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LordClockworks

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Stone Age Set
« on: October 27, 2019, 11:51:17 am »
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I designed this set with an idea of "outdated" cards, where each merit they give comes with a some sort of a demerit. There are 4 main sub-themes: 1) Slavery - cards, that interact with Curses in your deck; 2) Self-destructive attacks - Hurt them more than yourself; 3) Alt-VP - Being useless until the end of the game is there own demerit and as such i decided to include them; 4) Vanilla cards with demerits - a variations on the Base set cards with some sort of demerits a user needs to overcome to properly apply a card in his deck. Each non-Victory pile has a 10 cards in it, with Victory piles having 8 copies for 2 players and 12 copies for 3 and more players. Exeptions numbers listed in figured parenthesis.

Slaves


{The number of slaves at the start of the game should be equal to the number of curses used in the game}

Slave trader


Slave master


Slave market


Pagan Shaman


Freeloader


{The number of Freeloaders at the start of the game should be equal to the number of curses used in the game}

Omen Tracker


Feud


Next is Alt-VP Split-pile. {4/4 copies for 2 players and 6/6 copies for 3 and more players.}

Top half:                                                Bottom half:

Ancestral rights                                      Border Lands


Free land


Shared land


Secret land


Mound


Primordial village


Primitive smithy


Pagan totem


Chief's hut


Outdated workshop


Storage pit


Shaman's hut


Tradional rite


Chief

« Last Edit: October 28, 2019, 04:46:43 am by LordClockworks »
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spineflu

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Re: Stone Age Set
« Reply #1 on: October 27, 2019, 02:14:55 pm »
+1

1: if you use the [ img width=250 ] tag i don't have to click through to read each card
2: you should probably consider a re-theme; games are supposed to be fun (before any sort of theme or mechanical considerations) and given we're still dealing with the effects of slavery (both currently implemented and post-hoc) I think for me and many others this theme (even where it's supposed to be negative) will put a damper on any sort of fun being had (especially with some of the images you're using for art).
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LordClockworks

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Re: Stone Age Set
« Reply #2 on: October 27, 2019, 02:23:05 pm »
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I just thought that any concept could be offputting for some people. But the images maybe bad yeah... I'll try to find something else.
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spineflu

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Re: Stone Age Set
« Reply #3 on: October 27, 2019, 02:47:49 pm »
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I just thought that any concept could be offputting for some people. But the images maybe bad yeah... I'll try to find something else.

I mean sure but with slavery you're picking a concept that is for-sure offputting (if not downright offensive) to a good chunk of the world population. you pick like "curses and hexes and jinxes and magic" and you're pretty much only ruining the day of people that had a problem with Harry Potter for promoting satanism or whatever.
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LordClockworks

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Re: Stone Age Set
« Reply #4 on: October 27, 2019, 02:54:59 pm »
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Nah, i mean there is a Torturer card and is it not offputting for a lot?
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Re: Stone Age Set
« Reply #5 on: October 27, 2019, 03:05:56 pm »
+3

yeah i think it would be; imo bad judgment calls were also made in Harem and Native Village - both perpetuated some pretty crappy stereotypes. but just because there's offputting themes in past/canon expansions, thats no excuse for failing to try to be better in what we make now.
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Gubump

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Re: Stone Age Set
« Reply #6 on: October 27, 2019, 03:14:22 pm »
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I can see why people would be upset by Harem, but what's wrong with Native Village?
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LordClockworks

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Re: Stone Age Set
« Reply #7 on: October 27, 2019, 04:09:13 pm »
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yeah i think it would be; imo bad judgment calls were also made in Harem and Native Village - both perpetuated some pretty crappy stereotypes. but just because there's offputting themes in past/canon expansions, thats no excuse for failing to try to be better in what we make now.
No, I meant it in a sense, that on the other hand the card can be liked by people due to its theme, no? Trying to always be non-offensive to everyone is not a very artistically creative option, while on the other hand your comment about Harry Potter satany fans (or smth) sounded really offensive from a certain point of view - like its totally okay to offend these guys.
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LordClockworks

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Re: Stone Age Set
« Reply #8 on: October 27, 2019, 04:10:45 pm »
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Anyway - maybe some thogths on a card concepts? I don't really created this set for a discussion about offensiveness.
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Re: Stone Age Set
« Reply #9 on: October 27, 2019, 05:40:24 pm »
+1

I agree that a renaming of the Slave cards would be desirable. Maybe it's impossible to be unoffensive to everyone (although I doubt that very much), but that doesn't mean it's impossible (or at all undesirable) to reduce the offensiveness.

However, besides the themes, I don't have much advice, as I am somewhat inexperienced at card design, except for these two things:
- Border Lands is broken. It is worth more than Province, and costs less.
- A line separates the on-play effects from everything else; you only need one per card. There is no line between different on-play effects, there shouldn't be a line between different effects from other triggers either.
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LordClockworks

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Re: Stone Age Set
« Reply #10 on: October 27, 2019, 06:00:44 pm »
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Border Land designed to be OP in comparision with Provinces. It is a bottom of a split-pile with Ancestral Rights on top, so you can buy them until all Rights are out, and Rights themselves have an ability which makes it a risk to buy Border Lands, if your opponent has some of the Ancestral Rights. I should probably reposition these cards for better visibility.
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Gubump

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Re: Stone Age Set
« Reply #11 on: October 27, 2019, 06:58:50 pm »
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I designed this set with an idea of "outdated" cards, where each merit they give comes with a some sort of a demerit. There are 4 main sub-themes: 1) Slavery - cards, that interact with Curses in your deck; 2) Self-destructive attacks - Hurt them more than yourself; 3) Alt-VP - Being useless until the end of the game is there own demerit and as such i decided to include them; 4) Vanilla cards with demerits - a variations on the Base set cards with some sort of demerits a user needs to overcome to properly apply a card in his deck. Each non-Victory pile has a 10 cards in it, with Victory piles having 8 copies for 2 players and 12 copies for 3 and more players. Exeptions numbers listed in figured parenthesis.

Slaves


{The number of slaves at the start of the game should be equal to the number of curses used in the game}

The problem with this type of drawback is that in games with trashing, you can easily break Slaves by trashing them and completely circumventing the drawback, and in games without trashing, the point penalty can vary between debilitating and meaningless. I've seen games lost with over 100 points and won with negative scores. I also think that Slaves is probably too weak anyway. It's just a free Silver+, and it isn't even a great Silver+. My biggest issue with Slaves, however, is that their presence in the Kingdom makes cursing Attacks way too powerful.

Slave market

This reaction is way too weak. It's effectively the same as +1 Action, cards cost $1 less this turn, which is already barely a -cost effect, but it also needs you to have multiple Buys in a turn and waste the first on a Curse in order to get that effect. Market Square, on the other hand, has a Reaction that is effectively +1 Action, gain a Gold (way better), can be drawn into, and reacts to something you'd already frequently want to do anyway.

Pagan Shaman

Rewording suggestion:
"Trash the card on the Exile mat. Put a card other than a Copper from your hand face up onto the Exile mat (or reveal you can't).

In games using this, at the start of your turn, if there is a card on the Exile mat, reveal your hand and discard all copies of it." This reduces the number of words in the text, makes it clearer, and keeps you honest (as you've worded it, there's no way to prevent players from pretending they have a hand full of Coppers). There's no way to get multiple cards onto the Exile mat at once, so you don't need to word Pagan Shaman as if you can.

Freeloader


{The number of Freeloaders at the start of the game should be equal to the number of curses used in the game}

You have to waste a buy to give your opponents Freeloaders, so I don't think it's worth doing unless it's the only -cost Kingdom card.

Omen Tracker

This is too powerful. If you discard a Victory card or a Curse, your opponents essentially have a 2-card hand on their next turn. I would reduce it to two cards topdecked and have it give + to the player to make it more like an oddball Militia variant.

Feud

This is way too swingy. You could very easily trash an Estate from your hand and hit an opponent's Province, leading to a 12-point swing in your favor.

Next is Alt-VP Split-pile. {4/4 copies for 2 players and 6/6 copies for 3 and more players.}

Top half:                                                Bottom half:

Ancestral rights                                      Border Lands

Nobody in their right mind would ever risk giving their opponent a ton of points by buying a Border Lands. Especially since Ancestral Rights isn't even hard to buy or play. And since nobody would buy Border Lands, Ancestral Rights would get left alone as well, considering that without Border Lands it's a double-cost Estate.

Free land

This doesn't really change the game in any interesting ways, imo.

Shared land

This is worded strangely. I assume that the player who has Shared Land chooses which Victory card it mimics, but as worded, it sounds like you choose a player at random at the beginning of the game and they decide which card Shared Land mimics. Here's how I would word it:
"When scoring, choose another Victory card in the Supply. This card is worth the same amount of as the chosen card."

Mound

Even in games with heavy trashing, I don't think this is going to be worth enough to make it worth , especially since it can only trash Treasures. It also needs to say "or reveal you can't" after "trash 2 Treasures from your hand" because it's possible that you play it while only having one Treasure in hand (or none in hand).

Primordial village

+Buys should come before +. Other than that, this is by far the best card in your post.

Pagan totem

This is too weak. It removes junk from your deck, but once you run out of cards to trash, it becomes significantly worse junk than any of the actual junk since it takes up space in EVERY hand for the rest of the game, and you Curse yourself if you try to trash it. Since you can easily play it every turn, it also really isn't that different from Cathedral if you think about it.

Chief's hut

This looks good on paper, but I think it's actually very weak. Many Actions are very bad and some are even useless if you have to discard your hand afterwards. The optimal targets for Chief's Hut are Actions that give + and +Buys, and considering that you need to play a non-terminal before CH works (because you need to have an Action left to play the CH), non-terminal coin is far too rare to make CH useful, especially when you also take into account the fact that the optimal targets also don't give +Cards because any cards you draw are wasted.

Shaman's hut

This compares too favorably to Forum to cost the same amount. They both give the same net handsize for the current turn, but Shaman's Hut improves your next turn as well. I would price Shaman's Hut at .

Tradional rite

Rewording suggestion:
"Reveal your hand and choose two cards from it that have the same cost. If you couldn't, trash this and gain a Curse. Otherwise, set aside both of them. Now and at the start of your next turn, trash one of the set aside cards and gain a card costing up to more than it."
Aside from the rewording, I feel like it should just fail to do anything if your cards all have different costs, since you can always just not play it. It also compares way too well to Remodel to cost . It is a conditional now-and-next turn Remodel, but you'd be hard-pressed NOT to be able to get that effect. I would price it at at the very least.

Chief


This is strictly better than Militia and therefore has to cost at least . I would actually suggest pricing it at .

For future reference, I would strongly recommend reading the fan card creation guide pinned to the top of this Variant and Fan Cards forum's front page. It was invaluable for me to learn how to get better at designing fan cards and avoiding common pitfalls.
« Last Edit: October 27, 2019, 07:01:11 pm by Gubump »
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LordClockworks

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Re: Stone Age Set
« Reply #12 on: October 28, 2019, 01:54:31 am »
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Replying to Gubump: Yeah, i designed all these cards after reading the guide.
Slaves: The whole point of slaves is to be easy to get. Thats why it is both action and a treasure.This way it would be more useful in games without Cursers. Well, they are designed as an economy you would like to trash later and can lose you a game, if you hadn't planned for it. They change the Cursers in in a interesting way: whould you curse your opponent, if he gets a Silver instead of curse each time and is gonna trash -4 points later in the game anyway? If there is no trashing however you need to give your opponent 10 curses before he starts taking Slaves. By that point your opponent will most probably have enough Cursers himself to help you get some Slaves.
Slave market: you think? Slave market itself is a nonterminal and non-stop +Buy, even by itself it can generate decent megaturns and with support it can make itself way out of hand with such a low price. I don't think its proper to compare it to MS as their reactions are useful in different situations.
Pagan Shaman: or yesh i thought out that blocking copper was way too powerful and forgot to mention reveal your hand. I'l reword this soon.
Freeloader: you never played with ill-gotten gains? I actually though freeloader is very op.
Omen Tracker: Hm, i designed it based on rabble, without support it shouldn't be that deadly, especially as you may not even have a card in hand to discard. With support it is powerful yes, but unless you are way ahead i think it will give enough leeway for a defending player, while you need to remember that you yourself will also be under the effect.
Feud: Well - trashing provinces with estates IS the inteded attacking way. The thing is you can easily defend by buying and trashing estates beforehand.
AR+BL: well you are right with the exeption: what if all AR were in the hands of 1 player? In 2p there are only 4 of them. If you bought/gained all of them you can freely buy BL, while your opponent is scared of your AR. To not be in this situation your opponent will then need to buy AR himself and then it would be a game of risk/return whether you buy BL or not.
Free land is a easy tfb fuel and end-game controller. You sholud always be wary of 8vp swing (or less without support) and gameending in the presence of ANY type of ganer/+buy.
Shared land: i like your rewording, thank you. I'll use it.
Mound: You forgot, that it is not only a vp it is also a trasher itself. You would often buy it even as a simple trasher of coppers and as for vp its not the heavy trashing actually but heavy gaining that makes it worthwhile (so that you gain lots of treasure and trash it to mound). Yes, i somehow forgot to reword it after changing the "may" word.
Primordial village: i think you are mistaken. +buy comes after the coins even on woodcutter.

« Last Edit: October 28, 2019, 12:41:26 pm by LordClockworks »
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Gubump

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Re: Stone Age Set
« Reply #13 on: October 28, 2019, 02:20:51 am »
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Primordial village: i think you are mistaken. +buy comes after the coins even on woodcutter.



No it does not.
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LordClockworks

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Re: Stone Age Set
« Reply #14 on: October 28, 2019, 02:47:31 am »
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Replying to Gubump part 2: Pagan totem - it is different from Cathedral in a way that it does not force you to trash, so you have 4-card hands as well, but it takes longer to shuffle and you don't need to trash your provinces to keep playing your hands. You can also enfasten trashing by buying more totems and then trash them anyway with each other (topdecked curses really helps with totems). So my thoughts about it were that it may be too OP actually.
Cheif's hut: The way to make use of them is to chain CH on itself: as you replay your CH you can each time choose a different (or the same) action to replay greately increasing your payloads power. You can't however chain it into a draw like King's Court (unless you have a forced play action like vassal), however you will gain a loads and loads of gold on top of your deck this way - which will decrease your action density. These types of cards (from Primordial village and on) are specifically designed to have drawbacks that a player will need to overcome to make full use of the card's power.
Shaman's hut - I based it on the lab actually. It's different from forum in the way that you cannot draw discarded cards  (becuse they are set-aside under the SH) (and by the way forum also has a +buy effect on-buy which SH lacks - it is actually one of the power points of Forums) and on the other hand - it is weaker than a lab for the next turn becase you cannot draw your whole deck every turn with SH (either you skip a turn or half your deck is under the SHs).
Traditional Rites: I like your rewording. I'll use it. About power level: in this case you may be right, however when I was designing it, I thoght the demerits were enough: it's missing the shuffles along with a delayed effect of the second remodel effect along with inability to be used in hands with different card costs (while this is not often to be the case - it will be more often that you don't want to remodel things that you can with it), you also can't simply trash your coppers with it like with Remake. It probably should be tested to see if it is OP or not.
Cheif: Oh, yeah. I liked the design of this card. It may not be obvious, but it isn't as good as militia actually. Reason is - the reaction part of a Chief makes it that the attack is actually detrimental, if another player also has a Chief (or multiple). So, if there was only 1 Chief in the pile - then yeah it would've been close to strictly better than Militia. But as a pile it's reaction part balances the card out.


« Last Edit: October 28, 2019, 12:42:22 pm by LordClockworks »
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LordClockworks

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Re: Stone Age Set
« Reply #15 on: October 28, 2019, 02:48:20 am »
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Primordial village: i think you are mistaken. +buy comes after the coins even on woodcutter.



No it does not.
Oh. My memory messed me up. Sorry, my fault. I'll change that soon.
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LordClockworks

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Re: Stone Age Set
« Reply #16 on: October 28, 2019, 04:07:18 am »
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Cheif's hut: The way to make use of them is to chain CH on itself: as you replay your CH you can each time choose a different (or the same) action to replay greately increasing your payloads power. You can't however chain it into a draw like King's Court (unless you have a forced play action like vassal), however you will gain a loads and loads of gold on top of your deck this way - which will decrease your action density. These types of cards (from Primordial village and on) are specifically designed to have drawbacks that a player will need to overcome to make full use of the card's power.
Oups, you were right. You need to play either payload card (and have actions to do so) or have an action that forces a play from your hand to chain CH.
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