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X-tra

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Dominion: Urbanisation
« on: August 29, 2020, 02:19:21 pm »
+6

Hello everyone !

This thread is sort of a continuation of this thread. Here, I’d like to present you a set of 30 cards I’ve crafted over early 2019 ‘til now. Why am I doing this? Well, it’s because after all this time, I’d like to have this set printed for it to be ready for IRL plays. However, printing is not cheap. So I’d like to make sure the cards truly are ready before I commit the cards for printing. I thought maybe you guys could help me spot the design mishaps in this set.

The name of the set is Urbanisation. It was named that way because that was the theme that emerged from the 30 Kingdom cards in this set. A lot of cards represent city stuff. A good chunk of them are also people doing various jobs. Therefore, Urbanisation, as a name, came to be. This set introduces no new mechanics, but rather, it borrows existing ones. Urbanisation also does not have any landscape cards (albeit, it does contain out-of-Supply cards and some new components, such as a mat). This set is a hybrid of cards I have posted in the Weekly Card Design Contest thread, cards I have posted in this thread and cards I have shown and have been given feedback for in the Dominion Discord server. So some of the entries here might not be new for some of you guys.

Posting 30 cards right away like this will undeniably be overwhelming for the readers. Therefore, I will post them slowly over time, following this model:
  • 3 cards will be posted every 3 days, usually around 8PM EST (I might not be too punctual though, don’t expect much from this scatterbrain :( ).
  • If possible, of the 3 cards posted, they will be split as such:
  • Links on each card post will be put to navigate this thread with more ease.
  • 3 cards every 3 days for a set of 30 cards means the whole set will be posted in around a month.
  • In the end, after all cards are posted, I'll make a short analysis of potential cohesion problems of the whole project. I'll also note what Urbanisation does a lot of and what it doesn't do a lot of.

Any feedback is appreciated. Sometimes, an extra pair of eyes can shed light onto problems my own brain just refused to notice over time, if y’know what I mean :D . So let’s end this increasingly big wall of text and let’s just straight into the first of 10 card posts:





Card set #1

          

True to its name, Urbanisation presents lots of folks with lots of different backgrounds. Here, we are offering you 3 people performing 3 different jobs for your kingdom. Choose your people wisely, m'Lord!


  • Appraiser (Discord card): Meet Appraiser, a card you’ll probably open with. It’s a decent trasher and people like that. And a non-terminal one too, uh-oh! This card was entered in this set relatively late, because there wasn’t enough trashing in Urbanisation. So what can it do for you? Well:
    • Early game, it trashes your crap for a payload of . An opening of double Appraiser is not out of the question.
    • It’s a Silver trasher that turns Appraiser into a Laboratory.
    • Late game, it kills your expensive Action cards (or Treasures) you no longer desperately need for a clutch of 2.
    On its own, Appraiser looks neat. In the set, though, it’s somewhat problematic, because out of all the cards I will present in this thread, this is the only one that dispatches tokens. It’s not very cohesive with the rest of Urbanisation.

  • Informer (Weekly Contest thread): Informer is a card I’ve reshaped constantly, even within the Weekly Card Design Contest thread. I really wanted to give a Command card a crack. With the current version of Informer, I’m pleased. You have 5 cards Informer can hit. And if it doesn’t hit, well it’s a terminal Silver. And hey, your left neighbour’s going to have a crappy turn anyway, you know that now! So, the pill is easier to swallow. I’ve had a nasty game where my opponent kept playing my Prizes (mostly Followers) through their Informer and that annoyed me, but in a good way! So Informer is extra potent when there are unique cards only one player can have. It’s also good if you’ve been junked more than your competition.

  • Vigil (my other thread): And finally, we have the good ol’ Vigil. It has changed quite a bit in the other thread (mostly its wording though). The version I am presenting here is also different. Opponents must have 5 or more cards in hand to discard to Vigil. It used to be 4+ cards. Discarding your 2 best cards is unfun though. One Pillage effect is enough. Vigil is a disappearing money Attack that only gives you . It’s not great... but if you open with one and go to your buy phase to play a Copper, it’s a weaker Cutpurse. Anyway, you’ll have to do some setup here. 2 Vigils can be good: Use the first one to scout your opponent’s hand and play the second one to make them discard something nasty. Again, some serious setup is required for it to be truly annoying. It probably scales better in games with more players.

« Last Edit: October 06, 2020, 10:03:52 am by X-tra »
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D782802859

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Re: Dominion: Urbanisation
« Reply #1 on: August 29, 2020, 03:14:28 pm »
+1

Vigil might be a tad strong, it's pretty close to a targeted discard.
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gambit05

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Re: Dominion: Urbanisation
« Reply #2 on: August 29, 2020, 03:36:11 pm »
+2

Appraiser: I like it as it is.
 
Informer: I have a similar card , though it is not fully thought out yet. But may be it helps for the discussion:

Blind Man’s Buff
$5 Action – Command
Quote
Each other player reveals their hand.
Choose one: Gain a copy of a revealed Treasure
onto your deck; or play a revealed non-Duration,
non-Command Action card costing up to $5,
leaving it there.

Obviously, there are some fundamental differences. My idea was that, when there is too much junk in the deck, it's not worth to buy Blind Man's Buff, and copying a Treasure is for the situations when either the player wants big money, or as consolation, when no valuable Action cards are revealed. I have used a higher cost and a limit of targets to avoid too much craziness. In Action heavy decks, a valuable target costing $5 should be regularly found.

Vigil: This can be quite brutal, for example when a second Vigil is played immediately and the opponents have to discard theirs; or early in the game, when the only Silver or Gold has to be discarded.
« Last Edit: August 29, 2020, 03:37:27 pm by gambit05 »
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Re: Dominion: Urbanisation
« Reply #3 on: August 30, 2020, 02:29:33 am »
+1

They all look pretty sound (and the art is nice).

Appraiser is my favourite here, simple TfB yet strategically rich.

Informer is similar to 4est's Falconer which has a weaker first option but a better/smoother second option.

I'd prefer Vigil to be terminal. Sure, there is a trend towards more non-terminal Attacks in the last expansions (especially Nocturne), non-terminal Copper is not that great of a vanilla bonus and of course the non-terminality makes it easier to set up a good Action for discard (we know from Kiln how hard that is, you gotta play Village-Village-Kiln-terminal if you wanna copy a terminal). But the Attack is potentially harsh and I would think twice about making this non-terminal instead of giving this some terminal vanilla, like e.g. +2 Cards.
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Re: Dominion: Urbanisation
« Reply #4 on: August 30, 2020, 12:07:32 pm »
0

Thank you for the comments, guys. It seems like there’s one problem everyone unanimously agrees upon, and that’s the power level of Vigil. This is odd because to me, I don’t see it being as strong as you guys pointed out. I feel like you need to put extra effort into Vigil if you want to make it work – and all of that not to help your own deck, but to hinder your opponents’ turns. The guessing game of what you could play next for the other players to discard seems like an unsafe investment for you to go down that road. Pillage is a one-shot, yes, but at least, you know it’ll work any time you use it (well, you still do hope your opponents have good hands when you decide to trash your Pillage).

That being said, I am not against the idea of turning Vigil’s vanilla bonus into a “+2 Cards”.
  • One, this’ll give you more cards to choose from for the discarding Attack.
  • Two, it’s not as spammable as it being non-terminal.
  • Three, as a whole, and as you’ll see in the next couple of weeks, Urbanisation has a big weakness and that is: its lack of drawing cards. Turning Vigil into a + Cards would help fill that gap a little more.
By the way, I edited Appraiser to reorganise the choice below in “ascending” order. I also added “Action card” (as opposed to simply “card”) in Informer.
« Last Edit: August 30, 2020, 12:09:02 pm by X-tra »
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Re: Dominion: Urbanisation
« Reply #5 on: August 30, 2020, 02:35:27 pm »
+2

The specific problem with nonterminality for Vigil is that it allows for easy plays of Vigil - Village, which can just totally destroy an opponent's subsequent turn.
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gambit05

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Re: Dominion: Urbanisation
« Reply #6 on: August 30, 2020, 04:58:59 pm »
+1

The specific problem with nonterminality for Vigil is that it allows for easy plays of Vigil - Village, which can just totally destroy an opponent's subsequent turn.

Whatever the version of Vigil is, one could give the other players a choice for the attacking part, a la Torturer, e.g.

Quote
The next time you play a card this turn,
each other player either discards a copy of it
or gains a Curse, their choice.
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Re: Dominion: Urbanisation
« Reply #7 on: August 31, 2020, 02:25:55 pm »
+1

Here is what a terminal Vigil would look like, keeping its cost the same:



This seems more reasonable to me. However, trying to make your opponent discard some good stuff is way harder now, to the point where it might not be worth killing your tempo pursuing that strategy. As is, it's probably a Treasure discarding Attack, which is easier to deal with.
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Fragasnap

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Re: Dominion: Urbanisation
« Reply #8 on: September 01, 2020, 06:58:07 pm »
+1

The name of the set is Urbanisation. It was named that way because that was the theme that emerged from the 30 Kingdom cards in this set. A lot of cards represent city stuff. A good chunk of them are also people doing various jobs. Therefore, Urbanisation, as a name, came to be. This set introduces no new mechanics, but rather, it borrows existing ones.
A set does not necessarily require any new mechanisms, but I believe it should have a mechanical theme at least to lend games using its cards a stronger flavor.  Hinterlands' "on-gain" effects were not necessarily new, but between it and the sub-theme of sifting and big-decks, Hinterlands has a strong flavor its own.
Do you have a functional flavor in mind?  One is not immediately apparent here.
Appraiser: Smaller decks; Card costs; VP tokens.
Informer: Player interaction; Choices
Vigil: Card names

[Appraiser]’s a Silver trasher that turns Appraiser into a Laboratory.
The key $3-cost Appraiser target is Appraiser.  Identically to Spice Merchant, trashing Silver is just sifting that eliminates the Silver when you don't want the stop-card and don't need the economy (non-terminally losing 2 cards to draw 2 cards).  Double Appraiser on the other hand gives you additional trashing early and then they eat each other for free.  I think Appraiser would be more exciting if it gave you stacking bonuses for trashing more expensive cards. 
Code: [Select]
+$1
Trash a card from your hand. If it cost at least...
$2: +3 Actions.
$3: +3 Cards.
$4: +3 Buys.
$5: +$3.

You have 5 cards Informer can hit. And if it doesn’t hit, well it’s a terminal Silver.
I'm always leery of Command cards the use other player's Actions for any possible circumstance that avoiding Actions becomes ideal.  In this case, if you've itemized for Informers too early, I can move towards a money strategy that will make all your Informers terminal Silvers.  I think the key is to make missing stronger than hitting, so rather than Informer giving some consolation prize for another player's Money strategy, the player's Action strategy should throttle Informer.
Code: [Select]
The player to your left reveals their hand. If they reveal any non-Duration, non-Command Actions, play one of them, leaving it in their hand. Otherwise, play a non-Duration, non-Command Action from the Supply, leaving it there.
It probably scales better in games with more players.
I like the terminal $4-cost version better.  The Attack is political in nature in multiplayer as I might play a Vigil, knowing that the player to my left has a Silver with the other 4 cards due to the player to my right's Vigil that missed.  You could reduce such instances by using a persistent effect (which is a notable buff to the Attack as you can initially fish for better Treasures) which would make it virtually never miss.
Code: [Select]
+2 Cards
This turn, when you play a card, each other player with at least 5 cards in hand discards a copy of it (or reveals they can't).
I'm not sure it needs such a buff in 2-player, though.
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Re: Dominion: Urbanisation
« Reply #9 on: September 01, 2020, 07:29:50 pm »
+1

Thank you for your comment, Fragasnap!

A set does not necessarily require any new mechanisms, but I believe it should have a mechanical theme at least to lend games using its cards a stronger flavor.

Agree’d. It makes the whole thing feels like it sticks together more. In my first post, I said I was going to make some kind of “eulogy” once all 30 cards are posted. In this eulogy, I’ll point out what mechanical themes emerge from Urbanisation. It’s nothin’ too fancy, but it’s there. Like Hinterlands, like you pointed out, with it’s “on gain / on buy” cards, or like Dark Ages with its trashing subtheme. It’ll all make sense in the end :) . At least you guys know about the flavour theming of this set, so there’s that already.

Appraiser: The idea you’ve suggested is cool. But while adding more mechanics to a card makes it more strategically rich, it takes away from the simple and elegant design of the card. Cards with a minuscule font because of how much text there is on it, for instance, are a pain to teach and to read. They also look unappealing to the eye, imo (looking at you, Pirate Ship and friends). I think it is a very important piece of card design, but it seems to often be overlooked. Also, the idea was to have cards dance around Appraiser’s cost, which I think is a fun idea in itself. I’ll keep the idea you’ve posted in mind, though. Seems like it could be tied to another card and be fun to play with.

Informer: I think even if you pursue a money strategy if your opponents gets Informers, they would still be worth it. Oftentimes, Actions are better than money and they tend to win the game. If you shut yourself from them, fearing the Informers, then you’re hurting yourself even more than pulling a “gottem” on those who took Informers. If all you need is one Informer in your deck to scare your left neighbour, then so be it. You scared them into killing their deck. Witch on the board? I’ll get an Informer! This way, my opponent will never get a Witch themselves, out of fear my Informer hits it, hehehehe!

Vigil: I’ve come to appreciate terminal Vigil more and more over time. I think it’s definitely going to stay as a +2 Cards. Yes, it might be a little political, but so is Taxman and a bunch of other cards. I think these cards are like, “soft political” cards, where you do not straight up point to a specific player, but where you can play with your cards to hurt someone more than the others. I think these sorts of cards are accepted within the game.



In other news, I will post the second batch of cards in about 30 minutes. :)
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Re: Dominion: Urbanisation
« Reply #10 on: September 01, 2020, 08:01:39 pm »
+5

Card set #2

          

Your emerging cities must be productive for them to be successful! Here are some engine components. You'll probably want to allocate a part of our budget to erect a few masterful laboratories, a few trading towns in the nearby desert and- hey, are these two birds fighting!?


  • Arid Village (Discord card): I can already feel the heavy breathing (of disapproval) from the crowd with this one. Okay, so before we jump onto what it does, let’s take a moment to inspect the theme. So, Snowy Village gives you a couple of Actions, but exhaust any further ones this turn. It’s too cold! So, as a parallel to that, Arid Village provides you with a nice head start for your turn, but kills any further card draws. Now, it’s too hot! Dangit kids, stop playing with the thermostat!

    I’ve seen that concept attempted before, so this was me giving it a shot as well. Here, we have a Lost City that comes with an extra Buy as well? Sign me the heck up! But any further +Cards this turn are weakened. Is the tradeoff worth it? Some people have pointed out that some cards, such as Cellar, say “draw” instead of giving you +Cards and Arid Village cannot work because of those. I say this is fine. These cards are not common enough for it to be a major problem. And hey, if they are present, it’s up to you to work that combo out!

  • Duality (my other thread): This one’s a Village that does not look like a Village at first glance. But it is. It’s a Village where the +1 Card is going to be an Action card. But! That’ll only work if you already have 2 other Action cards in your deck! If you only have 1 other, then your left neighbour will be more than happy to discard it, leaving you short handed. Forum user loneXolf helped me in the other thread to get the functioning of this card right, so shoutout to them!

    All in all, you can sort of see Duality as some kind of mini Golem, where your best of your 2 revealed Action cards get nullified by the player to your left, hence why the Potion cost is absent here.

  • Grand Laboratory (Weekly Contest thread): The big one. The grander, shinier Laboratory. A Laboratory+ is often seen as a no-go when it comes to card design. I do believe that Grand Laboratory can work regardless, but it’s up to you guys to help me decide that :D . Some might think that it self-synergises a little too easy. But... so be it, I think? The turns you spend grabbing more Grand Laboratories with your Grand Laboratories is a turn where you have not drawn with Grand Laboratory (cue to Xzibit “yo dawg” meme here). Anyway, I quite like this Workshop/Laboratory chimera. It’s like when you see Grand Market on the board: suddenly you become all excited like a kid on Christmas! It’s shiny, it’s big, we want it all.

« Last Edit: September 04, 2020, 05:57:30 pm by X-tra »
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mail-mi

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Re: Dominion: Urbanisation
« Reply #11 on: September 01, 2020, 08:20:56 pm »
+4

I don't have a comment on the cards, but your "next 3 cards" and "previous 3 cards" links are genius.
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Re: Dominion: Urbanisation
« Reply #12 on: September 02, 2020, 12:27:29 am »
+3

Would Arid Village eat the draw you get from Flag? The clean-up phase is technically the same turn as the turn you played Arid Village. Other than that it will really eat up your draw, and I don't know if its worth it. If you play two drawing actions afterward it is basically a necropolis. Maybe you should consider upping it to +3 cards, to lower the power level variance, considering the combo with Library and other draw-to-x cards, but maybe that's too strong. AV makes you think twice before you buy it, and promotes a different way of building your deck.
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Re: Dominion: Urbanisation
« Reply #13 on: September 02, 2020, 07:43:46 am »
+2

Arid Village: This is a great idea, but it would probably be a good idea to test it to make sure the numbers are right. Snowy Village worked out, so why not this?
Duality: Seems good, although perhaps not the best buy with ruins.
Grand Laboratory: This is a bit too strong of a strategy on it's own, this with just a couple villages gets you a ton of Labs very fast, and it can drain piles.
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Re: Dominion: Urbanisation
« Reply #14 on: September 02, 2020, 08:03:31 am »
+1

Does Arid Village's drawback stack with itself?
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Re: Dominion: Urbanisation
« Reply #15 on: September 02, 2020, 08:53:56 am »
+1

Thank you for the inputs! Here are a couple of thoughts:

I don't have a comment on the cards, but your "next 3 cards" and "previous 3 cards" links are genius.
Thanks! Although, I wish the links simply refreshed the page at the appropriated place instead of opening a new tab each time...

Would Arid Village eat the draw you get from Flag? The clean-up phase is technically the same turn as the turn you played Arid Village. Other than that it will really eat up your draw, and I don't know if its worth it. If you play two drawing actions afterward it is basically a necropolis. Maybe you should consider upping it to +3 cards, to lower the power level variance, considering the combo with Library and other draw-to-x cards, but maybe that's too strong. AV makes you think twice before you buy it, and promotes a different way of building your deck.
Yes, Arid Village would kill your Flag draw. These 2 cards do not really synergise well together, hahaha! And you are very much correct: Arid Village and draw-to-X cards are a natural fit.

Does Arid Village's drawback stack with itself?
It does. With 2 Arid Villages in play, a Moat would draw nothing. This is why it says “to a minimum of 0”, so that 2 Arid Villages in play doesn’t yield you -1 Card when you play a Cantrip thereafter.
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Re: Dominion: Urbanisation
« Reply #16 on: September 03, 2020, 02:44:39 am »
+1

I think Arid Village would be better if its drawback didn't stack. Maybe put "If this is the first Arid Village you played this turn..."
You want to be able to play a few villages in the same turn, but if Arid Village is the only village, that's not going to work very well.
I guess if you stopped the drawback from stacking, you'd probably want to remove the +buy to keep it from being strictly better than Worker's Village.

Alternatively, you could have its drawback only apply to other Arid Villages. "When you play another Arid Village, draw one less card (to a minimum of 0)."

As it is, I think its drawback is too much of a drawback.

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Re: Dominion: Urbanisation
« Reply #17 on: September 03, 2020, 05:32:22 am »
+3

I completely disagree. I think Arid Village seems quite strong as is and its drawback should definitely stack.

In particular, I think it's a good thing if a village gets a lot worse as you play more of them. We have the situation "just buy as many villages as you need" on plenty of board, it would be neat to have more of "getting +Actions will become progressively more expensive".

I think Arid Village is pretty cool. I don't like how cards like Catacombs just ignore the effect, but there's not really anything you can do about that, and it's not enough to ruin it.

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Re: Dominion: Urbanisation
« Reply #18 on: September 03, 2020, 12:14:43 pm »
+1

Pretty sure that it is too weak. Snowy only hurts non-terminals, i.e. you can play your Smithies afterwards. Arid on the other hand hurts all drawers, i.e. your villages and your Smithies.
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Re: Dominion: Urbanisation
« Reply #19 on: September 03, 2020, 06:13:28 pm »
0

Arid Village is probably a card you want to play later in your turn if possible. You can always dump your Villages and Smithies before playing your first Arid Village, if your hand allows you to do so.

An Arid Village followed by an Arid Village isn't that bad of a deal on its own. The second Arid Village is straight up a Worker's Village, and for the same cost. So you'd go: Cheaper Lost City with an extra Buy → Worker's Village. There's been worse in Dominion.

The cards that are even more sucky with an Arid Village in play are the ones that give +Cards at 2 different instances while resolving their effect, like playing an Ironmonger and revealing a Victory card. That Ironmonger would draw absolutely nothing. Cards with +Cards bundled together at a given moment are hit less badly, like playing a Shepherd and discarding 2 Victory cards. You'd draw 3 cards from that (+4 Cards, -1 Card = +3 Cards). That's the ruling with Arid Village anyway.
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Re: Dominion: Urbanisation
« Reply #20 on: September 04, 2020, 05:55:23 pm »
+2

Card set #3

          

In the first batch of cards, we showed you a couple of specialists for you to hire. Now, said specialists are whining that they "need a place to live". Bah! Foolish complaints... although we should probably pretend to care. Here are 3 choices of urban planning, my Liege. Pick whichever will make them shut up the quickest.


  • House (Weekly Contest thread): A simple little card. All cute with its almost inconsequential effects. A couple of Houses won’t hurt your deck though, but it won’t help it much either. It’s a Necropolis that yields . Bah. But it could yield instead if you have a couple of cards in play. It’s an almost Conspirator-like behaviour. The subtlety is that these cards don’t have to have been played the turn you play your Houses. So Duration cards from a previous turn count toward House’s extra bonus.

    You’ll see over the next couple of days/weeks that this is not the only card costing in Urbanisation. In fact, there are more than a few cards that share this cost...

  • Suburb (Discord card): Our first Victory card of the set! And not the last one, my friends! Suburb is a card that needs a copy of itself for it to work. It’s a Distant Land situation where you could fail to get any out of it if you’re careless enough.

    How does Suburb bode against a Duchy? Well. Let’s take 2 Duchies VS 2 Suburbs for instance. The 2 Duchies give you 6 and you had to use over 2 Buys to get there. Meanwhile, 2 Suburbs give you 5 and you spent and 2 Buys to achieve that. It is easier to gain 2 Suburbs though. With an extra Buy, you can finish a pair for . It is significantly harder to do so with 2 Duchies... and at , might as well get a Province, y’know!

    So yeah. Suburb. It looks like a cool deal at first glance, but remember: That’s 2 extra dead cards in your deck if you want to invest in Suburbs! Distant Land rewards you with less , but at least, it’ll get thrown off your deck at some point... the same cannot be said about Suburb!

  • Market Town (my other thread): This card is like, a full package in one card. It’s a cheaper Grand Market that gives you an extra Action AND that does not have an on-Buy restriction. The drawback, however, is harsh. And it stacks. Drawing one less card for your next turn can be punitive enough. Unlike discarding Attacks, you don’t even get to decide which of your weakest cards in hands to discard. And hey, if you keep playing more and more Market Towns, you’ll be happy then, but a very sad panda on your next, barely playable hand.

    I have in the past compared this to Tactician. Like, you have a big plentiful turn at the expense of scrapping another one. However, forum user Aquila pointed that, unlike Tactician, the anticipation here is not that great. With Tactician, you are looking forward for your next hand. It’s exciting! With Market Town, you are building disappointment for your next hand. This is not a positive inducing behaviour, and maybe Market Town should work differently because of that.

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« Last Edit: September 07, 2020, 08:31:08 pm by X-tra »
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gambit05

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Re: Dominion: Urbanisation
« Reply #21 on: September 05, 2020, 11:03:57 am »
0

I like House and Suburb. Not sure about Market Town. In certain Kingdoms (hand-size attacks, card drawers at start of turn) it is probably quite good. In other situations, I probably wouldn't invest too much in Market Towns.
 
About Suburb: Couldn't the wording be simpler? For example: 2 Suburbs you have are worth 5 VP together (round down).
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faust

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Re: Dominion: Urbanisation
« Reply #22 on: September 05, 2020, 11:08:54 am »
+2

I feel that House is too good compared to Conclave. The two cards are on a very similar power level and should cost the same. I can see an argument for $3, since House is weaker in the opening, but $2 seems too cheap.
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Fragasnap

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Re: Dominion: Urbanisation
« Reply #23 on: September 05, 2020, 01:29:41 pm »
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But while adding more mechanics to a card makes it more strategically rich, it takes away from the simple and elegant design of the card.
Comparing two variables on Appraiser is much more complex than comparing against a fixed list.  The sample I posted gave +3 of any given benefit because it's easier to remember.
Part of the suggestion was also to strip the clumsy VP tokens from it that are certainly making it less elegant.  Whatever you want if you're attached to having one card that uses VP tokens in an incredibly niche way.  Sacrifice and Bishop cover much of the "+VP for trashing" concept and in a more compelling way, the former adding other tempo-trashing options and the latter focusing strictly on the VP-tokens.

This way, my opponent will never get a Witch themselves, out of fear my Informer hits it, hehehehe!
Yes, obviously I won't be stupid and not buy any Actions when Actions are good.  The point isn't that I buy only money, it's that I play a more money-centric strategy:  BM+Gear is pretty fast, but other things could be faster.  A player taking Informers will make their deck weaker against BM+X strategies because failed Informers are really bad, so if you are buying Informers I'll lean more into good money strategies if they are available.  Additionally, because it targets the player to your left, multiplayer games get strongly political as Informers also counter Informers.
Informer won't always be beaten by any given BM+X, but any chance of pushing the game in that direction is too much as far as I'm concerned.

[Duality]’s a Village that does not look like a Village at first glance. But it is. It’s a Village where the +1 Card is going to be an Action card.
It seems both time consuming and complicated if you're worried about beginner players parsing card text, let alone that it has a +Card and +Action hidden in that paragraph.  It would be much easier to understand if it put the card into your hand and gave you the +2 Actions directly.
I imagine it is strong, but even if I am wrong I would not want to play a game with a large number of Dualities being gained.  Similarly time consuming cards like Advisor and Hunting Party are not cards you are gaining in multiple just because you need them to play additional Actions.

Pretty sure that [Arid Village] is too weak. Snowy only hurts non-terminals, i.e. you can play your Smithies afterwards. Arid on the other hand hurts all drawers, i.e. your villages and your Smithies.
I think fundamentally you just can't play Arid Village in a drawing-engine, which makes it quite unique.  Certainly among my favorites here since it requires you build your deck so differently when it is relevant.

About Suburb: Couldn't the wording be simpler? For example: 2 Suburbs you have are worth 5 VP together (round down).
A snappier wording might run into issues.  If I have 5 Suburbs and each Suburb tells me I get 5VP for 2 Suburbs together, do I get 10VP per Suburb for 50VP (because the Suburbs are each giving me 5VP/2 Suburbs)?  The longer wording is more specific and thus preferred.
This comes down to the matter of semantic complexity versus word complexity.  More words do not make a concept more complicated.
I like Suburb.

[House]’s an almost Conspirator-like behaviour.
I think we have a fair number of cards really incentivize laying down strings of cantrips, let alone that cantrips are often better than stop-cards generally.  I might like House better if its benefit were flipped and it instead gave a stronger bonus for having fewer cards in play.  It is likely roughly on-par with Squire (Squire's primary advantage being its +Buy option), so I would guess it balanced enough as is.
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X-tra

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Re: Dominion: Urbanisation
« Reply #24 on: September 06, 2020, 01:45:33 pm »
+1

Thanks everyone for your input once again! :)

Comparing two variables on Appraiser is much more complex than comparing against a fixed list.  The sample I posted gave +3 of any given benefit because it's easier to remember.
Part of the suggestion was also to strip the clumsy VP tokens from it that are certainly making it less elegant.  Whatever you want if you're attached to having one card that uses VP tokens in an incredibly niche way.  Sacrifice and Bishop cover much of the "+VP for trashing" concept and in a more compelling way, the former adding other tempo-trashing options and the latter focusing strictly on the VP-tokens.
Yeah. The tokens are a bit out-of-nowhere compared with the rest of Urbanisation. But I like how the card function. I think it would have been better to keep Appraiser for another set where it fits more with the rest of the cards. However, like I said, I think its trashing ability is welcomed in this set, since there aren’t that many cards that do so to begin with.

I wouldn’t say that Bishop and Sacrifice are more compelling in their trashing for abilities. They just do it differently. Appraiser is the only strictly non-terminal card of the 3 and that’s different enough for it to have the right to exist.

Yes, obviously I won't be stupid and not buy any Actions when Actions are good.  The point isn't that I buy only money, it's that I play a more money-centric strategy:  BM+Gear is pretty fast, but other things could be faster.  A player taking Informers will make their deck weaker against BM+X strategies because failed Informers are really bad, so if you are buying Informers I'll lean more into good money strategies if they are available.  Additionally, because it targets the player to your left, multiplayer games get strongly political as Informers also counter Informers.
Informer won't always be beaten by any given BM+X, but any chance of pushing the game in that direction is too much as far as I'm concerned.
You just highlighted what I love so much about Informer! A deliberate shift in strategies! But not a mandatory one. Its mere presence on the board makes you reconsider if a money-centric strategy could actually work in this Kingdom and that’s pretty neat. Other cards, like Pirate Ship or Wall, push you toward different strategies without forcing you to do so and that ain’t bad at all. Like, why invest in a money strategy at all if there is Pirate Ship on the board? And yet, Pirate Ship is an official card. I’m not debating the strength level of Pirate Ship here, mind you, I’m just saying that it has a right to exist. I think Informer is in the same boat (no pun intended).

It seems both time consuming and complicated if you're worried about beginner players parsing card text, let alone that it has a +Card and +Action hidden in that paragraph.  It would be much easier to understand if it put the card into your hand and gave you the +2 Actions directly.
I imagine it is strong, but even if I am wrong I would not want to play a game with a large number of Dualities being gained.  Similarly time consuming cards like Advisor and Hunting Party are not cards you are gaining in multiple just because you need them to play additional Actions.
Yes, there is a bit of tempo loss with Duality, I agree. Flipping through cards is time consuming. Other cards are insufferable in how long they take as well, like Golem and Scrying Pool. But these 2 examples are locked behind Potion costs, so the pill’s a little easier to swallow. I’ll say though that Duality is, in this set, one of the cards that has the most text on it, and still it wasn’t enough to shrink the font. So I think that at the very least, it's not that big of a head scratcher in trying to understand how it works.

I feel that House is too good compared to Conclave. The two cards are on a very similar power level and should cost the same. I can see an argument for $3, since House is weaker in the opening, but $2 seems too cheap.
I think we have a fair number of cards really incentivize laying down strings of cantrips, let alone that cantrips are often better than stop-cards generally.  I might like House better if its benefit were flipped and it instead gave a stronger bonus for having fewer cards in play.  It is likely roughly on-par with Squire (Squire's primary advantage being its +Buy option), so I would guess it balanced enough as is.
The Conclave comparison had me worried, because I never saw the card like that before and doing the comparison now left me with the sensation that House was indeed underpriced. However, I think the comparison with Squire is fairer. House is a Squire that has no other option than the +2 Actions. So it’s weaker. But it can yield one more than Squire, so that part’s stronger. All in all, I think it rebalances itself. So the price of seems justified, yeah.
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