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[soulnet]

This is a followup thread from this one: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=10764.msg361538#msg361538

The point is to make 2 baby-themed cards that are thematic and play decently well.

I made a new instead of necroing the old one because one of the cards is completely new (I convinced myself that the old concept was too complicated).

Unless there is a compelling case, I think Royal Lineage will remain like this:

Royal Linage - Action - $6
+2 Cards
You may play an Action card from your hand.
Do this number of times:
You may play an Action card from your hand that is more expensive than the last Action card you played.

I went through several variations in my head, but they were all too complicated. It is true that it can lead to confusing scenarios when chained with other cards that make you play Actions (TR, KC, Procession, Golem, Herald and maybe itself) but notice that the only thing variable about the card is the number of +Actions it gives, and when you are able to chain things in a confusing way, you probably just have all the +Actions that you need: if once in a while a situation is a bit confusing and needs careful following, so be it.

On to the new card:

Birthright - Action/Reaction - $4
+1 Action
Put the top 3 cards of your Birthright stack into your hand.
---
When you gain or discard a card other than during your clean-up phase, you can reveal this from your hand. If you do,
put that card on top of your Birthright stack.

Of course, the last one has a bit of Native Village feel, but I think not being a Village and also being somehow more useful for pseudo-trashing, defend against discard Attacks and also being better at keeping your Engine clean while greening makes it different enough.

Is this good enough? Too weak? Should have a different vainilla bonus?

Any comments are welcome!

[LastFootnote]

Birthright - Action/Reaction - $4
+1 Action
Put all the cards in your Birthright mat on your hand.
---
When you gain a card or discard a card from your hand, you can reveal this from your hand. If you do,
set that card aside in your Birthright mat.

Dude, you could remove the Action portion of this card, leave it as a pure Reaction, and it would still be too powerful at any coin cost.

Turn 1: Play 3 Coppers; buy Swindler.
Turn 2: Play 4 Coppers; buy Birthright.
Turn 3: Play Swinder; Buy Estate, revealing Birthright to put it on your mat; discard 3 Coppers/Estates from your hand, revealing Birthright to put them on your mat.

It's like a super Chapel-Island. Then, once you have a super-slim deck, you should always have it in hand when you buy a Province, so you can set that aside, too. I think you'd pretty much always quickly build a Golden deck with this card. You can even have one other terminal Action, since it doesn't even take an action to do all this.

[Deadlock39]

Discarding cards at the end of your turn is definitely not allowed to trigger effects like this.  I can't just buy Tunnels and reveal them at the end of every turn I draw them into my hand.

[pacovf]

Pretty sure the discard part is missing "other than during a clean-up phase".

Might still be too strong without extra limits though. I do like the flavour.


The Royal Lineage is an interesting spin of Laboratory. I like it.

[LastFootnote]

Discarding cards at the end of your turn is definitely not allowed to trigger effects like this.  I can't just buy Tunnels and reveal them at the end of every turn I draw them into my hand.

That's because Tunnel says "other than during a Clean-up phase". Birthright does not.

[pacovf]

Probably, instead of doing birthright a reaction, you want it to be a "while this is in play effect", or similar.

EDIT: example

Birthright - Action/Reaction - $4
+1 Action
If this is the first time you play Birthright this turn, put all the cards in your Birthright mat on your hand.
---
While this is in play, when you gain or discard a card from your hand other than during a clean-up phase, you may set that card aside in your Birthright mat.

[soulnet]

Oh, of course, I forgot the "tunnel-like" clause. Adding it now to the OP. Sorry about the hassle.

I changed it to be able to reveal when discarding from deck as well. It is a minor change in power, and less words.

[silverspawn]

Cards that resolve other cards are one thing, but what happens with cost reducing effects when using royal linage? I play RL, I choose Bridge. Now I want to play a Laboratory. Is that more expensive than Bridge? It costs 4$. Bride costs 3$, but it used to cost 4$ when I played it. I guess for each card you compare the costs at the point of play, so when I want to play Lab, I compare it to the bridge that I just played. That bridge now costs 3$, so I can play Lab. Is that how you intended it to work?

I would try to find a version that works with "play this again," instead of "repeat any number of times." I'm not sure this is a phrase that should be on a dominion card.

You may play an Action card from your hand. If it is cheaper than the last Action card you put into play, play this again.

If you didn't play this again, +2 Cards

That's similar, only you chain downwards instead of upwards, and you get a free card at the end. And you have less flexibility. But it manages to dodge the "repeat this any number of times" clause, and it should also lead to less confusing interactions.

About Birthright, I think the wording can be improved. You want your wordings to be as close to official ones as possible (and I think you're confusing "in" and "on" here).

Like so:

Birthright - Action - Reaction - $4
+1 Action
Put all the cards from your Birthright mat into your hand.
---
When you would gain a card, or discard a card from your hand, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do,
set that card aside on your Birthright mat.

It seems crazy powerful with things like warehouse. Play warehouse, draw 3 cards; if one of them (or one of the cards in your original hand) is a Birthright, the -3 card disadvantage becomes nonexistent. that goes for all following warehouses too, so all you have to do is buy tons of warehouses and a couple of Birthrights. I'm not sure if that's a problem, it just means there are some really strong combos, but my gut says that it's not good. Sifting is already strong, a card that skyrockets the usage of sifting seems... unnecessary? I get the feeling that you didn't design the card with that aspect primarily in mind, but it's the main power of the card. I would probably try a version that reacts only go cards gained.

PPE a lot

[LastFootnote]

OK, probably the card is still too strong just for its ability to set aside all your Victory cards as you gain them. If you want to push the aspect where you remove the cards from the mat, you might want to not allow Victory cards to be set aside this way.

[soulnet]

Cards that resolve other cards are one thing, but what happens with cost reducing effects when using royal linage? I play RL, I choose Bridge. Now I want to play a Laboratory. Is that more expensive than Bridge? It costs 4$. Bride costs 3$, but it used to cost 4$ when I played it. I guess for each card you compare the costs at the point of play, so when I want to play Lab, I compare it to the bridge that I just played. That bridge now costs 3$, so I can play Lab. Is that how you intended it to work?

I think its pretty clear that you compare the current costs, not the costs when you played the card.

I would try to find a version that works with "play this again," instead of "repeat any number of times." I'm not sure this is a phrase that should be on a dominion card.

Do you have an argument as to why "repeat any number of times" is a bad phrase to be in a card? BTW, your proposed phrasing does not work because it draws after playing instead of before, which is a lot worse. And I find it way more confusing than "repeat any number of times". We already have "repeat any number of times" kind of things going on with multiple revelations of Reactions.

Birthright - Action - Reaction - $4
+1 Action
Put all the cards from your Birthright mat into your hand.
---
When you would gain a card, or discard a card from your hand, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do,
set that card aside on your Birthright mat.

Would gain does not work, because you do gain the card anyway.

It seems crazy powerful with things like warehouse. Play warehouse, draw 3 cards; if one of them (or one of the cards in your original hand) is a Birthright, the -3 card disadvantage becomes nonexistent. that goes for all following warehouses too, so all you have to do is buy tons of warehouses and a couple of Birthrights. I'm not sure if that's a problem, it just means there are some really strong combos, but my gut says that it's not good. Sifting is already strong, a card that skyrockets the usage of sifting seems... unnecessary? I get the feeling that you didn't design the card with that aspect primarily in mind, but it's the main power of the card. I would probably try a version that reacts only go cards gained.

Ok, this may be a too strong combo... its not that easy to pull it off, beause you can only withold playing it for so long, but the fact that you do not need the BR in hand to start (and that you can afford playing Warehouse and fail, as long as oyu eventually start drawing) makes it way easier than Village+Smithy.

PPE a lot

What does this mean? Google did not clarify it to me (lots of acronyms are PPE apparently).

OK, probably the card is still too strong just for its ability to set aside all your Victory cards as you gain them. If you want to push the aspect where you remove the cards from the mat, you might want to not allow Victory cards to be set aside this way.

There is this card from one mini-set design contest:

Astrolabe by popsofctown
$4 - Treasure

+$1
--
While this is in play, when you gain a card, you may set that card aside.  Return it to your deck at the end of the game.

This is weaker to just set aside Victory cards because it does not provide money. In the playtesting thread, they say its weak more than strong. And of course, it is flexible but it does not work for everything at once because you need to put all the cards in your hand, not just a few.

To avoid it being to strong I want to limit the number of cards you can retrieve. It will also make it more different than NV as a megaturn enabler. And I will make it a stack to make it more difficult to use it to avoid discarding and setting VP aside at the same time. How does this look?

Birthright - Action/Reaction - $4
+1 Action
Put the top 3 cards from you Birthright stack into your hand.
---
When you gain or discard a card other than during your clean-up phase, you can reveal this from your hand. If you do,
set that card aside on top of your Birthright stack.

So, Warehouse+Birthright nets you less than Village/Smithy would, but it is easier to pull it off, and you can mix-and-match drawing and sifting as well (you do not need to reveal BR to every discarded card). And of course, you have the tricks with BR to set aside your green and use Warehouse or other sifter as pseudo-trash. LF, do you still think its too good for the setting aside of green? I think its pretty good, but it is not like it is turning off other strategies, just making your engine not-choke and a lot more viable. You do need to build the engine and decide when to add a card you only need for greening. I don't think its a better enabler for engines than Chapel, possibly even less than Steward or Remake, because it does not accelerate you early game (barring combos with sifters).

EDIT: I also like the stack idea because it is more original.

[silverspawn]

Do you have an argument as to why "repeat any number of times" is a bad phrase to be in a card? BTW, your proposed phrasing does not work because it draws after playing instead of before, which is a lot worse. And I find it way more confusing than "repeat any number of times". We already have "repeat any number of times" kind of things going on with multiple revelations of Reactions.

Yes, I think that "do this any number of times" sounds weird to most people. Not people from the forums, because most of us are into mathematics/logic/informatics and that kind of stuff, but to most people period. You can reveal reactions any number of times, but that's not written anywhere. Moat just says "you can reveal this." The normal player does not think about, can I reveal this multiple times to the same reaction? Play this again, on the other hand, is much simpler. It has hidden complexity, but the idea of playing a card itself is simple. I can't explain this better, but I'm convinced that Donald would and will never use the phrase "do this any number of times" on a card. It's just... not dominion style. It doesn't fit.

I know that my version draws at the end. That's what I meant with "less flexibility." It's weird to say that it doesn't work because of it. It's different. My point was that I think a major change  is worth it if you can avoid the "do this any number of times" clause. But I'm repeating myself. I at least would do anything to avoid having this on one of my cards. Maybe I'm just paranoid.

An example for less complexity: let's take the old RL.

I play RL
I draw two cards
    I choose TR
        I play TR. I choose RL
            I play RL.
                I choose Swindler
                    I resolve Swindler
                I choose Lab
                    I resolve Lab
                I choose Altar
                    I resolve Altar
             I finished RL
             I play RL
                I choose Swindler
                    I resolve Swindler
                I choose Stables
                    I resolve Stables
             I finished RL
         I finished TR
     I choose Lab
         I resolve Lab
     I choose Altar
         I resolve Altar
done

With my version:

I play RL
I choose TR
    I play TR. I choose RL
            I play RL.
            I play Lab
                I resolve Lab
           The effect triggers. I Play RL
           I play Swindler
               I resolve Swindler
           The effect triggers. I Play RL
           I play Altar
               I resolve Altar
           Altar costs more than Swindler. I can't play RL again; i draw 2 cards
      I play RL
---

I think that shows my point. Your version creates a loop, and in order to understand it, you need to understand the basics of recursion and that stuff. It also creates more Layers (though that's probably debatable). My card works in a more linear way.
       

Would gain does not work, because you do gain the card anyway.

that's right. cut the "would".

Ok, this may be a too strong combo... its not that easy to pull it off, beause you can only withold playing it for so long,

Well you can do it until you have a 1-card hand. Which usually means, 4 warehouses. After the fourth, you only have birthright in hand. Play birthright, draw the 12 cards. If you only drew it with the second warehouse, you still net 9 cards.

What does this mean? Google did not clarify it to me (lots of acronyms are PPE apparently).

It stands for pre post edit, and it means a lot of people have posted while I was writing my post, so I didn't consider anything they wrote. When I started writing my post, the thread had zero responses.

[soulnet]

I can't explain this better, but I'm convinced that Donald would and will never use the phrase "do this any number of times" on a card. It's just... not dominion style. It doesn't fit.

Ok, it sounds a bit like a strong opinion. Also, the reference to Donald is a bit disrespectful (to him), unless you have an argument. I respect that you have those, I just don't share them and I was not compelled to changed my mind by what you said.

I know that my version draws at the end. That's what I meant with "less flexibility." It's weird to say that it doesn't work because of it. It's different. My point was that I think a major change  is worth it if you can avoid the "do this any number of times" clause. But I'm repeating myself. I at least would do anything to avoid having this on one of my cards. Maybe I'm just paranoid.

By "does not work" I meant "it is a completely different card". Terminal draw and non-terminal draw are really different. Your version also does not stack. And has the same problem of RL's left "hanging" when chained with TR. BTW, when learning to program, I learned about loops first and recursion later, and I am pretty convinced that loops are, in general, way more intuitive than recursion.

Ok, this may be a too strong combo... its not that easy to pull it off, beause you can only withold playing it for so long,

Well you can do it until you have a 1-card hand. Which usually means, 4 warehouses. After the fourth, you only have birthright in hand. Play birthright, draw the 12 cards. If you only drew it with the second warehouse, you still net 9 cards.

I agreed. I even made a change because of this comment. I like the card even more now.

[silverspawn]

Also, the reference to Donald is a bit disrespectful (to him),

wait, what? why? context completely aside, why is it disrespectful to say, I think X would never do Y?

[soulnet]

Also, the reference to Donald is a bit disrespectful (to him),

wait, what? why? context completely aside, why is it disrespectful to say, I think X would never do Y?

Well, it is generally disrespectful to put words into someone else's mouth, or actions into their... whatever. I would not like to read somewhere that I would never do X, even if it is true, but especially if it is not true.

[silverspawn]

well, if I was disrespectful, it wasn't on purpose. I have a crazy amount of respect for him. but I kind of get what you're saying.

in any case, we probably shouldn't discuss it here.

[silverspawn]

On a separate note, it would be nice to hear other people's opinions on the "repeat any number of times:" wording. Maybe I'm the only one who thinks it's unfitting.

[Awaclus]

On a separate note, it would be nice to hear other people's opinions on the "repeat any number of times:" wording. Maybe I'm the only one who thinks it's unfitting.

Well, Remake has "Do this twice:", that's kind of similar.

[soulnet]

On a separate note, it would be nice to hear other people's opinions on the "repeat any number of times:" wording. Maybe I'm the only one who thinks it's unfitting.

Well, Remake has "Do this twice:", that's kind of similar.

Right, the text was supposed to mirror Remake. Changed for "Do this any number of times:"

[soulnet]

Probably, instead of doing birthright a reaction, you want it to be a "while this is in play effect", or similar.

Sorry I missed this comment before. I want the Reaction to make the discard part as a usable "retrieve the discarded cards back", especially as a defense against discard Attacks.

[Rubby]

On a separate note, it would be nice to hear other people's opinions on the "repeat any number of times:" wording. Maybe I'm the only one who thinks it's unfitting.

Well, Remake has "Do this twice:", that's kind of similar.

And a few cards have "any number of cards".

But whether silverspawn's presumption is correct or not, I wouldn't call it disrespectful to Donald; it wasn't a character assessment, just an opinion on what does or doesn't seem like Dominion style.

[pacovf]

Hum. I was trying to find a version that would:

-not let you set aside cards and put them in your hand the same turn;
-not let you "island" cards.

But of course this doesn't let you defend against discard attacks...

You might ask why I am trying to find a version that verifies the first condition. Well, it cuts down on warehouse craziness, for one.

[soulnet]

Hum. I was trying to find a version that would:

-not let you set aside cards and put them in your hand the same turn;
-not let you "island" cards.

But of course this doesn't let you defend against discard attacks...

You might ask why I am trying to find a version that verifies the first condition. Well, it cuts down on warehouse craziness, for one.

Islanding cards was part of the idea, so I do not want to avoid that possibility. I started with a "while in play" clause, but it was harder to make it work, and as a Duration it was too powerful. Reactions are harder to make work as a defense, and also requires you to put the cards on the mat and retrieve later, which is good for discard. Since discarding is not always available, that seems like a good way to allow combos.

I think the current cap is decent enough with Warehouse, Cellar, Embassy, Storeroom, Secret Chamber, Vault and Oasis. I mean, sure, it is a good combo, but combos are good as long as they are not utterly dominant rendering the rest of the board useless most of the time.