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651

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: my cards

« on: October 14, 2015, 05:15:20 am »

That is plain wrong. Say I have $-4. I play Poor House with 4 Treasures. First instruction on Poor House: +$4. Cool, now I have $0. Then: "Reveal your hand. -$1 per Treasure revealed, To a minimum of $0." I cannot go below $0, which is already where I'm at, so the final outcome is $0.

You are awfully arrogant for someone who doesn't even bother reading card texts.

Thanks for the insult.
My mistake, I thought that Poor House provides 0-4 Coins and cannot subtract coins from previously played cards.

Well, I guess that Poor House then mitigates the negative effects of Armada so it could be a potentially powerful combo.

652

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: my cards

« on: October 14, 2015, 05:00:25 am »

If i play Armada and then a Poor House with 4 Treasure cards in hand, do i have $0?

To quote myself:  "There is no interaction between Armada and Poor House as Poor House interacts with Treasure and not with Action cards."
Armada provides - 3, Poor House with 4 treasures 0 and the sum of that is -3.

I'll just state Donald had a reason to introduce the "-$1" token instead of having Bridge Troll say "At the start of his next turn, each other player gets -$1". It avoids exactly the issues people are talking about, and many more that might come up in the future or with translated versions of Dominion.

There are no issues except with Storyteller and this is already solved.
The -1 Coin token exists for tracking reasons (the negative coins from Ball and Bridge Troll happen in the next turn whereas Armada happens in the current turn), not because it achieves something fundamentally mechanically different from -1 Coin. 
The only slight difference is that a hypothetical card with "take your -1 coin token" that applies during the current turn only triggers in the current turn if you play a card which generated coins whereas "-1 coin" provides the negative coins immediately. So the former is slightly nastier than the latter.

I know you make this card for yourself, and that's fine. You can make any card you like. Just don't expect people to be thrilled by something that breaks Dominion's design standards - especially if a cleaner implementation is allready-available.

Armada does not break any design standards. If people do not understand how Poor House works or have problems with summing up positive as well as negative numbers that is their problem.

653

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Resurgence: Library Adventurer's fan expansion (YAFE)

« on: October 14, 2015, 03:11:52 am »

is "topdeck" an official Dominion term? shouldn't that be "put on top of your/their deck"

Nope, it is not even super-proper Oxford English. And despite actually using the term in my native tongue which is not English when playing card games I'd agree with you that it is spoken and not written English and thus does not in general belong on a fan card ... except when there is a reason to do it, like formatting issues due to a lot of text.

654

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: my cards

« on: October 14, 2015, 02:53:23 am »

Just to be totally clear, I wasn't saying that having negative coins is necessarily a bad thing.  I was only reminding you of cases where it's ambiguous, for which you should provide clarifications.  If you don't care about and/or want to ignore these cases entirely, more power to you, but it's something that actually matters for the game.  Like, if you don't want even this level of feedback, what exactly are you looking for?

I already said several times that I first care about whether the idea is interesting. Then I care about whether the non-convexity breaks the card or not. If it doesn't I care about making the card balanced (price and negative coins are the obvious paramaters to change).
Then we can talk about rule issues. So far the only rule issue that occured (the other stuff was just mathematical weakness: having issues with a card which provides negative virtual coins and the resulting summing up of not merely positive numbers and lack of understanding of how Poor House works, specifically that it interacts with Treasure and not with Action cards and that the negative sign in front of a coin is used for internal calculation and does not lead to net negative coins but rather values between 0 and 4) is with Storyteller and ConMan already solved that: you cannot spend negative coins.
But even if this rule issue had not been solved I could not have cared less about it as it is an extremely unlikely combo that occurs in a few games among thousands and so it is of little to no practical relevance. As I already indicated above we have a bit of a game-idelogical difference here, mathematicians vs lawyers: I care more about technical-analytical stuff, whether the card works in general, and you more about rule tightness, whether you could play smoothly with it in all decks without facing any rule questions.


Now that the only rule question has been solved by ConMan to the technical-analytical stuff and the non-convexity problem. How frequently do you guys who have played the game far more often than me guesstimate that decks in which you can forsake card purchases and instead use more spammers or gainers or whatever during the middlegame (it is clear that the card is inferior to Smithy in the opening.) occur? This is what I guess Armada might do, of course you could also use it normally once you have enough coin generation in your deck to counteract Armada's negative coins.

655

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: my cards

« on: October 14, 2015, 02:17:24 am »

And on that note, in addition to the Armada-Storyteller issue, there's also the Armada-Poor House one. If I have $-5 and I play a Poor House with 1 Treasure in hand, do I now have $-1, $-2 or $0? Same situation, but with no Treasures in hand - do I have $-1 or $0?

There is no issue. Poor House does not lead to negative virtual coins (it is the only card with a minus sign in front of virtual coins but this is only used for internal calculation), it leads to virtual coins between 0 and 4. There is no interaction between Armada and Poor House as Poor House interacts with Treasure and not with Action cards. So in the first case you get -5+3=-2 and in the second -5+4=-1.

For that matter, I'm actually not convinced that the interpretation of Armada-Storyteller is right. If I have negative coins, how can I spend them in the first place? I would think it more likely that you have no available coins to spend, hence you would draw no cards and your coin total would stay the same.

Sounds totally reasonable.
But as I already said, for all I care folks could play (not that anybody besides me would ever play with this card in the first place) this unlikely combo however they wished to. I am all for decent rules but in the case of combo-intense card games there are always card interactions that are ambiguous or unclear and if they do not occur frequently it is not something I worry about until it actually happens.

Again, what matters far more from a practical perspective is whether the non-convexity that this very card introduces, willingly forsaking coins and thus the purchase of cards and instead using Armada to draw many card and then play actions card that gain cards or spam or whatever, will break Armada or not.

656

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: my cards

« on: October 13, 2015, 02:18:57 pm »

You were assuming already that the rules deal with math in this case. There could have very easily have been a rule, or even just a clarification in the rules, that states "you can always buy a copper even if you don't have any money."

I were not assuming anything, I just seem to have understood the principles of the rules well enough to apply them appropriately for this card.( Now about how individual cards combo with others, well, like in all combo-intense card games I have to read that stuff up during games.)
If there had been such a rule I would have remembered it as it would have been a fairly nasty example of a badly written rule. But DXV writes decent rulebooks with general principles instead of exceptions over exceptions (card games feature ample of exceptions in the individual card section of the rules), hence ≤ instead of "you can always buy a Copper".

657

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: my cards

« on: October 13, 2015, 02:02:29 pm »

I do not understand the FAQ and uncertainty thingy as the rules are crystal clear on this. If people have a negative total and take a Copper or a Curse they are simply playing the game wrong.

Put it this way... I have played thousands of games of Dominion, and I had to look in the actual rulebook to discover the specific wording of the requirements to buy a card. It's possible that I'm just a special case, but I think it's reasonable to assume that the average player would also not know the specific rule about that without looking in the rulebook first.

I have played far less and I did not know the actual text of the ruls before I read them up ... but the principle of summing up all sources of money and then using it to buy card(s) which cost as much or less than this very total was obvious to me.

That you cannot buy a card which costs 0 if you have -3 is not something that need explaining unless, bluntly speaking, you are playing with a bunch of mathematical imbeciles who are unable to deal with negative numbers. As my gaming group does not consist of mathematical imbeciles I do not worry about them not understanding that -4<0.

658

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: my cards

« on: October 13, 2015, 01:59:59 pm »

And there's not anything automatically wrong with creating a new game-wide rule. You can rule that it's impossible to "spend" negative coins, thus Storyteller wouldn't make you spend or draw anything. You could rule that you can spend negative coins, but because you can't draw negative cards, you just don't draw. Or could could rule that drawing -1 card means discarding 1 card, but that seems really weird. The point is you have to create a new rule in Dominion.

As I said, my priorities are first to first determine whether negative virtual coins for a hgue card draw is an interesting idea and worthwhile in the first place and second to then balance the card.
I do not really care about how you handle Storyteller with negative coins as I randomize all card so the chance that Storyteller and Armada appear in one game are a a few per mille. If you guys have a strong opinion on that I will role with it. My intuition is that negative coins should translate into drawing 0 cards but if somebody wants it to translate into discarding cards I see nothing wrong with that. All I see is that the latter makes Storyteller as well as Armada weaker when both are present.

659

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: my cards

« on: October 13, 2015, 01:49:30 pm »

Why would you have to discard cards? I mean, it may be comparable to think of discarding a card to be the same thing as drawing -1 cards, but that's certainly not any kind rule that exists in Dominion. Actually it would be more accurate to say you put a card on top of your deck, but that's still not anything that exists in the rules.

As I said, for all I care you can play however you want to if this rare instance of a Golem-ed or Herald-ed Storyteller in the presence of Armada occurs.
I do not worry about improbable combos and borderline rule issues but about whether the card is balanced and whether the idea of negative virtual coins is interesting in the first place.

But it would still cause uncertainty due to the real-life issue of being able to take things that cost $0 no matter how much negative money you have.

I do not understand the FAQ and uncertainty thingy as the rules are crystal clear on this. If people have a negative total and take a Copper or a Curse they are simply playing the game wrong.
If you refer to the habbit of thinking that you can always take a Copper or a Curse, well, this might be indeed a practical problem but I think that in my playing group people would be surprised or pissed off about a negative total that they would be quite aware that they could not even buy a Copper.

660

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: my cards

« on: October 13, 2015, 01:38:53 pm »

What do you mean by negative coins?  This isn't covered by Dominion rules so you'll need to clarify some things.

In Dominion you accumulate all your money income, be it from Action or Treasure cards. Having a negative value in there doesn't really change anything. If you play e.g. Armada and later play 2 Coppers during your Buy phase you have a total of -1 (-3+1+1) so you cannot buy anything. If you had played a Peddler, an Armada and 2 Gold instead you'd have a total of 4 (+1-3+3+3) and could buy a card costing up to three.

This is by the way what I mainly worry about. In a deck which has trash for benefit, spammers or others stuff that doesn't make buying cards the first priority Armada could be too strong as you could draw a lot of cards, use them and happily forsake some coins and thus the purchase of an expensive card.

One one hand no, because $0 is more than $-1. On the other hand, as a general rule, people who are in debt can still afford free stuff.

There are no ambiguties and negative virtual coins are actually covered by the rules:

The player may play some or all of the Treasure cards from his hand to his play area and add to their value the coins  provided by Action cards played this turn. The player may then gain any card in the Supply of equal or lesser value.

And then as eHalcyon said, what happens when you play Storyteller? How do you spend $-2 money, and when you do, how do you draw -2 cards?

You'd never play Storyteller if you had to discard cards. Sure, there is Golem and Herald but if you really have a board with Golem/Herald, Storyteller and Armada you can play it as you want to, i.e. that Storyteller translates negative coins into discarding or that you do not discard anything with Storyteller.

661

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: my cards

« on: October 13, 2015, 01:29:48 pm »

What do you mean by negative coins?  This isn't covered by Dominion rules so you'll need to clarify some things.

In Dominion you accumulate all your money income, be it from Action or Treasure cards. Having a negative value in there doesn't really change anything. If you play e.g. Armada and later play 2 Coppers during your Buy phase you have a total of -1 (-3+1+1) so you cannot buy anything. If you had played a Peddler, an Armada and 2 Gold instead you'd have a total of 4 (+1-3+3+3) and could buy a card costing up to 4.

The former example or more specifically, willingly risking to get little to no or negative total coins, is by the way what I mainly worry about. In a deck which has trash for benefit, spammers or others stuff that doesn't make buying cards the first priority Armada could be too strong as you could draw a lot of cards, use them and happily forsake some coins and thus the purchase of an expensive card.

662

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: my cards

« on: October 13, 2015, 06:34:44 am »

- Armada - Action

+5 Cards
-

I wanted to do a card with negative virtual coins and a terminal draw was the obvious choice. This might be too strong so the two other options I consider is to price it at 5 or to change the coins to -4.

663

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: my cards

« on: October 13, 2015, 04:56:39 am »

I do not think that Trade Route is a bad card. I just find it hard to imagine a LIKELY (of course anybody can come up with an extreme deck whioch contains ample of Victory cards) concrete deck with Trade Route and Forager in which anybody would buy the former instead of the latter.

So if there are two official cards which are very similar and one is virtually always inferior to the other I do not think that there would be a practical problem (unless one plays, like EHalcyon said, with a lot of cards from one set) with "discard a Card, +2 Cards, +1 Action" at 4$ or "+2 Cards, +1 Action, discard a Card" at 5.
Obviously it would still violate a fairly obvious design principle but my point is that there are ample of official cards which are weak/strong at their price.



- Granary - Action

+1 Action
Set aside a card from your hand.
OR
Gain for each differently named set aside card. Discard all set aside cards.

I named and changed Granary. The easiest way would have been to get rid of the bonus but I want it to remain for thematic reasons. I also like Intrigue and cards which give you options.
Now instead of being a bit too strong as before the card might be a bit too weak ... but then again the bonus is probably stronger than Harvest (you use the second option late in the game you you have already set aside Coppers, Estates and Provinces plus curses or another Victory card: so we have a rough average of 4, respectively in Shelter games 6).

664

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: my cards

« on: October 11, 2015, 02:55:24 am »

While I totally agree with you that there shouldn't exist a strictly inferior card at an identical price  I'd also like to point out that the practical chances of drawing Lab and this hypothetical Lab variant are, if you play with all expansions, around 0.002-0.003.
I also think that while Trade Route is not strictle inferior to Forager it is hard to imagine an actual deck in which anybody would buy Trade Route instead of Forager.

665

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Trying to get the number increaser to work

« on: October 11, 2015, 01:52:54 am »

The duration part is definitely unnecessary and might make the card too strong. I am not sure whether the card has to cost 5 as I just analyzed Peddler variants.

- Terminal draws are getting decent boni, a Moat becomes a Smithy and a Smithy becomes a Huntring Ground.
- A lot of action cards provide two virtual Coins so here Year of Plenty is also very good.

- Extra Buys beyond the second one are rarely very valuable (except to gain Peddlers or if you want to buy a lot of cards but then you usually already have an engine which provides a huge pile of $ and Buys).
- Village-ifying Action cards that provide + 1 Action can be essential on boards without villages and if there are villages you avoid having to buy (so many of) them via Year of Plenty, akin to cards like Throne Room or Golem.

So all of the boni except for the extra Buys seem to be useful and I'd agree with you that testing it at 5 is a good idea. I also think that using decks in which Throne Room and Year of Plenty are present could provide some insights concerning the strength of your card.

666

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Trying to get the number increaser to work

« on: October 10, 2015, 03:56:41 am »

I think in the presence of Peddler variants this is overpowered. For example Year of Plenty and Market is identical to a throned Market but when you play a second action card Year of Plenty becomes strictly better than a Throne Room. Furthermore if Throne Room is the only Action card in your hand it is dead whereas Year of Plenty leads to an additional card in the next turn.

I do not think that these advantages of Year of Plenty over Throne Room compensate for its disadvantages, i.e. not being able to pimp terminal draws as much as Throne Room.

667

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: my cards

« on: October 08, 2015, 08:22:42 am »

- Melee Island - Action - Attack

Every other player discards a Treasure card or reveals a hand with no Treasure cards and takes his - Token.
Use the effects of one of the discarded Treasure cards at the beginning of your Buy phase or gain a Coin token.

I changed Melee Island as the previous Curser version was too strong. Opening with two Melee Islands might still be too abusive, especially with 3 and 4 players, but as always only playtesting will reveal this.

668

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: my cards

« on: October 08, 2015, 08:18:01 am »

As it is, the +$ option is just needless extra power and complexity.  If you drop that, then I think it would be great to start testing at $5.  And from there, I would expect that it would either prove excellent at that price or need a cost increase, given its huge mid-game utility in stashing away Provinces.  That, or a drop down in price to $2 a la Chapel.

During playtesting I first want it to stay in for thematic reasons as I named my card Granary. Of course an Action card that can once during the game provide 2-6 Gold (2 if you only set aside Estates and Coppers, 6 if you also set aside Curses, Duchies, Provinces and another Victory card or a weak Action card) is strong but I like that it incentives players to set aside a variety of cards and that it makes them become sensitive to shuffle-timing issues (you want to use this quasi one-shot effect before the game ends and before you reshuffle and draw a lot of the previously set aside cards).

If the card is too strong I will drop this very bonus or add a malus.

It's mentioned in the secret history of Hinterlands, specifically concerning Inn, and mentioned again in passing in the secret history of Dark Ages, as an outtake.

I vaguely remember seeing Donald write about it as an example of a card that can't exist at any price point (being too strong for $4 but almost strictly inferior to Lab), but I can't find it now.  It may have just been a comment in some regular discussion thread.

Thanks. Even if Donald didn't say it it is definitely correct that such a card would be too weak fpr 5 and too strong for 4.

669

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: my cards

« on: October 08, 2015, 01:43:00 am »

Given how you refuse to seriously consider the very constructive input everybody has given about your Upgrade variant, I don't know if you'd actually appreciate more feedback. 

Discussion 101: just because somebody doesn't agree with you doesn't imply that he did not think about your arguments. 

For practical reasons, i.e. concerning my card, this theoretical discussiont doesn't matter much as the price will be fixed at 5 anyway and all I'll do is twiddle with the bonus, respectively add a malus if you guys turn out to be right concerning how strong the card is.

PM: On a sidenote, do you have a link to the Lab+discard card you mentioned? I went through the Outtakes and did not seem to find it.

670

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Something Simple

« on: October 07, 2015, 03:31:36 pm »

I think that this is too weak for a 4. +1 Card is most likely weaker than the +2$ of Monument and I doubt that you'd use this card as pseudo-village except perhaps in decks without any villages.
So I suggest to stick to the original version. If it is too strong / abusive you can still price it at 5.

671

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: my cards

« on: October 07, 2015, 03:24:17 pm »

What about the -3 point Junk Dealer will ALWAYS cost you when comparing the two? Curses are in every other game, but you actually think Shelters are more relevant than games without Cursers? Or rather, games without Cursers you want to play yourself. I mean, all ten Curses? You plan to trash down and not use the new potential of your deck to play a Curser yourself? Ten plays, that's quite a few shuffles for such a thin deck.

I read this three times and still have no idea what you are talking about.

Anyway, this card will stay at 5 as I consider a mandatory cantrip trasher to be balanced at 4. Without intending to be rude, the argument brought forth that a mandatory cantrip trasher is an superstrong 4 or even a 5 is utterly ridiculous given that it would be strictly inferior to Junk Dealer and Upgrade which are also priced at 5.

If somebody has constructive input concerning the other cards I'd appreciate it.

672

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: my cards

« on: October 07, 2015, 08:17:36 am »

It doesn't just enable "earlier" greening, but getting points without what "greening" implies at all, namely clogging your deck.

As I said, it enables earlier / more frequent greening and makes alt-VP more attractive at the costs of not getting rid of the negative VPs of set aside curses.

After thinking a bit more about this, i tend to say that even for $5, it might be brokenly powerful.

I seriously doubt that it is overpowered at 5 without its bonus. You'd often rather want an integrated Peddler (Junk Dealer) or early in the game transform an Estate into a Silver instead of preserve one VP (Upgrade). The card only becomes better than trashing once you actually do green. Earlier it is strictly worse than existing cantrip trasher.

673

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Something Simple

« on: October 07, 2015, 04:32:28 am »

neither would a non-terminal VP token gaining card as the player who does not use them still buys cards

As it says in the Secret Histories, Donald X. tested it and the cantrip +VP leads to unending games where players actively avoid buying cards.

Yep. But here we talk about a non-cantrip, non-terminal VP token gainer.

This very card most likely gains far less VP tokens than Goons as the VP tokens it gains will be used often enough to draw cards. Goons is after all, besides being by far the strognest VP token gainer, a Militia with an extra buy and thus clearly overpowered at 6 whereas the card in this very thread does just gain VP tokens that can be spent to draw cards
I think that the this is simple trade-off but a new one that is IMO quite interesting. If the card is too strong one could price it at 5.

674

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: my cards

« on: October 07, 2015, 04:12:54 am »

Cantrip trashing + a small bonus sits comfortably at $5.

I disagree. You gotta differentiate between mandatory and normal cantrip trashing (or something like Upgrade which is a mandatory trasher but due to its Remodel ability it doesn't force-trash good cards during the later part of the game). A cantrip trasher might be a strong 4 or a weak 5 but a mandatory cantrip trasher is a balanced 4 IMO.

What "normal" cantrip trashing are you talking about?  Junk Dealer and Upgrade are both mandatory trashers that sit comfortably at $5.  The only other cantrip trasher is Rats, which isn't really a trasher at all.  Upgrade absolutely does force you to trash cards during the late game.  It sounds like you are misunderstanding how the official cards work.

Gee, of course all of this is conceptural. There doesn't exist a non-mandatory cantrip trasher (except for, very losely speaking, Ratcatcher which has the disadvantage of having to be played at the beginning of your turn) but we talk about a hypothetical, the balanced price of a hypothetical mandatory or non-mandatory cantrip trasher.
The disadvantage of mandatory cantrip trashers is that it is either a dead card as you do not wanna trash anything anymore or a risky choice (with Lookout this risk decision occurs earlier). Upgrade is a quasi non-mandatory trasher as it remodels at the same time so it dampens (if you trash a good Action card you still got it out of your current shuffle cycle so it does hurt you but not as much as having to trash the good Action card) the disadvantage of being mandatory.

I think you also underestimate the use cases of setting aside cards. It allows picking up any Victory card and keeping its points without it clogging your deck.

Obviously enabling earlier greening (at the cost of not getting rid of the negative Vps of Curses) is one of the points of the card.

There's a reason Island removes itself from your deck and is terminal.

Island also provides VPs. Without the 2VPs it is probably worth 0 or 1.

I think that even just a cantrip setting aside stuff would be okay for $5.

Could be. I am probably gonna print the card as it is and test it with and without the bonus. As the bonus is without the cantrip and probably will only be applied once during the game it is tricky to evaluate. It all depends on how often 'gifting you a bunch of coppers to buy an extra Province in the endgame' occurs.

675

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Something Simple

« on: October 07, 2015, 02:19:19 am »

Like Goons which can lead to games with 20 VP tokens or more?
People who worry about fan made VP token gaining cards leading to a stall might wanna stop playing with the very official VP token gaining cards which actually do break the game.

How does Goons break the game? It doesn't lead the game to a stall.

Goons breaks the game because among the three VP token gaining cards this very card amasses on average by far the most VP tokens. Bishop Fortress is just one combo that occurs infrequently and Monument provides on average the fewest VP tokens but Goons leads to a huge pile of them in many different kinds of decks.

Now you are of course right, Goons does not technically lead the game to a stall (neither would a non-terminal VP token gaining card as the player who does not use them still buys cards). But the player with the smoothly Goons engine has no incentive to end the game so he might e.g. still buy further villages and Goons for his engine and green fairly late.

Theoretical worries like Monument + KC that rarely occur or the lack of incentive to end the game in the presence of non-terminal VP token gaining cards are kinda strange when the elephant in the room, Goons, is ignored.