Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Fragasnap]

Cemetery
Types: Victory
Cost: $3
Worth 1VP for every 2 Estates in the trash (rounded down).When you gain this, trash any number of cards from your hand.

In testing:
Since it can be used as a one-time Forge-a-like (in terms of trashing), it proved useful regardless of its Victory points: With a big hand it can be worth picking one up for the super fast trashing it gives. The problem it ultimately has is that players have to be tricky to be able to get enough of them for its points to be worth building up. A 3-5 or 3-4-5 Cemetery split doesn't count for much, even ignoring that it is stronger in multiplayer.

Edit: Silly me, fixed the image.

[eHalcyon]

With 2p and decent trashing available (possibly counting itself), you can expect this to be worth 3VP as both players trash their starting Estates.  That makes this a $3 Duchy, which seems a bit dangerous to game balance to me.  It's more of a concern with more players.  In 3p you can expect it to be worth 4VP, in 4p it'll be worth 6VP.  A $3 Province seems rather swingy.  This is without considering possibilities like buying and trashing Estates (especially with Watchtower) if you win the split by enough.

I think it would work better by increasing the cost to $4 and counting every 3 Victory cards.  Counting every 3 would make its VP value approximately 1:1 to number of players in presence of decent trashing (probably no longer counting itself).  $4 for 2VP plus bonus has precedence (Island), and $4 for 4VP in the 4p game is not too outrageous, I guess.  Possibly it becomes less likely that all players trash all Estates at that point anyway.  Counting every 3 also makes it less viable to buy and trash Estates for this.

Counting all Victory cards seems like a harmless buff.  It often doesn't matter, but it's a bit better with Shelters and offers a somewhat interesting decision when you buy a Cemetery when you have another in hand.  Is it worth trashing your Cemetery to remove the dead card, but potentially making opponents' Cemeteries better?  It can also matter with various trashing attacks and TfB.

Depending on what you intended with this card, the increased cost may be undesirable because it makes the card just a little less effective for trashing.  On the other hand, that puts the emphasis back on its potential VP value.

But really, my concern is mainly with how strong it can be with higher player counts.  We don't really think about the 3p game or *shudder* the 4p game much on f.ds, but it's still something that should be considered when designing fan cards.  Did you test it with 4p and good Estate trashing like Chapel or JoaT?

[Destry]

Since the value scales up with the number of players, how about a variable cost? Have it cost $1 + $1/player, and be worth 1VP/2 victory cards in the trash.

Seems like it could be enormously swingy depending on the boards, which can be fun.

[Asper]

I like eHalcyon's suggestion. It scales by up to one point per player, but the more players there are the lower is the chance that they actually will trash all their Estates.

[faust]

Counting all Victory cards seems like a harmless buff.

Rebuild disagrees.

[eHalcyon]

Counting all Victory cards seems like a harmless buff.

Rebuild disagrees.

Nice catch.  That would be one exception that could make Cemetery much more powerful, but it also probably makes Rebuild games more interesting.  How do you incorporate it into the strategy?  In a non-mirror, can the non-Rebuild player plan to load up on Cemeteries to catch up?  This seems like more of a positive point for the change than anything.

[popsofctown]

As it written this has to be on the other side of the 4-5$ gap I think.  On the other side of the 4-5$ gap I think it will scale into multiplayer in a more acceptable way just by the nature of that, though.  Being able to buy Embassy, Catacombs, or Duchy at the same price point of this thing makes it easier to adopt a strategy that refuses to trash your own Estates and still compete, sometimes, other times Cemetery might be obviously mandatory anyway, but that is ok, Vineyards and Duke are like that too.

[Fragasnap]

I'm quoting you out of order so that I can address points in a logical fashion.

But really, my concern is mainly with how strong it can be with higher player counts.  We don't really think about the 3p game or *shudder* the 4p game much on f.ds, but it's still something that should be considered when designing fan cards.  Did you test it with 4p and good Estate trashing like Chapel or JoaT?

I don't think it got testing in 4-player games, but I play mostly 3-player games and occasional 2-player games. In most games players buy 1 or 2 Cemeteries. When a player tries to pursue it as an alternate Victory strategy, a Cemetery rush is initiated that often cannot be won by a significant enough margin to make continuing to build it up worthwhile.
What I think you are overestimating is its inherent value. Cemetery is pretty worthless until other players chip in to make it valuable. Cemetery presents a similar problem to City in that way: The threat of a player trying to power-up Cemetery is enough to initiate a Cemetery rush (a rush that, of course, makes Cemetery a better card), and you have to win the split by a large amount to make building them up at all worthwhile.

With 2p and decent trashing available (possibly counting itself), you can expect this to be worth 3VP as both players trash their starting Estates.  That makes this a $3 Duchy, which seems a bit dangerous to game balance to me.  It's more of a concern with more players.  In 3p you can expect it to be worth 4VP, in 4p it'll be worth 6VP.  A $3 Province seems rather swingy.  This is without considering possibilities like buying and trashing Estates (especially with Watchtower) if you win the split by enough.

I can confirm that "itself" is not good enough trashing even at its low price point to ensure every player's Estates will end up in the trash. Most games would end with Cemeteries being worth 2VP or 4VP in 3-player. The reason players would still have Estates is because there are only so many times you can spend $3 on a Victory card in an earlier portion of the game, and spending $3 to trash one Victory card for another Victory card, while possibly initiating the Cemetery rush is not worth it--especially considering how much one has to win the Cemetery split by to make building it up viable.

Counting all Victory cards seems like a harmless buff.  It often doesn't matter, but it's a bit better with Shelters and offers a somewhat interesting decision when you buy a Cemetery when you have another in hand.  Is it worth trashing your Cemetery to remove the dead card, but potentially making opponents' Cemeteries better?  It can also matter with various trashing attacks and TfB.

I think counting any trashed Victory card would be far too frustrating and swingy in Swindler and Knight games (wherein someone can "win" the Cemetery split by a large margin by trashing other players' Cemeteries while pushing Cemetery's value upward via the trashing) and would exacerbate leads in games with flexible trash-for-benefits like Salvager and Remodel, allowing players to power up Cemeteries while draining available points to other players.
Then there is the weird fluctuation from Duchies, Cemeteries, etc. coming back out of the trash with Graverobber and Rogue...

Counting all Victory cards seems like a harmless buff.

Rebuild disagrees.

Nice catch.  That would be one exception that could make Cemetery much more powerful, but it also probably makes Rebuild games more interesting.  How do you incorporate it into the strategy?  In a non-mirror, can the non-Rebuild player plan to load up on Cemeteries to catch up?  This seems like more of a positive point for the change than anything.

I think it would just make whoever wins the Cemetery split win the game.
Play Rebuild, name Cemetery because who cares what you trash, it makes your Cemeteries better!

Depending on what you intended with this card, the increased cost may be undesirable because it makes the card just a little less effective for trashing.  On the other hand, that puts the emphasis back on its potential VP value.

If you increase the cost of Cemetery, it would probably be a rare instance when once could afford to buy it for only trashing, it could only ever be bought for its Victory points.
The problem that you're not taking into account is its communal nature. By the time you have 4VP Dukes, you have at least 12VP in your deck. Not so with Cemetery: Cemetery's value is equal for all players; not based on the composition of your own deck. If you're building up Cemetery, you're increasing every player (who owns a Cemetery)'s points.
Consider the best case scenario in 2-player where you win a Cemetery split 6-2. Realistically, if this happens, you've trashed your starting 3 Estates, but the other player probably hasn't trashed all of his, so Cemeteries are probably only worth 2VP, so you're a big 8VP up (and seriously, only 12VP even if all starting Estates were trashed) for 4 additional dead cards in your deck. Now you can work to make Cemetery more valuable by getting more Estates and trashing them. Every time Cemetery goes up a level, you gain 6VP, but that is comparatively 4VP against the other player. But then remember that to level up Cemetery, you're spending 2 Buys\gains to get the Estates and yet more turns and deck manipulation (or prayer) to trash those Estates, which then costs you 2VP! You go through all that work to get 6VP - 2VP - 2VP = 2VP (For a 3-player example, how about a 6-4-2 split, where you're now helping the guy with 4 Cemeteries since he's not doing any work for the points against the 2-Cemetery player and you're not even gaining any points on the 4-Cemetery player in so doing, though we are looking at a much more profitable 4VP per Cemetery in this example).

I think it would work better by increasing the cost to $4 and counting every 3 Victory cards.

Making Cemetery worse at both trashing and being a Victory card would make the card as dead as the people in it.

I'm really not sure that Cemetery is a good or fun card, but its communal nature makes it interesting.

[eHalcyon]

I don't think it got testing in 4-player games, but I play mostly 3-player games and occasional 2-player games. In most games players buy 1 or 2 Cemeteries. When a player tries to pursue it as an alternate Victory strategy, a Cemetery rush is initiated that often cannot be won by a significant enough margin to make continuing to build it up worthwhile.
What I think you are overestimating is its inherent value. Cemetery is pretty worthless until other players chip in to make it valuable. Cemetery presents a similar problem to City in that way: The threat of a player trying to power-up Cemetery is enough to initiate a Cemetery rush (a rush that, of course, makes Cemetery a better card), and you have to win the split by a large amount to make building them up at all worthwhile.

I can confirm that "itself" is not good enough trashing even at its low price point to ensure every player's Estates will end up in the trash. Most games would end with Cemeteries being worth 2VP or 4VP in 3-player. The reason players would still have Estates is because there are only so many times you can spend $3 on a Victory card in an earlier portion of the game, and spending $3 to trash one Victory card for another Victory card, while possibly initiating the Cemetery rush is not worth it--especially considering how much one has to win the Cemetery split by to make building it up viable.

I specified good trashing.  If Cemetery itself is not good enough, there are plenty of other cards that still give a decent chance of it coming up.  Unlike buying a $5 Village, players actually want to trash their Estates, so it shouldn't be a City-like problem when you have something like Chapel, Remake or Steward.  Those Estates are very likely to get trashed on such boards.

I think counting any trashed Victory card would be far too frustrating and swingy in Swindler and Knight games (wherein someone can "win" the Cemetery split by a large margin by trashing other players' Cemeteries while pushing Cemetery's value upward via the trashing) and would exacerbate leads in games with flexible trash-for-benefits like Salvager and Remodel, allowing players to power up Cemeteries while draining available points to other players.
Then there is the weird fluctuation from Duchies, Cemeteries, etc. coming back out of the trash with Graverobber and Rogue...

I don't think it would be as swingy as you think.  The situation you describe is already swingy with the trashing attacks, and I think that Cemetery would only be a small consideration there.  You need to trash 3 more VP cards to bump up Cemeteries, but those 3 cards are likely to be worth a lot more than the small Cemetery gain.

As for Graverobber and Rogue, you will go in expecting that VP cards could come back out, making Cemetery slightly weaker.  Counting every 3 cards seems enough to temper or even eliminate the fluctuations.  With Rogue especially, you probably aren't going to be accumulating enough non-estate VP cards in the trash for it to make a difference.

I think it would just make whoever wins the Cemetery split win the game.
Play Rebuild, name Cemetery because who cares what you trash, it makes your Cemeteries better!

I am not at all convinced that this would be better than rebuilding into Provinces.  Even if it is, well, I don't think it's any less interesting than Rebuild games already are.  At $4, significantly winning a split is very unlikely.

If you increase the cost of Cemetery, it would probably be a rare instance when once could afford to buy it for only trashing, it could only ever be bought for its Victory points.
The problem that you're not taking into account is its communal nature. By the time you have 4VP Dukes, you have at least 12VP in your deck. Not so with Cemetery: Cemetery's value is equal for all players; not based on the composition of your own deck. If you're building up Cemetery, you're increasing every player (who owns a Cemetery)'s points.
Consider the best case scenario in 2-player where you win a Cemetery split 6-2. Realistically, if this happens, you've trashed your starting 3 Estates, but the other player probably hasn't trashed all of his, so Cemeteries are probably only worth 2VP, so you're a big 8VP up (and seriously, only 12VP even if all starting Estates were trashed) for 4 additional dead cards in your deck. Now you can work to make Cemetery more valuable by getting more Estates and trashing them. Every time Cemetery goes up a level, you gain 6VP, but that is comparatively 4VP against the other player. But then remember that to level up Cemetery, you're spending 2 Buys\gains to get the Estates and yet more turns and deck manipulation (or prayer) to trash those Estates, which then costs you 2VP! You go through all that work to get 6VP - 2VP - 2VP = 2VP (For a 3-player example, how about a 6-4-2 split, where you're now helping the guy with 4 Cemeteries since he's not doing any work for the points against the 2-Cemetery player and you're not even gaining any points on the 4-Cemetery player in so doing, though we are looking at a much more profitable 4VP per Cemetery in this example).

I think you are missing the problem that I was outlining.  Specifically, that all starting Estates are fairly likely to be trashed with a large number of good trashers (Chapel, Steward, Remake, to name 3 of the biggest ones).  In higher player counts, this can quickly bloat the VP value of Cemetery if it is counting for every 2 Estates. 

In a 4p game, Cemeteries could very well be worth as much as a Province, and would thus be very swingy at $3.  I don't think you should ignore the 4p game.  Even at 3p it can be worth 4VP, which still seems swingy at $3.

Players could opt not to trash their starting Estates, but I think that would make it feel less fun when I could otherwise be trashing everything and building a cool engine.




I guess my main question is whether you want this to be mainly a VP card or mainly an on-gain trashing card.  (Side note: as an on-gain effect, it would still be a very good trasher in combination with gainers like Ironworks even at $4.)  If you want it to be a trasher, then the VP value needs to be much lower, probably to the point where it might sa well not be there at all.

I figured that the VP value was the main thing, so I suggested a change that I think is more balanced.  The suggestion was made with good trashing in mind.  Yes, without that good trashing, my version would probably be dead.  But that's fine -- cards don't have to be viable on every board.  But I do think it would be interesting as an alt VP card with strong trashing, and it would sometimes be a neat trasher with gainers (like Ironworks) or in certain late game contexts (like Forge).


Have you tested it at 3p with strong trashing?  Are the 3 players not trashing all their Estates even with Chapel?

[Fragasnap]

I specified good trashing.  If Cemetery itself is not good enough, there are plenty of other cards that still give a decent chance of it coming up.  Unlike buying a $5 Village, players actually want to trash their Estates, so it shouldn't be a City-like problem when you have something like Chapel, Remake or Steward.  Those Estates are very likely to get trashed on such boards.

True. However, Cemetery is easy to buy. Winning the Cemetery split is incredibly hard (since unlike Fool's Gold, buying 2 $3 cards in a turn is fairly difficult), and winning it doesn't give you a huge edge against a slim deck.
It's similar to how hard it is to ignore Vineyard if there is a cantrip on the board: You have to consider Cemetery on a board with good trashing. In a 4-player game particularly, if every player is trashing his Estates, everyone will be buying Cemeteries: That is the nature of the card. And winning a Cemetery split by more than 2 against 4-players is all but impossible if players are trying to buy them.

Have you tested it at 3p with strong trashing?  Are the 3 players not trashing all their Estates even with Chapel?

Yes. When all players trash their starting Estates, they are also buying Cemeteries, so no one wins the Cemetery split. If someone does win the Cemetery split, you're usually looking at a 5-4-3 distribution, so one player is 4VP up on one player and 8VP up on another for having 2 more junk cards that he had to buy early (so talking about opportunity cost...). If the split ends up better than that, players will simply keep their Estates so that the player with 6+ Cemeteries will be stuck with them being worthless.

Players could opt not to trash their starting Estates, but I think that would make it feel less fun when I could otherwise be trashing everything and building a cool engine.

And in Possession games there are often all kinds of engines that would be fun to do, but you have to green early (and carefully) to combat Possession. Cemetery changes the way players approach trashing their Estates. If you and other players trash Estates, you have to buy Cemeteries. If someone has a lot of Cemeteries, you can't trash Estates.

But I do think it would be interesting as an alt VP card with strong trashing, and it would sometimes be a neat trasher with gainers (like Ironworks) or in certain late game contexts (like Forge).

I already covered why building its value up doesn't allow it to work as an alternate Victory strategy right now with its higher VP value. Cemetery will be an utter non-entity if its VP value is lower.
I can see value in putting it up to a cost of $4, but I worry that increment would make the card swingier since winning a split by chance for a $4 Victory card will occur a lot more often than for a $3 card in the event of a rush.

[eHalcyon]

Right, that playtest experience seems to line up with what I expected, and it's what I am attempting to correct with my suggested changes.  The thing is, I don't think it's good if everyone feels like they have to contest the split immediately.  Just because the split will be even doesn't mean that the card is balanced.  That said, I'm not sure that rushing to (try to) win the split is the right move anyway. 

You point out that people could opt not to trash their Estates... so what happens then?  If you spend all your early game buying dead VP cards instead of building your deck, I expect that you will lose.  This is almost certainly true if you are the only one to trash your starting Estates, making Cemetery worth very little, but I suspect it is also true if all players start by trashing their Estates and building a standard engine headed for Provinces.  But then there is this pile of Duchy+ for $3 which I think would be really bad for game balance with more players.

I suspect that the equilibrium then is that people would mostly ignore Cemetery and play as they would if it weren't on the board, except that they feel bad about trashing their Estates and maybe they don't do it after all.  At that point, it's just a wasted card slot.

Back during the mini-set design contests, WanderingWinder posted about Fancy Balance Issues.  I feel like Cemetery has some of that.  Either everybody trashes and it's this terribly strong VP card (again, very possibly worth 6VP in a 4p game) that people feel obligated to buy early (or they leave it and it really screws with the end game later); or people don't trash starting Estates and it's an extremely weak card.



To address some of the more specific points you bring up -- I think it is incorrect to compare it to alt VP like Vineyard, Fairgrounds, Silk Road, Gardens.  These are cards that you can build a deck around.  As you pointed out earlier, the communal nature of Cemetery makes it far less viable to be a central part of your plan.  Not to mention, there is not much viable support for increasing the value of Cemetery beyond the trashing of starting Estates.

Despite its variability, I think it is better compared to static alt VP like Island and Tunnel.  My hope is that by lowering the ratio to 1:3, the VP potential is tame enough that people find it safe to trash their starting Estates as they desire.  With that in mind, the VP value becomes much more predictable and consistent at all player counts.  Instead of being either either a $3 Confusion or a $3 Province, it becomes a stable $4 Island.

I think that the comparison to Possession is incorrect because Possession does not have that effect in every game, or even most games.  If you choose to always ignore Possession entirely, I think you will win more than you lose.  The threat of Possession only changes my strategy when it can be played often, i.e. primarily with King's Court.  And keep in mind that Possession is one of the most hated cards in the game as it is.  It also comes with a hefty opportunity cost of $6P, whereas your playtesting suggests that Cemetery is oppressive from the start of the game.  (Vineyard is doubly a poor comparison by the same token -- the potion cost is an important consideration.)



I believe that the changes I suggested weaken the card enough that people feel free to trash starting Estates when possible (again -- Chapel, Steward, Remake, just to name a few).  This in turn means that the card is valuable enough to be worth consideration in the late game at all player counts -- $4 for 2VP is definitely fair, $4 for 3VP is a bargain, and $4 for 4VP is a steal that starts to bring back some of those "do I trash or don't I?" questions that you see with the current version, while being a bit more reasonable about it.

It's true that the card would be dead when good trashing isn't available, but that's fine.  They can't all be the best card all the time, and it sounds like even the original Cemetery is mostly dead in the same situation.

If you think both changes are too radical, I would suggest using the 1VP per 3 trashed VP cards instead of the price increase.  But the concern there is still for games with more players.

[Awaclus]

Well, the bottom part alone makes it an automatic buy on every single board with your opening $3 hand. Great Hall + Shelters is already as good as that (although sometimes you have to sacrifice your $4 hand for it which is a bit worse), but at least there are a lot of Great Hall games without Shelters and a lot of Shelters games without Great Hall, so they don't result in a dumb obvious play every time they appear on the board.

[Fragasnap]

I think that the comparison to Possession is incorrect because Possession does not have that effect in every game, or even most games. ... It also comes with a hefty opportunity cost of $6P, whereas your playtesting suggests that Cemetery is oppressive from the start of the game.

The reason you are getting that sense is because Cemetery presents its threat on turn 1 instead of the end-game, unlike Possession. Probably somewhere around 33% of Cemetery games had players buying only 1 for its on-gain and otherwise ignoring it.

I believe that the changes I suggested weaken the card enough that people feel free to trash starting Estates when possible (again -- Chapel, Steward, Remake, just to name a few).  This in turn means that the card is valuable enough to be worth consideration in the late game at all player counts -- $4 for 2VP is definitely fair, $4 for 3VP is a bargain, and $4 for 4VP is a steal that starts to bring back some of those "do I trash or don't I?" questions that you see with the current version, while being a bit more reasonable about it.

It's true that the card would be dead when good trashing isn't available, but that's fine.  They can't all be the best card all the time, and it sounds like even the original Cemetery is mostly dead in the same situation.

Cemetery is really only mostly dead because players either buy 1 for a quick "Forge" in the middle portion of the game or else have to rush them.

To address some of the more specific points you bring up -- I think it is incorrect to compare it to alt VP like Vineyard, Fairgrounds, Silk Road, Gardens.  These are cards that you can build a deck around.  As you pointed out earlier, the communal nature of Cemetery makes it far less viable to be a central part of your plan.  Not to mention, there is not much viable support for increasing the value of Cemetery beyond the trashing of starting Estates.

I agree. I was trying to emphasize how bad Cemetery is as an alternative path to Victory, regardless of its value.

Despite its variability, I think it is better compared to static alt VP like Island and Tunnel.  My hope is that by lowering the ratio to 1:3, the VP potential is tame enough that people find it safe to trash their starting Estates as they desire.  With that in mind, the VP value becomes much more predictable and consistent at all player counts.  Instead of being either either a $3 Confusion or a $3 Province, it becomes a stable $4 Island.

The card hadn't seen much play testing for a while. It's been sitting on my workbench since its play did not prove particularly compelling. Forumites often talk about other count-the-trash Victory cards, so I am glad to have this discussion.

I am convinced Cemetery will be healthier at a 1VP to 3 Estate ratio. I don't think counting all Victory cards is worth making swingy trashing-Attack games any swingier.

Well, the bottom part alone makes it an automatic buy on every single board with your opening $3 hand. Great Hall + Shelters is already as good as that (although sometimes you have to sacrifice your $4 hand for it which is a bit worse), but at least there are a lot of Great Hall games without Shelters and a lot of Shelters games without Great Hall, so they don't result in a dumb obvious play every time they appear on the board.

I was not aware of this. Do you have a link to any discussion or analysis that has occurred to that end? I would not have thought "-1 dead card" would always compare very well to a Silver, board depending.
If that really is the case, I guess Cemetery would have to cost $4.

[eHalcyon]

Glad to have the discussion too!

Probably somewhere around 33% of Cemetery games had players buying only 1 for its on-gain and otherwise ignoring it.

Right, I am mainly concerned about how it plays out when you don't need it for the trashing (because strong trashing is already available elsewhere).

I don't think counting all Victory cards is worth making swingy trashing-Attack games any swingier.

Assuming that the rest of it works (which is, of course, not certain), I think it would be interesting to try the change.  Does it really make trashing-attack games significantly swingier?  And if so, could it still be worthwhile for other cases of interest (in particular, TfB and Rebuild)?

I was not aware of this. Do you have a link to any discussion or analysis that has occurred to that end? I would not have thought "-1 dead card" would always compare very well to a Silver, board depending.
If that really is the case, I guess Cemetery would have to cost $4.

In the Secret History of Dark Ages:

Hovel is the only one that changed. Originally it was an action you could trash by discarding your hand. It turned out that trashing it turn 1-2 usually seemed like the correct play, even if you drew it with four Coppers. So that was no good. Hovel as printed has nice flavor going for it; you move out of your old Hovel and into a nice Duchy.

With this change, the same choice exists when Great Hall is on the board.