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Author Topic: Weekly Design Contest #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One  (Read 12062 times)

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4est

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WDC #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One

Hello everybody! Here's this week's challenge:

Design a card that can gain one or more copies of itself

Acceptable submissions include:
  • Traditional gainers which are able to gain other copies of themselves like Workshop, Ironworks, Horn of Plenty, Hermit, Armory, Artificer, Inventor, or Groom.
  • Cards like Rats or Magpie which can only gain copies of themselves.
  • Cards that come with additional copies on gain/on buy/etc. like Port or Experiment.
  • Remodelers which are able to gain a copy of themselves such as Remodel, Replace, or Butcher.
  • I will accept less traditional gainers that can gain copies of themselves only under certain conditions, such as Lurker, Smugglers, Transmute, Stonemason, or Messenger, however I will not accept entries which require you to buy/gain another card while it's in play (e.g. Talisman, Haggler, Duplicate, Charm) or ones which are only able to gain a copy of themselves when cost reduction is present (e.g. Artisan, Altar, Cobbler, Sculptor).

Other rules and suggestions:
  • The gained copy must be gained by the player, though the card may distribute copies to opponents as well (e.g. Messenger).
  • The card may or may not be in the supply.
  • Be careful with loops or auto-pileouts. It's okay if these are possible under the right conditions, but they shouldn't be super easy to pull off.
  • Don't make me squint. Eliminate unnecessary words and complexity where possible. This is not the challenge for a Traveller line or an eight-card Castles-style mixed pile.

Judgement Details:
  • Entries and revisions must be submitted by 7:00 PM CDT (12:00 AM UTC) on Saturday, May 15. I'll have results posted the next day, Sunday, May 16.
  • Entries will be judged on ingenuity, balance, simplicity, and creative/appropriate use of the gaining mechanic.


Have fun! This is a pretty open ended challenge with a lot of different directions people can go. I'm excited to see your designs!



Entries:


Idiot’s Village by NoMoreFun
Foundry by mandioca15
Mousetrap by venusambassador
Worker by The Alchemist
Floating City by emtzalex
Foundry by Gubump
Investor by majiponi
Tin by grep
Suburb by artless
Riot by naitchman
Parish by xyz123
Rabbit by mxdata
Consulate by spineflu
Village of Secrets by Aquila
Locket by faust
Tools by Shael
Hydra by X-tra
Jewelry by fika monster
Irregulars by Xen3k
Pier by LastFootnote
Scriptorium by gambit05
Scaffolding by Timinou
« Last Edit: May 16, 2021, 12:10:44 am by 4est »
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NoMoreFun

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One
« Reply #1 on: May 10, 2021, 01:43:25 am »
+5

Idiots Village
Action - $3
+1 Card
+2 Actions
This turn, at the start of Clean up, if you have no Actions remaining, return this to the supply. Otherwise, gain an Idiots Village.
« Last Edit: May 10, 2021, 01:55:17 am by NoMoreFun »
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mandioca15

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One
« Reply #2 on: May 10, 2021, 05:24:25 am »
+4

Foundry (Action, $4)

Gain a card costing up to $4.

This turn, when you gain a card, +1 Card.

This requires a bit of thought to use correctly. Get it right and you can go mad with your drawing. If you're careless, you might end up drawing a card you can't play...
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Re: Weekly Design Contest #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One
« Reply #3 on: May 10, 2021, 08:58:55 am »
+2

Foundry (Action, $4)

Gain a card costing up to $4.

This turn, when you gain a card, +1 Card.

This requires a bit of thought to use correctly. Get it right and you can go mad with your drawing. If you're careless, you might end up drawing a card you can't play...

Made a mockup of the card
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Re: Weekly Design Contest #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One
« Reply #4 on: May 10, 2021, 09:08:55 am »
0

hm this card kinda sucks. redrawing it for now.


There are 4 Wild Citys per player. So in a 2 player game its 8, in a 3 player game its 12, and etc.



My submission: A city variant that gains itself, but when the pile is empty and No more Wild Citys can be gained, it becomes a very expensive woodcutter. I imagine that in most games the pile will run out quickly, and it becomes a dance between players.


Edit 1

« Last Edit: May 11, 2021, 05:03:29 am by fika monster »
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Re: Weekly Design Contest #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One
« Reply #5 on: May 10, 2021, 10:08:00 am »
+2

Made a mockup of the card

That was nice of you, but it shouldn't have a dividing line.

There are 4 Wild Citys per player. So in a 2 player game its 8, in a 3 player game its 12, and etc.



My submission: A city variant that gains itself, but when the pile is empty and No more Wild Citys can be gained, it becomes a very expensive woodcutter. I imagine that in most games the pile will run out quickly, and it becomes a dance between players.

Reading it, I thought you got the +1 Buy and +$2 if you did gain a Wild City. I don't think you need that second "If you did" at all, even if it will sometimes matter.

"Gain a Wild City. If you did, +2 Cards and +2 Actions. Otherwise, +1 Buy, +$2, and return this to its pile."
« Last Edit: May 10, 2021, 10:11:14 am by LastFootnote »
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faust

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One
« Reply #6 on: May 10, 2021, 10:12:19 am »
+1

There are 4 Wild Citys per player. So in a 2 player game its 8, in a 3 player game its 12, and etc.



My submission: A city variant that gains itself, but when the pile is empty and No more Wild Citys can be gained, it becomes a very expensive woodcutter. I imagine that in most games the pile will run out quickly, and it becomes a dance between players.
This seems extremely snowball-y if one player happens to draw Silver + 4 Coppers in the second shuffle and the others do not.

Another problem is that the card doesn't really create a back-and-forth between players. I imagine that once the pile is empty, players will only use the Woodcutter effect if they know that they can play another Wild City afterwards.
« Last Edit: May 10, 2021, 10:14:44 am by faust »
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fika monster

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One
« Reply #7 on: May 10, 2021, 10:15:11 am »
0

Made a mockup of the card

That was nice of you, but it shouldn't have a dividing line.

There are 4 Wild Citys per player. So in a 2 player game its 8, in a 3 player game its 12, and etc.



My submission: A city variant that gains itself, but when the pile is empty and No more Wild Citys can be gained, it becomes a very expensive woodcutter. I imagine that in most games the pile will run out quickly, and it becomes a dance between players.

Reading it, I thought you got the +1 Buy and +$2 if you did gain a Wild City. I don't think you need that second "If you did" at all, even if it will sometimes matter.

"Gain a Wild City. If you did, +2 Cards and +2 Actions. Otherwise, +1 Buy, +$2, and return this to its pile."

ah sorry, here is the proper version then
« Last Edit: May 10, 2021, 10:17:25 am by fika monster »
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Re: Weekly Design Contest #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One
« Reply #8 on: May 10, 2021, 11:20:08 am »
+8

Hello Dominion Strategy Forum- long time lurker, first time poster! Thanks very much to all the people in the dominion discord (especially crlundy) for giving feedback and helping with wording :)



Obviously, the clearest comparison here is to Lurker. Like Lurker, this card is nonterminal and can gain you a CQ/King's Court/Prince/what-have-you (even a Fortune!); unlike Lurker, though, it takes an extra play to do so if you want to make sure that your opponents' Mousetraps aren't seriously powered up, and also, a hand of five Mousetraps will get you four goodies, rather than two.

Mousetrap can also be used as a junker, though- here's where I worry about the balance of the card. Is a 3-coin nonterminal curser too busted? Maybe, especially since it doesn't facilitate thinning like Ambassador; however, it's also a stop card, and if you don't want to get cursed right back, at least one of them per turn is going to have to be played as a dud.

I'm accepting feedback on all fronts (balance, fun-ness, theme).
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Re: Weekly Design Contest #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One
« Reply #9 on: May 10, 2021, 11:27:04 am »
+1



Terminal draw that gets stronger the more you play, chaining together if they find each other.  The more workers you have on your assembly line, the more work you can do! Chaining effect is similar to library's interaction with actions, but playing instead of discarding. Playing 5 workers averages out to 5 smithies, but for a quarter the cost!

This card has been updated from a previous version in my industrial revolution fan expansion, this was one of the 1-cost cards that needed buy-support/alternate gain to be viable, and I think this version dealt with that nicely.
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emtzalex

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One
« Reply #10 on: May 10, 2021, 12:35:48 pm »
+5

My Submission:



Quote from: Floating City
FLOATING CITY  --  $13
ACTION
+2 Cards
+2 Actions
Choose one: +$3; or +2 Coffers; or +1VP.


When you buy this, gain two more Floating Cities.
     

Floating City is a card I have been toying with different versions of for a while. It is both incredibly powerful and incredibly expensive. If you do manage to pay the cost, you get 3 of them, whereas if you take a shortcut like playing Lurker twice or using Displace on a Colony, you only get one at a time.

Like with Port, there are 12 copies of Floating City in the Supply.
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Re: Weekly Design Contest #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One
« Reply #11 on: May 10, 2021, 12:46:36 pm »
+3

My Submission:


A mini-Forge.
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Re: Weekly Design Contest #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One
« Reply #12 on: May 10, 2021, 12:51:28 pm »
+2

My Submission:



Quote from: Floating City
FLOATING CITY  --  $13
ACTION
+2 Cards
+2 Actions
Choose one: +$3; or +2 Coffers; or +1VP.


When you buy this, gain two more Floating Cities.
     

Floating City is a card I have been toying with different versions of for a while. It is both incredibly powerful and incredibly expensive. If you do manage to pay the cost, you get 3 of them, whereas if you take a shortcut like playing Lurker twice or using Displace on a Colony, you only get one at a time.

Like with Port, there are 12 copies of Floating City in the Supply.

So this costs more than any official card, barring debt costs. I think in many games this would just get ignored.

In games where you want to buy this, I suspect it would suffer from "the first player to buy this gains a major advantage" issue. Even more so, since once you gain the first 3, your odds of getting up to $13 again increase greatly (imagine drawing all 3 the very next turn) and continue to increase that advantage.
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emtzalex

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One
« Reply #13 on: May 10, 2021, 01:04:27 pm »
0



Terminal draw that gets stronger the more you play, chaining together if they find each other.  The more workers you have on your assembly line, the more work you can do! Chaining effect is similar to library's interaction with actions, but playing instead of discarding. Playing 5 workers averages out to 5 smithies, but for a quarter the cost!

This card has been updated from a previous version in my industrial revolution fan expansion, this was one of the 1-cost cards that needed buy-support/alternate gain to be viable, and I think this version dealt with that nicely.

I am fairly certain that your intention with the on-buy effect is that it can only be used once per turn by each player. However, since "this" in "When you first buy this a turn" refers to the specific card, not every copy of Workers, a player could buy 2 of these for each Buy (and $2) they have.

You might want to try
"The first time you buy a copy of this in each of your turns, you may pay $1 to gain another."
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emtzalex

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One
« Reply #14 on: May 10, 2021, 01:58:48 pm »
0

So this costs more than any official card, barring debt costs. I think in many games this would just get ignored.

In games where you want to buy this, I suspect it would suffer from "the first player to buy this gains a major advantage" issue. Even more so, since once you gain the first 3, your odds of getting up to $13 again increase greatly (imagine drawing all 3 the very next turn) and continue to increase that advantage.

It's more expensive than any official card, but still costs one less than Dominate (at $14). The fact that the card is (1) hard to buy, and (2) very advantageous to the player who manages to buy it is the point of card. As with Dominate, a player has to make the strategic decision of whether to delay greening in order to hit this higher price point; if/when they do, the reward is are substantial, but it has to make up for the lead they will have given the other player(s). If more than one player is going after Floating Cities, they also have to account for the strategic risk that the other player getting their first will likely mean losing the game.
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Re: Weekly Design Contest #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One
« Reply #15 on: May 10, 2021, 02:40:00 pm »
+2

Edit 1

This new variant seems... better than Lost City for $4? The gaining effect is net-zero as it affects all players equally (though occasionally it benefits you more). Having to return is isn't much of a drawback as the next Wild City you gain can simply get it back. In some ways, its even a boost as it allows you to play the same Wild City multiple times in a turn. This is way overpowered.
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fika monster

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One
« Reply #16 on: May 10, 2021, 02:41:05 pm »
0

So this costs more than any official card, barring debt costs. I think in many games this would just get ignored.

In games where you want to buy this, I suspect it would suffer from "the first player to buy this gains a major advantage" issue. Even more so, since once you gain the first 3, your odds of getting up to $13 again increase greatly (imagine drawing all 3 the very next turn) and continue to increase that advantage.

It's more expensive than any official card, but still costs one less than Dominate (at $14). The fact that the card is (1) hard to buy, and (2) very advantageous to the player who manages to buy it is the point of card. As with Dominate, a player has to make the strategic decision of whether to delay greening in order to hit this higher price point; if/when they do, the reward is are substantial, but it has to make up for the lead they will have given the other player(s). If more than one player is going after Floating Cities, they also have to account for the strategic risk that the other player getting their first will likely mean losing the game.

Dominate is really good and important as an VP source, but it doesn't give you money or cards or actions, it gives you a province which is a dead card. So I'm not sure the comparison workis. with floating city, getting one buy in means you get a huge long term benefit.

I think Floating city could be compared to kings court? idk
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Re: Weekly Design Contest #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One
« Reply #17 on: May 10, 2021, 03:11:19 pm »
+1

Edit 1

This new variant seems... better than Lost City for $4? The gaining effect is net-zero as it affects all players equally (though occasionally it benefits you more). Having to return is isn't much of a drawback as the next Wild City you gain can simply get it back. In some ways, its even a boost as it allows you to play the same Wild City multiple times in a turn. This is way overpowered.

I think this mechanic is sometimes a meaningful drawback. On the play when you distribute cards to each player, then have to put your back, the net effect is to give the other players (but not you) a copy of the card. Also, there would be the occasion when you play this with an already-empty Wild City pile (if someone bought the last returned WC), at which point you would lose your Wild City. Other than that, I agree that it has little effect, so I do think you're right about the strength. On the other hand, the fact that these would quickly be spread out to the players might make the card being overpowered less of a problem.

However, there is a much larger concern (imo). As you point out, by returning one and gaining another, the other Wild City becomes available to be played. This creates the not-at-all remote possibility of an endless loop. If you were able to draw the rest of your deck (or all but 3 cards) and had two Wild Cities in hand, with a number of Wild Cities left on the Supply not greater than the number of players, you would:

(a) play a Wild City:
  • draw 2 cards,
  • get +2 Actions,
  • distribute the remaining Wild City/ies to the player(s)
  • return the Wild City you played to the Supply.

(b) play a the other Wild City you started with:
  • draw the Wild City you gained with the first Wild City,
  • get +2 Actions,
  • gain the only Wild City in the Supply (the one you returned the first time you played the card)
  • return the Wild City you played to the Supply.


(c) play the Wild City you previously gained:
  • draw the Wild City you gained the previous time you played the card,
  • get +2 Actions,
  • gain the only Wild City in the Supply (the one you returned the previous time you played the card)
  • return the Wild City you played to the Supply.


You can repeat (c) as many times as you want. If you have the +$1 token from Adventures on Wild City, you can get as much $ as you want. Similarly, since you get an extra Action each time you do this, if you had diadem you could also have as much $ as you wanted.
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Re: Weekly Design Contest #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One
« Reply #18 on: May 10, 2021, 08:01:40 pm »
+1

Investor
cost $4 - Action
You may discard a card costing up to $6, to gain a copy of that.
---
When you gain this, gain a Gold.


Plain Gold/Duchy gainer.
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Re: Weekly Design Contest #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One
« Reply #19 on: May 11, 2021, 03:03:11 am »
+1

Submission updated with text corrections:



Let me know if you'd prefer I simply modify the original post instead.
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Re: Weekly Design Contest #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One
« Reply #20 on: May 11, 2021, 05:00:46 am »
0

Submission updated with text corrections:



Let me know if you'd prefer I simply modify the original post instead.

i personally prefer editing the original post , by keeping the original and making it small, and puting the newer version in bigger form under it
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Re: Weekly Design Contest #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One
« Reply #21 on: May 11, 2021, 11:06:37 am »
+1


Quote
Tin
$4 - Treasure

Worth $1 per Copper in play.

You may trash a Copper from your hand to gain a Treasure card costing up to $5.
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Re: Weekly Design Contest #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One
« Reply #22 on: May 11, 2021, 11:10:14 am »
0

Suburb
Action - $3

+1 Card
+1 Action
You may play a Suburb from your hand.
---
When you buy this, gain another Suburb.

« Last Edit: May 11, 2021, 11:23:20 am by artless »
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Re: Weekly Design Contest #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One
« Reply #23 on: May 11, 2021, 12:13:34 pm »
+1

Suburb
Action - $3

+1 Card
+1 Action
You may play a Suburb from your hand.
---
When you buy this, gain another Suburb.
I would choose Hamlet over this most of the time - should cost $2.
Is the pile size standard or 12 like Experiment and Port?
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Re: Weekly Design Contest #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One
« Reply #24 on: May 11, 2021, 03:00:29 pm »
0

I agree that it might be too weak for $3 but I don’t think that it is always or on average weaker than Hamlet. Discarding a card hurts in a lot of decks.
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