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[TP] Inferno

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Dominion: Frontiers
« on: September 25, 2019, 06:02:10 pm »
+1

This is my first fan expansion, given that I'm relatively new to Dominion and this forum, so I would just love to hear some expert opinion on my cards and see whether they are broken/swingy etc. Here goes.

This expansion is called Frontiers, and its theme is discovery, exploration, and the lure of riches from a far off world.
It has a small top-of-deck theme, and, in being conceptually similar to Seaside, contains some Durations, including a Treasure-Duration and a Victory-Duration. It also contains many cards with a cost in Diamonds (which will be further abbreviated as D). This cost, similar to Potion, requires the player to play a basic treasure available in games with these cards, to produce the resource necessary to buy them. This basic treasure costs the same as Potion, however, it produces 2 Diamonds. And then there's the whole cost-in-coins-is-orthogonal-to-cost-in-Diamonds thing. But anyway. Here is the treasure:

Diamonds
$4
Treasure
2D
Frontiers

Kingdom cards(not necessarily in order):

Riches
$5
Treasure
Choose one: $2; or 2D.
Frontiers

Hostile Natives
$2+3D
Action-Attack
+2 Cards
Reveal a card from your hand. Each other player looks through their discard pile and reveals a card that shares a type with it. Then they either trash the revealed card or gain 2 Coppers, your choice.

Doomed Expedition
$5+1D
Action-Duration
+1 Card
+1 Action
Reveal the top 2 cards of your deck and set them aside, discarding them afterwards. For each Action card revealed, +1 Action. For each Treasure
revealed, +1 Card. If none were Actions or Treasures, then at the start of your next turn, +1 Buy, +2D, and trash this.

Storage Room
$2+1D
Action-Duration
+1D
Now and at the start of your next turn: +1 Card.
You may discard 2 cards for +2 Actions.

Trade Vessel
3D
Action
+1 Buy
+$2
+1D
Reveal the top card of your deck. If it's a Treasure, put it into your hand.

Voodoo Doll
$3+2D
Action-Attack
+2D
Each other player reveals the top card of their deck. If it costs $5 or more, they trash it and gain a cheaper card. If it doesn't, they gain a Curse.

The New World
4D
Action-Duration-Victory
+1 Card
Now and at the start of your next turn: +1 Action.
-------
3VP

Sea Monster
$1+3D
Action-Attack-Duration
+1 Card
Now and at the start of your next turn: +1D.
-------
While this is in play, other players cannot score Quests.

Buried Treasure
$3+1D
Treasure-Duration
$2
1D
At the start of your next turn: +$1.

Recover
$4+2D
Action
Trash a card from your hand. If it...
Costs more than $2, +1 Card
Costs more than $4, +1 Action
Has {Diamonds} in its cost, +1 Card, +1D
Has [Potion] or <Debt> in its cost, +1 Buy, +$2

Explore
$1+1D
Action-Reaction
Look at the top 2 cards of your deck, put one on top, and the other on the bottom.
------
When another player plays an Attack card, you may first reveal this from your hand, to look at the top 3 cards of your deck and discard any number, putting the rest back on top.

Quests

These are event-shaped cards with red frames that contain a goal that any player may try to complete. If a player has fulfilled the requirements of the quest, they score it at the given time to receive the reward. Scored quests are tracked by wooden cubes of the players colour, placed on the quest when it is scored. A player may not score an quest more than once. Players are not obliged to score an quest as soon as they fulfill the requirements, they may wait a few turns, but if they do, they must complete the quest's requirements again.

Voyage
Quest
When you have no cards left in your deck, you may score this at the end of your turn, to look through your discard pile and put 2 cards from it onto your deck.

Peace Treaty
Quest
If no Attack cards have been played since your last turn, you may score this at the start of your turn, to draw 2 additional cards.

Vendetta
Quest
When you play more than 5 Action cards in your turn, you may score this at the start of the Action phase of your next turn, for +2 Cards and +1 Action.

Wealth
Quest
When you make more than $9 in your turn, you may score this at the start of the Buy phase of your next turn, for +$2 and +1 Buy.

Subdivision
Quest
When you buy a card worth more than 4VP, you may score this at the end of your turn.
------
At the end of the game, this is worth 4VP  just for players who have scored this.

Drought
Quest
When you end a turn without doing anything, you may score this at the start of your next turn, to gain a card costing up to $4.

Land Acquisition
Quest
When you buy 3 victory cards in one of your turns, you may score this at the end of your turn to gain a Duchy.

Overpopulation
Quest
When you gain the last card from a Supply pile, you may score this immediately. If you do, you may put that card onto your deck and gain a card with the same cost.

Recruitment
Quest
When you play 3 Attack cards in the same turn, you may score this at the end of your turn. If you do, each other player discards down to 3 cards in hand.

Purification
Quest
When you trash 5 cards in your turn, you may score this at the end of your turn, to trash up to 2 cards from your hand or in play.

And there you have it. Please let me know your thoughts on these cards and give me feedback, and I will make any changes to these cards that are deemed necessary. Enjoy!
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naitchman

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Re: Dominion: Frontiers
« Reply #1 on: September 25, 2019, 11:44:31 pm »
0

Hey, welcome to the community
I don't know if you know about this but there's a dominion card creator here. It can really help bring the cards to life. I skimmed the cards and here are some quick thoughts (I'll probably add more later)

1) Not a big fan of the new currency diamonds. Alchemy is the least favorite set among most fans because of the potion currency. The inherent problem is that there can only be so many potion cards in Alchemy. If I play a game with only one potion card, I really have to weigh the cost benefit of getting that card and now having a dead potion in my deck (not to mention the risk of not aligning your potion correctly and it being a dead card on turn 3-4). As more sets come out this problem gets worse since the ratio of potion cards get lower and lower and thus it is less likely to have multiple potion cards in one kingdom. Another whole currency just reintroduces the problem.

2) That being said, I think your idea for riches (which doesn't seem like a good idea as a kingdom card if there's no diamond cards in the kingdom) might solve the above problem if you would make it the default diamond producer instead of diamonds (and adjusted it a bit). You'd probably need to reduce the price to $4 (so you can open with it). This would change the relative value of diamonds (if need be you could change it to $2 or 1 diamond), so you'd have to price the other cards accordingly. As an aside, if you're going to have diamonds come in sets of 2, a card with a 3 diamond cost effectively has a 4 diamond cost.

3) I haven't read through all the quests, but I like the idea. You probably should name it something else since quest is already an event (which would make it a little confusing). I've skimmed through some of these and they probably do need a little work. You want to make the reward worth the trouble. For example, if I construct a deck that can trash 5 cards in one turn, I probably don't need to trash 2 more (Purification)

Here are some thoughts on some specific cards:

Riches- as stated above, it doesn't work well as a kingdom card since it's just an expensive silver if there are no diamond cards (which is likely). This idea is really true for all the cards here that produce diamonds (even if they do have diamonds in their cost).

Hostile Natives- expensive, but can easily be abused. Toward the end game, I can make my opponent trash his provinces and get no consolation. It might be better if you gave them the choice (after looking through their discard, so it doesn't become a memory game and slow things down).

Doomed Expedition- comparatively, this is costs more than $6. Seems weak for a card that at best (assuming there are no crowns or capitalism) can either get +1 action +3 cards or +2 actions +2 cards (it also has the risk of trashing itself).

Storage Room- seems pretty weak for what it does. Compare it to caravan. Caravan's way easier to get and doesn't require you to discard cards to be non-terminal.

Sea Monster- Again, if there's no quests (likely), this card has very limited use. Even when there are it doesn't seem to be worth the trouble to get this and play it every turn, just to prevent your opponent from getting a one time benefit,

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Re: Dominion: Frontiers
« Reply #2 on: September 26, 2019, 04:18:33 am »
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Thank you very much for the feedback. I'll see about those changes.
How about this:

Diamonds
$4
Treasure
Choose one: $2 or 2D

Basically just Riches as the basic treasure. Should I only offer 1 coin instead of 2?
Another basic solution maybe could be to include another basic treasure included as well, like a Copper for Diamonds, pretty much. Oh well. Maybe both could work...

Could Doomed expedition cost $3+2D?

Maybe Sea Monster could have more of a benefit to be worth its cost as well as the Quest denying.
Perhaps it could say: +2 Cards, +$1, now and next turn, +1D?

I could rename Quests to Objectives, any issues?

As for Storage Room, maybe I could just give +2 Actions flat out, no discarding, maybe.

I was also worrying about Hostile Natives, I'll give the choice to the victim. I thought it may have been a little broken in the late game and I was thinking, they can choose which sametype card they reveal to the attacker, so maybe the attack choice can go to the attacker, but yeah, it's probably better in the hands of the victim.

For the now-Objectives, could you suggest some improvements? My favourite one personally was Subdivision, hopefully it's fine but I could fix it.

Thanks so much for the feedback, it's been great to hear from you guys about my fan cards, it has helped me so much. Hopefully the above changes help to improve these cards at least a little bit.
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Aquila

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Re: Dominion: Frontiers
« Reply #3 on: September 26, 2019, 04:38:57 am »
+1

(Written as you put up your last post)
Welcome to the forum. Naitchman has said a lot of good things, so I'll add my extras:

The Diamond mechanic - one of the design traits of the cards that need Potions is that it's good to buy lots of them. This is so the Potion(s) you bought have a more continuous use throughout the game. Not many of your cards follow this. The other is Possession's reason, to be really expensive without costing $8 or more, and again I don't see much of this in your set. So at present all it seems to accomplish is make the set less playable with the other expansions.
So, I would either try removing the diamonds altogether and see if things play nicer, or follow the Potion principles a bit closer.

Riches - agree with seeing little point in having both it and Diamonds. An alternative if you want to keep the Diamonds coming in pairs is add +1 Buy to them, so they can buy 2 diamond cards at once. Making +buys accessible in every Frontiers game might be a welcome touch in itself.

Voodoo Doll - a very swingy Attack, some players will trash a Province whilst others get something much less severe. Like with Hostile Natives, Attacks trashing Provinces should be avoided.

Sea Monster - terminal +1 Card is a bad effect wisely avoided on the official cards. If that 1 card is an Action, it's awful. So if you go with 2+ cards you're at least achieving increased handsize.

Recover - looks rather weak for a big expensive trash-for-benefit card.

Explore - the Reaction can be repeatedly used after one Attack play. So you can keep on and on sorting through the top 3 cards until they're just right, which will take ages. There are various ways to make it work once per Attack, like removing Explore from hand somehow.

Quests/Objectives
Voyage - you will very often score this on turn 2, because the opening is crucial to playing well, so there's not much strategy to it.

Peace Treaty - similarly this will nearly always be scored turn 1 for better odds of $5, $6 or even to play your turn 1 buy. Also, not every game has an Attack in it.

Wealth - this is true for several of these quests, but seems apparent here: would you put the cube on the quest the turn after you get $9, or would it be easier to do so when you get $9? It can be hard to remember doing it on a following turn with thinking about game plan as well. And, if you have $9 now, why not get the buy now?

Subdivision - so this will always score for a Province, but what about Victory cards that scale like Gardens or Silk Road? They might be worth 4VP when you buy them, but it won't be good to have to prove it to the other players. See my overall view of the quests too.

Recruitment can sometimes do nothing even with an Attack in the game.

Quests overall - lots of these don't really add much to the game. Try to think of objectives that are harder to accomplish so they can make players adapt the way they play in order to score them. That would be more interesting. With objectives that aren't always achievable in every game (like recruitment needing an Attack to work), think of a way to make them work.
I've been working on an identical idea to this myself, and my thoughts here were to make a pile of the quests together at the start to shuffle, and have instructions on the back of each one that indicate when to include them in.
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Re: Dominion: Frontiers
« Reply #4 on: September 26, 2019, 05:23:16 am »
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Okay, thanks. Everyone's feedback has been much appreciated and, tbh, I probably really needed to hear it. So I will change some more:

Riches is now the Basic Diamond treasure, as per my last post.

Voodoo doll now says, ...if it is a non-Victory card costing $5 or more...

Sea monster, as per my last post, now has +2 Cards and +$1 as well as the Duration +D.

Recover: would it be okay cheaper? Like maybe $2+2D? Or is that too cheap?

Explore now says, ...you may discard this from your hand...

Objectives

Voyage and Peace Treaty... Argh, didn't think of the opening turns. I might add a line below them saying; This can't be scored until the 5th turn of the game. Would that have tracking issues though? Maybe I need to change the condition itself.

Vendetta, Subdivision, Drought, and Land Acquisition now score immediately, and Vendetta says ...play the 5th action card in your turn...

Along a similar vein, Wealth scores at the start of the immediate Buy phase instead of the next one. You are right about the Buy being useful when you make $9.

Maybe Recruitment could have a clause that says, "in games using this, make sure at least one Attack card is in the Supply." Perhaps it could just say, "If there are no Attack cards in the Supply, score this when you gain 3 cards costing $3 or more instead. The original requirement could be 5 attack cards played, and the reward for either objective be discard down to 2? It would solve most of its 'doing nothing' problems but I'm wondering whether it's too mean.

I'm intending for Subdivision to have a FAQ that says that variable VP cards don't count. Sorry that wasn't obvious in my first post.

Peace Treaty could also have a similar clause to Recruitment.

I'm not quite sure how to fix Purification, maybe it needs to be scrapped. It could work with a tweak though, I think.
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GendoIkari

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Re: Dominion: Frontiers
« Reply #5 on: September 26, 2019, 09:30:35 am »
0

Welcome!

Subdivision has 2 issues... first off it's not always clear how many a card is "worth" during the game. Cards only only worth at the end of a game. Other than that, in most games only a Province (or Colony) will let you score this. Why not just say "when you buy a Province"?

*Edit I see you addressed variable VP cards, so if those don't count, it really is just Provinces, and occasionally Colonies. Would recommend just "when you buy a Province" in this case for sure.

The other issue is that basically every player is going to score this every game. And if for some reason a player didn't score it, that player was losing the game anyway whether Subdivision was in the game or not. All this does is add 4 to every player's score; except in rare cases not adding it to the score of a player who was losing badly anyway.

There's exceptions, such as Duke+Duchy games, Rebuild games, Goons games... but if ignoring Provinces is the best strategy on a board anyway, I doubt that giving the Province-player an extra 4 will matter.
« Last Edit: September 26, 2019, 09:58:13 am by GendoIkari »
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[TP] Inferno

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Re: Dominion: Frontiers
« Reply #6 on: September 26, 2019, 08:24:13 pm »
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Okay then, thanks for the feedback on Subdivision.
First of all, could I make it trigger on buying a Victory card of a certain cost, meaning that some of the more expensive variable VP cards could count, like Fairgrounds? Then it also wouldn't matter that they are only worth points at the end of the game. It would also mean that one could maybe buy a Farmland and have it trigger, not necessarily a Province. It could possibly also solve the second problem where it just blankly adds on 4VP to every players score, as I could make it a cost where cards like Duke and Duchy don't count. Then again, it probably wouldn't do much to help that (mainly because both Dukes and Duchies didn't count anyway). Although, maybe a variable VP reward could work, meaning that some players get more score from it, depending on certain strategies. Perhaps something like Silk Road, for instance ...this is worth 2VP per 4 Victory cards only in the decks of those who have scored this... or something.
This is how the new Subdivision could look:

Subdivision
Quest
When you buy a Victory card costing $6 or more, you may score this immediately.
-------
This is worth 2VP for every 4 Victiory cards only in the decks of those who have scored this.
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