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26

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion Exhibition mini set

« on: January 21, 2019, 02:37:09 pm »

#11 Dual type
Agent ($4 Action-Victory)
+2 Cards
Move the token on the Agent mat to the next square if possible.
At the end of the game, this is worth the number of points indicated on the square with the Agent token.
Setup: each player puts an Agent token on the first square of their Agent mat.

Extra information: the Agent mat has 16 squares on it with the following labels: 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5.

#12 Non-terminal drawer
Home Laboratory ($4 Action)
+1 Action
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal 2 cards costing at most $4. Put these into your hand and discard the other revealed cards.

#13 One Shot
Chaplain ($3 Action)
Return this to the Chaplain pile. Trash any number of cards from your hand.
When you buy this, you may trash any number of cards from your hand.

#14 Self synergising
Study ($3 Action)
+1 Card
+1 Action
Reveal your hand. +1 Card for every Study in your hand.

#15 $2
Night Shift ($2 Action)
+1 Card
+1 Action
Gain a coin token.
All cards cost $1 more this turn (before any cost reductions).

More thoughts.

Off the top of my head these 5 cards are all very solid. Nitpicks will abound below.

Agent is good, test for balance of course, but the idea is very sound. It's maybe a bit too powerful with King's Courts and the like, though; I wonder if it should cap at 4VP instead of 5VP; 4VP for a $4 victory is already great. But, there's a risk involved in buying something for $4 that might end up being only 1VP, plus you need to buy this early and use it if it's going to be any reward at all, so you're giving up buying and using other cards; so perhaps the huge payoff is worth the significant strategic risk.

Home Laboratory is a good design as written. It might even be a bit weak; I could see it as a $3 card (compare it to Seer, which is a $5 but can't pick up $0-1 cost junk).

Chaplain is good, a 2-use Chapel of sorts. I think it might need to cost a bit more, though, as it might be too convenient to purchase in early game. I guess the question becomes how powerful the boost is when you buy it turn 1 or 2 to removes some Estates and coppers. As usual, testing will tell.

Study.... Study might need to cost less. The reason is that Study is basically a no-card if it is the only Study in your hand. It's also a no-card if it's the last Study you play this turn. So basically:
5 card hand, 1 study: study is worthless ($0-1 value)
5 card hand, 2 studies: study draws 2 cards (laboratory! $5 value) but if it doesn't draw another study, then the 2nd study is worthless.
5 card hand, 3 studies: study draws 3 cards (OP!!!) and then probably spirals out of control if you have more studies!!!
I find that the projected power of study, then, is based on the number of studies you can have in your deck vs the size of your deck. A 15-card deck with 5 studies in it is probably obscenely good, but otherwise it's maybe underpowered? There's also a problem of player count; if everyone goes for the dream of endless Studies, then the more players there are, the worse it is. That said, I think the downside of Studies being bad if you don't have many will offset them nicely in a 4-player game. So just food for thought: may be more powerful in 2-player than in 4.

Night Shift: As I understand it, this basically takes $1 from this turn and saves it for later, by making cards cost more. In some ways, it'd be better balanced if it simply was "+1 Card, +1 Action, when you discard this from play, +1 Coffer". At the same time, if you have, say, Butcher, then trashing a card to get its cost in Coffers, this would be great. Except that's really the only scenario in which it's all that great; I supposed you could also make certain other cards with price bands behave differently, but not enough for it to matter and usually you don't want cards that normally cost 0 to start costing 2 or 3. So, unless I'm missing something (which is pretty likely) I would price this card at $0 or $1 as written; if you used my suggestion, I'd probably still cost it at $1 or $2; see Ducat for instance (for counterexample, see Baker).

Anyhow, those are my thoughts! I'll try get to the last 3 soon!

27

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion Exhibition mini set

« on: January 18, 2019, 11:13:15 am »

#6 Trash for benefit
Pension ($2 Action-Duration)
Trash a card from your hand. Place a token on the square corresponding to the trashed card's $ cost. At the end of this and subsequent turns: if the token is on 1 or more, keep this in play, and next turn: +$1, move the token down one square.

Extra information: the picture on the Pension card consists of 8 squares in a 3x3 grid labelled (clockwise) 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7+.

#7 Village
Gaulish Village ($3 Action-Duration)
+1 Card
+1 Action
At the end of this and subsequent turns: if you played at least 2 actions during the turn, keep this in play, and next turn: +1 Action.

#8 Non-attack interaction
Counsel ($5 Action)
+1 Action
Reveal all the cards in your hand. The player to your left chooses one. Either: gain a copy of it; trash it, +1 Card; or discard it, +3 Cards.

#9 Terminal silver
Spring Clean ($3 Action)
+$2
Name a card. Look through your deck, and discard any number of occurences of the card. Shuffle your deck.

#10 Potion cost
Transmogrify ($3P Action)
+1 Action
Discard a card. Gain a card costing up to $1 more than it, putting it into your hand.

Pension: Probably okay, although I would actually change the mechanic to using Coffers, which would then make the card stronger, so you'd have to recost it. Something like:
Trash a card from your hand. For each $ it cost, put a Coffer on this. At the end of each turn that this is in play, take a Coffer from this.
Duration rules should handle the rest.

Gaulish Village: the card design is really good, but seems pretty powerful, as long as I own enough actions to keep it going. Compare it to Walled Village (+1 Card +2 Actions, if you have this and no more than one other action in play, put this on top of your deck.) You're not getting the +1 Card +1 Action of playing it again on subsequent turns, but you're also not having it take up a card in your hand nor stopping you from playing more than 1 action if you're going to continue it, so I'm thinking this is at least $4 if not $5. And it's lacking an obvious Asterix reference

Counsel: I feel like this card is a lot more powerful than it looks, because of the third option. If the third option wasn't there, the card would probably be weak, but fun; it either trashes weak cards or gains middling actions. Probably in practice it gives you a Silver or $2-4 Action each turn, or trashes a Copper. This is already okay, but not great; on the other hand you might be lucky enough to play out a lot of the bad options and force a player to choose Province, that's broken, although it's also a huge reward for playing really smart, so it's probably okay. But then you add option 3, which is where the card gets too good. You can turn the card into a laboratory that costs 4, with the only drawback being that you discarded a card that was too crappy or too slow to warrant getting a copy of for free. I would recommend either making the third option be -1 Card +2 Cards, or jacking the price of the card up to $5. All in all, the card is a really good design, as it makes for a lot of options, I just think that the third option is a Get Out Of Jail Free option. Plus, I don't know how much better players than me will be able to pull off a "gives me a free Province or Colony" move with success. I'm also thinking about King's Court + Counsel being an easy way to make this happen.

Spring Clean: it's a great idea. However... Tunnel. I almost want you to add the word "non-Reaction" to the rules. Or accept that it's a great thing to say Tunnels and move on

Transmogrify: This was clearly created before Donald's Transmogify was a thing, so it probably needs a new name. I think it's pretty solid, since it's discard for benefit vs say, Improve. Since it's a Potion card, I think that you could rebrand this as sort of a superior golem-type clone, where a person is replaced by a better simula of themselves. Test for cost, of course; this is a pretty powerful card.

28

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion Exhibition mini set

« on: January 17, 2019, 06:20:41 pm »

More useful thoughts...

#1 Peddler variant
Informer ($5 Action-Attack)
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
You may reveal a card from your hand. Discard it or put it on top of your deck. Each other player reveals a card from their hand costing more than it (or reveals a hand with no such cards), and discards it or puts it on top of their deck, your choice.

#2 Curser
Witch Doctor ($4 Action-Attack)
+2 Cards
Each other player gains a Curse, putting it in their hand. Any player that did may set aside a card from their hand face down, returning it to their deck at the end of the game.

#3 Victory Card
Artwork ($4 Victory)
At the end of the game, the first Artwork in your deck is worth 1VP, the second 2VP, the third 3VP, and so on.

#4 Terminal draw
Master Smithy ($5 Action)
Set aside any number of cards from your hand. Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal 3 cards different from the set-aside cards. Put these into your hand and discard the other revealed and set-aside cards.

#5 Deck improver
Patent ($3 Action)
+1 Action
Reveal and set aside a card from your hand. Look through your discard pile, reveal any number of occurences of that card, and shuffle them into your deck. Discard the set-aside card.

Informer: There's a reason why Spy was removed from the game. Partly because it was week, partly because it slowed the game down. A stronger Spy isn't necessarily a good thing, and this one is maybe a bit too strong? But it's just as (or maybe even more) slow as Spy. It's an interesting idea, though; I'd probably change the attack to "each other player discards a card that costs more than it (or reveals they can't)" and let it whiff on Provinces. If that's too weak, maybe make it put Victory cards discarded this way back on top of their deck.

Witch Doctor: Love it; this card has everything going for it; it's an Island and a Witch; it's a Doctor. My only question is whether it's too weak at $4, since it can help your opponents so nicely (or nastily, since they can't actually remove a Curse that it "treated".) Possibly consider increasing the power level of card's vanilla ability.

Artwork: Hmmm. On the one hand I would caution you that this card is much better in 2-player than in 4-player; it's very likely that in a 2-player game, each player could have 5 or 6 copies, so going for it would be mandatory; in 4 player, 3 copies is more likely, in which it's less good. But, in both cases if the/an other player doesn't go for it, then they have to race you with conventional means. If they can't ever win in a race against it, then the card is mandatory. I suspect the card is always mandatory in 2-player, since if you don't go for it, then I do and you can't keep up (assumedly) but in 3 or 4 player it gets less mandatory, although I don't know if it gets less enough.

Master Smithy: This is an extraordinarily powerful card! While it's not perfectly going to work every time, I could set aside all of the cards that I have that are not King's Courts and Bridges and play this card... etc. This seems too good. At the same time, I haven't tested it, either. It does seem like a great concept, though. Perhaps it should be 2 cards instead of 3? But then it might be too weak and not enough of a Smithy.

Patent: I love this idea. Give up a card now to increase its appearance rate. I think it's perfect as-is, of course pending extra testing to make sure the cost is right.

29

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion Exhibition mini set

« on: January 15, 2019, 11:00:58 am »

Overall, first impression, these are good card ideas. Very creative; give yourself applause!

Gaulish Village seems like it needs to do something with a Potion, like, make it a duration that protects you from attacks if you set it aside with a Potion.

Counsel seems like it's pretty much going to be used as +1 Action, Discard a card, +3 Cards almost all the time.

Pension almost seems like it would be easier to use if it put X coffers on itself and gave you a coffer each turn.

I have more thoughts, but these were my first impression.

30

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Wiki option?

« on: January 08, 2019, 10:05:23 am »

I've been tempted to do something like this, with a built-in randomizer driven by a rules engine.
I've had a few thoughts on how to do it, but the question is cost (mostly time cost). I'm not sure how much use it would get.

31

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: [Release] Dominion: Antiquities!

« on: January 07, 2019, 06:15:40 pm »

If I have 3 cost-reducers in play and I play a Curio, can I take and play the whole pile of Curios?

Also, the art is amazing.

Yes. I can't decide if that's a good play or not.

Thanks, Jan is really really good. I wish he'd send a portfolio to Jay at RGG already.

32

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: [Release] Dominion: Antiquities!

« on: January 02, 2019, 06:30:51 pm »

Hi, sorry for the late reply; I was sick over Christmas and then, well, Christmas happened.

Okay, really I got Smash Ultimate for Christmas... you know how it goes.

Cloudu, thanks for your kind words! Good luck with your expansions

Majiponi, in accordance with the rulesheet, you do not shuffle a card into a pile if there are no cards remaining in the pile after the event that triggers the "shuffle into" occurs.
So specifically, if you buy the last Duchy from the Supply (when you have played Discovery) you do not shuffle this into Duchy's pile.
It's a bit weird and I waffled back and forth with it, but settled on this way as being somewhat harder to exploit.

33

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: [Release] Dominion: Antiquities!

« on: December 14, 2018, 04:58:24 pm »

Curio doesn't set aside the gained card before playing it (like Innovation). This means that you can trash it with Watchtower and play it from trash. Since Curio lost track of it, it would stay in trash. Or you could top-deck it with Royal Seal, Watchtower, Tracker, etc, and play it without moving it into play. Probably not what you want.

Too late!

...

34

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Bottom-decking

« on: December 14, 2018, 12:41:42 pm »

Good find!
This is a possible design space for sure.

35

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Online-Only Cards: can they happen?

« on: December 14, 2018, 10:38:40 am »

Also it seems to me that a major benefit of "online only" cards is that they do not have to keep the player honest.

You're not wrong.

Generally "online only" is just a larger design space than Dominion's paper implementation and "no honesty required" rules allow.

The two benefits you have is you can build cards that require people to be honest, or cards that require a lot of tracking.

For instance, if I built a card like so:

Stock Market - $5 - Action
+$2
+$1 per Victory card you've bought since you last played Stock Market
-$1 per Stock Market you've played since the last time you played this Stock Market

Have fun with tracking that

36

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion Card Image Generator v1.5

« on: December 13, 2018, 12:31:07 pm »

So the DPI is higher in case you want to print anything.

To chime in, when I printed the Antiquities physicals, the printer (www.ludocards.com) wouldn't accept any files under a certain DPI... which basically translated to "under a certain dimensions" if you're using normal windows images. So the fact that the generator produces such massive images was exactly what they/I wanted.

(The printer would reject those files because experience says the client will be upset by the low quality/blotchy/gross results)

37

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion Card Image Generator v1.5

« on: December 12, 2018, 02:36:51 pm »

A bit of feedback from recently printing my fan expansion, Antiquities:

For the official cards, there's a maximum size for rules text; the generator doesn't keep this in mind. For example, if you were to render your own version of Scholar, the text will be much larger than the official cards. Overall it's not terrible but they do stand out as "not official" when the text gets big. Additionally, I found myself trying to keep the text amounts short... a bit unnecessarily sometimes, because I didn't know what was normal.

Another thing, someone has asked me to make German translations of the cards, but the generator doesn't bold the German words. Could you possibly add a way to force text to be bold? This would also be good for people adding new keywords *puppy eyes*.

38

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: New card ideas for guilds and some for cornucopia

« on: December 07, 2018, 10:53:08 am »

I'd word Kingswood:

Kingswood - Victory - $7
7VP
You can only buy this using Coffers.
-
Setup: Add an extra Kingdom pile with +Coffers in its text to the Supply.

Overall I'm still thinking about its balance, but I think it's a unique idea.

Edit: I suppose this text allows you to gain it other ways as long as you're not buying it. Alternatively, you could say "This can only be gained by buying it with only Coffers." which is a bit of a weird thing to say but would be correct. Or, I suppose, "You can only buy this using Coffers. It cannot be gained any other way."

39

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: [Release] Dominion: Antiquities!

« on: December 07, 2018, 10:47:37 am »

Cards have arrived! They're a bit more saturated than the real ones, so that's going to be a bit of a turn-off for some, but as fan cards go, they're very good. Pictures will be coming!

40

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dreidel Card Idea

« on: December 06, 2018, 01:37:34 pm »

I like, but, it's way too wordy to fit on a card.

I was able to cut it down a bit, but it's still pretty busy:

Dreidel - Action - Gathering - $2
+1 Card
+1 Action
Spin a dreidel. If you spun a ג, Take the Coffers from the Dreidel Supply pile; ה, Take half the Coffers from the Dreidel Supply pile, rounding up; ש, Put a Coffers on the Dreidel Supply pile (if you can't, take @1); נ, don’t do anything. Then, if there are no Coffers on the Dreidel Supply pile, add 2 Coffers to it and each player puts a Coffer on it.
-
Setup: Put 2 Coffers on the Dreidel pile.

What I'd actually suggest is that you break it out into an event; the name is probably a bad name, but you do something like this:

Dreidel Action - Action - $2
+1 Card
+1 Action
Trigger the Dreidel event.
If there's no Coffers on the Dreidel event, add 2 Coffers to it, and each player puts a Coffers on it.
-
Setup: Add the Dreidel event to the Supply, and Put 2 Coffers on it.

Dreidel Action - Action - $2
+1 Card
+1 Action
Trigger the Dreidel event.
If there's no Coffers on the Dreidel event, add 2 Coffers to it, and each player puts a Coffers on it.
-
Setup: Add the Dreidel event to the Supply, and Put 2 Coffers on it.

Dreidel Event - Event - $n/a
Spin a dreidel. If you spun...
ג, Take the Coffers from here
, Take half the Coffers from here, rounding up
ש, Put a Coffers here (if you can't, take @1)
(נ, don’t do anything.)

Maybe that works?

41

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: New card ideas for guilds and some for cornucopia

« on: December 03, 2018, 04:46:17 pm »

Honeycomb is a really interesting card. I'd be happy to see it just as a standalone card costing something like $4. It's interesting in that the VP value coming from the Coffers gives you a lot of options for tactics.

It's a Copper if you keep hoarding the Coffers, which would be weak, but then you're getting 1/3 of a VP every time you play it. Is it worth it? I don't think so, you'll have to spend some Coffers.
If you spend the Coffers then it's more powerful but not as powerful as maybe it should be. You're losing the VP.

If you spend some of the Coffers then it's definitely worth it. So there's a balancing act; how many Coffers do you spend to stimulate your economy vs how many do you keep?

42

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Town Drunk/Bartender

« on: December 03, 2018, 01:11:37 pm »

Hmmm, how to cost Bartender...

I'll be honest, I like where Town Drunk and Bartender are at right now. Town Drunk is a card I would never buy without Bartender being around. Now a call Town Drunk, play Bartender, play Town Drunk and then call Town Drunk turn? That's a reason to buy Town Drunk, I think. Yes, you're getting $4 but you're also spending $4 for the two cards, and you need to expend some actions to do it...


The question for Bartender costs then is, how powerful is it with other Reserve cards?
The short answer is, not *that* powerful, but:

With Guide and Ratcatcher, if you play the Reserve card, you can get an additional +1 Card and +1 Action, making Bartender in essence a Laboratory that moved a Guide or Ratcatcher onto your Tavern mat. That's $5 + probably less than $1 worth of tempo. Or maybe $1 worth of tempo. That's POWER, you say, but bear in mind that you also needed a $2 or $3 second card and a bit of setup (having the Guide or Ratcatcher on your Tavern Mat) in order to gain the bonus. So at most this combo would imply that Bartender should cost $3. But it's a combo, so not necessarily.

With Coin of the Realm, Bartender essentially gives you +1 Card, +1 Action, +$1. For about $4 worth of cards and some set up cost. I'd price that as $4 or $5, as it's a Peddler variant where the drawback is "you must have a Coin of the Realm in play before playing this."

With Teacher, Bartender is "+1 Card, skip having to shuffle before you get a Teacher ready for next turn". This *is* powerful as it basically lets Bartender count as a copy of Teacher, tempo-wise. But is that tempo worth ~$8, with the setup requirement -- working to get Bartender, working to upgrade up to Teacher, getting a Teacher in play with a Bartender at the ready? You had to have a Teacher in play, and you have to wait til next turn to play Teacher again. Hmmm.

Duplicate is a lot like Teacher, but then you probably had to call Duplicate early, during your Action phase. How good of a card are you getting with Duplicate, then? I feel like Duplicate's power level will be lessened if you use it with Bartender, so it likely balances out. Weaker Duplicate, two turns in a row, for $6 over two cards? Probably fine.

Transmogrify and Royal Carriage basically make Bartender "Cantrip, get a Transmogrify or Royal Carriage ready again." Of course, Royal Carriage could then be used again this turn on whatever you use its Action on, which is powerful but not outside how Royal Carriage already worked. The most powerful use of this would be if you have multiple Bartenders and Royal Carriages in your hand with Town Drunks? This sounds more fun than broken, though. Again.. cost? Probably not more than the cost of buying a Royal Carriage and a Bartender ($6).

Finally, for the sake of completeness, Distant Lands and Wine Merchant don't interact with Bartender at all. Which is probably a good thing.


In conclusion, Bartender is probably fine at $2. If you test it and find it is too powerful, consider bumping it up to $3 to deal with the Teach and Royal Carriage and Guide/Ratcatcher power spikes.

43

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Randomizer Dominion - help me with the rules!

« on: December 03, 2018, 12:37:35 pm »

Here's an idea that might be a bit weird, but hey. The whole premise is weird.

The first time someone plays a non-basic card with a given cost, that card stays in play, and all subsequent non-basic cards of the same cost they play become that card instead.

So, basically all non-basic cards get a rule that says "The first copy of this stays in play. While it's in play, all cards that cost $X are this card until they leave play."

If you can find ways to force a card out of play, then it leaves play and the next card you play with that cost becomes the sticky card.

44

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: New card ideas for guilds and some for cornucopia

« on: December 03, 2018, 12:29:16 pm »

How’s this version?

I made it easier for the other player to gain, of course only the other player to your left has the option to gain it. But I made it impossible to gain grand market (of course you can still play it) and you can’t play goons or kings court with it. It may be a little wonkier with hamlet, but why would someone pick that card from the supply in the first place. Well since it does say +1 Buy on it wether you choose to discard for the buy or not is irrelevant cause it still says it. But still why hamlet?

Plus the reason I chose +1 Buy is because how many actions out there have +2 Buys? I didn’t want to make it more complicated with +1 card for instance because then there would be confusion does that mean +2 Cards is also an action that is not set-aside too? And then I didn’t want players to continue gaining the merchant wagon.

I play merchant wagon from my hand +2 cards +1 buy, now I’ll play a merchant wagon from the supply +2 cards +1 buy, now I’ll play a merchant wagon from the supply +2 cards +1 buy, now I’ll play a merchant wagon uhh!

Two things:
First, it's not clear from the card that if the player to your left doesn't gain the set aside card, that you will gain it to your hand. Playing this as written I would say that it goes into my discard pile.
Secondly, even if you do put the card into your hand, you need to have an extra spare action to play it, so it's not quite that gaining +1 Buy cards (or other Merchant Wagons) is incredibly powerful by itself.

I'd use the wording

+2 Cards +1 Buy
Play an action without Buy in its text costing up to $5 and set it aside. The player to your left may discard 2 cards to gain it to their hand. If they don't, gain it to your hand.

45

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Dynasties

« on: December 03, 2018, 12:22:21 pm »

It's probably too late to say, but I feel that it might be interesting if being a Kin increased the cost of a card that it affected; meaning, with sort of the older model, if you were giving trashing to a Shanty Town, it would also cost +$1.

46

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: [Release] Dominion: Antiquities!

« on: November 30, 2018, 10:40:53 am »

Cards should get here early next week.

I'm so stressed about them I hope they're at least as good quality as my Adventures set

47

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: New fan based alchemy cards.

« on: November 27, 2018, 06:28:07 pm »

A new card idea for alchemy sorta like smugglers but always give a benefit and also interactive and may even be beneficial to another player.

Love potion

The price restriction on Love Potion seems somewhat unnecessary, unless the main intent was to not allow it to be used on Provinces. 99% of games will not have any cards other than Province that don't fit within "up to ".

If you use this and it misses (which will be somewhat often), then it was nothing but a terminal Silver. If you use it and it does hit, it still is just slightly better than "+1 card, +". I think this card would be weak even if it cost instead of . Also, in multiplayer games, it's quite political.

I don't agree that it's quite political, because you can't use it to help anyone but the player to your left win. If it turns the game into some sort of teams game, then I think it's made its mark quite well now as a Love Potion.

What I do see as a problem is that it doesn't change the state of the two player's hands. Let's say I play a bunch of these, or King's Court one of them. I reveal Duchy. So does the player to my left. We both gain 3 Duchies. Very nice. Too nice.

My suggestion would be to find some way that you can't play Love Potions targeting the same card over and over and over again, with the same result.

Overall I think the card is interesting, with some refinement it will be great.

48

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: (Almost) Total random Dominion

« on: November 22, 2018, 12:55:07 pm »

Rotating supply?

Well, you didn't actually specify the rules but I guess that this Black Market variant is supposed to work like deckbuilders with a rotating Supply (e.g. Star Realms), i.e. the Suppy piles contain only 1 copy and at the end of each players turn empty Supply piles are refilled with a new Kingdom pile that contains again only 1 copy.

Not speaking for OP but there may be a point of having each pile capped at 10 cards, so that the game can theoretically end at some point. Or at some cost of cards.

A maybe-fun additional variant would be to ensure that whenever you buy a card from a pile, the next card must cost more than it. Or equal-to-or-more. So then the game eventually ends with all piles being ~Provinces or ~Colonies.

At that point you probably want to start with lesser-cost cards, 2s and 3s. Or not.

49

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Holunder's cards

« on: November 16, 2018, 02:51:14 pm »

I *think* it was a cost thing. Like, for instance, he mentions as well he went from 20 to 25 piles. 20 12-card piles is 240 cards. 25 10-card pile is 250 cards. For a printer that probably means no difference in cost. 25 12-card piles makes 300 card piles and that could be a new, higher price set from the printer.

Of course nowadays we balk not a bit at 500 card expacks but that wasn't always a guarantee.

50

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: [Release] Dominion: Antiquities!

« on: November 15, 2018, 05:58:33 pm »

Looks awesome, Neirai! The art is especially wonderful, so kudos to Jan Boruta.

The cards look like a lot of fun to play with. I do have some quibbles with the wordings on some of the cards, especially Mausoleum. I won't bore you with these quibble, though, unless you ask.

As someone trying to develop their own fan expansion, may I ask how you playtested your cards? I'm looking for any advice that can help me efficiently playtest my own cards.

All in all, great job!

For sure! There are some wordings I regret. There also some wordings that might have liked to have new wordings that use Renaissance syntax. It's too late for me to change them (ordered physicals -- I *could* change the digitals but NO I WANT MY LIFE BACK) but for instance it occurred to me that Mausoleum should just have two separate "may" clauses instead of Choose one or both.

I did 3 phases of testing:
1) Played random sets of 10 Antiquities cards. This told me that the set was TERRIBLE.
2) Played through 2x sets of 5 random cards from a single Dominion sets + 5 random Antiquities cards. This helped me see what cards were doing wrong by comparing them to the base set.
3) Played random sets of everything that had random numbers of Dominion cards.
Then I did 1) again a few times. The set was a lot better then. Specifically at this point you want to keep an eye to time when you did 10

I used a few tricks sometimes. For example, if I wanted to know a card's power level relative to another card -- say, Mausoleum vs Hireling -- I'd play a Kingdom with 9 cards + Mausoleum and Hireling, with two players, and forbid one player from buying the Mausoleum, and one from buying the Hireling. See what happens. Note that this isn't a total test because perhaps Mausoleum is BROKEN when you can also by Hirelings. So you don't use this method all the time, but sometimes.

Primarily I tested this in 1v1 because I'm married but you also need to play with more players, 3 and 4 is a lot different, 6 is too, and you want to make sure it's fun with 6 too, but don't try to go for balance then. Just make sure your cards go around the table quick.

The other thing I did which is obvious I think since you're reading this here is, find a bunch of opinionated people who know Dominion better than you and have them tell you that your cards are bad, and why, over and over again, until they aren't nearly that bad anymore. That's the real only reason this set is any good.

Also, I read all of the interview with Donald X and all the Secret Histories while I was doing this.