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[Davio]

Dominion cards have several Mechanics, you can draw, attack, react, get actions, money and buys, discard, trash, gain cards and do whatever else the card tells you to do (mainly based on these previous mechanics).

The SeaSide expansion "revolutionized" the Dominion world with its orange Duration cards, which was a very cool thing. Hey, Throne Rooming or King's Courting Duration cards is a bliss. KC a Merchant Ship and basically be guaranteed 2 Province buying turns. KC a Wharf and draw your entire deck twice with multiple buys.

My question for you is: Which new Mechanic would you like to see in Dominion? Not cards, mechanics.

Do you like the mechanics that are out there and don't think Dominion needs any more? Tell us why.
Donald X. still has some expansions up his sleeve so a new mechanic may not be that far fetched to see in future sets.

Maybe you're a fan of Magic (I know a lot of you on this forum are) and would like to see some cards that you can put in play permanently?

Example: Second Chance, cost $6(?)
Action - Permanent
Text: Second Chance stays in play for the rest of the game. You may discard one card and draw another card at the end of every clean-up phase.

Example: Scrooge, cost $6(?)
Action - Permanent
Text: Scrooge stays in play for the rest of the game. If you have played no action cards this turn, + 2$

These are just some examples, please don't criticize them based on what they do or cost (it's the best I could come up with in 1 minute), but share with us if you like this mechanic.


We could always just combine some types with other types, so we could get:
Action - Curse
Treasure - Curse
Treasure - Reaction
Curse - Reaction
Victory - Reaction
Victory - Curse (kind of makes no sense, but I guess you could do a fixed number for one type and a calculated number for the other).
Treasure - Duration

Okay, let's see yours!

[rinkworks]

I'd be interested in cards that only do things when they're paired up with certain other cards.  It might very well not be a good idea, as it might change the feel of the game too much, but maybe it would be worth experimenting with.

I'll call this card type "Ingredient," a term I carefully considered for 10 seconds before deciding on it.  The idea would be that, when using Ingredients, all the Ingredient piles would be set out in addition to the normal 10 kingdom cards.

I'll illustrate what I mean by using spices for card names.  (I take no responsibility for how nasty some of the flavor combinations sound.)  Note that this is NOT an actual proposal that I would expect to be balanced or usable -- it's just an illustration of the mechanic itself.


Cinnamon
$4 - Action/Ingredient
Play another Ingredient card with this.
If it is Nutmeg, +$4.
If it is Basil, +3 Cards, +1 Action.
If it is Rosemary, +1 Buy, +$3.

Nutmeg
$4 - Action/Attack/Ingredient
Play another Ingredient card with this.
If it is Cinnamon, +1 Buy, +$1.  Every other player discards a Copper or reveals a hand with no Copper.
If it is Basil, +2 Cards.  Every other player discards down to 3 cards.
If it is Rosemary, +$2.  Every other player gains a Curse.


Although this idea does involve an element of drawing luck (similar to Treasure Map and Tournament) to pair them up, there is strategy as well, because if you draw two Ingredients, there are two completely different ways to play them (that is, they do different things depending on which one you play first), and if you have three separate Ingredient cards in your hand, there are six different possibilities.

Like I said, my actual examples here are probably broken, but it's possible something could be done with the mechanic itself.


Edit:  You could "spice" the idea up a bit by having some ingredients be pricier than others, but with more powerful behavior when combined.  So a couple of cheap ingredients may only offer a modest gain; a couple of expensive ones do wonders; a cheap one and an expensive one does something in between.

[rinkworks]

Victory - Curse (kind of makes no sense, but I guess you could do a fixed number for one type and a calculated number for the other).

Interesting idea for making a difficult card type combination work.  But I'm thinking Curse-Prize is the toughie.

[kazztawdal]

"Gift"-type cards which, when purchased, are given to the player of your choice.  A simple and rather silly way to mess with someone's deck.

Peasant
$3 - Action / Gift
+1 Action

Courier
$3 - Action / Gift
+1 Card

Child
$5 - Action / Gift
(blank)


Just more-or-less useless cards.

[play2draw]

There's another thread like this one with a few ideas too (including my own take on permanent cards).

New mechanics aren't always going to require a new "type" of card. Victory-point tokens are a new mechanic, but don't require new types of cards. While prizes are a new type of card, the Tournament is not a new type of card. I'm under the impression that new types of cards are only required when you have multiple cards following a different set of rules.

Durations, for example, don't get cleaned-up after playing them. Duration cards could have been regular actions, each with a small paragraph of text explaining that they don't get cleaned up... but that would be too complex and wordy than to just define "duration".

The "ingredient" cards, as they stand now, aren't really any different from regular action cards. To me, it's the same as calling Chapel an Action/Trasher card. There needs to be a new mechanic that differentiates the set from other regular-old action cards in some way, with a new set of rules associated with them.

Let's say that the ingredient cards are simple vanilla cards, only giving you small benefits. How about +1 card, +1 action, +1 coin, or +1 vp, but the benefits stack upon previously played ingredient cards. For example. You first play a +1 action ingredient. The card just gives you +1 action. Next you play an ingredient labeled as +1 card. You get +1 card and, because of the previous ingredient you played, +1 action. Next you play a +1 coin ingredient. Now you get +1 card, +1 action, +1 coin for playing it. Next you play a +1 card ingredient. Now you get +2 cards, +1 action, and +1 coin. This is a mechanic following a different set of rules from other cards such that, while a card could simply say "+1 action, + all the benefits from all ingredient cards in play", perhaps there could be justification for it being a new type.

[rinkworks]

The "ingredient" cards, as they stand now, aren't really any different from regular action cards.

You're right, although they aren't kingdom cards -- they get set out on the tableau separately from the 10 kingdom cards, the idea being that it probably doesn't make sense to have some of them but not all of them [aside: now that I think about it, that's not necessarily true, but never mind] in any given game.

As you say, Durations and Prizes aren't any different from regular Action cards either, except that the subtype is an easier way of grouping together common special rules that apply to them.  Similarly, "Ingredient" (or whatever better name for them) would be an easier way to specify the setup rules than writing all the text out on each individual card.

But yes, once the game is going, they do behave like other Action cards.

I do really like your alternate idea for handling them, by the way.

[play2draw]

You're right, although they aren't kingdom cards -- they get set out on the tableau separately from the 10 kingdom cards, the idea being that it probably doesn't make sense to have some of them but not all of them [aside: now that I think about it, that's not necessarily true, but never mind] in any given game.

Ah! I missed that part about the separate tableau. That makes more sense now.

[Fangz]

How about conditional cards?

Like ready actions in D&D, condition cards are set to trigger when a certain condition is satisfied. For example,

Conditional coppers that when played, will re-enter your hand if ever you have (player chooses) number of $ in the buy phase.
Conditional havens that will drop their payloads if ever your hand size is reduced to 3.
Or even

Mythical village $3
Conditional action

Either
+2 actions Or
+1 action, set mythical village aside, and return it to your hand the next time you begin a turn with more than one action card.

[david707]

Before Alchemy's release, I was speculating and came up with my own 300 card set. Unfortunately, the cards were lost when I did a computer wipe and I don't remember most of them. I suspect most of the cards were unbalanced anyway.

Anyway, a lot if it revolved around two special action cards, which I called "Action-Chemical", my alchemist trashed lead for gold, some Kingdoms gained chemicals and others used quicksilver. Basically if any Kingdom card referred to lead you included lead, if any referred to quicksilver, you included it and if any referred to "Chemical" you include both.

Lead
Action-Chemical - $0
+1 Buy

Quicksilver
Action-Chemical - $2
+1 Coin
+1 Buy

I'm almost certain that the set included a village that was exactly the same as worker's village under a different name (A lot of kingdoms in the set had +buy to make it easier to get chemicals), and this was before alchemies release, before I had even heard of Prosperity.

[Fangz]

Here's an idea: mixed card piles. The top 4 cards in a pile might be one sort of card, the remaining 4 a different (usually more powerful) card, despite having the same price (or a different price, who knows?). For example for a stack of $2 price treasures, the first few might be useless coppers, but the next few might be cheap silvers, and the last few might be awesome golds with a single awesome platinum just after the coppers to entice people into dwelving into that pile. Alternatively, you might have a pretty awesome grand market style card, with two curses on top.

Can be incorporated into an pseudo attack card:

Exile
$4 action
Choose a card from you hand. Remove it from your hand and put it on top of a supply pile of your choice. This card must now be purchased before other cards can be purchased from that pile.

Can be a really cruel way for a potion player to deny provinces to a player that's neglected potions. Or just a way to make the opponent have to buy coppers before getting the important components of their engine.

[Thisisnotasmile]

I can see something like Exile happening, but not mixed piles. Nobody would buy from them unless there was a way to get lots of buys and lots of money in order to get to the good cards in one go, and even then they might not because they end up with the junk cards and others can then buy the decent cards without going near junk. Also, if you can get that much money and buys in a turn, it's time to start hammering the Provinces.

[hughes]

I've thought many times that an Action - Curse would be interesting.  Would you buy KC at $5 if it was -2 VP?

It would allow undercosting of actions with the curse tradeoff.

[Thisisnotasmile]

I've said it numerous times before and I'll say it again every time the subject comes up: desirable cards with negative VPs on them are not balanced. You can use the card to build some awesome deck quickly and then trash it later! There are all kinds of ways to try fixing the problem (negative VP chips, "if you trash this gain curses", etc), but none of them work either.

[Davio]

Well, the cards with curses don't have to be awesome like the Tournament Prizes, they can just be useful and that may be enough to entice players to get them instead of the regular Curses.

Something like: +1 Card / +1 Action / -2 VP may be enough.

However, adding another Curse pile changes the dynamic, because it may take a lot longer before either pile runs out.
This has some serious consequences with Torturer for example, while Sea Hag is useful a lot longer.

Effectively adding 10 Curses to the pile could change things too dramatically.

[philosophyguy]

I've said it numerous times before and I'll say it again every time the subject comes up: desirable cards with negative VPs on them are not balanced. You can use the card to build some awesome deck quickly and then trash it later! There are all kinds of ways to try fixing the problem (negative VP chips, "if you trash this gain curses", etc), but none of them work either.

I'm not sure that you're wrong, but let me play devil's advocate for just a second. Since we're talking about power cards, you would only be able to buy them mid- to late-game, and so you would be trashing them late-game. In order to reliably trash a specific card in the late-game, you need to be able to draw your deck fairly reliably. And, since you would have to have the power card in your hand in order to trash it, you wouldn't be able to play it in order to draw your deck (so, no cursed KC-Wharf combo).

Is that likely enough on enough boards that this mechanic is broken, or is it just that in some sets the best choice will be to buy the mixed card and then trash it later, like the best choice in a Village+Torturer setup is almost always a Torturer pin? I think there's an argument (and again, I'm not sure if it's right, but I want to put it out there) that this kind of card could increase the variance and strategic gambling options in a set without necessarily being broken via a "trash it later" out.