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Author Topic: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay  (Read 9522 times)

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Gubump

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
« Reply #25 on: October 12, 2021, 01:24:53 am »
0



Quote
Ritual Attendant - $3+
Action - Attack - Fate - Doom
Receive a Boon. Each other player receives the next Hex.
----
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. For each $1 you overpaid, discard the top Boon and Hex. You may remove 1 Hex and/or 1 Boon discarded this way from their pile.

A cheap/weak attack that can be made better by thinning the Boon and Hex piles. I am not sure if it is priced correctly for the ability to get both a Boon and hand out a Hex, but the randomness early on should make it harder to maximize the effectiveness of either part. Hate buying a single Ritual Attendant to get rid of the most damaging/beneficial cards from each pile is definitely an option. I originally tried having it have a base effect of +1 Buy or +$1, but was not sure if it could stay cheap enough for the overpay ability to be used. Feedback is more than appreciated.

Shouldn't this fail to qualify for the same reason as The Alchemist's Bibliothecary? It's also a "pay for 1 thing" overpay.

not quite - the things are flattened into one thing (well, one removal from each pile) regardless of how much you overpay. If someone wanted to make a "for each $1 you overpay, reveal the top card of your deck. Put one of the revealed cards onto your deck, and discard the rest", that would also qualify. The intermediate step scales at 1:1, but the end step is ∃:1.

Isn't that how Stonemason works too, though? Its intermediate step is determining the cost of the gained card, so its intermediate step scales at 1:1, but the end step is ∃:1. Or does this count as unique because overpaying with does nothing, unlike Stonemason?
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faust

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
« Reply #26 on: October 12, 2021, 02:16:27 am »
+4


Quote
Séance - $P+
Night/Duration

You may reveal a hand without Treasures. If you did, and you have exactly $0, +3 Cards at the start of your next turn.

When you buy this, you may overpay for it.

Unfortunately, the card generator does not seem to support Potions with the overpay symbol.

Clarification: "exactly $0" means that it won't trigger if you have unspent P.
« Last Edit: October 12, 2021, 02:27:45 am by faust »
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Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
« Reply #27 on: October 12, 2021, 07:08:15 am »
0



Quote
Ritual Attendant - $3+
Action - Attack - Fate - Doom
Receive a Boon. Each other player receives the next Hex.
----
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. For each $1 you overpaid, discard the top Boon and Hex. You may remove 1 Hex and/or 1 Boon discarded this way from their pile.

A cheap/weak attack that can be made better by thinning the Boon and Hex piles. I am not sure if it is priced correctly for the ability to get both a Boon and hand out a Hex, but the randomness early on should make it harder to maximize the effectiveness of either part. Hate buying a single Ritual Attendant to get rid of the most damaging/beneficial cards from each pile is definitely an option. I originally tried having it have a base effect of +1 Buy or +$1, but was not sure if it could stay cheap enough for the overpay ability to be used. Feedback is more than appreciated.

Shouldn't this fail to qualify for the same reason as The Alchemist's Bibliothecary? It's also a "pay for 1 thing" overpay.

not quite - the things are flattened into one thing (well, one removal from each pile) regardless of how much you overpay. If someone wanted to make a "for each $1 you overpay, reveal the top card of your deck. Put one of the revealed cards onto your deck, and discard the rest", that would also qualify. The intermediate step scales at 1:1, but the end step is ∃:1.

Isn't that how Stonemason works too, though? Its intermediate step is determining the cost of the gained card, so its intermediate step scales at 1:1, but the end step is ∃:1. Or does this count as unique because overpaying with does nothing, unlike Stonemason?

that and stonemason is ∃:2 under typical circumstances
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Timinou

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
« Reply #28 on: October 12, 2021, 09:06:06 am »
0

Submission withdrawn

I hope this qualifies:



Quote from: Strongroom
+$2
Discard any number of cards for +1 Coffers each.
-
When you buy this, you may overpay for it with Coffers.  For each Coffers you overpaid, +1 Card at the start of your next turn.

Rules clarification: Strongroom breaks the rule about having to spend your Coffers at the start of your Buy phase.  So for example if you have Merchant Guild(s) in play and bought cards before buying Strongroom, any Coffers gained from the previous buys can be used to overpay for Strongroom.  However, you cannot spend Coffers for anything other than overpaying (so for instance, if you only have $3 left, you cannot spend a Coffer to be able to afford Strongroom).

The idea here is to be able to convert Coffers into draw using the overpay ability.  The card itself is a terminal Silver that can be useful for hitting certain price points early in the game, since you are likely to collide it with your starting Estates.  Strongroom is a stop card, so you probably don't want to buy it too often or else you could clog up your engine.  Stocking up on Coffers to get the most use out of the overpay ability might be wise (or just spend those Coffers on buying good draw cards).  There are good synergies with other cards that give you +Coffers, and especially with Swashbuckler. 

« Last Edit: October 13, 2021, 03:10:14 pm by Timinou »
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faust

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
« Reply #29 on: October 12, 2021, 09:56:17 am »
+2

I hope this qualifies:



Quote from: Strongroom
+$2
Discard any number of cards for +1 Coffers each.
-
When you buy this, you may overpay for it with Coffers.  For each Coffers you overpaid, +1 Card at the start of your next turn.

Rules clarification: Strongroom breaks the rule about having to spend your Coffers at the start of your Buy phase.  So for example if you have Merchant Guild(s) in play and bought cards before buying Strongroom, any Coffers gained from the previous buys can be used to overpay for Strongroom.  However, you cannot spend Coffers for anything other than overpaying (so for instance, if you only have $3 left, you cannot spend a Coffer to be able to afford Strongroom).

The idea here is to be able to convert Coffers into draw using the overpay ability.  The card itself is a terminal Silver that can be useful for hitting certain price points early in the game, since you are likely to collide it with your starting Estates.  Strongroom is a stop card, so you probably don't want to buy it too often or else you could clog up your engine.  Stocking up on Coffers to get the most use out of the overpay ability might be wise (or just spend those Coffers on buying good draw cards).  There are good synergies with other cards that give you +Coffers, and especially with Swashbuckler.
This doesn't really need overpay wording, and would be shorter if it just said "when you buy this, return any number of Coffers for +1 card each at the start of your next turn". It also has tracking issues, as there's nothing to remind you of the card draw, so it should either draw at the end of the turn you bought it, or gain Horses.

Finally, the on-play ability is too strong, being able to gain 4 Coffers per play. Imagine a Strongroom-only play:
T1/T2: Open Strongroom/Silve.
T3/T4: Buy another Strongroom, use Strongroom to gain 4 Coffers.
T5-T7: Use both Strongrooms to now have 12 Coffers.
From here on out, discard 4 if you have Strongroom in hand, otherwise buy Province. You should have 4 Provinces by turn 12-13.
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Timinou

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
« Reply #30 on: October 12, 2021, 10:16:42 am »
0

I hope this qualifies:



Quote from: Strongroom
+$2
Discard any number of cards for +1 Coffers each.
-
When you buy this, you may overpay for it with Coffers.  For each Coffers you overpaid, +1 Card at the start of your next turn.

Rules clarification: Strongroom breaks the rule about having to spend your Coffers at the start of your Buy phase.  So for example if you have Merchant Guild(s) in play and bought cards before buying Strongroom, any Coffers gained from the previous buys can be used to overpay for Strongroom.  However, you cannot spend Coffers for anything other than overpaying (so for instance, if you only have $3 left, you cannot spend a Coffer to be able to afford Strongroom).

The idea here is to be able to convert Coffers into draw using the overpay ability.  The card itself is a terminal Silver that can be useful for hitting certain price points early in the game, since you are likely to collide it with your starting Estates.  Strongroom is a stop card, so you probably don't want to buy it too often or else you could clog up your engine.  Stocking up on Coffers to get the most use out of the overpay ability might be wise (or just spend those Coffers on buying good draw cards).  There are good synergies with other cards that give you +Coffers, and especially with Swashbuckler.
This doesn't really need overpay wording, and would be shorter if it just said "when you buy this, return any number of Coffers for +1 card each at the start of your next turn". It also has tracking issues, as there's nothing to remind you of the card draw, so it should either draw at the end of the turn you bought it, or gain Horses.

Finally, the on-play ability is too strong, being able to gain 4 Coffers per play. Imagine a Strongroom-only play:
T1/T2: Open Strongroom/Silve.
T3/T4: Buy another Strongroom, use Strongroom to gain 4 Coffers.
T5-T7: Use both Strongrooms to now have 12 Coffers.
From here on out, discard 4 if you have Strongroom in hand, otherwise buy Province. You should have 4 Provinces by turn 12-13.

Submission withdrawn

You're right about this not needing the overpay mechanic.  As for the other points you've raised, do you think this would sufficiently address them?
« Last Edit: October 13, 2021, 03:09:29 pm by Timinou »
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X-tra

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
« Reply #31 on: October 12, 2021, 01:59:57 pm »
+5

I don't normally bother with the overpay mechanic, but sure, why not. Let's try something.



Hope this qualifies.
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JW

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
« Reply #32 on: October 12, 2021, 03:04:12 pm »
0

I don't normally bother with the overpay mechanic, but sure, why not. Let's try something.



This is a very clever implementation, but it seems too strong because it provides so many buys and coins at little cost (just adding one mediocre card to your deck). For example, $20 and 1 buy becomes $32 and 16 buys.
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Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
« Reply #33 on: October 12, 2021, 03:17:55 pm »
0

This is a very clever implementation, but it seems too strong because it provides so many buys and coins at little cost (just adding one mediocre card to your deck). For example, $20 and 1 buy becomes $32 and 16 buys.

I thought of that too. The benchmark here of course is paying the normal for a Province, but you overpay first for a Logs. The end result is that you get a Log and a Province for . But it scales pretty scarily indeed. In the situation you described, you go from double Province to quadruple Province. It is not nothing.

The idea is there. The most natural way to tweak the power level (after playtesting, of course) is to change the cost of Logs. It could be tried at , for instance. The problem is that the initial barrier of usefulness becomes harder to cross. If you yield in a turn, you're already doing good and Logs merely accelerate that good deck you've got going.



Edit: Here's a graph to better illustrate how the and Buy correlate to the amount you paid for Logs.


As we can see, it takes $36 (no icons for that one I'm afraid) to pileout all 8 Provinces. Cool beans!
« Last Edit: October 12, 2021, 03:47:51 pm by X-tra »
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JW

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
« Reply #34 on: October 12, 2021, 04:44:46 pm »
+1

The idea is there. The most natural way to tweak the power level (after playtesting, of course) is to change the cost of Logs. It could be tried at , for instance. The problem is that the initial barrier of usefulness becomes harder to cross. If you yield in a turn, you're already doing good and Logs merely accelerate that good deck you've got going.

I think a more natural way to tweak the power level is to limit the number of times it will play itself no matter how much you overpay for it (e.g., plays itself a maximum of 8 times). Changing the cost to $5 limits how often it gets bought at all without substantially changing its extreme power when you can generate very high .
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Freddy10

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
« Reply #35 on: October 12, 2021, 05:24:31 pm »
+1

I hope this qualifies:



Quote from: Strongroom
+$2
Discard any number of cards for +1 Coffers each.
-
When you buy this, you may overpay for it with Coffers.  For each Coffers you overpaid, +1 Card at the start of your next turn.

Rules clarification: Strongroom breaks the rule about having to spend your Coffers at the start of your Buy phase.  So for example if you have Merchant Guild(s) in play and bought cards before buying Strongroom, any Coffers gained from the previous buys can be used to overpay for Strongroom.  However, you cannot spend Coffers for anything other than overpaying (so for instance, if you only have $3 left, you cannot spend a Coffer to be able to afford Strongroom).

The idea here is to be able to convert Coffers into draw using the overpay ability.  The card itself is a terminal Silver that can be useful for hitting certain price points early in the game, since you are likely to collide it with your starting Estates.  Strongroom is a stop card, so you probably don't want to buy it too often or else you could clog up your engine.  Stocking up on Coffers to get the most use out of the overpay ability might be wise (or just spend those Coffers on buying good draw cards).  There are good synergies with other cards that give you +Coffers, and especially with Swashbuckler.
This doesn't really need overpay wording, and would be shorter if it just said "when you buy this, return any number of Coffers for +1 card each at the start of your next turn". It also has tracking issues, as there's nothing to remind you of the card draw, so it should either draw at the end of the turn you bought it, or gain Horses.

Finally, the on-play ability is too strong, being able to gain 4 Coffers per play. Imagine a Strongroom-only play:
T1/T2: Open Strongroom/Silve.
T3/T4: Buy another Strongroom, use Strongroom to gain 4 Coffers.
T5-T7: Use both Strongrooms to now have 12 Coffers.
From here on out, discard 4 if you have Strongroom in hand, otherwise buy Province. You should have 4 Provinces by turn 12-13.

You're right about this not needing the overpay mechanic.  As for the other points you've raised, do you think this would sufficiently address them?

I did a simulation with the following strategy:
- buy province if you can (use coffers)
- buy stronghold if you can (don't use coffers)
- buy silver if you can (don't use coffers)
On half of the games, You get 4 provinces by turn 13, and by 15 on 90%
At $5, the average is 15 turns
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LibraryAdventurer

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
« Reply #36 on: October 12, 2021, 07:16:53 pm »
+1

Quote
Suspension Bridge
$4 - Action
+2 Cards.
This turn, all cards other than Suspension Bridge cost $1 less.
-
You may overpay for this. For each $1 you overpaid, +1 Buy. If you overpay at least $3, gain a Suspension Bridge, set it aside, and play it at the start of your next turn.

(If you overpay at least $3, you get 2 Suspension Bridges, the one you bought + the one you gained with the overpay. You also get +3 Buys (or more if you overpaid more).)
(I'm thinking this wouldn't qualify if it only had the +buy overpay, but I think it will as it is.)
« Last Edit: October 12, 2021, 07:26:07 pm by LibraryAdventurer »
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Gardoomalion

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
« Reply #37 on: October 13, 2021, 11:45:13 am »
+3

Quote
Theatre
Action
Cost

+
This turn, when you buy a card, you may overpay for it. If you did, put on its pile as many of your Actor tokens as you overpaid in .

Actor token rule:
When you play a card, you may remove your Actor token from Supply pile of the same type. If you did, instead of following the instructions of the card played, play a non-Duration card from that pile, leaving it there.

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spineflu

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
« Reply #38 on: October 13, 2021, 12:04:37 pm »
0

Quote
Theatre
Action
Cost

+
This turn, when you buy a card, you may overpay for it. If you did, put on its pile as many of your Actor tokens as you overpaid in .

Actor token rule:
When you play a card, you may remove your Actor token from Supply pile of the same type. If you did, instead of following the instructions of the card played, play a non-Duration card from that pile, leaving it there.



and, just to clarify, you're picturing the overpay for this also not stacking, like AJL828 upthread?

Like
Scenario A (non-stacked overpay): I play a theater and buy a Masterpiece and overpaid $2, I choose whether I want two silvers, or to put two actors on it, or one silver and one actor.
or
Scenario B (stacked overpay): I play a theater and buy a Masterpiece and overpay $2 - I put two Actors on it and gain two silvers.
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Gardoomalion

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
« Reply #39 on: October 13, 2021, 12:22:17 pm »
+1

Quote
Theatre
Action
Cost

+
This turn, when you buy a card, you may overpay for it. If you did, put on its pile as many of your Actor tokens as you overpaid in .

Actor token rule:
When you play a card, you may remove your Actor token from Supply pile of the same type. If you did, instead of following the instructions of the card played, play a non-Duration card from that pile, leaving it there.



and, just to clarify, you're picturing the overpay for this also not stacking, like AJL828 upthread?

Like
Scenario A (non-stacked overpay): I play a theater and buy a Masterpiece and overpaid $2, I choose whether I want two silvers, or to put two actors on it, or one silver and one actor.
or
Scenario B (stacked overpay): I play a theater and buy a Masterpiece and overpay $2 - I put two Actors on it and gain two silvers.

Yes, like AJL828 upthread.
Scenario A
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Aquila

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
« Reply #40 on: October 13, 2021, 12:38:24 pm »
+3


Quote
Forbidden Text - Action, $3+ cost.
+1 Action
Draw until you have 7 cards in hand. Return this to its pile.
-
When you buy this, you may pay $4 more to gain a Madman.
It would be nice and elegant if the overpay could be $3 more, but comparing Madman at default 4 Cards 2 Actions against Experiment I don't think a bundle of Forbidden Text and Madman could get away at $6. And I don't want to go to $8.

Edit: simplified text (box only for those who can see the mock-up) to 'pay $4 more'. I could even make it 'when you gain this, you may pay $4...', but I'll stick to on-buy to be more true to overpay.
« Last Edit: October 13, 2021, 07:28:42 pm by Aquila »
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Timinou

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
« Reply #41 on: October 13, 2021, 03:08:08 pm »
0

I hope this qualifies:



Quote from: Strongroom
+$2
Discard any number of cards for +1 Coffers each.
-
When you buy this, you may overpay for it with Coffers.  For each Coffers you overpaid, +1 Card at the start of your next turn.

Rules clarification: Strongroom breaks the rule about having to spend your Coffers at the start of your Buy phase.  So for example if you have Merchant Guild(s) in play and bought cards before buying Strongroom, any Coffers gained from the previous buys can be used to overpay for Strongroom.  However, you cannot spend Coffers for anything other than overpaying (so for instance, if you only have $3 left, you cannot spend a Coffer to be able to afford Strongroom).

The idea here is to be able to convert Coffers into draw using the overpay ability.  The card itself is a terminal Silver that can be useful for hitting certain price points early in the game, since you are likely to collide it with your starting Estates.  Strongroom is a stop card, so you probably don't want to buy it too often or else you could clog up your engine.  Stocking up on Coffers to get the most use out of the overpay ability might be wise (or just spend those Coffers on buying good draw cards).  There are good synergies with other cards that give you +Coffers, and especially with Swashbuckler.
This doesn't really need overpay wording, and would be shorter if it just said "when you buy this, return any number of Coffers for +1 card each at the start of your next turn". It also has tracking issues, as there's nothing to remind you of the card draw, so it should either draw at the end of the turn you bought it, or gain Horses.

Finally, the on-play ability is too strong, being able to gain 4 Coffers per play. Imagine a Strongroom-only play:
T1/T2: Open Strongroom/Silve.
T3/T4: Buy another Strongroom, use Strongroom to gain 4 Coffers.
T5-T7: Use both Strongrooms to now have 12 Coffers.
From here on out, discard 4 if you have Strongroom in hand, otherwise buy Province. You should have 4 Provinces by turn 12-13.

You're right about this not needing the overpay mechanic.  As for the other points you've raised, do you think this would sufficiently address them?

I did a simulation with the following strategy:
- buy province if you can (use coffers)
- buy stronghold if you can (don't use coffers)
- buy silver if you can (don't use coffers)
On half of the games, You get 4 provinces by turn 13, and by 15 on 90%
At $5, the average is 15 turns

Thanks for the feedback!  Is this with the second version I posted?  Seems like it would be fine at $5, but I feel like the overpay would be less likely to be used.

I will probably withdraw this from this week's contest, since as faust pointed out, it doesn't need the overpay mechanic and could be worded much simpler.  In any case, I appreciate your input - I will keep it in mind if I repurpose the card for a future contest.
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Timinou

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
« Reply #42 on: October 13, 2021, 03:46:24 pm »
+2

New submission

Please let me know if this doesn't qualify, spineflu.  The only "novelty" here is that you can only overpay for Carnival if you have at least one other copy in play.


EDIT: Fixed text

Rules clarification: You are not obligated to overpay an amount based on the number of Carnivals you have in play.  For instance, if you have 3 Carnivals in play, you can overpay by $1 to only take 1 VP token from the pile.
« Last Edit: October 14, 2021, 11:51:20 am by Timinou »
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Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
« Reply #43 on: October 13, 2021, 04:21:16 pm »
+1

New submission

Please let me know if this doesn't qualify, spineflu.  The only "novelty" here is that you can only overpay for Carnival if you have at least one other copy in play.



How do get added to the pile? To me, this just looks like Market for $3.
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Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
« Reply #44 on: October 13, 2021, 06:03:42 pm »
0

New submission

Please let me know if this doesn't qualify, spineflu.  The only "novelty" here is that you can only overpay for Carnival if you have at least one other copy in play.



How do get added to the pile? To me, this just looks like Market for $3.

Oh oops...it should add it each time it’s played, but it’s only a Market if there are no tokens on the pile.  I’ll fix it.
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Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
« Reply #45 on: October 13, 2021, 06:10:27 pm »
0

New submission

Please let me know if this doesn't qualify, spineflu.  The only "novelty" here is that you can only overpay for Carnival if you have at least one other copy in play.



yeah, putting a barrier to entry like "you can only overpay when this is in play" or "overpay by exactly the amount of these in play" (side note: is that what this is saying? If I have, say, three in play, can I overpay by $1 to only snag one vp?) qualifies
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emtzalex

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
« Reply #46 on: October 13, 2021, 07:21:14 pm »
0

This looks too good relative to Province.
Let us assume an average of 4 Provinces per player. This is the same as buying Topiary Gardens 4 times while overpaying 5 each time such that there are 60 tokens on the mat. Now the Topiary Gardens are worth as many VPs as Provinces with the additional feature that you can buy further 6VP cards for $3.

It's true that buying 4 of these at $8 makes them worth the number of VP as a Province (and creates the opportunity to buy another at $3), but I disagree that this makes them better. When you buy a Province you have a guaranteed 6VP (absent it getting Swindled into a Peddler or Prince; Topiary Garden is much more vulnerable to Swindler). With this, the first 3 TGs you buy at $8 are not guaranteed to end up being worth 6VP, which makes buying one instead of a Province a potentially risky prospect. And because in 2 or 3 player games there are 4 TGs per player (and fewer games with more players), there is a non-negligible chance that you will not get the chance to buy a 5th one (or even a 4th).

Also, think about how this would happen practically. Imagine we are playing a 2 player game and you and I each have bought 3 Provinces at $8. If I hit $7, what am I going to do? Buy a Gold? A Duchy? I have an extremely strong incentive to buy a 4th TG at $7. Now, if you buy a 4th for $8, I've got a pretty big problem, but I would have had that anyway unless I was going to hit $8 on the following turn. If you don't hit $8 the turn after I buy the penultimate TG, you nevertheless have an extremely strong incentive to buy one at whatever you can spend, because if I buy that 5th one at $4, I now have 5 TGs worth 6 VP each. Thus, I think actually getting 4 TGs at $8 is going to be extremely rare.
I totally disagree. Absent trashing attacks, your card is strictly better than Province.

So it will be very centralizing in nearly all Kingdoms, i.e. players will build up their engines more than in an ordinary Kingdom and then try to massively overpay for Topiary Gardens (a player overpaying less than $5 for them is not a strategic equilibrium as the other players can simply go for Provinces then)-
There is no reason to go initially for the inferior and less flexible Provinces.

This does not lead to good play. It is called alt-VP for a reason, it should be a real choice and not a virtually always mandatory strategic path.

I don't think this is totally correct either (and it's different from your initial point). First, not every Kingdom supports an engine. Without one going for Topiary Garden at high numbers is far less certain than Provinces. Nor am I convinced that building an engine guarantees a win. If a BM deck can buy 6 Provinces before an engine gets its first giant TG, than there still won't be time to catch up (and on the turn the BM player hits $3 she can just buy TGs to keep them away from the other player, especially if she has decent trashing). The most obvious official equivalent I can think of is Dominate, which does not automatically guarantee a win for a player who builds an engine  (although that is far from perfect, since with Dominate you have to hit $14, and $13 is no better than $8 (or $11 in a Colonies game), plus buying Dominate depletes the Provinces pile more quickly).

That said, your posts have gotten me thinking about this extensively, and I actually think the bigger risk is that these get bought almost automatically at $7, $9, or $10. I'm not sure that this would be a consistently winning strategy, but I'm also not sure that it wouldn't be. I actually do think this has a lot of potential, but I also think it needs extensive playtesting to ensure that it is balanced (and not totally broken), so I'm withdrawing it as my submission. I'll update my OP and post a new card.


You will also need a lot of tokens, won't be better to adjust the numbers to gain less tokens when overpaying?

This is true. I went with tokens on a mat since that is the mechanic the closest official card (Pirate Ship) uses, but obviously this would require way more tokens. I was thinking that this could probably be tracked with dice or a counter of some sort (and a set including this card might come with a TG counter rather than a TG mat).
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emtzalex

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
« Reply #47 on: October 13, 2021, 07:30:43 pm »
+6

My new Submission:




Quote from: Scoundrel
SCOUNDREL
ACTION
Cost: $5+
+3 Cards
You may play from your hand an Action card from the pile with your Cur token on it.


When you buy this, you may overpay for it. If you did, gain an Action card costing the amount you overpaid and move your Cur token to its pile.

                                                                

I am withdrawing Topiary Garden and submitting Scoundrel instead. Scoundrel is a conditionally terminal draw card. If it can find its partner in crime, it can be played from your hand. The overpay mechanic functions as a virtually +Buy, and (more importantly), moves your Cur token to a pile, setting the card that Scoundrel allows you to play. If you can hit $10, you can get 2 Scoundrels, and they will chain with themselves.
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Freddy10

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
« Reply #48 on: October 13, 2021, 10:14:05 pm »
+2

Does this qualify?

It's a lost city while you have tokens, otherwise it's a necropolis.
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spineflu

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay
« Reply #49 on: October 14, 2021, 12:35:35 am »
+1

Does this qualify?

It's a lost city while you have tokens, otherwise it's a necropolis.

No; while this does have a novel cooldown/decay mechanic, the overpay portion is the standard 1:1. It's a cool card - keep it around in case it fits another contest - but not what's called for by this prompt.
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