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426

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards

« on: June 06, 2018, 07:25:38 pm »

Funeral - I usually wait until people have commented on a card before I give my own input, but I just wanted to acknowledge that Funeral may be unready for presentation. I'm merely posting it today in honor of the little, baby crow that didn't make it through the night. It may have grown up to be a curse to all (as crows sometimes do), but to us it was the sweetest little crow and it will be missed. So Funeral is for it. If fixes are needed, they will come soon!

427

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards

« on: June 05, 2018, 09:36:40 pm »

Risen King(v0.2) - I actually can't recall how I intended for this to interact with Trashing Attacks. I imagine it was an oversight, thinking that when attacked it was the player trashing your cards and not you yourself. Not the case! I think by adding "during your turn" it should clear everything up.

You both argue really good points and I'm not sure if Risen King is fine without the fix or not, but in this instance I think erring on the side of caution is best. Thanks for the lively discussion and can't wait to see what you think of the next Commander - General!

428

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards

« on: June 05, 2018, 11:07:30 am »

Risen King - Perhaps it's a bit too much, but the cost $0 Coin trash blocking while a Risen King is in the trash was an intentional design element. I'm a big fan of Catapult and was hoping to latch on to the cool decision process a player has to make when choosing to trash an early Estate or Copper. This is the scenario I kept envisioning: Your hand is Risen King, Estate and Copper x3. Do you trash the Estate and hit $5 Coin knowing that at some point Coppers become untrashable or do you trash the Copper now and hit $4 Coin knowing you can always trash Estates later in the game? This kind of perma-blocking maybe too harsh, but I'm hoping this is offset a bit by the gaining potential of having Risen Kings in the trash.

The Commander effect for being in your discard may be trivial for most of the game, but it does allow for some cool, mid-turn gaining of Commanders to the top of your discard.

Gazbag, thanks for the syntax suggestion. I hadn't thought to look at Market Square for wording. It has been updated.

429

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards

« on: June 02, 2018, 10:06:53 pm »

Airship: I think I like this, it's very appealing early on making potion a good fit, but it could drop off hard later depending on the kingdom, which is a good thing. Although if lots of gaining is going on then multiples of these could still be good, you only have 5 cards to discard so after that there's no drawback to getting more of these down, would be like those rare Torturer games where you discard your hand and rely on Duration-draw to still have a turn. Not sure why an Airship needs Potion though, from a flavour perspective.

I think if an Airship were to exist around the 1400's (and I don't believe they did) it's means of lift would likely be hot-air heated by some sort of chemical reaction, hence the Potion flavor. Beyond that I like the tough choices a player has to make when discarding. Do you discard your Potion right away and hope to redraw it, or do you hang on to it to hopefully get $3 Coin and a Potion. The latter could very well be end up being a $2 Coin and a Potion dud hand. I also like how Potions solidify a players build path. If a player opens Potion, it may trick their opponent into rushing +Buys needlessly. At least I hope these kinds of situations arise.

430

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards

« on: June 02, 2018, 08:29:24 pm »

Army seems insanely strong, probably too strong. It could cost more.

Moon Shrine seems horrifically weak. It’s a delayed Silver, dead on play since you can’t use the Coffers until next turn and even potentially helping the opponent score VP. It’s slow and weak. I would probably never buy this in the current form.

Stadium is really wonky, and it’s essentially a gamble. Also couldn’t you technically reveal no tokens, and then reveal a copper, since double 0 is 0? Might want a clause for that, such as a “if you added any tokens, at the start of the next turn…” Anyways it’s cute but not sure if it’s worth keeping around, it seems meh.

Lost Temple is a busted thinner, pretty much auto-open that since it’s a Chapel. And then it’s useful afterwards too! You only really want one ever though, no reason to get more than one.

Treaty has some of the clunkiest wording. You need to find a way to shorten this, which might include scrapping the gain a $5 thing. Also this is so Kingmaking in 3P or above, so watch out with that. Might need a total redesign or scrapping.

Blockade is weird. You’ll just cover the Province pile and whatever two cards you deem will be gained, which you will almost certainly be right. And oh shoot, maybe you miss one and the opponent gets there first. At the end of all of this laborious logging, you end up with at most… 3 VP. Yeah, this is a terrible Landmark. Scrap. It’s a lot of work and it doesn’t seem fun to play with.

Thanks for the comments Seprix! I appreciate you touching on all of the cards. I'll keep my replies strictly to the negative feedback to be concise.

-Army: Very strong, but only after much building. You can only get about 3 cards on your mat before a good engine starts greening. I think $7 Coin and above would make this unusable, but I can try it sometime.
-Moon Shrine: Getting the +2 Coffers is incredibly good. You are putting VP out there for your opponents, but the person with a good Coffer store is usually in a better position to green. That's why I had to make this one conditional, giving only +1 Coffers for most of the mid-game.
-Stadium: Yes, probably should have called this one Gamble Hall or something like that. You can put zero tokens and reveal a Copper, but it would just give you $0 Coin, so I don't think an extra clause needs to be added.
-Lost Temple: Probably should cost $6 or above, but I kept it artificially low (like chapel) so everyone has a chance to open it. It can be a Lost City, but the cantrip +Buys to make that happen are few and far between. So most games it's a Chapel that can hide itself. Strong, but $4 Coin seems fair given Chapel's price of $2 Coin.
-Treaty: Yes, the wording needs some attention. I had it in a nice spot, but had to make some hasty changes.
-Blockade: This only effects Kingdom cards, so Provinces and all other standard Victory cards are excluded along with standard Treasures. It's a bit weird at first, but rewards good planning. It takes a few minutes to do, but I personally think a board that doesn't take at least a few minutes to think on is a simple, bad board to begin with. This punishes people who go for the power cards and rewards those with creative engines.

431

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards

« on: June 02, 2018, 08:08:59 pm »

Isle doesn't excite me and the decisions is trivial. If you cannot trash your Estates you get Isle, if you can trash your Estates you don't mind, if there is trash-for-benefit Isle is bonkers (remodel into a Province, salvage for a huge amount of Coins, etc.).

I don't think the decision will ever likely be whether to exchange for Isle or not, but whether you exchange an Estate or Copper.
-Exchanging for an Estate secures your buy power at 7 and gives you the standard openings, but you have added an Estate back into the Supply both reducing your Isle point potential and giving your opponents more potential Estates to pick up.
-Exchanging for a Copper makes your Isles more likely to hit Estates and will likely be worth more, but reduces your buy power to 6, which on some boards could be quite terrible.

I'm not sure how I feel about Isle's interaction with trash for benefit cards yet. Part of me thinks it's really cool, but I don't want it to make games too wonky. Will have to play-test this.

432

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards

« on: June 02, 2018, 07:59:05 pm »

Wow stop stealing my ideas! Jk, thanks for giving me a shout out, I appreciate it. Also I think it's great that you give people credit for feedback and changes you've made in the update history, I should have done that with my cards...

Something interesting I found while looking through the Adventures secret history was this:

Briefly I tried an Action-Victory card that put a card on your mat, and was worth VP based on the number of cards there. It just didn't give a new-enough experience; there's Island. It sounded like it would be a strategy but it usually wasn't, it was usually Island but maybe not worth the 2 VP.

It seems like Donald tried a similar thing, but not limited to Estates and not 1vp per card set aside. Also given that he is comparing it to Island maybe his version set itself aside too? It isn't really clear. Well it sounds different enough from Bastion/Isle from what I can gather.

Another thing about Isle is that exchange is a word with mechanical meaning in Dominion, because of this you wouldn't be able to exchange a Shelter or Heirloom with an Isle as they don't have a pile to return to. Not sure whether that's intentional or not, you could just say replace or something instead of exchange if you want to be able to do that.

I have to say that I still prefer Lumber Camp to Osho (I assume you retired Lumber Camp due to their similarity?), I thought it only giving +Card when you had Actions left to use it was a really clever way to avoid the feel-bad moments that terminal +1 Card can make while giving you a fun little hoop to jump through. It feels a lot less relevant on the overall package of Osho, more just an arbitrary way to tone down its power than an important part of the card.

Thanks, I'm just glad someone is reading that stuff! I actually had planned for Isle to work only with Copper and Estates, but just thought last night how it was a bummer that it could interact with Heirlooms. Well I guess my problem fixed itself! Thanks for checking though. I guess I've misunderstood the exchange rule all this time, but it actually worked out in my favor on this one.

Yes, I cut Lumber Camp because (1) Osho seems to achieve what I wanted out of Lumber Camp (a bland card that got better with Village support) in a more entertaining way; and (2) I have another version of Lumber Camp that I think I'm going to use instead. It's wacky and involves States. Excited to share it, but I need to get some playtesting on it. I would love to see the 2nd half of Lumber Mill implemented on another card though. Any ideas on that? The effect did seems more suited for Lumber Camp, but I'm using it on Osho more to distinguish itself and it's play-style from the other Commander cards. I could all be a bust though. If I go back on it I'll be sure to give you credit!

433

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards

« on: June 02, 2018, 02:08:01 am »

Isle(v0.1) - I just wanted to point out that Gazbag has a cool, nearly identical card called Bastion. Although neither card influenced each other in any way, seeing Bastion certainly inspired me to post this card. I think both are cool concepts and wanted to make sure Gazbag got the deserved credit.

434

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Ice Age

« on: June 02, 2018, 01:57:32 am »

Bastion - I had thought of a nearly identical card called Isle. Seeing Bastion got me excited so I thought I'd share Isle with you. I think it's a cool concept and should be explored more!

435

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards

« on: June 01, 2018, 07:33:16 pm »

The big problem I see with Osho is: how often is it actually going to be on the top of your discard? If you're drawing your whole deck (which you generally want to do) then it will only be in your discard if there's a way to discard stuff (which there often isn't.) The Commander ability can be used in slogs, but it will usually punish you there because you're likely to only play one terminal card per turn - plus, it's just a crummy Woodcutter on play.

Marshal solves this by discarding stuff on-play, which is nice. Overall it seems like all of the Commander cards will have to either be able to discard themselves or other cards in order for the mechanic to really be useful.

One final, minor thing: your dual-type formatting seems to be off. Why is the top border red almost completely covered by white instead of just red?

Everything you've said is true, but for now I'm calling these design choices instead of flaws. Cards that discard will definitely have a good synergy with Commander cards. This is why I have Marshal priced much higher despite it doing really nothing on play. I'm hoping to have a balanced Osho card at cost $3 since as you said it is at the mercy of where it ends up in your deck on the reshuffle. Draw cards will clash a bit, which for the moment I'm okay with. I just hope a player won't feel the Counting House Blues too often.

The border looks as I intended it to. It's custom so I took some liberty with it and ventured away from the normal look. I felt the new type needed a visual cue to remind player's that this card does stuff from your discard, but I didn't simple want to make a new shade of back since the Dominion color-wheel is getting a bit crowded. So I opted for the Action back with some Commander Banners added.

436

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards

« on: June 01, 2018, 03:37:25 pm »

You slip it 2nd from the top and then use the ability of the card in question (Harbinger, Settlers, Counting House, whatever) to topdeck the top card thus uncovering the commander. There is no way for the opponent to know that you reordered the commander to 2nd from the top (assuming you have good enough sleight of hand).

Ahh, now I see what you're saying. This does create an issue. I don't see much of a way around this other than allowing a reshuffle of your discard after such cards are played. Not a solution I'm happy with, but I don't think it does anything catastrophic to the game. It certainly doesn't effect any other official cards. Thoughts?

EDIT This is off topic, but to answer a question you asked a few days ago about Astrolab's cost: Yes, the wonky 5 Coin 1* Debt is to prevent it from being gained. I don't think 5 Coin 0* Debt would work as it would just be 5 Coin.

437

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards

« on: June 01, 2018, 03:04:06 pm »

As always, thank you everyone for the comments. To be concise I'll try and address everyone's posts here in one section.

Commander Type - I should first apologize for not having released all of the Commanders at once. I think it's hard to see the whole picture of what they are capable of and how they can interact without seeing the whole set. Unfortunately I only have the two cards I'm comfortable enough sharing, but I can try and talk about some of the design elements I have in mind. Hopefully this will help justify why I decided to go with a new card type and why I opted for only having one Commander out at a time.

Durations would certainly work, but I do agree with Holunder9 that the execution would get a bit tricky. Also, Commanders have interactions with mid-turn gainers and discarding cards that essentially allows for Commander swapping. Some Commanders you will want out for certain parts of your turn, but not others. For example, Osho is good with non-terminal Actions, but not terminal Actions. If you could have it out for the former and then discard another Commander from your hand (Commander swap) to end your turn you can get all the +1 Coin benefits without the -1 penalty. Hopefully this also highlights how multiple Commanders can be played despite only being able to have one benefit at a time. I couldn't see a good way to have all these interactions using Durations and first time played clauses.

I whole hardly agree with Asper that games with multiple Commanders can't just end up being dead cards, so I'm doing my best to add small interactions that make the play feel fun and satisfying. As I mentioned some Commanders will shine at certain parts of your turn and not others. I'm hoping to have a card that adds benefits from both your discard pile and the trash, but the latter will benefit all players (this of course will be some sort of Zombie Commander #chills). I may even have a card that specifically calls on the Commander type itself in some way.

I would agree that I think revealing your discard pile does not allow for it to be reshuffled. In any case I don't think this allows for players to be dishonest as Gazbag mentioned. Everyone's top card of their discard pile can be seen by all players at anytime so I'm not sure how someone could slip a Commander on top during a discard pile search.

Osho - Nice comparison to Merchant Ship Holunder9! This certainly needs a bump in price. I was hoping to keep this one at $4 Coin, but I'd certainly have to remove something. Do you think changing the on-play ability to either +1 Coin, +1 Buy or just +2 Coin would justify keeping it at $4 Coin?

438

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Holunder's cards

« on: May 31, 2018, 06:33:05 pm »

After some playtesting Djinn got changed as the on-gain restriction made the card too swingy.

Given the abundance of $4 villages I have a weakness for $2 villages so here is a quick, random idea:

+1 Card
+1 Action
You may discard an Action card for +1 Card and +1 Action.

or slight weaker:

You may discard an Action card for +2 Cards and +2 Actions.

I too love $2 cost Villages, but man do they seem hard to get right. You want them to be worthwhile, but not overpowered at cost $2. I admire you for tackling this tricky nut.

Thoughts: In both versions you are buying a conditional village that may do nothing when played, all to save 1 coin on the buy. Since the difference between $2 and $3 isn't much, it seems to come down to +Buys. Without those on the board it might be hard to find a good time to pick these up. So my suggestion would be to go for the second version and have it add an unconditional +1 Buy. Of course this is now very similar to Hamlet.

I always thought it would be cool to have a card that has the following: "In games using this, you may overpay for Estates (or maybe Duchies?). For each 1 Coin you overpay, gain a <card>." Maybe this is that card!? :I

439

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards

« on: May 30, 2018, 04:44:36 pm »

Treaty - I appreciate everyone's suggestions and in depth analysis. It offers great perspective. Changes are coming, and any one of the suggested modifications seems exciting, but I'd first like to explore modifying the block mechanic. Here are my current thoughts: Blocked piles only effect the first two cards (or some other amount) played per turn; tokens can only be moved once per game; possibly adding a condition where only players with a token can be blocked. Any thoughts on these changes are appreciated.

Yurt Village - Hadn't considered Conclave. The play style is about the same,  but Conclave is much more interesting. Yurt Village will likely be removed.

Commander (type) - Mainly meant to remind players that cards with these types do effect other cards while the top card of your discard. I'm planning about 4 other Commander cards that effect/change how the following themes work: trashing, payload, attacks and Commander type cards. Still need to work out some kinks though. Any thoughts on Commanders? I've always thought the top card of the discard pile had a lot of design potential. Has this been tried before?

440

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards

« on: May 30, 2018, 02:32:52 am »

I know you intended this as Landmark or Event but I think that it would be a decent way to change the second option. Instead of enchanting all the villages of the engine player they score -1VP. Or if playtesting shows that the snowball effect of the $5 is too good, -2VP per card from the selected pile.
It would just punish engine play and not totally shut it down.

I'm still holding out hope that the Enchantress block will work, but this is a great suggestion. It really stays true to what I was hoping to accomplish with this. I've gotta say I knew Treaty would be contentious, but the feedback has been a bit jarring. People have had plenty to say wrong about it, but not a lot of potential fixes have been thrown around. So thanks a lot! I'm excited to have a backup plan if the first idea doesn't pan out. I'll keep you posted how testing goes, but it might be some time before I can sit down for that.

441

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards

« on: May 30, 2018, 02:11:32 am »

Getting an extra $5 in the opening is definitely very strong. But what if none of the $5s are cards you want to open with (junkers, trashers) and the Kingdom presents a nice opportunity for an engine but with just one village? Then I am pretty sure that the threat of Treaty will be to shut down that village one day and all players will play BM.
Also note that if the other guy plays money he will also get a Province relatively early so he can hit you with Treaty soon enough (not that getting hit late by Treaty would not also totally shut down an engine).

Did you test Treaty in 2P games? Because here the problem is more pronounced: engines are easier to build (you get more pieces) and hurting your opponent is always as good as helping yourself whereas in multiplayer you just hurt the leader and struggle for position.

I've only tested in 2P games. I also am fearful that this will lead to BM like games, but so far the Kingdoms have been diverse enough that even when losing the only village, engines were still more attractive. I will one day do some baseline test to see how single village engines with the $5 boast fair against big money. If BM is too strong, perhaps the early boast can be upped to two cards of some in-determined coin value. I've also thought about a Setup clause that adds a few extra Kingdom cards to add even more diversity. Just ideas for now though. Perhaps this needs some tweaking, but I think the core mechanics are fine. Any thoughts on that?

442

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards

« on: May 30, 2018, 01:59:17 am »

I'll try to take a different slant on what others have said:

Lumber Camp - it's a simple card with a bonus that can affect when you play it in your turn. Easy to conclude it's fair and balanced as is, but could it cost $3 if Woodcutter was uninteresting at the price?

Canal - it can feel a bit boring to weaken your deck power for one extra point, and sometimes it won't even do anything. So yes it's a cheap cantrip you can pick up with a spare buy but will you want to, will it feel nice to? I get the sense this is a niche card, one that depends a lot on others for it to become worthwhile. But, in such cases (like overdraw, Inheriting Canals or something else, sifting), you get the same thing as with Gamble, an infinite source of VP that unlike Monument or Plunder doesn't compel players to bring the game closer to its end, so games can drag on.

Astrolab - test this out with Vault. Without handsize reduction Vault can guarantee you $6 without any Treasure in play, and later Astrolab will increase handsize for Vault to yield more $ from. You'd want this to be a very powerful combo, but not an imbalanced one.

Treaty - I'm thinking about a player's thought process with this one, right at the beginning of the game. Everyone could feel scared about buying any more than 1 copy of an Action card, or going for any payload Action, or really devising any definite strategy at all; because doesn't every game strategy hinge around a single card? By the time a Province is bought deck strategies are established. So surely everyone's going to be willing inside themselves, "please, everybody just take a $5".
So if you took that bit off, so everyone gets to open with an extra $5, is it really interesting?

Lumber Camp - I considered a $3 Coin, but I recall reading that Woodcutter was priced fairly at $3 Coin, it just got cut purely for being bland. Although this is sometimes identical to Woodcutter, on some boards it is clearly superior. I think $3 would be just a bit too low for it's potential power.

Canal - As more and more combos come to light I think this needs a price bump and some added effect to justify it. Beyond these few interactions, I think Canal is fine for what it does, but it does need some attention.

Astrolab - Great combo catch! I hadn't thought of this one. I also expect this to be powerful. Even if it's a combo that ruins a game, those already exist and pop up from time to time. I'll have to see what playtesting shows. Thanks again for the suggestion.

Treaty - Sure, everyone wants everyone else to take the $5 card, but it's the not knowing what your opponent will do that I think makes it interesting and opens up opportunities to play mind games with your opponents that can have actual results on the game. I think everyone has been very focused on the attack portion, but I think most boards are diverse enough to support 2-4 strategies. I really think anyone who just goes BM is still going to loss to a good player with an Action based strategy (with or without having a Treaty token on them). All playtesting thus far has supported my statements, but you can never play test enough!

443

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards

« on: May 30, 2018, 01:38:10 am »

I think the problem with Treaty isn't necessarily how balanced the options are but that the 2nd option leads to unfun games when it's good, basically for the reasons Commodore Chuckles pointed out. You know, here's a cool deck to build that relies on a key card to work (a village being the most obvious case) oh wait no Treaty is here, guess we're rushing Provinces and playing big money instead.  Another big issue is that it's basically a targeted attack in 3+ player games and that's no good. I'd prefer it if it gave you a bigger friendly effect if you wait till you get a Province, like placing your +Card token or gaining 3 $5s or even gaining a special powerful card .

Astrolab is cool, but isn't the word astrolabe? What's the thinking behind the cost? Is it just so that it can't be gained with cards like University? I guess you'd need to test this a lot to get the right price down, seems like a reasonable starting point.

Lumber Camp is also cool, it's terminal +1 Card but only when you have spare actions so it never really faces the usual problems associated with terminal +1 card. I also enjoy cards that make you sequence your actions differently, usually you'd save your Woodcutters till the end of the turn but this rewards you for playing them mid-turn. I like this one... I have a soft spot for Woodcutters for some reason.

Canal I think I agree with others here, worse than not progressing the game, this is more likely to slow games as it's making you topdeck dead cards. If you're set on testing it before you decide on it though I'd flag Mill as another potential problem card with this, it can seed your discard with victories and is a victory that you aren't sad to topdeck itself too!

Treaty - It's as the old saying goes, "A good agreement is one with which both parties are equally dissatisfied." I actually did tinker around with a positive type effect that used this mechanic, but because I am a glutton for Dominion punishment I opted for this. My biggest fear was that this would lead to BM type games, but none of my play-testing panned out that way. I think Dominion in it's current state (post Nocturne) is in the best state possible for diverse card play and there are generally 2-4 cards you can come to rely on in a Kingdom. The targeted attack was the best thing I could think of when playing with 3-6 players. I'm open to other suggestions, but I think this works fine. I guess you just don't want to be in the lead when it comes time to make a Treaty, or at least appear to not be in the lead. This card really does change the game a bit, but I strongly believe it's in a good way. It's easy to focus on the blocking mechanic, but I think starting out with an extra 5 cost turn 1 is going to be about as powerful most times. The fun is trying to figure out when to go which, and is your opponent going to punish you for it.

Astrolab - Astrolabe is a sort of instrument; astrolab is a word I made up that sounds like a bigger, badder laboratory. I won't go into to much detail about the pricing choice, but I had to settle on an above fair price to pay for it and make sure it was possible to achieve that in every game. I concluded (hopefully correctly) that 5 Coin and 5 Debt would be a steal for this, which can be achieved with only two Golds in play. Of coarse you're likely not playing other Treasures in your hand in this scenario so there is a hidden opportunity cost. A Platinum would really do the trick also, but really my hope is that people will seek out Coin from Actions if possible.

Canal - Really only intended for this to help with early game trashing and work in some niche scenarios, not to be a power source of VP tokens. But there seems to be a few niche applications that make it a bit too strong. Other than that I think it's pretty fair. The VP token isn't guaranteed and most Kingdoms it doesn't work with overdraw. I still find it interesting, but perhaps I should go back to a cost 5 Coin version where you could also topdeck a Treasure for a Coin.

Lumber Camp - I too have a soft spot for Woodcutters. (Tears)

444

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards

« on: May 29, 2018, 12:23:14 am »

I really like Astrolab. One concern is that the card is explosive enough that once you get it in your deck the debt is trivial to pay off, but I think here the punishment is severe enough that that won't happen.

Treaty is way, way too brutal. It's extremely likely to shut the other guy down completely. You have to get a Province first, but this makes it worse, in a way. The first person to get a Province will be able to hobble his opponent to such an extent that it will be difficult for him to even get his own Province if he doesn't already have one. It's Tournament on steroids with a liter bottle of caffeine.

Thanks for the input Commodore!

Astrolab - Could be too explosive, but a few, basic baseline test should figure this out. I'll keep you posted.

Treaty - My play-testing of this has shown the block is powerful, but can be managed with diverse enough decks. If diversity isn't an option, taking the extra $5 cost early should give you quite an advantage over an opponent who is going for the block. Enough to get a few Provinces before your opponent gets even one? That probably also depends on the board. You probably don't want to be the first person to buy a Province, but you should be prepared to grab one as soon as another player does. It's a tough balance to maintain, but I think it makes for interesting games. I'm not saying Treaty is not potentially overpowered, I'm just saying my test so far have shown it's balanced. I'll keep you posted if further testing proves otherwise.

445

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards

« on: May 29, 2018, 12:05:46 am »

Maybe Mimic could instead be something like this:

Mimicry, Event, Potion cost
If there is at least one empty supply pile, gain a Mimic from its pile.

Mimic can be reduced to about 10 copies, may lose the setup and just has to say "this is not in the supply". Also it can lose the "non-Mimic". Oh, and you can give it a wacky non-Potion cost, e. g. 6*.

This is a great suggestion! Will definitely make the card print simple and more clear. I do want to keep the price and mechanics the same, but I think these all can be ported over. Hooray for more Potion cost Events!

446

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards

« on: May 29, 2018, 12:01:51 am »

Thanks man. I must have misread Canal as "into" your deck and as you said, only playtesting will reveal whether the condition is harsh enough or not (I don't think that the price of the card matters much).

Astrolab is cool and the mixed, scaled price might be a way to circumvent the problem that DXV encountered during playtesting a double Lab:

One of the first Debt cards was +3 Cards +1 Action, for some large amount of Debt that I tweaked some. It was an interesting card to consider. It's two Laboratories in one card; that's different in various small ways from actually having two Labs. In the end it seemed too strong too early.

I like the general idea of Treaty, i.e it being a one-shot Event, I like the trade-off between an option you want immediately and an option you want later in the game and above all I like that the card is political / anti-kingmaking / prevents runaway leaders in a 3P game. But I fear that the second option will preemptively shut down engine play in most Kingdoms. Even if there is a second village you have to buy them evenly, anticipating that one of them will be perma-Enchantress-ed.

Canal - You're likely right about the price increase not mattering, but I'd feel better about 5/2 split players not being able to open Canal and say a $5 power trasher. I can see the $3 cost making it a little more difficult to 3 pile as well.

Treaty - Definitely comes down to the board on this one. Single village boards are probably the most vulnerable to being blocked and will force alternative strategies. Can't overlook the power of the extra $5 cost card early on either. That at times may provide enough deck acceleration that the block will come too late to have a real effect. At least these are the decisions I'm hoping players will have to make. In the games I've play-tested, a few had the only villages blocked, but the decks were diverse enough that it hurt, but it wasn't crippling.

447

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards

« on: May 28, 2018, 07:27:34 am »

Lumber Camp is interesting. I am not sure I totally like it but that's probably only due to the inexistence of offical terminal cards that only draw 1. I think it is sound.

About Canal, it should specify whether you shuffle your deck afterwards or whether you can put the green anywhere in your deck, like Secret Passage.
Like all nonterminal cards that can gain Victory tokens it should be treated very carefully and I am not sure whether the condition is harsh enough. On the other hand we know from Settlers how frequently the discard pile doesn't exist.
Groundskeeper only gains VPs when you make your deck worse and progress towards the end whereas this can be used once you have a moderate amount of green in your deck or from the very start on in games in which you cannot or do not get rid of your Estates. And even though the anti-Lab effect seems nasty it just makes the card roughly be "+1 Action +1 VP" and in the presence of sifters it is no big deal (especially if the card is meant as to be worded like Secret Passage which is my guess). With Shepherd it is obviously bonkers.
In short, it could be OK but I fear it is not.

Yes, Lumber Camp is pretty meh, but I wanted to try and explore some simple mechanics that haven't been tried before. The simple stuff seems to be the hardest to get right. It's a little too good with standard Village, but other than that it plays how I'd like it to.

Canal can only put Victory cards directly on top of your deck. There is no choice in the placement. I believe the wording on this should be fine. Cards like Mandarin use the same terminology. As for it's power level I'm unsure. I created this before Shepard/Pasture came out so it slipped my mind to test for that combo before posting. I'll have to playtest it to make sure it's not too wild. In any case, I envision bumping the price to $3 on this.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm a big fan of your cards so it's nice to have your input.

448

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Mechanic idea: tribes

« on: May 25, 2018, 10:38:04 pm »

Nothing like cool mock-ups to get people interested! I certainly think they and the example game will go along way in helping people to understand what's going on. It certainly did for me.

Now, on to first impressions:
Overall - I certainly like the Kin/Tribe idea; it's very fitting of the times. I'd get nervous about some Tribe combinations being so strong that the rest of the board is ignorable, but I guess some Dominion boards are going to being like that regardless. "In games using this" cards are great, but having one on every card is making my head spin a little bit. The are certainly straight forward enough, so maybe with a board in front of me and a bit more time with the ideas, they'd make more sense to me. Do you think any of these can be cut? Or do you think having one, random "Kin Landmark" per game would make the cards function more or less the same way? Again this is purely a first impression.

Mead Hall - I certainly like that at the very least this can trash, but for that reason I think it should cost at least $4, even despite it only being able to play two other Tribe cards. There doesn't seem to be any real setback to opening with this, versus Throne Room where buying it too early means there might just be an extra dead card in your deck. A double Mead Hall opening could even result in you trashing 3 cards before your 2nd shuffle (if they connect). If you're hoping to keep this cost low, I'd recommend dropping the trashing part.

Highland Village -
I like the interactions that cancel each other out. So Highland Village initially cost $5 with the setup effect? In a game where the Kin cards are not great, this would be an expensive Village. Making cost $4 ($3) seems fair.

Banner - A victory card that scores off Kin cards seems like a must, but I have no idea how balanced it is.

Gamekeeper - I'm bad at understanding draw cards so I should abstain from commenting on this one.

Telltale - This is quite the Attack against Kin cards. My first thought is that it should have some sort of cap on how many Curses a player can gain. A single card that can hand out more than one Curse per play seems like it would lead too unbalanced play. Of coarse reducing that means the +1 Coin Setup becomes even more powerful. This one makes me a bit nervous, but I'd love to hear if you've played any games with it and how it performed.

Overall - I think the Kin thing is a neat idea, I just wonder if there's a better way to pick Kin cards other than being random. Perhaps some sort of drafting system? Of coarse, as you stated, even bad cards seem to become quite powerful.

Are there more cards with the Kin type? Thanks for sharing!

449

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards

« on: May 25, 2018, 08:21:19 pm »

Stadium: This should perhaps tell you to remove the tokens when you discard it from play?

My first version had this in the text, but it seemed unneeded. I think people will in general know to discard them and to help with the people who are unsure I'd address it in the expanded rules.

450

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards

« on: May 24, 2018, 03:51:43 am »

Thanks for making these cards. Is it possible to get hi-res versions of the cards (even in a zip file somewhere)? I find the hi-res files improve the clarity and look when I'm printing them out.

You're very welcome. It can be nerve wrecking sharing cards you've worked so hard on so I greatly appreciate the thanks. I'm currently trying to implement a way to expand the card thumbnails, but need to learn some more of how to code on these forums. So it may be a bit, but high-red images will be coming. If you need them sooner I can try and get those to you through email or some photo sharing website.

EDIT You should now be able to click on the images to enlarge them. Not sure if they save to this larger size or not. Let me know.