The thing with the gardens is they like Mountebank once the curses are out. Avoid discarding a curse, get copper, and potentially increase the worth of gardens? Chancellor is worth more with that kind of board.So by some sort of consensus, almost everybody thinks that either Mountebank or Cultist is the best. How do you guys counter them when they are on the board (apart from just getting them yourself)?
Vineyards sometimes doesn't mind Ruins, and Gardens sometimes doesn't mind the junk Mountebank gives you. If you can use Save repeatedly on a Moat or something that works too. But this is very rare, the counter almost always involves going for them yourself.
Excuse me for not being an expert player then. And my love for minion megaturns is not because I got it from the bots, I had been doing that IRL long before I discovered the website. Thanks for ruining my self-esteem, by the way.Don't know about other places, but in the official play dominion app/program/website, the ai's love minion megaturns, and I tend to agree.The AI bots are ludicrously weak and easy to beat, and getting strategy ideas from Bots is not a recommendable idea.
No votes for Rabble yet?
Cellar is particularly good with draw-to-X cards, such as watchtower. It not only decreases your handsize, but also gets rid of those cards you otherwise wouldn't have a way of getting out of your hand before playing your draw-to-X card, such as Watchtower.Library. That's the base set card you're looking for.
Wiccan:...the naming is a bit unfortunate. I don't think naming cards after actual religions is a great idea.I had no idea that this was a religion. It was something I heard somewhere that sounded cool. reminded me of the word witch (after a bit of googling just now, I discovered that this indeed stems from that word) so I used it for a witch-like card. That will definitely be changed.
But how about some positive suggestions! You have some interesting ideas, but you don't have the practice with implementing them. I know you said that you didn't test the cards, so don't take anything you read in this thread too hard; practice makes perfect. If you want your set to revolve around Curses, you can use that as a theme, but you don't want the theme to be "All these cards are mean," or "All these cards have penalties." If you want to have cards that give out Curses, you might want twice as many cards that make Curses fun! Try a card that says "Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. If you revealed a Curse, +(3). Otherwise, each other player gains a Curse. (something something any order)." I don't know how much that should cost, or if it's hopelessly broken, but it makes seeing that Curse in your deck not heart-wrenchingly sad and it stays useful when the Curse pile runs out. Or something like "+4 Cards, +1 Buy. Trash a card from your hand. Discard a number of cards equal to its cost in ( )." I don't know if this one is broken either, but it gives Curses a valuable place in your hand and is still useful if there are no cards that give out Curses; plus it gives a way to get more fuel, (but that might need to be cut after testing it.) So there are plenty of ways to make Curses useful, you just need those cards to make a Curse theme fun. If you need some more ideas, try checking out cards like Ironmonger, Vagrant, and Fortune Teller.Other people had pointed out that a lot of these use curses, but you are the first to try to make that work. So, thanks.
Theif only affects treasures, a plentiful, non-scoring resource.Unless you have intrigue and Harem is in the kingdom. Granted, like sabotaging a Colony, it is only a four point swing, but for some kingdoms, that could be life or death. Heck, I've won a game with negative vp! so a four point swing can be a big difference. just arguing an edge case.
Secluded TownshipEvery set needs a village, right? Upon further review, I think this would do better at $3, but the original idea is set at four.
Action $4
+1 Card
+2 actions
When you buy this, you may gain a curse. If you do, put this on top of your deck.
(Unnamed)We wanted something different that hadn't been done. So here it is. I think the top could be better to warrant the $4, though.
Action-Reaction $4
+$2
When you would trash a card, you may reveal this card in your hand. If you do, discard that card instead. Then discard this card.
Toll Booth
Action-Duration $4
+$2
Until your next turn, during each other player's turn, cards in the supply cost $2 more.
(Unnamed 2)This was the only card to be playtested. Seemed fine at four, but further playtesting may or may not change that.
Treasure-Attack $4
Worth $1
When you gain this, each other player may gain a curse. If no one does, gain a Gold.
MillThis one's interesting. It's not strictly better than lab, but it isn't strictly worse either. It all really depends on how you want to use it and when.
Action $5
+2 Cards
+1 Action
Choose one: Trash a card from your hand, or discard two cards.
(Unnamed 3)The gold was originally a duchy, but I wasn't sure about that on posting and changed it here.
Action $6
+2 cards
+1 coin
Choose one: either all cards cost $1 less this turn, or gain a gold.
(Unnamed 4)It's strictly better than militia, and around the same as witch, since it can still attack after the curses are out, but you would usually rather have the second card than the coin.
Action-Attack $5
+1 card
+1 coin
Choose 1: Each other player gains a curse, or each other player discards down to three cards in hand.
(Unnamed 5)Appears strictly better than witch, so it can't cost $5. Not sure how that will work out in playtesting though.
Action-Attack $6
+2 cards
Each other player gains a curse. You may gain a curse. If you do, each other player gains a second curse.
ExtortionistThis originally got you silver, but then I thought that people would almost never take the curse unless there were feodums (never figured out how that was pronounced) or gardens. However, there are situations where people want silver or even copper (ex. Counting House and/or Coppersmith engines) over gold, so I just added variable cost, which also allows for the gaining of kingdom treasures as well. sot sure if I should just limit it to the base cards though. My sister came up with the original effect, I just tweaked it a bit and gave it an awesome, flavorful name.
Action-Attack $6
Each other player gains a curse. Any player may gain a second curse. For each player who does not, gain a treasure card costing up to $6
BribeWe were looking for interesting things to do with durations, and I really liked the name bribe, so we put them both into one card.
Action-Duration $5
Until the start of your next turn, once during each player's buy phase, that player may have +$3. At the start of your next turn, for each player who did, gain a gold, putting it on top of your deck.
Yeah, I guess reserve makes the most sense. Didn't think about the option of reserve cards, since they didn't do that in the set already and I haven't had adventures for very long.Another thing I just thought of: a season-duration with an extra effect if the season changes while it's in play. And another thing you could do with a season-reaction is to make it react to the change in seasons.
It's a cool idea, but the problem is that seasons usually don't change more than 3 times in a game. If the effect is weak-to-mediocre, then the unreliability is enough that the reaction simply wouldn't matter; from a design perspective, you might as well not include it at all. But if the effect strong enough to make the reaction worthwhile, then it becomes swingy. The difference between a win and a loss may come down to whether you are lucky enough to have the reaction in my hand when the season changes, and there's not a lot you can do to influence that. Duration works a little better, but not much. For this concept, a Reserve would probably be the best way to go.
It's of course incredibly tempting to just make a card that is four cards, but Sojourner comes close enough to check that from our list, and you really don't want that many of those. The different effects can't be too complex, either, so the number of different cards you can make this way is limited.
A Season-Reaction might be a thing, but i'm not sure whether that's too complicated...
Well, the obvious problem with a non-Season card that interacts with Season cards is that it has to make sure there is a Season card in the kingdom. So, the only way would be a setup clause or a non-supply Season card. But then, the Season Type is mostly a reminder to put the Season Mat out and move its token, and so i think it should be on the supply card. So, a Season supply card with a non-Season non-supply card. Something like a Traveller that changes into one of two cards depending on Season, maybe? Just, i'm not sure the Traveller Mechanic isn't a bit too complicated to combine with Seasons, and well, Student is kind of an "evolving" card already. And for another Season card with some non-supply extra, well, we simply never thought about it and didn't have a compelling idea that made it seem worth. I think a card should be a cool idea that happens to nee an extra pile, not the wish to have extra piles and looking for a way to get there.Never really thought about the need to ensure the existence of a season card when I thought of this. If you do end up expanding this into a full set anyway, even though that was not your original intention, I think the idea is still worth consideration, but the set looks pretty much good as is for being a half-set. So if you don't feel the need for this type of mechanic, that is perfectly fine. I personally would still like to see this expand into a full set (maybe with a season-treasure or something?) but it definitely isn't necessary. Anyway, just my thoughts on the matter. This will definitely be something to try playing with either way. Thank you for your amazing job on this.
Last option, a setup clause, but man, that would mean having one of those few cards always in the same game with this one, i'm not sure how i feel about that. Or maybe give another card the Season type? But all of this sounds like it isn't worth the effort. Lastly, the option to make a card that can care for Seasons, but doesn't mind if there are no cards like that, similar to Apprentice. There might be something here, but i think if a card would be fine without naming Seasons, it should not name Seasons. And a card that requires a Season card but does nothing to ensure it's there, well, i think i can be so honest to say i wouldn't want that.
Well, I just had a thought. You have all your season cards, but what about a non-season card that does stuff when you have seasons? Like:QuoteHarvest Village-$4Or maybe an attack that deals with season cards but is not necessarily a season card itself. like:
+1 card
+2 actions
You may discard a season card. If you do, +1 cardQuoteForest Bandits-$3Just some ideas. Granted, Forest bandits is a cheap militia in kingdoms without season cards, but it's just something I came up off the top of my head. Something like that might be interesting to play around with. Also, I would like to add that this could easily be expanded upon and turned into a full 25 card expansion.
+$2
Each other player may discard a season card. Each player that does not discards down to three cards in hand
This is not a bad idea! We never actually thought about cards that interact with Season cards without being Season cards. However, those two particular card categories are already represented in our set (the last card is going to be, at least partially, a discard attack).
Also we're quite happy with Seasons being a small expansion.
Harvest Village-$4Or maybe an attack that deals with season cards but is not necessarily a season card itself. like:
+1 card
+2 actions
You may discard a season card. If you do, +1 card
Forest Bandits-$3Just some ideas. Granted, Forest bandits is a cheap militia in kingdoms without season cards, but it's just something I came up off the top of my head. Something like that might be interesting to play around with. Also, I would like to add that this could easily be expanded upon and turned into a full 25 card expansion.
+$2
Each other player may discard a season card. Each player that does not discards down to three cards in hand
I also think what you might have not considered is that each of these cards should work by themselves with 9 other cards from the official game and its expansions...And someone else mentioned that cards that reward potions in costs is against the original idea of alchemy. Upon further review, I agree completely. I'm going to end up redesigning this completely, and putting it up again at a later date, probably one card at a time, then compiling them all into the final set once I'm happy with them individually. Thank you again for all your feedback.
I think you might be better off to just ditch the PP-cost "gimmick" altogether. What makes Alchemy great is that you can occasionally get somewhat better cards if you are lucky enough to have a single key card on your hand. I think you should rather focus on doing things with the actual potion card and not try to create alternate sources of potions or try to make Alchemy cards even more expensive.
