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Author Topic: Discussion for The Other Secret History of the Prosperity Cards  (Read 16899 times)

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Schneau

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Discussion for The Other Secret History of the Prosperity Cards
« on: October 30, 2012, 02:44:23 pm »
0

Always interesting to read these!

Poor Mrs. Vaccarino, had the idea that became the worst $5 card in Dominion.
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Dsell

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Re: Discussion for The Other Secret History of the Prosperity Cards
« Reply #1 on: October 30, 2012, 02:54:18 pm »
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Well really she had the idea for what would be unquestionably the best $5 card (the silver version), and Donald the scrooge nerfed it and made it what it is now.

Personally, I think counting house is great. Sure it's not usually a star but it's just so much fun to demolish someone with it.
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Donald X.

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Re: Discussion for The Other Secret History of the Prosperity Cards
« Reply #2 on: October 30, 2012, 03:03:26 pm »
+18

I typed this up a while ago because some people complained about Prosperity's secret history (which is chronological). It is mostly redundant with the original. I never felt like posting it because it was never apropos of anything. I decided to check out the wiki today and saw that it had secret history entries and knew you wouldn't really have them for Prosperity, and so posted it. That's the secret history of the other secret history.
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ftl

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Re: Discussion for The Other Secret History of the Prosperity Cards
« Reply #3 on: October 30, 2012, 03:09:14 pm »
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Awesome!

I like wikis, so I'm excited that you posted this for the wiki :)
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NoMoreFun

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Re: Discussion for The Other Secret History of the Prosperity Cards
« Reply #4 on: October 30, 2012, 03:21:45 pm »
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Were the old Mint and Mountebank with the switched penalties both still $5?

The old Mountebank sounds utterly terrifying. I'm surprised it lasted more than a single game of playtesting. Even a $5 terminal silver with Mint's on buy would be a force to be reckoned with.

Mint, on the other hand, is a card I thought wouldn't even cut it as a $2 card if it weren't for the on buy. Gaining a Copper is a penalty, and gaining a Silver is a sub $2 effect (Squire). Copying Golds and other high value treasures (most of which are in Prosperity) is nice, but you'll have a deck full of cards you either can't or don't want to copy before you can really make use of that. It would have been the Scout or Transmute of Prosperity - below average within its own set and utterly useless when mixed in with other sets.

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Kuildeous

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Re: Discussion for The Other Secret History of the Prosperity Cards
« Reply #5 on: October 30, 2012, 03:28:49 pm »
+1

Quote
For a while I said, sure, maybe 9 VP isn't the right value, but you know, it sure has seemed good in testing so far. And it had. It had seemed just fine. I finally tested it at 10 VP anyway though. And well, it usually didn't make a difference in who won, and it made counting scores easier, and it looks prettier.

It's more than just prettier. It's also less confusing. I could imagine some mistakes being made as people count out 6- and 9-point cards.

With the new art, this wouldn't happen, but with the original art, I could see an upside-down Province or Colony being mistaken for the other.
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ftl

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Re: Discussion for The Other Secret History of the Prosperity Cards
« Reply #6 on: October 30, 2012, 03:35:18 pm »
+2

Man, a 5/2 start with a mountebank with the on-buy ability... that would be just brutal.
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NoMoreFun

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Re: Discussion for The Other Secret History of the Prosperity Cards
« Reply #7 on: October 30, 2012, 03:56:49 pm »
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Man, a 5/2 start with a mountebank with the on-buy ability... that would be just brutal.

Might not have been so bad compared to $5 King's Courts and "When you gain other than from Haggler" Hagglers.

Was "You may reveal an action. If it isn't a King's Court, play it three times" considered? I could imagine the card being very powerful, but not game shaping like it is now like that.

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LastFootnote

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Re: Discussion for The Other Secret History of the Prosperity Cards
« Reply #8 on: October 30, 2012, 04:27:19 pm »
+1

Poor Mrs. Vaccarino, had the idea that became the worst $5 card in Dominion.

Um, I buy Counting House a lot more than I buy, say, Mandarin or Tribute (in a game without Victory hybrid cards). Moreover, Counting House ranks pretty high on the list of 'cards it feels awesome to win with'. Pulling 15 Coppers out of your discard pile is definitely fun.
« Last Edit: October 30, 2012, 04:51:03 pm by LastFootnote »
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Donald X.

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Re: Discussion for The Other Secret History of the Prosperity Cards
« Reply #9 on: October 30, 2012, 04:32:04 pm »
+4

Was "You may reveal an action. If it isn't a King's Court, play it three times" considered? I could imagine the card being very powerful, but not game shaping like it is now like that.
No; a few cards have ended up with anti-Throne text, but obv. it's something I'd prefer to avoid.

I did consider "You may play an action card from your hand 3 times. Trash it or this." I'm sure some people would have preferred that, but King's Court as is is good times for a lot of people.

When Mountebank had the Mint clause, they both cost $5. I'm not sure that says anything beyond, my initial guesses were poor. King's Court cost $5. Tactician cost $3. I did fix all these cards you know.
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Schneau

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Re: Discussion for The Other Secret History of the Prosperity Cards
« Reply #10 on: October 30, 2012, 04:40:16 pm »
0

Poor Mrs. Vaccarino, had the idea that became the worst $5 card in Dominion.

Um, I buy Counting House a lot more than I buy, say, Mandarin or Tribute (in a game without Victory hybrid cards). Moreover, Counting House ranks pretty high on the list of 'card it feels awesome to win with'. Pulling 15 Coppers out of your discard pile is definitely fun.

You don't need to tell me - tell the people who voted it worst twice in a row.
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LastFootnote

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Re: Discussion for The Other Secret History of the Prosperity Cards
« Reply #11 on: October 30, 2012, 04:50:12 pm »
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Poor Mrs. Vaccarino, had the idea that became the worst $5 card in Dominion.

Um, I buy Counting House a lot more than I buy, say, Mandarin or Tribute (in a game without Victory hybrid cards). Moreover, Counting House ranks pretty high on the list of 'card it feels awesome to win with'. Pulling 15 Coppers out of your discard pile is definitely fun.

You don't need to tell me - tell the people who voted it worst twice in a row.

Touché! I hope you're listening, people who voted it worst $5 card two years in a row!
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Donald X.

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Re: Discussion for The Other Secret History of the Prosperity Cards
« Reply #12 on: October 30, 2012, 05:01:38 pm »
+4

You don't need to tell me - tell the people who voted it worst twice in a row.
Well something was going to come in last, no matter what.

The trick to narrow cards is, it's fun to win some way that you can't normally win, and you can't do that unless... there's some way you can't normally win! You can't win with an oddball strategy if in fact it's a conventional strategy; you can't win doing something normally weak if it's normally good. By being narrow, a card gives you the opportunity to win with it despite it being hard to win with it.

Most cards can't be narrow, for the game to work. So mostly they aren't! There's a place for narrow cards though.
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theory

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Re: Discussion for The Other Secret History of the Prosperity Cards
« Reply #13 on: October 30, 2012, 05:28:37 pm »
+2

Idea for a promo expansion: "Dominion: Untested".  Featuring $5 King's Courts, $3 Tacticians, Counting Houses that bring back Silvers, etc.
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NoMoreFun

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Re: Discussion for The Other Secret History of the Prosperity Cards
« Reply #14 on: October 30, 2012, 05:41:56 pm »
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Idea for a promo expansion: "Dominion: Untested".  Featuring $5 King's Courts, $3 Tacticians, Counting Houses that bring back Silvers, etc.

Except they were tested and shown to be too powerful.

Dominion: Rejected?
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Davio

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Re: Discussion for The Other Secret History of the Prosperity Cards
« Reply #15 on: October 30, 2012, 06:07:53 pm »
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To me a Counting House with Silvers doesn't seem so overpowered.

I mean, it's great when it's useful, perhaps more so than the Copper variant, but still.
You start with $7 worth of Coppers, but $0 worth of Silvers, so you need to gain those.
It takes 4 gains to surpass your Copper worth and these will be gains that you could have spent otherwise.

It makes for other interesting decisions: Are you going to spend $5 on a Silver you can get back with Counting House or on a usually helpful card at the $5 point?

I mean, the same problem still exists that you can have it at the beginning of your shuffle.
Then again, a terminal card that provides $4 worth of money with just 2 Silvers is indeed crazy.

Still, I like the idea of a card like this existing that brings back cards that you don't start with.
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popsofctown

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Re: Discussion for The Other Secret History of the Prosperity Cards
« Reply #16 on: October 30, 2012, 07:18:55 pm »
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I really hate that rationale for 10 point vs. 9 point Colonies. 

1. It makes the game more narrow by moving alt - VP strategies and Province strategies from "really hard to pull off" to "impossible to pull off".

2.  I tally up most of my games by pairing off one of my duchies with one of my opponents duchies, etc, and finding where the differences are.  Using this easy method makes the actual value irrelevant most of the time, Colony could be worth square root of 130 but if we tally it up and you have a Province more than me and I have a Colony more than you do, I can tell who won. 

3. "10 looks like a powerful number" and "6 and 9 look the same" are both easily remedied by using different art and formatting on the different cards so that it's easy to tell they are different.  There's no reason to blame our Arabic numerals for Rio Grande's sad choice to make all the Treasure cards look as similar as possible and all the Victory cards look as similar as possible as if the game is a test for dyslexia hidden in a board game box.  Other games simply don't do that because it's simply neither ergonomic nor pleasant.  Titanic Growth and Giant Growth are also differently costed cards with different magnitudes of effect, but WotC felt no compulsion whatsoever to confuse players by using identical art.

If this post seems a little overenthusiastic about a single point of change in the value of Colony it's because the sail kinda caught some of the gale from my frustration with trying to teach dominion to new players and every single one having trouble telling treasures apart.
« Last Edit: October 30, 2012, 07:20:44 pm by popsofctown »
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Schneau

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Re: Discussion for The Other Secret History of the Prosperity Cards
« Reply #17 on: October 30, 2012, 07:40:41 pm »
0

You don't need to tell me - tell the people who voted it worst twice in a row.
Well something was going to come in last, no matter what.

The trick to narrow cards is, it's fun to win some way that you can't normally win, and you can't do that unless... there's some way you can't normally win! You can't win with an oddball strategy if in fact it's a conventional strategy; you can't win doing something normally weak if it's normally good. By being narrow, a card gives you the opportunity to win with it despite it being hard to win with it.

Most cards can't be narrow, for the game to work. So mostly they aren't! There's a place for narrow cards though.

Why does everyone, including Donald X. himself, assume I don't like Counting House?  :P I like it as much as (and probably more than) the next guy. I was just lamenting the fact that Mrs. Vaccarino's card was voted in last place in the Qvist rankings, in less words. Maybe I should have used more words and included fine print stating that I enjoy playing the odd Counting House deck myself.  ;)
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Schneau

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Re: Discussion for The Other Secret History of the Prosperity Cards
« Reply #18 on: October 30, 2012, 07:44:58 pm »
0

Idea for a promo expansion: "Dominion: Untested".  Featuring $5 King's Courts, $3 Tacticians, Counting Houses that bring back Silvers, etc.

This would be a lot of fun to (not-so-seriously) play around with. Unfortunately, it would also contain cards that would never be bought, like $4 Secret Chambers.
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SirPeebles

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Re: Discussion for The Other Secret History of the Prosperity Cards
« Reply #19 on: October 30, 2012, 08:34:24 pm »
+5

3. "10 looks like a powerful number" and "6 and 9 look the same" are both easily remedied by using different art and formatting on the different cards so that it's easy to tell they are different.  There's no reason to blame our Arabic numerals for Rio Grande's sad choice to make all the Treasure cards look as similar as possible and all the Victory cards look as similar as possible as if the game is a test for dyslexia hidden in a board game box.  Other games simply don't do that because it's simply neither ergonomic nor pleasant.  Titanic Growth and Giant Growth are also differently costed cards with different magnitudes of effect, but WotC felt no compulsion whatsoever to confuse players by using identical art.

If this post seems a little overenthusiastic about a single point of change in the value of Colony it's because the sail kinda caught some of the gale from my frustration with trying to teach dominion to new players and every single one having trouble telling treasures apart.

I assume the aesthetic appeal of 1, 3, 6, 10 comes from these being the first several triangular numbers.
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Drab Emordnilap

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Re: Discussion for The Other Secret History of the Prosperity Cards
« Reply #20 on: October 30, 2012, 08:42:36 pm »
+2

I assume the aesthetic appeal of 1, 3, 6, 10 comes from these being the first several triangular numbers.
This, exactly. Also, base treasures are Fibonacci numbers.
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SirPeebles

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Re: Discussion for The Other Secret History of the Prosperity Cards
« Reply #21 on: October 30, 2012, 08:57:21 pm »
+1

So the value of VP cards grows quadratically, while the the value of treasure cards grows exponentially.  Whereas, had Platinum only been worth $4, then treasures would grow linearly.
« Last Edit: October 30, 2012, 08:58:29 pm by SirPeebles »
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Donald X.

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Re: Discussion for The Other Secret History of the Prosperity Cards
« Reply #22 on: October 31, 2012, 01:43:49 am »
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If this post seems a little overenthusiastic about a single point of change in the value of Colony it's because the sail kinda caught some of the gale from my frustration with trying to teach dominion to new players and every single one having trouble telling treasures apart.
I have no regrets about making Colony be worth 10 VP. Colored treasures, that's something Jay and I wish we had done, and would have done if we'd thought of it. We considered doing it for Intrigue even though they wouldn't match, but at that point some of the partners didn't want it. And in the end Jay put out the Base Cards product with art on the treasures.
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Donald X.

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Re: Discussion for The Other Secret History of the Prosperity Cards
« Reply #23 on: October 31, 2012, 01:45:00 am »
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I assume the aesthetic appeal of 1, 3, 6, 10 comes from these being the first several triangular numbers.
I suspect that for Valerie and Dale the appeal was that other games use those numbers.
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Davio

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Re: Discussion for The Other Secret History of the Prosperity Cards
« Reply #24 on: October 31, 2012, 03:19:49 am »
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Here's a silly question: Why doesn't Counting House have +Buy?

Has this been considered and dismissed during playtesting?
It certainly would make pulling 16 Coppers out of your discard pile in a Mountebank game a lot more fun.
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