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Author Topic: Previews #1: Devil's Workshop, Raider, Ghost Town  (Read 103599 times)

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josh56

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Re: Previews #1: Devil's Workshop, Raider, Ghost Town
« Reply #100 on: October 24, 2017, 11:12:10 am »
+1

You're missing the reason why Caravan is worse than Lab. It's not that the draw is delayed. It's that Caravan is unavailable next turn because it's a Duration.
This is a feature of all Durations and I fail to see what is has to do with the actual issue, whether you want the effect that a non-terminal card provides rather now than later.

Quote
You need twice as many of them to get the same number of cards
How many Caravans you need to achieve the same net draw power as x Labs is highly dependent on the Kingdom so this generalization is false. All you can say in general is that Caravan is worse than Lab as you a) get the extra card next turn instead of now and b) because Caravan might miss the shuffle.
A) is the reason why getting the extra card of the two hypothetical Duration villages now instead of next turn is preferrable.
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mameluke

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Re: Previews #1: Devil's Workshop, Raider, Ghost Town
« Reply #101 on: October 24, 2017, 12:07:03 pm »
+1

Night cards are interesting with Haunted Woods.
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trivialknot

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Re: Previews #1: Devil's Workshop, Raider, Ghost Town
« Reply #102 on: October 24, 2017, 12:19:56 pm »
+3

Echoing Stealth Tomato, the weakness of Duration cards is that they're unavailable the next turn.  If you're not drawing your deck, that means they occasionally skip the shuffle, and that's okay.  But if you're drawing your deck, they always skip a shuffle.

Here's how you evaluate a duration card in the context of a deck-drawing engine: Sum up all the costs/benefits you get over the whole time it's in play.  Divide by the number of turns it's in play.  For example, Lighthouse gives -1 card +2 money, so it's kind of like silver.  But since it's out for 2 turns, you need 2 Lighthouses to get the benefit of one silver.  Another example, Haunted Woods gives -1 action, +2 cards, so it's kind of like smithy.  But since it's out 2 turns, you need 2 Haunted Woods to get that benefit.

The major advantage of duration cards is that you get some of the benefits before paying the opportunity cost.  With Haunted Woods, you get +3 cards at the beginning of the turn, and then you later pay the cost of -1 card -1 action.  With Ghost Town, you get +1 card +1 action at the beginning of the turn, and then you later pay the cost of -1 card.  With Caravan, the only opportunity cost is that of finding the Caravan in the first place, which is nothing special.

I'd argue that Caravan would be stronger if it gave no cards on the first turn and 2 cards on the second turn.
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josh56

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Re: Previews #1: Devil's Workshop, Raider, Ghost Town
« Reply #103 on: October 24, 2017, 12:30:01 pm »
+1

The major advantage of duration cards is that you get some of the benefits before paying the opportunity cost.  With Haunted Woods, you get +3 cards at the beginning of the turn, and then you later pay the cost of -1 card -1 action.
You got the timing messed up. Haunted Woods is dead on the turn you play it and provides the card draw next turn.
What you meant is something like Wine Merchant or Capital: get something great now and pay for it later.

About Caravan, it is an invisible card on the turn you play it but unlike Lab it draws the good stuff later instead of now so it is worse than Lab. Due to the same logic +1 Action, at the start of your next turn +2 Cards would be worse than Caravan.
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trivialknot

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Re: Previews #1: Devil's Workshop, Raider, Ghost Town
« Reply #104 on: October 24, 2017, 12:36:14 pm »
0

The major advantage of duration cards is that you get some of the benefits before paying the opportunity cost.  With Haunted Woods, you get +3 cards at the beginning of the turn, and then you later pay the cost of -1 card -1 action.
You got the timing messed up. Haunted Woods is dead on the turn you play it and provides the card draw next turn.
What you meant is something like Wine Merchant or Capital: get something great now and pay for it later.

About Caravan, it is an invisible card on the turn you play it but unlike Lab it draws the good stuff later instead of now so it is worse than Lab. Due to the same logic +1 Action, at the start of your next turn +2 Cards would be worse than Caravan.
I fully stand by my statements.  Go test the Caravan variant for yourself and tell us how it went.
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LastFootnote

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Re: Previews #1: Devil's Workshop, Raider, Ghost Town
« Reply #105 on: October 24, 2017, 01:01:30 pm »
0

I fully stand by my statements.  Go test the Caravan variant for yourself and tell us how it went.

Imagine a Tactician that still stayed out for an extra turn, but got all of its bonuses on the current turn. So…

FastTactician: Action-Duration, $5
Discard your hand. If you discarded any cards, +5 Cards, +1 Action, and +1 Buy.
(This stays in play an extra turn.)

Tell me to my face that that's weaker than Tactician.
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josh56

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Re: Previews #1: Devil's Workshop, Raider, Ghost Town
« Reply #106 on: October 24, 2017, 01:02:37 pm »
0

Quote
About Caravan, it is an invisible card on the turn you play it but unlike Lab it draws the good stuff later instead of now so it is worse than Lab. Due to the same logic +1 Action, at the start of your next turn +2 Cards would be worse than Caravan.
I fully stand by my statements.  Go test the Caravan variant for yourself and tell us how it went.
As do I. The existence of Lab and its superiority over Caravan makes playtesting an inferior version of Caravan unnecessary.
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AJD

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Re: Previews #1: Devil's Workshop, Raider, Ghost Town
« Reply #107 on: October 24, 2017, 01:20:21 pm »
+1

I fully stand by my statements.  Go test the Caravan variant for yourself and tell us how it went.

Imagine a Tactician that still stayed out for an extra turn, but got all of its bonuses on the current turn. So…

FastTactician: Action-Duration, $5
Discard your hand. If you discarded any cards, +5 Cards, +1 Action, and +1 Buy.
(This stays in play an extra turn.)

Tell me to my face that that's weaker than Tactician.

I don't know how it compares to Tactician, but it compares unfavorably to Minion.
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allanfieldhouse

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Re: Previews #1: Devil's Workshop, Raider, Ghost Town
« Reply #108 on: October 24, 2017, 01:22:42 pm »
0

So we all know that Caravan is worse than Lab. What we're disagreeing about is why. trivialknot is saying it's because you don't get to discard it, and josh56 is saying it's because the drawing is later.

Thought experiment: keep Caravan exactly the same except add a clause "this gets discarded during cleanup on the turn you played it".

Now how does that compare to Lab? I can see a lot of situations where it would be significantly better than a Lab (even if it cost $5).
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trivialknot

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Re: Previews #1: Devil's Workshop, Raider, Ghost Town
« Reply #109 on: October 24, 2017, 01:27:00 pm »
0

I fully stand by my statements.  Go test the Caravan variant for yourself and tell us how it went.

Imagine a Tactician that still stayed out for an extra turn, but got all of its bonuses on the current turn. So…

FastTactician: Action-Duration, $5
Discard your hand. If you discarded any cards, +5 Cards, +1 Action, and +1 Buy.
(This stays in play an extra turn.)

Tell me to my face that that's weaker than Tactician.
FastTactician lets you play treasures whereas Double Tactician does not.  Your proposed variant is complicated and difficult to analyze.  Also I was explicitly talking about the context of a deck-drawing engine and it's hard to see how that would fit in.

Before you edited your post, you suggested trying a simulation.  I do not think a simulation would resolve the question.  Again, I was explicitly talking about the context of a deck-drawing engine.  Presumably the simulation would just try money + Caravan, and I'd have to think about whether the Caravan variant would also be better in that situation.  I don't think it would be, because there is no benefit to getting the card at the beginning of your turn and paying it off later in the turn.  In a big money deck, all that matters is your money at the end of the turn.  In an engine, the benefit is improved reliability.

Of course, you often aren't playing many Caravans in a deck-drawing engine.  That I grant.

@josh56, if you don't want to test the card you don't have to.  Life's too short to waste time resolving f.ds arguments.
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josh56

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Re: Previews #1: Devil's Workshop, Raider, Ghost Town
« Reply #110 on: October 24, 2017, 01:50:23 pm »
0

Thought experiment: keep Caravan exactly the same except add a clause "this gets discarded during cleanup on the turn you played it".

Now how does that compare to Lab? I can see a lot of situations where it would be significantly better than a Lab (even if it cost $5).
No disagreement here, being a Night card instead of a plain non-terminal Action is an asset:

It is a bit [...] stronger as you can play it after having drawn it and being out of Actions.
This might have been inspired by Sauna-Avanto, a card combo which also enables you to do what you normally can't: first play the terminal draw and then the village.

But drawing the card next turn instead of now is a liability.
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LastFootnote

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Re: Previews #1: Devil's Workshop, Raider, Ghost Town
« Reply #111 on: October 24, 2017, 01:53:43 pm »
+1

I fully stand by my statements.  Go test the Caravan variant for yourself and tell us how it went.

Imagine a Tactician that still stayed out for an extra turn, but got all of its bonuses on the current turn. So…

FastTactician: Action-Duration, $5
Discard your hand. If you discarded any cards, +5 Cards, +1 Action, and +1 Buy.
(This stays in play an extra turn.)

Tell me to my face that that's weaker than Tactician.

I don't know how it compares to Tactician, but it compares unfavorably to Minion.

Are you certain? It draws you an extra card and gives +1 Buy. You can't mindlessly spam it in the way you can spam Minion, but it's arguably better than Minion on board where Minion is strongest.
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Mic Qsenoch

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Re: Previews #1: Devil's Workshop, Raider, Ghost Town
« Reply #112 on: October 24, 2017, 02:00:51 pm »
+8

Delayed drawing to the start of turn with Durations is especially useful due to it's help with consistency. Traditional immediate drawing is useful because, well, I don't think this can possibly be a mystery. Neither is "better" than the other in a general sense, often you want some of both, most often you are just taking whatever draw the board has and being glad about it.
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allanfieldhouse

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Re: Previews #1: Devil's Workshop, Raider, Ghost Town
« Reply #113 on: October 24, 2017, 02:04:56 pm »
0

Thought experiment: keep Caravan exactly the same except add a clause "this gets discarded during cleanup on the turn you played it".

Now how does that compare to Lab? I can see a lot of situations where it would be significantly better than a Lab (even if it cost $5).
No disagreement here, being a Night card instead of a plain non-terminal Action is an asset
...
But drawing the card next turn instead of now is a liability.

I don't think so. The easy situation to see how the delayed draw is better is in any draw-your-deck situation. The modified Caravan and a Lab will both draw you the same number of cards each turn. The Caravan+ gives them to you all at the beginning of your turn though, whereas you have to actually find the Labs to get the extra cards. So theoretically you'll draw the same either way, but you're way way more likely to kick off with a 10 card starting hand (assuming an even Caravan+ split).
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josh56

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Re: Previews #1: Devil's Workshop, Raider, Ghost Town
« Reply #114 on: October 24, 2017, 02:13:56 pm »
0

Thought experiment: keep Caravan exactly the same except add a clause "this gets discarded during cleanup on the turn you played it".

Now how does that compare to Lab? I can see a lot of situations where it would be significantly better than a Lab (even if it cost $5).
No disagreement here, being a Night card instead of a plain non-terminal Action is an asset
...
But drawing the card next turn instead of now is a liability.

I don't think so. The easy situation to see how the delayed draw is better is in any draw-your-deck situation. The modified Caravan and a Lab will both draw you the same number of cards each turn. The Caravan+ gives them to you all at the beginning of your turn though, whereas you have to actually find the Labs to get the extra cards. So theoretically you'll draw the same either way, but you're way way more likely to kick off with a 10 card starting hand (assuming an even Caravan+ split).
So you wanna seriously argue that you would buy Caravan over Lab (it is the same difference as between what you label Caravan+ and Caravan) in this situation?
And even if this were the case, Lab would still be on average better than Caravan.
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JThorne

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Re: Previews #1: Devil's Workshop, Raider, Ghost Town
« Reply #115 on: October 24, 2017, 02:53:05 pm »
+4

I don't understand the confusion about the value of durations.

The fact that you can only play them every other turn is sometimes a drawback and sometimes a significant advantage. And in both cases, it has to do with what you're getting from it.

If it's a "terminal" duration that gives you something good now and something good later, but never gives an action, you can actually think of it in terms of it taking 1/2 an action to play, requiring fewer extra actions. That's what makes Wharf so great. An entire 14-card deck can, theoretically, be drawn every turn with 4 Wharves and only a single Village! (two from last turn, two on this turn, repeat.) It takes one Village to play two terminals, but it will play 4 terminal durations.

Fishing Village, on the other hand (also a great card) even though it gives you both an extra action now and an extra action later, doesn't double the number of terminals you can run because it stays out for a turn. Two Fishing villages still only plays three Smithies, no matter how you stack them. But precisely because they stay out, you can think of them as drawing 1/2 a card. They cost a card draw the turn you play them, but the next turn they don't.

It takes six Caravans to draw a deck of 11 cards every turn. It takes three Labs to achieve exactly the same thing. What could anyone possibly be arguing about? The best thing about Caravan is being below the $4 magical gainer price point.

So, think of Ghost Town as drawing 1/2 a card and giving you 1/2 an action. If it was the only Village, it would take four Ghost Towns in order to run 3 Smithies. Two Villages, theoretically, do the same job.

My prediction is that it will be absolutely outstanding as an engine support card in kingdoms...but mostly with other villages. Get two. Start every turn with an extra card and an extra action so that you can start your engine chain with a big draw card first; that's huge! But in kingdoms where it's the ONLY source of +actions, I see it as a potential trap unless you can build an engine with a very small number of terminals.

Why am I talking like engines are the only deck type that exist? Because we're talking about a Village variant. How many villages do you buy when you're playing BM or points rushes?
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Cave-o-sapien

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Re: Previews #1: Devil's Workshop, Raider, Ghost Town
« Reply #116 on: October 24, 2017, 02:56:14 pm »
+9

(sees thread)

"Hey, lots of new replies. I wonder what new thoughts people have on these Nocturne cards."

(opens thread, sees spirited argument on Caravan variants)

(Abe simpson gif)
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JThorne

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Re: Previews #1: Devil's Workshop, Raider, Ghost Town
« Reply #117 on: October 24, 2017, 03:14:38 pm »
+3

One more thought about Night cards:

It looks to me like many of them should be evaluated thusly: How would you feel about it if it was an action card that just had +1 action written on it? Because that's a large part of what they are. The only difference with Raider, for example, is that it cares what treasure you played, which is actually a drawback if you play copper! (seems weak.)

And if you've ever watched someone overbuy Festivals and not used many actions or buy, or buy Mystics without a peeker, or too few Minions and used them only for cash, well, you've seen someone buy expensive Silver. Whenever anyone asks me "why don't you like (card X)?" I usually answer "Because it doesn't draw." Stop cards are death.

So, that said, I love me a +action gainer. I like that Devil's Workshop encourages you to buy/gain different action cards for your Imps, particularly because it's a gainer itself. And I love the idea of Ghost Town starting every engine turn with 6 cards and 2 actions. It's like Princing an Oasis! For two $3 buys! (I say Oasis instead of generic cantrip because you do ultimately have to play another Ghost Town from your hand, costing you a card.)

It's going to be interesting to play with these, though I'll probably end up scolding my playgroup a few times. The number of times I've seen things like players buying a second or third Horse Trader and I ask them why and they say "Because I keep not drawing my Horse Trader." "Then you need more draw, not more Horse Traders! Argh!"
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josh56

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Re: Previews #1: Devil's Workshop, Raider, Ghost Town
« Reply #118 on: October 24, 2017, 03:20:59 pm »
0

And I love the idea of Ghost Town starting every engine turn with 6 cards and 2 actions. It's like Princing an Oasis! For two $3 buys!
At the cost of a dead card in the previous turn,  unless you gained Ghost Town in the previous turn.
The net draw of Ghost Town is zero except for the turn after you have gained it.
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AJD

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Re: Previews #1: Devil's Workshop, Raider, Ghost Town
« Reply #119 on: October 24, 2017, 03:26:45 pm »
+1

And I love the idea of Ghost Town starting every engine turn with 6 cards and 2 actions. It's like Princing an Oasis! For two $3 buys!
At the cost of a dead card in the previous turn,  unless you gained Ghost Town in the previous turn.
The net draw of Ghost Town is zero except for the turn after you have gained it.

That's why JThorne said Oasis, right? The net draw of Oasis is also zero.
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josh56

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Re: Previews #1: Devil's Workshop, Raider, Ghost Town
« Reply #120 on: October 24, 2017, 03:31:28 pm »
0

And I love the idea of Ghost Town starting every engine turn with 6 cards and 2 actions. It's like Princing an Oasis! For two $3 buys!
At the cost of a dead card in the previous turn,  unless you gained Ghost Town in the previous turn.
The net draw of Ghost Town is zero except for the turn after you have gained it.

That's why JThorne said Oasis, right? The net draw of Oasis is also zero.
The net draw of Oasis is -1.
Back to Ghost Village, I think that it is a pretty good village and could reasonably cost 4. But it is not the utterly brilliant card that some people claim it is, being dead on the turn you play it is a serious disadvantage over a cantrip that provides an action next turn.
« Last Edit: October 24, 2017, 03:33:53 pm by josh56 »
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Awaclus

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Re: Previews #1: Devil's Workshop, Raider, Ghost Town
« Reply #121 on: October 24, 2017, 03:37:28 pm »
+2

The net draw of Oasis is -1, the net draw of Princing anything is +1 so it adds up to 0.
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allanfieldhouse

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Re: Previews #1: Devil's Workshop, Raider, Ghost Town
« Reply #122 on: October 24, 2017, 05:13:54 pm »
+1

I like JThorne's 4 Wharf - 1 Village example, so here's a comparison of what that would look like if you replaced Village with Ghost Town. I'm defining a "dud" turn as not drawing your deck every time.

Village - 14 cards total.
You only need 1 Village to play the Wharves.
Your initial hands will have 9 cards and 1 action.
You have a 5/14 chance of a dud turn because of not starting with your Village.
You could dud if your Wharves are near the bottom of your deck.

Ghost Town - 14 cards total.
You need 2 Ghost Towns to play the Wharves.
Your initial hands will have 10 cards and 2 actions.
You will never dud because of not having enough actions.
You could dud if your Wharves are near the bottom of your deck.

The two big discrepencies here are that you don't have to buy 2 Villages, but you're much more likely to dud in that situation. So maybe it's more fair to give the first example a second Village. Then it's more reliable, but there's still a dud chance (how do you calculate that? 5/15 * 4/14 or something?) But then double Village would have one spare action.

So my overall analysis is that Village gives you more raw +actions, but overall Ghost Town is way better for being able to draw your deck every turn.
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Dingan

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Re: Previews #1: Devil's Workshop, Raider, Ghost Town
« Reply #123 on: October 24, 2017, 06:13:55 pm »
0

Why do Imps cost $2? Why not $0* like all other non-Supply things, or even $2*?

Imp does cost $2*. It's right there in the image.

Ah, just noticed the OP has it; ShiT must just not have it yet? And still, why doesn't it cost $0*?

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JThorne

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Re: Previews #1: Devil's Workshop, Raider, Ghost Town
« Reply #124 on: October 24, 2017, 06:39:35 pm »
0

Quote
So my overall analysis is that Village gives you more raw +actions, but overall Ghost Town is way better for being able to draw your deck every turn.

In terms of not dudding, that's true, which is why I love the idea of using it as a support card, but not as your primary source of +action.

The reality is that most engines aren't made of Wharves. Try to make the same deck out of Torturers and Smithies, and suddenly you need 6 Ghost towns to play 4 terminal draw cards, compared with 3 villages! That starts to sound far less appealing.

One other clarification on the "net draw" question. When I said that I would think of Ghost town as drawing half a card, it's more like imagining that it reads "+1/2 card." That is to say, if you include the cost of playing the card itself, then every time you play it is an average "net" minus 1/2 card. So if you start every turn with a GT and a GTown at the end of every turn, it's a net -1 card for those two cards, just like any other single card that doesn't draw.

Yep, two Ghost Towns sounds like the right number. Like the number of copies of King's Court/Haunted Woods you want; exactly two to start every hand with 14 cards. Duration engines can be pretty sweet.
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