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[guided]

Yes, Villa definitely needed some tweaking, since the original version was probably stronger than any official action card in the entire game The right cost was probably more like $8 than $3.

[rinkworks]

Here's the variant I had in mind.

That looks much better.  I can't tell for sure if it's balanced at $3 without trying it out, but it looks likely.  I like that the decision to discard and replace the Victory card (a no-brainer with Cellar) is an important decision when you have multiple Villas.

Careful with your terminology, though.  "You gain the number of cards discarded" means, technically, that if I discard two cards, I can take two cards from the supply piles and put them in my discard pile.  Cellar's wording, "+1 Card per card discarded," is presumably what you're after.

[ChaosRed]

Careful with your terminology, though.  "You gain the number of cards discarded" means, technically, that if I discard two cards, I can take two cards from the supply piles and put them in my discard pile.  Cellar's wording, "+1 Card per card discarded," is presumably what you're after.

Yes, good point, thanks for that, I got sloppy with the wording.

[ChaosRed]

Took rinkworks fine suggestion on the Bailey card and added the feature that you CAN choose two of the same ability, if you pay with a discard...

Bailey


Here are the last two "cost of 3" cards in the set. I modified the OP to reflect these cards as well. Next I'll post the first two "cost of 4" cards...

Summon


A pretty basic tutor card, that allows you to name an Action of Treasure and put it into your hand. It's non-terminal too, so if you tutor an action you can play it right away.  It's a very useful card. not the most imaginative, but useful mid-to-late game as decks get less dense and you need a means to pull out a card from the clutter of copper and victory cards.

Wooden Bridge


As you can see one of the "themes" of the expansion is to replicate existing cards, with a different cost or  different attribute to them. This is by design. Although it demonstrates a lack of imagination, I am hoping it ignites a conversation about what makes the original card work, why the variant is flawed (too strong or weak) and what variants should cost more or less. One of the key purposes to making this fan expansion for me, is to really learn what makes Dominion such a unique game and what cards have value - and why.

It's another non-terminal card, which makes it quite interesting, but you have to trash the card to activate the "1 less" portion of the bridge. I had considered making it "discard a card" as the penalty to activate the "1 less" portion, but felt that wasn't a strong enough penalty. Maybe discard two cards? Forcing you to trash it, means you don't get a whole lot for 3, other than it can help with early buys and it doesn't terminate, so you can chain them. It also ensures no card is worth less than 1 (rather than 0)...which actually increases the value of coppers and curses, which might provide an interesting combo with other revalue cards.

[rinkworks]

Summon

I like that.  Donald X. talked about a similar card, which was basically this, except it offered +$2 instead of +1 Action and allowed you to name any card type.  It got scrapped, because it was strictly superior to Chancellor (because you could always just name a type of card you didn't have) and too weak to cost at $4.

Restricting it to only actions or treasures does the trick, though, and the +1 Action instead of +$2 seems like a better idea.  But that probably makes it a weaker card.  If you name an action, and that's the next card to show up in your deck, then you've done no better than if you'd never bought the card in the first place.  And while, if you skip green cards to get to it, that's a good thing, this is probably counterbalanced by the treasures you're also liable to skip.  So I think the benefit of the card lies entirely on being able to look at the rest of your hand and deciding which type would help you out most.

That's not insignificant and very possibly worthwhile as a $3 buy.  I'd guess that's probably where it needs to be, but you might playtest it $2, too.

Wooden Bridge

I worry that this is too powerful.  The self-trashing maybe makes it okay, but since it's a non-terminal, it would be perfectly possible to rush the stack and wait until you could play them all at once, in succession, to activate them.  Play 7 in a row, and you can now buy 7 Provinces.   Because they self-trash, you can only do this once, but, then again, you only need to do it once.  Of course you can do this with Bridge too, but the fact that Bridge is a terminal makes it more difficult to play them all together.  You need a more specific kind of outside help.

But I'm not so sure this is brokenly powerful.  For one thing, you don't get any real help from them as you're building up to that mega-turn.  (When not activated, they're essentially Coppers with +Buy.)  And you still do need outside help to get them all together, though that help can be any of lots of things, including Chapel, Hunting Party, Labs, Native Village, Golem, and Warehouse.  But if that help is present, and this is the dominant strategy on the board, so be it.   I think it will be a card that requires more playtesting than the usual, but, again, I don't immediately see any reason this can't work.  Certainly I think it's different enough from Bridge to warrant the attention.

[ChaosRed]

rink, your comments and feedback are precisely what I was looking for, not just a discussion about my noob expansion, but a discussion of what makes cards compelling and balanced. Thank you.

Summon I see a use for in a BM+2 tactic. You'll sometimes want that other key strat and this filters through to get it, or you may have both strats in your hand and since Summon doesn't terminate, it just pulls in a treasure card for you and allows you to fire the key strat. So in a BM+Smithy deck...having one of these is potentially quite useful, especially as you start to acquire victory cards. That's the general idea and I don't think its too broken, since by default, as you say, it's a wasted play if you just tutor for an action you could have potentially drawn anyway.

Yeah Wooden Bridge is potentially too strong. Your thoughts on this echo my own...it appears POTENTIALLY exploitable, but might take too long to get really pull the exploit off. Testing will reveal that, I start testing this soon, once I've revealed all the cards here and gotten good feedback from them. One thought I had was it couldn't reduce cards less than the cost of 2$ (or maybe even 3$). This way, one of the "features" of the card is it revalues the cards in your hand (or your opponents hand) so it can combo with revalue cards, like Remodel, Upgrade and Saboteur. I would probably remove the +1 Action if I did that? The card's main "feature" is to actually pump up the value of cheap cards to combo with a re-evaluation of them, either on an attack or for self-imposed revalue.

It becomes a "niche" card at that point admittedly, something you'd only buy if other revalue cards were on the board. The "never less than 2" would have to trump the "never less than 0" in Bridge and other cards of course, that would be explained in supplemental rules.

It's possible the card's "not less than" is too confusing, because of the potential conflict with Bridge and cards like it, that have a different "not less than" function.

Another initial wording of the card, only affected the value of your SECOND purchase...so your first purchase is at normal value, your second value is discounted and all other buys are at normal value. That nerfs the card significantly, so much so I removed the constraint. It could just discount your first purchase as well, (while the devalue trigger persists throughout the turn of course).

[ratxt1]

some more thoughts
i would really suggest changing bailey and servants couriders reaction because as you havn't already noticed there is no reaction with the same effect. also as people have stated a nonterminal reaction is something you have to be aware of.

ok the new cards.

i really like summon seems fun and id even suggest trying it at the pick any card but it might be too strong at 3 cost but i'd still suggest trying it anyway.

wooden bridge. i doubt your going to be able to pull a mega turn off as your going to need a reliable draw engine going and such and will probably be faster to just get the draw engine and to make it even less likely your opponet can just buy a few to make your mega turn not as strong. also it can't be kings courted (to great effect) which is one of the greatest strengths of bridge so in my opinion its strong as it is but not overpowered.

[ChaosRed]

some more thoughts
i would really suggest changing bailey and servants couriders reaction because as you havn't already noticed there is no reaction with the same effect. also as people have stated a nonterminal reaction is something you have to be aware of.

Yeah saw discussion of that and even a mention in rink's "guide". But I don't think a +1 Action on a Reaction card is so terrible. What am I missing? None of the Reaction cards posted are that overpowered, and in some cases I think you can make the case that a Moat is a more useful reaction.

I see Bailey as a weaker Chapel, with a defensive ability, and I see Servant's Quarters as a weaker moat (with a discard utility that might complement, but not break certain decks). Now your feedback is excellent, so I don't want to come across as ungrateful, but perhaps I just don't see why the cards are broken?

Thanks for the feedback on Summon and Wooden Bridge.

[Jack Rudd]

But I don't think a +1 Action on a Reaction card is so terrible. What am I missing?

Have you ever come across a Lighthouse deck? The characteristics of such a deck are:
(1) It can draw itself every turn.
(2) It contains at least two Lighthouses, one of which gets played every turn.

Once it starts running, such a deck can never be the victim of an Attack, ever.

Cards like Bailey are likely to cause similar effects: a deck can never have too many Baileys (because you can always use one for +Action +Card), so a Laboratory-Bailey deck, or something similar, is essentially unAttackable.

[ChaosRed]

But it sounds like a Lighthouse deck could ensure any deck could not be attacked with the inclusion of any defense card? Or are you suggesting that the +1 Action just enables the Lighthouse deck even more?

I still don't see why +1 Action on a defensive card is so broken. My apologies, I am sure it is true, but I still don't see it. Maybe when I play test the card, I can see the reality of that.

[WanderingWinder]

Sure, lighthouse decks can be come unattackable. I don't know why that's so much of a problem, especially with the effort you need to get there, and then you're using two of your precious card slots in your necessarily thin deck on lighthouse, when probably there's some really killer combo you could otherwise have. Unattackability really doesn't kill the game that much, so long as it's not a piece of cake to get and maintain, IMO.

[ChaosRed]

Going to leave the +1 Action on the defense card there for now and see how it comes out under play-testing. I hope to have the whole expansion printed and ready for play next week and will report how it goes here.

For now, I reveal the first of many 4-point cards in the expansion...

BRIBED OFFICIAL



It's a somewhat stronger Thief I suppose, but without the option to trash, you can also get stuck with a lot of Estates. Still it is a decent, but simple Attack card. I am still trying to err on the side of conservative and also err on the side of SIMPLE (no new complex mechanics or tokens, just base-set like abilities).

Is the card too strong? Initially, I had no minimum value on the card revealed, but feel the new limit makes the card useful, really other than an Estate, it will likely get you useful card. Of course it combos really well with Gardens type tactics.

It isn't that compelling an attack as the opponent can reveal his cheapest, weakest card and pawn it off to you and that card likely isn't optimized to your strategy. But perhaps played with other discard attacks (where already the player discards his weakest cards), it might make a potent second-attack.

Thoughts are very welcome on this card, as I feel Attack cards are the hardest to balance out of the gate.

SHYSTER



A very, very simple card advantage card that probably isn't that compelling. I worry about potential conflicts with other cards that increase or adjust the amount of cards you get next turn, (like the one that gives you a free "mini-turn" of 3 cards). I am not sure how Dominion has handled that kind of thing in the past, and perhaps my wording can be clarified.

I avoided +1 card at the start of your next turn specifically to avoid it being chained, but that of course really nerfs the value of the card.

Again, a very simple, honest card, erring on the side of conservative design.

[AJD]

Shyster is extremely powerful—since it's non-terminal and self-replacing, it's really easy to use a bunch of these to paralyze your opponents to a zero-card hand (see <a href="http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=699.msg9669#msg9669">Rinkworks's item 7 here</a>). There's got to be some "oppenents with hands of more than n cards" stipulation on it.

[ChaosRed]

You are right, it needs a governor. Thanks for pointing that out.

[ratxt1]

shyster is basicly a caravan except it can imoblolize an opponet and caravan is already one of the better 4 cost cards i think the attack you should be worring about is that one instead of bribed official since the bribed official will actually hurt you in the beggining (beecause of estates) i'd say to balance bribed official you should take out the victory point clause as it makes it bettter in the oppening and not as swingy in the end game.

for both cards take out the discard effect or add something else your opponet can do instead of discarding a card (i'd suggest rereading rinkworks expansion guide thing as it really tells you the do's and dont's quite well) here are maybe some improvements on the cards

shyster
+1 card
+1 action
each other player may choose to either discard a card or take a copper in hand

kind of a weaker version of tourter but it could still be too powerful cause its easily spamable. you'd have to playtest it too see.

bribed official
each other opponent must reveal one Treasure card (worth at least 2) put the revealed card into your hand.

essentially you get rid of the discard effect for a card that isn't as hutful to your self early might be a little weak.

[ChaosRed]

Excellent suggestions from both of you, thank you. I went in a similar direction as to the suggestions, here are the updates:



Gaining a Silver for a 4-point card is kind of a tradition, so that's what the card defaults to now. Also I removed the chance of getting a Victory card, to avoid snatching Provinces from your opponents, which I agree is tad too "swingy". It's a weak Thief now I guess, but it can punish a hand that has possibly already been attacked with a discard attack, or steal Gold late in the game and put it in your hand.



You now have the option of gaining a Copper instead of discarding. Meaning the attack is useless if your opponent is going for a Gardens strategy, but in most cases, discarding a single card is preferred.

Nerfed both cards to the point where neither are particularly compelling, I guess Shyster is somewhat compelling with the +1 Action, meaning you can chain attacks, so if you've got a good engine, you can really keep Shyster going forcing your opponent to get clogged or trimmed.

[WanderingWinder]

They both still seem sort of funny and breakable to me. I think a lot of it might be the wordings. But, for one thing at least, it shouldn't be that 'on the next turn' they draw 6 instead of 5 (you'd have to make it a duration to actually get this effect), but it's in THIS turn's cleanup phase that you draw your next hand, so that's when you want to do it.
And it's still nearly strictly better than caravan.

[ratxt1]

yes you want to take out the draw effect as it is strictly better than caravan and should appropitly cost 5 (which even then is probably too powerful and should be playtested).

[AJD]

It's not strictly better than Caravan, since you can chain Caravans for multiple extra cards next turn. It still seems a little overpowered to me, though, but the "gain a copper" option makes it kind of interesting and confuses me about what the right price point for it might be.

[jsh357]

Yeah, with the copper gain it seems almost like a weaker, non-terminal Mountebank.  I could see $5 being a better price point.  Looks like a very powerful card nonetheless. 

I wonder if it might be better to change it so that you only draw an extra card if they choose to gain copper?  That might nerf it down to the $2/$3 level though.

[Jack Rudd]

Shyster looks like it would be very strong in combination with Outpost.

[DStu]

Shyster looks like it would be very strong in combination with Outpost.

Or it would produce a rift in space-time-continuum because of the collision of "3 instead of 5" and "6 instead of 5".

Edit: Thinking about it, we're safe as double-Outpost also leaves space-time undamaged.

Edit: Ok, see that he realized the problem himself. Anyway, maybe one wants to adjust the wording tothe one on Outpost, as WW said. Would be also more interesting (and a nerf), as it's attackable by Milita et al

[DStu]

I am still thinking that Shyster is overpowered as an attack. It's spamable like Familiar, while being way easier to purchase. Gaining a Curse is of course weaker than gaining a Copper, but Curses a more limited than Copper is. So the attack lasts longer in the game. The discardattack also stacks.
I think I would nerf this to "discard down to 4" or "everyone who has more than 3/4 cards discard 1 card or gains a Copper"

With this rules we have of course no stacking effect at all on the card, so maybe second one with 3 is really better than the first to have at least something from the second play.

[WanderingWinder]

If you get rid of the bonus, I don't think it's overpowered at all really. I have a similar, strictly stronger card in the set I'm designing. Of course I haven't playtested.

[ChaosRed]

Got rid of the bonus as you suggested WW, thank you for your advice...



Updated the verbiage on Bribed Official, just some typo corrections:



Two more Cost 4 cards coming up in the next post.