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76

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: August 19, 2019, 06:36:50 am »

CHALLENGE #40 - KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE PRIZE!!! VERDICTS

Well, coming up with a Prize gainer is certainly no easy task. I've tried a few times with no success, so I applaud and admire everyone who participated in this weeks challenge. There were some very good cards to sort through. Anyways, I put an asterisk next to individual cards I liked. Runner-up, the honorable mentions and winner will be at the bottom!

Agora/Affluent Village by alion8me
Agora: Slowly down the gaining of prizes by having to navigate a Traveler Line is a neat idea. The sifting power of Agora will make this much faster though. Agora itself seems quite strong for $5. Draw+Coin is deceptively strong.
Affluent village*: A Villa that can be drawn dead and then played is certainly useful. I see this fitting in well with the prizes, but in terms of creativity, to me it fulfills the same role as Villa.

King's Accountant/Scrubland by pubby
King's Accountant: Nice to see another piling mechanic akin to Swashbuckler. Ultimately though I think this sets a very low bar for gaining prizes. By the 3rd play of KA you'll have a prize and a Coffer to spare. I think your original idea of requiring more Coffers was sound.
Scrubland*: Very interesting idea. Really changes the dynamic of how to play a Cursing board. Adding an additional Buy to the prize pool should help on boards without Buys. Even though this can essentially turn an extra Buy into 2VP, Princess can turn a extra buy into 1VP and do a lot more on top of that.

Village Fair/Master of Ceremonies by Commodore Chuckles
Village Fair*: Very clever requiring both a mono and deck diverse strategy to gain Prizes. I might be off here, but I feel this would strategically speaking be more interesting without the +Action. Possibly more balanced too as a Throne Room with an extra Action is very good and this will gain you Prizes down the road.
Master of Ceremonies: Certainly feels like a good Prize fit. Some people have made good arguments for this being overpowered, but since I'm judging this mainly on creativity I can mostly ignore that.

King's Quest/Golden Lance by Aquila
King's Quest: At first glance this seems like a pretty low bar for gaining Prizes, but that's deceptive. It essentially equates to $10, +2 Buys and a stop card clunking you up until you can get rid of it. I still think the bar might just be low enough that some players will get this to go off by shear luck. Your cards are always very thought out so I really hope I'm not missing something here.
Golden Lance*: Hyper, mega Treasure drawer! What an awesome card idea. Makes Bag of Gold much more attractive as well as the Silver gaining on Trusty Steed. Could lead to some very lucky, big draws, but in a Tournament game this would less likely. King's Quest much more so.

Uncanny Storekeeper/Erect by spineflu
Uncanny Storekeeper*: There's nothing more satisfy then playing Treasures during your Action phase! This mostly can be seen as play three of these and gain a prize. This can lead to scaling problems with games of 3+ players. Even if you fall short of getting three for Prizes, US still seems like a very useful card.
Erect: In terms of creativity it's just a remodel with +Action that can turn itself into something if it duds near the end of the game. Putting this back into the Prize pile might be a more interesting twist.

Dragon Fight by pst
Dragon Fight*: Really interesting concept. I can imagine how intense going though this process would be. Like fighting a real dragon maybe! It really makes use of the Prizes $0 cost. The more Prizes you have, the less cards you have to win the fight. Albeit Prizes can be used for Copper. Trashing all of your cards might be rough, but I can also see where it could be used as a trasher.

Sanctification/Rematch by faust
Sanctification: Neat idea! Seems to add a lot of value to Gold as it will usually be the most expensive and accessible card early that also has value in your deck.
Rematch*: I like to top bit quite a lot. Very interesting idea. The bottom part also, but I could easily do without it, but then again it solves to problem of one player having the only extra Buy or Village.

Inner Court/Half of the Kingdom by 4est
Inner Court: Hard to find balance issues with a card that has a value assigned to players within the game. I feel Mountain Mass is only once per game for a reason. Having to do this 6 times may be tedious, but that depends on the play group I guess. Prizes that gain like Half of the Kingdom, Bag of Gold, etc will be in high demand given the debt.

Half of the Kingdom: Seems like a pretty strong card. Cards that gain only one $5 are already pretty good. With Prizes and the good amount of gaining, the 5VP seems almost guaranteed.

Rat King/Frog by grrgrrgrr
Rat King: Interesting use of Rats! With so much cantrip trashing all players should eventually end up with pretty clean decks. There could be some very unfortunate hiccups along the way though.
Frog Prince is certainly a good card and it does what it does well. Requiring another Prize in hand is interesting, but some games you only get one prize. If that one prize if Frog then you just did all that work for a Copper. But maybe that's what your getting at with naming this Frog?

Horse Show/Archivist by Fragasnap
Horse Show*: Very interesting card! I like the layers of complexity this brings. I'm afraid the inclusion of $4 and $5 cost Treasures will makes this absurdly powerful though and easy to gain Prizes.
Archivist*: Trashing, drawing and $ all on the same card and you make it seem very balanced! Very nice!

Crusade/King's Favor by naitchman
Crusade*: Very nice mechanic for delaying the player with the first Prize more than the second. The no Copper clause will work well with slowing down the pace of Prize gaining.

King's Favor: This depends highly on what the $4 cost card is. A choice of two cards might make this more viable. Of course I'm just speaking in general as I'm not judging the Prizes in how often they are useful. I do like the concept a lot, but I do feel like it is missing something. Maybe if there was a way to guarantee what kind of card the restricted card will be. Draw comes to mind and would certainly make the first play of King's Favor really good.

Pumpkin Contest/Mother of Dukes by majiponi
Pumpkin Contest: I'm not very familiar with the $6P price point, but it seems like a fair price for a Prize.
Mother of Dukes: Essentially does a portion of what Tournament does. Does enable Estate pile out strategies though.

Pyrrhic Victory/Guided Tour byNoMoreFun
Pyrrhic Victory*: $4 cost for a one shot Prize. Really neat idea! I can see a lot of interesting play arising from the shuffling of Prizes. Some Prizes may have more value at certain times in the game than others depending on the board. Assessing that would be a lot of fun.
Guided Tour: One of my favorite prizes, but I do think it is very over powered. Dropping the gaining would do a lot to address that and help in situations where you may not want to gain certain cards. So dropping it could also buff it. :I Really cool name too!

Volatile Alchemies/Noble Deflect? by popsofctown
Volatile Alchemies: Interesting idea. Certainly makes people stop and think about if they are ready for a card they may not need versus just blinding rushing the Prizes. All the prizes are mostly useful, but not always. Take Diadem on a board with no Villages/Splitters. Will anyone even go for this knowing that will likely be the first card given out?

Noble Deflect: Hopefully I've assumed correctly that this is your intended submission and not Golden Mace. There's some interesting stuff in here but ultimately I think trashing Prizes isn't very fun.

Promote/Promenade by Gubump
Promote: A bit like Replace but instead of an Attack it gains Prizes. Seems like a pretty low bar for the latter. Decks will generally have enough $5 cost cards that lining one up with Promote shouldn't be hard. You are losing a key part of your deck, but the Prize should make up for that. I do like that this moderate difficulty Prize gaining comes with an additional cost of Promote becoming less useful late game. Top decking Provinces is no fun, but shouldn't matter on your last turn.
Promenade*: Nice draw is a welcome sight in the Prize pile. The double top-decking is also neat and could be useful with some cards. Wishing Well and Will-O-Wisp come to mind.

Safari/Trophy by King Leon
Safari*: Lab with a Buy is useful. Should help getting those Prizes. 7 differently named cards in hand will always be achievable and should generally be within reason to achieve.

Trophy: A not always useful but neat addition to the Prize pile. I wonder if this is like a "rich get richer" thing though. Sure you can grab it to deny someone 6-8VP, but then you now have a dead card in your deck for little VP to show. In a 2 player game though, someone should at least get 4VP out of it, which is good.

Knighting/Seat of Honor by Fly-Eagles-Fly
Knighting: The on-gain trashing seems quite strong. You can slim down very fast with just a couple of these gains. It wouldn't be too hard to then pivote to Golds and other $4 cost to start getting Prizes.

Seat of Honor*: Might need a non-Duration clause for tracking. Other tracking issues could be problematic, but other than that I like this a lot. Both options are in a way trying to achieve the same goal, but in very different ways. Seems very fun.

Master Craftsman/Throne by Gazbag
Master Craftsman*: Another good value card that sees its usefulness taper off. The amount of Master Craftsman and Golds needed to make Prize gaining reliable seems like a fair price to pay.
Trone*: Very clean design! Not at all useful early on, but boy does it get good. Would be very tempting to get this as a first Prize even if that meant giving up another good Prize. But then maybe you end up with Throne and Princess. Sad times!

Burial Ground/Craftsman by anordinaryman
Burial Ground*: What an interesting card. A very strong card on it's first play that just gets worse and worse, culminating in the ultimate of humiliations, losing your whole hand. But alas, perhaps its all worth it for that sweet, sweet Prize. The default strategy of spamming Burial Grounds is a no-brainer, but I imagine there is a lot of room to outplay your opponents here. Using other cards that discard for instance.
Craftsman*: A Lurker that comes primed with one of each card. Its usefulness is only marginally board dependent, but even on the worst of boards, this will have already left its mark by removing one of each Kingdom card. The setup clause is just beautifully made for a Prize.

Joust/Reinforcements by scolapasta
Joust: Like faust said, this has an Attack-esque quality to it. I don't believe this was intentional though so I'll judge based on what I believe you intended for the card. Even with fixing that, this is roughly a $4.5 value even without the prize gaining. It's a very interesting idea though.
Reinforcements: A Royal Carriage that puts itself back on the Tavern mat is certainly useful. Not a lot of difference between the two beyond that.

I just want to again emphasize that this was a tough challenge and I appreciate everyone's entries. If I didn't judge someones card well its likely not because I thought it was a bad card or design, but more that it just didn't have the qualities that I think a good prize gainer should have. I can go into more depth on this later if anyone likes. Anyways, on to the awards!!!!





Honorable Mention: faust
Honorable Mention: Commodore Chuckles
Honorable Mention: Gazbag
Runner-up: Fragsnap
Winner: anordinaryman

77

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: August 17, 2019, 05:11:24 pm »

Just a heads up, I'm going to have to start judging a bit early for this competition so final submissions should be in before Monday 08/19/19 at 01:00am EST (GMT-04). I believe this is the time this board uses. Also, this competition covers Prize gainers and Prizes and each reflects about 50% of your score. Any submissions with only one of these can only score half of your potential points.

Thanks!

78

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

« on: August 17, 2019, 04:57:46 pm »

Have you ever had to play with a person that just takes way too long with their turns? What if there were cards that used time as a mechanic? This would encourage faster play without someone having to be a jerk and ask others to get on with it. I also think fast and concise play is the mark of a good player. This may get newer players into the mindset of only buying and playing what they need to win.

I can think of two ways of tracking time:
(1) With a Stopwatch app on a phone. Easy to use and very accessible.
(2) With a series of hourglasses that increase in time. Requires a lot of hourglasses, may not be as accurate at tracking time, may not even have hourglasses that track lower times like 10 and 20 seconds, allows for more complex time mechanics.


Here are some basic cards to highlight the concept (using hourglasses):

Factory: A Lost City or Village depending on how fast you are. Will always be a LC on first play so having just one in your deck is good.


Clocktower: A way to apply a little pressure on others to take fast turns. You basically gamble on how long you think they will take. I'm not sure what time denominations should be available, but I think 10, 20, and 30 seconds is a good place to start. So gambling 30 seconds will reward you with 3 cards, but will give them a lot of time to take their turn. If they finish their turn before the 30 seconds is out, you get no cards.


Any thoughts? I get that this is a wonky idea. It kind of started out as a joke, but now I think it has some potential.

79

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

« on: August 17, 2019, 03:05:00 pm »

For this specific example:
You'd probably want to include a track that tells the +$ value for copper (kinda like what I did with Commodity/the Market Demand track), lest someone trash three of these and all the sudden coppers are worth $4 each.

For benefit-for-everyone/global effects:
There's a little of this with my "Causes" card type; I'm working on a couple helps-everyone-but-doubly-helps-you cards with my newest set


but I haven't messed with too much in terms of cards that modify base cards

Trashing that occurs during your Buy phase can lead to some interesting tracking issues (i.e. Counterfeit), but mostly I think it should be fine. The trash pile can be organized in a way that the number of Ores in the trash can easily be counted.

As for your cards, I really like the feel of them! They have a nice level of complexity, but not to the point where it's hard to track what's going on. Would like to hear how playtesting goes if that's in the near future.

I don't think that Ore is useless, you do often enough use Charm as a non-terminal Woodcutter. The way I read it, Kudasai picked a fairly vanilla-ish card in order to focus on this cool, innovative idea. And the extra Buy is potentially useful to more easily "reload" Ores, after having trashed them.

I guess that it will matter most in Kingdoms with Remodel variants. If there is Copper trashing (OK, if there are $2s you can also use Remodel to get rid of Coppers), the tempo advantage of trashing Coppers likely dominates keeping Coppers and later "converting" them into Silvers/Golds/...

Yes, I added the +$2 and +1 Buy as a sort of placeholder, but the more I look at it the more I think I'll keep it that way. Funny you mention Charm as I just played a game with that and used it mostly for +$2 and +1 Buy to great effect.

I'll have to see how hanging on to Coppers plays against trashing them. I hope both to be useful about 50% of the time.

80

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

« on: August 15, 2019, 01:58:56 pm »

Has anyone messed around with global effects that happen when a card is in the trash? This probably isn't the best idea, but here's a rough example:



The overall concept seems interesting but tough to balance. Anyone have any other card ideas like this?

81

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: August 13, 2019, 01:39:26 pm »

Let me know if exchanging cards for a prize isn't allowed, I know it isn't *technically* gaining but it seems to fit the spirit of the challenge.

For the first part of the challenge, I made a card that comes with an Heirloom-Traveler which culminates by giving you a card that exchanges itself for a prize. One or arguably two of the travelers are downgrades from the previous line to (hopefully) make it an interesting decision whether to go for a prize or not.

Agora

+3 Cards
+1 Action
+$1 ⠀
Discard 3 cards.
-
Heirloom: Old Medallion

$5
Action

Old Medallion

$1
-
When you discard this from play, you may exchange it for a Trinket.

$2
Treasure - Heirloom - Traveller

Trinket

$2
-
When you discard this from play, you may exchange it for a Collector.
(This is not in the supply.)

$3*
Treasure - Traveller

Collector


Gain two cards, each costing up to $3.
-
When you discard this from play, you may exchange it for a Junk Heap.
(This is not in the supply.)

$4*
Action - Traveller

Junk Heap

+$2 ⠀
Gain two coppers onto your deck.
-
When you discard this from play, you may exchange it for a Curio.
(This is not in the supply.)

$5*
Action - Traveller

Curio

+1 Action
Exchange this for a Prize, putting it into your hand.
(This is not in the supply.)

$6*
Action

For the second part of the challenge, I just made a treasure that does the villa thing.

Affluent Village

$3
+2 Actions
If it's your buy phase, return to your action phase.
(This is not in the supply.)

$0*
Treasure - Prize

Exchanging is fine! I guess I meant gain as a generic term for "getting" a Prize, but I should have been specific. Sorry everyone!

82

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: August 12, 2019, 06:41:52 pm »

CHALLENGE #40 - KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE PRIZE!!!

This weeks challenge comes in two parts, which will be judged roughly 50/50, but on different judging criteria:

(1) Design a card shaped thing that gains Prizes. Criteria: Balance
Prizes are some of the best cards in Dominion, so designing a card that gains them has to be carefully thought out and balanced. Timing considerations and opportunity cost are important here.

(2) Design a card that is a Prize. Criteria: Creativity
If coming up with a Prize gainer is stressing you out, this should be your chance to unwind, pull out all the stops, try some crazy ideas and most importantly have fun. Prizes offer a lot of design flexibility as they don't take up room in the Kingdom, can't be abused in multiples, and don't really matter if they are not always useful. With that in mind, I will judge cards better that would have some of these issues if they were in the Supply (i.e. cards that only really would work as a Prize). I would like to see Prizes that fill any niches the other official Prizes don't touch on. If this is proving too difficult, overlap is perfectly fine as long as the Prize has a different play style. As with Aquila, I'm very partial to existing mechanics being used or meshed together in ways that are new and interesting.

Love them or hate them, Tournament and Prizes are probably the most unique of all the official Dominion cards and offer a lot of design lessons when analyzed. I can't wait to see what you all come up with and I hope everyone has fun. If you find any part of this post unclear please don't hesitate to ask for clarification! The Dominion Strategy Wiki on Prizes is a good resource as well.

Good luck!

Just to be sure, our entries should have two cards? A prize gainer AND a prize?

And the first has to gain? (i.e. could it somehow interact with Prizes some other way?)

P.S. I'm sorry to have missed last week - was traveling for work and never got a chance to post. I even had a Duration card all lined up - maybe I'll just post it directly to my thread.

My intention was to have everyone submit two things, but with the way I worded the challenge, one thing will technically work.

83

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: August 12, 2019, 04:02:08 pm »

Is the assumption for the new challenge that the new prize will be added to the regular prize pile; so both Tournament and the new card can gain any of the six prizes?

Correct. It will be gainable by both Tournament and the new Prize gainer.

84

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: August 12, 2019, 02:56:17 pm »

Also, I don't see any previous challenges using Prizes, but if there are and I'm just not seeing them please let me know and I can do a different challenge.

85

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: August 12, 2019, 02:49:56 pm »

CHALLENGE #40 - KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE PRIZE!!!

This weeks challenge comes in two parts, which will be judged roughly 50/50, but on different judging criteria:

(1) Design a card shaped thing that gains Prizes. Criteria: Balance
Prizes are some of the best cards in Dominion, so designing a card that gains them has to be carefully thought out and balanced. Timing considerations and opportunity cost are important here.

(2) Design a card that is a Prize. Criteria: Creativity
If coming up with a Prize gainer is stressing you out, this should be your chance to unwind, pull out all the stops, try some crazy ideas and most importantly have fun. Prizes offer a lot of design flexibility as they don't take up room in the Kingdom, can't be abused in multiples, and don't really matter if they are not always useful. With that in mind, I will judge cards better that would have some of these issues if they were in the Supply (i.e. cards that only really would work as a Prize). I would like to see Prizes that fill any niches the other official Prizes don't touch on. If this is proving too difficult, overlap is perfectly fine as long as the Prize has a different play style. As with Aquila, I'm very partial to existing mechanics being used or meshed together in ways that are new and interesting.

Love them or hate them, Tournament and Prizes are probably the most unique of all the official Dominion cards and offer a lot of design lessons when analyzed. I can't wait to see what you all come up with and I hope everyone has fun. If you find any part of this post unclear please don't hesitate to ask for clarification! The Dominion Strategy Wiki on Prizes is a good resource as well.

Good luck!

86

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: August 12, 2019, 02:47:24 pm »

Thanks Aquila! Baseline testing for Wonder seems to show it's mostly balanced, but the true test is actually playing with it. I'll have to do that soon and let you know what the results are.

87

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Design Challenge: Synergies with Captain!

« on: August 10, 2019, 07:45:04 pm »

So can the winner of this thing refer to themselves as the First-mate?

88

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: August 08, 2019, 06:05:23 pm »

Wonder
Types: Night, Duration
Cost: <8>
At the start of each of your turns, if this is in play, add 2VP to this. The next time you shuffle your deck, trash this and take the VP.This is gained to your hand. (This stays in play until you shuffle)

Mitigating the super-rare abuse cases by not giving VP to the player immediately I don't think is worth the added complexity.
In a way, it kind of reads like 2VP per 5 cards in your deck, which is 4 times the points of Gardens, but it's sideways from that because it requires turns to payout and the latter Wonders are worth fewer VP as you slog through your Wonder-turns. I worry mostly that, whenever this is relevant, setting up the multi-Wonder turns will be too swingy. You can buy a Wonder on turn 1, pay it off within those two turns to get a second Wonder on turn 2, and turn 3, and so on; but in a large deck, that will be unreliable.

I should note this cares about how many start of turns you have in between shuffles so the equation is more like ((#Cards / 5) - 1) * 2VP. Early on this means you'd get 2VP per shuffle, not 4VP, so in the start of game situation you show it's about twice as good as Gardens at twice the price. Wonder does start to scale much better than Gardens though and that's mainly why I want a shuffle to occur to get the VP tokens.

The luck issue of getting 2 Wonders in play immediately after your reshuffle is unfortunate, but for now I'm not too concerned. Good reshuffle management should go a long way here. Also, luck for better or worse is apart of the game. Play testing should reveal a lot though.

Thanks for your thoughtful analysis!

89

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: August 07, 2019, 06:18:23 pm »

I like this but since its a victory chit card, it should probably have a sort of wind-down mechanism in it (ie, when you add +2VP, trash the top two cards of your deck, so that you have to buy cards to keep it viable and it runs out the supply that way) other than self-trashing.

I mean, it trashes itself, and there are combos that allow you to keep this out for a long time, but all of them I can think of also deplete piles (Mandarin, or stuff with Armory or Watchtower).

Here's an infinite loop without gaining:

You have 15 Estates which are Inherited Captains. At the start for your turn, 5 Estates are in play, 5 Estates are in your hand, and 5 Estates are in your discard. You play the 5 Estates playing Mountain Villages and drawing Estates. Now you have 10 Estates in hand. You play 5 Estates playing Counts (there's a Ferry token on there) topdecking the other 5 Estates. Repeat.

Not exactly a situation that needs to be addressed, but it was a fun thought experiment.

You'd also need to initially reduce the cost of Captain down to $4 to be inherited. I guess your scenario calls for Ferry though, so it could still work, just with one extra step.

90

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: August 07, 2019, 06:15:13 pm »

If a player can set that up they deserve to have it
Actually, do you think that would be a winning strategy? Is someone willing to calculate a very rough approximation on how long that would take to set up and how many points it would earn before the other 2 players empty the Provinces? (there have to be 3 or more so there's enough Estates, wait, is there even a way to get 15 Estates? Now I want to know.)

I mean, the way to address this is you never earn the VP chits until you trigger a reshuffle - VP chits on the card are lost, meaning if you're gonna do this strategy, you gotta bite the bullet at some point.

(also 15 estates = 3p game + you empty the estates pile + you don't trash your starting three)

It may not be exactly clear, but this is how it is supposed to work. You only get the VP tokens when you shuffle.

a line of errata text might be good, explicitly say that. Or maybe, "at the end of the game, remove all VP tokens on this; they are lost and gone forever" or something.

Eck, adding more text for clarity is always hard for me, but yes, I think you're correct. I expanded the bottom italics to read:
(This stays in play until you shuffle and the VP on this is not yours until then.)

How does that sound?

91

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: August 07, 2019, 12:04:10 pm »

If a player can set that up they deserve to have it
Actually, do you think that would be a winning strategy? Is someone willing to calculate a very rough approximation on how long that would take to set up and how many points it would earn before the other 2 players empty the Provinces? (there have to be 3 or more so there's enough Estates, wait, is there even a way to get 15 Estates? Now I want to know.)

I mean, the way to address this is you never earn the VP chits until you trigger a reshuffle - VP chits on the card are lost, meaning if you're gonna do this strategy, you gotta bite the bullet at some point.

(also 15 estates = 3p game + you empty the estates pile + you don't trash your starting three)

It may not be exactly clear, but this is how it is supposed to work. You only get the VP tokens when you shuffle.

92

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: August 07, 2019, 12:19:59 am »

CHALLENGE #39 - DURATION CARD

Well, most people play Dominion for big engine play, and this is certainly not that. Variety is what keeps Dominion interesting though and this takes on some stuff not seen with the official Dominion cards. Namely, dragging out the time in between shuffles. This may not sound fun, but for me at least it kind of is. Beyond that there is a lot of room here to outplay your opponents other than just gaining more cards than them.



And yes I realize promos should not use physical items introduced in other sets, but (1) anything can be used as debt tokens (I for instance use new, US pennies) and (2) this isn't really a promo challenge, just a duration challenge that should touch on new mechanics.

Thanks for looking!

Wonder
Types: Night - Duration
Cost: 8 Debt
At the start of each of your turns, if this is in play, add 2VP to this. When you shuffle, trash this and take the VP.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is gained to your hand.
(This stays in play until you shuffle and the VP on this is not yours until then.)

93

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Design Challenge: Synergies with Captain!

« on: August 04, 2019, 02:22:29 pm »

yeah sure i'll bite. Here's one that works with captain, workshop, etc as kind of an inverse cost reducer. It's not always gonna be worthwhile (when there's no cards that select by price on the board) but workshopping grand markets sounds pretty chill.

edit: fixed to remove some ambiguity

What exactly does "select" mean here? What does "selecting" a card costing $2 more actually do?

so take a peek at Workshop - "Gain a card costing up to $4" - this is selecting a card from the supply that costs up to $4, then gaining it. This lets you select a card costing up to $6 with it.

Or consider Smugglers. If you have this project, your opponent bought a province last turn, you can smuggle a province.

figured out a cleaner way to phrase the card (i'll change the actual image on monday when im not working off a phone):

During your Action phase, cards everywhere cost $2 less (to a minimum of $0).

Note that this way (unlike the action phase phrasing* I suggested above / earlier), would no longer work with your example of Smugglers.

How would this not work with Smugglers? Provinces cost during your Action phase, when you play Smugglers, so Smugglers can gain Provinces.

You're absolutely right. I was thinking about the TfB and how spineflu's wording would work differently for that than either his original or my wording, and then somehow conflated that with Smugglers.

I realized my error, but was on a plane and wasn't able to connect to erase my shame!  I've gone ahead and made an edit now, but left the mistake for all to see

So your pride isn't worth the $30USD, in-flight Wi-fi?

94

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Design Challenge: Synergies with Captain!

« on: August 04, 2019, 02:05:21 pm »

This could be getting into the realm of a broken combo, but it certainly has synergy with Captain. Thanks for the fun challenge RTT and congrats on the win!

I must be missing something here. Captaining this is just Smithy with a +Buy. How is that broken?

Maybe it's more accurate to say I think Charter Ship on its own might be broken. I guess it comes down to how much you think "+3 Cards and +1 Buy" on its own is worth. I think it's significantly better than just "+3 Cards". It provides draw and an extra buy, two crucial components to any engine. The extra Buy helps smooth out spikes in your economy. If you Smithy and draw $10 your kind of locked into getting a Province or wasting a lot of that coin. The extra Buy allows further building and efficiency.

The only two, official cards with this are Margrave and Tragic hero, both costing $5 and both having some hidden nerfs built it. Margrave helps your opponents cycle after the first play and the Attack usually means you'll be starting your hand with 3 cards. Tragic Hero can only be used as reliable draw if you can keep your hand sizes below 8 cards.

"+3 Cards and +1 Buy" is probably a risky design choice, but my hope is that the below the line stuff on Charter Ship makes it okay. The fact that Captain completely ignores this though makes it a very strong combo. If Charter Ship isn't already broken, I think Captain would make it so.

95

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Design Challenge: Synergies with Captain!

« on: August 03, 2019, 03:42:53 pm »

This could be getting into the realm of a broken combo, but it certainly has synergy with Captain. Thanks for the fun challenge RTT and congrats on the win!

96

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: scolapasta's cards

« on: August 01, 2019, 06:19:01 pm »

OK, it's been too long since I've posted anything on this thread (outside of my 100th post), so here is the latest update on Worshippers. It's simple, for now, but I'll at least mention some of the other ideas I've had.


The latest Archbishop and Chalice:



I went back and forth for a while trying to determine what the condition for taking the Chalice should be. In the end, I decided to go with this thematic way: the more Worshippers you have, the more powerful your Archbishops are. And hopefully this is countered by the fact that other players get more Worshippers and that chalice is now only once per turn, so while a nice benefit, you can't pull off a massive turn of trashing many cards for many VPs.

(I also went ahead and removed the no Coppers clause)

At first glance it seems like there is a nice separation of how a player should go about trashing with Arch Bishop. Use the Worshippers for early trashing and deck acceleration or pile them up for late game, trashing with VP gaining. On the surface I really like this!

Cabal - A Throne Room that cannot dud is always nice. I wonder if the top decking during your Night phase is good enough to validate the $5 cost. I only mention this because the instances where you'd be able to play another Night card twice are few and far between. If it's rarely used it may just be taking up room. It may also help players track what's going on if the Action text is on top and the Night stuff on bottom.

Cool cards though! Have you played any games yet with any of your cards? If so, how'd they go?

97

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: July 27, 2019, 02:16:14 am »

Here's my entry for this week:

Developing Village

An attempt at overpay for villagers.

It works as either a simple cantrip, or if you can "develop" the card you reveal, a Village (but possibly stronger, since you get to choose a card from he Supply).

(plus with the overpay, you can use those Villagers to sometimes have it be a Village even if you don't trash)




Changelog:
v0.1 - originally posted on my thread
v0.2 - initial post in challenge thread


Secret History:

Developing Village is overpay for Villagers, with some DNA from both Develop and Village. The first version did not give the extra action or card, but allowed you to gain a copy of the trashed card


Questions:

Main question is, what do you think about the overpay for Villagers? When I first designed this card, that is what I was trying to achieve, but it's not actually needed for this challenge, so I could consider removing it.

My idea was to have the villagers be attached to a card that isn't a quite a village, so that you would sometimes need to use the villagers (if you reveal a copper or a province, for example, and have 2 more terminals), but often not (which is why it's at least a cantrip and sometimes even a village).

I meant to comment on this card back when you posted it to your personal, card page, but I didn't have the time. Anyways, great looking card! This touches on an aspect of Dominion I wish I saw more with the official cards: the ability to switch your cards and thus your strategies during your turn. I like the very novel way this goes about it as well. Being able to switch a card from your hand would be very strong, so doing it blind from the top of your deck seems like a nice compromise.
 
Thoughts:
(1) I'd absolutely remove the overpay. It's neat, but doesn't really add anything. Especially now that it can act as a Village when played.
(2) The issue of fast pile depletion was brought up on your page and I have to agree that it is indeed an issue. Maybe this is something you like, but it could end games pretty fast. If you wanted to change it you could make it an exchange clause instead of trashing. It would function about the same. Example:

"Reveal the top card of your deck. You may exchange it for a differently named card with the same cost to your hand. If you do, +1 Action. If you don't, +1 Card."
(3) Even without the overpay I think this is a bit underpriced. Without the ability to be a village this could probably get away with being $2, but with that addition it probably needs to be $3 or $4. Not a big difference, but it would force players to be a little more thoughtful about diving on this pile. I guess upping the price could actually make this stronger though. Like if it were $3 it could be changed into Silvers on the fly. If it were $5 (for some reason) it could be a great Duchy gainer.

Anyways, really cool card. I'd like to try it sometime!

98

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: July 26, 2019, 10:54:24 pm »

CHALLENGE #38 - CREATE A VILLAGE - SUBMISSION:

Can make a good amount of coin, but takes a bit to get to that point (at least 2 Metropolis' at $6 each). "+1 Card and +3 Actions" is arguably a really good $4 cost, but very weak at $6. Situations may exist where grabbing one of these validates the cost (an absence of other Villages etc), but this really shines with big engine play.

+1 Card
+3 Actions
+$1 per card you've played (including this) after the previous Metropolis played this turn.

Changes:
v0.2 - Cost reduced from $8 to $6, Buy removed, and gives +$1 per card played in between Metropolis plays.

99

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: July 25, 2019, 12:38:21 am »

There wasn't any 24 hour warning. Just wanted to check, does the contest end tomorrow?

About 16 hours from now will be 7 days from when the challenge was issued. That's all I know.

100

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: July 23, 2019, 11:15:55 am »

F - I read this you repeat the naming part for each correct guess. If this is the case, the loop continues before anything gets discarded, which would allow infinite correct guesses beyond the first correct guess.

Either way this needs some word changes. If the whole card repeats then you'd attempt the gain a card costing $1 after each loop.

Specifically and unfortunately I think this needs to be a big run-on sentence:

"Name a type (Action, Attack, etc.), then reveal the top card of your deck and if it has the named type, discard it and do this again."

Discarding it at that point would let you do the loop indefinitely because you'd reshuffle when you hit deck's end.

Maybe like:
Trash a card from your hand.
Name a card type (Action, Treasure, etc) and reveal the top card of your deck. If the revealed card is the named type, set the revealed card aside and do this again (you can do this any number of times, provided you keep guessing correctly with card types). If the revealed card is not the named type, or you cannot reveal a card from your deck, discard all cards revealed and/or set aside by this card.
Gain a card costing up to $1 per correct guess more than the card you trashed.

Still a mouthful but kinda moot since its not the card i'm entering.

This certainly stops potential infinite loops, but I didn't have much of an issue with that. My concern was that after each correct guess the card would go back on top of your deck. It simply revealed the card, but didn't discard it (much like Mystic). After the first correct guess, players could then always know what the top card was and thus could continue to correctly guess the type. Coupled with gaining a card per correct guess meant a player could really gain any card they wanted.

But yes, a moot point now. Very interesting card idea though. Would like to see it fleshed out more outside of the Design Contest.