Library from the Supply, she's a lot better off than Bob, who only Exiled a Survivors. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that it can't play multiple copies of the same Ruin, so Bob could get completely screwed over by getting 4 Survivors in a row while Alice gets 4 different Ruins.

712

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Tales & Stories: Some "simple" cards

« on: December 22, 2020, 01:29:30 am »

I just elaborated in my last post on the 5 and 6 thingy and I disagree about the power level: it is good but not a super strong $5. Charm, Spices, Crown and Counterfeit are all $5 Treasures that I would prefer over this in the majority of Kingdoms.

OK, let's compare it to Spices and Charm, since as a Treasure, they give the same vanilla bonuses.  Why would you choose Spices over Golden Fleece at $5?  I think that the versatility over the course of the game that you would get with Golden Fleece is better than the 2 Coffers you get with Spices.  I might prefer Charm over Golden Fleece in certain kingdoms, but I think I would prefer Golden Fleece more often than not.   

I agree that Crown can be very strong, especially once you've thinned out your deck or have better control of it.  However, there are some turns where Crown won't be particularly strong.  Golden Fleece will almost never be useless in your hand.  It's a trade-off between something that's potentially quite powerful (and versatile in its own right) and something that is quite reliable and versatile.

You are overestimating the strength of the Action option. Otherwise you would not claim that Golden Fleece is better than Spices, which is the Treasure option of Golden Fleece on play and the Night option on gain.

I do think Golden Fleece is arguably stronger than Spices even without the Action option. If you use it as a Treasure, then it's like taking +2 Coffers and spending them immediately, so Golden Fleece minus the Action option is effectively similar to +2 Coffers but you have to spend both or none of them now, instead of being able to only use 1. And reusable +2 Coffers is better than one-time +2 Coffers (except that you don't need to play the card first to get Spices' Coffers). A Silver that gave Coffers instead of would probably be a very strong , let alone , and Golden Fleece is very close to that even without the Action option.

713

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.

« on: December 21, 2020, 07:02:35 pm »

Why is Ride called "Ride" (what one would do with Horses they already have) instead of Wrangle?

714

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Distribution of Dominion card costs

« on: December 21, 2020, 06:09:48 pm »

It's surprising that an expansion called Dark Ages would have the second highest average cost, though.

The Dark Ages calculation is weird, with Knights counted as nine 5-costs and a 4-cost. But also, the five 0-cost Ruins are included.

Counting Knights as a single 5-cost pile and not counting ruins, the average for Dark Ages is 4.06, close to the center.

I somehow didn't realize that OP counted the Ruins (don't know why he did, he didn't count any other non-Kingdom cards), so I didn't count them in my averages calculation. The average for Dark Ages drops to 3.82 if you include the Ruins.

715

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.

« on: December 21, 2020, 06:06:40 pm »

Is there any particular reason that Way of the Mouse isn't limited to non-Commands just in case you make any or -cost Command cards in the future?

716

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: December 21, 2020, 03:57:34 pm »

Heist- Event
Everyone (including you) reveals the top two cards of their deck. Gain a treasure costing up to the number of revealed. Return the cards back to the top of their deck in any order (player's choice)

What happens if someone reveals a Victory card worth variable , such as Gardens? You don't know how much was revealed then.

   

First of all, welcome to the forums.

Second, I think all of these are WAAAAYYYYY too weak. It's extremely difficult to make Campaign be not a Ruined Village (and a payoff of +2 isn't usually worth getting so many cards you frequently don't want, especially with how difficult it is to gain 3 cards in one turn), and with how hard it is to get Homecoming, I'd expect something even more powerful than King's Court, and I think Homecoming would be too weak for how difficult it is to get even if the +2 Cards was unconditional and came first. And Rally's only worth buying because you need to in order to get Campaign, which you need to get Homecoming, so the weakness of Homecoming and Campaign makes Rally weak by extension. Just look at the official Traveller lines: Every official Traveller costing and up is either slightly or blatantly overpowered for its "cost," and they don't have special conditions that need to be met before you can upgrade them. Whereas both Rally and Campaign are underpowered for their costs, and Campaign is even arguably actually worse than Rally, and while Homecoming is overpowered for its cost, it's not enough overpowered to make up for how difficult it is to get.

Just to outline how hard it is to get Homecoming in a set with this and no other source of +Buys or gainers (or just no Villages or Villagers, even if you do have other +Buy sources and gainers), this is what you'd have to go through:
1. Get a Rally and a Campaign both in the same hand.
2. Play the Campaign, then the Rally. Discard the 3 cards to gain a Rally. You'll probably have no hand left at this point since Rally and Campaign don't draw, and 3 discarded + 1 Rally + 1 Campaign = 5, the default handsize.
3. You have and 2 Buys. You've gained a Rally so far this turn, so you need to spend both your Buys to get Campaign to trigger. So you buy a cost card (probably either a weak Action or an Estate, if this Kingdom has no 's). And then you need to buy a Copper.

So in order to get a Homecoming, you need to first buy a cost, exchange it for a Campaign, buy another cost to replace the Rally you just lost, get the stars to align well enough to collide your Rally and Campaign, and then gain yet another underpowered Rally along with two cards you almost definitely don't want just to get a card that's maybe on par with King's Court, and probably could've just bought with a lot less hassle by now if it was in the Supply. And don't forget that because you needed to buy Rally twice, you had to forgo two buys of good s just to get here, thus making Homecoming weaker because you have fewer good cards to Throne in your deck than you would if you weren't trying to get the Homecoming.

All of this said, I think this Traveller line would be fine if Campaign was changed to:

+1 Card
+1 Action
When you discard this from play, you may exchange this for a Homecoming. If you don't, and you gained at least 3 cards this turn, +2.

This way, it isn't completely dead when it doesn't trigger, and all the problems with Homecoming's difficulty of acquisition are fixed. Although tbh, because of Rally's self-gaining, this may reverse the issue to making Homecoming too easy to gain...

717

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Venus, a fan expansion by Carline

« on: December 20, 2020, 08:48:12 pm »

That's a much better wording.

718

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Distribution of Dominion card costs

« on: December 20, 2020, 07:08:15 pm »

Just out of curiosity, I calculated the average costs of Kingdom cards in each expansion, counting the same cards as The Alchemist: (Sorted in ascending order)
Alchemy: 3.5
Seaside: 3.73
Nocturne: 3.85
Guilds: 3.92
Adventures: 3.97
Base & Renaissance: 4
Intrigue: 4.04
Empires: 4.11
Hinterlands: 4.12
Cornucopia: 4.15
Menagerie: 4.23
Dark Ages: 4.25
Prosperity: 5.12

Unsurprisingly, Prosperity is the top-heaviest expansion cost-wise, by far. The gap between 1st and 2nd is smaller than the gap between 2nd and last. It's surprising that an expansion called Dark Ages would have the second highest average cost, though.

719

Dominion FAQ / Re: How long do your games last?

« on: December 20, 2020, 06:26:00 pm »

There's way too much variance to really give a concrete answer to this question. Some games take longer to setup than to play, and some take over 2 hours.

720

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Venus, a fan expansion by Carline

« on: December 20, 2020, 06:21:13 pm »

Changed "show" to "reveals".

The spirit of the card is "they choose and you choose over they choice". It won't be this card without this.

If they choose a good card, you gain it. If  they choose a bad card, you do a kind of Mountebank attack. If they choose a mediocre card like Silver, it's not so bad also, you play it twice.

I have an edge case for you: The player to your left reveals a Duchy. There's only one Duchy left, and you know that if either you or your opponent gains it, the game ends and you lose, but you have enough to buy a Province this turn and that would make you win. So your only option is to choose to play it twice. But playing a Duchy doesn't make any sense, as Victories aren't playable. What happens?

In this edge case you pointed, the solution is easy: if you would buy a Province and win the game, you don't need to play the Buffoon. However, I agree that in general it's strange that there is a play option and they can reveal a non-playable card. Should I add something like "if it's a playable card..." to the option?

Okay, your + token is on the Buffoon pile and you'd be short if you didn't play the Buffoon.

I may be getting the rule wrong, but doesn't the game end at the end of the turn, not the moment the pile is empty, so you could both gain the duchy and then go on to buy the province?

You're right. It's a bad example. But my point that you could be in a situation in which the only right move is to play a Victory card still stands.

EDIT: Just thought of an example where getting a Duchy and a Province would cost you the game, but just a Province wouldn't.
You have Wolf Den and Wall as Landmarks. Getting a Duchy would give you a net loss of 1 due to it being your first Duchy and you already being over 15 cards. Not getting the Duchy would therefore put you one point higher than you would be if you did get it, and would prevent a tie, and you went first so your opponent would win the tiebreaker.

I think there's no need to find more examples related to endgame edge cases, at least for the purposes of Buffoon analysis. I think the point about playing a Victory is already demonstrated by you and I already said that I don't think it's a good feature in general to be able to choose the option of playing when a non-playable card is revealed. So, I ask again: do you think that add a "if it's a playable card" to the option fix this?


EDIT: Does this wording works?

"Playable" isn't really a defined keyword in Dominion, and there aren't very many playable cards aside from Treasures and Actions, so I'd prefer limiting it to those two types, but your new wording is probably fine. Assuming it's intended that you can choose the Throne option with non-playable cards as effectively a do-nothing option.

721

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Venus, a fan expansion by Carline

« on: December 20, 2020, 03:22:31 am »

Changed "show" to "reveals".

The spirit of the card is "they choose and you choose over they choice". It won't be this card without this.

If they choose a good card, you gain it. If  they choose a bad card, you do a kind of Mountebank attack. If they choose a mediocre card like Silver, it's not so bad also, you play it twice.

I have an edge case for you: The player to your left reveals a Duchy. There's only one Duchy left, and you know that if either you or your opponent gains it, the game ends and you lose, but you have enough to buy a Province this turn and that would make you win. So your only option is to choose to play it twice. But playing a Duchy doesn't make any sense, as Victories aren't playable. What happens?

In this edge case you pointed, the solution is easy: if you would buy a Province and win the game, you don't need to play the Buffoon. However, I agree that in general it's strange that there is a play option and they can reveal a non-playable card. Should I add something like "if it's a playable card..." to the option?

Okay, your + token is on the Buffoon pile and you'd be short if you didn't play the Buffoon.

I may be getting the rule wrong, but doesn't the game end at the end of the turn, not the moment the pile is empty, so you could both gain the duchy and then go on to buy the province?

You're right. It's a bad example. But my point that you could be in a situation in which the only right move is to play a Victory card still stands.

EDIT: Just thought of an example where getting a Duchy and a Province would cost you the game, but just a Province wouldn't.
You have Wolf Den and Wall as Landmarks. Getting a Duchy would give you a net loss of 1 due to it being your first Duchy and you already being over 15 cards. Not getting the Duchy would therefore put you one point higher than you would be if you did get it, and would prevent a tie, and you went first so your opponent would win the tiebreaker.

722

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Venus, a fan expansion by Carline

« on: December 20, 2020, 12:01:42 am »

Magic Library: What is the rationale behind the wording for the reaction "After another player finishes playing an Attack card...", as opposed to the more standard "When another player plays an Attack card"?

The wording Magic Library has makes it trigger after the Attack takes effect, whereas the standard wording would make it trigger before. Magic Library's wording makes it a better defense against e.g. Militia-class attacks.

Paladin: I think this is a bit weak for $6.  It's slightly better than Destrier because of the sifting, but Destrier has a variable cost and is usually expensive at $6.

I think you're underestimating it. It's strictly better than a Laboratory (Laboratory is just draw 2, Paladin is draw best 2 out of 3), so it has to cost at least . And best 2 out of 3 is actually quite a bit better than random 2 out of 2. Laboratory is already a high-tier . Laboratory's not a top-tier or unbalanced by any means, but if anything, Paladin is actually too good, imho.

EDIT: Ninja'd. Here's my response to Carline's most recent comments:

I think it's OK. It's the female version of Pawn. Both give you two vanilla bonus (different for Pawn, same for Maid). All the things Maid could do are similar or weaker than what a cost card does - 2 Cards (Moat), 2 Actions (Necropolis), 2 Buys (less than a Squire), (less than a Duchess).

I think Timinou is right, actually. Remember that the versatility is a BIG deal. Let's analyze the options that Pawn has:
+1 Card, +1 Action: Useless cantrip. Can't actually exist by itself, so I'll call it a effect.
+1 Card, +1 Buy: +1 Card and +1 Buy aren't all that much better combined than by themselves. And that's because the strength of +Cards and +Buys are very highly dependent on what else the card does; more so than other vanilla effects. I'd probably call this a effect; it would be reasonable for an Attack card to give out a card with this effect.
+1 Card, +: +Cards are generally better than +, so this is between +2 Cards and +. Probably a effect.
+1 Action, +1 Buy: See my comment on +1 Card, +1 Buy. Another effect.
+1 Buy, +: Strictly worse than even a terminal Candlestick Maker, and strictly worse than Herbalist, which is already a bottom-tier -cost. Probably a effect.
As you can see, most of the effects that Pawn can give are junk-level bad, and the rest are Scout-level. Maid, on the other hand, has some effects that would be reasonable to pay for without the versatility. I'd say the Maid's strictly-better-than-+2 Cards-ness is superior to Moat's, and that Maid should probably cost . Likewise, Maid's strictly-better-than-+-ness is superior to Duchess's. In fact, I'd argue that Duchess is actually worse than a pure +, as your opponents didn't have to spend a buy and then later a card slot and an action to get the self-spy effect. Giving an effect to every player is generally worse than not getting it at all for this reason.

I put this clause for it doesn't stay unnecessarily next turn when you trash Coppers with it.

It doesn't need that clause to avoid staying out unnecessarily. The official rule for Durations is that "a Duration is not discarded from play until the Clean-up phase of the last turn on which it does something," and getting + doesn't count as "doing something." Same reason Research doesn't stay in play when you trash a Copper with it (putting zero set aside cards into your hand doesn't count as "doing something").

Changed "show" to "reveals".

The spirit of the card is "they choose and you choose over they choice". It won't be this card without this.

If they choose a good card, you gain it. If  they choose a bad card, you do a kind of Mountebank attack. If they choose a mediocre card like Silver, it's not so bad also, you play it twice.

I have an edge case for you: The player to your left reveals a Duchy. There's only one Duchy left, and you know that if either you or your opponent gains it, the game ends and you lose, but you have enough to buy a Province this turn and that would make you win. So your only option is to choose to play it twice. But playing a Duchy doesn't make any sense, as Victories aren't playable. What happens?

Warriors:  It's a clever concept, but I think it may be a bit weak for $4.

I initially thought to put it at , but it's stackable and could give you a lot of +buys, so I think maybe it' OK at . I don't know for sure.

You play Dominion very differently from how I do if you don't think that getting upwards of 4 Buys is needlessly excessive most of the time. The excessive amount of +Buys you can get usually doesn't make up for the fact that it's more expensive than Village and doesn't draw. Because of cards like Villa and Cavalry, the fact that the conversion is mandatory can even be detrimental in some instances.

723

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: December 19, 2020, 06:27:35 pm »

My submission:



This is, ofc, for Nocturne.

724

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Tales & Stories: Some "simple" cards

« on: December 19, 2020, 03:25:37 pm »

What's the timing for gaining a Ruins via Doppelganger's attack? Is it when you play a second copy of any given card? I think it needs rephrasing to make the timing clear.

Yes! When a player plays a second copy of a card they gain a Ruins; not for the first and not for the following copies. I was struggling with the wording quite a bit without making the text too long. Do you have any suggestions how to word it unambiguously (and not too much text)?

"Until your next turn, when any other player plays a second copy of any given Action card, they gain a Ruins."

725

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Tales & Stories: Some "simple" cards

« on: December 19, 2020, 01:24:56 am »

What's the timing for gaining a Ruins via Doppelganger's attack? Is it when you play a second copy of any given card? I think it needs rephrasing to make the timing clear.