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Author Topic: Dominion: Enterprise  (Read 412338 times)

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Fragasnap

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Re: Dominion: Enterprise
« Reply #175 on: July 18, 2013, 12:43:33 pm »
+1

Ironmonger is an even better comparison. Thre are only two situations where Ironmonger "whiffs". One is when you turn over a Curse or Hovel, and even then you at least get to sift past it. The other is when you have nothing left in your deck or discard. Often you'd prefer Ironmonger hit a Victory card, or even an Action depending on your deck. And even when it hits Copper, you get the extra bonus of sifting past that Copper.
(Emphasis added)

Ironmonger's Village option is easily the weakest among them since you can't rely upon it to act as a Village for you. While Tournament is safely a $4 Peddler early on, you can't load up on them because your deck will be hit hard when another player has a Province in hand. The uncertainty of Tournament and Ironmonger are what balance them and make them interesting at $4. If the board lacks good Copper trashing, I can't imagine not picking up 2 or 3 Clerks at $2 a pop (which would be particularly easy with +Buys) just for the times it will be a Peddler.

And this critisism isn't even considering how well Clerk will work with different sifting cards (Warehouse, Embassy, etc.) and cards that want Coppers in hand (Coppersmith, Mill Town, etc.).

This isn't necessarily a problem-- equal opportunity would just make it a pretty good card-- but Clerk might be too much of a no-brainer at $2.
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LastFootnote

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Re: Dominion: Enterprise
« Reply #176 on: July 18, 2013, 12:48:55 pm »
0

Ironmonger is an even better comparison. Thre are only two situations where Ironmonger "whiffs". One is when you turn over a Curse or Hovel, and even then you at least get to sift past it. The other is when you have nothing left in your deck or discard. Often you'd prefer Ironmonger hit a Victory card, or even an Action depending on your deck. And even when it hits Copper, you get the extra bonus of sifting past that Copper.
(Emphasis added)

Ironmonger's Village option is easily the weakest among them since you can't rely upon it to act as a Village for you. While Tournament is safely a $4 Peddler early on, you can't load up on them because your deck will be hit hard when another player has a Province in hand. The uncertainty of Tournament and Ironmonger are what balance them and make them interesting at $4. If the board lacks good Copper trashing, I can't imagine not picking up 2 or 3 Clerks at $2 a pop (which would be particularly easy with +Buys) just for the times it will be a Peddler.

And this critisism isn't even considering how well Clerk will work with different sifting cards (Warehouse, Embassy, etc.) and cards that want Coppers in hand (Coppersmith, Mill Town, etc.).

This isn't necessarily a problem-- equal opportunity would just make it a pretty good card-- but Clerk might be too much of a no-brainer at $2.

Perhaps. Also take into account that using Clerks means that you're not trashing your Coppers, which in general makes your deck much less reliable.

Really I don't see it as being more of a no-brainer than Candlestick Maker or Vagrant. It rarely hurts to have a couple of Candlestick Makers, and Vagrants never hurt unless you draw them dead. They're both arguably better than Clerk in standard engine decks as well, providing +1 Buy and Province-sifting, respectively (whereas in such an engine Clerk often has no Copper to draw).

The combos you mention (specifically Mill Town) are definitely intentional.
« Last Edit: July 18, 2013, 12:50:47 pm by LastFootnote »
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NoMoreFun

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Re: Dominion: Enterprise
« Reply #177 on: July 19, 2013, 08:08:06 pm »
+1

How often does clerk "work"? It reminds me of wishing well, except it 'works" far more often but the payoff isn't as great (it's a Peddler instead of a Lab).

Have you considered a $4 cantrip that dug through the deck for a Copper? It's just a Peddler, but if you want to stack up you can't trash your coppers, and it will have unfortunate implications for late game. All the combos that you intend for Clerk (sifters, copper counters) work more reliably.
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Asper

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Re: Dominion: Enterprise
« Reply #178 on: July 19, 2013, 09:06:08 pm »
+1

I totally forgot to comment on my playtest of Clerk that i did yesterday...

One of the things i noticed was how unreliable it was early in the game. With a more than 50% chance of it being basically useless, it didn't help me take off very much. Even if it works out, it's basically a Silver early. It becomes quite reliable when your deck has started growing, though - that's when Clerks usually will be Peddlers. The problem is that this is the time when you'd prefer getting a 5$ or 6$. So to have a decent Clerk, you need to spend a later buy on it, or buy it while it's very unreliable, passing the chance to get another card. Assuming a price of 3$ (i played with 2$-Clerk), i think Silver will be more helpful to build an early economy. As a 2$, there's often nothing better on the board, so i'd buy Clerk nonetheless, to be amazed how it is one of the 2$s that become better as the game goes on.

Disclaimer: I playtested one of my cards on the same set, so i can't guarantee negative interactions have spoiled this review. Overall i liked Clerk better than my own card.

Edit: To make it easier to consider whether my card changed the playtest too much:
Seer, Action, 3$
Discard a card. Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal an action card. Discard all other revealed cards and play that action card.
« Last Edit: July 19, 2013, 09:11:03 pm by Asper »
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scott_pilgrim

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Re: Dominion: Enterprise
« Reply #179 on: July 19, 2013, 10:15:18 pm »
+2

If anyone is worried that a $2 somtimes-Peddler is too strong, remember that Peddler is sometimes a $2 Peddler.  I don't think Clerk is a problem at all; in the thin decks where you like to have lots of Peddlers, they miss pretty often.  They're also a lot worse at the beginning, when you're more likely to have $2/$3/$4 hands.  The $2 mostly just helps with picking them up on extra buys, and clearly that can't be a huge problem, since it's also easy to pick up lots of Peddlers on extra buys.
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LastFootnote

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Re: Dominion: Enterprise
« Reply #180 on: July 22, 2013, 11:32:00 am »
0

Have you considered a $4 cantrip that dug through the deck for a Copper? It's just a Peddler, but if you want to stack up you can't trash your coppers, and it will have unfortunate implications for late game. All the combos that you intend for Clerk (sifters, copper counters) work more reliably.

Funny enough, the card you described was the original concept for this card, if memory serves. I think I decided not to go for it just because of its potential slowness to resolve. In retrospect, it's probably not worse than Hunting Party or Golem, but I thought it might be a bit slow, especially once there are no more Coppers in your deck. Also it's even closer to the mythical $4 Peddler, and I wanted to distance the card from that a bit. Or maybe it was just that I had enough non-terminal $4 cards and needed more $2 cards. Maybe there was another reason I decided not to do it. I can't remember. Long story short, yes I considered that idea. I may yet go back to it!

I totally forgot to comment on my playtest of Clerk that i did yesterday...

One of the things i noticed was how unreliable it was early in the game. With a more than 50% chance of it being basically useless, it didn't help me take off very much. Even if it works out, it's basically a Silver early. It becomes quite reliable when your deck has started growing, though - that's when Clerks usually will be Peddlers. The problem is that this is the time when you'd prefer getting a 5$ or 6$. So to have a decent Clerk, you need to spend a later buy on it, or buy it while it's very unreliable, passing the chance to get another card. Assuming a price of 3$ (i played with 2$-Clerk), i think Silver will be more helpful to build an early economy. As a 2$, there's often nothing better on the board, so i'd buy Clerk nonetheless, to be amazed how it is one of the 2$s that become better as the game goes on.

Thanks for playtesting it! Glad to hear it went well. I've had Clerk long enough that I've playtested it a bit myself, and my experiences match up with yours. One of the guys I playtested it with actually wanted to jazz the card up. He thought it was too simple. I think I'm happy with just having it as a simple support card, though. They can't all be the most interesting card ever!

Disclaimer: I playtested one of my cards on the same set, so i can't guarantee negative interactions have spoiled this review. Overall i liked Clerk better than my own card.

Edit: To make it easier to consider whether my card changed the playtest too much:
Seer, Action, 3$
Discard a card. Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal an action card. Discard all other revealed cards and play that action card.

Hmm, interesting. Seems potentially quite powerful. What's your thinking behind the 'discard a card' clause? Just a balance mechanism?

Reminds me of a somewhat similar idea I had recently.

Types: Action
Cost: ?
Reveal cards from the top of your deck until you reveal 2 Action cards. Discard the other cards. Trash one of the revealed Actions and play the other one three times.

I'm not sure if it's 1) interesting, 2) different enough from Golem, or 3) fun. Just an untested idea I had.
« Last Edit: July 22, 2013, 11:37:57 am by LastFootnote »
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LastFootnote

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Re: Dominion: Enterprise (Beta)
« Reply #181 on: January 14, 2014, 03:30:06 pm »
+7

Since Polk5440 asked for it, here's the work-in-progress version of Enterprise as it currently exists. In image form.


« Last Edit: February 05, 2014, 10:53:02 am by LastFootnote »
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GendoIkari

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Re: Dominion: Enterprise (Beta)
« Reply #182 on: January 15, 2014, 05:05:12 pm »
+1

I seem to recall that one of the winners of the contest was a $2 Peddler that gained a Copper to your hand? I'm curious how that compares with Clerk, given how similar they are. Clerk should be a regular Peddler more then half the time that you play it (though not if you play several per turn). Whereas the other card always gets you money, but hurts your deck as you use it more.
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LastFootnote

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Re: Dominion: Enterprise (Beta)
« Reply #183 on: January 15, 2014, 05:23:56 pm »
+2

I seem to recall that one of the winners of the contest was a $2 Peddler that gained a Copper to your hand? I'm curious how that compares with Clerk, given how similar they are. Clerk should be a regular Peddler more then half the time that you play it (though not if you play several per turn). Whereas the other card always gets you money, but hurts your deck as you use it more.

I'm guessing that Clerk is more powerful than Almoner in general, the exception being when you want to flood your deck with Copper. Almoner strikes me as extremely narrow, whereas Clerk is nice in most decks that aren't trashing their Copper. So far Clerk seems like a solid $2. It's possible that I might someday bump it to $3, but it hasn't proved to be a problem at the lower price point yet.

In general, Clerk combos with Mill Town and Vendor, makes you more willing to take Copper from opponents' Wheelwrights, and makes a great target for Investment. So I like how it fits into the set.
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GendoIkari

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Re: Dominion: Enterprise (Beta)
« Reply #184 on: January 15, 2014, 05:27:37 pm »
+2

So this has likely been discussed already (I haven't read much of the discussion about this set), but I'm wondering / concerned about how Craftsman will change the other cards that use the Trade Token mechanic. Normally those other cards basically function as "2-shots". At least, any Kingdom that has just 1 of those cards it will function that way. But it becomes a different type of card once you are able to purchase just 1 copy and use it more than twice. I'm not saying that they're overpowered with Craftsman around, or underpowered without, but it just seems like the presence of Craftsman would change the actual behavior/concept of the card, in a way that's different than how you expect combos to change cards.
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LastFootnote

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Re: Dominion: Enterprise (Beta)
« Reply #185 on: January 15, 2014, 05:42:00 pm »
0

So this has likely been discussed already (I haven't read much of the discussion about this set), but I'm wondering / concerned about how Craftsman will change the other cards that use the Trade Token mechanic. Normally those other cards basically function as "2-shots". At least, any Kingdom that has just 1 of those cards it will function that way. But it becomes a different type of card once you are able to purchase just 1 copy and use it more than twice. I'm not saying that they're overpowered with Craftsman around, or underpowered without, but it just seems like the presence of Craftsman would change the actual behavior/concept of the card, in a way that's different than how you expect combos to change cards.

Don't worry about missing previous conversation. I have not previously posted the Trade token cards. Although I have created some separate threads to talk about token-less versions of some of them, this is the first time anyone has seen Craftsman, so you are initiating the first conversation about it.

As for the combos, I need to do more playtesting, but so far they seem like cool combos rather than broken weird things. Craftsman definitely puts a different spin on those other cards, and vice versa (you might buy some Jubilees in order to get tokens for use with Craftsman). The key is to make sure that the uses for Trade tokens aren't so far out of step with each other as to create a really broken interaction.

Specifically concerning using Craftsman to gain tokens for use with the other cards: at that point it's basically "+1 Action; Take a Trade token" unless you want a Poor House or a Copper, etc. I'm not saying that's never worthwhile, but the fact that it takes up space in your hand and doesn't replace itself helps balance the fact that you're making another card more powerful. Is it different than how you'd expect combos to work? I hope so! I definitely aim to provide new and different Dominion experiences with this set, rather than just a fresh coat of paint.

Side note: Jubilee is the only "2-shot". The other cards that give you a single Trade token all just have abilities that you can use Trade tokens to trigger, but none of the others trash themselves.

EDIT: Fun fact: The previous version of General was another card that both gained and used Trade tokens when you played it:

Quote
General
Types: Action
Cost: $5
Take a trade token. You may play an Action card from your hand. You may spend a Trade token to play it again. You may spend a Trade token to play it a third time.

So it was a cool Throne Room variant powered by Trade tokens. Even if it shows up with no other Action cards, you can save the token for use with a future play. Also, unlike Throne Room and King's Court, you can decide whether you want to play the chosen card again after it resolves. Say you only have one buy and you play General on a Smithy. If that first draw gives you enough money for the card you want, you can save the Trade token for later. It was a cool mechanic.

In the end the tracking problems it had didn't seem worth it. I like the current version of General better, which satisfies my criterium of "Throne that works really well with one-shots, but is still good with other cards". And Craftsman now fills the "get some more Trade tokens" role.
« Last Edit: January 15, 2014, 05:49:06 pm by LastFootnote »
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LastFootnote

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Re: Dominion: Enterprise (Beta)
« Reply #186 on: January 15, 2014, 06:07:24 pm »
+3

As an aside, I wanted to share a Kingdom I was testing recently.


I played four mock games with it, testing the power of various cards against each other. My goal was usually: Beat the BM+Wheelwright deck using a more interesting engine! I was usually using a Clerk/Vendor type of deck, trashing Estates with either Redistrict or Exchange. Sometimes I would use Investment on Clerk or Vendor. I figured that that type of deck could best make use of the Coppers that the opponent's Wheelwright(s) were offering. But it took me three or four games to beat the BM deck and the key ended up being a strong Attack (as it so often when building an engine against a BM deck). I had thought that Wheelwright would be able to shrug off Axeman attacks, being that it could draw back up to 7 cards. But man, it could not.

Some cool things I noticed:

• When you get hit by an Axeman late-game, you are usually not too sad to replace that Gold with a Fund, especially if you can draw into it next turn. More money! Cha-ching!
• Craftsman is very nice when you want to quickly amass a bunch of $2 and $3 cards. Like when you're Investing in Clerks and want the whole stack.
• This is not news to me, but a big part of Enterprise in general and Vendor specifically is learning when to just destroy your deck Mining Village-style. Part of the reason my first few engines failed was that I was too eager to trash my Vendors.
« Last Edit: February 28, 2014, 02:49:41 pm by LastFootnote »
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GendoIkari

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Re: Dominion: Enterprise (Beta)
« Reply #187 on: January 15, 2014, 10:23:11 pm »
+1

Side note: Jubilee is the only "2-shot". The other cards that give you a single Trade token all just have abilities that you can use Trade tokens to trigger, but none of the others trash themselves.


Indeed, I thought of this wrong when looking over the cards. Jubille is a "2-shot", the others are semi-one-shots; they do something like a regular card, but their best ability is one-time (normally). Pretty cool; similar to the Myojin cycle of cards from MTG. I guess sort of like a reversed Mining Village actually... it can only be extra powerful once, but you can use it normally as much as you want. And you can continue using it normally after you've used it for it's powerful effect. Probably leads to slightly less AP than Mining Village.
« Last Edit: January 15, 2014, 10:24:17 pm by GendoIkari »
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KingZog3

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Re: Dominion: Enterprise (Beta)
« Reply #188 on: January 15, 2014, 11:24:22 pm »
+1

As an aside, I wanted to share a Kingdom I was testing recently.

So I don`t see much of an engine here. Not that I really now the cards, but the easiest thing I see to beat the BM-Wheelwright is Inesting Clerks, maybe twice to make the Conspirator++ and Vendor to draw and buy.  It would suck to have to trash a vendor though. I actually think that should kill the BM strategy most of the time. You don't even need to take a lot of the coppers. Investing in a cheap chantrip seems kinda strong. Vagrant with +$2 on it? Count me in!
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LastFootnote

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Re: Dominion: Enterprise (Beta)
« Reply #189 on: January 15, 2014, 11:32:53 pm »
0

Side note: Jubilee is the only "2-shot". The other cards that give you a single Trade token all just have abilities that you can use Trade tokens to trigger, but none of the others trash themselves.


Indeed, I thought of this wrong when looking over the cards. Jubille is a "2-shot", the others are semi-one-shots; they do something like a regular card, but their best ability is one-time (normally). Pretty cool; similar to the Myojin cycle of cards from MTG. I guess sort of like a reversed Mining Village actually... it can only be extra powerful once, but you can use it normally as much as you want. And you can continue using it normally after you've used it for it's powerful effect. Probably leads to slightly less AP than Mining Village.

Yeah, Donald mentions in the Secret History of Intrigue how some people don't like one-shots because they don't stay in your deck. So one solution to that problem is to have abilities that you can use once but then keep the card afterward. Jubilee still doesn't stay in your deck, but you know. A two-shot seemed like a cool thing to have and I already had this convenient way to do it. It doubles as a very cheap way to pick up Trade tokens for use with other cards.

Fund is actually another take on this one-shot-that-you-keep idea. A Fund is just a Silver until you use its ability. Afterward it leaves a normal Silver in your deck.

As a small side-note, a couple of these images are a bit outdated. Terrace's token ability no longer draws you a card per card you discarded. It now just draws you 5 cards regardless. Better in some cases, worse in others. The main reason for the change is logistical. When you have a huge hand, you first have to count how many cards, then discard them and count again as you draw. And probably you're drawing a lot of the same cards anyway in that case. Ugh.

I think I'm going to take out Tinker and replace it with a similar card with a different token ability:

Quote
Lodge
Types: Action
Cost: $5
+3 Cards. +1 Buy. You may spend a Trade token. If you do, reveal then discard any number of Victory cards. +$1 per card discarded.

So I don`t see much of an engine here. Not that I really now the cards, but the easiest thing I see to beat the BM-Wheelwright is Inesting Clerks, maybe twice to make the Conspirator++ and Vendor to draw and buy.  It would suck to have to trash a vendor though. I actually think that should kill the BM strategy most of the time. You don't even need to take a lot of the coppers. Investing in a cheap chantrip seems kinda strong. Vagrant with +$2 on it? Count me in!

Hmm, I'll try it again with Investing in Clerks twice. Pricey, but probably worth it. It'll be a good stress test for Investment to see if it needs tweaking. Of course in that case, I'll probably have the BM player also buy Clerks once he "realizes" what's going on. Any reasonable opponent is going to try to deny you a card that's effectively a Super Conspirator.
« Last Edit: January 15, 2014, 11:38:29 pm by LastFootnote »
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KingZog3

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Re: Dominion: Enterprise (Beta)
« Reply #190 on: January 16, 2014, 12:47:17 am »
+1

So I don`t see much of an engine here. Not that I really now the cards, but the easiest thing I see to beat the BM-Wheelwright is Inesting Clerks, maybe twice to make the Conspirator++ and Vendor to draw and buy.  It would suck to have to trash a vendor though. I actually think that should kill the BM strategy most of the time. You don't even need to take a lot of the coppers. Investing in a cheap chantrip seems kinda strong. Vagrant with +$2 on it? Count me in!

Hmm, I'll try it again with Investing in Clerks twice. Pricey, but probably worth it. It'll be a good stress test for Investment to see if it needs tweaking. Of course in that case, I'll probably have the BM player also buy Clerks once he "realizes" what's going on. Any reasonable opponent is going to try to deny you a card that's effectively a Super Conspirator.

Actually this engine seems powerful enough. You wouldn't mind discarding copper for Vendor because Clerk will just pick them up again from the discard. Actually this sounds fun. I'd like to know how it turns out.
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LibraryAdventurer

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Re: Dominion: Enterprise (Beta)
« Reply #191 on: January 16, 2014, 02:30:48 am »
+1

I really like the concept of trade tokens and what you've done with them here.  If you somehow published this expansion I'd buy it (of course I might start using the cards anyway, published or not).

I think the Fund could use clearer wording.  It's hard to tell if you get still the $2 from the fund on the turn that you trash it in addition to the silver.
Hard to tell how well the Barrister/Domain cards would work. Have you tested the Barrister much yet? It would clearly scale in power with number of players, but probably not too much. Is there any reason that you left Domain at $0 cost?  Even though it isn't in the supply, it would seem appropriate for it to have a higher cost.
Dignitary looks especially interesting with a unique mechanic on top and a reaction that works especially well against axeman (like Secret Chamber's reaction works especially well against Swindler and Sabateur). I look forward to finding out how it works in a game.

NoMoreFun

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Re: Dominion: Enterprise (Beta)
« Reply #192 on: January 16, 2014, 02:57:19 am »
+1

Why is exchange when buy, but the other trade token cards when gain?
« Last Edit: January 16, 2014, 03:01:45 am by NoMoreFun »
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scott_pilgrim

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Re: Dominion: Enterprise (Beta)
« Reply #193 on: January 16, 2014, 03:39:14 am »
+2

Why is exchange when buy, but the other trade token cards when gain?

Probably because you can use Exchange to trash, gain an Exchange into your hand, trash something else, gain an Exchange to hand, etc.  I personally think it would be fine on gain (since you have to have fuel to trash to get each Exchange), but I can understand why you might prefer to have it be on buy.

My thoughts on the set as a whole (trying to keep this as concise as possible): I like it a lot and compared to official expansions, I think it would rank as my 2nd-4th favorite (somewhere in that range).  I don't think there are any "problem" cards in the set (too weak or too strong or too uninteresting cards), which is something I don't think can be said of any official expansion (except maybe Guilds, though it's all subjective anyway), so that is very good.  The one-shot theme is very clear and well-executed, and many of them are done in unique and interesting ways.

Gambler is one of my favorite fan cards ever.  I also like General a lot, I love throne room variants in general (no pun intended), and have always wanted a good $5 TR.  General not only fits very well into the set by comboing with one-shots, but it's also still a pretty reasonable $5 TR even on boards without one-shots.

I don't like Floodgate, though I'm not quite sure why.  It makes sense that the way to do a "one-shot" victory card is to give it an on-gain effect, but for some reason I don't really like it.  If you leave everything else as is though, I feel like it should cost $3 and not $4.  The thing is, if I buy it with $4 to set stuff aside, and that stuff would have given me at least $1, why didn't I just buy Duchy?  So I'm sure you've playtested it and found that to not be an issue, but I'm at least interested to hear your comments on it.  It's at least nice for stopping terminal collision.

Investment is really cool, and you probably don't need me to tell you this, but you should playtest it A LOT.  Of course it's fine if there are some boards where it's dead and others where it's nuts, but it potentially seems like the kind of card that would either be dead on way too many boards, or nuts on way too many boards.  If it turns out to be too weak I think just giving it +$x and +1 buy on play would help "make up" for having gone out of your way to get it.  If it turns out to be too strong it will be very hard to fix.

About Craftsman gaining trade tokens: Combos are a cool thing and obviously a huge part of Dominion, but the more explicit they are, the less you feel like you are discovering something.  Imagine a Looter that did some stuff and then said "Trash a Looter from your play area."  On boards without other Looters it's a one-shot, but it plays totally differently when there are other Looters on the board.  Also it combos really well with Cultist, I didn't even think of that when I came up with that example.  But I think you see what I'm saying.  There's just something that doesn't feel right about having only a few cards in all of Dominion that make use of a certain mechanic, and then having them combo well together because of that shared mechanic.  (And I'm aware the Looter example is much more extreme, I'm just trying to illustrate the point.)  Most cards combo well together because of their difference in mechanics, because they complement each other by doing different things, and this also creates a lot more diversity in potential combos (all disappearing actions potentially combo with draw-to-X cards, that's a lot more combinations than if, say, all draw-to-X cards comboed with draw-to-X cards).  So with all that being said, I have no idea if there's any reasonable fix, I like Craftsman as it is, as well as the other Trade token cards, and having them use different colored tokens is impractical.  I just wanted to share my thoughts on that issue.

Yeah, I did a great job of keeping that concise.  I forgot to mention I also don't like Tinker, but I do like Lodge so if you follow through with that then I don't need to comment on Tinker.  If you do manage to get the set published, I would certainly buy it (even with no changes from how it is now).  I think your cards are definitely at the quality of official cards, but I don't know what would go into arranging a deal with RGG.  Good luck if you eventually decide to go through with that!
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LastFootnote

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Re: Dominion: Enterprise (Beta)
« Reply #194 on: January 16, 2014, 09:54:49 am »
+4

I really like the concept of trade tokens and what you've done with them here.  If you somehow published this expansion I'd buy it (of course I might start using the cards anyway, published or not).

Thanks again for testing Investment! If you want to test any of the others, please do. The more playtesting the set gets, the better it'll end up being. It already has way more outtakes than cards, so it's been in development for quite a while.

I think the Fund could use clearer wording.  It's hard to tell if you get still the $2 from the fund on the turn that you trash it in addition to the silver.

I agree that it would be nice if this were clearer. It does still give you the +$2. It's definitely something I would put in a FAQ, but I'm not sure how I would change the card wording itself. Suggestions are welcome, but I'd rather have a clean, concise wording than a messy one.

Hard to tell how well the Barrister/Domain cards would work. Have you tested the Barrister much yet? It would clearly scale in power with number of players, but probably not too much. Is there any reason that you left Domain at $0 cost?  Even though it isn't in the supply, it would seem appropriate for it to have a higher cost.

I've played Barrister in a handful of games now, but it's one of the cards I need to playtest the most. I could increase Domain's cost. Really what that would do is encourage you to trash it with Remodel, etc. Which I'm not sure is something I want. It's definitely not off the table, though. It might be cool to shake things up by starting everybody with a $4 card. I'm actually liking the idea more as I think about it.

Dignitary looks especially interesting with a unique mechanic on top and a reaction that works especially well against axeman (like Secret Chamber's reaction works especially well against Swindler and Sabateur). I look forward to finding out how it works in a game.

I'm glad that you like Dignitary's top. Back when I posted just that part to a thread a long time ago (as Valet), people liked it but thought it should cost $3 or even $2. Looking at it, it appears to almost be a weak Steward. But once you start playing it, you realize how much more powerful it is than either +$2 or +2 Cards. So it's sort of, "Come for the Reaction, stay for the Action."

Why is exchange when buy, but the other trade token cards when gain?

Probably because you can use Exchange to trash, gain an Exchange into your hand, trash something else, gain an Exchange to hand, etc.  I personally think it would be fine on gain (since you have to have fuel to trash to get each Exchange), but I can understand why you might prefer to have it be on buy.

The reason it's on-buy is Fortress. With Fortress, you can run out the entire Exchange pile in one go (and keep all those Exchanges, too!). It's not often I'll nerf a card because of a single interaction. I'm not nerfing Mill Town just because of Tactician, for instance. But I feel being able to automatically run out an entire pile like that with just a 2-card combo is too crazy.

My thoughts on the set as a whole (trying to keep this as concise as possible): I like it a lot and compared to official expansions, I think it would rank as my 2nd-4th favorite (somewhere in that range).  I don't think there are any "problem" cards in the set (too weak or too strong or too uninteresting cards), which is something I don't think can be said of any official expansion (except maybe Guilds, though it's all subjective anyway), so that is very good.  The one-shot theme is very clear and well-executed, and many of them are done in unique and interesting ways.

Thanks! I appreciate it. It's easy to look at my own cards and think, "Man, maybe these actually suck." This kind of encouragement keeps me going.

Gambler is one of my favorite fan cards ever.  I also like General a lot, I love throne room variants in general (no pun intended), and have always wanted a good $5 TR.  General not only fits very well into the set by comboing with one-shots, but it's also still a pretty reasonable $5 TR even on boards without one-shots.

Thanks! General is pretty new, so I hope it works out. Seems like an appropriate $5 cost, right? The main thing I worry about is its complicated interaction with one-shots that draw (Gambler and Vendor). Play General, play Vendor, draw two, trash Vendor, put Vendor on deck. Then play Vendor again, drawing that same Vendor and another card. Then you can play that same Vendor a third time, but this time the General has lost track of it, so you don't topdeck it when it leaves play. If it turns out to be too crazy, I can change General so that it only topdecks the card if you discard it from play, though obviously I want to keep the one-shot interaction if possible.

I don't like Floodgate, though I'm not quite sure why.  It makes sense that the way to do a "one-shot" victory card is to give it an on-gain effect, but for some reason I don't really like it.  If you leave everything else as is though, I feel like it should cost $3 and not $4.  The thing is, if I buy it with $4 to set stuff aside, and that stuff would have given me at least $1, why didn't I just buy Duchy?  So I'm sure you've playtested it and found that to not be an issue, but I'm at least interested to hear your comments on it.  It's at least nice for stopping terminal collision.

Generally, if other players don't buy a card, I change or scrap it. A few cards that are still in the OP died for that reason. Floodgate is probably the card my playtesters buy the least that I refuse to scrap. It's one of my favorite cards and I think it has a lot of value for advanced players, but that value is subtle. The cool thing about it is how many different tricks it can do, not all of which are obvious.

* You can save unspent coin for the next turn. Why would you do that instead of buying a Duchy? Maybe you'll afford a Province next turn. Especially nice if you have $7 to spend.
* You can salvage dead Action cards. Say you play a Smithy and draw a Village and a Smithy. Man, put those into your next hand.
* You can make Victory cards miss the reshuffle. Whenever you have fewer than 5 cards in your deck during your Buy phase (like when you've drawn your deck), you can leave Floodgate itself and up to 4 other cards out of your deck.

And that's not to mention any card-specific combos. Think about how it interacts with various gainers (Workshop, Mill Town) trash-for-benefit cards (Develop, Exchange), and discard-for-benefit cards (Cellar, Lodge).

Investment is really cool, and you probably don't need me to tell you this, but you should playtest it A LOT.  Of course it's fine if there are some boards where it's dead and others where it's nuts, but it potentially seems like the kind of card that would either be dead on way too many boards, or nuts on way too many boards.  If it turns out to be too weak I think just giving it +$x and +1 buy on play would help "make up" for having gone out of your way to get it.  If it turns out to be too strong it will be very hard to fix.

If I need to buff it, my top two ideas at this point are reducing its cost to $4 and/or making you play the Action card before setting it aside.

About Craftsman gaining trade tokens:

...

There's just something that doesn't feel right about having only a few cards in all of Dominion that make use of a certain mechanic, and then having them combo well together because of that shared mechanic. Most cards combo well together because of their difference in mechanics, because they complement each other by doing different things, and this also creates a lot more diversity in potential combos (all disappearing actions potentially combo with draw-to-X cards, that's a lot more combinations than if, say, all draw-to-X cards comboed with draw-to-X cards).  So with all that being said, I have no idea if there's any reasonable fix, I like Craftsman as it is, as well as the other Trade token cards, and having them use different colored tokens is impractical.  I just wanted to share my thoughts on that issue.

Thanks, but I'm not too worried right now. As long as the cards can stand on their own and aren't broken together, I like that there are cool interactions between them. And this sort of rare interaction does already exist in Dominion, for what it's worth. Butcher can play a lot differently when there are other Coin-token cards on the board. You're much more willing to use it for huge upgrades.

I think it's worth saying that I didn't create Craftsman specifically so that it would combo with these other cards. It was just a cool thing I could do with Trade tokens. Also note that even without Craftsman, you have these sorts of combos. You might buy Jubilees because they're a cheap way to get Trade tokens for Lodge.

I agree that it's cooler to have combos that you can discover rather than ones that hit you over the head. But I think Enterprise has plenty of subtle combos too, and that those aren't lessened by having some blatant ones. And what's obvious to one person may not be obvious to another.

If you do manage to get the set published, I would certainly buy it (even with no changes from how it is now).  I think your cards are definitely at the quality of official cards, but I don't know what would go into arranging a deal with RGG.  Good luck if you eventually decide to go through with that!

Thanks again! If I were to try to get it published, I'd be going through Donald first. For one thing he owns the rights to Dominion, but much more importantly I can't imagine trying to go over his head. He's always been there with answers to questions about rules and Dominion's design considerations. Without his secret histories and other essays on Dominion, there is no way this set would be as good as it is.
« Last Edit: January 16, 2014, 10:00:06 am by LastFootnote »
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LastFootnote

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Re: Dominion: Enterprise (Beta)
« Reply #195 on: January 16, 2014, 02:31:20 pm »
0

I just updated the image post.

Removed: Tinker
Added: Lodge
Updated: Terrace

Now I just need three more cards and perhaps replacements for some of the off-theme cards.
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KingZog3

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Re: Dominion: Enterprise (Beta)
« Reply #196 on: January 16, 2014, 03:03:05 pm »
+1

I just updated the image post.

Removed: Tinker
Added: Lodge
Updated: Terrace

Now I just need three more cards and perhaps replacements for some of the off-theme cards.

Off theme cards are ok. You need some balance. A set of all one shots is hard because they may not be great for engines, only mega turns.
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GendoIkari

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Re: Dominion: Enterprise (Beta)
« Reply #197 on: January 16, 2014, 03:18:15 pm »
+1

Fund is actually another take on this one-shot-that-you-keep idea. A Fund is just a Silver until you use its ability. Afterward it leaves a normal Silver in your deck.


Would Fund be overpowered if it used Trade tokens instead?

Treasure - $5
+$2
When you play this, you may spend a Trade Token. If you do, +$2, +1 buy
____
When you gain this, gain a Trade Token.

The effect is almost identical to the version you have if no other cards with Trade Tokens are around; it's slightly stronger because if you buy 2 of them, after you've used the effect once, you can use it the second time no matter which one you draw.

I was just thinking that if that's not overpowered, then it would fit in with the set better because of more Trade Token cards.
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LastFootnote

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Re: Dominion: Enterprise (Beta)
« Reply #198 on: January 16, 2014, 03:36:03 pm »
0

Fund is actually another take on this one-shot-that-you-keep idea. A Fund is just a Silver until you use its ability. Afterward it leaves a normal Silver in your deck.


Would Fund be overpowered if it used Trade tokens instead?

Treasure - $5
+$2
When you play this, you may spend a Trade Token. If you do, +$2, +1 buy
____
When you gain this, gain a Trade Token.

The effect is almost identical to the version you have if no other cards with Trade Tokens are around; it's slightly stronger because if you buy 2 of them, after you've used the effect once, you can use it the second time no matter which one you draw.

I was just thinking that if that's not overpowered, then it would fit in with the set better because of more Trade Token cards.

I could do this. I do want more Trade token cards. On the other hand, I think Fund is really cute as-is and I also want to have a good number of actual one-shots. This version also doesn't combo with Refurbish the way the current version does. Or with Rogue/Graverobber, for that matter.

If there's one off-theme card I could scrap, Refurbish is probably it. Maybe Convocation. If Refurbish leaves the set, I will take a more serious look at a Trade token version of Fund.
« Last Edit: January 16, 2014, 03:37:14 pm by LastFootnote »
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mail-mi

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Re: Dominion: Enterprise (Beta)
« Reply #199 on: January 17, 2014, 12:24:42 am »
+2

I just updated the image post.

Removed: Tinker
Added: Lodge
Updated: Terrace

Now I just need three more cards and perhaps replacements for some of the off-theme cards.

Have you tried a card with a "You may trash this card" clause and an on-trash effect? That could work pretty well here.
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