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Messages - The Alchemist

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151
Variants and Fan Cards / Game-changing Landscape cards, just for fun!
« on: January 25, 2021, 07:47:50 pm »
Post any whacky landscape card ideas you've got here, the more game-changing the better! Either ones made just for a good laugh or ones that could potentially work in the game, whichever!

I'll start with a Project from my fan Industrial Revolution expansion:


152
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: 2 player variant with lower supply sizes
« on: January 09, 2021, 01:39:11 pm »
3-pile endings become more and more common at higher and higher skill levels of play. I would say around 30% of games I play end with 3-piles emptying, and honestly sometimes I think 4-pile endings would be more balanced. I think the reason you are not experiencing many 3-pile endings, is that you and the people you are playing with are not leveraging it as a winning strategy to its full potential. 8-card piles in 2 player games would be especially brutal, as instead of a 4-6 split if you lose the split, you have a 3-5 split, and basically the person with 5 cards from a pile has far too large an advantage. If anything, the supply should be raised, not lowered.

153
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Industrial Revolution Expansion!
« on: December 31, 2020, 08:23:41 pm »
By the way, I added this to the description late so if you haven't seen it, here is a google form where you can rate the power levels of the cards: https://forms.gle/DRjXCuHojrSBMMdE8
I would really appreciate it if anyone reading would like to fill it out, it helps me a lot!

154
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Industrial Revolution Expansion!
« on: December 26, 2020, 06:37:22 am »
Alright the cards have been updated with Gubump's wording changes! Thanks again it's input like this that's extremely helpful for making these cards.

155
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Distribution of Dominion card costs
« on: December 25, 2020, 11:28:39 am »
Also, I included all the knights, and split pile cards individually in general, because split piles more often than not do not all have the same price. Even knights has one $4 card, so it didn't feel right to consider them all $5. And I definitely did not want to make the chart continuous by putting fractional pile costs.

156
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Distribution of Dominion card costs
« on: December 25, 2020, 11:26:21 am »
Kingdom cards refers to any cards in the Supply other than the basic cards. I knew Plats, Colonies, and Colonies counted as special basic cards, but I was not aware Ruins were considered basic cards as well and so included them as kingdom cards. So that was a mistake on my part.

157
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Industrial Revolution Full Dominion Expansion!
« on: December 24, 2020, 01:01:55 pm »
Thanks BBobb so much for your feedback! I agree with just about everything you said, I agree many of the cards still do need quite some tweaking, so thanks for pointing out all you did!
One thing I think you might have missed, with cards from this expansion, there are no province games. Unlike prosperity where a card triggers 10% chance to include province, this expansion is 100% chance. All your feedback with provinces is entirely correct, it's just already been taken into account ;). Anyway here are my responses:

That said, I am not a huge fan of the idea of an expansion having > and > cost cards only. ... Also, I really like the theme of the expansion as a whole. In modern times, the rich people are richer, and the poor are poorer. You have no cards in the middle, but only the super rich and super poor. Good Design!

That's okay! As I mentioned in the OP,  I know no middle-cost cards is not for everyone, and makes playing this expansion on its own hard, but it is the theme after all! Nice catch on it too by the way. The remedy I really do believe is to just play this expansion with all the others as you would do online, or a the very least with base dominion.

Theatre:
I feel like if there is no draw, +action, or +Buy, then that's the way it is.

And most games it will be! But in the 6% of games where this card does show up (assuming you're playing with all expansions), it will be a bit different! Just like alternate VP, it's just there to spice up games every now again, and when it happens to be in that rare game where its really good if you play it right, then you're rewarded for noticing that strategy earlier than your opponent.

+1 Card, +1 Action (): Absolutely useless
Yes that is the idea. However, if you buy them when they are useless, eventually when the draw or village piles run out, suddenly they become very useful!

+2 Cards, +2 Actions (): Laboratory + Village. This is most likely too powerful. In the Secret History for Menagerie, Donald X. said that Animal Fair's original top was this, and it cost .
I read that secret history, and I believe the reason mentioned for it being too strong was the alternate cost. It was just far too easy (still is) to get it by just trashing very cheap actions. Look at Lost City instead, it is the same effect but cost 5, with the only downside of opponent drawing a card once. Council Room does this on play, and its price reduction is about one coin as well (see Hunting Grounds). If helping your opponent every turn warrants a price drop of 1, then helping your opponent once surely can't be more than that, and so Lost City without that downside is probably balanced at 6. See also Encampment. Its a 2 cost card that's risky to use early on when you don't have gold, but then is basically a lost city later on. It would be the same with this card. 

So, my overall feeling is that this card is slightly too powerful in most cases. I think it definitely gets a lot more powerful when 2 of the 3 cases are not true. But, it is a pretty cool card.  though that could make the card cost more than it already does.
Yes, it may be slightly strong, but it has to be to balance out the times when it would be a useless cantrip. Different cards are strong/weak in different kingdoms, so I think this okay.

Also, just wondering, would the +Card trigger if City is in the Kingdom? It can give +1 Card twice, so it seems like it wouldn't but I am not totally sure.
No, because city does not instruct you to explicitly receive +2 cards. I updated the card to say "in its text" instead of "instructs you to receive" so hopefully that will be clear in the new version.

Also, I am bit sad to see the trashing part of this card leave
I am too :'(, but too many people thought the card was too huge a wall of text.

Entrepreneur:
My feeling is that this card is pretty weak. You basically spend a turn to get a card. Usually it'll take 1-2 turns to pay off the debt, and then you can use coffers. I don't think that that is worth it. Also, I think the +2 Buys is kind of a waste. The point of the card is to waste a turn so you can have more powerful turns later, but then it gives +Buy so that you can buy more cards this turn? I dunno, maybe the card is more powerful than I think.
I too had a feeling the card was weak, but I think it's a matter of the numbers. And your second point was actually kind of the idea of the card. This card is *either* a capital or an inventor, you have the choice to waste a turn to have more powerful turns later, or to have a powerful turn now. You can just use it to just gain a $4 card this turn and end your turn with some coin tokens to use later, saving up for the future. Or instead you can try stacking up Entre's this turn (if you have enough villages), just like you would inventor or bridge, in which case the buys are helpful for getting a lot of 0 cost cards, and you can just use the coin tokens to pay off the debt (having tokens left over if you produced any gold during your turn).

The point is flexibility. Basically, if you wanna buy this turn, then all you've done is turn up to 6 coin you produced this turn into coffers, as well as reduced the cost of cards. If you don't wanna buy this turn, hey you still gained a card and now you've got 6 coffers plus some debt you can spread out equal to how far short of 6 you fell. It's basically a safe bridge variant.

Hospital:
Though I know you mentioned this, I think this card is too swingy in multiple ways. Given that you can't buy this in the opening, when it would be most useful (other than Baker, Borrow, maybe others), it is definitely hard to get. Often, one player will be able to buy it and the other one will be left without trashing. ... I know that Forge and Altar also suffer from this, but Altar only can trash 1 card, and Forge is almost always bought around the 3rd shuffle when both players get it.
Yeah I agree with this, this is the main reason why it costs only 6 and is not stronger and more expensive. Goons is also swingy in a similar way, or hunting grounds if its the only draw you have. Unfortunately after think over quite a bit I don't think there's much you can do about it, some cards in Dominion are just swingy in nature, and I feel where it is now is about where Forge is (it was much more swingy before). At the very least it's a chapel that trashes itself, so there's that.

Meeting House:
I feel that, like Gubump said, this card is too OP. Although I see that you addressed this point, I feel like bumping it up to a card is probably not the right choice. I think that it needs to be nerfed so that it can still be kept at a price point of . I am not totally sure about what to do with it to nerf it, but I think that removing the might be the right choice. Still strictly better than Junk Dealer, and I think it might be balanced. Right now though, it is probably brokenly powerful.
Yeah, the VP is integral to the card, so I don't want to remove it, but I agree with you 100%. $7 was too much, $6 is too little. I do think junk dealer is weak as far as trashers costing $5 go (upgrade being far better), so I do think $6 might have a chance of working, but as I said I still need to playtest it. Keeping this all in mind though. 

Oil Refinery:
Actually, it might be too weak no matter what. The problem is that you can't choose where it goes in a deck drawing engine, so you might have it come at the bottom of your deck, in which case it isn't very powerful. And if you buy multiple, the other player has probably been buying Provinces in the meantime. I feel like you might want to make it a cantrip in order to make it more powerful.
I think this problem is addressed if you take it in the context of Colony games. The intention is for you to buy multiple to increase your odds, don't want every card in here to be a 8-card-pile-by-end card. And good design philosophy is only to make things a cantrip only if its integral to the card's play, not just to give a small boost to a weak card. This card needs a +Action to play another card, but doesn't necessarily need to replace itself. Plus there's 7 cantrips in the set already.

Artillery:
This card is so close to being broken, but I think it is one of the best, if not the best, design from a fan-made card that I have ever seen. And this is coming from someone who has read all 300 pages of the weekly design contest multiple times, the set expansion contest, and many, many fan expansions. You should really be very proud of designing this card. I also really like the thematics of this card.
Thanks for the compliments! I agree its on the precipice of OP-ness (try saying that 3 times fast). In its current state it basically has no downside to playing when it's the last (or only) action you play on your turn, so maybe that needs fixing. Or maybe that's okay, it does its job of forcing you to only play one, even if you try to put a +1 Action token on it for example. I will have to see if going back to discarding cards is necessary. 

Observatory:
In a deck drawing engine, this probably does nothing. On the other hand, in a weak engine or in BM, this can get very powerful.
It is a lab after all, so this is the deck drawing engine! It's strongest when the deck is full every turn, so this is the card you want in order to facilitate that.

Police Station:
First things first, how are you able to open with two of these? They cost 7 Debt each, and you only have $7 in the first shuffle.
First buy, 7 debt. By second turn, you can pay off all the debt. You now have 0 coins and one buy. Buy a second police station. You now have 2 in your opening shuffle, with 7 debt to spread. Also allowing victory's was intentional, since knights can trash your duchy and I wanted this to be able to counter that. Fortunately there are only 4 cards that can trash a province for a province Remodel, Replace, Zombie Mason, and Expand; and one for Duchy, Altar; so it's not very often that people will be trashing victories to gain again with Police Station, and even then there's still some set up to get that combo working reliably and consistently so I'm inclined to let it happen.

Stock Exchange:
I think this is probably weak. ... To me, I think you probably need to make it more powerful (again).
Noted. I may up the coin to $4 in response. Then at least it nets out to a cantrip silver.

Supermarket:
I don't think this will really be bought at all.
Province game: Will never be bought...

Colony games: It pains me to say this, but I think that this will have very few copies bought also. Platinum is much easier to obtain, and although less deck-drawing, engine-friendly, I think that you'll probably first want to buy Platinum so that you can actually get a Supermarket. In this sense, it seems kind of similar to Adventurer (Same price as the expensive Treasure, but want to buy expensive treasure first to help the action card).

I think that this card probably should get + instead of +. Again, I like the theme of it, but I think it will too often be passed.
Yeah I agee, I was thinking very strongly about +$4 instead of $3, but I wasn't sure how strong it was, since there is no other cantrip gold in the game. Like I said this will always appear with Plats so there is that aspect, I do think the right move anyway is to buy a plat first regardless, but if its cantrip $4 it almost seems to make plats look worthless (I would take a peddler over a silver any day, and a grand market over a gold). I guess that is what the limiter is for however, so it's probably the right move.

Public School:
I think this card is too OP. Especially with Scheme. Make sure that every turn this is on top, and its kind of gg. You don't even need multiple copies (though if you have multiple copies, it gets insane). Make those Pearl Divers Labs + Villages! Make that Smithy a Triple Lab! Yeah, I can see this getting out of hand really quickly. And then it also gives you some +. Also, I assume that it wouldn't trigger when you play it (e.g. it won't be a Lab Village with its extra ability). You probably need to nerf this to only giving other cards +1 Card (no +Action), though that might still be too good. I do like the theme of this card.
It originally had only +1 Card, not the cantrip effect, and multiple people told me it was too weak and they would never get it for $9. I didn't believe them at first but after thinking about it, it is quite difficult to get the card you want early enough in your turn for it to matter, and it's much harder to get multiple schools than multiple oil refineries for example. The thing is most games don't have a scheme variant. I will have to play both versions of the cards and see if indeed this version is too OP, I would not be surprised if it was. 

Steel Foundry:
First of all, do you plan for this to still work when you only have 1 Action when you play it. I assume so.
Yes. Villagers too, the -1 Action is persistent so you need to spend 2 if you want to play another action. There is no rule stating actions remaining must be positive ;).

The only that I can't say is great about is the name, but then again, that's because I don't know what a Steel Foundry is. Really good card!
A steel foundry is just a modern-day smithy! It's a place for casting and forging steel. It really is just the same deal as Lab --> Factory haha.


I'll be honest, I am not a fan of a lot these, but then again, in general, I am not a fan of cheap cards in general. I don't really like them because you always have to overpay for them. But anyways, there are a good number of these that are definitely well designed.
Yes that is a drawback, but as another pointed out, I tried to include as much assistance towards getting cheap cards as I could in this set, so hopefully it becomes less of a problem!

Smog:
Why do you know such good design? I wish I could come up with ideas like this.
I sold my soul to the design fairy in order to study his dark secrets. I am cursed to modify and create and my task is never finished.

The only negative thing I can say is that it doesn't really make sense. Why does Smog clear out other Smog? Nonetheless, it is really good (bad) card.
The theme was more you have to work (spend action) to clear the smog, but even still some always remains. Even if you remove some smog, there's still some left over.

Slums:
I feel that this card is kind of useless. I know that sounds really harsh, but it is kind of what I feel. If you are already playing that many actions, you probably won't need the extra actions from this. And even if you can, you have to return this. The only times that this will be useful is when you have a deck-drawing engine with no villages and +Buy. But nonetheless, I think that it is a very fun card that, although it is hard to use, very useful in some situations. I also like that, like Poor House, it can make you change up your deck to be able to use a cheap card for a powerful effect. Honestly, the more I look at this card, the more I am liking it. Also, I like the theme of this card, (at least to me, the slums are like a village, but much worse).
It's not useful as a village in the traditional sense, that is entirely true. You can't start with one and then use it to play your terminals. However, if you have cantrips, then it really shines. Normally you could have a perfect kingdome with cantrips and terminals, but nobody ever buys more than one or two of the terminals because there are no +Actions and then its just a rush to empty the cantrips. With slums, you can play a few cantrips first and then *bam* play your slums for the actions you need to play your terminals. You can then do it again and get a ton more actions, only needing to return a $1 cost card. It's kind of like crossroads but one you can get rid of if you want.

Worker:
But other than that, I really like the concept of the card, I just think that it needs a few tweaks. Also, the theme is spot on. If you have more workers, you are more effective. Perfect again on theme. I've made one fan card (for Weekly Design Contest) and I couldn't even get a name. You've created a whole set with perfect names to fit the cards. I am really in awe at how people who make fan-made sets name the cards. Some of the names in even official sets aren't great, but almost all of yours match the card. That is something that is really hard to do.
Thanks again for the compliments, you're too kind! And yes, I am working on the worker wording so don't worry! (alliteration yay!)

The only thing I think you should change is the name. Why do more banknotes give you more money? It doesn't make sense to me, but it might to you.
Banknotes, unlike silver and gold, come in denominations! You can have a $1, $10, or $100 dollar bill! It's a variable treasure-like card so banknote seemed to fit. Also historically around the Industrial revolution people were starting to trade in their metal coinage for banknotes, so that fits the theme of the card which is moving from treasures to action-based coin!

General Store:
Other than in Alt-VP (e.g. Gardens) strategies, I don't think that this card is very powerful. In a Gardens strategy, this can gain a General Store, a Gardens, and a Copper. Pretty powerful. I just feel that this will inevitably be a bad card in every other strategy. I think this card needs to be changed. The only problem is, I'm not sure how this should be changed. But I do think it needs some very major revamping in order to make it more viable in normal strategies.
I do think it is pretty weak outside of gardens, but banquet is basically the same effect for $3 as an event, so a $1 action that does the same is reasonable, and this card gives significantly more flexibility than a $5 card and two coppers. But yeah banquet is not the strongest event and this is not the strongest card.

Landfill:
I feel like this is too weak of a trasher. Compared to Raze, which costs 1 more, it kind of looks pathetic. This is unless, there is TFB. Then it becomes OP.
You are completely right. This card is meant to be strongest when there's trash for benefit, barely acceptable when it's the only trasher in the game, and actually garbage everytime else. It is a landfill after all. I think the choice here is to make it non-terminal, since you do gain to your hand if you pick up an action you would want to play it. And I do want to keep victory's open as a possibility, because as I stated before it takes some strategy to get something like that working, and I don't think it's too game-breaking. Plus it's helpful if you held onto a landfill to take the estates your opponents trashed earlier for a potential one-point tiebreaker in the end-game.


Thanks for taking the time to review my expansion! I will wait for the rest of your feedback to finish my response. Much appreciated!

158
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Industrial Revolution Full Dominion Expansion!
« on: December 23, 2020, 04:28:49 pm »
About Theatre and piles: I don't think it works like this, i.e. I think that any hidden card of a pile is part of the pile.

Taken directly from the wiki, "For this reason, although the entirety of any Supply pile is physically part of the Supply, only the top card of any pile is considered to be "in the Supply". For instance, when Band of Misfits requires you to choose a "card in the Supply", you may not choose a card in the Ruins or Knights pile other than the one on top."

I believe that makes the reading regarding the supply clear, though I agree with Gubump that changing from an "instructs you to receive" to a "contained in the text" approach would be better and will change the card accordingly.

159
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Industrial Revolution Full Dominion Expansion!
« on: December 23, 2020, 03:35:26 pm »
I second that this would struggle as an expansion played by itself, without $4s and $5s the opening there isn't going to be much variety in how to play the early game. It should be fine mixed with other sets though.

With all this in mind and the fact that half of your cards are very expensive, my guess is that in a lot of games that have only or mostly cards of this expansion, the expensive cards will be rarely bought and games end via 3-piling before anything interesting happened.

Apologies for not making this clear. I do not intend for this or any expansion I make to be played in isolation. I know of some people who like to play a single dominion expansion at a time but I personally do not, neither in person nor (as it is by default) online. Each of these cards are made with the expectation that they have a 1 in 140 or so chance of appearing in any one game, and that most games will have 3 or 4 maximum. The large number of cheap and expensive cards is such that, in a normal game, every now and then you will see a $1 or $8 cost card instead of the standard $2 - $5. When playtesting I would mix base set with one or two cards at a time, so if you only have base it should still be balanced to play with this set and that alone if you keep the proportion right.

And to address your second point gambit05, I was considering having a triggered 4-pile rule when playing with this expansion, akin to the colonies/plat rule, but it was a bit too game-changing. Colonies tend to disentivise pile-outs anyway but if it remains an issue I will keep it in mind.

160
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Industrial Revolution Full Dominion Expansion!
« on: December 23, 2020, 03:20:56 pm »
I am pretty sure you have put a lot of work into this Fan expansion and I am looking forward to have a look at your cards. One first thing:
You should remove Donald's name and the Rio Grande Games logo from the box cover. It falsely implies that they have something to do with your expansion.

Apologies, those elements were a bit trickier to photoshop out of the original image, and as I did not intend on printing a physical box I did not spend as much time on the box cover. It is more for show really, just for this forum, but next update I make I will make sure to remove those elements.

161
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Industrial Revolution Full Dominion Expansion!
« on: December 23, 2020, 03:18:10 pm »
What I do not understand is how precisely it works.
The main question is: What are cards in the Supply? From the wording I would say when an Encampment is in the Kingdom and any card giving +1 Buy, Theatre costs $2, but when the 5 Encampments are temporarily gone, Theatre would cost $6 at that point. If an Encampment is returned to the pile, Theatre costs $2 again. Is that your intention? What about cards that have optional instructions such as Squire or cards down in Split piles and mixed piles? Do they count to be in the pile? From the wording I would say yes. That would then mean that you have to track whether Dame Molly or Sir Destry are still in the Knights pile or not. If they do not count then the cost of Theatre might temporarily change if one of them is the top card.

Yes, that is exactly the intention. It is my understanding that "the Supply" is the set of all cards which you can currently purchase from, i.e. it is the top card of every pile not explicitly marked "not in the Supply". Therefore, if an Encampment is returned, it is once again in the supply. If Dame Molly is on top of the knights pile, it is in the supply. There is no need for any tracking because, by definition, the supply is always visible. Yes, one may need to scan the 16-20 cards in the supply every time one plays a theatre to check, but this is only slightly more cumbersome than say checking pile count for city (as piles can be refilled demoted the city), as most games there will be only a handful of piles to keep an eye on at most.

162
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Industrial Revolution Full Dominion Expansion!
« on: December 22, 2020, 09:31:19 pm »
Thanks Gubump for the corrections, didn't realize so many had slipped the cracks! Guess I got quite a bit of photoshopping to do tonight haha.

A few responses:

Meeting house was originally priced at 7, but playtesting showed that to be too weak, as its is quite hard to hit 7 early enough to make it worth it without already having another trasher that can thin your deck. While you are right to point out it is significantly better than a 1 coin increase would suggest, the 5 to 6 jump is large enough in most games that I think it might work. I will do some more playtesting to see if it does indeed warrant a price jump.

Yes, that is an intended effect of artillery, otherwise it would be worthless in games without any village. It is possible this makes it too strong and that I had overcorrected from making it discard your hand instead. I will playtest further.

While its true I created salesman before fair made it strategically less needed, I think it still has it's place. For one, its a kingdom card not just a project, so at the very least it is more likely to appear in a game. Most importantly however is that you can play multiple, to have have significantly more buys per turn, while fair is restricted to just one. There have been more than a few games where even with fair I was still hurting for more +Buys.

As for the 2019 eratta, while I love the changes made and delight in the text it saves in cards, for my personal use I intend to print these cards and mix them with my current dominion sets, so until the 2019 eratta enters print and updated cards are release, for the sake of consistency I would rather have them match the wording people are more familiar with.

Thanks for the insights, and keep a look out for the card text update!

163
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Industrial Revolution Full Dominion Expansion!
« on: December 22, 2020, 06:23:25 pm »
I will see the cards and make comments.

There's an expansion of Aquila about Industrial Revolution:

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=17079.0

Yes, I was not aware of their expansion and others like it when I first had the idea and made my first iteration of the expansion, but have since taken a look at what others have done as well. But I believe there is not much overlap between Aquila's expansion and mine. His focus's more on the early Industrial revolution whereas mine is more the second wave of industrialization, and there is only one card naming conflict I believe. There's a lot you can do with this interesting topic!

164
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Industrial Revolution Full Dominion Expansion!
« on: December 22, 2020, 06:16:21 pm »
By the way, this is the fourth update to my expansion. Here are the previous 3 iterations:

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=17659
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=18592
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=19862


I will respond to feedback on every card, so feel free to give it! The ones I feel still aren't quite there the most are Steel Foundry, Supermarket, Metropolis, and Boom Town, so let me know what you think.

165
Variants and Fan Cards / Dominion: Industrial Revolution Expansion!
« on: December 22, 2020, 06:04:32 pm »
Dominion: Industrialization



You can vote on these cards here if you'd like: https://forms.gle/DRjXCuHojrSBMMdE8, it'll help me out greatly especially if you don't have the time to fully write out feedback. Thanks!

Hello! If you're like me and have always wondered what Dominion would look like with a little technological advancement, this is the expansion for you! It's a large expansion that's a mix of Prosperity and Dark Ages: 16 strong, expensive cards that puts Prosperity to shame, and 16 cheap, weaker cards that shine in certain situations. This is the fourth update to this expansion, and I have playtested most of these cards, but some of the cards in the newest iteration may need some tweaking.

Like Prosperity, playing with cards from this expansion triggers the use of colonies and platina. Normally it’s 10% probability for each card from prosperity or empires that appears in your kingdom, but for this expansion the rate is 100% if any card appears. This is of course to offset the high costs of many of these cards and to disincentivize piling out with the cheaper ones.

The themes for this set include new spins on the vanilla bonuses, more cards with choice, self-junking to play powerful cards, and cheap cards that get more powerful the more you play. This set is great for making powerful engines (it is the industrial revolution after all), and for truly massive decks. It is my intention to help widen the bell curve of card costs, so there are no cost 3 - 5 cards in this set by design. It is my personal opinion that we need more cheap and expensive cards to spicen things up a bit, and I kind of like filling out the cost gaps in the game, something Don X actually supports. This set is not intended to be played alone, but ideally mixed in with all the other expansions or at the very least base dominion.

I tabulate every bit of feedback I receive on my cards and have made many updates and fixes based on your suggestions. I am pretty set on having no mid-cost cards, that is after all the intention of this expansion, and therefore would prefer feedback keeping that in mind. I apologize for those who think high-powered, high-cost cards are not an addition to the game that they find appealing, but if that’s you then this expansion is not for you. Regardless I appreciate everyone’s input and look forward to your review!

But finally, without any further ado, the cards!:

Expensive Cards:

Theatre:
Hate it when you have the perfect kingdom for an engine but there are no stinking +buys! Or when it’s a kingdom of 10 great cards but they're all terminal? Well then, this is card for you! Alone it's worthless, a cantrip costing $2. But the worse the kingdom is, the better it gets. The actors play the part of whatever is you're missing to get your strategy off the ground. No hand size increasers? This card is a basic lab costing $5. No villages? this card becomes a vanilla village at $3. It can be a worker's village at $4, a cantrip buy at $3, etc. Only when your kingdom is missing literally everything does this card cost $7. "Other cards" refers to non-Theatre cards, so theatre is not triggered by itself. "+2 Cards" only includes cards explicitly having +2 or more written on the card. Smithy counts, library does not, etc. Emptied piles no longer count as part of the supply, therefore this card becomes more expensive – and more powerful – the longer the game progress, akin to city.

Entrepreneur:
The jack of all trades of buying cards, this card is one step up from inventor! It is the reverse of capital, giving you coin tokens to spend on a later turn in exchange for taking that many coins from this turn, a great investment indeed. So that it doesn't cripple your turn entirely, you can still gain a $4 card, and if you have a couple gold left over, lets you buy 2 additional cards at a reduced cost. The debt collected stacks unlike capital, and the reduced cost benefit is like bridge, both effects reducing its throne room strength and overall ability to allow a mega-turn like bridge. It naturally has an anti-synergy with itself, giving you the choice between a strong turn or to build up for future turns.

Hospital:
One step above doctor, but one step below donate in terms of quickly getting rid of unwanted cards. There is a bit of shuffle luck, it is much stronger in your last hand than first, but over multiple shuffles it should average out. Don’t expect to be able to trash all your junk at once. Then again, who said hospitals were guaranteed to cure you?

Infantry:
Infiltrate your opponent’s hands with this attack card. A +3 card attack like torturer or rabble, with an effect similar to ambassador, where you can effectively place an unwanted card from your hand into an opponent's. Can attack repeatedly but keeps opponent's hands at 5.

Meeting House:
Continuing the theme of chapel, bishop, temple, altar and the like, this card trashes and rewards your tithe in the form of coffers and victory tokens. Strictly better than junkman, but you want to get it early enough where you still have cards to trash, so costs $6. Because you must trash a card for the VP token, this card discourages never-ending games that is a danger with cantrip +VP. 

Oil Refinery:
Are all your action cards too complicated with all their "mechanics" and "words" and what not? Well refine them down into plain ol' vanilla! Turn your 10 native villages into regular, normal, not-a-novel-of-a-description villages! Or peddler variants, or even labs! This card is unique in giving a choice that doesn't need to be unique. Choose +3 cards, or $3, or +1 action and +2 buys if that's your thing. The new bonuses are considered instructions, so playing a second refinery and naming the same card again overrides the effect of the first refinery, so they don’t stack.

Artillery:
This second attack card lets you load, aim, and fire a card out of your enemy's hand. The only other discard attack that lets the attacker choose the card to discard is pillage, and such a powerful ability forces it to be a one-off. To make this balanced without having to trash itself, you must spend all your actions, effectively ending your Action phase and preventing you from playing more than one per turn. Originally required you to discard your hand instead of spending all actions, but that was far to limiting.

Observatory:
Letting you take a peek at everything ahead of you and zero in on exactly what you need, observatory is the strongest deck inspector in the game! Nets out to a lab but with an assured good card to add to your hand, provided you’re not at the end of your deck. But as a reserve, you can hold on to it until after a shuffle, and with the right engine, reliably draw your entire deck to keep it strong.

Police Station:
Need to protect your stuff from criminals? Hire a police station! This reaction card is jack of all trades on steroids: this card simply remedies any possible ill effects from just about any attack. Lets you sift through the top 3 cards of your deck if they were muddled by ghost ship or rabble, trash the curse from witch or sea hag, and or retrieve from the trash anything pirate ship or knights forced you to trash. Reaction effect similar to horse traders, preventing attacks like pillage or enchantress from stopping you from playing it, and costs debt so you can still buy it after being attacked. Opening double police station is also a possibility if you’re so inclined. The constables are still figuring out how to reverse hexes it seems, so unfortunately, you’re still out of luck with those.

Factory:
The next advancement on laboratory, this factory is perfect for any engine and will make you reconsider buying that province, but watch out not to be too clogged up by smogs (see below) when you use it! Nets out to +3 cards +1 action if you can draw your whole deck and clear smogs, but you will always have one smog remaining unless you have some other form of trashing.

Stock Exchange:
An action-treasure like crown and one step up from bank. This lets you trade vanilla bonuses for any other vanilla bonus you need during your action or buy phase. Combination cellar, diadem, storyteller, and vault. Can really help if you're engine hit a dry patch or if you're just short some gold on your buy phase. As normal, +Actions in the buy phase are useless. First spend all gold, actions, and buys you'd like and discard any unwanted cards, count that number, then choose that many vanilla effects, only executing them after all the choices have been made. Be careful not to accidentally leave yourself with no buys to end your turn with!

Town Hall:
You're the mayor and lucky for you a lot of decisions need to be made with this duration card. Like Count, choose some harmful effects and then you get to choose some great effects next turn. Tough choice between completely ending your current turn by discarding or topdecking everything, or gaining some junk to topdeck and trash the next turn with one of your bonuses. But your town will appreciate the investment by giving returns 3-fold! Literally!

Supermarket:
You’ve heard of grand markets, now get ready for super markets! A +$1 combined with +1 buy to grand market, making it the only disappearing gold in the game, but the drawback is stricter, needing at the least 3 golds to buy or some serious virtual coinage. This brings the price to $9, giving platinum a run for its money, literally.

Steel Foundry:
A Smithy or Blacksmith on steroids, this super-terminal draw is a great way to use up actions. Nets one more card than a Blacksmith counting the smog, or the equivalent draw power of 3 smithies, but at the cost of two actions instead of one like every other action, and of course the -1 VP if you fail to clear that out.

Public School:
Let your cards edumacate themselves and lern to be gooder. A step up from teacher, now you can make every action card a cantrip instead of just one! At least for this turn that is. And for your treasures, an extra coin sure does make public schools a better investment than a dusty ol’ plat.

Metropolis:
And lastly the pièce de résistance: metropolis. From lowly hamlet, to village, to city, then metropolis. A village with one more +action than even bustling village, but with some VP to justify purchasing it late. A metropolitan area is practically a duchy anyway. As with the previous cards, considering smog it nets out to +1 card, +4 VP after the first time played.

Cheap cards:

Smog:
Wow all this industrial activity is really clogging up the place. The more you use some of the high-powered cards, the more you pollute your deck. This self-clearing junk is just slightly less harsh than a curse, if you can clear it away in time. Without another trashing card you'll always have one left over. 20 cards to a pile, and not renewed if emptied. Adds thematically to the expansion by replacing curses, a medieval fear, with something more modern but just as deadly. 

Slums:
Village that gives actions based on how many have already been played. Useless if the first card played in a turn, but the village version of city quarter the more actions you have played. If your slums are too productive they are returned to the pile, but the +Buy makes it easier to gain them back.

Worker:
Terminal draw that gets stronger the more you play, chaining together if they find each other.  The more workers you have on your assembly line, the more work you can do! Chaining effect is similar to library's interaction with actions, but playing instead of discarding. Playing 5 workers averages out to 5 smithies, but for a quarter the cost!

Banknote:
An action version of treasure cards that gets stronger the more you have! This is useful in scrying pool games, games with treasure attacks, or any other game where you just don't want your deck cluttered with treasures. Adding to that, cards that would gain you gold and silver explicitly can gain Banknotes instead. It especially combos well with my stock exchange (coincidence? nope.) Exchange your currency today!

General Store:
Want to buy 2 workers and a silver? Or how about a market and two coppers? This card will help you hoard up on cheap cards for whatever strategy calls for it (looking at you gardens). Priced at $1 to help people round out their gains on boards where this is the only $1 card, so you could gain another general store and two $2 cost cards for example.

Landfill:
Put something in the dump, get something out. Straightforward card to let you trash out your junk, but also gives you full access to the trash to gain anything you need back. Great defense against knights or good synergy with procession.

Statue:
A weaker version of monument. Instead of $2, gain a copper to your hand. Eventually stops when you run out the copper deck, so max 40 or so VP and a pile is run out, so no endless games.

Sewerage:
Originally named sewers before the release of Renaissance. Sift through all the waste in your deck with this alternate to courtyard. Chain together multiple sewerages and make a sewage system that can get you the cleanest hands around!

Street Market:
The purest form of market. Cantrip with variable +Buys. Stronger the more silvers or gold in your hand. Really useful for when you're running your goons or gardens decks and +Buys are really your biggest limiter, as this can get you far more buys than any other card if you set things up right.

Coal:
Similar to Encampment from the Strife fan expansion (http://www.nosro.net/games/dominion/strife/list.php#encampment).
The idea is the same, burn up this card for a temporary bonus. However, you can choose to put it back or trash it, leading to some interesting player dynamics. Learn to share this non-renewable resource or burn them all up to prevent the other player from using any.

Power Plant:
Burn a card as fuel in the power plant to give you more cards to keep your engine going, turning it into smog. If you accidentally draw a card dead, you can save it for next turn. Must trash first so weaker than a masquerade in that regard, and also weakened by needing to gain a smog.

Prison:
This card used to be an effect like island allowing you set aside any card for the rest of the game, but then menagerie came out with the excellent exile feature and it was perfect for this card! Put away any card, but extra points if you manage to lock up a criminal. Just make sure their buddies don’t let them escape!

Reforge:
Gain 1 coin token for copper, 5 for plat, etc. Weaker version of moneylender but on all treasures, and it’s coin tokens so that's nice. Potentially game changing if you trash up all your treasures and end with a megaturn.

Boom Town:
Remade version of a card from Auto-Destruct Sequence (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3984). I really liked this card idea, and it fit the set perfectly, but it had some balancing issues so I modified it to include in my set.

Locomotion:
Progress comes at a cost to everyone, involved or not. Move your deck along with this card, but watch as you get junk in everyone's face, including yours! This card is a self-junker with an option to remove them later. 

Salesman:
And last but certainly not least, salesman. The buy equivalent of hireling, giving you the extra buys you need to get all these cheap cards! Less unique now that fair is an event, but is still helpful to have in many situations. Strictly worse than fair, because fair acts immediately instead of needing to wait a shuffle and doesn’t require an action to play.

And that's all folks! Let me know what you think, I feel confident this set is close to finalization and so I will be printing a few sets soon. Let me know if you’d like me to ship you a copy! Merry Christmas!

166
Dominion General Discussion / Distribution of Dominion card costs
« on: December 19, 2020, 10:19:17 pm »


Made a chart of all kingdom cards in dominion by cost. Split piles like knights were counted as individual cards, cards with variable costs are in the category corresponding to the default cost, and cards not in the supply like prizes and traveler updates, as well as ones with a potion or debt in their cost, were excluded.

Percentages:
0:    1.4%   
1:    0.3%   
2:   11.5%   
3:    16.8%   
4:    25.8%   
5:    37.0%   
6:    4.5%
7:    1.7%
8:    0.6%
9:   0.3%
10:   0.3%

Using this, for instance, you can see the probability of having a game with no 5-cost cards is roughly 0.98%, no 2-cost cards is 29.5%, etc.
Enjoy!

167
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Industrial Revolution!
« on: August 30, 2019, 03:07:15 am »
90% of the time in my experience, people choose the cards in the kingdom randomly. If there's no village, tough. I don't know many people who just add a village to suit their needs. You could say "why do we need any more village cards, we have village already", but we all know that doesn't fly. Each expansion that adds a village increases the chance of a village popping up, and with any additional effects it has, a chance of a new slightly different and hopefully cooler engine.

So no, this card doesn't help the issue of kingdoms having a village card more than just adding any other new village. But what this card does do, is marginally increase the chance of their being a village AND marginally increase the chance of their being a handsize increaser, AND marginally increase the likelyhood of their being a +Buy, etc. No other card in the game does that. That's what makes Theatre special.

I admit there are some rule issues, and I need help working those out, but I don't think that's a very fair reason to completely rule out a card. Otherwise no new expansion would be possible, because they all modify the rules in some way or another.


Now to the point. How I intend is for it to be like city, so yes piles that are emptied no longer count as being in the supply. That is standard rules a la Overlord. And yes, only the top card matters, because when you buy a card from any supply card, it can only ever be the top card, think ruins and castles. Because the supply is all cards you can buy, technically only the top card is in the supply.

How can I change the wording so that this is more clear, I'm sure its possible.

168
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Industrial Revolution!
« on: August 29, 2019, 11:15:13 am »
Upon further consideration I have decided to remove the curse type from Smog and replace it with its own, unique Smog type, akin to Ruins. As much as I liked having it for thematic reasons, I agree it might make things more confusing that they're worth.

169
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Industrial Revolution!
« on: August 29, 2019, 09:54:08 am »
Sorry for the mistakes! I didn't catch them while editing. I fixed the image link for Smog and the description for Steel Foundry, I left the old versions by mistake.

As for Theatre, I reverted to the previous version with variable cost increases. This is how the card was originally. I am sorry you're not a fan Gendo! Several people have pointed out they really liked concept of Theatre and I'm trying my best to make it work!

170
Variants and Fan Cards / Dominion: Industrial Revolution!
« on: August 28, 2019, 05:56:08 pm »
Go here to see the most recent update of this expansion!: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=20619





Hello! If you're like me and have always wondered what dominion would look like with a little technological advancement, this is the expansion for you! It's a large expansion that's a mix of prosperity and dark ages: 16 strong, expensive cards that puts prosperity to shame, and 16 cheap, weaker cards that shine in certain situations. I'm looking for help with balancing the cards and getting general feedback before I go off and print them out.

The themes for this set include new spins on the vanilla bonuses and filling up the 1 and 7 coin gaps, something Don X. actually supports. I really want to help widen the bell curve of card costs, so there are no cost 3 - 5 cards in this set, we need more cheap and expensive cards to spicen things up a bit. This set is great for making powerful engines (it is the industrial revolution after all), and for truly massive decks. Some of the expensive cards have a choose x theme going on, and some of the cheap cards have an exponential theme where they get stronger the more you play together. The expensive cards in this expansion are intended to be played with colonies and plats, justifying the high costs.

I have read all the suggestions on my last two posts and I thank you for all the feedback. I hope this version has a lot of the messy issues of the last two ironed out based on your suggestions! The costs still need some work, and please take the cost arguments I make as a suggestion to get in the ballpark. I know card costs are not as simple as just tallying up the bonuses. I have been working on this since before Renaissance came out, so excuse any card name duplicates while I think of a replacement name. You can see my old post here: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=18592.0

Without further ado:
Expensive Cards:


Theatre:
Hate it when you have the perfect kingdom for an engine but there are no stinking +buys! Or when its a kingdom of 10 great cards but they're all terminal? Well this is card for you. Alone it's worthless, a cantrip costing $2. But the worse the kingdom is, the better it gets. The actors play the part of whatever is you're missing to get your strategy off the ground. No handsize increasers? This cards is a basic lab costing $5. No villages? this card becomes a vanilla village at $3. It can be a worker's village at $4, a cantrip buy at $3, etc. Only when your kingdom is missing literally everything does this card cost $7.

"Other cards" refers to non-Theatre cards, so Theatre is not triggered by itself. "+2 Cards" only includes cards explicitly having +2 or more written on the card. Smithy counts, Library does not.


Entrepreneur:
The jack of all trades of buying cards, this card is one step up from inventor! It is the reverse of capital, giving you coin tokens to spend on a later turn in exchange for taking that many coins from this turn, a great investment indeed. So that it doesn't cripple your turn entirely, you can still gain a $4 card, and if you have a couple gold left over, lets you buy 2 additional cards at a reduced cost. The debt collected stacks unlike capital, and the reduced cost benefit is like bridge, both effects reducing its throne room strength and overall ability to allow a megaturn like bridge.

I am open to a lot of suggestion with this card, balancing the cost and amount of coffers/debt is tricky.


Hospital:
One step above doctor, but one step below donate in terms of quickly getting rid of unwanted cards. Originally didn't allow trashing from your hand, but that was too tough of shuffle luck. Considering changing to only trash one card from hand. Still isn't as strong when its your first hand compared to your last, but who said hospitals were guaranteed to cure you?


Infantry:
Infiltrate your opponents hands with this attack card. A +3 card attack like torturer or rabble, where you can effectively place unwanted cards from your hand into an opponent's. Can attack repeatedly but keeps opponent's hands at 5. Attack about as hurtful as torturer, with same smithy bonus plus trash a single card roughly justifies $6.


Meeting House:
Continuing the theme of chapel, bishop, and temple, this card trashes and rewards your tithe in the form of coffers and victory tokens. Essentially Junkman + Bishop so costs $7. Because you must trash a card for the VP, the game must eventually end. Card originally named Cathedral, but Renaissance took that name.


Artillery:
This second attack card lets you load, aim, and fire a card out of your enemy's hand. The only discard attack that lets the attacker choose the card to discard is pillage, and such a powerful ability forces it to be a one-off. To make this balanced without having to trash itself, you must discard your hand, preventing you from playing any further actions or playing treasures, thus only one can be played per turn. It's only as targeted an attack as pillage is, so that's not a problem at least.


Police Station:
Need to protect you stuff from criminals? Hire a police station! This reaction card is Jack of all Trades on steroids: this card simply remedies any possible ill effects from just about any attack. Can trash the curse from Witch or Sea Hag, draws the top 3 cards and lets you discard them if they were muddled by Ghost ship or Rabble, and lets you retrieve from the trash anything Pirate ship or Rogue forced you to trash. Same reaction effect as Horse Traders, preventing attacks like pillage or enchantress from stopping you from playing it, and costs debt so you can still buy it after being attacked.


Stock Exchange:
An action-treasure like crown and one step up from bank. This lets you trade vanilla bonuses for any other vanilla bonus you need during your action phase or buy phase. Combination Cellar, Diadem, Storyteller, and Vault, thus the $7 cost. Does NOT let you play treasures during your action phase, or actions during your buy phase. So you need to have virtual gold to trade it in during action phase, and gaining actions during your buy phase would be useless, and gaining cards risks drawing any actions dead. Can really help if you're engine hit a dry patch or if you're just short some gold on your buy phase.


Factory:
The next advancement on Laboratory, this "power card of epic proportions that probably shouldn't exist at any cost" isn't balanced at $8 on its own, so I made it gain a junk card, the more you use it the more you get, (see below). The junk card could use some work to make it balanced. My goal is for it to be about as effective city quarter.


Observatory:
Take a good look at what's coming up and set up the perfect next turn, the strongest deck inspector in the game. Was too useless when drawn near the end of your deck, so made it a reserve card. Many versions of this card were considered too weak, but let me know if you think this is good enough or too strong.


Oil Refinery:
Are all your action cards too complicated with all their "mechanics" and "words" and what not? Well refine them down into plain ol' vanilla! Turn your 10 native villages into regular, normal, not-a-novel-of-a-description villages! Or peddler variants, or even labs! This card is unique in giving a choice that doesn't need to be unique. Choose +3 cards, or $3, or +1 action and +2 buys if that's your thing.


Town Hall:
You're the mayor and lucky for you a lot of decisions need to be made with this duration card. Like Count, choose some harmful effects and then you get to choose some great effects next turn. Originally it allowed you to do both this turn and the next, for some interplay between the good and bad effects, but many said that made it too complicated. Wonder if the duration makes it too weak in this new version.


Public School:
Let your cards edumacate themselves and lern to be gooder. Give your baker a degree and turn them into a lab assistant! Or have your lowly herbalist follow their dreams and become a market or something. The natural extension to teacher. Same effect but for all four tokens at once, but only for one turn. I felt that teacher was such a good card it was a shame no other cards besides events had the ability to place the +1 tokens.


Steel Foundry:
A Smithy or Blacksmith on steroids, this terminal draw is a great way to use up actions. Two more cards than Blacksmith, without the copper drawback and with +$1, but discards an action or treasure from your hand and gains smog as downside.


Supermarket:
The next step up from grand market. A +$1 combined with +1 buy to grand market, but with the drawback is stricter, needing at the least 3 golds to buy or some serious virtual coinage. This brings the price to $9, giving Platinum a run for its money, literally.


Metropolis:
And lastly the pièce de résistance: metropolis. From lowly hamlet, to village, to city, then metropolis. +2 cards like a leveled up city, and +3 actions like bustling village, but with some VP to justify purchasing it late. A metropolitan area is practically a duchy anyway. The vanilla bonuses are worth around $6-7, and VP nets to 3 with Smog, so up to $10.

Cheap cards:


Smog:
Wow all this industrial activity is really clogging up the place. The more you use the high powered cards, the more you pollute your deck. This self-trashing junk is just slightly less harsh as a curse, if you can clear it away in time. Without another trashing card you'll always have one left over. Pile structured as 10*number of players, so 20 in a two-player game. I like what it adds thematically to the expansion to be replacing Curses, a medieval fear, with something more modern but just as deadly. 


Banknote:
An action version of treasure cards that gets stronger the more you have! This is useful in scrying pool games, games with treasure attacks, or any other game where you just don't want your deck cluttered with treasures. Adding to that, cards that would gain you gold and silver explicitly can gain Banknotes instead. It especially combos well with my Stock Exchange (coincidence? nope.) Exchange your currency today!


Slums:
Village that gives actions based on how many have already been played. Useless if the first card played in a turn, but the best village version of City quarter the more actions you have played. If your slums are too productive they are returned to the pile, but the +Buy makes it easier to gain them back.


Worker:
Terminal draw that gets stronger the more you play. Can be chained. Playing 5 averages to 5 smithies, but for a quarter the cost.


Boom Town:
Remade version of a card from Auto-Destruct Sequence (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3984). I really like this card, and it fits the set perfectly, but it had some balancing issues. I think this version may fix it, but let me know what you think.


General Store:
Want to buy 2 workers and a silver? Or how about a market and two coppers? This card will help you hoard up on cheap cards for whatever strategy calls it (looking at you gardens). Originally $2, but wanted to price at $1 to help people round out their purchases on boards where this is the only $1 card. If that makes it too strong what coin price should I limit it to?


Landfill:
Put something in the dump, get something out. Really simple card to turn trash coppers and curses away, gain a duchy from your gold or turn estates into coppers, or even more Landfills!


Statue:
A weaker version of monument. Instead of $2, gain a copper to your hand. No more game-breaking than monument is, and eventually stops when you run out the copper deck, so max 40 or so VP.


Street Market:
The purest form of market. Cantrip with variable +Buys. Stronger the more Silvers or Gold in your hand. Really useful for when you're running your Goons or Gardens decks and Buys are really your biggest limiter, as this can get you far more buys than any other card if you set things up right.


Coal:
Similar to Encampment from the Strife fan expansion (http://www.nosro.net/games/dominion/strife/list.php#encampment).
The idea is the same, burn up this card for a temporary bonus. However you can chose to put it back or trash it, leading to some interesting player dynamics. Learn to share this non-renewable resource or burn them all up to prevent the other player from using any.


Power Plant:
Burn a card as fuel in the power plant to give you more cards to keep your engine going, turning it into smog. If you accidentally draw a card dead, you can save it for next turn. Must trash first so slightly weaker than a Masquerade in that regard, and also weakened by needing to gain a smog.


Locomotion:
Progress comes at a cost to everyone, involved or not. Move your deck along with this card, but watch as you get junk in everyone's face, including yours! This card is a self-curser with an option to remove them later. Notice it only gains Smog but can trash either Curse card.


Prison:
Effectively a trash a card, but put it back at the end of the game. Like Island but without VP or removing itself. Useful to keep the VP from estates, or to help with Gardens or Fountain.


Reforge:
Gain 1 coin token for copper, 5 for plat, etc. Weaker version of moneylender on all treasures, except its coin tokens so that's nice. Potentially game changing if you trash up all your treasures and end with a megaturn.


Sewer:
Sift through all the waste in your deck with this alternate to Courtyard. Chain together multiple sewers and make a sewage system that can get you the cleanest hand around!


Salesman:
And finally my favorite card in this section, Salesman. The buy equivalent of Hireling, giving you the extra buys you need to get all these cheap cards! Less unique now that Fair came out recently, but is still helpful to have in many situations. Strictly worse than Fair so priced at $3.

And that's all folks! Let me know what you think, what pricing changes should be made, what effects are too weak/powerful etc. I take any advice I can get!

171
Variants and Fan Cards / Dominion: Industrialization
« on: May 09, 2018, 05:48:58 am »
Go here to see the most recent update of this expansion!: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=20619


Hello! If you're like me and have always wondered what dominion would look like with a little technological advancement, this is the expansion for you! It's a large expansion that's a mix of prosperity and dark ages: 16 strong, expensive cards that puts prosperity to shame, and 16 cheap, simple, mostly trashing cards that shine in certain situations. I'm looking for help with balancing the cards and getting general feedback before I go off and print them out.

The themes for this set include new spins on the vanilla bonuses and filling up the 1 and 7 coin gaps, something Don X. actually supports. This set is great for making powerful engines (it is the industrial revolution after all), and for truly massive decks. It is strongly recommended to play with colonies and plats.

I have read all the suggestions on my last post and made enough changes that it warrants a new post.



Expensive Cards:


Theatre:
Hate it when you have the perfect kingdom for an engine but there are no stinking +buys! Or when its a kingdom of 10 great cards but they're all terminal? Well this is card for you. Alone it's worthless, a cantrip costing $2. But the worse the kingdom is, the better it gets. The actors play the part of whatever is you're missing to get your strategy off the ground. No handsize increasers? This cards is a basic lab costing $5. No villages? this card becomes a vanilla village at $3. It can be a worker's village at $4, and a junk dealer without the $1 at $4. Only when your kingdom is missing literally everything is this card an insanely strong $9 card.
"Other cards" refers to non-Theatre cards, so Theatre is not triggered by itself. "+2 Cards" only includes cards explicitly having +2 or more (+3 includes +2) written on the card. Smithy counts, Library does not. Conditional trashing counts as trashing.
[EDIT]: Changed trashing ability back to $2 from $1. Make up your minds people.


Cathedral:
Continuing the theme of chapel, bishop, and temple, this card trashes and rewards your tithe in the form of victory tokens. Adding cantrip to watered-down bishop warrants +$2 (see bridge -> highway). Because you must trash a card for the VP, the game must eventually end.


Infantry:
Infiltrate your opponents hands with this attack card. A +3 card attack like torturer or rabble, where you can place unwanted cards from your hand into an opponent's. Can attack repeatedly but keeps opponent's decks at 5. Attack about as hurtful as torturer, with same smithy bonus plus trash a single card justifies $6.


Hospital:
One step above doctor, but one step below donate in terms of quickly getting rid of unwanted cards. Useless if drawn in your first hand, but incredibly strong in your last. Tough shuffle luck, but who said hospitals were guaranteed to cure you?


Artillery:
This second attack card lets you load, aim, and fire a card out of your enemy's hand. The only discard attack that lets the attacker choose the card to discard is pillage, and such a powerful ability forces it to be a one-off. To make this balanced without having to trash itself, you must discard your hand. Thus only one can be played per turn. It's only as targeted an attack as pillage is, so that's not a problem.


Observatory:
Take a look at what's coming up and set up the perfect next turn, the strongest deck inspector in the game. Was too useless when drawn near the end of your deck, so made it a reserve card. Might be too strong now.


Police Station:
Need to protect you stuff from criminals? Hire a police station! This reaction card is Jack of all Trades on steroids. Originally this gave the opponent an option to trash their Attack card for benefit ("Jail" it), instead this card simply remedies any possible ill effects from the attack. Can trash the curse from Witch or Sea Hag, draws the top 3 cards and lets you discard them if they were muddled by Ghost ship or Rabble, and lets you retrieve from the trash anything Pirate ship or Rogue forced you to trash. Same reaction effect as Horse Traders.


Stock Exchange:
An action-treasure like crown. This lets you trade vanilla bonuses for any other vanilla bonus you need during your action phase or buy phase. Combination Cellar, Diadem, Storyteller, and Vault, thus the $7 cost. Does NOT let you play treasures during your action phase, or actions during your buy phase. So you need to have virtual gold to trade it in during action phase, and gaining actions during your buy phase would be useless, and gaining cards risks drawing any actions dead.


Oil Refinery:
All your action cards too complicated with all their "mechanics" and "words" and what not? Well refine them down into plain ol' vanilla! Turn your 10 native villages into regular, normal, not-a-novel-of-a-description villages! Or peddler variants, or even labs! This card is unique in giving a choice that doesn't need to be unique. Choose +3 cards, or $3, or +1 action and +2 buys if that's your thing.


Factory:
The next advancement on Laboratory, this "power card of epic proportions that probably shouldn't exist at any cost" isn't balanced at $8 on its own, so I made it gain a junk card, the more you use it the more you get (see below). The junk card could use some work to make it balanced. My goal is for it to be about as effective city quarter.


Town Hall:
Lots of decisions need to be made with this duration card. Gives 9 options with a mix of useful and potentially harmful. Usually nets out to a market with a discarded card so I put this at $6. $7 May be reasonable.
[Edit]: No longer forces you to choose what you didn't pick on your next turn. Now each turn is independent and tracking should be much easier.


Steel Foundry:
A Smithy or Blacksmith on steroids, this terminal draw is a great way to use up actions. Blacksmith without the copper drawback and with +$1. Vanilla bonuses put a pricetag of $9, but gains smog as downside. 


Public School:
Let your cards edumacate themselves and lern to be gooder. Give your baker a degree and turn them into a lab assistant! Or have your lowly herbalist follow their dreams and become a market or something. The natural extension to teacher. Same effect but for all four tokens at once, but only for one turn. I felt that teacher was such a good card it was a shame no other cards besides events had the ability to place the +1 tokens.


Supermarket:
The next logical step up from grand market. The +$1 combined with +1 buy warrants an increase of $4 from grand market, but the drawback is stricter, needing at the least 3 golds to buy or some serious virtual coinage. This brings the total down to $9.


Metropolis:
And lastly the pièce de résistance: metropolis. From lowly hamlet, to village, to city, then metropolis. Its vanilla bonuses are exactly that of a fully leveled up city, so not game breaking, but with some VP to justify purchasing it late. A metropolitan area is practically a duchy anyway. The vanilla bonuses are worth $8, and VP nets to 1 with Smog, so up to $10.


Smog:
Deciding between these two. One's a cantrip curse, effectively an -1 VP token, but can be drawn dead. The other's a self-trashing junk. Pile structured identically to the Curse pile. Other suggestions welcome. Thematically the more you use the high powered cards, the more you pollute your deck.

172
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Industrial Revolution [UPDATED]
« on: December 01, 2017, 05:06:30 am »
@Gubump
Thanks for the feedback, I will make corrections to the cards you suggested. The point of $1 cards is not to get them with hands where you have $1, but so you can buy 4 or 5 of them on one turn, increasing their strength. This is why market stall has +2 buys, and why I have Salesman. Since sets are meant to be playable standalone without others, you can imagine setting up games with large numbers of weak cards that together become strong. For example, with Public School, you can "educate" workers with +1 Action and now you have 5 peddlers easily.

As for Bank Note, I think you missed the huge synergy potential. Dominion needs this card above all others. An action version of a treasure card is super useful because you can play it on your action phase! That means that with Tactician, you can have enough money to buy a card and have no problem with discarding your hand, and hence play Tactician every turn. It means you dont have to worry about playing against pirate ship, or thief, or other treasure-trashers since you have no treasures to trash! And like I stated, it makes scrying pool super good since you can draw your entire deck with 1 card and have money to pay for cards! It's my favorite card of the cheap ones, save for Salesman.

173
Puzzles and Challenges / Fastest (province-emptying) Win
« on: October 06, 2017, 01:45:06 am »
There are quite a few articles showing how the game can be won by emptying 3 piles, this one here does it in 1.5 turns, but how about winning the game the old fashioned way by emptying the province pile? The options for doing this have increased tremendously since Adventures, this article does it in 8 turns with no Events using double kings court bridge. But of course we can do better.

I've got it down to 4 turns with these two strategies, if you think you can do better or with less Events, please post below:

Method 1:



Turn 1:
Draw 5 coppers (17% chance for 5/2 split)
Buy Summon, gain Bridge.

Turn 2:
Draw 2 coppers and 3 shelters.
Bridge in play, KC costs 6.
Buy Advance, trash Necropolis, gain KC.
Buy Bridge.

Turn 3:
Draw KC, Bridge, 2 coppers, and anything else. (21% probability).
KC Bridge. Buy KC and Bridge for 5.
Dontate. Trash everything but the two KC and 3 bridges.

Turn 4:
Draw and play double KC and 3 Bridges.
+9 Buys, +$9, and all cards cost $9 less.
Pay off 8 debt from donate, buy 8 provinces. Win.


Method 2:



Turn 1:
Draw 5 coppers.
Borrow 1 coin. Use coin token from Baker.
Buy KC.

Turn 2:
Draw 1 coppers 3 estates.
Don't play coppers, buy Alms, get Bridge.

Turn 3:
Draw KC, Bridge, 3 coppers. (4.3% probability).
KC Bridge. Buy KC and two Bridges for 6.
Dontate. Trash everything but the two KC and 3 bridges.

Turn 4:
Draw and play double KC and 3 Bridges.
+9 Buys, +$9, and all cards cost $9 less.
Pay off 8 debt from donate, buy 8 provinces. Win.




I'm sure there's some way to increase these probabilities. But I'll hand off the baton to you folks here.

174
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Industrial Revolution
« on: October 02, 2017, 05:45:46 am »
Thank you all for your feedback! I am remaking the cards to fit your guys' advice. (By the way, I'm make them in photoshop not with the online editor, that's just where I took the templates from). I'm new, what's the etiquette for changing a post? Should it just edit the op, put a reply, or start a new post? I'd like the updated cards to be in the op but that makes the first few comments confusing. Is starting a new topic for the samr thing considered spammy?

175
Variants and Fan Cards / Dominion: Industrial Revolution [UPDATED]
« on: October 01, 2017, 07:33:44 am »
Go here to see the most recent update of this expansion!: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=20619

Hello! If you're like me and have always wondered what dominion would look like with a little technological advancement, this is the expansion for you! It's a large expansion that's a mix of prosperity and dark ages: 15 strong, expensive cards that puts prosperity to shame, and 15 cheap, simple, mostly trashing cards that shine in certain situations. I'm looking for help with balancing the cards and getting general feedback before I go off and print them out.

The themes for this set include new spins on the vanilla bonuses (including combinations missing from the game) and filling up the 1 and 7 coin gaps, something Don X. actually supports. This set is great for making powerful engines (it is the industrial revolution after all), and for truly massive decks. It is strongly recommended to play with colonies and plats.

With no further ado, here are the expensive cards:


Cathedral:
Continuing the theme of chapel and bishop, this card trashes and rewards your tithe in the form of coin and victory tokens. Who doesn't love tokens? Adding cantrip to watered-down bishop warrants +$2 (see bridge -> highway).
[Edit]: Changed so that you only get the VP if you trash a card. Much harder to make golden decks now. Less likely to have the game go on forever.


Town Hall:
Lots of decisions need to be made with this duration card. Gives 9 options with a mix of useful and potentially harmful. Usually nets out to a market with a discarded card so I put this at $6. $7 May be reasonable.
[Edit]: No longer forces you to choose what you didn't pick on your next turn. Now each turn is independent and tracking should be much easier.


Hospital:
One step above doctor, but one step below donate in terms of quickly getting rid of unwanted cards. Useless if drawn in your first hand, but incredibly strong in your last. $6 may be too cheap.
[Edit]: Added coppers to the list.


Observatory:
Take a look at what's coming up and set up the perfect next turn. The reverse of hospital, useless if drawn in your last and easily the strongest deck inspector in the game if drawn in your first. $7 seems balanced but I'm not sure.


Steel Foundry:
A smithy on steroids, this terminal draw is a great way to use up actions. A hunting grounds with +$1 but no trash bonus. Might need to be at $8.


Infantry:
Infiltrate your opponents hands with this attack card. A +3 card attack like torturer or rabble, where you can place unwanted cards from your hand into an opponent's. Can attack repeatedly but keeps opponent's decks at 5.
[Edit]: Changed cost to $7. Thinking about forcing the cards given to be identical to reduce the targeted nature.


Artillery:
This second attack card lets you load, aim, and fire a card out of your enemy's hand. The only discard attack that lets the attacker choose the card to discard is pillage, and such a powerful ability forces it to be a one-off. To make this balanced without having to trash itself, you must pay a vanilla bonus. You cannot give up action if you're at zero. If you choose buy and have no more +buys, you cant buy a card this turn, etc. Has the problem of targeted attack but then again so does pillage.
[Edit]: Changed to not allow gaining of victory cards. I had intended this, but just forgot to put it in.


Police Station:
Need some defense against those harsh attacks? Need to protect you stuff from criminals? Hire a police station! This reaction card discourages attack cards. Forcing a trash of the attack/reflecting the attack is considered bad design, so this gives the choice to the attacker to take a gold hit and keep their attack (The police catch the criminals and either jail them or release them on bail). Also works as an expand on any attack cards you may have. Clears attacks from both sides!
[Edit]: Changed so the reaction effect is not strictly harmful. Also a moat reaction is an option available to them. The opponents are less likely to be disincentivised to buy attack cards.


Stock Exchange:
An action-treasure like crown. This lets you trade virtual gold for any vanilla bonus you need during your action phase, and trade in any unused actions/cards for gold in your buy phase. The buy phase ability is strictly superior to both diadem and vault, thus the $9 cost. May need to be higher. For your action phase ability, you need gold from action cards in order to trade in for a vanilla bonus, no using treasures or coin tokens. The card comes with $2, so you can make a cantrip or village, but then you can't use the buy phase ability. Really strong when combined with gold from markets or peddlers.
[Edit] Reduced cost to $7 based off suggestions.


Oil Refinery:
All your action cards too complicated with all their "mechanics" and "words" and what not? Well refine them into plain ol' vanilla cards instead! Turn your 10 native villages into regular, normal, not-a-novel-of-a-description villages! Or peddler variants, or even labs (easily the strongest option)! This card is unique in giving a choice that doesn't need to be unique. Choose +3 cards, or $3, or +1 action and +2 buys if that's your thing. This is probably the most likely to be broken. It was too weak to have effect on only one card, and having the choices be different is restrictive when you pick 3 out of 4. I may just have to go with the latter though if it's too strong.
[Edit]: Reduced cost to $8 as per suggested.


Factory:
The next advancement on Laboratory, this "power card of epic proportions that probably shouldn't exist at any cost" should be balanced at $9. I find it hard to believe that this card is not possible to be balanced, especially with things like kings court smithy and city quarter.
[Edit]: Changed from $7 to $9.


Supermarket:
The next logical step up from grand market. The +$1 combined with +1 buy warrants an increase of $4 from grand market, but the drawback of no silvers brings the total down to $9.
[Edit] Changed +1 Card to +1 Buy.


Public School:
Let your cards edumacate themselves and lern to be gooder. Give your baker a degree and turn them into a lab assistant! Or have your lowly herbalist follow their dreams and become a market or something. The natural extension to teacher. Exact same effect but without needed 5 reshuffles. Turning one of the two strongest cards in the came (along with champion) into a card you can buy right away rightly deserves the high cost of $10, maybe even more?
[Edit] Reduced cost to $9 based off suggestion. I felt that teacher was such a good card it was a shame no other cards besides events had the ability. I really like this card, even if only to increase the likelihood of getting to use +1 bonus tokens in a game.


Metropolis:
And lastly the pièce de résistance: metropolis. From lowly hamlet, to village, to city, then metropolis. Its vanilla bonuses are exactly that of a fully leveled up city, but with a duchy added in because why not? A metropolitan area is practically a duchy. The vanilla bonuses alone are worth $8, so it is probably undervalued at $10, but it didnt make sense to make it more than a colony at $12 or $13, but I'd like to hear your opinions.
[Edit] Changed from 3 VP to 1 VP as 10 was too cheap for 3.


Theatre:
Hate it when you have the perfect kingdom for an engine but there are no sticking +buys! Or when its a kingdom of 10 great cards but not a single non-terminal to be found. Or maybe you just really hate the sight of estates and hate that there aren't more trashing cards in the game? Well this is card for you. Alone it's worthless, a cantrip costing $2. But the worse the kingdom is, the better it gets. The actors play the part of whatever is you're missing to get your strategy off the ground. No handsize increasers? This cards is a basic lab costing $5. No villages? this card becomes a vanilla village at $3. It can be a worker's village at $4, and a junk dealer without the $1 at $4. Only when your kingdom is missing literally everything is this card an insanely strong $9 card.

Cheap cards:


Salesman:
The buy equivalent of Hireling. Used the price difference of Seaway -> Pathfinder to price this at $3.


Worker:
When using pawn, usually the best bet is +1 card +$1. This card gives that for half the price, and is good in decks with excess actions. Just a reminder that this and the other $1 cards in this set are pretty weak on their own. But with the extra buys from other cards, these cheap cards help you to make really big decks of mostly actions. Great for gardens, scrying pool, or champion games. I know a lot of these cards are "boring vanilla cards", but I actually like vanilla cards and think there should be more in the game.


Market Stall:
Some extra buys to help ease off the burden of buying these cheap cards. This should technically be priced at $2 but more than one buy is rarely useful, except in this set.


Furnace:
Pretty self explanatory. Burn a card in the furnace to give you more cards to keep your engine going. This might be better of costing $2.


Landfill:
Put something in the dump, get something out. Really simple card to turn your curses into coppers or estates into lighthouses.


Plot of Land:
Yes, I wanted there to be a card that was just a cantrip. There are many instances where this could be useful. But if you change your mind you chapel 4 of these and deplete the Lab pile. I really don't like the picture on this one but it was the best I could find. Funnily enough, finding a good picture of nothing is harder than it sounds. If you have a better one in mind please send it my way.


Sewer:
The worst sifting card in the game, but hey it only costs $2. This is the Lab -> Smithy equivalent of warehouse.
[Edit]: This card was +2 cards, discard a card at $1, but I agree that was way too weak.


Bank Note:
This is just an action version of silver. It is cheaper because it can be terminally drawn unlike silver, plus delve already showed that getting a silver at $2 isn't game breaking. This is useful in scrying pool games, games with treasure attacks, or any other game where you just dont want your deck cluttered with treasures. It especially combos well with my Stock Exchange (coincidence? nope.)


Statue:
A weaker version of monument. While it can lead to endless games, some hard trashing is needed to pull this off, and even then a max of 5 of these can be played. Compare to the Bishop/Fortress golden deck where you can get 12 VP per turn.


Coal:
Modified version of Encampment from the Strife fan expansion: http://www.nosro.net/games/dominion/strife/list.php#encampment
As there's now a real card named encampment, and to fit in with the theme of this expansion, I changed the name and picture. The idea is the same, burn up this card for a temporary bonus.


Slums:
The next step up from Necropolis. I want this a card because it just works for thematic reasons, and because it kinda works with 3 workers. Thats a gold and +3 cards right there, albeit for 4 cards.


General Store:
Want to buy 3 workers? Or how about a market stall and two coppers? This card will help you hoard up on cheap cards for whatever strategy calls it (looking at you gardens).
[Edit]: I changed the wording to "up to 3 cards", so you aren't forced to buy $0 cards if you get a $3 one.


Reforge:
Gain 1 coin token for copper, 5 for plat, etc. Weaker version of moneylender on all treasures, except its coin tokens so that's nice. Potentially game changing if you trash up all your treasures and end with a megaturn.



The following are versions of cards from Auto-Destruct Sequence (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3984). I really like his cards and they fit so well in my set I just had to include them.


Boom Town:
I really like this card, but it was too weak on its own. I think setting the price at 2 fixes it nicely. Also changed the wording to be more clear.


Demolish:
I just modified the formatting and image of this one.

These following ones I didn't modify, they were already perfect. I am just reposting them here because I intend to print them along with my own.



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