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26
Dominion: Adventures Previews / Preview: Transmogrify
« on: March 31, 2015, 01:59:14 pm »



trans•mog•ri•fy: verb
– transform, especially in a surprising or magical manner.

Today I’m here to tell you about my favorite Dominion card: Transmogrify. It has a strange name, but packs a lot of versatility. Transmogrify is all about giving you what you need right now. Does your starting hand have three terminal Actions? Poof! Now one of them is a Village. Have your Magpies been multiplying out of control? Abracadabra! One of them just became a Lost City. Have all the Curses run out? Shazam! That Witch in your hand just turned to Gold. The possibilities are endless!

It’s a terrific card for combos. Instead of buying Tournaments, you can simply keep your Transmogrify on your Tavern mat until your Province shows up and then gain that Tournament right into your hand. It’s especially powerful with cards that have on-trash abilities. You can transmogrify a Cultist into another Cultist just to draw 3 cards. And when you Transmogrify a Fortress, you keep the Fortress in your hand and gain a Wharf into your hand on top of that. Instant engine!

I hope you’re enjoying these little bonus previews. Come back tomorrow, when somebody else will be talking about some other card!

27
Variants and Fan Cards / Card Idea: Wanderer
« on: March 27, 2015, 04:39:37 pm »
Quote
Wanderer: Action, $3
+4 Cards. The player to your right gains this card.

Just the simplest possible version of a card that moves from player to player. Originally I was going to have it passed to the player on your right, but that's giving them a bonus card in hand, which I think is a bit much to swallow.

Opinions?

28
Dominion General Discussion / Library Tactics
« on: March 04, 2015, 03:31:23 pm »
Let's say you have exactly two Actions remaining and two Action cards in your hand. One is Library and the other is a terminal Action that doesn't draw. It used to be that I would always play Library first, hoping to keep my "engine" going, such as it was. Lately I've been second guessing myself on that. I've found that, assuming I have some decent amount of Treasure in my deck, I sometimes get better results by playing my other Action card first and then taking advantage of Library's ability to draw past Actions to my Silvers and Golds. Not surprisingly, this works best when the other Action card decreases my handsize by more than one, a la Remodel or Horse Traders.

Obviously this is highly board-dependent, etc., etc., but does anybody else do this? You know you could potentially draw more Actions, but go for the big Treasure payoff instead? Do you have a rigid Library policy, or is it more flexible?

29
Variants and Fan Cards / Village of Smithies
« on: March 03, 2015, 11:21:33 am »
This is an idea I had inspired by Co0kieL0rd's Poacher card.

Quote
Factory
Types: Action
Cost: $2
+2 Actions. +$1. The next time you play an Action card from your hand this turn, you may turn it face down and play it as if it were an Action card with the ability "+3 Cards". It is that card until it leaves play.

It's a village that allows you to play another Action card as a Smithy. Seems exotic. Tough to say whether it would play well. What do you all think?

30
Variants and Fan Cards / Card Idea: Monopoly
« on: February 25, 2015, 05:28:45 pm »
Trying to think of refreshingly new Attacks. This one is maybe a bit too much like Taxman, but let me know what you think.

Quote
Monopoly
Types: Action - Attack
Cost: $4
Gain a card costing up to $4. Each other player with 5 or more cards in hand discards a copy of it (or reveals a hand without it).

Once a pile runs out, it's immune to the attack. Maybe it's too harsh. Perhaps it could cost $5 and give a small vanilla bonus.

31
Variants and Fan Cards / Interactive Throne
« on: February 11, 2015, 04:14:32 pm »
Trying to think of good ways to fix Asper's Parliament card, I've stumbled across a few other Throne Room style ideas. This one seems promising.

Quote
You may play an Action card from your hand. The player to your left chooses one: you play that Action again; or you gain a Gold.

Any thoughts?

32
Variants and Fan Cards / The Opposite of Mint
« on: January 14, 2015, 09:30:40 pm »
No, it's not Mine. It's a Treasure that gains Actions.



Quote
Magic Mirror
Types: Treasure
Cost: $5
Worth $2. When you play this, you may discard an Action card. Gain a copy of it.

Apologies to pacovf for using the same name as a card he suggested. I couldn't think of another appropriate name for this card, but I am very open to alternative suggestions.

I've tried cards that gain you copies of cards in your deck before. Right now Enterprise has Committee, which is fun and provides a bit of player interaction, but is also one of the most complex cards in the set. I thought I'd try another option and see which one worked out better.

I was going to test this at least once before posting it, but you know how it is. I can't test it right now but I can mock up the image and post it on the internets right now. Initial feedback is appreciated!

34
Variants and Fan Cards / Copper-Based Spy/Witch Attack
« on: January 04, 2015, 05:29:28 pm »
In my search for fresh-feeling Spy attacks, here's an idea i came up with.

Magistrate
Types: Action – Attack
Cost: $3
+$2. Each other player looks through his discard pile. He may put a Copper from it onto his deck. Otherwise, he gains a Copper.

Any thoughts? Will the Copper pile run out too fast in a 4-player game? Too weak? Too strong?

35
Game Reports / Mega Forager
« on: October 24, 2014, 03:41:22 pm »


Code: [Select]
Forager, Loan, Sage, Armory, Marauder, Procession, Royal Seal, Stash, Vault, Venture
With both Colonies and Shelters.

Not a particularly close or exciting game, but interesting in one respect. I am confused by my opponent trying to buy one of every card until I realize he's trying to grab all the Foragers and build them up. They can be worth up to $9 on this board, and they reach $7 by the end of the game. Luckily I'm able to grab my share of Foragers and easily win by junking his deck with Ruins.

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20141024/log.50675f6afca284ca61206e88.1414179370257.txt

36
Variants and Fan Cards / Card Idea: Catapult
« on: October 21, 2014, 05:33:25 pm »
Here's an idea that I don't have space for in Enterprise, but seems promising.

Quote
Catapult
Types: Action
Cost: $5
+1 Card. +1 Action. +$1.

When you gain this, you may gain an Engineer from the Engineer pile.

Engineer
Types: Action – Attack
Cost: 0*
For each Catapult you have in play, each other player trashes the top card of his deck and gains a cheaper card that shares a type with it, gaining a Curse if he couldn't. (This is not in the Supply.)

It uses the Barbarian downgarde attack from the Dominion Outtakes file. I'm wondering how many Catapults you want to have in your deck in order for Engineer to be worth it. I'm guessing at least two.

37
Dominion General Discussion / I hate Mercenary
« on: September 07, 2014, 01:14:08 pm »
I am so, so sick of Mercenary. It's the ultimate "I have to get this in order to fight it" attack, and whoever gets it first has a huge advantage. The problem is that you have to trash 2 cards from your hand to use it, which is a tall order when you only have a 3-card hand because of your opponent's Mercenary. If you keep two bad cards in your hand with Mercenary, you're probably drawing dead Actions. If you keep a Village and a Mercenary in your hand, you may not draw another bad card. But if you try to pursue a different strategy, your opponent can just steamroll you because he has the huge advantage of playing Mercenaries with a 5-card hand. I find it infuriating.

OK, now that that's off my chest, does anybody have any good Mercenary-fighting tips?

38
Variants and Fan Cards / Card Idea: Auction
« on: June 24, 2014, 02:01:47 pm »
Simple little Treasure card. It's a Vault variant.

Auction
Types: Treasure
Cost: $3
+1 Buy. When you play this, discard your hand. Worth $1 per card discarded.

EDIT: Added +1 Buy. Great suggestion, soulnet!

Old versions:

Auction
Types: Treasure
Cost: $3
When you play this, discard your hand. Worth $1 per card discarded.

39
Variants and Fan Cards / Card Idea: Pauper
« on: June 04, 2014, 12:18:28 pm »
I don't yet have a name for this card. I didn't design it with either Crossroads or Poor House in mind, but it ended up looking a bit like both. Let me know what you think:

Pauper
Types: Action
Cost: $5
+1 Buy. Reveal your hand. +1 Card per non-Treasure revealed.

Really weak early on, but stacks like crazy if you can manage to chain them. Converting your deck from the Treasure-based deck it starts with to an Action-based deck takes effort, so I'm hoping this card's potential power is balanced by the work it takes to achieve that power, (à la Scrying Pool, Herald, etc.).

EDIT: Thanks to Robz, I now have a name for the card.

40
Game Reports / Cache FTW
« on: May 07, 2014, 05:18:14 pm »
Either I got really lucky, or Cache is better than we think it is. Or both. Because 7 Provinces by turn 17 seems pretty good.



Code: [Select]
Duchess, Secret Chamber, Masquerade, Steward, Envoy, Noble Brigand, Cache, Duke, Haggler, Tribute
http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20140507/log.50675f6afca284ca61206e88.1399497039578.txt

Not much to say here, other than that I was going to go Duke. But then I got $8 at the start of my shuffle after the first two Caches and succumbed to temptation. My opponent played really poorly, but I'm not sure that's pertinent here. There were no Attacks that mattered much to me (Noble Brigand can't steal Cache).

41
Other Games / The Dwarf King
« on: May 02, 2014, 04:05:27 pm »
In anticipation of Piña Pirata, I took a look at the other two games that IELLO has already released in the same "collection": The Dwarf King by Bruno Faidutti and Ghooost! by Richard Garfield. The theme of the collection is starting with a fairly well-known existing game or mechanic and adding twists. Ghooost!, a reimplementation of Shithead, looks really dull to me. But The Dwarf King, a variant of Barbu, interested me immediately. I have never played Barbu, but it is apparently a trick-taking game where you play with seven different "contracts"—or victory conditions—four times each, for a total of 28 hands. The Dwarf King takes that concept and adds some more variety to it in the form of special cards and a greater array of victory conditions.

I enjoy most trick-taking games that I've played (500, Spades, Pinochle, not so much Hearts), and I love games with variety, so this sounded like it should be right up my alley. After buying it and playing it, it turns out it is!

I'll assume you know how a trick-taking game works and get right into the details. There are 3 suits of 13 cards each: 2 through 10, Jack, Queen, King, and Ace, with Aces being high. The three suits are Dwarves (green), Knights (blue), and Goblins (red). There is no trump suit, no bidding, and no partnerships. The game is played over 7 hands, with extra hands in the case of a tie. Each turn, a single special card is added to these 39 basic cards, comprising a deck of 40 cards total to be divided among the players. The game is for 3 to 5 players, so there are 8 tricks in a 5-player game, 10 in a 4-player game, and 13 in a 3-player game (the 2 of Dwarves is removed to make a 39-card deck). Each hand, you may gain or lose points depending on that hand's Quest (victory condition).

The fact that you only use one special card per hand might seem lame, but in practice it's fantastic because it keeps the comprehension complexity level low, prevents rules conflicts between special cards, and helps add more variety between hands. There are 14 special cards in total, so you'll see half of them in any given 7-hand game (barring tiebreaker hands). Five of them are suit-less "Magic" cards that act as copies of another card, always win a particular trick, or allow you to reuse another card. Each of the 8 other special cards is in one of the three suits, either as a "1" or an "11" of that suit (10 < 11 < Jack). For instance, the Goblin Shaman (11) gives –3 points to whoever takes it in a trick. The Dwarf Druid (1) allows the player who plays it to swap hands with another player after that trick. Lots of fun stuff.

Further adding variety, there are 20 Quest tiles that contain victory conditions. A different tile is used each hand, but that's not all! Each tile actually has 2 different Quests on it. The player who was dealt the 5 of Knights gets to decide which of the two Quests will apply after viewing his hand. Usually the Quests are complementary. The simplest tile has "+1 point for each trick taken VS. –1 point for each trick taken". But then you have stuff like "+5 points if you take exactly 4 tricks VS. +5 points if you take exactly 2 tricks" and "–1 point per Knight you take VS. –1 point per Goblin you take". Even very exotic stuff like "+1 point per trick taken by the player on your right VS. +1 point per trick taken by the player on your left".

If all that sounds a little crazy, it is. There's definitely more luck in The Dwarf King than in your standard trick-taking fare. But it's still full of strategic play and meaningful decisions. It struck a good balance for the group I play 500 with.

Long story short, if you like games with variety (which you probably do if you're here) and you like trick-taking games, you'll probably really enjoy The Dwarf King. If you haven't played a trick-taking game before, I'm not sure I'd recommend starting with this one, but probably it would be fine and it certainly has a high fun factor even when you're losing or playing badly.

42
Variants and Fan Cards / LastFootnote's Dominion Card Template
« on: April 16, 2014, 10:32:17 am »
This template was originally uploaded to BGG by user biggidi. Over the years I have made several changes and enhancements, including incorporating my own scans and some resources from Dominion Online. It's not perfect, but it's usable.

marky119 asked for it, but I don't know if it's possible to send attachments via PM, so here it is for everyone to use.

EDIT: Oh, it also includes a template for Activation cards, as well as the most common card types and type combinations.

43
Variants and Fan Cards / VP for Coins
« on: March 19, 2014, 04:19:21 pm »
OK, this is probably a dumb idea, but while thinking about new "scaling" VP cards, I came up with this:

Types: Victory
Cost: ???
In games using this, each player plays an additional turn after the game would normally end. This is worth 1 VP for every 2 Coins you produced that turn (rounded down).

44
Help! / In Which My Lust For Heralds Is My Undoing
« on: March 07, 2014, 04:58:17 pm »


Code: [Select]
Candlestick Maker, Lighthouse, Masterpiece, Advisor, Herald, Island, Plaza, Treasure Map, Explorer, Merchant Ship
http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20140307/log.50675f6afca284ca61206e88.1394229029037.txt

OK, other than buying those two Heralds on my last turn instead of a Province (I realized that mistake right after I did it), what the hell did I do wrong here? It's hard not to blame this on shuffle luck.

My initial plan is to invest in Candlestick Makers and Islands, sneaking in an early Merchant Ship buy via Coin tokens for economy, with the eventual plan of an exploding Herald engine with Merchant Ships and Candlestick Makers as payload.

My opponent somehow beats be on both the Candlestick Maker and Island splits. Then my Heralds activate once throughout the entire game. Looking back, perhaps the strategy was just way too slow and doomed to failure, but I've been beaten by ridiculous Herald engines way too often to ignore them with any trashing on the board, even just Island.

45
Variants and Fan Cards / Activation Cards
« on: March 03, 2014, 03:54:24 pm »
So I had an idea the other day for a new type of card: Activation. I even wrote a quick blurb:

These cards say “Activation” on the bottom line, i.e. "Action – Activation.” In addition to any effects these cards have when played or while in play, an Activation card has another effect that you can use by spending an Action. During your Action phase, instead of spending an Action to play an Action card from your hand, you may spend an Action to get the activation effect of an Activation card you already have in play.

Activation cards in play that have not yet been activated are not discarded during your Clean-up phase. They stay in play until activated and are discarded from play during the Clean-up phase of that turn.

Activation cards can only be activated once per time they are played. Once activated, they cannot be activated again until they have been removed from play and played again. Even if another card plays a single Activation card more than once, the activation effect can only be used once before the Activation card leaves play. Hence, if an Activation card is played twice by Throne Room, the Throne Room will be discarded from play normally during the Clean-up phase of that turn, whether or not the card it played has been activated.

In order to keep track of which Activation cards have been activated and which ones haven’t, when you play an Activation card from your hand, turn it 90° to the right. When you activate an Activation card, turn it right-side up. During your Clean-up phase, remember to only discard cards from play which are right-side up.

Examples

Patron
Types: Action – Activation
Cost: $2
While this is in play, when another player plays an Attack card, +1 Card then discard a card.

When you activate this, +$4.


Hidden Passage
Types: Action – Activation
Cost: $3
+2 Actions.

When you activate this, discard any number of cards. +$1 per card discarded.


Balcony
Types: Action – Activation
Cost: $5
+1 Card. +1 Action.

When you activate this, you may play an Action card from your hand twice.


Boomtown
Types: Action – Activation
Cost: $5
+2 Cards. +2 Actions. +1 Buy.

When you activate this, discard a card.


46
Variants and Fan Cards / Card Idea: Emptor
« on: February 25, 2014, 01:22:07 pm »
Emptor
Types: Action
Cost: $5
+1 Buy. Reveal cards from your deck until the total cost in coins of the revealed cards is $5 or more. Put the revealed cards into your hand.

My never-ending search for a $5 card to fill a terminal draw slot in Enterprise has now brought me here. Although this card doesn't fit the one-shot theme, it does work with the set's "cares about Copper" sub-theme.

I would like it to cost $5, but I have no idea what the cost threshold for the effect should be in order to justify that cost. Right now it stops once the total cost of the revealed cards is $5, but that could easily be too low or too high. Any thoughts on this, or on whether the concept is good in general?

47
Variants and Fan Cards / Card Idea: Takeover
« on: February 19, 2014, 06:12:00 pm »
Considering options for a one-shot Attack card.

Takeover
Types: Action – Attack
Cost: $5
+1 Action. Trash this. Each other player reveals cards from his deck until he reveals one costing from $3 to $6. He trashes it and discards the rest. Gain one of the trashed cards, putting it into your hand.

48
Variants and Fan Cards / Fancy Cost Corner: Borough
« on: February 03, 2014, 06:23:05 pm »
Borough
Types: Action
Cost: $5
+2 Cards. +2 Actions.

You can't buy this if you have Actions remaining (Actions, not Action cards).

49
Variants and Fan Cards / Windfall: One-shot Silver-gaining
« on: January 29, 2014, 04:13:20 pm »
I'm trying to fill the last slot in my expansion. Chances are I'll be weeding out more duds and replacing them down the road, but you know. Right now I've got 24 cards, so I need at least one more. I'm thinking about another pure one-shot.

Windfall
Types: Action
Cost: $5
Gain a Silver per card you have in play (counting this). Trash this. Put your deck into your discard pile.

It's really hard for me to gauge how powerful this card might be. On the one hand, that's potentially a lot of Silvers. On the other hand, there's the argument to be made that if you have the kind of deck that's playing a ton of Actions, you potentially don't want Silver, let alone a ton of it. But I'm thinking that perhaps it might be worth it to load up on cantrips and then just bust one of these open. Unless the cantrips are just villages, they should still be useful after your deck is full of Silver.

I'm hoping it'll be worthwhile in other situations too, obviously. There are definitely alt-VP games where I've built up an engine that wants to transition to a Treasure-centric deck as the game winds down in order to have more long-term buying power. Maybe that's just poor strategy on my part, I don't know.

Thoughts and feedback? Think this is worth playtesting?

50
Variants and Fan Cards / Bonus-Picking Interaction
« on: January 22, 2014, 02:04:01 pm »
I'm not quite sure how to word this in order to be clear that the player to your left gets no bonuses themselves.

Types: Action
Cost: $5
The player to your left chooses two of the following for you: +2 Cards; +2 Actions; +2 Buys; +$2. You either get the two chosen options or the other two options, your choice.

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