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[Adrienaline]

This has not been playtested yet. I looked through the fora and couldn't see another one with the same idea. Feel free to call me names if this seems like as bad of an idea as it may do. I will playtest it and report back.

Vagrant
Type: Victory
Cost: 6 coins
1 VP
For every 8 cards in the trash pile, this is worth an additional 1 VP

I wanted it to be worth buying on a Fairgrounds/Trade Route deck if there were no trashers, hence the 1VP + additional, rather than just based on the number of cards in the trash deck.

Is 8 cards too many? Not enough? Is 6 coins too expensive? I will playtest and report back, but initial thoughts?

[DStu]

Despite the TR/Fairgrounds-interaction the card is still useless on a wide range of boards. 1VP for $6 is never* a good buy. The standard way to get around this is to make the card itself a trasher. Which I think might get pretty interesting, because the card has a really nice selfsynergy then.

One other problem might be scaling in multiplayer, you expect the number of cards in the trash to be proportional to the number of players, and thus the VPs of this card also scale proportional to the number of players.

[Titandrake]

In a 2 player game, assuming both players run Chapel and trash all starting cards, 20 cards are in the trash. So Vagrant = 3 VP. So either the card multiple or the VP per card needs to be boosted.

But more to the point, without trashers on the board this is completely dead. Something like a Farmland effect or an Action-Victory card that trashes stuff would make the card work better.

Finally, this isn't really a mark against the card, but...where's the challenge? As a comparison:

Gardens forces you to quickly build a large deck.
Duke forces you to buy Duchies without killing your economy
Fairgrounds forces you to buy a variety of cards.
Silk Road is similar to Gardens, but with more emphasis on sustained economy to keep greening. (this might not be true, I'm terrible with Silk Road)
Vagrant forces you to trash cards, which is likely what you were going to do in the first place, so you don't have to go out of your way to do something?

This doesn't matter if you only care about balance, but if you want to keep playing with the card, there's some point where you need to decide whether the card is interesting enough. If it's too easy to pump up Vagrant VP, it'll turn into "Oh look, there's that consolation prize again"

[DStu]

This doesn't matter if you only care about balance, but if you want to keep playing with the card, there's some point where you need to decide whether the card is interesting enough. If it's too easy to pump up Vagrant VP, it'll turn into "Oh look, there's that consolation prize again"

Hmm, depends on the scaling I would say. As long as with "standard" trashing, it's say 3VPs for $6, it's still forcing you to organize some more trashing to make it an interesting cards.
Alternative VPs always also offer the possibility to not race for the Provinces, but give you the time to build up an engine, and win the game despite losing the Province split.  This one could be similar, I think it's hard to balance, but it might be intersting to build an engine that can reliable trash 3 cards per turn, to get the VPs it needs to make up for the time it took to set it up.

[petrie911]

I had this idea for a card that's kind of similar.

Scrapyard
$6 Action-Victory

Trash a card from your hand.
---
Worth 1VP for every $6 in the total cost of the cards in the trash (rounded down).

The numbers might need adjusting, but the idea is that it needs more in the trash than just a bunch of coppers to be worth it.

[def]

The number of players should be included somehow, otherwise it can't be balanced properly.

[Adrienaline]

How about this then?

Tallow field
$6 Duration-Victory
When you buy this you may trash up to 5 (minus the total number of players) of cards from your next hand before the action phase
Worth 1VP for every 8 cards in the trash pile at the end of the game [rounded down]

With two or three players and no other trashers this reaches 3VP if the effect is used completely each time, but there are so many other cards that trash that it could reach more if you built enough redundancy into your deck. Particularly as redundancy in decks has a hard time hitting $6, this could work without being overpowered.

Building a deck designed to be heavily trashed to go with this strategy could be difficult if it were priced at $6 though, maybe $5 might be a better price?

[Tejayes]

For my Locomotion fan-expansion (man, I've been neglecting that baby), I've been trying to rework Terminus as basically petrie's Scrapyard (which is, coincidentally, what I renamed Locomotion's Junkyard). This is where I'm currently at:

TERMINUS
---
Trash up to four cards from your hand. Discard the rest of your hand.
-
This card is worth 1 VP for every 5*P cards in the Trash at the end of the game (round down) (P = number of players).
--
Action/Victory - $5

So yes, this is basically a Victory-version of Chapel (if I ever get to posting my Dominion: Improvement fan-expansion, you'll see why...) with the added penalty of forcing a full discard. In other words, you'll need cards with plenty of +$ and +Buy to provide enough buying power and trashing fodder.

As for the 5*P caveat, this is to prevent the card from getting too ridiculous in games with more players. In a 2p game, getting at least 3 VP per Terminus might be feasible even if your opponent opts out of trashing all together (If you were to trash 4 cards each time you play Terminus, you'd need to do so 8 times in order to turn Terminus into a Duchy). In a 4p game, if you're the only one even going for a trash-heavy strategy, forget winning on Termini -- you need to trash 20 cards before it even becomes an Estate.

It still needs MUCH more testing, of course. This may be the 423rd incarnation of Terminus I've gone through now...

[Axxle]

The number of players should be included somehow, otherwise it can't be balanced properly.

The effects of Thief, Noble Brigand, Jester, and Pirate Ship aren't affected by number of players.  I don't think this card really needs to explicitly state number of players (or, in fact, should)

[Tejayes]

The number of players should be included somehow, otherwise it can't be balanced properly.

The effects of Thief, Noble Brigand, Jester, and Pirate Ship aren't affected by number of players.  I don't think this card really needs to explicitly state number of players (or, in fact, should)

The thing is, we're discussing a hypothetical Victory card here, not another Attack. The only variable Victory cards in this game so far deal exclusively with the owner's deck. Perhaps Donald X. has tested Victory cards that vary based on communal attributes, such as trashed cards or depleted piles, and maybe they'll show up in Dark Ages or The Guilds, but nothing like that has made it to an official set yet.

Remember, once a card is trashed, there is no (current official) way to un-trash it. If you have a static number of trashed cards per VP, the VPs will rack up MUCH faster in 4p than 2p, making it a must-buy in the former when it's just an alternate strategy in the latter (assuming there are trashing methods). It's true that the Attack cards you listed get much stronger in multi-opponent games, but they don't really become must-buys. Only Pirate Ship has any real comparison to the hypothetical Victory card, thanks to the irreducible number of tokens gained throughout the game. Even then, the tokens are all owned by a single person. Perhaps if the hypothetical allowed you to keep tabs on cards only you trash, then it wouldn't need to address number of players.

[jonts26]

Remember, once a card is trashed, there is no (current official) way to un-trash it.

Technically both thief and noble brigand let you gain a card from the trash.

[Tejayes]

Remember, once a card is trashed, there is no (current official) way to un-trash it.

Technically both thief and noble brigand let you gain a card from the trash.

True, but not after Thief/NB are both resolved (i.e. once you end Thief/NB, any cards trashed remain trashed). I meant un-trashing cards that were trashed by other cards, anyway.

[jonts26]

Remember, once a card is trashed, there is no (current official) way to un-trash it.

Technically both thief and noble brigand let you gain a card from the trash.

True, but not after Thief/NB are both resolved (i.e. once you end Thief/NB, any cards trashed remain trashed). I meant un-trashing cards that were trashed by other cards, anyway.

I know, I was just being pedantic.

[petrie911]

OK, here's a revised version of Scrapyard that takes the number of opponents into account.

Scrapyard
$6 Action-Victory

Set aside a card from your hand for each opponent you have.  Trash as many cards as you like from your hand, then return the set aside cards to your hand.
---
Worth 1VP for every $6 in the total cost in coins of all cards in the trash (rounded down).

The idea is that to compensate for the higher point value it will have in a game with more players, it becomes a worse trasher to compensate.  In a 2 player game, it lets you trash up to 3 cards from your hand (assuming a 5-card hand).  In a 4-player game, it lets you trash only 1.  Of course, its VP will grow twice as fast in a 4-player game, so I think it should balance.

Obviously would need playtesting to work out proper values for the numbers.

[Asklepios]

Hmmm... as another thought, you could track only cards you trash yourself, via a token mat.

Scrapyard:
$4 Action-Victory

Trash up to two cards from your hand. For each card you trash add one scrap token to your scrap mat.

Scrapyard is worth 1VP for every three tokens on your scrap mat.

[TheMathProf]

^ This sounds somewhat workable, but then only cards trashed by the Scrapyard would count.  I suppose that this could be OK, but I wonder if it would be stronger if their were some kind of:

Scrapyard:
$4 Action - Victory

Trash up to two cards from your hand.

Scrapyard is worth 1VP for every three tokens on your scrap mat.

---

Setup: When this card is in the supply, each card trashed adds one token to your scrap mat.




But then, I wonder would this overpower something like Bishop?

[Adrienaline]

The number of players should be included somehow, otherwise it can't be balanced properly.

The effects of Thief, Noble Brigand, Jester, and Pirate Ship aren't affected by number of players.  I don't think this card really needs to explicitly state number of players (or, in fact, should)

Perhaps if the hypothetical allowed you to keep tabs on cards only you trash, then it wouldn't need to address number of players.

In which case, why not?

Tallow Field: Victory
$6
When this is in the kingdom, every player has an individual trash pile that they may choose to trash cards to instead of the "communal trash pile". Cards that go to this trash pile are accounted for as if they had been trashed normally.
Worth 1 VP for every 4 cards in your trash pile
When you buy this card, you may trash up to three of your cards in play and/or in your hand.

Why 4? Because you want to trash coppers and estates (and curses if there is a curser out there), so it's to force people to make a decision to go for this card, otherwise at $6 it is worse than duchy unless you trash extra cards beyond your starting deck. It therefore combos less well with other trashers. Handsize reducers or sifting attacks are made more powerful, but cursers and replacers are less good as attacks with this card.

Thoughts?