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301

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Urbanisation

« on: September 13, 2020, 07:22:48 pm »

Card set #6

          

Buying is fine, Sir, but what if we could accelerate that process? Here's some ideas to acquire new cool stuff without even spending a penny! Our economic advisors will be more than pleased!

• Draft (my other thread): The card of the set, because why not? When you play a Draft, you will have an extra buy, so you can always use that one to grab a new Draft. The cycle can continue like that until the Draft pile get emptied. Its mere null cost with its +Buy means that the Draft pile could be short lived if a lot of players invest into it. Its mere presence can threaten a 3-pile ending.
  
  Other than that, it gains a card, reinforcing the 3-pile thingy if you keep getting cards from a cantrip pile. It’s not a very good gainer, but hey, it’s free and it recycles itself!
  
  
• Hoarder (Weekly Contest thread): Sleep tight people, that’s our first Night card of the set! And… it’s another Attack. We’re up to what, 4 now? And… it’s another non-terminal Attack, joining the rank of Plague Doctor! Vigil would’ve been up there too, but he has changed since the inception of this thread. Here, the Attack is nooooot too mean, mostly to account for the fact that multiple Hoarders could be spammed in one turn (like Vampire can be). I mean, if the first Hoarder hits you and you must gain a Copper to your hand, then you can simply discard that same Copper if another Hoarder hits you. So Hoarder only Attacks 1 time out of 2 at best. And being junked by Coppers is always a tiny notch better than being junked with, oh I dunno, Curses? Hi Plague Doctor and Courser!
  
  Then there’s the gain part. The part where you actually get something out of Hoarder. Not unlike the rest of the cards shown in this set, he gains stuff for you and he does it à la Courtier. He cares about card variety in play. And Hoarder, coincidently, always count for 2 of those card types (Night and Attack). Play an Action, put some Treasures in play to buy something and then finish it up with a Hoarder and most of the time, he’ll gain you something costing . Add something neat like a Duration (Plague Doctor) or a Stallion (Shetland Pony) and suddenly, you’re gaining cards with Hoarder. And it can go higher than that! It’s even possible to straight up grab a Province with Hoarder, though you’ll have to work hard for it and it won’t be true in most games he appears in.
  
  
• Overwork (Discord card): Ladies and gentlemen, a card cost increaser. The impossible thing to do since Livery (and frowned upon even before that because of the weird interaction with cost decreasing cards). Here, though, it’s limited to your hand. Goodbye game-breaking Horse/Livery shenanigan! Overwork’s pretty neat in the sense that as your hand increases in value, you’ll be able to transform some of your stuff into disproportionally higher costing cards. A Copper overworked into a Duchy, for instance, is totally doable here. Overwork, with a little help from other cards, can thus surpass Expand in all of its remodeling glory. I’m sure there’s other card interactions hidden here, but I don’t know too much about that still. If some of you can find a way that Overwork can break, please let me know!
  
  

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⚠ From the next set of cards onward, 2 cards will be from my other thread and the other one will be a Weekly Design Contest card. I have run out of Discord card to show. ⚠

302

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Urbanisation

« on: September 11, 2020, 01:24:26 pm »

Hrmm yeah. I guess Lease is done way quicker than Moneylender is. My first draft was to have it give a Vanilla + and grant an extra upon trashing an Estate. Splitting the bonus into a more consistent payload, basically. That way, once its done trashing stuff, it turns into a sad Flag Bearer. Another possibility would be to have it give you an Estate on-gain, but I'm unsure about that. I just want it to not be too close to Baron, this is why I'm avoiding the +Buy here. And, as you'll see over the next days, there are a lot of +Buy cards in Urbanisation (one of the thematic approach actually)!

As for Plague Doctor, I'm okay with the non-terminiality of it. Sometimes, it's a cool way to shift games toward Attack chaining without Dominion completely breaking. Certain cards may be centralising in certain games, and I'm not too afraid to let Plague Doctor be one of them if it comes to that. There was non-terminal Vigil before too, but you already convinced me to give it +2 Cards instead.

303

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Urbanisation

« on: September 10, 2020, 08:21:20 pm »

Card set #5

          

Urbanisation has its fair share of junking and provides ways to deal with that. What if a nasty plague hits your newly built cities? What to do with those lazy aristocrats sucking the productivity of your lands in their rich Estates? Some solutions: Lend your Estates for a healthy profit and relocate your sick people to your crappy-nobody-cares-about towns!

• Junk Village (Discord card): “It’s strong”, a little voice tells me. “Way too strong”, she continues. Then she realises that Junk Village does not draw. And that’s kind of a big shortcoming. In our play testing games, it was neat to Village and trash at once, but as the game progressed, we were getting more and more disgruntled to have a weaker Shanty Town in our hands. I guess this is why this village is so junky to begin with. Oh and, the +Buy is thematic, I guess (trash some crap to reshape it into some kind of weird scummy economy), but it’s mostly, in reality, a consolidation prize to boost it above a simple Necropolis.
  
  
• Lease (Weekly Contest thread): It’s Moneylender, but for Estates! Will you be able to connect your Lease with your starting Estates in your first reshuffle? I dunno, ask Baron. He tries to do that stuff all the time. Except, I guess, that Baron does something if he fails, but w/e. Moneylender doesn’t and neither does Lease. So, I guess it’s a weird cross between Moneylender and Baron, in a way.
  
  All in all, Baron has the possibility of giving you your sweet continuously. Lease trashes your crap and frees your deck though. It’s a choice to make, I guess.
  
  
• Plague Doctor (my other thread): No no, it’s not the Doctor that’s being mean here! A plague hits the lands (the Curse part) and next turn, your Plague Doctors are prepared, ready and sent to try to cure it (the Duration part). They look scary, but they want to do good.
  
  So, the card. 3rd Attack of the set. That’s already more than Renaissance. It’s also the second Curser shown thus far. And it’s a non-terminal one, spicy! Okay, you gotta wait next turn, but it’s not impossible to dance around a couple of Plague Doctors to always start with 2 Actions or more. In the end, Plague Doctor really is just a Fishing Village that instead Curses on the turn you play it. That’s enough of a change, in my opinion, to buff the price up to .
  
  

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304

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Urbanisation

« on: September 09, 2020, 10:14:41 am »

I am not a fan of Courser. I think junking games without trashing are already brutal enough. Having a card that makes that effectively happen more often doesn't sound like any fun. I get that it's sort of novel, but not in a way I would enjoy.

Wouldn’t these sort of games be acceptable considering that Courser is just the one card keeping Curses alive longer amongst a metric ton of other cards? Wouldn’t these games be unique because of Courser’s presence? And even then, there would need to be a trasher in these games for Courser to do its full thing. Mountebank is perhaps my most disliked card since it leads to overly long and annoying games, but he rarely pops into my games, so when he does, I’m alright.

I think that manipulating below-the-line text to allow Handler to use the Ways without expressly stating "you may play this as a Way" above-the-line is the right thing to do, regardless of exact wording.

Handler has the “play the Ways” clause above the dividing line to mirror the way Druid is worded. A lot of people have questioned why Handler has a cantrip option in the first place and I’m finding myself more and more agreeing with them. I may attempt a non-cantrip one.


By the way, forum user Something_Smart pointed out to me in Discord that 2 of the Horses were missing a “from your hand” clause, so here’s the fixed versions:

     

305

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Urbanisation

« on: September 08, 2020, 10:20:29 am »

Interesting discussion about Handler. I had definitely foreseen the infinite “Way of the Chameleon play”, but had ruled in my head that this case would be tackled in the rulebook (if one existed) or something.

Didn’t see the impossibility of replaying another Way with the effects of Way of the Chameleon applied, though. To me, Handler morphs into one of the set aside Way, it’s not just “playing it as”, like it would with a normal Way. GendoIkari is right, Handler interacts with its set aside Ways differently. I would love for Chameleon to be able to work as imagined. Playing a Handler as Way of the Chameleon, replaying him as Way of the Sheep for +2 Cards, for instance. Again, I believe that a little mention of that scenario in the rulebook isn’t too far fetched and would be, dare I say, acceptable? It’s debatable if this special case deviates from the normal rules too much. It looks tolerable to me, I guess.

306

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Urbanisation

« on: September 07, 2020, 08:30:18 pm »

Card set #4

          

We now have people working and living in your empire. However, they need mobility to get things done. Horses, Sir, horses. Let us utilize the raw strength of our animal brethren. Here are some ways to achieve that…

• Handler (my other thread): Like I said in my other thread, the clear inspiration with Handler is Druid. It works just like Druid, except that you have a choice of 3 Ways to do stuff instead of 3 Boons. Oh or I guess you could cantrip it if you’re not interested to play one of the set aside Ways that turn. So, in a way (harr harr), Handler could end up being something like: “Choose one: +2 Actions; or +2 Cards; or +; or +1 Card and +1 Action”. Not a bad deal for . There are certain games where Handler is more potent than others, but the same can be said about Druid. For instance, if Way of the Pig is one of the set aside Ways, then Handler looses 1/3 of its decision power. Not too good. But if Way of the Goat is one of the set aside Ways and is the only trasher on the board, then Handler becomes a lot more attractive.
  
  
• Stallions (Weekly Contest thread): All these beautiful horses! Here, we have something akin to the Castle pile: A Kingdom consisting of all different cards, ordered by their cost. Here, though, it’s (mostly) all Action cards. So Stallions, I suspect, will be bought quicker than Castles. Each Stallion dispatches Horses, with the exception of the guy on the bottom, Arabian Horse (and I guess Paint Horse gives Horses to your opponents rather than yourself).
  
  Shetland Pony is a strong opener for the Stallion pile. It temps you to uncover the trasher, Clydesdale, which is also attractive. Clydesdale then opens the way for Appaloosa, which exploits the stuff Clydesdale will trash. After this nice little chain reaction of these Stallions paving the way for the next one, we arrive to the engine cards, Paint Horse and Gypsy Vanner. Paint Horse is strong for its cost (a Lab+), but gives your opponents Horses, not unlike Bargain. Gypsy Vanner, meanwhile, helps you not returning your Horses to their pile while still doing what they would’ve done in the first place.
  
  As you dig deeper in the Stallion pile, you’ll start uncovering the bottom Victory cards. It all ends on Arabian Horse, who rewards you for keeping Horses in your deck. It isn’t too hard to score 9 to 12 with it, especially if you got your hand on the powerful Mustang or Friesian. Everyone should have a shot at getting an Arabian Horse without being denied theirs, hence why Arabian Horses only work if you have exactly one copy of it in your deck. You could technically buy a second one and trash it afterwards (with Clydesdale, for instance). That’s big brain enough for me to accept this as a valid strategy. It is dang expensive and time consuming to do so after all!
  
  
• Courser (Discord card): Our second Attack shown thus far. And our first Curser! Not the last one, though... Anyway. Courser did not use to give a Horse when played. But then, people rightfully told me how weak this was. So now, Courser looks like this.
  
  So, Courser introduces a weird twist on Curses. A mean one, should I add. Trashers won’t be enough to remove Curses out of the game’s circulation. Courser will re-add them back in the Supply and the wheel won’t stop turning. You can even do crazy stuff like this: On an empty Curse pile, play a Junk Dealer, trash your Curse, return said Curse to the Supply with a Courser and then give it to your opponent. That Curse basically travelled from your hand onto the other player’s discard pile! Courser can be a little political in 4-players or more game, since one or more player(s) won’t be affected by the return of the 2 Curses into the Supply. I’m okay with that, though. Let’s remember that Ambassador is a thing, y’know.
  
  

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307

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Urbanisation

« on: September 06, 2020, 01:45:33 pm »

Thanks everyone for your input once again!

Comparing two variables on Appraiser is much more complex than comparing against a fixed list.  The sample I posted gave +3 of any given benefit because it's easier to remember.
Part of the suggestion was also to strip the clumsy VP tokens from it that are certainly making it less elegant.  Whatever you want if you're attached to having one card that uses VP tokens in an incredibly niche way.  Sacrifice and Bishop cover much of the "+VP for trashing" concept and in a more compelling way, the former adding other tempo-trashing options and the latter focusing strictly on the VP-tokens.

Yeah. The tokens are a bit out-of-nowhere compared with the rest of Urbanisation. But I like how the card function. I think it would have been better to keep Appraiser for another set where it fits more with the rest of the cards. However, like I said, I think its trashing ability is welcomed in this set, since there aren’t that many cards that do so to begin with.

I wouldn’t say that Bishop and Sacrifice are more compelling in their trashing for abilities. They just do it differently. Appraiser is the only strictly non-terminal card of the 3 and that’s different enough for it to have the right to exist.

Yes, obviously I won't be stupid and not buy any Actions when Actions are good.  The point isn't that I buy only money, it's that I play a more money-centric strategy:  BM+Gear is pretty fast, but other things could be faster.  A player taking Informers will make their deck weaker against BM+X strategies because failed Informers are really bad, so if you are buying Informers I'll lean more into good money strategies if they are available.  Additionally, because it targets the player to your left, multiplayer games get strongly political as Informers also counter Informers.
Informer won't always be beaten by any given BM+X, but any chance of pushing the game in that direction is too much as far as I'm concerned.

You just highlighted what I love so much about Informer! A deliberate shift in strategies! But not a mandatory one. Its mere presence on the board makes you reconsider if a money-centric strategy could actually work in this Kingdom and that’s pretty neat. Other cards, like Pirate Ship or Wall, push you toward different strategies without forcing you to do so and that ain’t bad at all. Like, why invest in a money strategy at all if there is Pirate Ship on the board? And yet, Pirate Ship is an official card. I’m not debating the strength level of Pirate Ship here, mind you, I’m just saying that it has a right to exist. I think Informer is in the same boat (no pun intended).

It seems both time consuming and complicated if you're worried about beginner players parsing card text, let alone that it has a +Card and +Action hidden in that paragraph.  It would be much easier to understand if it put the card into your hand and gave you the +2 Actions directly.
I imagine it is strong, but even if I am wrong I would not want to play a game with a large number of Dualities being gained.  Similarly time consuming cards like Advisor and Hunting Party are not cards you are gaining in multiple just because you need them to play additional Actions.

Yes, there is a bit of tempo loss with Duality, I agree. Flipping through cards is time consuming. Other cards are insufferable in how long they take as well, like Golem and Scrying Pool. But these 2 examples are locked behind Potion costs, so the pill’s a little easier to swallow. I’ll say though that Duality is, in this set, one of the cards that has the most text on it, and still it wasn’t enough to shrink the font. So I think that at the very least, it's not that big of a head scratcher in trying to understand how it works.

I feel that House is too good compared to Conclave. The two cards are on a very similar power level and should cost the same. I can see an argument for $3, since House is weaker in the opening, but $2 seems too cheap.

I think we have a fair number of cards really incentivize laying down strings of cantrips, let alone that cantrips are often better than stop-cards generally.  I might like House better if its benefit were flipped and it instead gave a stronger bonus for having fewer cards in play.  It is likely roughly on-par with Squire (Squire's primary advantage being its +Buy option), so I would guess it balanced enough as is.

The Conclave comparison had me worried, because I never saw the card like that before and doing the comparison now left me with the sensation that House was indeed underpriced. However, I think the comparison with Squire is fairer. House is a Squire that has no other option than the +2 Actions. So it’s weaker. But it can yield one more than Squire, so that part’s stronger. All in all, I think it rebalances itself. So the price of seems justified, yeah.

308

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Urbanisation

« on: September 04, 2020, 05:55:23 pm »

Card set #3

          

In the first batch of cards, we showed you a couple of specialists for you to hire. Now, said specialists are whining that they "need a place to live". Bah! Foolish complaints... although we should probably pretend to care. Here are 3 choices of urban planning, my Liege. Pick whichever will make them shut up the quickest.

• House (Weekly Contest thread): A simple little card. All cute with its almost inconsequential effects. A couple of Houses won’t hurt your deck though, but it won’t help it much either. It’s a Necropolis that yields . Bah. But it could yield instead if you have a couple of cards in play. It’s an almost Conspirator-like behaviour. The subtlety is that these cards don’t have to have been played the turn you play your Houses. So Duration cards from a previous turn count toward House’s extra bonus.
  
  You’ll see over the next couple of days/weeks that this is not the only card costing in Urbanisation. In fact, there are more than a few cards that share this cost...
  
  
• Suburb (Discord card): Our first Victory card of the set! And not the last one, my friends! Suburb is a card that needs a copy of itself for it to work. It’s a Distant Land situation where you could fail to get any out of it if you’re careless enough.
  
  How does Suburb bode against a Duchy? Well. Let’s take 2 Duchies VS 2 Suburbs for instance. The 2 Duchies give you 6 and you had to use over 2 Buys to get there. Meanwhile, 2 Suburbs give you 5 and you spent and 2 Buys to achieve that. It is easier to gain 2 Suburbs though. With an extra Buy, you can finish a pair for . It is significantly harder to do so with 2 Duchies... and at , might as well get a Province, y’know!
  
  So yeah. Suburb. It looks like a cool deal at first glance, but remember: That’s 2 extra dead cards in your deck if you want to invest in Suburbs! Distant Land rewards you with less , but at least, it’ll get thrown off your deck at some point... the same cannot be said about Suburb!
  
  
• Market Town (my other thread): This card is like, a full package in one card. It’s a cheaper Grand Market that gives you an extra Action AND that does not have an on-Buy restriction. The drawback, however, is harsh. And it stacks. Drawing one less card for your next turn can be punitive enough. Unlike discarding Attacks, you don’t even get to decide which of your weakest cards in hands to discard. And hey, if you keep playing more and more Market Towns, you’ll be happy then, but a very sad panda on your next, barely playable hand.
  
  I have in the past compared this to Tactician. Like, you have a big plentiful turn at the expense of scrapping another one. However, forum user Aquila pointed that, unlike Tactician, the anticipation here is not that great. With Tactician, you are looking forward for your next hand. It’s exciting! With Market Town, you are building disappointment for your next hand. This is not a positive inducing behaviour, and maybe Market Town should work differently because of that.
  
  

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309

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: September 04, 2020, 01:45:54 pm »

Once it's called off your Tavern mat, it's unplayable. It is not an Action card. It probably should cost . Remember that you do not have to call it off your Tavern mat the next turn you buy/gain it. At , you could technically have a Province on Turn 2 on a 3 / 4 opening split, lol.

310

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: September 04, 2020, 01:00:34 pm »

Trying to materialise the dreaded impossible "+2 Cards, +" card. This card allows for megaturns, but how much junk can your deck handle?

I'm still hesitant whether this is a or a .

311

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Urbanisation

« on: September 03, 2020, 06:13:28 pm »

Arid Village is probably a card you want to play later in your turn if possible. You can always dump your Villages and Smithies before playing your first Arid Village, if your hand allows you to do so.

An Arid Village followed by an Arid Village isn't that bad of a deal on its own. The second Arid Village is straight up a Worker's Village, and for the same cost. So you'd go: Cheaper Lost City with an extra Buy → Worker's Village. There's been worse in Dominion.

The cards that are even more sucky with an Arid Village in play are the ones that give +Cards at 2 different instances while resolving their effect, like playing an Ironmonger and revealing a Victory card. That Ironmonger would draw absolutely nothing. Cards with +Cards bundled together at a given moment are hit less badly, like playing a Shepherd and discarding 2 Victory cards. You'd draw 3 cards from that (+4 Cards, -1 Card = +3 Cards). That's the ruling with Arid Village anyway.

312

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Urbanisation

« on: September 02, 2020, 08:53:56 am »

Thank you for the inputs! Here are a couple of thoughts:

I don't have a comment on the cards, but your "next 3 cards" and "previous 3 cards" links are genius.

Thanks! Although, I wish the links simply refreshed the page at the appropriated place instead of opening a new tab each time...

Would Arid Village eat the draw you get from Flag? The clean-up phase is technically the same turn as the turn you played Arid Village. Other than that it will really eat up your draw, and I don't know if its worth it. If you play two drawing actions afterward it is basically a necropolis. Maybe you should consider upping it to +3 cards, to lower the power level variance, considering the combo with Library and other draw-to-x cards, but maybe that's too strong. AV makes you think twice before you buy it, and promotes a different way of building your deck.

Yes, Arid Village would kill your Flag draw. These 2 cards do not really synergise well together, hahaha! And you are very much correct: Arid Village and draw-to-X cards are a natural fit.

Does Arid Village's drawback stack with itself?

It does. With 2 Arid Villages in play, a Moat would draw nothing. This is why it says “to a minimum of 0”, so that 2 Arid Villages in play doesn’t yield you -1 Card when you play a Cantrip thereafter.

313

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Urbanisation

« on: September 01, 2020, 08:01:39 pm »

Card set #2

          

Your emerging cities must be productive for them to be successful! Here are some engine components. You'll probably want to allocate a part of our budget to erect a few masterful laboratories, a few trading towns in the nearby desert and- hey, are these two birds fighting!?

• Arid Village (Discord card): I can already feel the heavy breathing (of disapproval) from the crowd with this one. Okay, so before we jump onto what it does, let’s take a moment to inspect the theme. So, Snowy Village gives you a couple of Actions, but exhaust any further ones this turn. It’s too cold! So, as a parallel to that, Arid Village provides you with a nice head start for your turn, but kills any further card draws. Now, it’s too hot! Dangit kids, stop playing with the thermostat!
  
  I’ve seen that concept attempted before, so this was me giving it a shot as well. Here, we have a Lost City that comes with an extra Buy as well? Sign me the heck up! But any further +Cards this turn are weakened. Is the tradeoff worth it? Some people have pointed out that some cards, such as Cellar, say “draw” instead of giving you +Cards and Arid Village cannot work because of those. I say this is fine. These cards are not common enough for it to be a major problem. And hey, if they are present, it’s up to you to work that combo out!
  
  
• Duality (my other thread): This one’s a Village that does not look like a Village at first glance. But it is. It’s a Village where the +1 Card is going to be an Action card. But! That’ll only work if you already have 2 other Action cards in your deck! If you only have 1 other, then your left neighbour will be more than happy to discard it, leaving you short handed. Forum user loneXolf helped me in the other thread to get the functioning of this card right, so shoutout to them!
  
  All in all, you can sort of see Duality as some kind of mini Golem, where your best of your 2 revealed Action cards get nullified by the player to your left, hence why the Potion cost is absent here.
  
  
• Grand Laboratory (Weekly Contest thread): The big one. The grander, shinier Laboratory. A Laboratory+ is often seen as a no-go when it comes to card design. I do believe that Grand Laboratory can work regardless, but it’s up to you guys to help me decide that . Some might think that it self-synergises a little too easy. But... so be it, I think? The turns you spend grabbing more Grand Laboratories with your Grand Laboratories is a turn where you have not drawn with Grand Laboratory (cue to Xzibit “yo dawg” meme here). Anyway, I quite like this Workshop/Laboratory chimera. It’s like when you see Grand Market on the board: suddenly you become all excited like a kid on Christmas! It’s shiny, it’s big, we want it all.
  
  

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314

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Urbanisation

« on: September 01, 2020, 07:29:50 pm »

Thank you for your comment, Fragasnap!

A set does not necessarily require any new mechanisms, but I believe it should have a mechanical theme at least to lend games using its cards a stronger flavor.

Agree’d. It makes the whole thing feels like it sticks together more. In my first post, I said I was going to make some kind of “eulogy” once all 30 cards are posted. In this eulogy, I’ll point out what mechanical themes emerge from Urbanisation. It’s nothin’ too fancy, but it’s there. Like Hinterlands, like you pointed out, with it’s “on gain / on buy” cards, or like Dark Ages with its trashing subtheme. It’ll all make sense in the end . At least you guys know about the flavour theming of this set, so there’s that already.

Appraiser: The idea you’ve suggested is cool. But while adding more mechanics to a card makes it more strategically rich, it takes away from the simple and elegant design of the card. Cards with a minuscule font because of how much text there is on it, for instance, are a pain to teach and to read. They also look unappealing to the eye, imo (looking at you, Pirate Ship and friends). I think it is a very important piece of card design, but it seems to often be overlooked. Also, the idea was to have cards dance around Appraiser’s cost, which I think is a fun idea in itself. I’ll keep the idea you’ve posted in mind, though. Seems like it could be tied to another card and be fun to play with.

Informer: I think even if you pursue a money strategy if your opponents gets Informers, they would still be worth it. Oftentimes, Actions are better than money and they tend to win the game. If you shut yourself from them, fearing the Informers, then you’re hurting yourself even more than pulling a “gottem” on those who took Informers. If all you need is one Informer in your deck to scare your left neighbour, then so be it. You scared them into killing their deck. Witch on the board? I’ll get an Informer! This way, my opponent will never get a Witch themselves, out of fear my Informer hits it, hehehehe!

Vigil: I’ve come to appreciate terminal Vigil more and more over time. I think it’s definitely going to stay as a +2 Cards. Yes, it might be a little political, but so is Taxman and a bunch of other cards. I think these cards are like, “soft political” cards, where you do not straight up point to a specific player, but where you can play with your cards to hurt someone more than the others. I think these sorts of cards are accepted within the game.


In other news, I will post the second batch of cards in about 30 minutes.

315

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Urbanisation

« on: August 31, 2020, 02:25:55 pm »

Here is what a terminal Vigil would look like, keeping its cost the same:



This seems more reasonable to me. However, trying to make your opponent discard some good stuff is way harder now, to the point where it might not be worth killing your tempo pursuing that strategy. As is, it's probably a Treasure discarding Attack, which is easier to deal with.

316

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: August 31, 2020, 09:03:11 am »

no no no, you start with an eleven card deck. if i meant starting hand, i'd have said starting hand.

Oh I see. I too misunderstood and thought you had to add it to your starting cards in hand for a first hand of 6 cards. Perhaps wording it as such: "Setup: Each player adds a copy of this card to their starting deck." would be less misleading.

317

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Urbanisation

« on: August 30, 2020, 12:07:32 pm »

Thank you for the comments, guys. It seems like there’s one problem everyone unanimously agrees upon, and that’s the power level of Vigil. This is odd because to me, I don’t see it being as strong as you guys pointed out. I feel like you need to put extra effort into Vigil if you want to make it work – and all of that not to help your own deck, but to hinder your opponents’ turns. The guessing game of what you could play next for the other players to discard seems like an unsafe investment for you to go down that road. Pillage is a one-shot, yes, but at least, you know it’ll work any time you use it (well, you still do hope your opponents have good hands when you decide to trash your Pillage).

That being said, I am not against the idea of turning Vigil’s vanilla bonus into a “+2 Cards”.

• One, this’ll give you more cards to choose from for the discarding Attack.
• Two, it’s not as spammable as it being non-terminal.
• Three, as a whole, and as you’ll see in the next couple of weeks, Urbanisation has a big weakness and that is: its lack of drawing cards. Turning Vigil into a + Cards would help fill that gap a little more.

By the way, I edited Appraiser to reorganise the choice below in “ascending” order. I also added “Action card” (as opposed to simply “card”) in Informer.

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Variants and Fan Cards / Dominion: Urbanisation

« on: August 29, 2020, 02:19:21 pm »

Hello everyone !

This thread is sort of a continuation of this thread. Here, I’d like to present you a set of 30 cards I’ve crafted over early 2019 ‘til now. Why am I doing this? Well, it’s because after all this time, I’d like to have this set printed for it to be ready for IRL plays. However, printing is not cheap. So I’d like to make sure the cards truly are ready before I commit the cards for printing. I thought maybe you guys could help me spot the design mishaps in this set.

The name of the set is Urbanisation. It was named that way because that was the theme that emerged from the 30 Kingdom cards in this set. A lot of cards represent city stuff. A good chunk of them are also people doing various jobs. Therefore, Urbanisation, as a name, came to be. This set introduces no new mechanics, but rather, it borrows existing ones. Urbanisation also does not have any landscape cards (albeit, it does contain out-of-Supply cards and some new components, such as a mat). This set is a hybrid of cards I have posted in the Weekly Card Design Contest thread, cards I have posted in this thread and cards I have shown and have been given feedback for in the Dominion Discord server. So some of the entries here might not be new for some of you guys.

Posting 30 cards right away like this will undeniably be overwhelming for the readers. Therefore, I will post them slowly over time, following this model:

• 3 cards will be posted every 3 days, usually around 8PM EST (I might not be too punctual though, don’t expect much from this scatterbrain ).
• If possible, of the 3 cards posted, they will be split as such:
  
  • One will be a card posted in the Weekly Card Design Contest thread.
  • One will be a card posted in my other thread.
  • One will be a card posted in the Discord server.
• Links on each card post will be put to navigate this thread with more ease.
• 3 cards every 3 days for a set of 30 cards means the whole set will be posted in around a month.
• In the end, after all cards are posted, I'll make a short analysis of potential cohesion problems of the whole project. I'll also note what Urbanisation does a lot of and what it doesn't do a lot of.

Any feedback is appreciated. Sometimes, an extra pair of eyes can shed light onto problems my own brain just refused to notice over time, if y’know what I mean . So let’s end this increasingly big wall of text and let’s just straight into the first of 10 card posts:

Card set #1

          

True to its name, Urbanisation presents lots of folks with lots of different backgrounds. Here, we are offering you 3 people performing 3 different jobs for your kingdom. Choose your people wisely, m'Lord!

• Appraiser (Discord card): Meet Appraiser, a card you’ll probably open with. It’s a decent trasher and people like that. And a non-terminal one too, uh-oh! This card was entered in this set relatively late, because there wasn’t enough trashing in Urbanisation. So what can it do for you? Well:
  
  • Early game, it trashes your crap for a payload of . An opening of double Appraiser is not out of the question.
  • It’s a Silver trasher that turns Appraiser into a Laboratory.
  • Late game, it kills your expensive Action cards (or Treasures) you no longer desperately need for a clutch of 2.
  On its own, Appraiser looks neat. In the set, though, it’s somewhat problematic, because out of all the cards I will present in this thread, this is the only one that dispatches tokens. It’s not very cohesive with the rest of Urbanisation.
  
  
• Informer (Weekly Contest thread): Informer is a card I’ve reshaped constantly, even within the Weekly Card Design Contest thread. I really wanted to give a Command card a crack. With the current version of Informer, I’m pleased. You have 5 cards Informer can hit. And if it doesn’t hit, well it’s a terminal Silver. And hey, your left neighbour’s going to have a crappy turn anyway, you know that now! So, the pill is easier to swallow. I’ve had a nasty game where my opponent kept playing my Prizes (mostly Followers) through their Informer and that annoyed me, but in a good way! So Informer is extra potent when there are unique cards only one player can have. It’s also good if you’ve been junked more than your competition.
  
  
• Vigil (my other thread): And finally, we have the good ol’ Vigil. It has changed quite a bit in the other thread (mostly its wording though). The version I am presenting here is also different. Opponents must have 5 or more cards in hand to discard to Vigil. It used to be 4+ cards. Discarding your 2 best cards is unfun though. One Pillage effect is enough. Vigil is a disappearing money Attack that only gives you . It’s not great... but if you open with one and go to your buy phase to play a Copper, it’s a weaker Cutpurse. Anyway, you’ll have to do some setup here. 2 Vigils can be good: Use the first one to scout your opponent’s hand and play the second one to make them discard something nasty. Again, some serious setup is required for it to be truly annoying. It probably scales better in games with more players.
  
  

Next set of 3 cards → | List of all cards →

319

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: A Dozen of Custom-made Cards

« on: August 28, 2020, 01:59:32 pm »

Yeah, showing 30 cards all at once, like, BAM, in your face, that's a little overwhelming. I agree with that. But I have no idea how I can better present the set though. 

320

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: A Dozen of Custom-made Cards

« on: August 28, 2020, 01:37:56 pm »

Honestly, I gave this more thoughts and I might just make another thread presenting the 30-cards set I mentioned in my previous post. Reason for that is, I'd like to print the little guys and play with them with my gaming group IRL. But printing can be expensive. And so, I'll only print if I feel like they truly are ready. But my POV on these cards could be different than what the community here can see. Some cards I have yet to present on this forum might not be perfect and you guys' expertise can only swing me in the right direction, which is good!

Ideally, I'd simply post the set here, but loading this many pictures (plus with the ones in the OP) is a little bit messy. Plus, there's a lot of text on this page and that can be a little discouraging when trying to navigate in it. So a fresh new thread is probably better! I might do this later today, I dunno. And sorry about this post which, as I type this, seems pretty useless after all. Eh, consider it just a little explication, 'cuz I like being thorough with stuff I do.

321

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Card updating contest

« on: August 25, 2020, 03:10:15 pm »

Eh. A quick attempt for Spy. Didn't really think this through, there might be issues with this version. Anyway, here goes nothing:



Biggest problem here is that if the top deck revealed card doesn't match any card in your opponent's hand, then all subsequent Spies will fail. For its price, it's pretty oof. It should probably discard the top card of their deck no matter what, but this would add more words to this iteration of Spy, and it's already so full of 'em.

322

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: August 20, 2020, 03:47:12 pm »

With this, the opening splits would be: 3/3, 5/1 and 4/2. That's kinda cool in a way. I like the card too.


Edit: Oh but wait. The discarding clause, it happens even during Cleanup, correct? If so, then the Coffers makes the opening split even weirder.


Edit 2: I know I'm being annoying, but I wanted to see this through, lol. The openings can be seen this way, if the player decide to gain a Coffers and use it immediately next turn:

111BE EE111 > 3 / 4
EE111 111BE > 3 / 3
1BEEE 11111 > 1 / 6
11111 1BEEE > 5 / 1
1111B EEE11 > 4 / 3
11EEE 1111B > 2 / 4

Where 1 = Copper ; B = Bale ; E = Estate.

323

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: August 20, 2020, 03:37:25 pm »

Paperwork still does some weird things if you draw it turn 2. 5/2 with turn 2 Paperwork is amazing, but 2/5 with turn 2 Paperwork is terrible.

Ye. You could buy a Silver turn 1 and hope to flip it on turn 2. 1/6 chance if I'm not mistaken. The swing is real, but a Baron not hitting VS. one hitting also exist. Except that for a missing Baron, you wasted an Action. Not with Paperwork, which is something you didn't even Buy in the first place.

And when you play Paperwork (I used to have Shilling written here, my brain) on turn 2, you screw up your reshuffle anyway.

324

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: August 20, 2020, 02:55:37 pm »

Nice contest idea! I'm usually not that quick to enter my card, but I got inspired real quick this time. My goal was trying to help a poor bottom-of-the-barrel Qvist card and my attention immediately shifted toward Bureaucrat. The poor ol' Bureaucrat. Let's throw a goodie at him:

     

I think it's rather obvious how Paperwork benefits from Bureaucrat's top-decking Silver ability (something which usually sucks). Bureaucrat can also top-deck your opponents' Paperwork. 4 out of your 10 starting cards are now prime candidates for the Attack. Maybe + is too much, but I wanted it to be akin to Baron's Estate thingy. The + is just there to not break the 4/3 and 5/2 opens.

325

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: August 19, 2020, 02:01:22 pm »

Interesting. Thank you guys for taking the time to have this lil’ chat with me, albeit a little off topic one (Sorry 'bout that)! And uh, thank you for doing so without making me feel like I’m a complete idiot who doesn’t know his “Dominion 101”, unlike uhh… *cough*

So I was looking at all Wager could be and considered all of these options and their appropriated cost as if they were cards on their own. “Oh so it can be Village, so that’s a .” “Then it can be a Lab that gives you ”, that oughta be a .” “Okay, now a Smithy that gives you lotsa Debt, that’s a , maybe even a ?.” “Okay, overall, all these choices seem to average around , so that’s what it should cost.”

But Wager is more than the sum of its parts. The mere fact that the option to morph it into this or that card – with Village as its base – is definitely and unarguably setting the cost threshold of it at . I guess I didn’t look at the “Village plus something” that Segura said with the same pair of eyes. ‘Cause in my head, it was all like, “Well, it’s almost Village minus something, actually.” Which is uhh balderdash. But again, no time to change the cost now.

Anyway uhhh sorry Pubby, have fun judging through all these cool walls of text.