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Author Topic: What card design rules are left?  (Read 53724 times)

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AJD

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Re: What card design rules are left?
« Reply #100 on: August 09, 2012, 09:38:12 am »
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Well, as of today, Donald has also broken the "supply piles have 10 (/8/12) cards in them" rule.
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Schneau

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Re: What card design rules are left?
« Reply #101 on: August 09, 2012, 09:41:51 am »
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And the "don't choose which card for your opponent to discard" rule.
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AJD

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Re: What card design rules are left?
« Reply #102 on: August 09, 2012, 09:57:56 am »
+1

And the "don't choose which card for your opponent to discard" rule.

I didn't know that was a rule? Envoy breaks that rule too.
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clb

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Re: What card design rules are left?
« Reply #103 on: August 09, 2012, 10:11:32 am »
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I wasn't sure where to ask this, so I put it here - is tomorrow the last preview (15 cards), or are they continuing through Sunday (21 cards)?
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Donald X.

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Re: What card design rules are left?
« Reply #104 on: August 09, 2012, 10:14:16 am »
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I wasn't sure where to ask this, so I put it here - is tomorrow the last preview (15 cards), or are they continuing through Sunday (21 cards)?
Tomorrow is the last one. Then probably someone will spoil the set Thursday.
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Thisisnotasmile

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Re: What card design rules are left?
« Reply #105 on: August 09, 2012, 10:15:06 am »
+3

I wasn't sure where to ask this, so I put it here - is tomorrow the last preview (15 cards), or are they continuing through Sunday (21 cards)?
Tomorrow is the last one. Then probably someone will spoil the set Thursday.


Can't you just spoil the set tomorrow to save anyone else the satisfaction of doing it?
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RiemannZetaJones

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Re: What card design rules are left?
« Reply #106 on: August 09, 2012, 10:20:52 am »
+3

I wasn't sure where to ask this, so I put it here - is tomorrow the last preview (15 cards), or are they continuing through Sunday (21 cards)?
Tomorrow is the last one. Then probably someone will spoil the set Thursday.

That's a shame, these previews have been a lot of fun. Thank you.
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rinkworks

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Re: What card design rules are left?
« Reply #107 on: August 09, 2012, 10:31:11 am »
+1

Something Village
$2 - Action
+2 Actions
+$1


At the time, we debated whether that was balanced at $2 (conclusion: it was), but now it would be useful to say that it's strictly
Why come to this conclusion so readily? Maybe with some play, Squire will prove quite imbalanced.

Unlikely.  Squire has already undergone a heckuva lotta play. :P

That.  But note that I wasn't saying WW's Something Village isn't still balanced at $2.  I'm sure it is, in fact.  Squire might be also balanced at $2 and yet still be strictly better.
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SirPeebles

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Re: What card design rules are left?
« Reply #108 on: August 10, 2012, 09:47:20 pm »
+1

The simplest way I can think of to make a new card which is strictly better than an existing card, using established game mechanics and even routing the Possession rebuttal, is to add a "+1 victory token" clause.  Can anyone think of a scenario in which adding "+1 victory token" would not yield a strictly better card? 

One potential benefit of the "weaker" card could be if an opponent plays a Jester.  For this reason we may want to begin with an Action-Victory such as Great Hall or Nobles.  That way the Jester deals out a Curse regardless.

The only other instance I can imagine is when an effect references "differently named card", in which case it may be better to have a "weaker" and a "stronger" rather than two "stronger"  (or preferable have two "weaker" than a "weaker" and a "stronger").  One way to circumvent this would be two introduce a new card which has the same name as an existing card, but I would consider this to be outside the realm of established game mechanics.

Of course, there's also the fact that even Dominion has some politics in it, at least in the sense that one can adjust their strategy towards the detriment of a chosen player (generally the one perceived as winning or the greatest potential threat), and so one may imagine as a marginal circumstance in which a "weaker" card would be preferable to lull your opponents towards butting heads.  If we stick to two player games though, this concern is mostly gone.

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michaeljb

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Re: What card design rules are left?
« Reply #109 on: August 11, 2012, 02:11:22 am »
0

And the "don't choose which card for your opponent to discard" rule.

I didn't know that was a rule? Envoy breaks that rule too.

But that's completely different; an opponent choosing what to discard to Envoy is limiting the benefit of the huge card draw, rather than getting a very strong attack.
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play2draw

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Re: What card design rules are left?
« Reply #110 on: August 11, 2012, 02:14:19 am »
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I If memory serves me right, Donald said that Guilds had its own thing going in it. Maybe we'll see a new type. Perhaps Guild cards.

I'd argue there's still room for a broad rule-change mechanic... Perhaps something similar to the goal cards in Kingdom Builder.

An auction mechanic? An investment mechanic?

There is always the possibility of adding dice.

Cards that affect the draw phase?

Add a board? Catapult?
« Last Edit: August 11, 2012, 02:15:40 am by play2draw »
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michaeljb

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Re: What card design rules are left?
« Reply #111 on: August 11, 2012, 02:22:03 am »
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There is always the possibility of adding dice.

Cards that affect the draw phase?

Add a board? Catapult?

Ugh, a few mats and tokens is enough accessories for me  :P
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joel88s

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Re: What card design rules are left?
« Reply #112 on: August 11, 2012, 11:32:57 am »
+2

I think 'strictly better' most usefully refers to effect and doesn't take into account price per se, so as mentioned Expand is strictly better than Remodel, etc.; but when people cite the principle 'there will never be a strictly better card', that's really shorthand for 'there will never be a strictly better card at the same price.'

I tend to agree with rinkworks on Goons vs. Woodcutter; that Goons's extra benefit might very rarely be a detriment may be true, but seems too marginal to be useful, as with Possession cases where up is down and down is up. I mean you could say a $10 bill is not strictly better than a $5 bill because you might need a quarter for the meter and find a change machine that only takes ones and fives, but that's not too useful in the grand scheme of things.
(Or is that the Grand Market/Scheme of things?)
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Schlippy

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Re: What card design rules are left?
« Reply #113 on: August 11, 2012, 12:33:35 pm »
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The version in this forum of my fan expansion (Clockwerk) actually has a card with +2 buys, a Victory card that counts money in your deck and an alternative curse card. :]
The Victory card is gone though in the current version.

At the moment I am playing around with the idea of a Card with a cost of $2.5, which is another rule that has not been broken yet, although the idea is so weird that such a rule has never been mentioned. It is basically an attack card that has roughly the strength of a $6 card but works like Treasure Map: You can play it, but it won't do anything unless you reveal another copy from your hand. (You do not have trash them though.)
It is a fun idea to play around with. With two buys, you can pick up two copies for $5. However, you can also pick up two copies with your 4/3 starting turns, but like with Treasure Maps that is not very strong, because they do nothing unless they collide. As you only have to reveal another copy (and not play it or discard it), you can chain them quite nicely in an engine deck, but in the end you have a dead card in your hand, as you can't do anything with the last copy that you have revealed all the time (except for playing it without any benefit).
Because of the cost it has some weird interactions though: You can remodel a card into that card, but you can not upgrade/remake a card into that card, nor can you forge something into that card (unless of course you forge a bunch of coppers and curses and a copy of that card), etc.
So I might change it just because of those interactions. Something like a cost of $3 with a sentence on the card that says: "You may pay $6 for this and gain a second copy". That's another thing that hasn't been done.
« Last Edit: August 11, 2012, 12:34:48 pm by Schlippy »
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pingpongsam

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Re: What card design rules are left?
« Reply #114 on: August 11, 2012, 01:06:34 pm »
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I didn't read all 5 pages (yet) but I'm hoping the "no politics" rule will remain unbroken (but maybe that's what Guilds is about?).

e.g. Choose an opponent to receive a curse
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eHalcyon

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Re: What card design rules are left?
« Reply #115 on: August 11, 2012, 02:54:49 pm »
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The version in this forum of my fan expansion (Clockwerk) actually has a card with +2 buys, a Victory card that counts money in your deck and an alternative curse card. :]
The Victory card is gone though in the current version.

At the moment I am playing around with the idea of a Card with a cost of $2.5, which is another rule that has not been broken yet, although the idea is so weird that such a rule has never been mentioned. It is basically an attack card that has roughly the strength of a $6 card but works like Treasure Map: You can play it, but it won't do anything unless you reveal another copy from your hand. (You do not have trash them though.)
It is a fun idea to play around with. With two buys, you can pick up two copies for $5. However, you can also pick up two copies with your 4/3 starting turns, but like with Treasure Maps that is not very strong, because they do nothing unless they collide. As you only have to reveal another copy (and not play it or discard it), you can chain them quite nicely in an engine deck, but in the end you have a dead card in your hand, as you can't do anything with the last copy that you have revealed all the time (except for playing it without any benefit).
Because of the cost it has some weird interactions though: You can remodel a card into that card, but you can not upgrade/remake a card into that card, nor can you forge something into that card (unless of course you forge a bunch of coppers and curses and a copy of that card), etc.
So I might change it just because of those interactions. Something like a cost of $3 with a sentence on the card that says: "You may pay $6 for this and gain a second copy". That's another thing that hasn't been done.

You get closer to this idea without using the fraction.  For example:

Cost $5; When you buy this, you may gain another copy for free by using an additional Buy.  (This phrasing needs work but you get the idea!)



Or you could just cost it at $3 and it would function nearly the same.
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Sniffnoy

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Re: What card design rules are left?
« Reply #116 on: August 11, 2012, 04:52:42 pm »
+8

Here's a rule that hasn't been broken yet: All variable-worth victory cards depend only on the contents of your deck; and they never decrease in value from adding more cards to your deck.

Examples of ways a victory card might violate this: (Here, X and Y are numbers.)

If there are 3 or more empty supply piles, worth X victory points. Otherwise, worth Y victory points.  [Or you could do finer distinctions based on how many supply piles are empty.]

Worth 1 victory point for every X cards in the trash.

Worth 1 victory point for every X cards in the deck of the player with the [largest/smallest] deck.

Worth 1 victory point for every X kingdom cards left in the supply.

Worth X victory points, minus 1 for every Y [type of card] in your deck, to a minimum of zero.

Worth 1 victory points for every Y differently-named cards in anyone's deck.

...and so on; I've left out lots of obvious variants on these.

Some of these are probably terrible ideas, but I suspect not all of them are, and so far none have been done.
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ftl

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Re: What card design rules are left?
« Reply #117 on: August 11, 2012, 05:14:10 pm »
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Ooh, that's a good one.
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pingpongsam

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Re: What card design rules are left?
« Reply #118 on: August 11, 2012, 07:15:07 pm »
0

Welcome to f.ds Sniffnoy, nice 1st post.
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Razzishi

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Re: What card design rules are left?
« Reply #119 on: August 11, 2012, 07:34:56 pm »
0

Time to stretch the boundaries of imagination.....

All cards are the same size.  Stash comes close to breaking this rule if you only consider one card being a different size, but there could theoretically be many different size cards.  It would be relevant not only via some rules text on some cards, but you could also see the size of the next card(s) down if it was larger.  I include changes in thickness as well as length and width in this category.

All cards have at least one type, and no greater than 3 types.  A card with no types makes very little sense, but is theoretically possible.  There likely is no room for more than 3 types, but they could always make the font smaller.

All attacks affect opponents.  Wouldn't be much of an attack if it didn't you say?  Well, maybe it could attack the supply.  Or cards you have in play somehow.

No cards of type Action-Treasure.  Presumably if such a card existed it would do different things depending on when you played it.

All cards have a cost.  Ok, having a cost of {0*} pretty much means it doesn't have a cost.  Since other cards ask for a card's cost and don't know what to do with "null" as the answer unless it would be treated the same as {0*}, I'd say this is pretty impossible to break unless you were doing it just for the sake of breaking this rule.

All starting decks have 10 cards, 7 of which are Copper.

Also a different sort of card design rule: all Kingdom cards have the same spacial layout; the art is always the same size, as is the text and cost.  (This one Magic has broken multiple times, and not just with joke cards.)

Broken rules you might not have realized:

Once a card has been played in the Action phase, it cannot return to your hand the same Action phase.  Broken by Graverobber (with trash-when-used actions).

You can buy all the cards in your starting deck.  Broken by Shelters.
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Re: What card design rules are left?
« Reply #120 on: August 11, 2012, 10:13:51 pm »
+2

How about cards that make you perform a physical action?

Marathon
Action - $3
Run a mile.  If you do so in under 5 minutes, gain 2 Provinces.


Get Off Your Ass
Action - $2
Do 60 jumping jacks.  If you do, gain a Gold, putting it in your hand.

Tongue Twister
Action - $1
Say "Search and Seizure" five times fast.  If successful, you win.
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Re: What card design rules are left?
« Reply #121 on: August 11, 2012, 10:53:55 pm »
0

How about cards that make you perform a physical action?

Marathon
Action - $3
Run a mile.  If you do so in under 5 minutes, gain 2 Provinces.


Get Off Your Ass
Action - $2
Do 60 jumping jacks.  If you do, gain a Gold, putting it in your hand.

Tongue Twister
Action - $1
Say "Search and Seizure" five times fast.  If successful, you win.

I LOL'd
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Schlippy

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Re: What card design rules are left?
« Reply #122 on: August 12, 2012, 04:35:50 am »
0

Here's a rule that hasn't been broken yet: All variable-worth victory cards depend only on the contents of your deck; and they never decrease in value from adding more cards to your deck.

Examples of ways a victory card might violate this: (Here, X and Y are numbers.)

If there are 3 or more empty supply piles, worth X victory points. Otherwise, worth Y victory points.  [Or you could do finer distinctions based on how many supply piles are empty.]

Worth 1 victory point for every X cards in the trash.

Worth 1 victory point for every X cards in the deck of the player with the [largest/smallest] deck.

Worth 1 victory point for every X kingdom cards left in the supply.

Worth X victory points, minus 1 for every Y [type of card] in your deck, to a minimum of zero.

Worth 1 victory points for every Y differently-named cards in anyone's deck.

...and so on; I've left out lots of obvious variants on these.

Some of these are probably terrible ideas, but I suspect not all of them are, and so far none have been done.
How about something like:

Worth 1 VP point for any positive number of cards in your deck distracted from 15. (May be expressed weird, I am not a native speaker.)
The idea is that the card gives you 0VP if you have 15 (or more) cards in your deck, 1 VP if you have 14 cards in your deck, 2 VP if you have 13 cards in your deck, 7 VP if you have only 7 cards in your deck and 14 VP if it is the only card in your deck. The number (15) may need some tweaking. 20 would probably be to much, 15 not enough.



Another idea I recently had is a card with a cost of $6 and the addition: "If this is in the supply every player chooses his starting hands and may play them with any number of cards (but never more than 10 cards in total)"
So you can basically start with hands of 7/0, 6/1, 5/2 or 4/3. But as you can choose the amount of cards up to ten you can also start with things 4/0, 4/2, 3/0, 3/2, 2/0 (or 0/0 ;)) and draw the spare coppers or estates you didn't use guaranteed in the third turn.
The wording is probably poor, but I guess you get the idea of being able to use any number of cards from your ten starting cards in you first two turns. If you choose to start with all 10 cards you do not shuffle after your first turn; you play your second starting hand with 0 cards. If you choose to start with 7 coppers you play your second with three (or two, or one, or none) estates and no other cards. etc.
« Last Edit: August 12, 2012, 04:38:59 am by Schlippy »
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CaptainNevada

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Re: What card design rules are left?
« Reply #123 on: August 12, 2012, 05:27:55 am »
0

I don't think any card checks to see how many cards are left in a supply pile.  This is probably a good thing as it is an unnatural break in the flow of the game (unlike attacks, where people either can use a reaction card or be affected by the attack).  The only exception would be a Victory Card, as the end of the game is another natural break in the action.

It's still possible to do, and could be done quite thematically to represent a very scarce resource.

Gemstones ($3 - Treasure)
Worth $2 for every 3 Gemstones in the Supply

Wonder of the World ($5 - Victory)
Worth 1 VP for Every Wonder of the World in the Supply.

Mercenaries ($5 - Action - Attack)

+1$ for Every 2 Mercenaries Left in the Supply
Each Opponent With 4 or More Cards Discards to 3 Cards


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Schlippy

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Re: What card design rules are left?
« Reply #124 on: August 12, 2012, 05:46:02 am »
+1

City does somewhat check how many cards are left in a supply pile. :>
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