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Messages - Kudasai

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451
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards
« on: May 24, 2018, 03:46:02 am »
If I got this correctly e.g. a village pile becomes empty, one player has the chance to buy that Mimic underneath it and can use it now to make Mimic on play e.g. a double Laboratory when it mimics a Smithy (variant). Assuming that there are no other Potion cards in the Kingdom, as that player cannot use the Potion for anything else until a second pile empties Mimic just becomes an ordinary Lab which is not that impressive. So Mimic is basically BoM with an extra Action, no cost-limit and a high opportunity cost.
My point is that this is not nearly as crazy as it seems at first.

It has +1 Card and +1 Action before becoming another card, so playing it as Smithy would yield +4 Cards and +1 Actions, which is equal to three Laboratory plays. I think everything you said is still correct though. It's strong, but comes at about mid-game and can be very awkward if it's the only Potion in the Kingdom. I think it's power level is unquestionably strong, but the opportunity cost to get it can be too high at times to even make it worth it. It all depends I guess.

EDIT And yes, you got the setup part perfectly!

452
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards
« on: May 24, 2018, 03:41:13 am »
Hey, cool cards!

Army: The opportunity cost here is huge, but the effect gets insane when you start playing multiple Armies per turn. My worry is that getting to the point where your deck is all Armies and your turns are just playing Armies doesn't seem particularly interesting.

Heir: It isn't very difficult to build a deck that consistently makes $9 per turn, and that's also something that you often want to do anyway, at which point these are just way too good. It seems quite similar to Grand Market in that you have to build up payload before they do anything, except these are easier to gain and give a bigger payoff than GM and it's arguably easier to hit $9 that to hit $6 with no Copper (that depends on the board I guess). I think this could give +$2 and cost $6 and it'd still be quite strong.

Royal Decree: This reminds of Fortune, nowhere near as crazy as Fortune but these do stack really well so they have that going for them. Looking at the player to your left will reduce the effect of multiple opponents and this should probably use wording similar to Necromancer and Army (playing the cards but leaving them in opponent's hand) to avoid nasty interactions with Bonfire/mandarin etc. I'm not sure this really needs the on-gain bonus though? All it really does is make this pay off some of it's debt immediately and it seems strong enough without it. Also I'm npt sure $3+8D is really different enough from 11D to be worth the weird cost?

Moon Shrine: My first reaction was that the +2 Coffers is too good on a non-terminal $3 next to Silver. Although the Vp part is probably more of a drawback than a bonus given that the opponent will have the 1st chance to buy the card with a token given that this is a Night, and this isn't as good as Silver at hitting $5 on the 1st shuffle because you need to draw this turn 3 to be able to make use of the Coppers before you shuffle on turn 5. I guess play testing showed that it was in fact too good though, although I don't think playing things vs big money is particularly useful. Edit: Much to the chagrin of the dominion discord community it's +1 Coffers not +1 Coffer.

Slumlord: Cool card, might end up being too strong though, even just playing something as weak as a Pearl Diver after this is basically giving you a Lost City effect. Perhaps having to draw your cards in the correct order will keep it in check but it seems much easier to do than herald or Diplomat (similar $4 conditional Lost City type things). That isn't even taking into account playing stronger actions with it.

Stadium: This should perhaps tell you to remove the tokens when you discard it from play? My concern with this is that it's basically a guarantee that you can make +$1 with this. That baseline of +$1 is already a Caravan Guard, and the upside of potentially being able to make +$2 or more once you've built up a bit seems much better than the Caravan Guard reaction.

Lost Temple: I think without the using up a Buy part this would be a strong card, but in line with Steward. With the playing it twice thing this becomes pretty crazy I think, it's basically Chapel that becomes a cantrip later, because if you're trashing 4 then you weren't using that Buy anyway. If there are abundant extra Buys then this can basically become a Lost City later too, yikes. I think that's enough to push this up into $5 territory? If you couldn't choose the same option twice then I think it might be okay at $4 though.

Industrious Village: Hmm a lot of conditional Lost Cities here, also I've noticed a lot of these cards that involve jumping through some sort of hoop are rewarding you for doing things that Dominion rewards in general - e.g. Heir rewarding you for building big, Stadium for adding expensive cards to your deck/trashing starting cards and now this for trashing your Coppers and buying lots of Actions. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, just thought it was interesting to point out.

Old Witch: Now as opposed to rewarding you for what you're doing anyway we're punishing people for doing something you didn't want to do anyway  :P. It's perhaps worth noting that this doesn't actually hurt the opponent's deck until they choose to buy a Victory and let the Curses in, that makes this quite weak imo. Well I prefer weak Cursing attacks where it isn't obvious when to go for them to Mountebank-esque things so that isn't really a problem in my book.

Crane: This has to be at least a $5 right? And probably a $6 really, the top part is strictly better than Lab and even lets you use all unused Actions you have so I can't really see the drawback coming into play very often. And really this is just looking at it on its own, taking into account how well this plays with other sources of +Action and it seems clear that $4 is way too low of a cost?

Mimic: Well the setup here is weird, makes games almost impossible to 3 pile for one. I guess that there would have to be 72 Mimics to account for a 6 player game with Young Witch+Ruins (12 action supply piles!). I'm not sure whether the on-play of this actually works within the rules, Band of Misfits things are always a bit of a danger zone. I think it needs an "this is that card until it leaves play" too to match Band/Overlord. Being able to be any Action is probably dangerous too, might want to put a limit on that. Potion cost is a clever way to make it difficult for the player uncovering these to buy them all up before other players have a chance.

Blockade: I personally don't think I'd enjoy playing with this, having to make this decision once at the start of the game seems like it could take a while to think through, doing it 3 times will slow the start of the game to a halt. I don't much care for the gameplay either, with the choices being hidden it'll be impossible to play around and just come down to the shuffles whether you get the points for it. If you got the points for gaining one of your choices at least you could play towards it. But if you enjoy that kind of thing then go for it!

Thanks for the input Gazbag. I was just looking at some of your cards and I'm quite impressed. They are generally straight forward and anyone using them should have an easy time knowing what to do with it. My cards.... not so much. I'd like to respond to a few of things (not all though since it is quite late currently).

Army - You nailed this one, but I should state that my playtesting has shown in standard games that you can get about 2-4 cards on your Army mat and 2-4 Army cards by around turn 13 or so. Army is a powerhouse at this point, but the game is generally about over and any more building might cost you the game. So yes, getting 5-6 Army cards and having them beefed out would result in some boring games, but a skilled player should be able to beat an opponent trying to overbuild Army (at least this has been the case in my limited testing; edge cases are sure to exist).

Heir - I can see a point for making this cost $6. It's true that hitting $9 consistently shouldn't be too hard on most boards, but it takes longer when you have to spend a bunch of money on Heirs that won't do anything for awhile. Kind of another overbuild card, but as an underbuild kind of player, I think I can punish an opponent going for too many of these.

Royal Decree - You and Aquila both brought up the Mandarin/Bonfire thing and my first reaction was "That is freakin' awesome. Why didn't I think of that!?" Well, it was of coarse an unintended use of the card and I removed it (v0.2). Probably no way to make that a viable in another card right? The on-gain effect is the core of the card. Everything else about it really revolves around this and not the on-play ability.

Slumlord - Everyone seems to love Slumlord. What does that really say about you people? :) I also really like how it plays, but can see games where it is too strong. Of coarse that's kind of Dominion for you. Some combos are ridiculous, just hopefully fun and somewhat fair at the same time. But hitting Slumlord and Swindler turn 3! Ugh, so sorry world.

Stadium - This is probably my most tested card and I'm confident in saying it's balanced. Caravan Guard is actually weaker than Silver and without the reaction is sub-cost $3. It's the reaction that makes it more useful. So yes, Stadium hits $1 easily early on, but that's not very good for the price. The $3 to $4 range is where the real value is, but don't forget you can completely whiff with this and get $0. EDIT My first version specifically said to remove the tokens, but it seemed unneeded. I think people will in general know to discard them and to help with the people who are unsure I will address it in the expanded rules.

Lost Temple - Like Chapel this card is way under priced for it's power, but on purpose. Also like Chapel, Lost Temple needs other cards to work well. Having +Buys certainly helps turn it into Lost City's, but those are hard to come by in cantrip form. And lastly like Chapel, I wanted every opening hand to have access to it, so $4 seemed fair.

Old Witch - Yeah, the delayed reaction makes this one manageable, but having 10 Curses waiting in the shadows for that first Victory buy is scary. There are ways around this, but I think Old Witch is still something to be feared. You do give up a lot to open with them though, so it seems balanced.

Crane - Always thought this should be $5, but changed it to $4 for some reason. Haven't playtested this one yet, but I think the -1 Card token will definitely sting a bit in a mirror match. Playing as Laboratory is nice, but drawing blind could leave you with that last Action and a -1 Card token. Playing as Smithy saves you from that, but may draw Actions dead. These are at least the decisions I was hoping a player would need to consider with it.

Mimic - 72 Mimic cards and you might never see a single one! Haha. Thanks for doing the math on that! I knew it would be a lot, but never bothered to get a number. Certainly a card that will never be published, but thank heaven for blank cards! I had the "this is that card until it leaves play" text in it at one point, but cut it for the sake of brevity. I don't think it actually needs it. I believe it just changes how it interacts with some gaining cards like Changling and Disciple. For instance if you Disciple an Overlord, you don't gain an Overlord, but the card Overlord was played as. Disciple a Mimic and you actually gain a Mimic, which I'm fine with. They are so hard to buy, I think a few edge cases for gaining them is fine. Of coarse I may be wrong and would love to hear if I am.

Blockade - I completely understand about Blockade. When I first made it I thought, "What the hell did I just make!" I was very nervous about it for a long time, but after a few games, it became quite natural to play with. I generally like to spend 4-5 minutes analyzing the board anyways so this certainly fits right in with my play style. I think most boards are quite predictable so there should be some easy points, but it also opens up opportunities to go for unusual combos where your opponent has not likely placed anything. If you ever want to try it, maybe agree to place everything within the first 5 cards to lessen the fear of giving your opponent 6-10 points. Or maybe this is something I should just put into it?

Well thanks again for the comments. I'll have to get back over to your cards soon and post a few things. Maybe even play test some stuff. Take care!

453
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards
« on: May 23, 2018, 07:23:36 pm »
Army:
Here is a recent test I did using Village, Smithy and Market. For brevity I've omitted some unnecessary details. 

Turn 6 - First Army, Turn 7 - Placed Village on Army mat, Turn 8 - Second Army, Turn 10 - Placed Smithy on Army mat, Turn 12 - First Army Play for Village+Smithy; Province, Turn 13 - Placed Market on Army mat, Turn 14 - Province, Turn 15 - Province x2, Turn 16 - Province x2.
Did you try this without using Army? It would be interesting to see if it adds any definite impact; 16 turns seems about average, and the same deck without Army could do the same? Also, if I understand correctly, you don't need to put Village on Army for its actions, as 1 Market by itself makes Army nonterminal ('playing' all the cards won't use actions).
As worded, playing all the cards on the Army mat leaving them there, is confusing with Reserve cards; if they don't go to the Tavern mat, they can't be called.
As there are already good, established baselines for Smithy+Big Money and straight Big Money, I only tried various versions of Army play against one another. This was to try and establish baselines using some of Dominions more straight forward cards. So in this instance without trashing or any kind of reliability, a normal Smith+Big Money would have won. Of coarse games are generally more complicated than this and I think Army can be built faster or slower depending on the Kingdom. Militia for instance seems to destroy any kind of Army play (unintentional card flavor for the win!).

Yes, Market and Smithy alone would create a +4 Cards, +1 Action, +1 Buy, +1 Coin card. Village was more there for other testing purposes.

For Reserve cards I'm using Necromancers language. Reserve cards can be put on the Army mat, but once they are played they remove themselves to the Tavern mat and are no longer playable with Army. So you can do it, but there doesn't really seem to be a point.

A little thing I note with Royal Decree that's probably only rules errata, but you play Treasures from opponents' hands, then buy Mandarin or Bonfire. Even though they are now on your deck or trashed, they still would get returned? Certainly snatching some Heirlooms away could get a bit unpleasant.
Sound your air horns for the wombo combo! This is pretty interesting, but was totally unintentional. I have removed it in (v0.2) I would love to see a balanced card that had some kind of interaction like this.

Moon Shrine - so this version has competition to get the bonus coffers, and it encourages spreading the VP around a bit more. Did you try raising the cost of the first version, or is $3 cost necessary to you? I just feel it would play better, but it's only a feeling.
Yeah, Moon Shrine would have to be about a cost $5 with an unconditional +2 Coffers, which for what I wanted out of the card was too high. Testing against Big Money is about the only thing I can do without computer simulations. It only really gives me a baseline for a card, so I don't quite know how strong Moon Shrine will be on some boards, but this is the best I can do. :)

Crane - this is probably a $5 cost card. It's a more flexible Lab. The setback is a bit questionable since if you make this the last Action you play it'll do nothing, and with multiple Cranes that won't be hard to do. Also, something I learned from a card I tried is that having leftover actions is something of a punishment in itself, your investments in the nonterminal Actions are less effective.
Agreed. I had it at cost $5 for a long time and changed it last minute along with the -1 Card token addition hoping that would offset the lower cost, but it likely will not. It has been changed back to cost $5 as of (v0.2).

Difficult to call with Mimic, I've never played Alchemy. It could have the power to persuade players to buy potions? It first looks like a better Overlord for less cost, but comes at a different time so would play differently, and also can't be the card it was under as the would-be empty pile has now left the Supply. They slow down a 3 pile ending and encourage an engine instead. It feels like it will either be interesting, or make games annoyingly slow.
Yeah this one is different for sure. 3-Piles are pretty much out of the question. Mimic itself is incredibly strong and probably can't be balanced, so I thought sticking them under each Action pile would be interesting. Probably not for everyone, but I think it will play fine. The "This is that card until it leaves play' was omitted for brevity. I believe this merely leaves it open to being gained through cards like Changling and Disciple, which seems like an edge case to me.

Thanks for all your comments and catches. It helps a lot getting thoughtful feedback.

454
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards
« on: May 22, 2018, 08:48:04 pm »
Certainly powerful for it's cost, but mid to late game it usually turns in to +2 Coffers, one other player takes 1VP, which is a bit weak. Of coarse niche scenarios probably exist.
I don't think that you always necessarily gift a VP to the other player. Early you can pick Province if you don't want to make Moon Shrines attractive and in the endgame you can always pick Duchy or Estate.
But even if you did, the other player would do the same for you. So the net effect is that the card can come with some VPs on gain and that it provides 2 Coin tokens on play which is too strong (even though it is like Merchant Guild, i.e. you cannot use the Coin tokens this turn). It is hard to play around with this though, one Coin token is too weak and a conditional amount of Coin tokens, like with Stadium, would make the card too complicated.

Tested Moon Shrine versus Big Money at +2 Coffers and it was quite strong! 6 Provinces, 3 Estates, and 14 VP tokens in 16 turns. Wowzah! Clearly a nerf was needed, so I made it +1 Coffer with the second +1 Coffer conditional upon adding VP tokens to a pile that does not already have it. Also you can now only add VP tokens to Victory Supply piles. This still allows it to be powerful early, but it really reigns it in mid game. Late game it picks back up again, but VP piling needs to be managed well. In this version versus Big Money it netted 3 Provinces, 3 Duchies, 3 Estates and 10 VP in 19 turns. Very poor outcome, but this was the outcome I was hoping for. Essentially a few Moon Shrines will go a long way, but if too many people are grabbing them, they fall a part. I'm hoping this creates interesting game play.

It's power level is also now directly tied to how many Victory Supply piles there are. More Moon Shrines producing +2 Coffers will speed the game up, but the access to more VP should slow it back down. It should also make alt-VP strategies versus Province rushes more viable. You can load up VP tokens on Victory Supply piles that help you and not your opponent.

So you were right; +1 Coffer wasn't good enough and +2 Coffers was too good. Hopefully this conditional version (v0.2) is straightforward enough. I think it is, but I'd like to hear your opinion.

455
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards
« on: May 22, 2018, 08:25:22 pm »
I'm surprised that Commander hasn't been compared to Pathfinding yet. It seems like mostly a weakened version of Pathfinding.

Disadvantages compared to Pathfinding:

- The +1 card only works if you have any actions remaining after playing the action (though you aren't generally using Pathfinding on a terminal action if you don't have extra Villages anyway).
- The +1 card is after the action, not before. Before is better for most things; after is only better for draw-to-x.
- You have to buy multiple copies, and play it multiple times; as opposed to just buying once and being done.

Advantages:

- Works on more than 1 kingdom pile. Huge advantage to be sure; but I think Pathfinding is already going to make you very likely to draw your deck anyway; so even more draw isn't going to matter as much.
- Potential to stack with multiple in play.

Yes, comparing it to Pathfinding it seems to add little to the game. Sure it's a bit different, but I'm thinking not enough to warrant a new card. I'll likely remove Commander and try to reuse to base mechanic in another card.

456
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards
« on: May 22, 2018, 08:15:01 pm »
No idea how to judge the power, then. I guess it works kind of like Pirate Ship or Miser; quite weak the first several times you play it, but then possibly super strong after that.

Quite right! By end game it is extremely powerful, but it often takes many turns to get to that point. Here is a recent test I did using Village, Smithy and Market. For brevity I've omitted some unnecessary details. 

Turn 6 - First Army, Turn 7 - Placed Village on Army mat, Turn 8 - Second Army, Turn 10 - Placed Smithy on Army mat, Turn 12 - First Army Play for Village+Smithy; Province, Turn 13 - Placed Market on Army mat, Turn 14 - Province, Turn 15 - Province x2, Turn 16 - Province x2.

You can see it ramps up slowly then is quite devastating, but someone running Smith Big Money could have beaten this. So you can build the the biggest and bestest card you can think of, but will you have enough time to play it in the end? It seems concise Army play or even a little deck managing before Army will likely always win.

Also Army is a card that needs all the other Kingdom cards to function. So it may often be the best strategy on the board, but that it no way means the other cards aren't involved. This is the case with some of the more powerful cards in Dominion (Goons, Chapel, etc); they need other cards to perform optimally. Army is very strong, but not in any way broken as some have claimed. Broken implies it's the only card you need to buy on a board.

457
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards
« on: May 22, 2018, 07:52:05 pm »
The new Old Witch is interesting. Self-Milita-ing makes trashing less relevant so this will lead to an interesting decision about when to go heavy for trashers in a mirror match.

Haha, the "New" Old Witch. Interesting wording. Yes, discarding 2 cards seems to be more in-line with two of my goals with the card. If you go early Old Witch (or double Old Witch), your ability to (1) trash and (2) hit $4 and $5 reliably are both diminished early game. It seems a fair trade off for early cursing and cycling.   

458
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards
« on: May 21, 2018, 02:56:08 pm »
I don't think that you always necessarily gift a VP to the other player. Early you can pick Province if you don't want to make Moon Shrines attractive and in the endgame you can always pick Duchy or Estate.
But even if you did, the other player would do the same for you. So the net effect is that the card can come with some VPs on gain and that it provides 2 Coin tokens on play which is too strong (even though it is like Merchant Guild, i.e. you cannot use the Coin tokens this turn). It is hard to play around with this though, one Coin token is too weak and a conditional amount of Coin tokens, like with Stadium, would make the card too complicated.

I have my doubts. Assuming that you don't green early buying a Victory card implies that you will have 11 extra dead cards in your deck once you start to green. That's a pretty harsh discontinuity and even good trashers might have a hard time to deal with that.
Again, I think that the idea is brilliant but I would follow the usual rule of not putting an Attack on a non-terminal or cantrip unless there are very good reasons for it (like Urchin being a weak Attack, Familiar being gained late, Relic not-stacking or Idol just being a "half-Attack"). I think it would be "safer" to test it with ordinary vanilla stuff like terminal Silver or putting it on a $5 Silver+ like Relic/Idol.

I'll be testing both of these soon and post the results. I can only do basic play testing, but it should help shed some light on whether they are just strong or broken. :)

459
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards
« on: May 21, 2018, 02:53:02 pm »
Stadium - Just a nitpick, but Stadium should either say "you may reveal a card..." or replace "this for +$1 per Coin token" with "this. If you do, +$1 per Coin token" to be consistent with official cards. This is because the [condition] for [reward] wording always starts the condition with "you may." I recommend the "you may" wording, because otherwise, we have the no accountability problem that Throne Room used to have.
I guess I assumed there would never be a situation where you could have money and not reveal a card to take it. Maybe some weird Storyteller situation where you don't want to draw? Perhaps a card will one day come along where this will matter more. But you're right, best to be official. It's been updated per your recommendation. Thanks for the input!

460
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards
« on: May 20, 2018, 06:10:21 pm »
Going to do some basic play testing on some of the more contentious cards (Moon Shrine, Army, Commander) over the next few days and I'll post results.

461
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards
« on: May 20, 2018, 04:18:16 pm »
Thanks for the comments! It's been fun reading people's thoughts on cards I've spent a lot of time on.

Moon Shrine is good but I'd tweak the vanilla stuff: 2 Coin tokens on a non-terminal card is too good for $3 and potentially also too good for $4.
Certainly powerful for it's cost, but mid to late game it usually turns in to +2 Coffers, one other player takes 1VP, which is a bit weak. Of coarse niche scenarios probably exist.
Stadium will probably yield most of the time 2. 3/4 is risky unless you play a thin money deck with a high likelihood of Gold/Province in your hand. So this will mostly be a delayed double Peddler, early in the game with some risk that you have no $4 card in your hand. But even then I think this is pretty / too good for a $4.
Stadium would actually be stronger at $4 since amassing Stadiums would almost guarantee $2 Coin out of it. Cost $3 slows it down and makes you think hard about how many you want. In my test it's about as good as a Silver overall when no +Buys exist.
I like Lost Temple and the thematic hint at Lost City.
Thanks! Also a reference to Chapel.
About Old Witch, I love the idea of out-of-deck Curses that land in your deck on some condition (and greening is probably one of the best conditions!). But I would hesitate to put this Attack, or Attacks in general, on an cantrip/Oasis.
Even though it is weaker than ordinary Cursers it still a junker, with the junk coming delayed but all at once. And for a cheap price of $3 it might often be best to open Old Witch/Old Witch.
Yeah, this is a tough one. If your opponent opens double Old Witch and you don't, they will surely win the Curse split, but what are they giving up? They won't hit $5 until after their second shuffle; you hopefully will have at least once or twice. I think a strong trasher + Silver opening will beat double Old Witch.

462
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards
« on: May 20, 2018, 03:02:50 pm »
Thank you all for the great comments and feedback (especially Aquila). You have already pointed out a few problematic issues. For the sake of being concise, I'll try and reply to all the comments thus far in one post.

Card Explanations/Personal Thoughts:

Army - I'm still inclined to say this card is not broken or overly powered. It can certainly be powerful late game, but it does take a while to get to that point. Sometimes the very cards in your Army can accomplish the same thing played individually and at a faster pace. Army may take center stage in a lot of games, but some cards are just like that (Tournament, Governor, Chapel, etc). Army at least requires the other Kingdom cards to be involved to work.

Commander - Yes, this card does need a price increase (thinking $6 or $7). Unfortunately this card does lead to an issue with Tactician (good catch Aquila!), but I'm torn if that means I should rework the mechanics for one single card interaction. I could roll this back to a version that required a card to give +Actions in order to draw, but the wording gets a bit funky. Also it is worth noting that 3 Commander cards in play equals the draw of 3 Laboratory cards in play; it's only the 4th Commander played that overcomes Lab.

Heir - I view this as a mini-Dominate type. Dominate is certainly strong, but if you can't build for it fast enough, you're probably better off just Province rushing. I think the same applies to Heir. By the time you get 5 or so Heirs and you're consistently hitting $9, your opponent may have 4-5 Provinces. The payoff has to be good enough to warrant the risk of over-building.

Royal Decree - My thinking is that this has to be strong enough early to warrant an early buy. This then entices people to buy Silver and Gold, which leaves them open to being used by their opponents. If Royal Decree is too weak I don't think anyone would ever buy it given the risk. A cool interaction is leaving a Treasure card in your hand when you buy Royal Decree. If you hit another players Royal Decree you get to then play it three times, otherwise not at all. It's power scaling with more players in unfortunate, but other cards like that exist. I did my best to make the on-buy effect powerful enough on a two player game to warrant to risk of buying it.

Moon Shrine - I think this outshines Silver early, but falls off quickly mid to late game. You can surely pick up an early Province with 2-3 extra VP early, but that's not likely later on when $8 is an easy price point to hit. I don't see a mass Moon Shrine deck working.

Slumlord - Yes, the villainous Slumlord can work with Treasure and Night cards, but effectively ends your Action phase. Better than Throne Room early, but probably falls short late game.

Stadium - Out played by Silver early, but amazing late game with a reliable engine. Definitely needs +Buys to shine. Massing Stadiums also doesn't really work since they anti-synergize.

Lost Temple  - Another strong trasher that should be priced higher, but I kept artificially low to ensure every player had a shot to open with it (consider Chapel's cost to power level). The Seaway interactions is making me think it should be $5 though. 

Industrious Village - You nailed it! Won't always be great, but when it is, it's really great (maybe that's the definition of swingy though). In my opinion that's the fun of Dominion; trying to figure out what card interactions work and when to go for them.

Blockade - You also nailed this one. It basically rewards players who can see how a board will play out and who are willing to risk high card positions. Of coarse you have to be very careful not to gain your own card, because you will not gain VP points. Also, if two or more players pick the same position/pile, that pile is essentially blocked for those players unless someone wants to give their opponent points. There's a lot of subtly here and I recommend a 10x10 grid chart (for most boards) to keep track of gains and where your card/positions are.

Gamble - Kodos to 'Puk' for pointing out a card flaw in hilarious fashion. This needs to be changed to "Name an Action card and amount of 1 or more". It's reliable early, but giving up $2 at that stage is tough. Even late game in a close match, $2 might not be available, especially since you might whiff. Best in decks with variety. Play testing has found this card to be balanced, but fun is another question. Included it for those players who really enjoy card counting (Yuck!).

Thanks again for the comments and insights. I'll update some of these and post version changes in the comments soon.

463
Variants and Fan Cards / Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards
« on: May 20, 2018, 12:52:38 am »
[CARDS - RANDOM]
               

               

           

               

               

               

                 

   


[CARDS - COMMANDERS]
       


[EVENTS]



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464
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Traveler Line: Orphan
« on: October 18, 2017, 02:36:50 pm »
Ran a few test games. Here are the results:

Game 01 - Pure Orphan Line (One Grand Witch) versus Pure Big Money: Orphan = 48VP, Big Money = 41VP.
Game 02 - Pure Orphan Line (Two Grand Witches) versus Pure Big Money: Orphan = 57VP, Big Money = 43VP.
Game 03 - Orphan Line/Big Money Hybrid (Zero Grand Witches) versus Big Money = Orphan/Big Money = 28VP, Big Money = 33VP.

Notes: These games used Grand Witches that gave 2VP for each Curse and Victory card gained. No Grand Witches were given as junk.

Conclusion: The pure Orphan line seems to be right where I'd like it to be in terms of strength. Not strong enough to beat a good engine, but strong enough to beat Big Money. This is after all meant to be more of a support line and not an all inclusive means of winning the game. I tend to view the other two Traveler Lines the same way. Teacher enables engines, Champion blocks attacks and removes terminal Actions, but neither of these on their own will win the game. Grand Witch is meant to make cheaper Victory cards more viable, but it's strength is also dependent on the Kingdom card lineup.

It's also worth noting that I had an incredible amount of fun testing this line. These cards interact well with each other and decision making is abound. In Orphan versus Orphan play, I think the more thoughtful, strategic player will always be the victor.
 

465
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Traveler Line: Orphan
« on: October 16, 2017, 02:44:35 am »
Another problem with distributing Grand Witch as junk: The pile has only five cards and so it's likely there won't be enough Grand Witvhes to give one to every player.

I've thought about this and don't have a good solution. I'm entertaining the idea of making the Grand Witch pile 10 cards and keeping all the rest as is (10-5-5-5-10 respectively). This sounds like a lot of potential Grand Witches in play, but getting to it is still constricted by three 5-pile decks. I would hope going for any more than one or two Grand Witches is foolhardy. I also don't think junking with Grand Witch is as good as it seems. You need to hit an opponent on one of the last few turns of the game to ensure they don't just turn around and use the Grand Witch to net a bunch of VP tokens. Testing surely needs to be done though! Any thoughts on this are appreciated.

466
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Traveler Line: Orphan
« on: October 16, 2017, 02:37:31 am »
I don't think that changing Grand Witch to +3VP per green/purple is good. Now the game will even more likely be an Estate/Duchy slog and if you have her fairly late in your game when you don't green at least twice anymore you can still Mountain Hag her as nasty junk. Seems just too swingy (having Mountain Hag and Grand Witch in hand while not wanting to play Grand Witch will happen rarely but if it does it is a very nasty junking attack) to me.
I'd try -4VP, +2VPs per Curse/Victory card.

Yes! I changed this to 3VP tokens completely on impulse and immediately regretted it. I will change this back soon! I'll have to run more test to see if -4VP is a better fit. Using Mountain Hag to junk with Grand Witch is quite hard to do and in most cases probably isn't a good use of either card. -6 VP sounds like a lot, but if it's not the last turn of the game when this happens, your opponent may end up playing the Grand Witch and scoring enough to points to negate the -6VP or even gain access VP points. This is all untested though.

467
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Traveler Line: Orphan
« on: October 13, 2017, 02:24:36 pm »
Does Processioning a Heretic effectively turn it into a Hireling?
No, it's better. You get 2 Actions and 2 Cards.

As mentioned, I would suggest using the Archive wording to make the cards double as a tracking method. Here's a wording that keeps the functionality intact (even though I still think it needs severe fixing, but I won't push this):

+1 Action
Set aside the top four cards of your deck. At the start of each of each of your next four turns, put one of them in your hand, and if you do, +1 Action. Otherwise, return this to its pile.

The Archive wording is beautiful, but I don't think it works here for two reasons: (1) I want the extra card draw to end after Heretic has been returned or exchanged and (2) this allows more shifting ability than I like to satisfy the Heretic->Mountain Hag exchange condition. There is surely a much more elegant way of wording this, but for now I'm going to try and get some more play testing in the make sure I even want to keep the mechanics of Heretic. I'll update the inserts with the word revisions from you and 'Chris is me' and try and come back with some quantifiable means of saying this set is good or not. I'll label these new inserts v0.2.

Thanks again to everyone for the help. It's nice having a community like this. I look forward to posting other cards I have!

468
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Traveler Line: Orphan
« on: October 13, 2017, 02:00:07 pm »
While this is in play, at the start of your Buy phase, you may reveal a hand with no more than 2 Action and Treasure cards. If you do, exchange this for a Mountain Hag.

On Mountain Hag, the structure is also confusing, because it’s not clear if opponents can gain more than one Curse from it or not, and also it doesn’t integrate well with the Coin token pay. The “copy of it” language is unnecessary since only one card can be gained this way. Also saying “Curse Card” is redundant. Here is a wording example if a Curse is gained per Coin token paid, conditional on successful return:

Hi Chris is me,

Thanks for the wording on Heretic. Much cleaner than what I had! I can see how Mountain Hag is confusing. It's meant to allow the player to return multiple copies of a Curse (Curse or Grand Witch) and have other players gain them. TO clean it up I think I'll just make the Coin token gain and Curse returning completely separate.

469
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Traveler Line: Orphan
« on: October 12, 2017, 06:54:12 pm »
The mockups are very nice. One consistent art style, very pretty. The cards themselves also look great. However, most of the cards have issues, and I think basically all of them are caused by the line revolving around Grand Witch, which is a horribly weak card and obtainable only after going through the others. As the others are pretty horrible before you have Curses, I see no reason to ever go for this line unless a very strong Curser is on the board, in which case you probably still prefer Cursing back or trashing. But ond at a time:

Orphan's -VP will not matter, as you usually start using Travellers as early as you can, so you won't have any VP as the time you play Orphan (s). I implemented "-VP" as "Each other player takes VP" and suggest doing it this way. Also, it seems like a very weak card, even considering it's a Traveller starter.

Witch Hunter is one of those classic "interact with Curses" cards that never work because they are either too strong or too weak, depending on the existance of Cursers/trashers. Technically, you could easily remedy the problem by including a Curser in the line, but as Mountain Hag itself is dependant on the existance of Curses in your deck, I wouldn't count it. Grand Witch is too late and also mostly self-inflicted to count. Think about it: In a game with no regular Cursers, Grand Witch basically reduces the cost of Estate to 0$ (Curses now give 1VP) and activates some abilities on the other parts of the Traveller line. Now, would a card like Witch Hunter be worth it if it asked you to discard an Estate? I doubt it.

Heretic has too much going on. If you didn't have the anti-Treasure condition (which Heretic itself makes harder to achieve) you could just use Archive's wording instead of tokens. The fact it wants you hand to be mostly junk will usually mean it'ss almost impossible to exchange unless getting Grand Witch is your only notable goal (instead of winning the game).

Mountain Hag's Coin Tokens are fine. The Curse distribution is an Ambassador that comes much too late to matter.

Grand Witch is much too weak. The ability itself is already lackluster for a Traveller, and the -6 VP are ridiculous. I guess your intention is that you want several of these? That's just going to be much too slow. By the way, Grand Witch can't be applied to copies of itself when you exchange for it, as exchanging is not gaining.

Hello Asper,

Big fan of your cards so I appreciate the feedback. As you stated most of the pre-Grand Witch cards are bad/terrible and only get a bit better with Grand Witch in play. This is by design as in my playtesting I've found Grand Witch to be very powerful. But with only a handful of testing it's hard to prove this. It's strength is highly dependent on how many turns it's in play and that is dependent on the board.

A few things to clarify:
Orphan: The -2VP is to the player who played it, not other players. This does nothing early/mid game, but could hurt if you've started gaining VP tokens from Grand Witch or any other VP token gainer.

Witch Hunter: You nailed this one. Not a great card, but having Curses in your deck early can help by-pass the Heretic exchange requirement.

Heretic: You also nailed this one. It can help you by starting your next four hands with 6 cards and 2 Actions, but it hurts your chances of exchanging a Heretic for a Mountain Hag. The chances of exchanging it the first turn Heretic is played is good since you only have 4 cards after playing it, but I wanted to reward players who risk the 6 cards/2 Action hands. Just don't have it in play too long or have it miss the shuffle. The coin token tracking aspect is weird, but I guess I felt tracking 5 potential turns would be too much for people. There's no risk of botching the game with this wording, but I feel it's confusing and hard to conceptualize what the card is actually doing. So I will change this to be more clear and hope players can manage the tracking (with or without tokens).

Mountain Hag: Also not a great card. Basically an Ambassador/Butcher hybrid. The one ace up it's sleeve though is it's ability to give Grand Witches to other players. This hopefully explains the weird wording. When and when not to do that is a hard decision to make.

I'll try and test this set more. If I find it underwhelming I can relax the Heretic exchange condition to 3 cards and make Grand Witch -3 or -4 VP.

Thanks again for the comments!

470
Variants and Fan Cards / Traveler Line: Orphan
« on: October 11, 2017, 04:17:05 pm »
Hello Fellow Dominion Players!

I've decided to start posting some custom Dominion cards I've been hoarding throughout the years. Since I'm new to posting on forums I'll start with a few cards before I leap into more to make sure I'm doing this right.

Thanks for looking and I hope these look enticing enough to wanna try out!

Orphan Traveler Line - 10 Orphan, 5 Witch Hunter, 5 Heretic, 5 Mountain Hag, 5 Grand Witch:
       

   



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