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[adf]

The other thought exercise got me thinking. Let's assume that Dominion is no longer a print game but is instead malleable and updated frequently. What are your nerf and buff proposals? I'm especially interested in buffs people might propose, as most cards that don't see a lot of play typically serve some niche.

[guided]

-Minion's attack is less powerful. Idea 1: Victims can choose to be affected even if they have fewer than 5 cards. Idea 2: The victim has a choice between "discard your hand and draw 4" or "discard down to 3 cards in hand".
-Sea Hag's discard effect is optional.

That's my complete list of nerfs.


Buffs? Iunno, something with Adventurer (maybe even costing it at $5?), and we can buff Pearl Diver by shredding the randomizer card and scattering the pieces to the four winds. I don't think I'd buff any other cards.

Crazy Adventurer idea for leaving it at $6: "If you reveal no treasure other than Copper, +$1."

[Nagetier]

The Sea Hag discard effect is actually a nerf. It prevents multiple stacked curses on the deck. In the endgame, it's a mill, it cycles the opponent's deck when he doesn't want that anymore during VP purchases. Thus, the card has a nonzero use after curses are gone. :-)

Minion in the current form is excellent against people who return N alchemists back to the deck, no other card can do this.

Other ideas --

• Throne Room: change to "may play".
• Masquerade: passing only happens between players with cards.
• Goons: maybe add Outpost-like clause against too many VP from copies of itself?
• Pawn's choices may be done in either order, Trusty Steed's ones must be done in order: Pick one method and do it throughout.
• Black Market: ban altogether :> Or change to "+$2, +Buy. Turn up top 3 cards of BM deck, select one. Add additional kingdom pile with regular initial amount of that card. Remove from supply any other pile set up by this before."

[guided]

The Sea Hag discard effect is actually a nerf.

I know the purpose of the effect, and that purpose remains intact if you further nerf the effect by making it optional. The way it works right now injects a lot of unnecessary variance into the game. For example: We both open Sea Hag. Your Sea Hag discards my Sea Hag. GG. -- The "mill a card" effect in the absence of curses is not significant (apart from increasing variance) and I would not be sad to see it go.

-Yes, Minion's attack is excellent. It's too excellent. Hence the suggestion to nerf it. "This card is the best defense against this other specific card" is not convincing to me. Specific 2-card combos are rare. Not to mention: there are other things you can do to harry an Alchemist deck (e.g. Masquerade, Possession).

-The order of choices on Pawn makes no difference, so there's no actual inconsistency apart from rulebook wording.

-Yeah, Throne Room. The card doesn't need to be buffed, but "may play" is a good rules fix so the card doesn't have mandatory effects based on non-public information.

-Masquerade: that's a fine nerf, though I kind of like the idea that the KC/Masquerade pin exists. It's a fun curiosity. I've still never seen it in the wild (successfully executed with a random Kingdom draw), even in ~1000 2p games since it was publicized, so it's not as if it's ruining the game for me.

-Goons: IMO does not need any kind of nerf. I thought it was too good when Prosperity first came out (I wanted to swap the costs for Goons and Expand), but I've since changed my tune.

[rinkworks]

No doubt the game is better in its published form.  But my experience with the game, much less than all the playtesting done before publication, makes me itch for these changes:

- Either price Adventurer at $5 or give it +1 Action.  As-is, the circumstances where it's preferable to Gold are few and contradictory:  a deck where your average card value is $1.5, which is easiest to achieve with heavy trashing -- but in trim decks, you don't usually need to hunt for treasure!

- Price Hunting Party at $6.  It's an improvement on Laboratory, after all.

- Price Navigator at $3.  Alternately, change the +2 coins to +1 action, though that might make it a bit too Scout-like.  As is, Navigator seems like a cool card that I never get to play with, because it never seems like the best terminal to pick up.

- Allow Thief to choose not to take or trash a revealed treasure.  It would still be a weak attack on most boards, but it would eliminate the risk of aiding your opponent by trashing a Copper.

- Price Counting House at $4.  Why is this $5?

- Price Trading Post at $4.  It's a powerful opener but much less powerful even purchasing it as early as Turn 3.  Making it available to open with only to players with good initial shuffle luck throws too much of the game to chance.  (I don't think any other $5 card depreciates so precipitously after the first reshuffle.)

- Loan.  Instead of the options being "trash the revealed treasure or discard it" it should be "trash the revealed treasure or put it on top of your deck."  Maybe.  When Loan hits a Gold or Platinum, you'd have been better off not playing it at all.  Then again, it's probably okay if the optimal strategy is not to play it at all later in the game.  But it can also hit that first Silver you buy when you play Loan on Turn 3, and that's just unnecessarily brutal.  Maybe Loan could keep the "trash or discard" instructions if it was worth $2 and priced at $4.  Then the risk would be a little more worth taking.

- Pirate Ship.  After reading about Pirate Ship here, I am persuaded that Pirate Ship isn't the dominating force that it always winds up being when I play with it, or against it.  But not being a better player than I am, it just seems horrendously overpowered.  I played a couple of House Rules games with my brother, wherein every time we'd use Pirate Ship for the money, rather than the attack, a coin would be *removed* from the mat at the end of the turn.  This seemed to balance the card perfectly, but I fully concede that it may have only seemed balanced in light of our sub-optimal play.  Still.

[theory]

I am a little apprehensive.  Topics like these never turn out well...

[rinkworks]

Haha.  Yes, you're probably right.  So let me be clear about where I was coming from on my earlier post:  I'm actually more looking for arguments for why the cards I mentioned *should* be the way they are.  I hinted at it in my opening statement, but I suspect the reason I want those tweaks is because I don't know how to best play those cards as printed, and I'd like to learn.

[Blaeu]

I really do not know if this is a nerf or a buff, but I dislike how there are cards that "interact" with other players and are not considered attacks.  Anytime someone plays a card that effects my hand, deck, or even discard pile, I should be able to play a reaction card.  The two cards that come to mind are Masquerade and Tribute.  The first requires me to pass a card, but what if I have five awesome cards?  I would consider that an attack.  You could argue that if you have at least one bad card you can get rid of it, but that doesn't negate the fact I permanently lose a card from my hand with no way to prevent it.

As for Tribute, discarding the top two cards may, or may not suck.  However, before I am forced to do so, it would be nice to have the option to play a reaction card to at least effect which to cards are revealed (if not prevent it all together).  I also dislike that it targets a single player, which is only "okay" because it is NOT an attack.

Possession is another card that should be an attack.

I know Donald wanted to have cards that caused player interaction, but he can still have that with cards that give options like Vault, Bishop and even Tournament.

[guided]

I am a little apprehensive.  Topics like these never turn out well...

Yeah, I already want to put another 20,000 words out there just on the posts that have been made since my last post. I think instead I will save myself the aneurysm

[Personman]

No doubt the game is better in its published form.  But my experience with the game, much less than all the playtesting done before publication, makes me itch for these changes:

Since you asked for arguments, here are some:

- Price Hunting Party at $6.  It's an improvement on Laboratory, after all.

It's not a strict improvement at all, and it's pretty sad at 6. You still buy it, but you don't get to buy very many of them and see it do its thing. Sure, Lab is usually kinda sad in a spread with HP, but that's hardly the only such pair of cards.

- Price Navigator at $3.  Alternately, change the +2 coins to +1 action, though that might make it a bit too Scout-like.  As is, Navigator seems like a cool card that I never get to play with, because it never seems like the best terminal to pick up.

People really underestimate how powerful milling 5 cards is. I think double Navigator would be a very strong opening. Not as strong as double Ambassador though, and subtly powerful in a similar way, so maybe this is a good idea after all.

But Navigator doesn't suck. According to councilroom, I buy it in 30% of games where it shows up, and my Win Rate With is 1.25 -- it's actually my 9th highest WRW, above Princess and Bag of Gold!

- Allow Thief to choose not to take or trash a revealed treasure.  It would still be a weak attack on most boards, but it would eliminate the risk of aiding your opponent by trashing a Copper.

I don't think anything can save Thief in 2p. As it is, it has marginal applications against Chapel decks and as a Swindler replacement, and I don't think there's much point in adding words to it that don't really make it much less bad.

- Price Counting House at $4.  Why is this $5?

Hmm. This is one of my least favorite Dominion cards, so I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about it. But you might be right.

...I guess opening with it and drawing it turn 4 is kinda good? But no better than Coppersmith, and, well...

- Price Trading Post at $4.  It's a powerful opener but much less powerful even purchasing it as early as Turn 3.  Making it available to open with only to players with good initial shuffle luck throws too much of the game to chance.  (I don't think any other $5 card depreciates so precipitously after the first reshuffle.)

On this one I think you are just totally wrong. Trading Post would be a first turn must-buy at 4 most of the time. The card is pretty darn good! I agree that it's sad when one player gets 5 and the other doesn't; this is why you should play with 'identical starting hands' checked!

[Nagetier]

[sea hag discard] I know the purpose of the effect, and that purpose remains intact if you further nerf the effect by making it optional.

Ah, if the victim may choose whether to discard instead of the attacker, then it's a sensible idea.

Hmm, same would then apply to the minion attack. With the proposed change, people are guaranteed the opportunity to use their strongest card throughout each shuffle.

[Yariv]

Counting house is much stronger than Coppersmith in general, and early on a main element could be Bank. Bank comes from the same expansion as CH (more likely to come together IRL). CH is quite likely to give you bank on turn 4... opening CH in a spread with bank could be devastating, probably (didn't really check it). If CH was 4$ you would have a good chance to get 2 CH and a bank in your deck by the end of turn 4. You can't do it with coppersmith.

[randomdragoon]

- Pirate Ship.  After reading about Pirate Ship here, I am persuaded that Pirate Ship isn't the dominating force that it always winds up being when I play with it, or against it.  But not being a better player than I am, it just seems horrendously overpowered.  I played a couple of House Rules games with my brother, wherein every time we'd use Pirate Ship for the money, rather than the attack, a coin would be *removed* from the mat at the end of the turn.  This seemed to balance the card perfectly, but I fully concede that it may have only seemed balanced in light of our sub-optimal play.  Still.

I feel like too many people overreact to their opponent's pirate ships. If there is a strong way to fill your deck with non-terminals to block your opponent's pirate ship, go for it, but don't stretch yourself too far in doing so. It's fine to keep buying money if you need it, pirate ship is only probably going to trash a total of 6 money in a single game anyway (most of which will be copper). People rage hard when pirate ship hits their gold, when they forget it trashed 4 of their copper for them.

4p pirate ship can be a different matter however... this one can be quite vulnerable to groupthink. If three players get it, you may actually start to worry you can't keep money in your deck, so you look for a source of action-money ... hey, pirate ship is one of those cards!

You're not alone though. Pirate ship, I think, is the single card with the biggest difference in perceived power level between my irl friends and the folks on isotropic.


EDIT: How's this for a crazy adventuerer buff? "Reveal cards from the top of your deck until you reveal three treasure cards. Put two of them into your hand. Discard the other revealed cards."

[rinkworks]

What seems unbalanced to me about Pirate Ship isn't so much the attack as the incredible wealth you can build with it.  You buy three or four Pirate Ships and trash down a bit, so you're playing them every turn, you can get eight coins quickly and then buy a Province every turn afterwards.

Again, I concede that this is probably only due to my suboptimal play.  I haven't played a Pirate Ship game in a while, since before I started reading this board, and didn't really know how to defend against it.  Shooting for a quicker ending (to prevent an opponent's Pirate Ships from getting to that point) and/or reducing treasure card density both seem like reasonable ways to defend.

[Kuildeous]

you can get eight coins quickly and then buy a Province every turn afterwards.

True, but while that opponent is building up 8 coins, you're hopefully already buying the Provinces.

By itself, consider what it takes for a successful Pirate Ship to get to 8 coins. You have to use it 8 times to cycle through decks, looking for coins. And that's assuming you hit each and every time. As the game progresses, it becomes harder and harder to hit treasure (though not so much in multiplayer).  So, there are at least 7 lost opportunities for using Pirate Ship as coin (I say 7 because the first time it's played only has one viable choice).

By itself, getting a 8-coin Pirate Ship is too slow and cumbersome. Naturally, this changes with King's Court or crazy action chains, but that's true of many cards.

I've learned that 8-coin Pirate Ship is not the way to go in non-Colony games. Once you get up to 3 or 4 coins, you usually have enough in your hand to supplement it. I've seen it get as high as 6once, but even that was unnecessary.

[ycz6]

- Loan.  When Loan hits a Gold or Platinum, you'd have been better off not playing it at all.

False! Loan gives you +$1, remember? People seem to forget stuff like this a lot in these topics.

[WanderingWinder]

- Loan.  When Loan hits a Gold or Platinum, you'd have been better off not playing it at all.

False! Loan gives you +$1, remember? People seem to forget stuff like this a lot in these topics.

In most cases, they're right and you're wrong. Yeah, it's $1, but that $1 usually isn't as big a deal as not being able to play one of your precious few golds or platinums this reshuffle.

[Thisisnotasmile]

+$1 and -1 Platinum this shuffle is better than +1 Platinum this shuffle and your next hand is 5 green cards that your loan would have skipped over for you.

[WanderingWinder]

If it happens to skip those green cards. But on average the skipping of the green cards are not is no net benefit, since you can't rely upon it. See yaron's article

[Thisisnotasmile]

And on the other hand, you can't assume every time you play the loan, you will be discarding a platinum. It all balances out whether you play it or not.

[WanderingWinder]

But the point was that when it hits a gold or platinum, it's (usually) worse than if you hadn't played it.
Overall, in straight-up big money, going for the loan is worse than grabbing a silver. In many other decks, it's better. Another one of the dominion "it depends on the set-up" balance things.

[guided]

Always play Loan if you need the $1. If you don't need the $1, always consider whether you might be better off not playing it.

[Kpratt]

Loan doesn't need a buff. It is an early game card, like chapel. Loan can be devastating in the early game, and once you're hitting your golds, its probably put you pretty far ahead of a non-loaning opponent.

[Fangz]

I'd nerf Chapel, really. It renders all other trashers essentially superfluous. How about making them single use like embargo?

Another thing is to remove the self-gaining power of Grand Market. How about pseudo-reversing the buy condition: only treasures can be used to purchase grand market. i.e. +$ from action cards do not count for it.

[Davio]

Nerf Alchemy altogether, it's so sad they made cards which require Potions. I think these cards would have been perfect with normal costs. This expansion is so crappy, it isn't even funny. Sure it has some good cards (University, Familiar, Golem), no denying that, but the whole Potion deal is awful and the fact there are only 13 cards in the box. Swing and miss imho.

Here is how I rate the Alchemy cards in regular $ (more or less):
Transmute $2
Vineyard   $4
Apothecary $4 - Maybe replace Potions with Estates or something
Scrying Pool $4
University $5
Alchemist - Remove this, it's basically a Laboratory without the Potions
Familiar $5
Philosopher's Stone - Remove this, only useful for online play
Golem $5
Possession - Remove this, it's too annoying, or make it so that it's un-TR-able / un-KC-able, perhaps give the possessed player a bonus like +2$ on his own turn


Many of the Cursers are so strong that they're must buys. Maybe give them all a clause so they only work while the Curses have not run out: Every other player gains a Curse, if at least one player does, do your bonus thing.


Grand Market may not be as strong when the +Buy is removed, but they're already sort of nerfed in no-trash setups.


Tournament brings these problems to the table:
1. They are too cheap for an early Peddler / Treasury
2. The prizes have too big of an impact which makes disregarding Tournament a mistake generally
3. The game is often won by the player who gets the first prize, making catching up almost an impossible task

I think it would be good to make Tournament cost $5 in which case the prizes may or may not be nerfed.


Hunting Party is so good, it might be better as a $6. Not only do you get to play your good terminals more often, you also get to control your shuffle moments better.


Ambassador is somewhat of a must buy and so strong because of the seesaw effect. I'm interested to see how it would work if it would cost $5 and lets you return up to 3 copies to the Supply.


King's Court is a beast and the main cause for lop siding a lot of games. You draw KC with Chapel? Bad luck. I draw it with Mountebank and you have no Curses in hand? You lose. I think the difference between TR and this is bigger than $3, would like to see this costing $8, but this makes it another problematic target for Swindled Provinces.


Chapel Change the 4 trashed cards to 3 and see what happens...

[Thisisnotasmile]

I disagree on pretty much every point.

[Davio]

I disagree on pretty much every point.

Thanks for your motivation.

[Thisisnotasmile]

Wasn't trying to motivate anything, but you're welcome. Just stating my opinion. It is different to yours.

[Davio]

Wasn't trying to motivate anything, but you're welcome. Just stating my opinion. It is different to yours.

I don't mind that your opinion differs, but I'd like to know why as to learn from our differences.

[Fangz]

Nerf Alchemy altogether, it's so sad they made cards which require Potions. I think these cards would have been perfect with normal costs. This expansion is so crappy, it isn't even funny. Sure it has some good cards (University, Familiar, Golem), no denying that, but the whole Potion deal is awful and the fact there are only 13 cards in the box. Swing and miss imho.

The alchemy cards generally require the use of potions to work as they do. If they just cost coins, then they would play very differently. For example, the whole point of vineyard is that it's good for an otherwise treasure less deck and require exactly one somewhat difficult to obtain card to play. Making it $4 would make it the same as gardens. In general, the potions there is to introduce an additional form of cost - you don't just use up a turn you could have bought something else with, you also risk gumming up your deck with potions that you can't use to buy other things with, plus the potion requirement slows down the aquisition of these very powerful cards to usually 1 per reshuffle. And the alchemy cards are very powerful - the prices you give are very wrong. For example, $4 for scrying pool, a spy that draws good cards more often than not and with the right setup can draw half your entire deck? $4 for apothecary, a scout that self replaces and draws coins as well? $2 for transmute, almost guaranteeing a turn 3/4 gold? (Compare potion transmute, which requires much more turns to acquire, and possibly a lot of wasted money if you draw a 1 potion and a ton of coins.)

King's Court is a beast and the main cause for lop siding a lot of games. You draw KC with Chapel? Bad luck. I draw it with Mountebank and you have no Curses in hand? You lose. I think the difference between TR and this is bigger than $3, would like to see this costing $8, but this makes it another problematic target for Swindled Provinces.

I don't think $1 will make much of a difference. The lop sidedness is more a factor of the card's expense and power - you get a KC early if you are lucky, and that enables you to get more KCs, until you chain a half dozen KCs per hand and so win the game. As a possibility, how about increasing the KC's cost according to how many KCs you already own? This will cut down on the massive KC chaining.

[Thisisnotasmile]

Okay, I feel that Alchemy is a great expansion. Potions add a whole new dimension to the game and offer a lot of interesting choices to players, and I think this is a positive aspect. I accept that some people believe that "change is bad" , but I disagree. Some cards that have potions in their cost could not exist in their current form with non-potion costs. I am thankful for potions so that cards such as Golem, University and Scrying Pool can exist. Also, Possession is fine. It being annoying does not qualify it to be withdrawn from the game. I find Ambassador annoying, but I would never suggest it be removed from Dominion.

Making all cursing attacks dead cards after curses have run out is a ridiculous idea. That is called Sea Hag. Other cursing attacks which have extra effects cost more. They're balanced because of it.

I'm not really sure why we're discussing +buy being removed from Grand Market. Maybe it was suggested earlier in this topic and you're following on from that? Either way, it's Grand Market, not Grand Peddler.

Ambassador is one of my least favourite cards, but even so I don't think it needs changing. Returning 3 cards is something you will hardly ever be able to or want to do, so that doesn't really change the card much. Pricing at $5 simply to have this added possibility that will very rarely be used is crazy.

King's Court is one of my favourite cards. Yes, it is powerful, but it is also situational like Bank, for example. If you draw Bank and a copper and a load of actions, your Bank isn't very useful. If you draw KC and a Chapel and a load of treasures, you're in a similar situation. Does Bank need nerfing? No. If you play with either of these cards, you have to build your deck with it in mind. That is not a problem.

Changing Chapel from 4 to 3 cards trashed just makes it a terrible card. Chapel isn't a great cards as it is. It's a good card. Chapel + BM only barely beats straight BM. It's there as a support card, and taking away its ability to support the decks that it supports just makes it useless.

[Davio]

Well, why I dislike Alchemy so much is the fact that it doesn't mix as well with other expansions. There are only 10 Potion cards among the 135 total kingdom cards. This means there are a lot of setups with exactly one Alchemy card for which you have to include Potion and you always wonder if you really need the Potion for just that card. Of course, all Alchemy cards are pretty powerful, so it's often a trade-off between an extra Silver or a Potion for only that card and there's always the chance you draw Potion-Copper-Copper-Blank-Blank when you need Familiars.

This is one of the weaknesses of Potion: you buy it for that special card, but when you draw it with too few real Treasure, it's worthless and you need to wait an entire cycle for it to come back around. And later in the game, you're still stuck with that Potion when you'd wish it was a Silver.

I just don't like how the set mixes with other sets because of the Potion. Swindling an Alchemist is not useful.

If they would make another set which uses Potion for a lot of cards, I may be more forgiving about this set.

[Fangz]

Er, wha? Chapel is incredibly powerful. One of the reasons to play double BM is to increase your chances of getting the only chapel in a game without good trashers.Oops I misunderstood. In any case, Chapel makes almost any other deck better. The fact that it even improves BM is an asset, and the way it more or less obseletes all the other trashers makes it overpowered.

The rarity of potion using cards is a balancing aspect.

[Reyk]

I don't think chapel via Black Market is so strong. It comes quite late than plus you have some terminals already.

Chapel doesn't make other trashers useless. Many of them can get rid of chapel later and simultaniously do other useful things like acting as the (only) pseudo plus buy. In the base game there was this funny turbo remodel 5 card deck.

Last but not least you might want to read this thread:
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=336.0

On a side note: If we use BM for "Big money" and "Black market" in the same thread this is quite irritating. So we could write some more letters for better reading ;-)

[Thisisnotasmile]

Yes, Chapel improves decks. However, it only slightly improves them in most cases (see: Chapel-BM) and some strategies are too quick for Chapel to keep up with at all. There are many cards which, when you play BM with that 1 single card, are better than Chapel-BM. Chapel isn't the be all and end all.

[Reyk]

Well, why I dislike Alchemy so much is

It's funny that your current forum rank is "alchemist" ;-)
I know you don't chose it but still ...

[Davio]

Hehe, funny coincidence.

It's not that I hate the Alchemy set, but it just feels a little underachieving to me, the set only has 12 kingdom cards, 10 of which use Potions.
Another full fledged set with up to 18 Potion cards can really complement this and make both of them great.

[kn1tt3r]

Well, why I dislike Alchemy so much is the fact that it doesn't mix as well with other expansions. There are only 10 Potion cards among the 135 total kingdom cards. This means there are a lot of setups with exactly one Alchemy card for which you have to include Potion and you always wonder if you really need the Potion for just that card. Of course, all Alchemy cards are pretty powerful, so it's often a trade-off between an extra Silver or a Potion for only that card and there's always the chance you draw Potion-Copper-Copper-Blank-Blank when you need Familiars.

In most cases one single Alchemy card is worth buying a Potion. So that's not an issue, but it's the reason I strongly dislike this potential "3-card rule" because this really makes Alchemy dominate every single setup with Potions. Alchemy heavy games with endless action chains can be somewhat annoying, that's true - but one single Alchemy card doesn't change the game flow that much but just adds another dimension.

And sure, Familiars cause some randomness, but that's a Familiar thing and not an Alchemy thing.

[rinkworks]

Many of the Cursers are so strong that they're must buys. Maybe give them all a clause so they only work while the Curses have not run out: Every other player gains a Curse, if at least one player does, do your bonus thing.

The bonuses is so minor anyway.  Witches become Moats without the reaction effect -- even less than a $2-cost power.  Familiar becomes a cantrip that does nothing at all.  Sea Hag becomes a dead card already.  Mountebank retains some power after the curses run out, but by that time the curses that are already out there will defend against it, so it sort of nerfs itself.

I really don't see what you're going for here.  Or, for that matter, what problem you're trying to solve.  Must-buy cards aren't inherently a problem.

Tournament brings these problems to the table:
1. They are too cheap for an early Peddler / Treasury

Totally disagree.  If Peddler didn't have its idiosyncratic cost, it would cost $4, no question.  It's a Market without the +Buy.  It's a Bazaar without the extra action.  It's a Treasury you can't top-deck after every early-game turn.  It's a Conspirator that earns less but doesn't have the activation requirement.  There are so many reasons it would be naturally priced at $4 that it's unthinkable it would cost anything different.

So an early Tournament behaving like a Peddler for the same $4 sounds about right.

I think your other arguments about Tournament have more merit, though.  I might disagree anyway, but I can see where you're coming from.

[timchen]

Chapel: actually I don't think a trash-3 chapel will be unplayable. Just think of those games where you draw the chapel with silver or not drawing it until turn 5. Against a not-chapeling opponent, not all is lost.

Alchemy: the only part that annoys me so much is in a setup with Familiar and no other cursing card. You must open potion, even when you know you will be screwed when you draw 2+P. Sometimes a similar situation exists for Alchemists.

[rspeer]

Chancellor and Woodcutter are both crappy in the vast majority of situations. What would be a lot more playable and more fun would be to make them the same card.

Chancecutter
Cost $3
+$2
+1 Buy
You may put your deck into your discard pile.

I don't even think it would have to cost more.

[Censure]

This is mostly a compilation of other posts but, here goes:




BUFFS


Adventurer:
Should be priced at $5. No changes otherwise.

Loan:
When playing loan, you may opt to trash the Loan instead of hunting through your deck. This change actually does very little to alleviate the cards issues, but does just enough IMO to keep it at the $3 mark.

Trading Post
$4 cost instead of $5 cost.

Thief
In a 2-player game, you may choose not to trash any revealed cards from the thief.

Wishing Well
$2 cost instead of $3 cost.

Woodcutter:
+2 Buys instead of +1 Buy. This would make it the ultimate card for "building" your deck". And honestly, the card needs whatever buff it can get. I'd even suggest +3 Buys, but that would make a Gardens strategy too overpowering and be pretty useless otherwise to have so many +Buys.



NERFS


Pirate Ship
When you use this card to add +$, remove one coin from your pirate ship mat (unless in a 2-player game)

Hunting Party
Limit the "indefinite hunting:" to 3 cards from the top of the deck. If you go  3 cards and only find duplicates, too bad, so sad. You only got +1 Card +1 Action. This will be extremely rare of course, but should hopefully eliminate the Hunting Party > Lab ideology.

[DStu]

Chapel: actually I don't think a trash-3 chapel will be unplayable. Just think of those games where you draw the chapel with silver or not drawing it until turn 5. Against a not-chapeling opponent, not all is lost.

Someone once said:

Chapel: This started out "trash any number of cards" and went to the ever-so-slightly weaker "trash up to 4 cards." I tested a version with "trash up to 3 cards." It was horrible. Just, way slower than the current version, like you wouldn't believe.

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=115.0

[timchen]

Yes I've read that one. But I am speaking on my own experience, instead of just taking the words for granted.

Also, it is conceivable to be too slow in the base set, which heavily inclines towards BM+x. I believe if you are to run a treasure heavy strategy a trash-3 chapel is not going to help much. However, in action heavy setups, I can even accept slow trashes from steward. I don't see how a trash-3 chapel can be so much worse than a multi-but-trash-only-two steward. And it costs less.

[Davio]

Many of the Cursers are so strong that they're must buys. Maybe give them all a clause so they only work while the Curses have not run out: Every other player gains a Curse, if at least one player does, do your bonus thing.

The bonuses is so minor anyway.  Witches become Moats without the reaction effect -- even less than a $2-cost power.  Familiar becomes a cantrip that does nothing at all.  Sea Hag becomes a dead card already.  Mountebank retains some power after the curses run out, but by that time the curses that are already out there will defend against it, so it sort of nerfs itself.

I really don't see what you're going for here.  Or, for that matter, what problem you're trying to solve.  Must-buy cards aren't inherently a problem.

Well, I think any "must-buy" is sort of a problem, because it takes some strategy out of the game. It's very hard to win if you're not actively competing in the Curse race, especially when playing multiplayer. I'd like to see some good examples of games in which one player buys a Curser, the other doesn't and the non-Curser wins. This may cure my addiction to Cursers.

Sure, most of the Cursers don't do much after the Curses have run out, but then the damage has already been done. You have 10 cards that clog up your deck, let alone the -10 VP that you have to fix.

Councilroom lists these stats (Card - Win rate with - Win rate without):

Mountebank - 1.09 ± 0.00 - 0.82 ± 0.01
Witch - 1.08 ±0.00 - 0.85 ± 0.01
Familiar - 1.05± 0.01 - 0.90 ± 0.01
Sea Hag - 1.04 ± 0.01 - 0.94 ±0.01

Disregarding Prizes, VP Cards and Treasures, these are all in the top 10 highest win rate with.
If we sort on win rate without, only Sea Hag falls out of the top 10.


How to nerf these cards? Well, I have always thought it would be nice to have some Curses that are also regular cards, like a card that has -2 VP, but also maybe +1 Card / +1 Action (or just +1 Card if it's too strong) that players can choose to take. Of course, when Swindled, the Swindling player may still choose regular Curses for the others to receive.

[DStu]

I also don't think it's a problem. Of course, if there are cards that you always buy lots of times, this is a problem. But this is not the case here. You want to buy 1 Chapel, and (except Familiar) 1-max. 3 Cursers, and that's it. Afterwards, there is enough room for decisions, let alone the situations where ignoring the Curser is the right move. Which might be rare with Witch and Mountebank, but is quite common with Sea Hag and Young Witch.
On the other side, while reducing the strategy in the first turns, they add a different type of game. Exaggerated, without Chapel, Witch, Goons you decide at the beginning if you want to play BigMoney+X or build and Actionchain and then play it. Or maybe play Workshop/Gardens, which of course is also overpowered. All these "overpowered" cards add a different type of game, which by itself as strategic variations. So summing all up they lead to more strategy in the game.

Regarding Tournament. I can't play it. I have an Effect With -1.02, Effect Without +1.56 with 75% (of 32) games played with Tournament. Followers Effect With is -2, Princess is -2 Trusty Steed is -1.5, the other two are also negative. So even when I win the Tournaments I suck with it. So at least there must be a little bit skill involveds in playing Tournaments, otherwise I should do better. And I'm always getting a little bit sad when everybody says that Tournament is so overpowered... ;(

[Reyk]

I am a little apprehensive.  Topics like these never turn out well...

This is mostly a compilation of other posts but, here goes:
...

Theory was right. Despite Fixing the Throne bug (what Donald probably would love to do if the card wasn't already printed) I wouldn't take any of these changes.

[Davio]

Well, I guess even if you run into some games from time to time which are less fun than others, the game is designed to play fast and have enough possibilities to be more challenging the next time.

In my book, that core feeling hasn't changed.

TR is fine the way it is, you just have to anticipate and worry about drawing some trashers or ambassadors.

[Thisisnotasmile]

Well, I guess even if you run into some games from time to time which are less fun than others, the game is designed to play fast and have enough possibilities to be more challenging the next time.

In my book, that core feeling hasn't changed.

TR is fine the way it is, you just have to anticipate and worry about drawing some trashers or ambassadors.

It's fine... on Isotropic.

It has problems IRL when you play a TR with an ambassador in your hand and decide that you'd rather not give your opponents 2 good cards so you hide it under your other cards when you discard it.

[HockeyHippo]

Well if you think about the basic idea of the game, it's choosing the best way to get the most Victory points the fastest. You win by choosing your cards carefully. It is in the choosing that determines who is the better player. For this reason, when considering balancing options, I look at cards that are 'must buys' because these simply do not belong in the game. If there are cards that need to be bought or you lose, then the game's philosophy is flawed. The balancing in this game, overall, is exceptional but I found a couple of cards that are bought a little too often .

Chapel - This card is severely under priced at $2. There are more threads on the rare occasions that you should not pick up a chapel rather than ones where you should. I buy it in nearly every set up of cards that includes it. Raised to 3$ would solve the 5/2 Chapel imbalance. Raised to $4 might have people contimplating not picking it up. Reducing 4 trashed cards to 3 could work too.

Mountebank - So powerful that if someone gets to $5 first and doesn't buy it, I'm fairly confident I have won the game. Raised to 6 would have people contemplating it with Gold. Perhaps reducing +2$ to +1$ could help a lot too.

I can't think of too many other must buys.

I guess you could go to the other side of the spectrum and look at cards that are never bought, or never buys. However at the current state of the game, it is rare that there are cards that are never actually helpful. The only card that I think that could fall into this category is Pearl diver. It's relatively weak but at $2 it can give you some useful deck information.

Woodcutter is weak overall, but in a game with no other +Buys it becomes a good buying option.

Chancellor has a niche with Counting House, other than that, it's not an amazing card.

These two cards are weak but there are a couple of situations where they are decent, if not good buys. Which is why I don't think they're imbalanced, just a little weaker than other options.

I guess the point I'm trying to make here is that there shouldn't be cards that you feel you must buy(or must not buy) regardless of the set up. If there are, those cards are imbalanced.

[DStu]

Chapel - This card is severely under priced at $2. There are more threads on the rare occasions that you should not pick up a chapel rather than ones where you should. I buy it in nearly every set up of cards that includes it. Raised to 3$ would solve the 5/2 Chapel imbalance. Raised to $4 might have people contimplating not picking it up. Reducing 4 trashed cards to 3 could work too.

I think Donald has commented on this, and I agree with him there. Raising it to 3 will not solve the imbalance, it will just shift it. You will most likely open Chapel/nothing against Chapel/Silver or even Chapel/Militia when you start 5/2 vs 4/3 and Chapel would cost $3.
It is also clear that Chapel is "to cheap" with $2 compared to its power. It would be to cheap with $3 also. But the thing is, you just want it at the beginning, and you want just one. It could cost $0 and the game would not really change. So the important point is not to balance the cost to its power, but to balance it for the games to be as fair as possible. The cost of Chapel does not change the game (unless it costs at least $5), as anyway you want and will buy exactly one in the beginning (in most scenarios).

You can now argue if the fairer spot is $2, possibly allowing Chapel/Mountebank for the 5/2-Start, or $3 allowing Chapel/Militia and at least Chapel/Silver against Chapel/nothing, or $4 which is at least is a little bit fairer for the 5/2-start, but still not nice to be more or less guaranteed a silver behind. While at $2 at least the buying power of both 5/2 and 4/3 are the same, there's "just" the bonus of the $5card.
Probably that's really a matter of taste, I just wanted to point out that Chapek for $3 does at all rule out the imbalance of different starting hands at all.

[HockeyHippo]

I agree with you that because it's so powerful it is hard to balance it's cost to it's power. Perhaps reducing the number of cards trashed to 3 would be helpful but it's hard to say for sure without testing it.

I only claimed that raising chapel to 3 would solve the 5/2 imbalance of openings such as Mountebank/Chapel. No matter what if you have different starting hands one is going to be more powerful than the other, it just is. But Mountebank/Chapel(similarly Witch/Chapel) is exceptionally strong and I(and I think many others) feel it's too powerful for an opening.

All of your points you are assuming you are buying a Chapel that turn. However the point of balancing the card is to encourage other strategies to be considered.

If you raise the Chapel to 3$ and you start with 5/2 you need to think of how much the chapel is worth you. Do you really want Chapel bad enough to open Chapel/2 Card, or is another strategy more optimal here. That is the reason why we are discussing balancing.


Another must buy card in my opinion is Ambassador. I don't like this card, I don't even like playing it. But it's a near must buy. I'm trying to think of ways to balance it. It should definitely be at 4, even though I doubt that would change very many strategies. It's a tough one!

[rinkworks]

I actually like Ambassador at $3 and $5 better than at $4.  The reason is that at $4, you can do Ambassador/Silver, a strong opening, but not Ambassador/Ambassador, which is quite different but also strong.

At $3, you can do either one, requiring a strategical decision.  At $4, the decision is made for you, so there's less strategy required.  At $5, you have strategic options again, because both dominating Ambassador openings are taken away from you, and you have a new decision to make about how (or if) to put Ambassador in play.

[Captain_Frisk]

I think Donald has commented on this, and I agree with him there. Raising it to 3 will not solve the imbalance, it will just shift it. You will most likely open Chapel/nothing against Chapel/Silver or even Chapel/Militia when you start 5/2 vs 4/3 and Chapel would cost $3.
It is also clear that Chapel is "to cheap" with $2 compared to its power. It would be to cheap with $3 also. But the thing is, you just want it at the beginning, and you want just one. It could cost $0 and the game would not really change. So the important point is not to balance the cost to its power, but to balance it for the games to be as fair as possible. The cost of Chapel does not change the game (unless it costs at least $5), as anyway you want and will buy exactly one in the beginning (in most scenarios).

Just a counter point (note that I am not advocating a 3 cost chapel).  The same argument for "well, if chapels cost 3, then Silver / Chapel is better than "Chapel / Nothing, and you're behind a silver".  That same logic applies to other "important" turn 1/2 buys.

I'm sure that other folks here can relate to the excitement a 5/2 opening... and then seeing any one of the following cards on the baord

- Sea Hag
- Ambassador
- Familiar (early potion becomes an important buy)
- Masquerade (maybe)

So you end up opening powercard / nothing, and you're behind a silver for the entire game.  The same argument for chapel costing 2 would argue in favor of some of those cards costing 2. (Yikes!)

Ultimately, I think the only thing to do is
1. Take a deep breath.
2. Recognize that dominion can frequently have an early luck component that will drastically shift your win probability in a way that is hardly fair
3. Do one of the following things
-- a. Accept it and play another hand of dominion (optional: gripe about the loss of your rank)
-- b. Play an unofficial variant (identical starting hands, choose your split, ban the cards you think are unfair)
-- c. Go play chess.  I'm told that there's no randomness there.

That being said, I curse like a sailor every time I draw 2P / 4Copper on a familiar board, and my opponent gets Lab / Familiar on turns 3/4. 

Keep calm and respawn?

[Davio]

Well, if it wasn't for luck, there wouldn't be many people wanting to play each other. Each player would hit his or her ceiling at some point and not many continue from there, only the most driven.

Luck has a tendency of luring people in. Giving them a win every once and a while keeps them coming back.

Hey, I like it that with a little luck and decent play I have a fair chance against someone 10 levels up, but this also means I have to accept that same luck can bite me in the ass when I'm playing someone 10 levels below me.

[chwhite]

Most of these suggestions are pretty silly, but there are actually a few changes I would make. 

In general, I can think of three different types of changes: a) nerfing a card because it's too powerful, b) boosting a card because it's too useless, and c) tweaking a card to correct an oversight or eliminate a particularly unwanted or unpleasant edge case combination.  The vast, vast majority of card changes I would approve of fall into this final category.  It's okay if some cards are vastly more useful than other cards: Chapel has the greatest misbalance between cost and benefit in the game and it doesn't need to be nerfed, while something like Counting House is normally a horrible buy but it doesn't need a buff: it still gets played.  For a card to really deserve a nerf or a buff it needs to be so well and truly useless such that it makes Chancellor look like a power card, or it needs to not just be must-buy powerful, but must-buy powerful in a particularly obnoxious manner.  And we've established that true "must-buys" hardly exist in Dominion.

Anyway, the edge case changes I'd make, followed by a brief discussion of what cards might actually be so imbalanced as to deserve a true nerf/buff:

* Throne Room ought to have "you may", putting it in line with KC and preventing the possibility of cheating IRL (if there's an action you don't want to play).  Donald X has admitted as such.

* Trading Post probably should have a "you may" as well, to prevent unpleasant interactions with Golem.  This might be a worthwhile addition to the other forced-trashing cards (Remake, Apprentice, Upgrade, Trade Route), but they all present some problems that TP doesn't if you make the trashing optional.  Remake you'd definitely have to do both if you do any; you should have to trash a card to get the action from Apprentice (and both the action and card from Upgrade); Trade Route is the hardest to word because you'd need to *attempt* to trash to get the other benefits, but it should also still be okay to play it on an empty hand and get the buy/money.

* Possession!  I don't want to nerf Possession in general, it's far weaker than its reputation- nerfing Possession is almost as unnecessary as nerfing the already-bad Pirate Ship (seriously, anyone who wants to nerf PS doesn't know what they're doing, and needs to play some 2p games with other actions that give money).   HOWEVER, Possession's interactions with Ambassador and Masquerade are legitimately disgusting- you can lose a Province with no recompense, and it's not even an attack!  That does bother me.  Therefore, I'd propose that any cards which are "returned to Supply" or "passed" on a Possession turn instead get set aside and returned to the deck in the same manner as trashed cards.  Whoever would receive a card from Ambassador/Masquerade can then still take one from the supply.  I think it's fine that you can use them to give yourself a Province or other good card, I just don't think it's fine that you can remove them from someone else's deck, especially since Possession isn't an attack.

I'm sympathetic to suggestions of "Possession can't be Throned or Kinged", since a Kinged Possession is kinda obnoxious, but that change isn't nearly as necessary and I prefer a more minimalist approach.

*To prevent the Goons-KC-Masquerade pin, maybe you only get a card from Masquerade if you have a card to pass?

...

Now for actual nerfs and buffs!  There are a bunch of things one could do, but there are very few things one ought to do.  As has been discussed to death (and I agree), Chapel shouldn't be nerfed and if that ought to stay the same then there are really very few things which are so imbalanced as to deserve this treatment.  Even super-powerful cards like Hunting Party, Mountebank, and Goons are fine by this metric.  Likewise, most of the weak cards don't really need to be improved, they are almost all useful at least some of the time. 

* I kinda want to improve Adventurer somehow.  Maybe give $1 if you hit two Coppers?  Or perhaps just slap on a +Buy?

*One thing I might consider is to boost Bureaucrat and Scout by allowing them to interact with Curses: make your opponent put a Curse on deck w/Bureaucrat, or draw up those Curses w/Scout.  They're not so useless that they need it to be playable, and this doesn't actually improve them much, but this tweak seems to be in the spirit of the cards at least.  I considered a stronger buff for Bureaucrat, like putting the Silver in hand, but then what do you do with Explorer? 

*Speaking of, Thief and Explorer are the two cards which I find to be so useless that that actually do need a buff to be playable.  Explorer is probably just a blind spot in my play-style, but Thief is actually completely useless in virtually every single Kingdom.  Perhaps you can put the stolen loot on top of your deck?  In your hand?  Give the Thief +1 Card/+1 Action?  It needs something.

*On the other end of the spectrum, there is exactly one card that desperately needs a nerf: Ambassador.  Ambassador is the best card in the game, basically a true must-buy in all but Gardens situations, it's cheap as all get-out, and it's attack becomes obnoxious in a way that even the curse attacks aren't.  I get why it is as cheap and powerful as it is: its power is not immediately apparent to newbies, so there's a "journey of discovery" like you have with Chapel.  But once you're experienced, Chapel games stay fun and Ambassador games become dreary slog-fests where everyone goes Ambassador and the winner is usually just going to be the one who doesn't have his/her two Ambassadors clash, or show up on Turn 5, or whatever.  Among good players, Ambassador is just too powerful to exist in its present form.  Maybe it should cost $4?  Maybe your opponent doesn't get a card if you return two- so you have to choose between maximum thinning and maximum attacking?  Maybe take it even further, and say that they only get a card if you return exactly one to the supply?  This would prevent the midgame from getting too degenerate.  Ugh, something needs to be done about this card.

I kinda want to tone down King's Court as well, but there isn't a good way to do it: making it cost $8 wouldn't actually change much. 

[Blooki]

Regarding Thief, I think it has the reputation it does because 2-player play is so prevalent in our community. It's a lot more reasonable of a card in 3+ player games w/ few to no non-treasure sources of coin.

[chwhite]

Regarding Thief, I think it has the reputation it does because 2-player play is so prevalent in our community. It's a lot more reasonable of a card in 3+ player games w/ few to no non-treasure sources of coin.

I played a 3p game a couple weeks back with Thief and no non-treasure sources of coin except for I think Vault.  Both my opponents went Thief, I went straight Vault/BM.  I got like four Golds thieved from me and still won by a very wide margin.

I'm not convinced Thief is even useful in multiplayer.

[Blooki]

Regarding Thief, I think it has the reputation it does because 2-player play is so prevalent in our community. It's a lot more reasonable of a card in 3+ player games w/ few to no non-treasure sources of coin.

I played a 3p game a couple weeks back with Thief and no non-treasure sources of coin except for I think Vault.  Both my opponents went Thief, I went straight Vault/BM.  I got like four Golds thieved from me and still won by a very wide margin.

I'm not convinced Thief is even useful in multiplayer.

I have no experience to speak of so maybe you're right. I was careful in choosing the words 'more reasonable' though. I can't imagine Thief stays below the Navigator/Fortune Teller/Harvest/Cutpurse/Adventurer (lists like these are always fun because we get to see people rise up and defend them) level of usefulness in such games.

[chwhite]

Regarding Thief, I think it has the reputation it does because 2-player play is so prevalent in our community. It's a lot more reasonable of a card in 3+ player games w/ few to no non-treasure sources of coin.

I played a 3p game a couple weeks back with Thief and no non-treasure sources of coin except for I think Vault.  Both my opponents went Thief, I went straight Vault/BM.  I got like four Golds thieved from me and still won by a very wide margin.

I'm not convinced Thief is even useful in multiplayer.

I have no experience to speak of so maybe you're right. I was careful in choosing the words 'more reasonable' though. I can't imagine Thief stays below the Navigator/Fortune Teller/Harvest/Cutpurse/Adventurer (lists like these are always fun because we get to see people rise up and defend them) level of usefulness in such games.

I am continually mystified by the inclusion of Cutpurse, which is a good opener, on these lists!  The other cards you listed are kinda bad but I still don't see Thief passing them.

[Silverback]

Crazy Adventurer idea for leaving it at $6: "If you reveal no treasure other than Copper, +$1."

This would make the first Adventurer strictly better than Gold. In the late game Adventurer is often very likely to create more than 3$, be it through trashing coppers or just spamming Silver, Gold and Platinum. It also cycles through curses and green which makes it a good card in gardens-, dukes- and vineyard-decks.

The fact, that it costs 6$ means, that you have to compare it with Gold. There is some skill involved in deciding which one is better

[Fangz]

None of those cards are as bad as thief, really. They are just fairly situation.

1. Harvest is a +$4 action if your deck is set up right. With tacticians, and minions, this can be vital. Also it's a fast deck cycler.
2. Navigator has a good combo with apothecary, harvest, spy, and so on. Also a deck cycler.
3. Cutpurse is great at preventing opponents from reaching $5, and also degrades the effectiveness of chapel.
4. Adventurer is very strong with good copper trashing (e.g. from moneylender), even if effective general trashing is unavailable.
5. ...Okay, fortune teller sucks. I guess it can be used with saboteur?

[chwhite]

This would make the first Adventurer strictly better than Gold.

You don't need an action to play Gold.

[Blooki]

I'm well aware of how to use the cards I've mentioned. I think my parenthetical comment made it clear that I was trolling a bit. Again, I reiterate, I am not saying Thief isn't worse than those cards, but rather that as the number of players increase Thief experiences power gains those other cards do not (maybe Cutpurse does to some extent) and I would imagine at least approaches the same tier as some of those.

[WanderingWinder]

Everybody is underrating thief. It's honestly not that bad. Even in BM games, I'll play a thief at a certain point and take you out. With trashing decks where treasure is still an important source of money, it's quite good. So it's still bad of course, just not SO bad.
And there's multiplayer.

I think the few cards which are pretty clearly the worst, from my perspective, in order, are explorer, adventurer, contraband, talisman, Royal Seal (this is not as bad as Stash, but I'm a little irrational; the rest I actually believe), Stash

[chwhite]

Everybody is underrating thief. It's honestly not that bad. Even in BM games, I'll play a thief at a certain point and take you out. With trashing decks where treasure is still an important source of money, it's quite good. So it's still bad of course, just not SO bad.
And there's multiplayer.

I think the few cards which are pretty clearly the worst, from my perspective, in order, are explorer, adventurer, contraband, talisman, Royal Seal (this is not as bad as Stash, but I'm a little irrational; the rest I actually believe), Stash

I would love to see an example game of Thief actually working, because I'm pretty sure I've never played one.

I think my "worst cards" list would have to go Thief, Explorer, Secret Chamber, Saboteur, Transmute, Bureaucrat, Moat, Adventurer and then it gets murky.  There'd be a huge gap between Explorer and SC; all the other cards I've listed have their uses but those uses are really few and far between. 

Contraband and Talisman are very situational, but I think they're useful more often than the others I've listed.  All Contraband needs are multiple good $6 cards; all Talisman needs are spammable $3s and $4s (and preferably no power $5s).  These boards are fairly frequent!  More frequent than good Workshop boards, I'd say.  Royal Seal and Stash are low-power and incredibly boring (Stash would in fact be my next-worst $5 after Explorer and Sab), but at least they slot into BM strategies well.  And of course it should go without saying that all of these cards are well below average.

[Elyv]

Everybody is underrating thief. It's honestly not that bad. Even in BM games, I'll play a thief at a certain point and take you out. With trashing decks where treasure is still an important source of money, it's quite good. So it's still bad of course, just not SO bad.
And there's multiplayer.

I think the few cards which are pretty clearly the worst, from my perspective, in order, are explorer, adventurer, contraband, talisman, Royal Seal (this is not as bad as Stash, but I'm a little irrational; the rest I actually believe), Stash

I would love to see an example game of Thief actually working, because I'm pretty sure I've never played one.

I've lost to thief in a BM/Chapel setup.

[michaeljb]

I would love to see an example game of Thief actually working, because I'm pretty sure I've never played one.

I was running a small basically Bishop and money deck, and my opponent had a Quarry, a lot of Villages, Bazaars, Festivals, and King's Courts, but no Treasures; essentially action chaining to no end. Then he realized picking up a few Thieves would wreck me, and it did. He didn't buy his 3 Thieves until Turn 13, just after I went green. Not long after, my deck was down to a Bishop, 1 Gold, a Province and 2 Colonies, and a fair number of VP tokens. (After resignation the log doesn't say how many I had, but the graph indicates it must be about 20) I technically had the lead still, but resigned due to the hopelessness of my scenario.

We both ignored Thief at first, and he told me afterward that he hadn't planned on it, just realized it in the moment.
Game log.

[minced]

* I kinda want to improve Adventurer somehow.  Maybe give $1 if you hit two Coppers?  Or perhaps just slap on a +Buy?

I'd make adventurer an action/treasure: if played as an action, it does what adventurer does; if played as a treasure, it's worth $2. That way an adventurer can draw adventurers but doesn't allow the absurd chaining that venture does without lots of +actions.

*One thing I might consider is to boost Bureaucrat and Scout by allowing them to interact with Curses: make your opponent put a Curse on deck w/Bureaucrat, or draw up those Curses w/Scout.  They're not so useless that they need it to be playable, and this doesn't actually improve them much, but this tweak seems to be in the spirit of the cards at least.  I considered a stronger buff for Bureaucrat, like putting the Silver in hand, but then what do you do with Explorer? 

I'd agree with this, and it even seems thematic for a scout - he warns you of upcoming danger as well as the lay of the land (green cards).

*Speaking of, Thief and Explorer are the two cards which I find to be so useless that that actually do need a buff to be playable.  Explorer is probably just a blind spot in my play-style, but Thief is actually completely useless in virtually every single Kingdom.  Perhaps you can put the stolen loot on top of your deck?  In your hand?  Give the Thief +1 Card/+1 Action?  It needs something.

I think explorer would be useful with apprentice: draw a ton of cards with apprentice by trashing a gold, use explorer to reveal a province and gain a gold in hand, then buy another province. Disclaimer: I have used explorer effectively exactly *once*.

Thief... well, it helps in over-chapeled games, but masquerade helps more. Thief fights against itself - while its purpose is to get you more money in hand, playing it gives you no money. I'd give it +$2 I guess.

*On the other end of the spectrum, there is exactly one card that desperately needs a nerf: Ambassador.  Ambassador is the best card in the game, basically a true must-buy in all but Gardens situations, it's cheap as all get-out, and it's attack becomes obnoxious in a way that even the curse attacks aren't.  I get why it is as cheap and powerful as it is: its power is not immediately apparent to newbies, so there's a "journey of discovery" like you have with Chapel.  But once you're experienced, Chapel games stay fun and Ambassador games become dreary slog-fests where everyone goes Ambassador and the winner is usually just going to be the one who doesn't have his/her two Ambassadors clash, or show up on Turn 5, or whatever.  Among good players, Ambassador is just too powerful to exist in its present form.  Maybe it should cost $4?  Maybe your opponent doesn't get a card if you return two- so you have to choose between maximum thinning and maximum attacking?  Maybe take it even further, and say that they only get a card if you return exactly one to the supply?  This would prevent the midgame from getting too degenerate.  Ugh, something needs to be done about this card.

I've just grown to accept Ambassador games as a different style of dominion, sort of like chapel, where deck-drawing power is way, WAY more important than usual, and cursing attacks (except mountebank) become less important. Granted, it's a really soul-sucking sort of "different," but.. different.

I kinda want to tone down King's Court as well, but there isn't a good way to do it: making it cost $8 wouldn't actually change much.

Wasn't there another thread about a proper cost for a non-recursive KC? That would certainly weaken it, but I'm not sure how to word such a card, especially since KC + TR would allow you to non-directly KC a KC anyway.

[ehunt]

I'd love for feast to give +1 action and don't think it would be overpowered.

[bedlam]

Davio said "I'd like to see some good examples of games in which one player buys a Curser, the other doesn't and the non-Curser wins. This may cure my addiction to Cursers."

Here is one I played the other day. We both opened SeaHag, but my opponent went with familiars while I went with gardens. It turned out pretty well for me.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110728-112220-16a30346.html

As far as buffs go, I've never seen anyone play Navigator on isotropic. I wonder if something like "Look at the top 5 cards of your deck. Either put one in your hand and discard the rest, or put them back on top of your deck in any order." would improve it's use.

[ackack]

Davio said "I'd like to see some good examples of games in which one player buys a Curser, the other doesn't and the non-Curser wins. This may cure my addiction to Cursers."

Here is one I played the other day. We both opened SeaHag . . .

Somehow I think this is not the example he's looking for.

[Elyv]

Davio said "I'd like to see some good examples of games in which one player buys a Curser, the other doesn't and the non-Curser wins. This may cure my addiction to Cursers."

I had a game where I beat a mountebank with ambassadors, but considering a) Ambassador and b) I don't think that not buying it was optimal play, I'm not sure that's a good example.

[jonts26]

I'd like to see some good examples of games in which one player buys a Curser, the other doesn't and the non-Curser wins.

IRL I successfully played counting house against two mountebanking opponents.

[Fangz]

Well, here's a recent one of mine. I don't know if I really played well, but

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110728-100913-46622301.html

And here's one where I shamefully lost despite getting the only cursers and a bunch of tournament prizes.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110725-071333-019999a7.html

[Elyv]

Well, here's a recent one of mine. I don't know if I really played well, but

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110728-100913-46622301.html

Your play was reasonable, but your opponent's play did not impress.

[Fangz]

What was his main fault? Overburdening himself with lighthouses and so falling behind in the gold race?

[Elyv]

What was his main fault? Overburdening himself with lighthouses and so falling behind in the gold race?

1) He didn't open with any cards that give coins. In my opinion, your opening has to be very powerful(something like Chapel/Treasure Map or Ambassador/Ambassador) to avoid opening with some sort of silver. Smugglers does not count.(This may be personal taste, but I don't like smugglers at all; for example, if you'd bought a silver instead, you could've gotten a gold on turn 3)
2) spending 4 on a NV on turn 5 when he only had 2 terminals in his deck(if he'd bought a silver instead of that smuggler he could've gotten a gold on both turns 4 and 5!)
3)Spending 7 on a ghost ship on turn 14 against the 4 lighthouse deck.
4)Not particularly relevant, but the turn 20 bazaar buy should definitely have been a duchy.

About lighthouses vs silvers, I'm not sure; I know that without attacks, lighthouse is worse, but I don't know by how much, so I don't feel confident in saying that I know how many to get against your ghost ships there. That said, I would've skipped the lighthouse buys entirely and bought silvers.

Other than your opening*, I think you played well. The only clear mistake I can see is buying a festival over a bazaar, since you can't do anything interesting with the buy, and a card is definitely better than $1, especially on a village. Oh actually, you probably should've bought a province on turn 12 and a gold on turn 13, missed that the first time through.

*I would open either hag/silver or hag/lighthouse here.

[Fangz]

I dunno, I liked the smugglers buy, since I figured I could possibly gain a silver or a sea hag for free out of it. For the turn 12 gold buy, well, I figured the game was only half way done, and I felt treasure-wise I was ahead so I should cement my lead with more gold, and with the festival, I was uncomfortable going into the endgame without any +buys at all.

[papaHav]

Jester is a ridiculous kingmaker in 4 player games.
and Scout is stupidly useless.

[Jimmmmm]

Seeing as this thread has been resurrected...

I'd put Feast at $3, and Mine and Fishing Village at $4. And I'd make Highway work better with TR/KC.

[NoMoreFun]

Transmute: When you gain this, +1 Buy

It gives it a much lower opportunity cost, makes the treasure trashing option slightly more desirable, and it's probably the only way to have that when gain effect on a card without being broken.

[Davio]

Fortune Teller: When this is in the setup, replace it with another card

The Victory part is a bit silly when you're putting back Great Halls.
I mean, the card is already pretty bad, especially in the beginning: Here, let me play a Chancellor for you, all you have to do is put an Estate back. Late game, it can be very bad for your opponent if his deck is shuffled too often, but do you really want to spend an early buy on a card that might only be good later? I mean, by the time it's good, it's less useful as your opponent's deck is pretty green by that point anyway. This means it cycles him less.

So the original idea of Fortune Teller is to punish your opponent by giving him an Estate (or Curse) on his deck?
Okay, how about?

New FT
+$2
Each other player gains an Estate, putting it on top of his deck.

That's both punishment and reward, what a great modification!

[brokoli]

Fortune Teller: When this is in the setup, replace it with another card

The Victory part is a bit silly when you're putting back Great Halls.
I mean, the card is already pretty bad, especially in the beginning: Here, let me play a Chancellor for you, all you have to do is put an Estate back. Late game, it can be very bad for your opponent if his deck is shuffled too often, but do you really want to spend an early buy on a card that might only be good later? I mean, by the time it's good, it's less useful as your opponent's deck is pretty green by that point anyway. This means it cycles him less.

So the original idea of Fortune Teller is to punish your opponent by giving him an Estate (or Curse) on his deck?
Okay, how about?

New FT
+$2
Each other player gains an Estate, putting it on top of his deck.

That's both punishment and reward, what a great modification!

Don't touch fortune teller ! It's one of my fav attacks.
And also the most underrated card of the game. It really don't need changes.

[brokoli]

Now, I'd like to see changes on :

- Transmute (add +1$)
- Counting house (add +1buy)
- Pirate ship (arrange it, depending on the number of players)
- Thief (if a copper is trashed, you get a bonus)
- Saboteur (even if it's clearly an underrated card, I think a little +1$ would be nice)
- Possession (not TR/KCable)
- Navigator (I don't know how)
- Tournament (remove the +action and replace it with +$1)
- Goons (at $7)
- Familiar (at $4)
- Feast at +action

Things I definitely don't want to change :

- Fortune teller, fortune teller, fortune teller
- The possession-ambassador interaction
- Chapel
- Ambassador (overrated)
- Harvest
- Hunting party
- Loan

Also, I really like the chancecutter idea.

[DStu]

- Saboteur (even if it's clearly an underrated card, I think a little +1$ would be nice)

I don't think that it is good idea to get Saboteur to a point where on an "average" game it is not a bad buy.  It has it's places, but it is good that this places are not more common.

- Navigator (I don't know how)

change pic?

- Goons (at $7)

I don't know if that is a good idea. Goons is strong, but at $7 it will not get weaker, but more random. Get an early lucky  $7, and it's really hard for your opponent to get to $7 themselves. With 3card hands.  It's hard enough with $6, but being the first to $7 will be more descisive than being the first to $6 already is.

- Familiar (at $4)

$4 or $4P. @$4P: See Goons, and replace 3card hand with Curse-filled hand, and $7 with $4P. @$4 is too cheap for this card.

[petrie911]

Fortune Teller should simply say "...reveals cards from the top of his deck until he reveals a card that isn't an Action or Treasure..."  Then it properly works like a mini-Rabble.  I suppose that makes its interaction with Saboteur a little less fun, but I'm pretty sure that combo is terrible anyways.

Actually, an interesting way to do it would be to let you name a type, then each player digs until he finds a card of that type and puts it on top.  Gives it a nice interaction with cursers.

[Drab Emordnilap]

I think it's an intentional design decision that nothing in all of Dominion requires you to name a type.

[LastFootnote]

I think it's an intentional design decision that nothing in all of Dominion requires you to name a type.

I believe you are wrong.

- There was a card, +$2, name a type, dig for it, put it on your deck. It cost $3. You can almost always name a type that isn't in your deck if you want, so it's "strictly better" than Chancellor. This really bothers some people (Anthony Rubbo being one of them). It had to be worse in some way and I didn't want it to be worse.

[Powerman]

Remove the $1 bonus from tournament so people don't just buy lots of them and luck into an 8.  Maybe:

+1 Action
Each player may reveal a Province from his hand.
If you do, discard it and gain a Prize (from the Prize pile) or a Duchy, putting it on top of your deck.
If no-one else does, +1 Card, +1 Action, +1 Buy.

So it becomes a Worker's village with upside + downside.

[DStu]

Remove the $1 bonus from tournament so people don't just buy lots of them and luck into an 8.  Maybe:

I think I like this goal, but a Village that you can't rely on is not something that is very usefull.  Like trying to build engines with Tribute...

[NoMoreFun]

Goons: "When you have a Goons in play, when you buy a card, +1VP"
King's Court: "You may reveal an action other than a King's Court. Play it 3 times.
Wharf: "+1 Buy, Now and at the start of your next turn: +2 cards"
Possession: This can't cause a player to take more than two consecutive turns
Fool's Gold: Make the first one worth 0
Cultist: Each other player gains a Ruins in hand.

[Davio]

The problem with Possession is that you are not playing your own turn.
You are playing your opponent's turn, but you make decisions and gain the cards he would gain.

So if you play TR-Possession with your modification, this means your opponent won't get his regular turn after you play 2 turns for him.

If my thinking is correct, playing an Outpost on a Possession turn sets your opponent up for a 3-card hand after which he doesn't get a regular turn. But the rules in Alchemy are too foggy for me, can anyone confirm this?

[DStu]

The problem with Possession is that you are not playing your own turn.
You are playing your opponent's turn, but you make decisions and gain the cards he would gain.

So if you play TR-Possession with your modification, this means your opponent won't get his regular turn after you play 2 turns for him.

Depending on how you formulate it, Possession would not work at all, because the first play of Possession is what would cause your opponent to take 2 turns.

[Synthesizer]

I think Pirate Ship is fine in 2p games (it's weak, but not completely useless, and if it were really strong we would be complaining that militia would be weak but it is annoying in 3p or 4p. For Ambassador, you are going to need a game plan for what to do once the ambassador(s) gradually start to lose their usefulness. For witch or any other curser as well, you need to figure out how to bank on your winning position, or how to respond to your losing position. But for Pirate Ship the endgameplan is built right into the card. I don't mind that you "have to buy" a card, but I don't think it is nice that the game sort of auto-plays after the purchase of the card.

As for thief, it would be nice if you could put some value in your hand. e.g. "you may put one of the trashed treasures in your hand." Although that might be too strong. Maybe put only the lowest cost stolen treasure in your hand.

Adventurer is so much fun to play, but so weak, that I would like a buff on that. At $5, I think it will be overpowered on a lot of boards, so definitely a buff. Any buff will probably do, +1 action would probably make it very strong (not necessarily a good thing); I'd prefer either +1 buy, or "pick 2 from 3 revealed treasures" which would make it useful much more often, in a support-card role. I like the pick-2-from-3 idea best.

[jonts26]

Goons: "When you have a Goons in play, when you buy a card, +1VP"
King's Court: "You may reveal an action other than a King's Court. Play it 3 times.
Wharf: "+1 Buy, Now and at the start of your next turn: +2 cards"

I guess you're mostly being true to your username with these suggestions.

[popsofctown]

There's kind of two different ways  to think about the question, depending on whether it means we could go back in time and make the changes, or whether the changes would occur now, after people are already used to many cards the way they are.  Some changes that are appropriate if you could go back in time just aren't worth it now that people are used to cards being the way that they are. 

Some changes don't require you to go back in time for them to improve the game though.  Familiar at 2p is such an improvement to Dominion that it would be worth shaking things.

[One Armed Man]

Ooooo... What would happen if Familiar cost 2P and gained the text "When you gain this, trash a Curse from the Supply."?

[popsofctown]

What is the idea behind that clause?

[One Armed Man]

It helps players who don't go for potions by limiting the number of curses able to be sent out. It lets players who fall behind on curses buy familiars late to reduce the number of curses they might get. It makes games with Familiar stall less than they currently do, because without trashers, at most 4 curses are in each player's deck (2player), 6 (3 player) or 7 (4 player). Just an idea. In games with multiple Cursers, I don't forsee the exact consequences, but I think it makes Familiar less attractive.

[zahlman]

Some thoughts I had...

New Masquerade - Action/Attack - still $3? (but now the name doesn't work as well...)

+2 Cards
You may trash a card from your hand. If you do, each opponent with at least 4 cards in hand passes you a card. You may trash any of the received cards; gain the rest.

(Avoids the pin, and protects against Possession nastiness.)

----

New Ambassador - Action/Attack - probably more now?

Gain a Curse in hand. Set aside any number of cards from your hand. Each other player, in turn, takes one of the set aside cards, putting it in his hand. Trash any remaining set aside cards.

(This is perhaps political in the sense that you can choose to only hurt one player, and hit with a Curse; but you hurt your own opportunities in order to do so. The trashing is again to mitigate vs. Possession, although you can still lose 1 good card per opponent.)

[NoMoreFun]

Thief:
Action - $4
Each other player reveals the top 2 cards of his deck. He either trashes or discards the revealed treasure cards (your choice), and puts the other cards back in any order. You may gain a card trashed this way, putting it in your hand.

[NoMoreFun]

From an earlier topic:

Feast
Action - $4
Trash this card
---
When you trash this, gain a card costing up to $5

Embargo
Action - $2
+$2
Trash this card.
---
When you trash this, put an embargo token on top of a supply pile.
---
When a player buys a card, he gains a curse per embargo token on that pile.

Pillage:
Action/Attack - $5
Trash this card
Each player with 5 or more cards in hand reveals their hand and discards a card that you choose
---
When you trash this, gain 2 Spoils.

Madman:
Action - 0*
+2 Actions
Trash this
---
When you trash this, return it to the Madman pile.
If you do, +1 card for each card in your hand.

Mining Village:
Action - $4
+1 Card
+2 Actions
You may trash this card
---
When you trash this, +$2
(Note: +$ is meaningless if it's not your turn)

[popsofctown]

Why would you make Masquerade more complicated 99.9% of the games it appears in just so that a pin isn't possible in .1% of its games?

[SirPeebles]

I've never really understood why the pin is so hated.  If you get hit by it, just resign.  If you use it, and your opponent won't resign, oh well.  You'll still win.  It takes some effort to reach, so is it really different than a mega turn strategy?  Personally I'm more bothered by bishop/fortress since it doesn't proceed toward a game ending condition.

[NoMoreFun]

The pin is a problem, but it can be resolved with adding an "if you did pass a card" before allowing the trashing. You can still do some powerful things like leave the opponent with a 2 card hand, but you won't be able to crush their hand and deck into oblivion reliably every turn.

Adding that clause would remove an unintentionally broken thing from dominion that wasn't discovered in playtesting. While it's pretty much just a megaturn, it's a malevolent one, and one that's a kingmaker in multiplayer games.

[NoMoreFun]

Fortress: When you trash this, gain a Fortress, putting it in your hand.

[LastFootnote]

Fortress: When you trash this, gain a Fortress, putting it in your hand.

Those will run out fast. Why make this change?

[popsofctown]

The pin is a problem, but it can be resolved with adding an "if you did pass a card" before allowing the trashing. You can still do some powerful things like leave the opponent with a 2 card hand, but you won't be able to crush their hand and deck into oblivion reliably every turn.

Adding that clause would remove an unintentionally broken thing from dominion that wasn't discovered in playtesting. While it's pretty much just a megaturn, it's a malevolent one, and one that's a kingmaker in multiplayer games.

I'd allege that .1% of games in which the card appears is not worth even 6 extra words on the card.

[SirPeebles]

The pin is a problem, but it can be resolved with adding an "if you did pass a card" before allowing the trashing. You can still do some powerful things like leave the opponent with a 2 card hand, but you won't be able to crush their hand and deck into oblivion reliably every turn.

Adding that clause would remove an unintentionally broken thing from dominion that wasn't discovered in playtesting. While it's pretty much just a megaturn, it's a malevolent one, and one that's a kingmaker in multiplayer games.

I thought about mentioning its lopsided impact on multiplayer games.  But is pinning even a reasonable strategy?  The pinning deck is not particularly strong on its own right; the benefit comes from destroying an opponent.  If there is a third player, it seems like you'd be dooming yourself nearly as badly as the opponent whose deck you trash.

[NoMoreFun]

Fortress: When you trash this, gain a Fortress, putting it in your hand.

Those will run out fast. Why make this change?

Strategies built around fortress, like Procession/Fortress, tend to strike me as a bit overpowered. This puts a limit on them, and also prevents things like bishop/fortress going on indefinitely, while still making the card functionally identical.

[NoMoreFun]

The pin is a problem, but it can be resolved with adding an "if you did pass a card" before allowing the trashing. You can still do some powerful things like leave the opponent with a 2 card hand, but you won't be able to crush their hand and deck into oblivion reliably every turn.

Adding that clause would remove an unintentionally broken thing from dominion that wasn't discovered in playtesting. While it's pretty much just a megaturn, it's a malevolent one, and one that's a kingmaker in multiplayer games.

I thought about mentioning its lopsided impact on multiplayer games.  But is pinning even a reasonable strategy?  The pinning deck is not particularly strong on its own right; the benefit comes from destroying an opponent.  If there is a third player, it seems like you'd be dooming yourself nearly as badly as the opponent whose deck you trash.

This is true. You'd only do this if you desperately wanted the player to your left not to win, but you shouldn't be allowed to do this in Dominion.

Also Masquerade isn't exactly too dense with words to be significantly hurt by adding a small clause to fix it. I'd wager that in the small number of games where the pin pops up (if it isn't a very obscure Golem pin), it's usually the best strategy on the board, as the only way to beat a player setting up a pin is to make the game end before he can set it up, which isn't easy to do, even on a board with King's Court. Its existence does hurt dominion as a whole, and IIRC, Donald X would have changed the wording if he noticed the combo in playtesting.

[popsofctown]

The pin is a problem, but it can be resolved with adding an "if you did pass a card" before allowing the trashing. You can still do some powerful things like leave the opponent with a 2 card hand, but you won't be able to crush their hand and deck into oblivion reliably every turn.

Adding that clause would remove an unintentionally broken thing from dominion that wasn't discovered in playtesting. While it's pretty much just a megaturn, it's a malevolent one, and one that's a kingmaker in multiplayer games.

I thought about mentioning its lopsided impact on multiplayer games.  But is pinning even a reasonable strategy?  The pinning deck is not particularly strong on its own right; the benefit comes from destroying an opponent.  If there is a third player, it seems like you'd be dooming yourself nearly as badly as the opponent whose deck you trash.

This is true. You'd only do this if you desperately wanted the player to your left not to win, but you shouldn't be allowed to do this in Dominion.

Also Masquerade isn't exactly too dense with words to be significantly hurt by adding a small clause to fix it. I'd wager that in the small number of games where the pin pops up (if it isn't a very obscure Golem pin), it's usually the best strategy on the board, as the only way to beat a player setting up a pin is to make the game end before he can set it up, which isn't easy to do, even on a board with King's Court. Its existence does hurt dominion as a whole, and IIRC, Donald X would have changed the wording if he noticed the combo in playtesting.

Your recollection is at odds with my recollection.

[NoMoreFun]

You're right indeed; I just checked the "dominion time machine" post.
I don't see what's so awful about saying "If you passed a card, you may trash a card from your hand" though. It looks pretty clean to me.

[dondon151]

Because then you'd have players wondering why that clause exists.

[NoMoreFun]

Because then you'd have players wondering why that clause exists.

Then they'd realise that it's because playing masquerade with an empty hand/deck takes a card away from the player to your right, which isn't fair, so thank god the clause exists.

Is it seriously that big a deal to have a few words to fix a card? It's not like Masquerade's a vanilla card anyway.

[Jimmmmm]

Personally I like Masquerade the way it is, and I like the fact that in Dominion there are certain card combos that do super crazy unusual things like trashing all your opponents cards.

[NoMoreFun]

Personally I like Masquerade the way it is, and I like the fact that in Dominion there are certain card combos that do super crazy unusual things like trashing all your opponents cards.

I like insane combos as well, but Masquerade pins cross the line into being unfun and game breaking, and aren't actually that uncommon in the grand scheme of things, since there are several cards that can substitute for "goons" (and even King's Court is negotiable). I'd even wager that if you're playing with all expansions, you're more likely to run into a Masquerade pin than a board where Scout is worth buying.

[Captain_Frisk]

Personally I like Masquerade the way it is, and I like the fact that in Dominion there are certain card combos that do super crazy unusual things like trashing all your opponents cards.

I like insane combos as well, but Masquerade pins cross the line into being unfun and game breaking, and aren't actually that uncommon in the grand scheme of things, since there are several cards that can substitute for "goons" (and even King's Court is negotiable). I'd even wager that if you're playing with all expansions, you're more likely to run into a Masquerade pin than a board where Scout is worth buying.

why do you view KC + Goons + Masq as any more offensive than KC x2 Bridge x3?  Both end the game immediately.

[dondon151]

Then they'd realise that it's because playing masquerade with an empty hand/deck takes a card away from the player to your right, which isn't fair, so thank god the clause exists.

Would they really? These are the same players who don't know why Curses are always in the kingdom. Clearly they'd realize that their existence in 2-player provides a convenient avenue to 3-pile endings in Goons engines.

Pins would be significantly less of a problem if KC were fixed. The easiest versions of the pin to set up are the KC-KC ones. It also alleviates the KC-KC-3xBridge problem, huzzah!

[NoMoreFun]

Personally I like Masquerade the way it is, and I like the fact that in Dominion there are certain card combos that do super crazy unusual things like trashing all your opponents cards.

I like insane combos as well, but Masquerade pins cross the line into being unfun and game breaking, and aren't actually that uncommon in the grand scheme of things, since there are several cards that can substitute for "goons" (and even King's Court is negotiable). I'd even wager that if you're playing with all expansions, you're more likely to run into a Masquerade pin than a board where Scout is worth buying.

why do you view KC + Goons + Masq as any more offensive than KC x2 Bridge x3?  Both end the game immediately.

It's not immediately. It's a slow grind, and unless there's a looter or a pile already empty, the game doesn't even end officially.

I don't mind being hit by KC/KC/Bridge/Bridge/Bridge, but Bridge could maybe do with the same wording as Highway and Princess.

Edit: I guess though, that every time you buy a copper, the pinning player can destroy it, and once you can't buy copper there's no way to get back on your feet. However in pins where "goons" is Ghost Ship or Margrave, the pinning player also has no money, so it would be a draw.

[Mic Qsenoch]

Personally I like Masquerade the way it is, and I like the fact that in Dominion there are certain card combos that do super crazy unusual things like trashing all your opponents cards.

I like insane combos as well, but Masquerade pins cross the line into being unfun and game breaking, and aren't actually that uncommon in the grand scheme of things, since there are several cards that can substitute for "goons" (and even King's Court is negotiable). I'd even wager that if you're playing with all expansions, you're more likely to run into a Masquerade pin than a board where Scout is worth buying.

why do you view KC + Goons + Masq as any more offensive than KC x2 Bridge x3?  Both end the game immediately.

It's not immediately. It's a slow grind, and unless there's a looter or a pile already empty, the game doesn't even end officially.

I don't mind being hit by KC/KC/Bridge/Bridge/Bridge, but Bridge could maybe do with the same wording as Highway and Princess.

Edit: I guess though, that every time you buy a copper, the pinning player can destroy it, and once you can't buy copper there's no way to get back on your feet. However in pins where "goons" is Ghost Ship or Margrave, the pinning player also has no money, so it would be a draw.

The game can end immediately. This has been said a lot of times but here's one more. If you are pinned, then resign. It's that simple.

[Drab Emordnilap]

The game can end immediately. This has been said a lot of times but here's one more. If you are pinned, then resign. It's that simple.

Why should I resign? We're tied!

 

[NoMoreFun]

If they're so insistent on keeping them, there should be some errata that specify game ending conditions for the case of masquerade pins and possibly bishop+fortress. There's some other situations that can lead to the game not being motivated to end, like a thief engine destroying everyone's treasure on a board with no virtual $ or gainers but those situations are a lot rarer. I'd personally always include the ruins pile so that there are 3 piles costing 0 and regardless of where the game goes, you can theoretically force a 3 pile end.

Then again, I'm also in favour of there being infinitely many base treasures, so make of that what you will.

[zahlman]

Then again, I'm also in favour of there being infinitely many base treasures, so make of that what you will.

Definite -1 to this, especially for the Platinum pile. Having to fight over 12 of them is often very relevant, and it's actually quite neat to have it available as a target for 3-piles, powering Cities etc.

[eHalcyon]

Personally I like Masquerade the way it is, and I like the fact that in Dominion there are certain card combos that do super crazy unusual things like trashing all your opponents cards.

I like insane combos as well, but Masquerade pins cross the line into being unfun and game breaking, and aren't actually that uncommon in the grand scheme of things, since there are several cards that can substitute for "goons" (and even King's Court is negotiable). I'd even wager that if you're playing with all expansions, you're more likely to run into a Masquerade pin than a board where Scout is worth buying.

why do you view KC + Goons + Masq as any more offensive than KC x2 Bridge x3?  Both end the game immediately.

It's not immediately. It's a slow grind, and unless there's a looter or a pile already empty, the game doesn't even end officially.

I don't mind being hit by KC/KC/Bridge/Bridge/Bridge, but Bridge could maybe do with the same wording as Highway and Princess.

Edit: I guess though, that every time you buy a copper, the pinning player can destroy it, and once you can't buy copper there's no way to get back on your feet. However in pins where "goons" is Ghost Ship or Margrave, the pinning player also has no money, so it would be a draw.

The game is effectively over immediately once a pin is in place, Moat notwithstanding.  Even if the pinning player has no money, they still have a deck.  They can stop the pin and start rebuilding starting with decent cards.  The pinned player has nothing.  I mean, sure, once the pin ends the other player technically has a chance of coming back.  But the chance is probably negligible even with a 40 level difference between the players.  So once pinned, you should resign.

[ehunt]

Having played way, way too many games of Dominion, I can say that I've only had the pin successfully executed against me two or three times - certainly less often than I've lost to KC/KC/bridge/bridge/bridge

[ehunt]

I think I'd nerf scrying pool by taking away the attack part.

[ehunt]

You could maybe nerf Sauna/Avanto by having Avanto draw one fewer card and cost 4. In fact it would probably be fine still costing 5.

[Chris is me]

You could maybe nerf Sauna/Avanto by having Avanto draw one fewer card and cost 4. In fact it would probably be fine still costing 5.

I think it would be way worse and losing the split would be a lot more painful.

The remedies to Sauna / Avanto being difficult are tough because a lot relies on that initial Sauna / Silver connection and not missing $4. I think a 12 card pile would probably be the first thing to improve, since that way losing the split isn’t guaranteed and more draw is available even if you don’t get a lot of Saunas.

Also why bump a thread from 2012 to talk about this?

[ehunt]

i thought it was odd nobody had been nerfing or buffing in a while

[LastFootnote]

For Sauna, I’ll suggest what I suggested at the time: remove the trashing and cost it at $2.

[greybirdofprey]

With the recent discussion on Guardian - what if you can optionally trash it at the start of your turn to get a second +$1?

[ehunt]

With the recent discussion on Guardian - what if you can optionally trash it at the start of your turn to get a second +$1?

that's a really strong card -- but maybe not overly so.

[Holunder9]

With the recent discussion on Guardian - what if you can optionally trash it at the start of your turn to get a second +$1?

Transferring Coins 2:2 from turn to turn is probably too good. Sure, you need that extra Buy but if you have it smoothing/spiking Coins during the endgame becomes (too) easy. And a 2/7 opening also sound pretty crazy. Sure, with Guardian and Baker you can already open with Expand or Forge but that at least requires the presence of two cards.

[Holger]

With the recent discussion on Guardian - what if you can optionally trash it at the start of your turn to get a second +$1?

Transferring Coins 2:2 from turn to turn is probably too good. ...

Not just that, you'd get the Attack protection to boot. I think that's far too strong, no $2 card should be an automatic buy with $2 and a buy left. (Even a strong cantrip like Hamlet isn't always.) It'd also outshine Embargo for getting you the +$2 one shuffle earlier...

Even allowing optional trashing for no extra benefit would substantially boost Guardian, removing a delayed Copper from your deck for free. It would still be an automatic buy this way, converting $2 now to $1 next turn is better than just wasting it. Unlike Tax, it can never hurt yourself (unless you want to be attacked).

[NoMoreFun]

Rats should trash a hand of all Rats. It doesn't add that much except being thematic (they die of overpopulation when they have nothing to eat), but it would make the card more interesting in kingdoms where there isn't another trasher.