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Author Topic: ALCHEMY 2  (Read 5148 times)

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joekinguyr

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ALCHEMY 2
« on: February 19, 2020, 04:43:10 am »
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I think we can all agree that Alchemy sucks.
Another thing we can all agree on is that the reason Alchemy sucks so hard is that potions suck.
In lieu of a better name, I am making this set that extends Alchemy with modern mechanics and hopefully makes it less sucky.
So without further ado, here are the first three cards.
Assistant
$1P Night
Put a card from play on top of your deck for each Potion in play.
Is your deck cluttered with useless Potions? Hire a lab assistant to keep things in order!
Crucible
$2P Action
Trash a Treasure from your hand costing up to $5. +1 Card per 1$ it costs.
A Treasure TFB that works handsomely with potions. Stock up on potions to get Crucibles and other P cost cards, and then get rid of them when they're no longer needed.
Reagent
P Treasure
P
+1 Buy
-
This turn, when you discard a Potion from play, you may exchange it for a Reagent.
Similar line of thought to Crucible, have your potions provide +Buy and make them somewhat less useless.
That's all. See you next week!
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markusin

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Re: ALCHEMY 2
« Reply #1 on: February 19, 2020, 08:53:32 am »
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Assistant is begging to be gained to hand, considering that you (under most circumstances) have potion in play on the turn you buy it.

I don't know about Reagent. You have to already have potion to buy yet another option card. Maybe find a way to gain it without actually spending a potion for it, like how Duchess can be gained with Duchy.

Crucible just seems like a more restrictive Apprentice, which is already a part of Alchemy. Apprentice even cares about cards costing potion. Note that because of its potion cost, you don't really get Crucible any faster than you would Apprentice.
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segura

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Re: ALCHEMY 2
« Reply #2 on: February 22, 2020, 01:29:32 pm »
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All official Potion-costed cards are designed such that they are often desireable even if there are no other Potion-costed cards in the Kingdom

Neither of your cards follows this design principle, they only work if there are other Potion-costed cards and appear as weak-ish secondary option if you can e.g. not hit 3P.
Assistant is nearly always worse than Scheme as it does not draw and Crucible is worse than all similar TfB cards.
Reagent is OK as "sidekick" but suffers from the typical problem that all "virtual Potion" cards do: lack of interaction with Alchemist and Apothecary.
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herw

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Re: ALCHEMY 2
« Reply #3 on: February 22, 2020, 11:53:58 pm »
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[...] but suffers from the typical problem that all "virtual Potion" cards do: lack of interaction with Alchemist and Apothecary.
Maybe that Donald's idea of Alchemy isn't perfect? Maybe that Apothecary and Alchemist are not the standard?
What about if there would be no virtual money? Many powerful cards are basing upon virtual money. So virtual potion is a must too.
« Last Edit: February 22, 2020, 11:55:41 pm by herw »
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segura

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Re: ALCHEMY 2
« Reply #4 on: February 23, 2020, 05:47:47 am »
+1

[...] but suffers from the typical problem that all "virtual Potion" cards do: lack of interaction with Alchemist and Apothecary.
Maybe that Donald's idea of Alchemy isn't perfect?
His concept is sound: Kingdoms with only one Potion-costed cards work. That implies flexible setups, i.e. you are not forced to play with several Potion-costed cards in order to make these very cards balanced.
Weak cards like Counting House that only shine in some Kingdoms are fine as it is fun to find the combos that make them work. Weak cards that require some brethrens of themselves to be good on the other hand are not as their situational strength is pre-programmed (and not accidental like in the case of the aforementioned Counting House).

Quote
Maybe that Apothecary and Alchemist are not the standard?
What about if there would be no virtual money? Many powerful cards are basing upon virtual money. So virtual potion is a must too.
They are official cards and miles better than underdeveloped fan cards which presume to be superior to official cards while ignoring basic design principles of Potion-costed cards like the aforementioned "singular Potion card in the Kingdom" concept.

About virtual Potions, sure, you can do them. All I am saying is that they do not work for Alchemist and Apothecary. If you don't mind that, that's no issue. Do what you like.
But many folks, including me, went down the rabbit hole of virtual Potions and found nothing down there. So there is that.

Instead of making acquiring Potions less costly (gotta spend a Buy/gain for them, dead card in your deck) via something like virtual Potions, make the Potion-costed card like the official cards, i.e. "singularly" good.
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herw

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Re: ALCHEMY 2
« Reply #5 on: July 27, 2020, 12:47:36 am »
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Hi segura,
your judging about alchemy fan cards is very rigorous. I have tested very carefully new alchemy cards starting with principality and county.
  .
After that I create alchemy fancards. I don't know why you always take apothecary and alchemist as criterium whether new alchemy cards are well done or not?
This is not a post against you but I don't understand why you think, that new alchemy cards are evildoing?  ;)
I am testing new alchemy cards very intensively (respecting Donalds suggestion to use only two or three alchemy cards) and there is much fun. Have you ever tested any new alchemy cards intensively?
« Last Edit: July 27, 2020, 01:11:22 am by herw »
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segura

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Re: ALCHEMY 2
« Reply #6 on: July 27, 2020, 07:43:08 am »
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I seriously doubt that you tested these cards extensively given that they are more expensive than Vineyard yet don’t yields (that much) more VPs (if you mainly play 3P and 4P Vineyard is of course weaker).

I have nothing against cards with P costs and play with several of such fancards myself. But only when they do not violate basic design principles like, the card will often enough be bought even when it is the only card with Potion costs in the Kingdom which implies that the card is strong enough to deal with an extra stop card.

Virtual Potion screws with that principle, i.e. the respective fan designer makes the downside of Potions weaker but then also makes the P costed cards he designs weaker.
I dare to be so blunt about this issue because I went myself down the virtual Potion rabbit hole. There is nothing down there and unsurprisingly so for the above mentioned reasons.

If you can explain to me the benefit of breaking basic design principles I am all ears though.
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herw

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Re: ALCHEMY 2
« Reply #7 on: July 27, 2020, 08:49:12 am »
+1

so my question: why do principality and county break basic design principles?

BTW: county adds a rule: you can win with an empty county pile.
suggestion: If there is any pile with potion in cost add principality and county
It offers an alternate winning way like colony does. As county has same victory points like province, it is an interesting decision to follow this way.

I seriously doubt that you tested these cards extensively given that they are more expensive than Vineyard yet don’t yields (that much) more VPs (if you mainly play 3P and 4P Vineyard is of course weaker).
How do you get this guess?
« Last Edit: July 27, 2020, 09:38:23 am by herw »
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segura

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Re: ALCHEMY 2
« Reply #8 on: July 27, 2020, 10:05:22 am »
+1

I seriously doubt that you tested these cards extensively given that they are more expensive than Vineyard yet don’t yields (that much) more VPs (if you mainly play 3P and 4P Vineyard is of course weaker).
How do you get this guess?
Just read the part that you did not bold: more expensive than Vinyard while giving less VPs than Vineyard does (on average). Naturally I assume that you did playtest them against, or did at least compare them with, the only official green card with P costs.

Vineyard can get away with being often better than Provinces because there is a huge difference between getting 8 or 16 Coins and 1 Potion. The former resources are useful for all kind of stuff, so a deck whose Coin production increases slowly has also benefits that increase slowly over time. Early you use Coins to build, later you use them to green.

Potion for Vineyard on the other hand is useless / wasting resources early in the game (the space for the Potion, spending the Buy on Vineyard, dealing with green early in the game) so you don't want it from the get-go.
That whole mini-game, that total lack of granularity of Potion, that non-linearity and regime change that occurs in Vineyard games from "Potion =  junk" towards "Potion = absolutely necessary" makes Vineyard such an interesting card.

I don't see the appeal of a bunch of standard Victory cards with Potion cost randomly tacked on for no apparent reason.
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herw

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Re: ALCHEMY 2
« Reply #9 on: July 27, 2020, 10:14:49 am »
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hm - please test principality and county
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segura

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Re: ALCHEMY 2
« Reply #10 on: July 27, 2020, 10:18:10 am »
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hm - please test principality and county
Sorry, but there are so many fan cards here that I don't see the appeal of playing with a card which looks bad in theory to me. If you could explain to me the ideas behind your design, and why you chose P cost for vanilla green, I am all ears though.
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herw

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Re: ALCHEMY 2
« Reply #11 on: July 27, 2020, 10:23:04 am »
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hm - please test principality and county
Sorry, but there are so many fan cards here that I don't see the appeal of playing with a card which looks bad in theory to me. If you could explain to me the ideas behind your design, and why you chose P cost for vanilla green, I am all ears though.
sorry: no testing - no judging (no personal attack from my side  :) )
« Last Edit: July 27, 2020, 10:27:33 am by herw »
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segura

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Re: ALCHEMY 2
« Reply #12 on: July 27, 2020, 10:25:34 am »
+1

hm - please test principality and county
Sorry, but there are so many fan cards here that I don't see the appeal of playing with a card which looks bad in theory to me. If you could explain to me the ideas behind your design, and why you chose P cost for vanilla green, I am all ears though.
sorry: no testing - no judging (no personal attack from my side  :) )
We talk about cards here all the time without ever having played with them. That is the whole reason to post cards here, to get feedback.
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herw

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Re: ALCHEMY 2
« Reply #13 on: July 27, 2020, 10:27:46 am »
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hm - please test principality and county
Sorry, but there are so many fan cards here that I don't see the appeal of playing with a card which looks bad in theory to me. If you could explain to me the ideas behind your design, and why you chose P cost for vanilla green, I am all ears though.
sorry: no testing - no judging (no personal attack from my side  :) )
We talk about cards here all the time without ever having played with them. That is the whole reason to post cards here, to get feedback.

« Last Edit: July 27, 2020, 11:00:11 am by herw »
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MiX

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Re: ALCHEMY 2
« Reply #14 on: July 27, 2020, 10:34:21 am »
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It seems that these victory cards are fixing a problem with Potion, which is it doesn't help you gain Provinces. Making Potion act like gold for Duchy/Province means it acts like any other treasure: helps you get high cost actions early and later on it's payload which helps you green. The tradeoff being that it's harder to gain non-Potion actions with it.

Vineyard doesn't trivially gain more VPs than province, and I don't think every P cost Victory card needs to compare to it.
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LordBaphomet

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Re: ALCHEMY 2
« Reply #15 on: July 27, 2020, 10:39:03 am »
+1

hm - please test principality and county
Sorry, but there are so many fan cards here that I don't see the appeal of playing with a card which looks bad in theory to me. If you could explain to me the ideas behind your design, and why you chose P cost for vanilla green, I am all ears though.
sorry: no testing - no judging (no personal attack from my side  :) )
We talk about cards here all the time without ever having played with them. That is the whole reason to post cards here, to get feedback.


That's amazing for you,but not everybody has the time, energy, and resources to test fan cards. Segura is right. They're boring and worse than vineyard. If your vineyards aren't worth more than provinces, you are doing something wrong or playing vineyard when there are no good supports for it (eg. gainers, uni, hamlet, attacks/long games, etc.)
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herw

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Re: ALCHEMY 2
« Reply #16 on: July 27, 2020, 10:51:32 am »
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hm - please test principality and county
Sorry, but there are so many fan cards here that I don't see the appeal of playing with a card which looks bad in theory to me. If you could explain to me the ideas behind your design, and why you chose P cost for vanilla green, I am all ears though.
sorry: no testing - no judging (no personal attack from my side  :) )
We talk about cards here all the time without ever having played with them. That is the whole reason to post cards here, to get feedback.


That's amazing for you,but not everybody has the time, energy, and resources to test fan cards. Segura is right. They're boring and worse than vineyard. If your vineyards aren't worth more than provinces, you are doing something wrong or playing vineyard when there are no good supports for it (eg. gainers, uni, hamlet, attacks/long games, etc.)
So I am a fool but I play and have fun.
« Last Edit: July 27, 2020, 11:02:44 am by herw »
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silverspawn

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Re: ALCHEMY 2
« Reply #17 on: July 27, 2020, 10:53:29 am »
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It's not actually a logical impossibility to play with a card a lot and not realize that it's weak.

I would be quite surprised if it were correct to buy potion for any of the cards suggested in this thread in a majority of games.

The two victory cards might work as an additional rule rather than as kingdom cards. As in, "whenever a card with P in its cost is in the supply, add these two victory piles." In fact, that kind of sounds like a cool idea.

herw

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Re: ALCHEMY 2
« Reply #18 on: July 27, 2020, 11:04:07 am »
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[...] The two victory cards might work as an additional rule rather than as kingdom cards. As in, "whenever a card with P in its cost is in the supply, add these two victory piles." In fact, that kind of sounds like a cool idea.
That is my suggestion - see upper post.
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segura

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Re: ALCHEMY 2
« Reply #19 on: July 27, 2020, 11:24:45 am »
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So I am a fool but I play and have fun.
So do we all, that's a trivial commonplace.

I had fun in my first Dominion games with Thief and Spy and even thought that the combo was great.
Doesn't mean though that the two cards did not deserve to land in the bin.
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herw

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Re: ALCHEMY 2
« Reply #20 on: July 27, 2020, 12:07:13 pm »
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So I am a fool but I play and have fun.
So do we all, that's a trivial commonplace.

I had fun in my first Dominion games with Thief and Spy and even thought that the combo was great.
Doesn't mean though that the two cards did not deserve to land in the bin.
Seems, that you only play Donald's cards. You like judging without playing - ok.
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silverspawn

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Re: ALCHEMY 2
« Reply #21 on: July 27, 2020, 12:10:36 pm »
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[...] The two victory cards might work as an additional rule rather than as kingdom cards. As in, "whenever a card with P in its cost is in the supply, add these two victory piles." In fact, that kind of sounds like a cool idea.
That is my suggestion - see upper post.
reading is hard.

segura

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Re: ALCHEMY 2
« Reply #22 on: July 27, 2020, 01:16:54 pm »
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So I am a fool but I play and have fun.
So do we all, that's a trivial commonplace.

I had fun in my first Dominion games with Thief and Spy and even thought that the combo was great.
Doesn't mean though that the two cards did not deserve to land in the bin.
Seems, that you only play Donald's cards. You like judging without playing - ok.
No, I do play with non-official cards.
Yes, I and all other folks here do indeed write stuff about cards they have never played with. And it is immensely helpful to have your idea checked and commented on and further inspired by the input of other people.

Why else post here? I would never assume that any of my cards is so great that people immediately want to play with it.
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MrFrog

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Re: ALCHEMY 2
« Reply #23 on: July 27, 2020, 02:04:26 pm »
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I have tested very carefully new alchemy cards starting with principality and county.

No offense, but if I remember correctly from the German forum, you test your fan cards with your wife. I believe you, when you say you two have a great time. And that's nice.

But other people have another level of experience. People who played many 1000 games online. They might have a different point of view based on many years of playing Dominion.

And another thing: When posting cards on a board like this, you have to accept that people judge your cards based on what's established in the game already. If you make up your own rules like adding two new base cards, that's totally fine, but most people here want to play according to 'Donald's rules' and thus be able to mix and match everything.
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herw

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Re: ALCHEMY 2
« Reply #24 on: July 27, 2020, 04:12:33 pm »
+1

I have tested very carefully new alchemy cards starting with principality and county.

No offense, but if I remember correctly from the German forum, you test your fan cards with your wife. I believe you, when you say you two have a great time. And that's nice.

But other people have another level of experience. People who played many 1000 games online. They might have a different point of view based on many years of playing Dominion.

And another thing: When posting cards on a board like this, you have to accept that people judge your cards based on what's established in the game already. If you make up your own rules like adding two new base cards, that's totally fine, but most people here want to play according to 'Donald's rules' and thus be able to mix and match everything.
ah yes, you are a member of the German forum too. Then you know, that all the cards are discussed intensively. New ideas are not welcome here. My impression here is that there is a clique. And the members are a closed group and honoring themselves. Many 1000 games are no charter for absolute knowledge.
« Last Edit: July 29, 2020, 07:01:15 pm by herw »
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