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7151

Dominion Articles / Re: Ill-Gotten Gains

« on: January 01, 2012, 04:36:26 pm »

But in general, yeah, other cursers are going to be prioritized (1st copy of them only) and then supplemented by IGGs (probably there are some exceptions to that rule too, like Young Witch on a board with a good bane, and probably familiar).

In my experience, a Familiar player will get absolutely crushed by Ill-Gotten Gains, particularly if Familiar is the only Potion card in the spread. If you buy a Potion and two Familiars, you've wasted three good buys on cursers and will probably still lose the Curse war 6 to 4.

Case in point:
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111126-114856-dea72fb8.html

7152

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Is it too early to speculate on the Spring 2012 expansion?

« on: December 28, 2011, 03:54:05 pm »

I've actually never played with a real-card Pearl Diver -- it seems like it might be kind of a physical pain in the neck.  If you move the card to the top of the deck, is it awkward to avoid exposing the penultimate card as well?

No, just turn the deck face-down and move the card. Easy.

7153

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Experiment

« on: December 28, 2011, 01:30:15 pm »

My point wasn't to make it different enough to be interesting. My point was to make it exactly the same without being obvious. So... good I guess.

Oh, my apologies. In that case, spot on!

7154

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Experiment

« on: December 28, 2011, 01:17:00 pm »

Although the comparison to Bridge did immediately cross my mind, I'm not sure it's different enough from Bridge to make it interesting. I mean, a lot of the village cards are very similar, but then again it's nice to have at least 10% of the Kingdom cards be villages. I don't see a strong need for a Bridge variant that's quite this close to Bridge itself.

The +1 Coin per card you buy is perfectly legitimate, though. I'm sure it could find a good home somewhere.

7155

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Any news on the iphone app?

« on: December 28, 2011, 09:48:45 am »

As an avid isotropic player, here are my feelings about the pending app.

I'm not bothered by having to pay for it, as long as the price is reasonable (i.e. not the cost of the full physical game plus all the expansions).

I'm not bothered by the possibility of it not including all of the cards at release. I would be very disappointed if it didn't eventually include all of the cards.

What does really worry me is that it will not correctly implement the rules of Dominion. If it's not being programmed, or at least thoroughly tested, by someone who knows the game well, I'm expecting lots of bugs. As a corollary, I'm concerned that when bugs are found, the process for reporting and fixing them will be slow or non-existent.

Donald, can you give any reassurance on this front?

7156

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Is it too early to speculate on the Spring 2012 expansion?

« on: December 27, 2011, 05:02:37 pm »

I'd like to see pairs of Kingdom cards that are always in the Supply together. I think a lot of interesting design space could be opened by allowing a Kingdom card to reference another specific Kingdom card. It might work better for a full-sized set, though. 13 pairs of cards is a lot more variety than 6 pairs of cards.

7157

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Very Specific Tactics Question

« on: December 27, 2011, 02:50:17 am »

New tactics question: in general, play apothecaries or cartographers first (both are in hand, together with a wishing well).

I think it depends on how much of your deck is Coppers/Potions, how much is dead cards, and how much is good Treasure/Actions. In general, though, I think I'd probably play Apothecary first. If you're able to put a few good cards back, then play Wishing Well next and use Cartographer to set up your next hand. If you draw a lot of Coppers/Potions with Apothecary and you still haven't hit your target price point, then maybe consider playing Cartographer second and Wishing Well last.

7158

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Barracks - Three fan cards

« on: December 22, 2011, 03:27:59 pm »

Certainly I can sympathize with you not wanting to make it a terminal silver, because indeed it does seem that there are a lot of those.  But they are necessary cards to have in the mix -- and at only 1.83 per full set they are less common than one might think.

Well, this statistic isn't quite accurate. When compiling it, you left out Attacks. Since Ballista is an Attack, it makes more sense to include them. By my count, there are about 2.85 terminal Silver cards per full set.

Base Set: 4 (Chancellor, Woodcutter, Militia, Moneylender)
Intrigue: 3 (Steward, Swindler, Bridge)
Seaside: 4 (Embargo, Cutpurse, Merchant Ship, Navigator)
Alchemy: 0
Prosperity: 2 (Monument, Mountebank)
Cornucopia: 2 (Fortune Teller, Jester)
Hinterlands: 3 (Duchess, Nomad Camp, Haggler)

Still, +2 Coins is a valid and necessary bonus to have on cards, as you've said.

7159

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Stables vs Lab

« on: December 21, 2011, 09:08:48 am »

Perhaps this is inherent in the idea that Stables cycles your deck more than Lab, which has been pointed out already, but I think it is worth pointing out that Stables, when you play it, is more likely to find another Stables than Lab is to find another Lab. I commented in a different thread that Inn and Stash in different ways create the same benefit to an engine--namely that they concentrate your action cards at the top of your deck (assuming you bottom-deck the stashes) which makes it easier to draw your whole deck. Stables has that same characteristic to a small extent. By discarding a treasure and drawing an extra card (relative to Lab), you are in some sense bottom-decking treasure cards. This makes you more likely to pull additional Stables (and other action cards) and thus more likely to draw your whole deck (including the discarded treasures, in which case discarding that gold was only a small and temporary sacrifice).

Huh. I never considered bottom-decking Stashes before. It seems like a useful strategy in an engine game. The question is, is it ever worth using a buy on Stash when many of your engine cards will probably also cost $5 and you'll likely be hitting $6 for Gold quite often?

7160

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Mulligans in Dominion?

« on: December 20, 2011, 05:10:17 pm »

How about this as a Reaction effect?

When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, set aside your hand and draw 5 cards. At the start of your next turn, return the set-aside cards to your discard pile.

7161

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Stables vs Lab

« on: December 20, 2011, 03:15:25 pm »

Assuming no good Copper trashing, Stables will cycle your deck faster than Lab. If I have a powerful terminal (like an Attack) that I want to play as often as possible, I think I'd take Stables more often.

However, Stables does a pretty poor job actually dealing with said attacks. Cursing attacks make it less likely that I'll get my Stables and Copper together. Discard attacks will often make me choose between keeping my good Treasures and terminals and keeping my Stables and a Treasure.

7162

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Tributary - seven fan cards.

« on: December 18, 2011, 11:30:03 am »

I think Copper Vein might be better worded if it gave +1 Coin and gained you a Copper into your discard pile. 'Putting a card into play' is probably not the same as 'playing a card', and I'm not sure putting a Copper in play because a card told you to would generate 1 Coin the way playing it would.

7163

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Type of Cards, Multi-type Cards and Color Questions

« on: December 15, 2011, 10:56:13 am »

Well, Action and Treasure cards both do things when played. Unless the text of the card says "If this is your Buy phase, do this...", then the card will do the same thing no matter when you play it. You have to spend an Action to play it during your Action phase, but I suppose you could also Throne Room it.

I also hope we never get one.

7164

Dominion General Discussion / Re: When to buy Explorer

« on: December 13, 2011, 05:26:10 pm »

I think Explorer's silvers are probably more useful than the Royal Seal's top-decking (though I did pick up a Seal with my second $5, of course).

Why "of course"? It seems to me that if you want one Explorer in a deck, you'll probably want two or three. With the number of Silvers you'll be gaining, they're not likely to collide.

7165

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Expansion: Strife

« on: December 12, 2011, 06:16:14 pm »

It does need to be a Duration, though, doesn't it?  For the same reason Haven is a Duration card?

I'm not convinced that Haven itself needed to be a Duration card. The set-aside cards should be reminder enough. It works for Horse Traders.

7166

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Expansion: Strife

« on: December 12, 2011, 04:42:12 pm »

I'm not going to try to comment on whether these cards are balanced, but I will comment on your syntax.

All of your (Attack) cards should be (Action – Attack). Likewise for your (Reaction) cards and your (Duration) cards. If a card isn't an Action card, you can't play it during your Action phase.

Executioner -- $6 (Attack)
Each player gets +3 cards and puts a card from his hand on top of his deck. Then, each other player trashes a Victory card, or reveals a hand with no Victory cards.

This should read: "Each player draws 3 cards and..."

Martyr -- $6 (Action)
+2 cards, +2 actions, +$3, +1 buy
Trash this after playing it.

Change "Trash this after playing it" to "Trash this card"

Plunder -- $6 (Treasure)
+1 buy
Worth $2. While this in play, treasure cards cost $2 less, but not less than $0.

Looks good.

Barbarian Horde -- $5 (Attack)
+1 buy
Add a token to the Barbarian Horde mat. Each other player reveals the next 3 cards of his deck and trashes a Treasure card corresponding to the number of tokens on the mat, or reveals no such card and gains a curse:
1-2 tokens: Copper
3-5 tokens: Silver
6 or more tokens: Gold
You get +$ equal to the combined value of the trashed Treasure cards.

So, is the Barbarian Horde mat communal, or does each player have their own? Either way, you can't refer to the 'value' of Treasure cards, since they have no intrinsic value other than their cost. Treasure cards generate a certain number of Coins when played, and depending on the situation, that number may vary drastically.

Beggar Prince -- $5 (Attack)
Each other player with 4 or more cards in hand discards a Treasure card or reveals a hand with no Treasure cards. If any Treasure cards were discarded this way, you get +$1. If any of those treasures were coppers, you also get +1 card, +1 action.

This should read: "Each other player with 4 or more cards in hand discards a Treasure card (or reveals a hand with no Treasure cards). If any Treasure cards were discarded this way, +$1. If any Coppers were discarded, +1 Card and +1 Action."

Plague -- $5 (Action)
+2 cards
Choose a supply pile where cards cost $7 or less. Trash up to 3 cards from it.

This is messy wording. How does it work when an Agitator is on the pile?

Propagandist -- $5 (Attack--Duration)
+$2
While this is in play, keep the most expensive card you bought on this turn in front of you until the start of your next turn. Each other player must buy or gain at least 1 copy of the card you bought, if he plays any cards that enable him to do so during his next turn.

This card has a ton of issues. What happens if you bought two equally expensive cards? Also, use "set aside" instead of "keep in front of you". Perhaps you need a Propagandist mat? Also, what do you do with the card at the beginning of your next turn? Discard it? Trash it? You need to specify. Does the player need to buy or gain a card at the very first opportunity? If so, that should be specified. Does 'his next turn' include Possession turns? In my opinion, this card is too buggy to survive in its current form.

Agitator -- $4 (Action)
When you buy this, all other players with 5 or more cards in hand discard a card.
When you play this, remove it from your deck and add it as the top card in any supply pile. The cards beneath it are not available until it is bought. If no player buys it by the start of your next turn, remove it from the pile and trash it.

Instead of "add it as the top card in any supply pile", just say "put it on top of any Supply pile". Are the cards beneath it not available until it is bought, or just until it is gained? Can it be gained in any way other than being bought? Also, there's no tracking mechanism for how long it should be out. What if everyone is playing these and you can't remember which ones (if any) you played last turn? Maybe a pile has multiple copies played by different players.

Profiteer -- $4 (Duration)
+$1
While this is in play, after your buy phase has ended you may reveal any Treasure cards from your hand. Put them in front of you, face-up. At the start of your next turn, add them to your hand.

This should say: "At the start of Clean-up, you may reveal any number of Treasure cards from your hand. Set them aside. At the start of your next turn, add them to your hand."

Also, it doesn't need to be a Duration card.

Tyrant King -- $4 (Reaction)
+$3
You can't play any more cards this turn (including Treasures).
When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, you are unaffected by the Attack and must play this card during your next turn. You may not play any cards that could make it impossible for you to play this card.

This is messy. Here's my suggested change:

Tyrant King -- $4 (Action – Reaction)
+$3. Discard your hand.
----------------------------------
When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, discard the other cards in your hand and you are unaffected by the Attack.

Vassal -- $4 (Duration)
Choose two: +1 card; +1 action; +$1; +1 buy; +1 VP; +$2 on your next turn. (The choices must be different.)

The wording's fine, but non-terminal cards that give VP chips are a bad idea. I'd just stock up on those and play them until the game ended, which might never happen.

Banish -- $3 (Action)
+1 card, +1 action
You may move a card from your hand costing $4 or less to the island mat. If you do, each other player may trash a card of that type from his hand. If any player does, you get +$1.

You shouldn't reference the Island mat. Just say that you set the card aside and return it to your deck at the end of the game. Also, 'a card of that type' should maybe be 'a card that shares a type' to take into account multi-type cards?

False Prophet -- $3 (Action)
Name a card. The player to your left either reveals that card, or reveals a hand without that card. If that card is revealed, you gain its effects as if you had played a copy of it.
If the player to your left does not reveal that card, you gain a curse and get +1 card, +1 action.

Serf -- $3 (Action)
+1 action, +2 cards. Discard 1 card, or trash it.
When you play this, you have 1 fewer available buys.

I'd go for this:

Serf -- $3 (Action)
+2 Cards, +1 Action, –1 Buy. Discard or trash a card from your hand.

Spoils of War -- $3 (Victory--Treasure--Duration)
Worth 1 VP
Worth $2 now, and $2 on your next turn.
When you play this, it stays in play until your next turn is over.
You may only buy this if you have an Attack card in play and no player revealed a Reaction card in response to it. (Setup: If this pile will appear in the game, and there are no Attacks or Reactions in the supply, add an Attack and a Reaction at random. Then remove one of the other piles at random.

As stated, you don't need the 'stays in play' line.

Treaty -- $3 (Reaction--Duration)
+$2
When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal this card. If you do, you are unaffected by that Attack.
If you revealed this card in response to an Attack, it stays in play until another Attack is played. The next time any player (including you) plays an Attack card, all players are unaffected by that Attack.

Revealing a card does not put it into play, nor should it. I'd reword it like this:

Treaty -- $3 (Reaction)
+$2
When another player plays an Attack card, you may set this card aside. If you do, you are unaffected by that Attack.
The next time an Attack card is played, discard this and all players are unaffected by that Attack.

Sacred Relic -- $2 (Reaction)
Trash a card from your hand.
When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, +1 VP.

You can reveal a Reaction card from your hand as many times as you want in response to an event. As soon as someone plays an Attack card when you have this in your hand, you gain infinite VP chips.

7167

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Hunter

« on: December 08, 2011, 03:55:43 pm »

Hmm, I think you'd have to test it at both $4 and $5. My concern at $4 is that there are very few situations in which you would not want to buy it, and buy many of it. It strikes me as much better than Spy in most scenarios. Perhaps if it's not quite powerful enough for $5, you could tweak it slightly so that it is?
Alternatively, you could do this:

Hunter
$2 - Action
+1 Action. Look at the top card of your deck and choose one: Put it in your hand; or discard it and +1 Card.

7168

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Enterprise: A One-Shot Expansion

« on: December 08, 2011, 10:33:08 am »

What was the reason for this change?  I haven't run into any problems with it being "on gain," but doubtless there are lots of combos I haven't hit yet.

I was concerned about slowdown issues in the rare case that somebody used Ambassador to distribute copies of it. You generally wouldn't want to do that, but with Golem, anything can happen. In retrospect, I guess it isn't really a necessary change. I'll change it back.

I think Monopoly should definitely activate on buy. Otherwise you've got order issues with Jester. I guess you have order issues with Jester anyhow, though. Maybe I'll reconsider that one, too.

EDIT: Oh, I remember now. With Aqueduct, I was worried about interactions with Ironworks, specifically. I think I've resolved those rules questions, though, so it should be OK as on-gain.

7169

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Enterprise: A One-Shot Expansion

« on: December 07, 2011, 12:46:00 pm »

OK, I've decided to throw out Philanthropist and replace it with a new card. The set needed another true one-shot card anyhow.

Monopoly
Types: Action
Cost: 5
+2 Coins. Trash this card. If you do, name a Kingdom card, then the player to your left reveals then discards the top 5 cards of his deck. If the named card was revealed, gain a Gold, putting it into your hand.
----------------------------------------------------------
When you buy this, trash a Kingdom card from the Supply.

EDIT: I made a few small changes. Aqueduct now only activates on buy and Monopoly now has all other players reveal 4 cards each.

7170

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Enterprise: A One-Shot Expansion

« on: December 06, 2011, 01:32:20 pm »

Continued response to rinkworks...

Barracks
Types: Action
Cost: 5
Choose one: +1 Card and +2 Actions; or reveal cards from your deck until you reveal an Attack card, discard the other cards, then play the Attack card.
----------------------------------------------------------
When you gain this, gain an Conscripts card.

Conscripts
Types: Action – Attack
Cost: 0*
+2 Coins. Trash this card. Each other player gains a Curse.
(This is not in the Supply.)

Yeah, it's hard to gauge whether this is balanced without playing a bunch of games both with and without other Attack cards. I'm glad you like the idea, though.

Cathedral
Types: Action
Cost: 5
+3 Cards. +1 Action. Put 2 cards from your hand on top of your deck.
You may spend a Cathedral token. If you do, reveal the top 5 cards of your deck, trash any number of them, and discard the rest.
----------------------------------------------------------
When you gain this, take a Cathedral token.

I completely agree that this could easily decide the game on a 5/2 split. Somehow I never even considered that. I'm planning on changing the Cathedral token effect to one of these two:

"If you do, trash the top 2 cards of your deck."

"If you do, reveal the top 5 cards of your deck, trash any number of revealed cards that are not Treasures, and discard the rest."

As for the Action component, I think of it as a fairly powerful cantrip, but I'm not yet convinced that it's worth $5 all by itself. Courtyard nets you two cards in hand and costs an action, whereas Cathedral nets you 1 card, but lets you keep your action. Cathedral also gives you greater control over the top of your deck, but then again, it costs a lot more than Courtyard. To me, it seems less powerful than, say, Cartographer. I'll test it some more.

Inventor
Types: Action
Cost: 5
Choose one: +3 Cards; or set this aside on your Inventor mat.
----------------------------------------------------------
When you gain this, set it aside on your Inventor mat.
At the start of your turn, you may remove this from your mat and put it into your hand.

One of the first cards I created for the set was called Nest Egg. It was a Treasure that cost $5, generated $3, and trashed itself when you played it. When you gained it, it started on your mat and you could put it into your hand whenever you played an Action card. Eventually I axed it because I didn't want two Treasures and I liked Fund better.

Once I decided that I needed more card-drawing in the set, I stapled the whenever-you-want mechanic to a Smithy, changing the mechanics a bit and letting you keep it in your deck afterward.

Note that this card has several advantages over Smithy. First, not only can you put it in your hand at the beginning of any turn, but that turn could be the very next turn after you buy it, making it similar to Nomad Camp in that respect. Furthermore, Inventor doesn't replace another card in your hand; it's added in. So if you had a 5-card hand at the start of your turn, you'll have an 8-card hand after you use Inventor's ability and play it for cards.

As far as the ability to put it back on your mat goes, I've been in situations where I've got a Cards/Actions engine and my current hand contains a Smithy and four non-Action cards. Now, I could play the Smithy, but chances are good that I'm just going to draw a bunch of dead Action cards. With Inventor, you can use an action to set it aside for when you actually have need of it. So it's kind of like Walled Village, but for card draw rather than additional actions.

I'd considered making the set-aside effect a cantrip, but then to balance it, I'd probably have to make you discard a card from your hand when you took it off of your mat. That's a lot more words on the card and in my opinion it makes it less interesting. Part of the allure right now is that the Inventor gets 'havened' into your hand, rather than replacing an existing card there. Maybe I'll have it give +1 Action when you set it aside.

Philanthropist
Types: Action
Cost: 5
+2 Cards. +2 Coins. Each other player may gain a Copper, putting it in his hand.

I may just scrap this card altogether. It's probably too powerful and I don't think the Copper gain ability scales well with multiple players.

Tax Collector
Types: Action – Attack
Cost: 6
+1 Buy. +2 Coins. Each other player with at least 5 cards in hand trashes a card from his hand costing 2 Coins or more (or reveals a hand with no such cards), then gains a card costing less than it that is not a Victory card.

So, your reaction to this card was the following:

Saboteur is my least favorite card in the game and the only one I actively dislike.  This provides the player some limited choice on which card gets hit, but it has three extremely significant improvements on Saboteur:

(1) +1 Buy, +$2.  Considering that Saboteur offers nothing to the player, this alone is a humongous improvement over  Saboteur, for just $1 more.
(2) The replacement card is required.   That means you can't get rid of a neutral card like Silver without semi-cursing yourself as well by taking a Copper.
(3) The replacement card can't be a Victory card.  This is the most serious problem, I think.  If you have a stroke of bad luck and have to trash a Province or even a Duchy, that might be the game right there.  I see why you did this:  you don't want the victim to be able to purposely trash a Gold for a Duchy in the endgame when that's a good move.  But it's just so brutal and swingy with the restriction.  Maybe you could allow the replacement card to be a Victory card if the trashed card was also a Victory card?  Then you circumvent both issues.

I agree that it's superior to Saboteur in these ways. However, it also has some significant drawbacks.

(1) Barring any Council Room shenanigans, you can only be hit by Tax Collector once per turn you take. A Saboteur every few turns is a minor nuisance. Several Saboteurs each turn is a serious threat. Playing Tax Collector multiple times only nets you a Woodcutter effect.

(2) Tax Collector has you gain a card costing less than the trashed card, not $2 less than it. This is pretty significant, especially for Alchemy cards (since $3P can turn into $3, $2P, or anything else worth less).

(3) Tax Collector isn't likely to hurt you until well into mid-game. First of all, it costs $6, so you can never open with it. That definitely had to be the case. Also, each player starts the game with 3 Estates, which can act as a nice Tax Collector buffer.

With all that being said, I think the mandatory gain needs to go, because if the game lasts long enough (which could easily happen if there are other Attacks being played), then everyone's deck is going to drift toward being filled with Copper. The more Copper in your deck, the more Tax Collector hurts because you have fewer choices for which card to trash.

I'm not convinced there's a big problem with not letting you gain a Victory card. Granted, if Tax Collector is out, it discourages strategies centering around many, smaller Victory cards. But if you get hit by a Tax Collector with a hand of five Provinces/Duchies, then (A) you're probably already winning by a large margin, and (B) your other hands in this shuffle were/will be amazing.

Anyhow, I just want to say thanks again for all the fantastic feedback (both rinkworks and AJD). I hope I'm not being too pigheaded on too many of these cards. If you've got some more time this week and are willing talk out some of these points, I'd really appreciate it. I'm also going to test these cards in some real games after I've made these revisions.

EDIT: I'm definitely moving Aqueduct to a $4 cost. It sounds like it works fine that way and as Donald has said, if in doubt between two costs, go for the lower one.

7171

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Enterprise: A One-Shot Expansion

« on: December 06, 2011, 10:21:58 am »

I wonder actually if having a remodeled card go on your deck wouldn't be a good idea. Consider the early-game scenario Rinkworks was worried about: you open Tinker/Silver, then on the first reshuffle you play Tinker and trash the Silver. So you can gain a Wharf or whatever to make up for it, but you've lost both your only Silver and your only trasher; that's not a very good bargain. And if you'd been luckier and your Tinker had hit an Estate, you probably would have bought a Wharf on the next turn anyway, so you haven't gained any momentum by doing this. If the Wharf goes onto your deck, at least you get to play it sooner than you would if you'd been luckier with your Tinker and just bought the Wharf normally—the Tinker in effect retroactively converts your Silver/Tinker opening into a (respectable) Wharf/nothing opening.

OK, you've convinced me!

7172

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Enterprise: A One-Shot Expansion

« on: December 05, 2011, 10:32:06 pm »

OK, I'm back and continuing my response to rinkworks's comments.

Fund
Types: Treasure
Cost: 4
Worth 2 Coins. +1 Buy. When you play this, discard your hand.
You may trash this card immediately. If you do, all cards cost 1 Coin less this turn, but not less than 0 Coins.

I'm glad you like the card! As far as its cost goes, I think I came at it from the opposite (and mostly likely wrong) direction. Early on in the design of the set, I had another one-shot Treasure that cost $5. I wanted Fund to have a lower price point to help differentiate the two. I also didn't want it to be worth $1 when played, because then you'd almost certainly just use the one-shot ability the first time you played it. Silver-with-a-bonus couldn't cost $3, obviously, so $4 was the only reasonable price point.

However, I quickly realized the inherent problem with a $4 Silver-with-a-bonus, which is that because $3 is so close to $4, the stack would quickly empty as players who had $4 to spend and wanted Silvers bought Funds instead. The 'discard your hand' clause seemed like the most elegant way to discourage that. Anyhow, I have a feeling that one of the reasons that cards like Stash are priced at $5 is because at $4 they'd be gone in a heartbeat. My solution to the problem is different, and I suppose time and testing will tell whether or not it's a good solution. It certainly seems clever at first glance.

Skipping forward, I actually added the +Buy much later, because the set needed some cards with +Buy and this seemed like a much better place to stick it than most. It also allowed the one-shot bonus to be the elegant 'cards cost $1 less', which is a great halfway point between producing an extra $1 (which is boring and perhaps not powerful enough) and an extra $2 (which is way too powerful).

So getting back to the card's current incarnation, I realize that unless you're playing some sort of moneyless strategy, you're probably going to want to have one of these in your deck. Maybe you'll get two if you're feeling lucky. If 'should I buy it' is a forgone conclusion, the strategy space around this card then boils down to 'when do I buy it' and 'when do I trash it'. I'm hoping that that's enough to make it a balanced card, but I'm not sure yet.

Mercenaries
Types: Action – Attack
Cost: 4
+2 Cards. +1 Action. Each player (including you) reveals the top card of his deck and either discards it or puts it back, your choice.
You may discard a Treasure card from your hand. If you don't, trash this card.

Having tested this card out in a game, I agree that it's too powerful in its current incarnation. With a few Mercenaries, you can build an Action-heavy deck (like a Conspirator or Minion deck) without even needing to trash your starting Coppers and Estates. Thanks to the +2 Cards and the ability to discard your top card, the Mercenaries can easily scream through your entire deck, discarding unneeded Coppers as they go.

One solution is to have its Spy effect only hit your opponents and not you. However, I worry that because of its similarity to Spy, the player playing the card might often reveal their top card just out of habit. So, I'd also want to alter the attack portion.

Mercenaries
Types: Action – Attack
Cost: 4
+2 Cards. +1 Action. Each other player reveals the top two cards of his deck, discarding one that you choose and putting the other back on top.
You may discard a Treasure card from your hand. If you don't, trash this card.

Mill Town
Types: Action
Cost: 4
+2 Actions. You may reveal 2 or more Coppers from your hand. If you do, gain a card costing exactly 1 Coin per Copper card revealed.

OK, I'll admit this is an odd one and I can't blame you for not liking it at first glance, but let me explain a bit and see if I can't change your mind.

Backing up a bit, let's talk about Coppersmith. In order for a Coppersmith to be even marginally useful, you need to have at least 3 Coppers in hand by the time your Buy phase rolls around. Otherwise, it's just a terminal Silver. It wasn't until Hinterlands was released and I played the suggested Money For Nothing set that I finally figured out how to build a Coppersmith deck. See, in order to get value out of it, you need a way to drastically increase your hand size. Now, you can try to do this with Wishing Well or Laboratory, but chances are that you're going to have to include an actions/cards engine, preferably with Torturer or Margrave or some other attacking, drawing card, because while the payoff can be huge, this strategy is slow. In order to take full advantage of such a deck, you'll probably want at least two Coppersmiths and a source of +Buy, preferably non-terminal. The Money For Nothing set, for instance, includes Coppersmith, Shanty Town (for +2 Actions), Torturer (for +3 Cards), and Pawn (for non-terminal +Buy). However, getting a draw engine like this to work while retaining all of your Coppers (and perhaps picking up 1 or 2 more) basically means buying no Treasure cards. Every single buy until you start greening needs to be an engine component. When you draw a crap hand with a few Coppers, buy a Shanty Town or Pawn. When a Coppersmith gets you to $6, you buy a Torturer.

The short version is that in order to make Coppersmith really pop, you need a way to increase hand size while quickly cycling, a source of +Buy, and a way to slow your opponent down. That's a lot of pieces to put together without much wiggle room.

Mill Town is an attempt to incorporate some of those pieces into a single card. In theory, all you need for it to work is a good source of +Cards. You don't need +Buy thanks to Mill Town's gain ability, and the +2 Actions allows you to play terminal actions that can draw cards and slow your opponents down.

Your assessment of Mill Town's poor early-game prowess is spot-on, but I never intended Mill Town as an opener. Like most villages, you'd only buy it after you accumulated a few terminal Action cards. Until you've got enough of an engine going that you have 5 Coppers in hand, you'd probably pass on using Mill Town's gain ability. If there are nice Villages and other cantrips at $3 and $4, then you can amass those quite quickly, but if you do it too fast, you run the risk of an opponent being able to end the game on three piles before you're able to get a big payoff from the Mill Towns. My hope is that there's some interesting strategy there.

... to be continued ...

7173

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Enterprise: A One-Shot Expansion

« on: December 05, 2011, 08:41:17 pm »

The obvious comparison here is Lookout, right, as another nonterminal blind trasher. Tinker gives you less flexibility about what to trash at any given time; but on the other hand I would love to have a Lookout that could self-trash when my deck got good enough to not need the Lookout anymore.

Hmm, good call. I can't remember whether I was going for a Lookout-like effect when I first came up with the idea for this card. Unlike Lookout, Tinker also draws a card to replace itself to make up for the fact that you have zero control over what you trash.

EDIT: I just made rinkworks's change to the wording of Tinker, but now I'm worried about whether it's clear that you only put the gained card on your deck if you chose not to trash the Tinker. The other thing is that if you Throne or KC it, it now only lets you get the Remodel effect for one usage. Better choose wisely!

7174

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Enterprise: A One-Shot Expansion

« on: December 05, 2011, 07:57:14 pm »

Wow, thanks for the fantastic feedback! I think most of your criticisms are spot on. I'm going to suggest some changes for some cards and push back on some others, explaining my reasoning for why I made them the way I did. If you've got time, let me know what you think.

Missionary
Types: Action – Reaction
Cost: 2
+1 Coin. Draw until you have 5 cards in hand.
----------------------------------------------------------
When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, trash down to 3 cards in your hand.

I think you actually like this card better than I do. The way I see it, it's got two problems. First, as you said, it may be too powerful when you are attacked, allowing you to trash some junk and then restore your hand. Second, I think it's not powerful enough when you're not hit by an attack.

Here's my proposed change:

Missionary
Types: Action – Reaction
Cost: 2
+1 Coin. Reveal the top two cards of your deck. Discard one of them and put the other one into your hand.
----------------------------------------------------------
When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, trash down to 3 cards in your hand.

This makes the card less powerful after you've used the Reaction ability: you can't just restore your hand to five cards. As a bonus, it's also effective against deck-rearranging attacks, which the Reaction ability doesn't really help against. I've always liked that about cards like Secret Chamber, Watchtower, and Horse Traders. Their action ability helps against most of the attack effects that their reaction ability misses.

As an added note, the reason that I really wanted to include this Reaction ability in this set is that it allows the card to trash itself if you think you've gotten enough use out of it. That's kind of like a one-shot, right?

Tinker
Types: Action
Cost: 3
Reveal the top card of your deck. Choose one: Trash the revealed card and gain a card costing exactly 1 Coin less than it, putting it on top of your deck; or trash the revealed card and gain a card costing up to 2 Coins more than it, then trash this card. +1 Card. +1 Action.

First of all, I like your rewording, so I'll go with that. The reason I didn't word it that way in the first place is that I thought I'd need to start the card with, "Trash the top card of your deck. You may trash this card." This creates an ambiguity when you later refer to 'the trashed card'. Your 'reveal then trash' wording nicely circumvents that issue.

As for the card's actual effect, I admit that it's a gamble. There's a lot of luck involved. Overall, though,  I think the effect is a net postive and a little luck can be a lot of fun sometimes. Let's walk through what could happen when you play Tinker. Chances are good you're going to open with it to maximize the number of Coppers and Estates you can trash with it, so let's assume that.

Scenario #1: You reveal a Copper, Curse, or Estate. Obviously you're usually going to pick the '$1 less' option and trash these cards. In this case, Tinker is comparable to Spice Merchant's cards/actions option, except that it allows you to trash Estates and Curses as well as Coppers. It trashes a bad card, draws you a card to replace itself, and gives you an action. It doesn't cycle quite as much as Merchant, but that's not that big a deal. Overall, success!

Scenario #2: You reveal a $2 card that you bought. This will almost always be bad. It's not too unreasonable to just say, "Maybe I won't buy $2 cards if I'm using Tinker." For a lot of $2 cards, that's probably a good tradeoff.

Scenario #3: You reveal another $3 card, like Silver. Chances are good that you don't mind trashing that card in order to gain a juicy $5 card. This may seem expensive, since you lose both your Tinker and your original $3 card (which you didn't get to play), but remember that Tinker still draws you back up to 5 cards, so your buy this turn is likely to still be worth at least $3 or $4, maybe $5 or more depending on what stage of the game you're at. Overall, this isn't as great a result as turning up a bad card, but it likely improves your deck overall at the cost of not being able to play that $3 card this shuffle.

Scenario #4: You reveal a $4 card. This is actually a pretty good pull. You could just take the Gold or good $5-6 card and buy a decent card this turn, just like in Scenario #3. However, if there's a nice $3 that you really want to play this turn, you can gain that, putting it on your deck, and immediately draw and play it thanks to Tinker's +1 Card/+1 Action.

Scenario #5: You reveal a $5 card. You just won the pain lottery. This is probably the single worst result for most games. Unless there's a $4 card you really want to play right now, you lose your Tinker to either replace the $5 card with a copy of itself or a Gold. Either way, you don't get to play that $5 card this shuffle.

Scenario #6: You reveal a $6 card. If it's early game, grab a good $5 coster and play it immediately. Otherwise, gain the Province.

Scenario #7: You reveal a Province. Take another one and trash your Tinker.

Things get a little wackier with Prosperity cards, but that's what you're looking at most games. Really, the $5 pull is the only catastrophic result. Even that can be OK if there's a $4 card that you really want to play this turn. That's one of the things I like about the card, though. Like Swindler, its power varies greatly depending on the distribution of cards at each price point, and those dynamics may not be immediately obvious.

Prospector
Types: Action
Cost: 3
+2 Coins.
----------------------------------------------------------
If this is in play at the start of Clean-up, you may reveal a Duchy from your hand. If you do, trash this and gain a Gold.

I completely agree that this card needs work. It was added to the set very late because I wanted a $3 card that generated $2, or did something roughly equivalent. I felt like that was an important thing to have to keep the expansion cohesive as a whole. Anyhow, originally it worked such that if you got to your Clean-up phase and had at least two copies of it in play, you trashed all of them for one Gold each. I thought this was brilliant until I realized it couldn't be done without a +2 Actions card. So I had to substitute the second Prospector for one of the basic cards. The Duchy was the last incarnation of that line of thought, and I didn't put enough consideration into it. Conversely, its penultimate iteration was probably more interesting and useful. Take a look:

Prospector
Types: Action
Cost: 3
+2 Coins.
----------------------------------------------------------
If this is in play at the start of Clean-up, you may reveal a Gold from your hand. If you do, trash this and gain 2 Gold cards.

Hmm, so do I play the Gold now, or do I keep it in hand in order to gain more Gold? Unlike Duchies, you're liable to pick up some Gold fairly early in the game. Is it worth having a terminal Silver until you match the two together?

I don't have time to post responses regarding all the cards right now, but I'll pull one out of order before I go.

Aqueduct
Types: Victory
Cost: 5
Worth 2 VP.
----------------------------------------------------------
When you gain this, reveal the top 5 cards of your deck. Discard all revealed Victory and Curse cards and put the rest back on top in any order.

Yes, I was the one that posted this card in the other thread. I'm just completely blown away that you thought it was good enough to playtest and that it tested so well! Thanks!

I admit that I'd assumed the Aqueduct-or-Duchy choice was integral to the card. I figured that if I priced it at $4 that there would be no strategy there at all; with $4 you'd buy Aqueduct and with $5 you'd buy Duchy. Since you've actually tested the card, though, I'm happy to defer to your experience. At minimum, I'll test it at $4 myself.

I'll post more when I have time. Thanks again for your insight!

7175

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Which First? Duchies or Dukes?

« on: December 05, 2011, 09:05:36 am »

On the other hand, if you're in the end game and want to scrape as much points as possible, you should buy 3 Duchies first and then alternate between buying Dukes and Duchies.

Technically, you should probably buy 4 Duchies first, then alternate.