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Author Topic: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?  (Read 35089 times)

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eHalcyon

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #75 on: September 18, 2013, 12:14:03 pm »
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The point was made that a blockable self-curse card of the Attack type would be unreasonably well-countered by Reactions. Denying the card the Attack type drastically reduces the number of cases where the card is completely invalidated.

I think the definition of an attack should be "any kind of card that has an usually undesirable effect on your opponents, where 'usually' means 'ignoring interaction between kingdom cards'". Council Room, Masquerade and Possession only give a negative effect provided certain other kingdom cards (like Pillage, Militia, Baker), and all attacks are only non-negative on boards with certain other cards (reactions, draw-up-to, etc).

Keep in mind that only 3 of oh so many Dominion cards can actually block your card. Ignoring them, your card will always harm your opponents, and this is enough for an attack type. Every card can live with one or two other cards that make it less desirable - heck, that's part of what makes Dominion interesting. If you really want to improve its interaction with blocking reactions, tie the reveal-benefit to the curse gaining, like Soothsayer does. It won't solve Watchtower, but gee, 1 of 205 cards? Sounds fine to me.

Lighthouse and Moat are two cards which invalidate this card in an uncommonly strong way - to the point of essentially being as strong as an attack reflection, which are discouraged from being fan-made because the threat of them invalides attacks and therefore themselves altogether, reducing the board size by 2. Watchtower and Trader can't be helped (without going to great lengths in the wording at least), but that's no reason to give it four unreasonably strong counters instead of two. Every card that nullifies the curse gain invalidates BSoL altogether.

Moat is not an unreasonably strong counter to your card.  It's just a counter.  Just because your card self-curses, it is NOT attack reflection.  Your card self-curses whether or not another player blocks the attack portion.  The self-curse is a function of YOUR card, not the reaction.  Likewise for Trader, Watchtower and Lighthouse.

Your stated goal for the card is to make self-cursing viable.  You do this by giving yourself a chance to get good treasure out of having Curses in hand.  If you think that the card is so weak that you have to remove the ability for reactions to deal with it (note: reactions that usually aren't even on the board, and even then may not be in their hand when you play the attack!), then you should probably change your card.  Other attack cards have counters too.  Moat makes all attacks weaker.  Fixed draw counters discard attacks.  Those cards are still fine.

I mean, consider some other attacks. 

If my opponent has a Moat, my Sea Hag is completely dead.  It cost me an action and it literally does nothing.  Is Moat an unreasonably strong counter to Sea Hag?
If my opponent has a Trader, my Mountebank gives them TWO SILVER and only give mes +$2.  A terminal +$2 card is probably not even worth $2.  Is Trader an unreasonably strong counter to Mountebank?

The answer is no in both cases.  These are strong counters, but they are not unreasonable.

Now consider your card.  If other players block the Curse, you still get to gain a Treasure.  Yeah it sucks that you got a Curse and your opponents didn't... but man, that was kind of your own fault for buying a card that gives you Curses.  If you can't accept that, you shouldn't have bought it.  Is Moat a strong counter?  Sure.  Is it unreasonable?  Not really.




OK, here's an important point that hasn't been brought up yet.  Let's suppose that Moat, Lighthouse, Watchtower and Trader ARE all unreasonably strong counters to BSoL that completely invalidate it.  If it such a big deal that you can't let Moat and Lighthouse block the attack, why are you letting Watchtower and Trader do it?  What you are effectively saying is, "Watchtower and Trader have a broken interaction with this card, but it is too awkward to fix it so I'll just let it be."  No, if it is really so problematic, you need to deal with it for all cases, not just the ones that are easy to address.
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Matt_Arnold

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #76 on: September 18, 2013, 12:21:28 pm »
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It is possible to meet the challenge of inventing a self-cursing card that works-- at least in a way that satisfies the spirit if not the letter of the challenge. Just give VP chips to all other players. Effectively, this is equivalent to reducing one's own score.
Quote
Self-Cursing Equivalent
Type: Action
Cost: $2
Choose two:
+2 Cards.
+2 Actions.
Trash a victory card or lose a VP chip. If you do, +$3.
---------------
When you gain this, each other player gains 2 VP chips.
... or what have you.
« Last Edit: September 18, 2013, 12:27:30 pm by Matt_Arnold »
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eHalcyon

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #77 on: September 18, 2013, 12:27:33 pm »
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It is possible to meet the challenge of inventing a self-cursing card that works-- at least in a way that satisfies the spirit if not the letter of the challenge. Just give VP chips to all other players. Effectively, this is equivalent to reducing one's own score.
Quote
Self-Cursing Equivalent
Type: Action
Cost: $2
+1 Card.
+1 Action.
Choose one:
+1 Card.
+1 Action.
You may trash a victory card or lose a VP chip. If you do, +$3.
---------------
When you gain this, each other player gains 2 VP chips.
... or what have you.

This has been brought up in the thread already (in the non-recent portion):

Other than for perhaps thematic reasons, negative VP (curse) tokens are unnecessary; you could just give every other player the appropriate number of VP tokens.  Unless I'm missing something, or some future card lets you "spend" VP tokens for some benefit, it should be functionally equivalent.

But that is not the difficulty of inventing a self-Cursing card.  The difficulty is in balancing it such that the self-Curse isn't trivial and yet is sometimes worth it.  The card in recent discussion actually veers a bit from it because it is a Curse-for-benefit card, whereas the original discussion was about using Curses as a penalty to temper an otherwise too-powerful card.
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GendoIkari

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #78 on: September 18, 2013, 12:57:57 pm »
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Yes, but the way cards are chosen to be attacks is what you quoted
That's how Donald X. did it, but it's certainly not necessary for a fan card to do it the same way. The only requirements are that it must be a card with direct player interaction and the creator needs to think that the interaction part should be sometimes blockable.

Well just because Donald X liked to avoid political cards and reactions that reflected attacks doesn't mean that fan cards have to obey that either. We can create fan cards are more powerful than Goons but cost $3 if we want. Nothings stopping anyone from doing whatever they want with fan cards. But in this section of the board, when people post fan cards, they are judged by people who like Dominion a lot, and people who think that Donald X knew what he was doing when he created his cards. And thus if a fan card chooses to do something that Donald X tried to avoid doing, it is expected that this will be commented on.
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Minotaur

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #79 on: September 18, 2013, 01:21:02 pm »
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Moat is not an unreasonably strong counter to your card.  It's just a counter.  Just because your card self-curses, it is NOT attack reflection.  Your card self-curses whether or not another player blocks the attack portion.  The self-curse is a function of YOUR card, not the reaction.  Likewise for Trader, Watchtower and Lighthouse.

Your stated goal for the card is to make self-cursing viable.  You do this by giving yourself a chance to get good treasure out of having Curses in hand.  If you think that the card is so weak that you have to remove the ability for reactions to deal with it (note: reactions that usually aren't even on the board, and even then may not be in their hand when you play the attack!), then you should probably change your card.  Other attack cards have counters too.  Moat makes all attacks weaker.  Fixed draw counters discard attacks.  Those cards are still fine.

I mean, consider some other attacks. 

If my opponent has a Moat, my Sea Hag is completely dead.  It cost me an action and it literally does nothing.  Is Moat an unreasonably strong counter to Sea Hag?
If my opponent has a Trader, my Mountebank gives them TWO SILVER and only give mes +$2.  A terminal +$2 card is probably not even worth $2.  Is Trader an unreasonably strong counter to Mountebank?

The answer is no in both cases.  These are strong counters, but they are not unreasonable.

Now consider your card.  If other players block the Curse, you still get to gain a Treasure.  Yeah it sucks that you got a Curse and your opponents didn't... but man, that was kind of your own fault for buying a card that gives you Curses.  If you can't accept that, you shouldn't have bought it.  Is Moat a strong counter?  Sure.  Is it unreasonable?  Not really.




OK, here's an important point that hasn't been brought up yet.  Let's suppose that Moat, Lighthouse, Watchtower and Trader ARE all unreasonably strong counters to BSoL that completely invalidate it.  If it such a big deal that you can't let Moat and Lighthouse block the attack, why are you letting Watchtower and Trader do it?  What you are effectively saying is, "Watchtower and Trader have a broken interaction with this card, but it is too awkward to fix it so I'll just let it be."  No, if it is really so problematic, you need to deal with it for all cases, not just the ones that are easy to address.

The reason Moat is unreasonably strong as a counter is that you always hurt yourself by gaining a Curse, but you don't always hurt your opponent. Losing an action from playing Sea Hag doesn't even compare. In any case, your opponent buying Moat is an opportunity cost, since they would otherwise rather have stronger cards.

The bottom line is that I wouldn't buy a BSoL if it has to curse my opponent for me to come out ahead for playing it, but it might not actually curse them.

I suppose I could give it the "no reactions" clause and call it an attack, but then there's an extra layer of back-and-forth that makes it start to look like Magic: the Gathering. I think for a self-cursing to attack to have any hope of being useful, it has to be on a board where it's not going to be blocked.

(I probably wouldn't buy Mountebank on a Trader board, either, but every other reaction I can think of is an opportunity cost for the buyer and doesn't counter Mountebank that strongly. One hard counter, not four. This is better and makes more boards have more valid cards.)
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eHalcyon

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #80 on: September 18, 2013, 01:41:17 pm »
+2

Moat is not an unreasonably strong counter to your card.  It's just a counter.  Just because your card self-curses, it is NOT attack reflection.  Your card self-curses whether or not another player blocks the attack portion.  The self-curse is a function of YOUR card, not the reaction.  Likewise for Trader, Watchtower and Lighthouse.

Your stated goal for the card is to make self-cursing viable.  You do this by giving yourself a chance to get good treasure out of having Curses in hand.  If you think that the card is so weak that you have to remove the ability for reactions to deal with it (note: reactions that usually aren't even on the board, and even then may not be in their hand when you play the attack!), then you should probably change your card.  Other attack cards have counters too.  Moat makes all attacks weaker.  Fixed draw counters discard attacks.  Those cards are still fine.

I mean, consider some other attacks. 

If my opponent has a Moat, my Sea Hag is completely dead.  It cost me an action and it literally does nothing.  Is Moat an unreasonably strong counter to Sea Hag?
If my opponent has a Trader, my Mountebank gives them TWO SILVER and only give mes +$2.  A terminal +$2 card is probably not even worth $2.  Is Trader an unreasonably strong counter to Mountebank?

The answer is no in both cases.  These are strong counters, but they are not unreasonable.

Now consider your card.  If other players block the Curse, you still get to gain a Treasure.  Yeah it sucks that you got a Curse and your opponents didn't... but man, that was kind of your own fault for buying a card that gives you Curses.  If you can't accept that, you shouldn't have bought it.  Is Moat a strong counter?  Sure.  Is it unreasonable?  Not really.




OK, here's an important point that hasn't been brought up yet.  Let's suppose that Moat, Lighthouse, Watchtower and Trader ARE all unreasonably strong counters to BSoL that completely invalidate it.  If it such a big deal that you can't let Moat and Lighthouse block the attack, why are you letting Watchtower and Trader do it?  What you are effectively saying is, "Watchtower and Trader have a broken interaction with this card, but it is too awkward to fix it so I'll just let it be."  No, if it is really so problematic, you need to deal with it for all cases, not just the ones that are easy to address.

The reason Moat is unreasonably strong as a counter is that you always hurt yourself by gaining a Curse, but you don't always hurt your opponent. Losing an action from playing Sea Hag doesn't even compare. In any case, your opponent buying Moat is an opportunity cost, since they would otherwise rather have stronger cards.

The bottom line is that I wouldn't buy a BSoL if it has to curse my opponent for me to come out ahead for playing it, but it might not actually curse them.

I suppose I could give it the "no reactions" clause and call it an attack, but then there's an extra layer of back-and-forth that makes it start to look like Magic: the Gathering. I think for a self-cursing to attack to have any hope of being useful, it has to be on a board where it's not going to be blocked.

(I probably wouldn't buy Mountebank on a Trader board, either, but every other reaction I can think of is an opportunity cost for the buyer and doesn't counter Mountebank that strongly. One hard counter, not four. This is better and makes more boards have more valid cards.)

Yes it compares.  Curses are more dangerous for clogging your deck than for the -VP.  Sea Hag itself is almost as bad as a Curse if it isn't able to attack.  At least with your card, you still have a chance at gaining Gold.

You wouldn't buy BSoL if there are counters to it?  Sure, that's fine -- that is how Dominion works.  That's not a reason to remove the attack type so that BSoL is slightly more viable in a small percentage of games.  Sometimes cards just aren't useful on a certain board, and that's fine.  Conspirator is useless without a way to play multiple actions in a turn.  Talisman is useless in a game with no good sub-$5 cards.  This is just how the game goes.

I was just using specific examples, but man -- Lighthouse, Moat and Watchtower also counter Mountebank.  Lighthouse and Moat are hard counters to EVERY attack by definition.  So it's not like there are SO many more counters to BSoL than to other attacks.

And there is ALWAYS opportunity cost with buying those cards.  You can't say that these cards are problematic with BSoL and then bring up opportunity cost as the reason why it's not also problematic with other attack cards.  Opportunity cost is there with BSoL as well.

And man, those defenses aren't even perfect.  Trader?  Hey, you can pick up Trader too, so maybe now you give yourself a Silver and the others get Cursed if their Trader isn't in hand.  Similar story for Watchtower.  Lighthouse?  Man, you can see it from a mile away.  If their Lighthouse is up, just don't play BSoL.  Moat?  Well hey, they still might not have it in their hand.  And yeah -- opportunity cost.
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GendoIkari

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #81 on: September 18, 2013, 01:49:58 pm »
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Moat is not an unreasonably strong counter to your card.  It's just a counter.  Just because your card self-curses, it is NOT attack reflection.  Your card self-curses whether or not another player blocks the attack portion.  The self-curse is a function of YOUR card, not the reaction.  Likewise for Trader, Watchtower and Lighthouse.

Your stated goal for the card is to make self-cursing viable.  You do this by giving yourself a chance to get good treasure out of having Curses in hand.  If you think that the card is so weak that you have to remove the ability for reactions to deal with it (note: reactions that usually aren't even on the board, and even then may not be in their hand when you play the attack!), then you should probably change your card.  Other attack cards have counters too.  Moat makes all attacks weaker.  Fixed draw counters discard attacks.  Those cards are still fine.

I mean, consider some other attacks. 

If my opponent has a Moat, my Sea Hag is completely dead.  It cost me an action and it literally does nothing.  Is Moat an unreasonably strong counter to Sea Hag?
If my opponent has a Trader, my Mountebank gives them TWO SILVER and only give mes +$2.  A terminal +$2 card is probably not even worth $2.  Is Trader an unreasonably strong counter to Mountebank?

The answer is no in both cases.  These are strong counters, but they are not unreasonable.

Now consider your card.  If other players block the Curse, you still get to gain a Treasure.  Yeah it sucks that you got a Curse and your opponents didn't... but man, that was kind of your own fault for buying a card that gives you Curses.  If you can't accept that, you shouldn't have bought it.  Is Moat a strong counter?  Sure.  Is it unreasonable?  Not really.




OK, here's an important point that hasn't been brought up yet.  Let's suppose that Moat, Lighthouse, Watchtower and Trader ARE all unreasonably strong counters to BSoL that completely invalidate it.  If it such a big deal that you can't let Moat and Lighthouse block the attack, why are you letting Watchtower and Trader do it?  What you are effectively saying is, "Watchtower and Trader have a broken interaction with this card, but it is too awkward to fix it so I'll just let it be."  No, if it is really so problematic, you need to deal with it for all cases, not just the ones that are easy to address.

The reason Moat is unreasonably strong as a counter is that you always hurt yourself by gaining a Curse, but you don't always hurt your opponent. Losing an action from playing Sea Hag doesn't even compare. In any case, your opponent buying Moat is an opportunity cost, since they would otherwise rather have stronger cards.

The bottom line is that I wouldn't buy a BSoL if it has to curse my opponent for me to come out ahead for playing it, but it might not actually curse them.

I suppose I could give it the "no reactions" clause and call it an attack, but then there's an extra layer of back-and-forth that makes it start to look like Magic: the Gathering. I think for a self-cursing to attack to have any hope of being useful, it has to be on a board where it's not going to be blocked.

(I probably wouldn't buy Mountebank on a Trader board, either, but every other reaction I can think of is an opportunity cost for the buyer and doesn't counter Mountebank that strongly. One hard counter, not four. This is better and makes more boards have more valid cards.)

Yes it compares.  Curses are more dangerous for clogging your deck than for the -VP.  Sea Hag itself is almost as bad as a Curse if it isn't able to attack.  At least with your card, you still have a chance at gaining Gold.

You wouldn't buy BSoL if there are counters to it?  Sure, that's fine -- that is how Dominion works.  That's not a reason to remove the attack type so that BSoL is slightly more viable in a small percentage of games.  Sometimes cards just aren't useful on a certain board, and that's fine.  Conspirator is useless without a way to play multiple actions in a turn.  Talisman is useless in a game with no good sub-$5 cards.  This is just how the game goes.

I was just using specific examples, but man -- Lighthouse, Moat and Watchtower also counter Mountebank.  Lighthouse and Moat are hard counters to EVERY attack by definition.  So it's not like there are SO many more counters to BSoL than to other attacks.

And there is ALWAYS opportunity cost with buying those cards.  You can't say that these cards are problematic with BSoL and then bring up opportunity cost as the reason why it's not also problematic with other attack cards.  Opportunity cost is there with BSoL as well.

And man, those defenses aren't even perfect.  Trader?  Hey, you can pick up Trader too, so maybe now you give yourself a Silver and the others get Cursed if their Trader isn't in hand.  Similar story for Watchtower.  Lighthouse?  Man, you can see it from a mile away.  If their Lighthouse is up, just don't play BSoL.  Moat?  Well hey, they still might not have it in their hand.  And yeah -- opportunity cost.

Good point about seeing Lighthouse in advance, hadn't thought of that. This means that Moat remains the only card at all for which the "attack reflection" argument applies with this card. 1 single card for which there's that kind of situation.
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Minotaur

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #82 on: September 18, 2013, 01:56:50 pm »
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Yes it compares.  Curses are more dangerous for clogging your deck than for the -VP.  Sea Hag itself is almost as bad as a Curse if it isn't able to attack.  At least with your card, you still have a chance at gaining Gold.

You wouldn't buy BSoL if there are counters to it?  Sure, that's fine -- that is how Dominion works.  That's not a reason to remove the attack type so that BSoL is slightly more viable in a small percentage of games.  Sometimes cards just aren't useful on a certain board, and that's fine.  Conspirator is useless without a way to play multiple actions in a turn.  Talisman is useless in a game with no good sub-$5 cards.  This is just how the game goes.

I was just using specific examples, but man -- Lighthouse, Moat and Watchtower also counter Mountebank.  Lighthouse and Moat are hard counters to EVERY attack by definition.  So it's not like there are SO many more counters to BSoL than to other attacks.

And there is ALWAYS opportunity cost with buying those cards.  You can't say that these cards are problematic with BSoL and then bring up opportunity cost as the reason why it's not also problematic with other attack cards.  Opportunity cost is there with BSoL as well.

And man, those defenses aren't even perfect.  Trader?  Hey, you can pick up Trader too, so maybe now you give yourself a Silver and the others get Cursed if their Trader isn't in hand.  Similar story for Watchtower.  Lighthouse?  Man, you can see it from a mile away.  If their Lighthouse is up, just don't play BSoL.  Moat?  Well hey, they still might not have it in their hand.  And yeah -- opportunity cost.

Moat still counters BSoL harder than almost any card counters anything else. You're right about Lighthouse. It's not an overly strong counter - you're right, I just wouldn't play BSoL unless I knew I was gaining a Gold that turn. Basically Trader and Watchtower are the ones that are just too good.

The reason that Moat totally invalidates BSoL more than it invalidates other attacks is that the person who plays the attack loses so much more in the exchange. Trader still counters BSoL harder than it counters Mountebank because I still Curse myself, while Mountebank would have given me money. With the exception of Saboteur and Sea Hag and maybe some others I'm forgetting, if I play an attack and have it blocked, I still gain something. If I have BSoL blocked, I Curse myself and probably only gain a Copper or Silver. It's hard to imagine BSoL ever being worth it on such a board, while Trader is probably the only card that even comes close to invalidating Mountebank that badly.
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Minotaur

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #83 on: September 18, 2013, 01:59:55 pm »
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Good point about seeing Lighthouse in advance, hadn't thought of that. This means that Moat remains the only card at all for which the "attack reflection" argument applies with this card. 1 single card for which there's that kind of situation.

Yeah, I guess it may as well be an attack, and/or it could have a "no reactions" clause. But "no reactions" would be an ugly clause. The only thing to worry about is other fan cards that prevent attacks, which would also hard-counter this card. Potentially, more official Dominion expansions could be released too.
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GendoIkari

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #84 on: September 18, 2013, 02:11:13 pm »
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Good point about seeing Lighthouse in advance, hadn't thought of that. This means that Moat remains the only card at all for which the "attack reflection" argument applies with this card. 1 single card for which there's that kind of situation.

Yeah, I guess it may as well be an attack, and/or it could have a "no reactions" clause. But "no reactions" would be an ugly clause. The only thing to worry about is other fan cards that prevent attacks, which would also hard-counter this card. Potentially, more official Dominion expansions could be released too.

Of course it's your card and in the end it's up to you, but I strongly recommend having it be an attack and not having any sort of "no reactions" card. Reactions exist for the purpose of making attacks not as good on that particular board. If you choose to not play Minion because Horse Trader's makes it weaker, that's a good thing for card design. It doesn't mean that Minion needs to be made stronger to avoid the possible Horse Trader interaction. And if you choose not to play BSoL because Moat is in the Kingdom, same thing.
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Minotaur

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #85 on: September 18, 2013, 02:15:42 pm »
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Good point about seeing Lighthouse in advance, hadn't thought of that. This means that Moat remains the only card at all for which the "attack reflection" argument applies with this card. 1 single card for which there's that kind of situation.

Yeah, I guess it may as well be an attack, and/or it could have a "no reactions" clause. But "no reactions" would be an ugly clause. The only thing to worry about is other fan cards that prevent attacks, which would also hard-counter this card. Potentially, more official Dominion expansions could be released too.

Of course it's your card and in the end it's up to you, but I strongly recommend having it be an attack and not having any sort of "no reactions" card. Reactions exist for the purpose of making attacks not as good on that particular board. If you choose to not play Minion because Horse Trader's makes it weaker, that's a good thing for card design. It doesn't mean that Minion needs to be made stronger to avoid the possible Horse Trader interaction. And if you choose not to play BSoL because Moat is in the Kingdom, same thing.

I guess it's ok then. Militia is strongly countered by Library and Watchtower. BSoL is strongly countered by Trader, Moat, and Watchtower. In either case, the counter is strong enough to almost totally invalidate the other card.

In most cases, though, reactions don't over-counter cards, though in some cases, Secret Chamber often makes attacks good for you. But almost nothing is quite as damaging as a Moated BSoL, way in excess of the opportunity cost of Moat.
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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #86 on: September 18, 2013, 02:32:46 pm »
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I think the definition of an attack should be "any kind of card that has an usually undesirable effect on your opponents, where 'usually' means 'ignoring interaction between kingdom cards'". Council Room, Masquerade and Possession only give a negative effect provided certain other kingdom cards (like Pillage, Militia, Baker), and all attacks are only non-negative on boards with certain other cards (reactions, draw-up-to, etc).

Keep in mind that only 3 of oh so many Dominion cards can actually block your card. Ignoring them, your card will always harm your opponents, and this is enough for an attack type.
Council Room does give a negative effect in a single-card kingdom, too, it triggers unwanted reshuffles. Masquerade sometimes makes you pass a good card even without hand size reduction attacks and Possession can make you skip a good hand. And Margrave, Minion, Soothsayer, Thief, Fortune Teller, Saboteur, Rabble, Ghost Ship and Pirate Ship can help opponents without the presence of any other cards, even if you're not trying to help your opponent with them. "Undesirable" is relative, so basically what your definition actually is, is "it should be an Attack if the card feels like what the word 'attack' means" which is a flavor reason.

There is no reason to have an Attack type if there are no cards that interact with the type Attack. If there was, there also should be a Splitter card type, a Trasher card type, a Virtual-Coin type etc.

Hmm... Good points.

Disagree, those weren't good points.

Not good against yours or eHalcyon's points, but capable of interfering with my argumentation that it was all about ignoring kingdom cards. I still think the card should be an attack.
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Asper

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #87 on: September 18, 2013, 02:47:43 pm »
+1

In most cases, though, reactions don't over-counter cards, though in some cases, Secret Chamber often makes attacks good for you. But almost nothing is quite as damaging as a Moated BSoL, way in excess of the opportunity cost of Moat.

Any trashing attack/Fortress? Any junker/Trader? Your card can't be good on every board, and no card can. Well, except maybe some very few exceptions, but usually that's not a good thing about those cards (looking at you, Rebuild). If your card works on every board, it's boring. You likely wouldn't go for Sea Hag on a Masquerade board, and you wouldn't go for BSoL on a Moat board.

I admit an attack that also harms yourself is unusual, but the point is that a non-attack that harms opponents is the much bigger deal.
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popsofctown

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #88 on: September 18, 2013, 03:21:14 pm »
+1

I suspect that cards with a VP penalty just aren't good design space.  Not that they are unbalanceable, I just think they are not going to be as fun as other cards.  Mostly hunch.  Partly concern about how mega turn mirrors work out, the VP penalty card getting gobbled up because the board clearly allows you to overcome the inverse VP chips.  Whoever gets more of VP penalty card has more control on when the game ends on piles, and thus has the power to both undo his VP losses and terminate the game before the player with fewer curses can undo his VP losses.


With that in mind, it might be one of those things that is best done as a potion cost card.   Even then, I think cards without negative VP work out better.
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Stealth Tomato

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #89 on: September 18, 2013, 04:23:59 pm »
0

I suspect that cards with a VP penalty just aren't good design space.  Not that they are unbalanceable, I just think they are not going to be as fun as other cards.  Mostly hunch.  Partly concern about how mega turn mirrors work out, the VP penalty card getting gobbled up because the board clearly allows you to overcome the inverse VP chips.  Whoever gets more of VP penalty card has more control on when the game ends on piles, and thus has the power to both undo his VP losses and terminate the game before the player with fewer curses can undo his VP losses.


With that in mind, it might be one of those things that is best done as a potion cost card.   Even then, I think cards without negative VP work out better.

I think the problem is more that it expands the consideration space too much--Dominion should be relatively straightforward. Making points a resource to spend comes at a huge cost to the playability of the game. Does it add enough to the depth of the game to be worth it? I don't think so.
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Minotaur

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #90 on: September 18, 2013, 04:40:10 pm »
0

I think the problem is more that it expands the consideration space too much--Dominion should be relatively straightforward. Making points a resource to spend comes at a huge cost to the playability of the game. Does it add enough to the depth of the game to be worth it? I don't think so.

I think it might be better overall not to have them, but it's a fun problem to puzzle over. Self-cursing attack cards probably aren't too horrible, but just for three-pile considerations, they should probably have "Setup: The curse pile has an additional 10 curses" added to it. If we're going to make fan cards with self-harm mechanics, we may as well try to do the most balanced and fun versions we can think of.
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Minotaur

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #91 on: September 18, 2013, 04:43:30 pm »
0

In general, I think a board where a super-strong counter for a card is available isn't as good a board as it could be - or at best, it should just be played with 9 of the 10 cards anyway. If Library and Militia are on the same board, then Militia probably shouldn't even be there. If Trader and Mountebank are on the same board, then Mountebank probably shouldn't even be there. I think the balance between Moat and Militia or Moat and Witch is fine, but the balance between Moat and a self-cursing attack would nullify the self-cursing card, and reduce Moat to a weak drawer in the absence of other attacks.
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eHalcyon

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Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« Reply #92 on: September 18, 2013, 05:07:54 pm »
+2

The part you are overlooking is that Moat does not counter BSoL any more than it does another attack.  Yeah with BSoL you get hit by a Curse... but you get hit by a Curse even without a Moat.  Compare to Witch:

With Witch, everybody else gets a Curse.  You get +2 Cards.
With BSoL, everybody else gets a Curse and maybe a Treasure.  You get a Curse and maybe a Treasure.

Moat blocks out the first part (what other people get) but not the first (what you get).  Just because the personal part of BSoL is negative doesn't mean it should be an unblockable attack.  You getting a Curse is bad.  +2 Cards is also pretty weak.  Curse is worse, sure, but this is arbitrary.  Sea Hag gives you nothing, and that is also worse than +2 Cards.  Why shouldn't Sea Hag be unblockable?  Why should BSoL?  It's an arbitrary line.

In general, I think a board where a super-strong counter for a card is available isn't as good a board as it could be - or at best, it should just be played with 9 of the 10 cards anyway. If Library and Militia are on the same board, then Militia probably shouldn't even be there. If Trader and Mountebank are on the same board, then Mountebank probably shouldn't even be there. I think the balance between Moat and Militia or Moat and Witch is fine, but the balance between Moat and a self-cursing attack would nullify the self-cursing card, and reduce Moat to a weak drawer in the absence of other attacks.

These are all very arbitrary distinctions.  Maybe the board lets you play Militia every turn, and they can't get Library every turn.  Maybe Militia is the only source of action money and you can build a nice KC engine that appreciates KC-able coin.  At the very least, the presence of Militia makes everyone consider whether they should pick up Library when maybe they otherwise wouldn't.  These are all interesting things.

Likewise, Mountebank is strong enough that it may be worth it even at risk of giving the opponent 2 Silvers.  Maybe it's a Colony game where those Silvers are only mediocre anyway.
« Last Edit: September 18, 2013, 05:11:52 pm by eHalcyon »
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