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Author Topic: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant  (Read 7703 times)

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dbclick

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Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
« Reply #25 on: April 18, 2018, 07:25:02 pm »
+1

Thanks for the feedback!

As worded this is a Reserve, not a Duratio (you probably have in mind that this becomes a Duration after being called, laying in your play area like a Duration card, but technically it is not).
It's a Duration card so it doesn't clean-up on the turn it's called (unlike Coin of the Realm and Royal Carriage which clean up on that turn - this is to provide tracking for whether its protecting you). It's also a Reserve because it goes to the Tavern mat and can be called/discarded from there. Really just semantics, but I think the Duration type here is correct.

The play effect is too strong, cheap cantrip are easy spammable and thus kill all Attacks (even a mere non-terminal like Lighthouse can kill off Attacks).
It's possible that having it be a cantrip is too powerful due to the filtering, but It should probably be non-terminal. It could simply be reversed to have it discard first, then draw and keep the cantrip. Defense in Dominion is pretty weak overall, but I could see it being a cantrip could result in a fair number of people spamming it enough to block all attacks (which still wouldn't be terrible because of the general opportunity cost of doing so).

The call-effect is far too strong, making it a delayed Forum (and, ignorign the defense aspect, arguably better than Dungeon).
Dungeon filters on the turn it's played. This wouldn't — it's worse in that regard. Also, the value of delaying an effect to the next turn devalues it significantly so having it cost less isn't as overpowered as you might think. It may be something that could bump the cost up to 3 if playtesting showed that. Or potentially, as previously stated, discard first then draw.

The call-to-defense thing makes the defense part of this strictly better than Lighthouse or Guardian.
That's the idea. It provides no benefit while on the mat and so you have to weigh the cost of it sitting there versus calling it, unlike Guardian, which you can buy at any time and have it apply immediately instead of having to buy, cycle, and play it before use. Lighthouse gives you 2 coins across 2 turns, so this is different; it could be better sometimes, other times no.

I thought that the idea of a Reserve defense was to have a trade-off between the flexibility of only defending when needed  and then only being able to defend once.
The reason I proposed this idea is that the defend-only-once property scales terribly between different numbers of players. You still can only defend on the rounds you need to (which forces you to track your opponents decks more). If this is too powerful, then you could make it not a cantrip in some way, like removing the +1 Card aspect. Possibly make it terminal with some bonus, but I like the idea of not having to take a terminal slot in your turn for defense, which I think would make it too costly to use.

If I were to weaken it, I'd do something more like:

Shield, Duration-style v2
Action — Duration — Reserve
Cost:
+1 Action
Put this on your Tavern mat.

At the start of your turn you may discard this from your Tavern mat. If you do, discard 2 cards then +2 Cards.
When another player plays an Attack card, you may first call this to be, until your next turn, unaffected when other players play Attack cards.



I'd love to playtest both.
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Holunder9

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Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
« Reply #26 on: April 19, 2018, 04:36:44 am »
+1

Defense in Dominion is pretty weak overall
Totally disagree. I have lost games in which the opponent went heavy on Guardian, a card I considered before far weaker than Lighthouse. It is not really surprising that non-terminal defense is strong as Attack cards are often very strong (even with very good trashing you rarely want to skip junkers).

Quote
Dungeon filters on the turn it's played. This wouldn't — it's worse in that regard.
+1 Action +2 Cards discard 2 Cards is not always superior to a mere cantrip as it decreases handsize. That's they key difference between Forum/Fugitive and Warehouse/Dungeon. You can never get too much of the former which is why you always take a Forum "for free" (e.g. when you hit 13 with just one Buy) whereas too many Dungeons can hurt your deck.

If I were to weaken it, I'd do something more like:

Shield, Duration-style v2
Action — Duration — Reserve
Cost:
+1 Action
Put this on your Tavern mat.

At the start of your turn you may discard this from your Tavern mat. If you do, discard 2 cards then +2 Cards.
When another player plays an Attack card, you may first call this to be, until your next turn, unaffected when other players play Attack cards.
I think that Lighthouse is far too strong. It could easily cost $3 as it is better than Silver in decks that want a high Action card density and it non-terminally defends against terminal attacks, easily shutting down all Attacks. So I wouldn't use it as benchmark for Moat variants. But as this version of the card provides little benefit (the Cellar-style sifting seems pretty weak) I think it is OK compared to the first version which was easily a $4.
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jonaskoelker

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Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
« Reply #27 on: April 19, 2018, 01:43:38 pm »
0

[assessment of Dbclick's Shield]
I thought that the idea of a Reserve defense was to have a trade-off between the flexibility of only defending when needed  and then only being able to defend once.
I more-or-less agree with your assessment.

The key dynamic I had in mind when thinking up Shield was the decoupling between the timing of the defense play and the attack play. That is, I can play Shield three turns before you play your Mountebank and it still works, unlike Moat/Lighthouse/Guardian, for any (positive) value of three. The fact that it also creates interesting decisions in case of multiple different attacks is frosting on top of the cake, from my perspective.

I don't know whether I should be unhappy that it's worse in multiplayer. One way of making it stronger which perhaps runs the risk of making it less interesting is something like "when another player plays an attack, you may call this. If you do, name a card. Until the start of your next turn, attacks by copies of the named card don't affect you."

That way, one Shield defends against every player's first Militia, not just your left opponent's first Militia, while requiring a second Shield to also defend against their Witch. The problem is that it also defends against the second, third, etc. Militia (or Witch, if you picked Witch). Maybe that's not a problem?
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dbclick

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Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
« Reply #28 on: April 19, 2018, 07:52:47 pm »
+1

I definitely agree that the card I proposed is very different. It would be tricky to have the one you proposed scale up for multiplayer (hence why I put forth my idea).

I think mine has the core dynamic of having to decide whether to save it for defending attacks the next round or discard it now for a slightly better turn. Which is an interesting dynamic, but a different one.

The other issue with defending against individual attacks is it only becomes interesting in games that have multiple attacks coming your way that stack (say like most junking attacks, or Hexes).
In order for the Shield-defend-once to be the most meaningful, I have to be in a game where:
  • There are attacks that stack or multiple types of attacks that effectively stack (e.g. a handsize attack and a junker instead of multiple handsize attacks)
  • There are ways to play multiple attacks (e.g. Village) or enough players that will be playing the attack

It seems like Shield would be less meaningful in Kingdoms without those properties.

The modification you put out for naming a card to defend against is interesting in that you have to have multiple copies of Shield loaded to make it work against multiple named attack cards. However, it still has the issue of having the above requirements needed to be useful except it gets even narrower by eliminating single attacks that stack from the picture (e.g. junkers):

For my card, I was going for something that would be somewhat useful and interesting in the majority of games. Not saying yours is worse, just narrower.
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crj

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Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
« Reply #29 on: April 19, 2018, 10:34:12 pm »
+2

Having seen the discussion of a strong card that gives defence while on your Tavern mat, but is balanced by good effects if kept in circulation, it occurs to me that an alternative is a card that gives strong defence while on your Tavern mat, but is balanced by hurting you while it's there.

The example which first occurred to me:

Shield, Action-Reserve
Cost $2

+1 Action
Put this on your Tavern mat
----
While this is on your Tavern mat:

When another player plays an Attack card, it doesn't affect you.

At the start of your turn, discard a card or gain a card costing $0. Then you may call this for +1 Card.
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Holunder9

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Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
« Reply #30 on: April 20, 2018, 02:21:48 am »
+1

Getting a Champion after the first shuffle is crazy. The cost is also too low as it is the same effect of the weakest attacks in the game: handsize attacks that only make you discard one card (Urchin, one Soldier).
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crj

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Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
« Reply #31 on: April 20, 2018, 01:42:41 pm »
+1

I've not playtested it, but I reckon it might produce an interesting dynamic.

Yes, the negative effect of keeping my version of Shield in reserve is only the same as the weakest attacks. That's deliberate. If the effect of Shield was the same as that of the strongest attacks, it wouldn't be protection in any meaningful sense.

Note also that you get the downside even if you haven't been attacked. Is it still worth it to protect against an attack every other round, say?

If start player buys it on turn 1, do you even buy the attack? Conversely, if nobody buys any attacks, do you regret having wasted your first buy on a card that's even more dead than the other $2 defences?
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Holunder9

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Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
« Reply #32 on: April 20, 2018, 01:55:45 pm »
+1

Yes, the negative effect of keeping my version of Shield in reserve is only the same as the weakest attacks. That's deliberate. If the effect of Shield was the same as that of the strongest attacks, it wouldn't be protection in any meaningful sense.
True that. Which is why a good version of your Shield would be somewhere between those two extremes that'd make the card broken.
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dbclick

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Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
« Reply #33 on: April 20, 2018, 01:57:10 pm »
+1

crj has an interesting concept (hurt yourself or be hurt by others), but I'm not sure the card proposed could make games interesting enough to be worth it.
I'm inclined to agree with Holunder9 on this one. It seems like it would be too strong to have unlimited defense so early with such a cheap penalty.

If the interplay crj suggests occurs, then most of the interesting decisions are over after the opening, and worse, the card just sits there doing nothing in many games (either due to the stalemate or the lack of major attacks). To me, it's not that hard to see if you should keep it on your mat or not. You're also not having very much fun when you have to hurt yourself and it would be pretty painful in multiplayer: if everyone keeps it on their mat in a stalemate the game feels like it's getting slowed down.
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Holunder9

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Re: "Shield", a Reserve single-attack Moat/Lighthouse variant
« Reply #34 on: April 20, 2018, 02:02:50 pm »
+1

If start player buys it on turn 1, do you even buy the attack? Conversely, if nobody buys any attacks, do you regret having wasted your first buy on a card that's even more dead than the other $2 defences?
We talk about a card that totally undoes an entire, interactive card category for the sake of what, a little metagame about getting Attacks or not? The dominant strategy is probably for neither player to get either Shield or an Attack; you don't want Shield as it sucks while it is on your Tavern mat and you don't want an Attack as it just gets weakened by Shield.

There is a reason cool cards like Plunder or Champion are not available on turn 1, they would obviously be far too powerful.
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