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luser

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Citadels stack.
« on: April 23, 2014, 06:41:11 am »
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Hi, after reading Donald secret histories I decided to create a stack inspired by citadel. Now I focus on interesting ideas, balance would be second concern. Like in knights I want upto two cards awesome so buying other is risky proposition.

So here is first version:

assassin 5$
action-attack-victory

Each other player gains curse on top of their deck
and if he has 5 or more cards he reveals their hand
and puts a card you choose on top of their deck.

worth 1vp per curse in deck of opponent on your left.

Master thief 5$
action-attack-victory

Opponents trash a treasure card from your hand
or reveal hand with no treasure. You may gain any
trashed cards, putting them in hand.

worth 1vp per gold in your deck.

magician 5$
action-victory

Everybody discards their hand. You draw a card
for each card that player on your left discarded.
Each other player draws a card for each card that
you discarded but at least three cards.

worth 1vp per potion in your deck.

beggar king 5$
action-victory.

Gain 4 coppers putting them in your hand.

Worth 1vp per a treasure in your deck.

archbishop 5$
action-duration-victory

Gain a coin for each reaction card in play.
If opponent plays attack you may reveal this;
if you do you are unaffected by attack.
While this is in play you are unaffected by attacks.

worth 2vp per chapel in your deck.

merchant 5$
action-victory

+1$

Choose one: Draw two cards or gain two gold.

worth 1vp per a coin token.

architect
action-victory

+ 1 action
+ 2 buys
+ 2 cards

worth 1vp per 3 cards in your deck.

warlord 5$
action - victory

+1 buy
+1$

When you buy a card return it in supply. Choose a opponent.
He reveals top three cards from top of his deck and
trashes card any copy of card you returned.

worth 1vp per duration card in your deck.
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silverspawn

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Re: Citadels stack.
« Reply #1 on: April 23, 2014, 11:27:44 am »
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ok, let's see

Quote from: luser
assassin 5$
action-attack-victory

Each other player gains curse on top of their deck
and if he has 5 or more cards he reveals their hand
and puts a card you choose on top of their deck.

worth 1vp per curse in deck of opponent on your lef
that's a) worded poorly b) broken and c) doesn't produce any ressources and d) stacks curses on top of players decks, which can kill turns for someone in 4player (which is why sea hag discards the top card before putting a curse there) and e) might not fit on a card.

b): the first part is a sea hag, which is arguably the best 4$ card it actually isn't the second part is an insanely strong attack, and lastly it's a swingy victory card which will often be better than a duchy. all that for 5$ is op.

i don't have a problem with c), but some people do for reasons I never understood.

for d) you might want to discard the top card, like sea hag does

I can fix a) for you, here:

Quote
Each other player gains curse, putting it on top of their deck. Each other player with 5 or more cards in his hand reveals his hand, and puts one card you choose on top of his deck.
--------------
worth 1VP per curse in the deck to the player on your left.

it's not so much that the wording is better, but that it's better for dominion. you want to keep things consistent.

Quote
Master thief 5$
action-attack-victory

Opponents trash a treasure card from your hand
or reveal hand with no treasure. You may gain any
trashed cards, putting them in hand.

worth 1vp per gold in your deck.

well, this is a) swingy b) worded poorly and c) an attack that stacks (i.e. can nuke turns)

b):
Quote
Each opponent trashes a Treasure card from his hand (or reveals a hand with no Treasures). You may gain any number of the trashed cards, putting them into your hand.

c): add "with 5 cards in his hand"

a) is a fundamental problem. trashing a copper from your hand is often a good thing. having to trash a plat from your hand in a chapel game is insane, and putting 2 platinums in your hand (in a 4player game) is... well.

Quote
Everybody discards their hand. You draw a card
for each card that player on your left discarded.
Each other player draws a card for each card that
you discarded but at least three cards.

worth 1vp per potion in your deck.

this is nonsense tbh. I don't think I have to explain why.

Quote
Gain 4 coppers putting them in your hand.

Worth 1vp per a treasure in your deck.
well this is just the most broken card of all time. it's a quadrupel monument every time you play it, which starts at 7VP, and it also stacks multiplicatively and can be increased by 1VP for every Treasure card you buy.

Quote
merchant 5$
action-victory

+1$

Choose one: Draw two cards or gain two gold.

worth 1vp per a coin token.
i'm pretty sure +1$, gain 2 gold is broken, so that's that. the coin token part is nonsense, because most boards do not have coin tokens


Quote
+1 buy
+1$

When you buy a card return it in supply. Choose a opponent.
He reveals top three cards from top of his deck and
trashes card any copy of card you returned.

worth 1vp per duration card in your deck.

every attack in dominion always targets every player. don't make a card that only attacks one player. also the victory part is bad for the same reason your coin token card was: there is no guarantee that duration cards are on the board

you may want to put a little bit more effort into your cards... no offense.

soulnet

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Re: Citadels stack.
« Reply #2 on: April 23, 2014, 12:00:02 pm »
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I agree to great extent with Silverspawn's card-arguments: try comparing your cards with existing cards to see how they do. If you are going to post cards here, people are going to try to read them as expected-to-be-playable Dominion cards, so think about the power level. If your idea is another thing, like closely resembling their Citadel inspiration, say so in the post so people can read the cards that way from the go.

Examples of comparison with existing cards: Assassin with Sea Hag (silverspawn already explained it). Also, Beggar/Gardens is a decent combo, and you have something better than Beggar with something (almost always) a lot better than Gardens tacked on it.

BTW, silverspawn, there is a way more useful and constructive way to state the same criticism. Avoiding things like "nonsense" and assumptions like there was no effort thrown into the cards, for instance. Just saying "no offense" at the end does not really subtract the offenses. Moreover, it usually highlights them if there were any.
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eHalcyon

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Re: Citadels stack.
« Reply #3 on: April 23, 2014, 12:28:06 pm »
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Can't comment in depth right now, but I'll note that the idea seems to be a Knights-like pile. Thus, dangerously stackable attacks actually aren't as bad as they would be since you only get 1 copy of each card. Still tricky with KC.
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silverspawn

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Re: Citadels stack.
« Reply #4 on: April 23, 2014, 12:36:46 pm »
+1

Quote
BTW, silverspawn, there is a way more useful and constructive way to state the same criticism. Avoiding things like "nonsense" and assumptions like there was no effort thrown into the cards, for instance. Just saying "no offense" at the end does not really subtract the offenses. Moreover, it usually highlights them if there were any.

that's a philosophical quesetion. I disagree, and here's why: the first card i ever made was something like

Quote
Traitor - action - 5$
+1 action
Each player discards a card. choose one of the discarded cards. if it's a
Action - {{two different options that are somewhat related to actions}}
Victory - {{two different options that are somewhat related to VPs and draws}}
Treasure - {{two different options that are somehwat related to producing coins}}
Curse - {{joker, chose any of the 6 options}}

if any player has less than 3 cards in his hand, he draws a card

that card was nonsense, because it had way too many options that would never ever ever fit on a card, and it was way too complex, and it was worded poorly (worse than this version) and it was totally broken on top of it. I didn't put much effort into it, and if I did, it would've looked better.

Still, noone told me that. I think if someone did, it would've been a good thing, because not doing it kind of send the message "it's actually not that bad". that's just me though, and you shouldn't treat other people like you want them to treat you, because everyone is different.

the main reason why i disagree is that I don't think I am being offensive. I don't know how the first card LF created looks like, but there's a good chance it's awful (though it may not be). If it is, it doesn't mean LF is bad at designing cards, it means his first efffort was bad, and that really doesn't mean anything. I never said luser is bad at designing cards, I basically said his first(?) try wasn't good. in a few months, he might design the best fan set yet.

poeple, especially nice people, are often afraid of being offensive, and are being too friendly because of it. that's a thin line, and you can't please everyone. take donald, he has pisseed off some people with the things he said in his interview (f.e. about dominion clones), but I didn't find anything he said even slightly offensive, and if he had been even more careful, it would have bothered me that he's too kind.

It's true that I'm making the assumption that there's little effort put into these cards. I have no proof for that, but I do have proof that luser didn't read the tutorial, because it specifically says that cards that topdeck curses should discard the top card first. He might have put a lot of thought into them without reading it, but that's a chance I'm willing to take.

That said, I've been banned lots of times in other forums for being too harsh, but I'm happy with what I posted here.
« Last Edit: April 23, 2014, 12:40:32 pm by silverspawn »
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soulnet

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Re: Citadels stack.
« Reply #5 on: April 23, 2014, 12:55:46 pm »
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I was suggesting to make the same points in a less offensive way. I never suggested to refrain from critiquing just to not be offensive. Moreover, I said that I agreed with your views on the card.

There is no need to be harsh or rude in order to be honest and thorough.
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silverspawn

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Re: Citadels stack.
« Reply #6 on: April 23, 2014, 01:24:03 pm »
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I was suggesting to make the same points in a less offensive way. I never suggested to refrain from critiquing just to not be offensive.

There is no need to be harsh or rude in order to be honest and thorough.

well and my point is that I think it's impossible to make the same points in a less offensive way, and i do think you have to be harsh in order to be honest, to some degree. If you can rephrase parts of my post to make the same points, but in a friendlier way, I'm all ears.

soulnet

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Re: Citadels stack.
« Reply #7 on: April 23, 2014, 01:34:18 pm »
+1

this is nonsense tbh. I don't think I have to explain why.

"I don't think this card is reasonabe. Here is why: ... ".

well this is just the most broken card of all time.

"This card is too powerful."

you may want to put a little bit more effort into your cards... no offense.

"try comparing your cards with existing cards to see how they do. If you are going to post cards here, people are going to try to read them as expected-to-be-playable Dominion cards, so think about the power level. If your idea is another thing, like closely resembling their Citadel inspiration, say so in the post so people can read the cards that way from the go."

luser is new to this forum, so he does not know the lingo, and it is possible that he is also new to the game and/or to make fan cards. So, the most constructive way is to state the mistakes, and if you have some extra time you want to invest, suggest ways to correct them. Suggesting specific tweaks or wordings is a fine thing to do, but suggesting how he can learn to do better himself is way better.

Anyway, I think we should stop this argument. You may disagree with me and I may disagree with you on what are better or worse manners and that's no big problem. We have a distant enough relationship for it to matter much for either. It makes sense to me to point this kind of thing once or twice, because I am sometimes too harsh for my own perception, so I think others can be as well. I don't think it makes sense for it to become a huge discussion. Discussing actual Dominion is time much better spent. And I like to stop myself from hijacking threads too much, whenever I can.
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silverspawn

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Re: Citadels stack.
« Reply #8 on: April 23, 2014, 01:49:29 pm »
+1

Quote
I don't think it makes sense for it to become a huge discussion. Discussing actual Dominion is time much better spent.
i actually find this particualar topic to be very interesting, but if you don't want, I'm not going to argue any more. I've played with the idea of opening a thread in the off topic area about it, maybe I'll do it at some point.

eHalcyon

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Re: Citadels stack.
« Reply #9 on: April 23, 2014, 04:50:37 pm »
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Right, so you mention Knights as inspiration, so I assume that this is meant to be a single pile of different cards, like Knights.  Right off the bat, I'm seeing some dangerous design assumptions.

Now I focus on interesting ideas, balance would be second concern. Like in knights I want upto two cards awesome so buying other is risky proposition.

It's great to focus on interesting concepts first, but you do still need to think about balance.  Most of the cards in your first version look way too powerful.

You also talk about having a couple extra powerful cards so that it is risky to buy them, lest you reveal a better option for your opponent.  This exists to some extent with Knights, but the variance in their power is not that big.  The key thing is that every Knight still has the same attack.  Yeah, sometimes you may get Anna and have the only trashing on the board, or you might get Martin for the only +Buy.  But overall, the power levels aren't that disparate.  Also note that you can counter the opponent's awesome Knight with a weaker Knight, because Knights trash each other.

With your Citadels stack, all the cards are extremely different.  Depending on the board, the power of the different cards will vary wildly.  Moreover, the cards are so complex and different from each other that it is difficult to remember what the possibilities are.  With Knights, they all have the same attack and their special bonuses are all very simple.  +2 cards, +$2, +2 Buys, +2 actions, cantrip, gain a card (costing up to $3), trash up to 2 cards, discard attack, 2VP, gain Gold on trash.  I can easily name all those by memory because they are all very simple.

Four other overall critiques:

- If you have different cards in one stack, you should probably give them a unique type to indicate that they go together.  This is done with Knights and Ruins.

- Some of your cards refer to other cards that might not even be in the kingdom.  That's something that should probably be avoided.

- Your wording is not consistent with official Dominion cards.  I recommend looking up official cards that are similar to yours to get a good idea of how they should be phrased.  Dominion cards are pretty consistent, and fan cards should strive to maintain that consistency and clarity when possible.

- If I'm counting correctly, you only have 8 cards here.  There should be 12 when playing with more than 2 players.  Not a huge deal though; you can just say it's something special about this particular set of cards, like Rats.




assassin 5$
action-attack-victory

Each other player gains curse on top of their deck
and if he has 5 or more cards he reveals their hand
and puts a card you choose on top of their deck.

worth 1vp per curse in deck of opponent on your left.

In a game with no other cursing, Assassin will absolutely dominate.  For that alone, it is too powerful.  Consider how strong Followers is in the same situation.  Now consider how much more work is needed to actually get Followers.  All it takes to get Assassin is for it to be on top of the stack.

The second attack is just as brutal.  Pillage is so strong that it trashes itself.  Top-decking means that you can more creatively harm your opponents than with Pillage.  If you play this when their hand is weak anyway, you can still top-deck junk to hurt their next turn!

silverspawn brought up the Sea Hag clause.  It's not as important on this card because there will only ever be one copy of it.  Even so, it may be worth adding in the clause to prevent shenanigans with King's Court.  That said, it's probably better to remove the cursing altogether (because it is just too dominating if it is the only curser in the kingdom).

silverspawn also mentioned the problem of not producing resources.  This is actually not a huge issue, but it's something to keep in mind.  Playtesting always showed that many players don't enjoy cards that don't provide personal bonuses.  Still, there are some official cards like this (Sea Hag, Saboteur, Sir Michael).

Don't know how to feel about the VP per opponent's Curse.

Master thief 5$
action-attack-victory

Opponents trash a treasure card from your hand
or reveal hand with no treasure. You may gain any
trashed cards, putting them in hand.

worth 1vp per gold in your deck.

This should say "from their hand", right?

So this is a Thief that steals from their hand directly into your own.  This does worry me a bit, but I think it's OK to start playtesting. 

Since this has the opponents choose from their own hand, the treasure trashing is usually weaker than Thief.  Thief can sting when it gets lucky and finds a good Treasure, but opponents would have to have much worse luck if they get stuck in a position where they have to give up a Platinum.  Players should hesitate to trash down to nothing but Platinum against Thief, and they should similarly hesitate against Master Thief.

This attack is bolstered by also having a Cutpurse effect that works on more than just Copper.  That's the part that worries me more.

Finally, the ability to gain ALL of the trashed cards might be too powerful.  Dominion is not strictly a 2 player game.  Though many of us prefer the head-to-head game, you also have to consider how strong a card is with 3-4 players.  But that said, this particular effect of Master Thief might never amount to more than Beggar's on-play.  So maybe it would be alright after all.

So all that feels a little iffy, but it's not too crazy.

Don't know how to feel about the VP for Gold.

magician 5$
action-victory

Everybody discards their hand. You draw a card
for each card that player on your left discarded.
Each other player draws a card for each card that
you discarded but at least three cards.

worth 1vp per potion in your deck.

Definitely need to clean up the wording here...

This is an attack so it needs the attack type.  You are forcing players to discard and re-draw, and they will usually draw fewer cards than they started with.

Usually, you will be discarding and drawing back up to 5 cards.  If you play it smart, you will put everyone else down to 3 random cards.  Even if you played this from a 5 card hand, you will only have 4 cards left to discard so the attack is as powerful as Minion.  But if you can play a few other cards first and reduce your hand-size, this is brutal.  Minion is painful because 4 random cards is usually  weaker than the best 3 of 5 that Militia causes.  Magician can put everybody else at 3 random cards which is very, very harsh.

The VP per Potion is not a good idea.  Potions might not even be available to purchase.  Even if they were, you might not otherwise want to buy a Potion card.  Even if you do, it's very rare for you to want more than 1.  VP per Potion is thus superfluous most of the time.

beggar king 5$
action-victory.

Gain 4 coppers putting them in your hand.

Worth 1vp per a treasure in your deck.

What do you mean by "per a treasure"?  If you mean that it's worth 1VP for each copy of one treasure of your choice, then that is way too powerful.  It's more than a Province if you don't trash starting Copper, and it's easy to boost that further (including the on-play effect essentially adding +4VP).

If you mean, "per differently named treasure", then it sounds more reasonable.

archbishop 5$
action-duration-victory

Gain a coin for each reaction card in play.
If opponent plays attack you may reveal this;
if you do you are unaffected by attack.
While this is in play you are unaffected by attacks.

worth 2vp per chapel in your deck.

First, this should be a reaction since you allow it to act as a Moat.

Second, for this to work as a Duration, it needs to have an effect on the next turn.  Otherwise, it will be cleaned up immediately and never remain in play.

Counting reactions in play is extremely niche.  Not every board has a Reaction available, several reactions can't ever be in play (Hovel, Tunnel, Fool's Gold -- at least not during the action phase), and all the action-reactions are terminal which makes it tougher to get them into play before Archbishop.  So Archbishop will usually just be +$1.  Not that compelling.

The 2VP per Chapel is really weird.  Chapel might not even be in the game!  If it is, there is almost never a reason to get a second Chapel, so Archbishop essentially makes Chapel into a super-Estate.  Usually not that interesting, but still with a lot of potential in the late game (e.g. Tunnel is still purchased even without the possibility of discarding).  Giving only one player access to that significant amount of alt VP is really imbalanced.

merchant 5$
action-victory

+1$

Choose one: Draw two cards or gain two gold.

worth 1vp per a coin token.

Freely gaining two Gold is really powerful...

VP per coin token does not work well.  There are only 5 cards that produce coin tokens so they will be absent most of the time, especially if the player doesn't own Guilds.  If coin tokens are available, this is too valuable.  Note that there are no non-terminal cards that give VP tokens.  On the other hand, there are 3 non-terminal coin token cards, one of which only costs $2.  Butcher gives two coin tokens at a time.  Merchant Guild becomes similar to Goons.  If you have Merchant, coin token cards become a LOT more powerful for you than for your opponents.

architect
action-victory

+ 1 action
+ 2 buys
+ 2 cards

worth 1vp per 3 cards in your deck.

Strictly superior to Laboratory, even without the VP. 

But the VP potential here is enormous!  This is worth more than 3 Gardens and it isn't even a dead card in your deck.  Far from it, it actually provides you +2 Buys to further bloat your deck.  That's far too powerful.

warlord 5$
action - victory

+1 buy
+1$

When you buy a card return it in supply. Choose a opponent.
He reveals top three cards from top of his deck and
trashes card any copy of card you returned.

worth 1vp per duration card in your deck.

"Choose an opponent to attack" is deliberately avoided in Dominion.  If you like the politics, go for it, but this will always be something that is criticized here.

Now, if it affected everybody, it's not that bad.  The issue is that it is extremely swingy.  Maybe you do it with Province and your opponents trash 3 Provinces.  That is a very cost-effective pay-off.  Or maybe you completely whiff and waste your buy for nothing.

The VP per duration card is useless in games without durations but way too much in games with good durations like Fishing Village or Wharf.





Overall, you really do need to give some thought to the balance of the cards.  Think through how it would actually play.  Since you are doing a Knights-like stack with Victory cards, consider the impact of only one player getting that card. 
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luser

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Re: Citadels stack.
« Reply #10 on: April 24, 2014, 03:20:59 pm »
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Right, so you mention Knights as inspiration, so I assume that this is meant to be a single pile of different cards, like Knights.  Right off the bat, I'm seeing some dangerous design assumptions.

Now I focus on interesting ideas, balance would be second concern. Like in knights I want upto two cards awesome so buying other is risky proposition.

It's great to focus on interesting concepts first, but you do still need to think about balance.  Most of the cards in your first version look way too powerful.

You also talk about having a couple extra powerful cards so that it is risky to buy them, lest you reveal a better option for your opponent.  This exists to some extent with Knights, but the variance in their power is not that big.  The key thing is that every Knight still has the same attack.  Yeah, sometimes you may get Anna and have the only trashing on the board, or you might get Martin for the only +Buy.  But overall, the power levels aren't that disparate.  Also note that you can counter the opponent's awesome Knight with a weaker Knight, because Knights trash each other.

Knigths work differently that I want to, when deciding to buy one you could mostly ignore bonus and relevant part end is who bought more. I want create suspense so there needs to be real risk in buying these.

Quote
Four other overall critiques:

- If you have different cards in one stack, you should probably give them a unique type to indicate that they go together.  This is done with Knights and Ruins.

- Some of your cards refer to other cards that might not even be in the kingdom.  That's something that should probably be avoided.

- Your wording is not consistent with official Dominion cards.  I recommend looking up official cards that are similar to yours to get a good idea of how they should be phrased.  Dominion cards are pretty consistent, and fan cards should strive to maintain that consistency and clarity when possible.

- If I'm counting correctly, you only have 8 cards here.  There should be 12 when playing with more than 2 players.  Not a huge deal though; you can just say it's something special about this particular set of cards, like Rats.

First is possible, types then would look like action-attack-victory-character.
Second is a form of weak bonus, there should be cards that are weak most of time.
I will try to improve wording.
As for multiplayer one possibility is to add eigth cards below and then remove random 4 cards.

witch, taxman, smugglers, throne room, bishop, alchemist, navigator, ambassador


Quote
assassin 5$
action-attack-victory

Each other player gains curse on top of their deck
and if he has 5 or more cards he reveals their hand
and puts a card you choose on top of their deck.

worth 1vp per curse in deck of opponent on your left.

In a game with no other cursing, Assassin will absolutely dominate.  For that alone, it is too powerful.  Consider how strong Followers is in the same situation.  Now consider how much more work is needed to actually get Followers.  All it takes to get Assassin is for it to be on top of the stack.

The second attack is just as brutal.  Pillage is so strong that it trashes itself.  Top-decking means that you can more creatively harm your opponents than with Pillage.  If you play this when their hand is weak anyway, you can still top-deck junk to hurt their next turn!

silverspawn brought up the Sea Hag clause.  It's not as important on this card because there will only ever be one copy of it.  Even so, it may be worth adding in the clause to prevent shenanigans with King's Court.  That said, it's probably better to remove the cursing altogether (because it is just too dominating if it is the only curser in the kingdom).

silverspawn also mentioned the problem of not producing resources.  This is actually not a huge issue, but it's something to keep in mind.  Playtesting always showed that many players don't enjoy cards that don't provide personal bonuses.  Still, there are some official cards like this (Sea Hag, Saboteur, Sir Michael).

Don't know how to feel about the VP per opponent's Curse.
It needs to be strongest card from stack precisely for fear that if you buy a card opponent will buy assassin.

A possible variant could be

Each opponent puts a card from their hand to top of their deck.
For each opponent name a card. He gains a curse on top of deck or reveals hand without named card.


Quote

magician 5$
action-victory

Everybody discards their hand. You draw a card
for each card that player on your left discarded.
Each other player draws a card for each card that
you discarded but at least three cards.

worth 1vp per potion in your deck.

Definitely need to clean up the wording here...

This is an attack so it needs the attack type.  You are forcing players to discard and re-draw, and they will usually draw fewer cards than they started with.

Usually, you will be discarding and drawing back up to 5 cards.  If you play it smart, you will put everyone else down to 3 random cards.  Even if you played this from a 5 card hand, you will only have 4 cards left to discard so the attack is as powerful as Minion.  But if you can play a few other cards first and reduce your hand-size, this is brutal.  Minion is painful because 4 random cards is usually  weaker than the best 3 of 5 that Militia causes.  Magician can put everybody else at 3 random cards which is very, very harsh.

The VP per Potion is not a good idea.  Potions might not even be available to purchase.  Even if they were, you might not otherwise want to buy a Potion card.  Even if you do, it's very rare for you to want more than 1.  VP per Potion is thus superfluous most of the time.
Original idea was that this is hard to pull of as it would require a discard/draw engine to be viable. I also counted magician to number of cards opponents draw but did not wrote that in card.

Or change that to you draw to opponent size/opponent discards to your size but not less than 3.

Quote
beggar king 5$
action-victory.

Gain 4 coppers putting them in your hand.

Worth 1vp per a treasure in your deck.

What do you mean by "per a treasure"?  If you mean that it's worth 1VP for each copy of one treasure of your choice, then that is way too powerful.  It's more than a Province if you don't trash starting Copper, and it's easy to boost that further (including the on-play effect essentially adding +4VP).

If you mean, "per differently named treasure", then it sounds more reasonable.

Its originally was per treasure card, its weaker than it initially looks because of opportunity cost. You need to have lot of coppers in deck which means that you play slog, its bit hard to prepare for it unless you get BK early. That could be bad idea if opponent builds engine with thief or assassin.

As is this stated now it favors BM more than I want. I would change vp per treasure to vp per copper as I originally intended. For gaining coppers what about changing this to +3$ gain 4 coppers.

Third possibility is that first five treasures do not count, but it could make this too weak.

Quote
archbishop 5$
action-duration-victory

Gain a coin for each reaction card in play.
If opponent plays attack you may reveal this;
if you do you are unaffected by attack.
While this is in play you are unaffected by attacks.

worth 2vp per chapel in your deck.

First, this should be a reaction since you allow it to act as a Moat.

Second, for this to work as a Duration, it needs to have an effect on the next turn.  Otherwise, it will be cleaned up immediately and never remain in play.

Counting reactions in play is extremely niche.  Not every board has a Reaction available, several reactions can't ever be in play (Hovel, Tunnel, Fool's Gold -- at least not during the action phase), and all the action-reactions are terminal which makes it tougher to get them into play before Archbishop.  So Archbishop will usually just be +$1.  Not that compelling.

The 2VP per Chapel is really weird.  Chapel might not even be in the game!  If it is, there is almost never a reason to get a second Chapel, so Archbishop essentially makes Chapel into a super-Estate.  Usually not that interesting, but still with a lot of potential in the late game (e.g. Tunnel is still purchased even without the possibility of discarding).  Giving only one player access to that significant amount of alt VP is really imbalanced.
This is one of cards is intentionally weak so nobody wants to buy it. Action there is mainly for theme, I would add +1 on next turn to act as ligthhouse.

You need to analyze this card in context. Other player has access to at least 7 different sources of alt-vp. A possible alternative is to always add reaction pile and change chapel to action-reaction card. A problem is that it would make beggars much more likely.

Quote
merchant 5$
action-victory

+1$

Choose one: Draw two cards or gain two gold.

worth 1vp per a coin token.

Freely gaining two Gold is really powerful...

VP per coin token does not work well.  There are only 5 cards that produce coin tokens so they will be absent most of the time, especially if the player doesn't own Guilds.  If coin tokens are available, this is too valuable.  Note that there are no non-terminal cards that give VP tokens.  On the other hand, there are 3 non-terminal coin token cards, one of which only costs $2.  Butcher gives two coin tokens at a time.  Merchant Guild becomes similar to Goons.  If you have Merchant, coin token cards become a LOT more powerful for you than for your opponents.
As action I considered several variants. First was gain a coin token for each card with type exactly victory. That creates self-synergy but is probably too strong. Gaining only coins is possible but often weak. Gain a gold is weaker than bag of gold.

As for reaction part you need to read more. Gaining merchant is goal but interesting part is before that. As nobody wants give opponent a merchant both players build engine until they hit 10 and then buy a character or another card. This continues until one player decides to piledive and he will likely find merchant. So faster engine has advantage here.

Quote
architect
action-victory

+ 1 action
+ 2 buys
+ 2 cards

worth 1vp per 3 cards in your deck.

Strictly superior to Laboratory, even without the VP. 

But the VP potential here is enormous!  This is worth more than 3 Gardens and it isn't even a dead card in your deck.  Far from it, it actually provides you +2 Buys to further bloat your deck.  That's far too powerful.
One of tempting cards, I may omit action there.

Are you sure about vp potential? You need to buy three cards that fit your engine or you will not play architect often. These three buys give you extra vp. If you had monument instead you gain vp with no strings attached.

Initial gain could be bigger problem, it could be every third card after tenth or so.

Quote
warlord 5$
action - victory

+1 buy
+1$

When you buy a card return it in supply. Choose a opponent.
He reveals top three cards from top of his deck and
trashes card any copy of card you returned.

worth 1vp per duration card in your deck.

"Choose an opponent to attack" is deliberately avoided in Dominion.  If you like the politics, go for it, but this will always be something that is criticized here.

Now, if it affected everybody, it's not that bad.  The issue is that it is extremely swingy.  Maybe you do it with Province and your opponents trash 3 Provinces.  That is a very cost-effective pay-off.  Or maybe you completely whiff and waste your buy for nothing.

The VP per duration card is useless in games without durations but way too much in games with good durations like Fishing Village or Wharf.

Choosing opponent is as it was done in original game, this card should really be worse than copper. Hitting one card is sorta useless as buying it would have same effect. So you need to hit pairs more likely than hitting nothing which happens rarely.

After considering formulation a while following would be better.

First time you buy a card trash it. If you did choose a opponent.
He reveals top three cards from top of his deck and
trashes card any copy of card you trashed.

I wanted first formulation to make this useful for breaking ppr but after considering it for while it could prolong game too much like saboter sometimes does.
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KingZog3

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Re: Citadels stack.
« Reply #11 on: April 24, 2014, 06:30:25 pm »
+1

archbishop 5$
action-duration-victory

Gain a coin for each reaction card in play.
If opponent plays attack you may reveal this;
if you do you are unaffected by attack.
While this is in play you are unaffected by attacks.

worth 2vp per chapel in your deck.

First, this should be a reaction since you allow it to act as a Moat.

Second, for this to work as a Duration, it needs to have an effect on the next turn.  Otherwise, it will be cleaned up immediately and never remain in play.

Counting reactions in play is extremely niche.  Not every board has a Reaction available, several reactions can't ever be in play (Hovel, Tunnel, Fool's Gold -- at least not during the action phase), and all the action-reactions are terminal which makes it tougher to get them into play before Archbishop.  So Archbishop will usually just be +$1.  Not that compelling.

The 2VP per Chapel is really weird.  Chapel might not even be in the game!  If it is, there is almost never a reason to get a second Chapel, so Archbishop essentially makes Chapel into a super-Estate.  Usually not that interesting, but still with a lot of potential in the late game (e.g. Tunnel is still purchased even without the possibility of discarding).  Giving only one player access to that significant amount of alt VP is really imbalanced.
This is one of cards is intentionally weak so nobody wants to buy it. Action there is mainly for theme, I would add +1 on next turn to act as ligthhouse.

You need to analyze this card in context. Other player has access to at least 7 different sources of alt-vp. A possible alternative is to always add reaction pile and change chapel to action-reaction card. A problem is that it would make beggars much more likely.

Here's the problem with making this card super weak. What if it's on top? Then what? No one buys it, then no one buys the cards under and then why even have that pile of cards? Why would I ever risk buying this weak card, because if something awesome pops up under it then I just screwed myself by giving my opponents a chance to buy something way better than what I got. By putting this card in the game you're sort of asking to have not fun times. It's weak in a pile of strong cards cards. Imagine the Mountebank pile with 1 of the mountebanks that cursed yourself. What would that play out? If its on top no one ever buys Mountebanks. If it's second, one player has a massive advantage because he bought the first mountebank. See the problem with having 1 super weak card in a pile of strong cards?

Also just VP for specific cards is not a good idea. It's not even a weak buff, it's just something that will only matter in less than 1% of games. Even if Chapel is on the board, would you win because of the points this card gives you? Probably not because you bought this card and gave a better card to your opponent. Your solution of adding another pile could work, then it becomes like Young Witch. And if both are in the kingdom then there's 12 card piles. Not a bad thing, just something to consider.
« Last Edit: April 24, 2014, 06:32:07 pm by KingZog3 »
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eHalcyon

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Re: Citadels stack.
« Reply #12 on: April 24, 2014, 06:42:47 pm »
0

Knigths work differently that I want to, when deciding to buy one you could mostly ignore bonus and relevant part end is who bought more. I want create suspense so there needs to be real risk in buying these.

Sure, but you can't put too much risk into it.  Otherwise, if the best character is already on top, the first player to afford it has a huge advantage.  If it isn't on top, then nobody will ever buy a character because of that risk.  You can't make the power levels vary so wildly.

First is possible, types then would look like action-attack-victory-character.
Second is a form of weak bonus, there should be cards that are weak most of time.
I will try to improve wording.
As for multiplayer one possibility is to add eigth cards below and then remove random 4 cards.

witch, taxman, smugglers, throne room, bishop, alchemist, navigator, ambassador

You can make weak bonuses without referring to cards that aren't in the kingdom.  The problem is that these bonuses could end up very strong when the card IS in the kingdom.  When they aren't, it can confuse players.  Worse, some players may not even have the card in their collection if they never purchased that particular set.

Adding 4 of 8 existing cards is not a good idea.  Again, not everybody will have those cards in their collection.  Moreover, some (or even all) of them might already be part of the kingdom.  And the power level varies even more with the ones you've chosen.  Alchemist is even worse because it might be the only Potion card in the kingdom.  Either it's impossible to buy or you have to add special rules about when to add Potion to the Supply.

[Assassin] needs to be strongest card from stack precisely for fear that if you buy a card opponent will buy assassin.

A possible variant could be

Each opponent puts a card from their hand to top of their deck.
For each opponent name a card. He gains a curse on top of deck or reveals hand without named card.

But what if it's the very first card on the stack?  Then there is no risk there, just huge advantage to whoever can buy it first.  And the thing is, it isn't even necessarily the strongest card because some of the others could be even more powerful, depending on the kingdom.

Your new variant sounds more reasonable, though it is still dangerous.  Combined with a discard attack like Militia, it can easily force opponents down to 2 card hands every turn.

Original idea [for Magician] was that this is hard to pull of as it would require a discard/draw engine to be viable. I also counted magician to number of cards opponents draw but did not wrote that in card.

Or change that to you draw to opponent size/opponent discards to your size but not less than 3.

It's not that hard to pull off.

Your new version sounds alright, but is a bit tricky to word.

[Beggar King] originally was per treasure card, its weaker than it initially looks because of opportunity cost. You need to have lot of coppers in deck which means that you play slog, its bit hard to prepare for it unless you get BK early. That could be bad idea if opponent builds engine with thief or assassin.

As is this stated now it favors BM more than I want. I would change vp per treasure to vp per copper as I originally intended. For gaining coppers what about changing this to +3$ gain 4 coppers.

Third possibility is that first five treasures do not count, but it could make this too weak.

You start with 7 Copper though, so it is already worth more than a Province if you don't trash.  It's not necessarily a slog when you don't trash starting copper, and you don't need any extra Copper to make this card valuable.

Your change is still really powerful.  Even if it only makes +$3 on the turn, it still gives equivalent to +4VP (each gained Copper boosts the VP value of Beggar King).  That's huge.  Thief doesn't counter this card because it makes it more likely that Thief hits Copper, which is bad for Thief.

Not counting the first 5 treasures doesn't fix the +4VP on play.

[Archbishop] is one of cards is intentionally weak so nobody wants to buy it. Action there is mainly for theme, I would add +1 on next turn to act as ligthhouse.

You need to analyze this card in context. Other player has access to at least 7 different sources of alt-vp. A possible alternative is to always add reaction pile and change chapel to action-reaction card. A problem is that it would make beggars much more likely.

You are right that the alt VP is really weak compared to the potential VP from other cards in the stack.  So keeping that in mind, this card really is weak.  You say that it is intentional, but then this is far too weak compared to others.  Why would any player ever buy this if it means exposing one of the more powerful cards to opponents?

As action I considered several variants [for Merchant]. First was gain a coin token for each card with type exactly victory. That creates self-synergy but is probably too strong. Gaining only coins is possible but often weak. Gain a gold is weaker than bag of gold.

As for reaction part you need to read more. Gaining merchant is goal but interesting part is before that. As nobody wants give opponent a merchant both players build engine until they hit 10 and then buy a character or another card. This continues until one player decides to piledive and he will likely find merchant. So faster engine has advantage here.

Again, what if Merchant is on top?  This is the key thing.  Also, if an engine has the ability to piledrive this $5 pile, it could also make a significant dent into the Province pile and would probably be better off doing that.  Most of the cards in this stack are terminal, which an engine needs to be careful about loading up on.  And it's still so, so swingy.


[Architect]
One of tempting cards, I may omit action there.

Are you sure about vp potential? You need to buy three cards that fit your engine or you will not play architect often. These three buys give you extra vp. If you had monument instead you gain vp with no strings attached.

Initial gain could be bigger problem, it could be every third card after tenth or so.

Yes, the VP potential is strong.  At the start of the game, it is already worth 3VP.  Say the average game lasts 15 turns.  If you only buy 1 card every turn, this card is worth 5 more VP.  Now factor in +Buy (provided by this card) and gainers and this is amazing.  Gardens is already a pretty good alt VP, but this is worth more than 3 Gardens AND gives more benefits on top of that instead of being a dead card.  Monument isn't really comparable.

Choosing opponent [for Warlord] is as it was done in original game, this card should really be worse than copper. Hitting one card is sorta useless as buying it would have same effect. So you need to hit pairs more likely than hitting nothing which happens rarely.

After considering formulation a while following would be better.

First time you buy a card trash it. If you did choose a opponent.
He reveals top three cards from top of his deck and
trashes card any copy of card you trashed.

I wanted first formulation to make this useful for breaking ppr but after considering it for while it could prolong game too much like saboter sometimes does.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying that Warlord is too strong.  I'm saying that it is really, really swingy.  It is usually terrible, but sometimes it is bonkers devastating.





Overall, I think you are still missing the biggest problem with this stack.  Dominion is a mostly symmetric game, where everybody has access to the same possibilities and the winner is whoever has the best strategy and tactics.  There are some cards that mess with this symmetry, such as Knights, Tournament and Black Market.  There are some cards that add a lot more luck to the game, such as Swindler and Tournament.

Your current version adds far more asymmetry and luck than anything else.  If the card on top is really strong for the current board, then it can be an automatic win for whoever can buy it first.  Since there is only one copy of it, the players who don't get it have no way to fight back. 

If a weak card is on top, then it makes it really unlikely for anybody to buy it and the whole stack is pointless.  One option is to get $10 and 2 buys, so you can buy the top one and hope that the next one is the strongest card.  But if it isn't, you'll have wasted $5 and a buy on a weak card and made it easier for an opponent to get a better card!  Why wouldn't you just buy Province then?

The concept is cool.  It's a neat idea to have a stack with very different effects, and Citadels is a fun inspiration.  But the power on these cards is just so wildly different, and many are over the top with certain kingdoms.  It can give one lucky player a win without skill, or it can mean nobody ever buys from the stack to avoid giving the game-winning card to another player.  As it is, it just wouldn't be fun.

If you are serious about refining this, you need to do a lot more balancing.  You can make things strong enough that it's a risk to buy a card on top, but not so powerful that the game is over if someone lucks out and gets the strong card.
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