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Dominion: Civilization (Beta)

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AdrianHealey:

Greetings forum,

A while ago Roadrunner and I started working on an expansion together, we were stuck a bit, until Theta joined us and then everything went pretty quickly. So today I have the honor to present to you the beta version of a new fan expansion called 'civilization'. Most of the cards have seen sufficient playtesting to warant 'probably ok' label, but some could use some more. (Unfortunately, I don't have all the expansions yet in real life, so extensive playtesting is and will be kind of difficult.)

We welcome any and all feedback that you might have, things you think we might have missed, etc. The next post will (eventually) gather all the cards that are currently part of the set and, if any, take outs that we will redesign based on feedback on things we missed.

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What is the theme of civilization? Well, as an economist, I view civilization as an increase in the division of labor, specialization and usage of comparative advantage. It's better if everybody has it's own role, that he/she/they are very good at and leave other things for other people. So the predominant theme of civilization fan expansion is:

- Cards with diminishing power the more you have of them. (Think chapel, not minion. Think Militia, not goons. Think moneylender, not herald. Think Soothsayer, not advisor.) Most cards in the set will be very good at what they do, but the more you play versions of them in the same turn (or even: the more versions you have in your deck), the weaker they will be. Buy a few, and move on. (This is, btw, slightly different than Cornucopia, where variety in general is rewarded. This is less so, although, I must admit, working on this expansion has created some nice respect for the design quality of cornucopia.)

- The second theme, also pretty important (but less present as the previous one) is 'interaction'. There are the obvious 'attack'-interactions, but there are also a bunch of 'non-attack' interactions during the game. Like in any good civilization, you often have to deal with people you don't like, with annoying customers, rude bartenders, boring colleagues or just straight up jerks on the street. Civilization represents this by ways to help or annoy your opponent without actually attacking them in any specific sense.

At the moment, we have 28 cards and 3 events, which is a lot. But well, designing them was and is fun. And playtesting was too. Every card presented will come with a small description, to the extend that we can, on it's history, and some typical 'let's discuss card x' questions. We welcome any and all comments. Feel free to congratulate the art work, because Theta has done a great job on it, as far as I am concerned.

We also have used several mechanics from other expansions, such as overpay, ruins, and debt. We know some people dislike it when fanexpansions do that. We have decided to not limit ourselves. Please, there is no need to repeat that old discussion, so we kindly ask to refrain from commenting on that particular design choice.

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A small teaser on some of the cards/mechanics we use:

- There is a seasons card. (Thanks Asper & Cookielord!)
- There is card that you can overpay with debt.
- The 'flash' mechanic is used, twice! (Thanks Cookielord!)
- A card with a supply pile of 20.
- A permanent duration
- A quasi-moatable attack event
- A bunch of other things, some that are more straighforward and normal, and others that really (we think) have pushed the limits of design.

No cards are final although some cards are more final than others. Feel free to post your comments in a nice and constructive way. We have worked long on this with lots of (difficult) communication (communicating between Europe-USA is difficult enough, but we have very different live styles and are awake and productive on very different times).

We hope you like them and that at least some of them are interesting enough to want to play with.

Lastly, keep the thread civilized (haha). Some minors are watching this thread, so mind your language.

AdrianHealey:
Tier 1 status: (Playtested and found excellent.)



Tier 2 status: (Playtested and probably good.)



Tier 3 status: (Playtested, but still uncertain.)




Tier 4 status: Still a big question mark.


Tier 5 status: Outtakes

ThetaSigma12:
You may have noticed that we have 3 cards that use Co0kiel0rd's Mechanics. But every card you see uses Co0kiel0rd's template. The cards would look only half as good without him. Thanks so much! While on the topic of templates, you may notice that they conform with Empires. Vanilla boni are bold and the text size is altered based on how much empty room their is. This will be the same for all cards now and in the future.
A few things not covered in the above posts:
Civilization is not desinged to be a complete set. While designing we did not try to have a balance of trashers, terminals, villages, etc.
We might go back and smooth this out later.
A minor theme is sifting, and many cards sift. Because of this Civilization is defiantly more of a sloggy set.

Adrian doesn't get a chance to log on as much as me so I'll collect the current versions of the cards here, and maybe I can get Adrian to delete the post above sometime.
Finished cards, only possible asectical updates:


Good cards, put possible changes later:

Recently changed or made, still have some big questions:


Outtakes, for whatever reason:
(Balanced, but niche)
(Balanced, but tracking nightmares)
(Balanced, but not unique)
(Balanced, but not unique)

AdrianHealey:


Bladesmith.

Man, it's like Embassy's big brother; discarding more (but doesn't discard from hand) and drawing on net more. But man, Bladesmiths really hates other bladesmiths and would kill them if he meets them. That's how much he hates them. But choosing between 2 and 5 cards to put in your hand? That's sweet. Bladesmith likes really fat decks or really slim decks, everything in between, well, than having multiple gets a bit dangerous.

So sure, you always want at least one bladesmith. But will you get another? Who knows. If Bladesmith is the only terminal draw; what will you do then?

Bladesmith originally started out as a card that revealed and trashed itself, but you could put all seasons cards in your hand. The final alteration you see here.

What do you think?



Ah, collection. It's like a recycling agency for action cards. You'd probably don't want to collect herald, village or minion, but maybe a moneylender, a seahag or a beggar might work.

It originally started as a $3, but man, BM collection was pretty strong. We bumped it to 4. I wanted to have an on-trash penalty of, say, 'gain <3>', but we ended up with the regular version you see here. What do you think? Should it have an on-trash penalty to make sure people don't just collect collections? Either way, collection is never really in the way, because of it's can trip nature. And well, putting a gold on top of your deck isn't the worst thing in the world either.

My personal fear is that the card is a little bit too strong (as in: just play big money collection). And that would defeat the purpose of the expansion (namely: cards you want some of, but not too many.)

Let us know wht you think, more are on the way.

LibraryAdventurer:
What is the purpose of Bladesmith trashing other Bladesmiths?  It shouldn't be just to fit the theme of the set if it doesn't make the card better. I'd rather compare it to Journeyman than Embassy, and it looks only slightly stronger than Journeyman, so it probably doesn't need the drawback.

Other than that, they both look like good cards. Looking forward to the rest of the set.

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