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Author Topic: Something Simple  (Read 9709 times)

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Drab Emordnilap

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Re: Something Simple
« Reply #25 on: October 07, 2015, 02:10:47 am »
0


Like Goons which can lead to games with 20 VP tokens or more?
People who worry about fan made VP token gaining cards leading to a stall might wanna stop playing with the very official VP token gaining cards which actually do break the game.

How does Goons break the game? It doesn't lead the game to a stall.
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tristan

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Re: Something Simple
« Reply #26 on: October 07, 2015, 02:19:19 am »
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Like Goons which can lead to games with 20 VP tokens or more?
People who worry about fan made VP token gaining cards leading to a stall might wanna stop playing with the very official VP token gaining cards which actually do break the game.

How does Goons break the game? It doesn't lead the game to a stall.
Goons breaks the game because among the three VP token gaining cards this very card amasses on average by far the most VP tokens. Bishop Fortress is just one combo that occurs infrequently and Monument provides on average the fewest VP tokens but Goons leads to a huge pile of them in many different kinds of decks.

Now you are of course right, Goons does not technically lead the game to a stall (neither would a non-terminal VP token gaining card as the player who does not use them still buys cards). But the player with the smoothly Goons engine has no incentive to end the game so he might e.g. still buy further villages and Goons for his engine and green fairly late.

Theoretical worries like Monument + KC that rarely occur or the lack of incentive to end the game in the presence of non-terminal VP token gaining cards are kinda strange when the elephant in the room, Goons, is ignored.
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Drab Emordnilap

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Re: Something Simple
« Reply #27 on: October 07, 2015, 02:36:40 am »
+1

Now you are of course right, Goons does not technically lead the game to a stall (neither would a non-terminal VP token gaining card as the player who does not use them still buys cards). But the player with the smoothly Goons engine has no incentive to end the game so he might e.g. still buy further villages and Goons for his engine and green fairly late.

But buying further villages and Goons for his engine IS ending the game. Once he empties three piles, the game is over. A non-terminal VP token gainer doesn't make you progress towards ending the game to increase your score; to increase your score with Goons, you have to move the game towards ending (barring corner cases like refilling piles with Ambassador + opponent's Lighthouse, or Trader + empty Silver pile).

EDIT: You could certainly argue that Goons is too centralizing, in that any board with Goons on it almost certainly involves playing Goons as part of a winning strategy. But that's true of other cards, too (Chapel being the most obvious one), and I wouldn't call them "game-breaking".
« Last Edit: October 07, 2015, 02:38:27 am by Drab Emordnilap »
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eHalcyon

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Re: Something Simple
« Reply #28 on: October 07, 2015, 03:57:28 am »
+1

neither would a non-terminal VP token gaining card as the player who does not use them still buys cards

As it says in the Secret Histories, Donald X. tested it and the cantrip +VP leads to unending games where players actively avoid buying cards.

Amassing a giant pile of VP tokens with Goons is not a problem.  A never-ending game is, and Goons happily avoids it by requiring you to progress the game towards an end condition in order to gain VP.
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tristan

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Re: Something Simple
« Reply #29 on: October 07, 2015, 04:32:28 am »
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neither would a non-terminal VP token gaining card as the player who does not use them still buys cards

As it says in the Secret Histories, Donald X. tested it and the cantrip +VP leads to unending games where players actively avoid buying cards.
Yep. But here we talk about a non-cantrip, non-terminal VP token gainer.

This very card most likely gains far less VP tokens than Goons as the VP tokens it gains will be used often enough to draw cards. Goons is after all, besides being by far the strognest VP token gainer, a Militia with an extra buy and thus clearly overpowered at 6 whereas the card in this very thread does just gain VP tokens that can be spent to draw cards
I think that the this is simple trade-off but a new one that is IMO quite interesting. If the card is too strong one could price it at 5.
« Last Edit: October 07, 2015, 04:34:48 am by tristan »
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iguanaiguana

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Re: Something Simple
« Reply #30 on: October 07, 2015, 10:41:16 am »
+1

Perhaps the best way to think about it is that it is either a cantrip or a vp gainer per play. On its own either is pretty weak, together there is a bit of synergy. Cantrip vp is perhaps gamebreaking but this isn't cantrip vp.
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LastFootnote

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Re: Something Simple
« Reply #31 on: October 07, 2015, 11:42:06 am »
+1

Perhaps the best way to think about it is that it is either a cantrip or a vp gainer per play. On its own either is pretty weak, together there is a bit of synergy. Cantrip vp is perhaps gamebreaking but this isn't cantrip vp.

It could be, though. Scrying Pool will just draw them all and you can play each one every turn. Or you can put your +1 Card token on this pile with Teacher or Pathfinding.

I've used Lost Arts on Monument before, and that's pretty insane. But the +$2 I got from each Monument made me buy other stuff and end the game. I still wanted Laboratories and Provinces. There's no such incentive here.

I think the general idea of spending tokens to draw cards is good, but I think it'd be better if they were either Coin tokens or just some new kind of token altogether.
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Davio

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Re: Something Simple
« Reply #32 on: October 07, 2015, 12:36:16 pm »
+4

My initial motivation was that I wanted to present the player with a non-straightforward decision: keep the VP token, or draw (a) card(s).

The lack of any other resources (+Buy, +$) were specifically to weaken the card. +1 Action / +1 VP in itself isn't that great. Sure it gets better when you combine it with certain cards like Scrying Pool, but even Pearl Diver gets better with Scrying Pool.

The main question is: Would you really lack the incentive to end the game if you would just bank the VP tokens? I have a feeling that if you play this+BM, you'll get smoked by just about any other BM. So, you need an engine. But engines are pretty good at ending the game.

How about if I turned it around?

+1 Card
+1 VP token

Spend VP tokens for actions.

You draw the card before deciding to spend, so that makes that part more powerful, but overall it seems weaker if it doesn't give free actions.
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tristan

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Re: Something Simple
« Reply #33 on: October 07, 2015, 03:31:36 pm »
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I think that this is too weak for a 4. +1 Card is most likely weaker than the +2$ of Monument and I doubt that you'd use this card as pseudo-village except perhaps in decks without any villages.
So I suggest to stick to the original version. If it is too strong / abusive you can still price it at 5.
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eHalcyon

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Re: Something Simple
« Reply #34 on: October 07, 2015, 04:01:13 pm »
+1

My initial motivation was that I wanted to present the player with a non-straightforward decision: keep the VP token, or draw (a) card(s).

The lack of any other resources (+Buy, +$) were specifically to weaken the card. +1 Action / +1 VP in itself isn't that great. Sure it gets better when you combine it with certain cards like Scrying Pool, but even Pearl Diver gets better with Scrying Pool.

The main question is: Would you really lack the incentive to end the game if you would just bank the VP tokens? I have a feeling that if you play this+BM, you'll get smoked by just about any other BM. So, you need an engine. But engines are pretty good at ending the game.

How about if I turned it around?

+1 Card
+1 VP token

Spend VP tokens for actions.

You draw the card before deciding to spend, so that makes that part more powerful, but overall it seems weaker if it doesn't give free actions.

The problem isn't the card + BM.  It's in a trimmed deck that does nothing but play this as much as possible.  Cantrip +VP is proven to be problematic.  This card, as a non-terminal +VP, is less scary but still holds similarly dangerous potential.  Traditional engines are pretty good at ending the game, but an engine (or just a slim deck) designed solely to play this card may not be.

This new version is definitely better.  Making it semi-terminal puts it back in the realm of official +VP cards, where it's not so easy to abuse.  In games without villages, it becomes an interesting decision in how to stockpile VP tokens in order to fuel bigger turns with this as village.  Is it worth the effort?  It may well be, but it would be a tricky (and therefore interesting!) path to walk.

I expect it would function more as a mostly-nerfed village than a VP gainer, so I would start testing at $2.  It might occasionally be a viable source of VP (in games awash with other villages), but that would probably be rare.  It would be most interesting with Goons and maybe Bishop, where a better source of +VP would make this into a far more consistent village.
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