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[timchen]

In light of rinkworks's very nice piece of guide, let me add something which I think is also very important for the variant to be interesting, at least in my opinion:

1. do something different. Now that we have 100+ canal cards already, I don't think yet another smithy variant would raise a lot of interest. Nor will some combination of parts of some cards. For example, while it is intrinsically interesting to think about how a +4 cards discard 2 card will fare, in the end it will probably work mostly like smithy or envoy. Personally I am not that interested in a detailed comparison of the performance of similar cards, especially when they are not even official cards.

2. don't give out curse easily. In fact, I think Young Witch is the only cursing card that is properly balanced. All the previous cursing cards are overpowered (maybe except Torturer without +actions) and limit the strategic space of a game when they are present. I think my recent experience in veto mode confirms this: games are generally more interesting without those cursing cards, after the initial shiny period for new players.

3. Try to have interesting interactions with existing cards. If we think about the most recent expansion, menagerie is a very good example. It not only interacts with other cards in the same set, but also interacts very nicely with discarding attacks.

Here's an example I did a while ago that I still find interesting:

-----------------------------------------
Credit Card
Action-Duration
Cost 0?

When you buy this card, you may pay extra coins for it. For every coin you pay for it, put one credit token on the "Personal Credit History"(PCH) mat.

This turn:
+1 action,
choose any x between 0 and 5.
+x coins, and put x credit tokens on the card.

Next turn:

Put another credit token on the card. You may move any number of the credit tokens on the card to the PCH mat, if you remove three times the credit tokens from the PCH mat. If there is no more credit token on the card, discard it from play.

During the action phase of this turn, you may discard any number of treasures any time just before you play an action. Whenever you discard a treasure of value x, pick a Credit Card in play, and move x tokens on it to the PCH mat. If there are no more credit tokens on the card, discard the card from play.

If you did not play any Credit Card this turn, and there is any Credit Card in play, skip your buy phase this turn.

If this card is still in play in the clean up phase, do not move it to the discard pile. At the start of next turn, do everything listed under "Next turn".

At the end of the game, every six credit tokens on the PCH mat worth 1 VP.
----------------------------------------------------

[def]

Hi timchen,

I agree with your three points, but would like to add
4. Don't invent cards too many cards which block the flow of the game by being complicated, like your example.

[guided]

The strong cursing attacks mainly feel unbalanced in 2p. With more players they're less obligatory. In general, any time you feel something is unbalanced in the 2p game consider how it plays with more players. The design point for a lot of things seems (to me) to be the 3p game.

[timchen]

haha. Indeed. It is intriguing to me though; as once you know the rules, that card is actually not disruptive to the game at all. It nevertheless does create a meta-game within itself. I was thinking about a themed variant something like Dominion: Meta The Game at that time, planning like a five card set, but cannot come up with more interesting ideas...

[Karrow]

Ah, the variant/custom card paradox.

Don't do anything new, and the new card is boring.  Do something new, and friends will say "that's not Dominion.  Lets just play the real Dominion."

Me.  I hate mats, counters, and tokens.  If someone tries to add even more custom mats, counters, tokens, or dice, I'm not going to want to play.  Dominion is a card game.  I love simple variations.  I'd love a +4card discard 2.  Boring?  Nonsense.  Smithy only gets you 3, this gets you 33% more.  Envoy only looses 1 of the 4, but you don't get to choose.  If you're looking for one specific card it's better than envoy, but would a warehouse do you better?  Is it just a bigger courtyard?  No, courtyard makes you put a card back on your library.  This lets you discard for a sooner shuffle.  So do you play it like a smithy, envoy, warehouse, or courtyard?  Can you modify the strategy to find a better one?  That's what I love about Dominion.

[rinkworks]

I kind of agree, although I love mats.  The cards I like best tend to be the very simple ones.  A card I like from WW's ongoing posts is "+2 Cards.  Discard any number of cards; +1 action per card discarded."  Doesn't really do anything other cards don't do -- lots of cards let you draw, and Hamlet lets you discard for an extra action.  But this specific combination of features and parameters create a card that plays out like no other card does and opens up a strategy space all its own.

This isn't the only kind of card I like, but to my mind this stuff is the heart of the game.  I'd much rather see an ingeniously-crafted composite of familiar elements than see something totally new that doesn't quite integrate with the rest of the game.  Not that you can't have a new idea that does integrate, but I'm convinced that even after all the official expansions are out, there will still be more room for those great, subtly unique composites.

[ChaosRed]

To me, its the exercise, not the end product. You have to ask why you develop the variant in the first place. For my purposes, it was a way to learn the game,  to learn about balance and costing and to waste a little time with something fun but inexpensive. On that level, I find the exercise quite intriguing, because then it doesn't even matter if someone thinks the card is boring, what matters is what you learned in developing it and having peers review its balance and costing.

You could in fact, just open a discussion on why Smithy is worth what its worth and what governors, limits, penalties you'd have to place on a card priced the same that drew 4 instead of 3. This is the discussion that I find the most interesting on Variants. What is worth what? Why is it worth that? And how narrow must a card's utility be before its too narrow? These kinds of things intrigue me.

In short, I really believe some of the most interesting discussion of the game takes place in Variants.

[timchen]

Guided, I think even in a 3p game, the curse givers are still dominant, in the sense that if only one player gets it, he would have an advantage. It is only for the third player (to get to the cursers) that it might be ok not to curse.

[guided]

Guided, I think even in a 3p game, the curse givers are still dominant, in the sense that if only one player gets it, he would have an advantage.

Why would the other 2 players allow this to happen? And knowing the other players have a good response, is one player obligated to start the "war"? Basically, consider the possibility of strategic equilibria at 0 or 2 players cursing.

Certainly in 3p, I would hope you agree that it is not flat-out wrong to buy Gold instead of Witch at turn 3 in the way that it is in most 2p games. I presume you don't think cursing attacks have identical strength regardless of player count.

[timchen]

That is my point. Since the other 2 players cannot allow this to happen, in my opinion this signifies that the curse givers are too strong. And since it does not create an obvious disadvantage by getting a curse giver, I think it is rather likely that the first player will gladly take one. At the very least this play forces at least one of the other players to do the same, and feels like a mild advantage.

Now, whether a witch is worth taking over a gold in a 3p game is a different question. But in the same spirit, if given that one of the players other than you will not take the curse giver, the situation reduces to the 2p game. It seems it is not the problem of the card strength, but a matter of group think.

I can only agree to the following:
In a group not taking the curse givers, it is as strong as it is in a 2p game;
In a group almost everyone takes a curse giver, it is quite a bit weaker.

How this changes when everyone is changing their mind on the fly? I would imagine that one can stick out not to get one and not be in a deficient position sometimes; this requires cooperation from other players however. It is more straight forward just to take it when possible (not necessarily over a gold though).

[guided]

Choosing a strategy that forces others to respond accordingly does not inherently make it a "too strong" strategy. One not uncommon situation will be that A buys Witch, B buys Witch, C does not buy Witch and wins... so we're to conclude that Witch is too strong? Hardly. And the possibility of this situation argues for putting less emphasis on buying Witch in the first place, so it will be bought less frequently than in 2P games.

It's like Pirate Ship: people complain that it is too strong in 4P games, when what they really mean is that it tends to alter 4P games without being too strong, since players who do not buy it will frequently win. There is such a thing as an equilibrium where some players buy a card and some do not, and if you have a personal distaste for cards that tend to push the group toward that kind of equilibrium, then that's really in the realm of pure opinion - not something you should presume to advise others to avoid in their card designs.

[timchen]

I think a fair definition of a too strong card is such that one can only respond to a card effectively by buying one themselves. As I said above, in your not so uncommon situation (let's not even argue how common that is), C can win only because B let him to. Since this relies on others to respond to the card, I still regard this as a sign of the card being too strong.

Pirate ship, on the other hand, is entirely different. It is definitely stronger in a 4p game, but if only a single player gets them, he is not obviously in a better position.

I am interested in your definition of a strategic equilibrium. I assume it means some game state that each player optimizes their strategies, and a change of any strategy on its own results in a worse result. In this case, in the opposite, I do prefer cards that push toward an equilibrium such that players buy different cards. Specifically, for a specific card, there should be an equilibrium in some setup that no one buys that card. Curse givers are not such cards, as the there is no equilibrium with no one buying these cards.

[guided]

Curse givers are not such cards, as the there is no equilibrium with no one buying these cards.

You are mistaken. Not much else to say here.


edit: Except that even if you weren't mistaken, this would fall squarely in the category of things that might be distasteful to you personally but do not represent an inherent balance problem. If there existed a card that was truly "must-buy" for at least one person in every multiplayer game (assuming everybody played optimally), that would not be a balance problem.

[timchen]

I don't see how I am mistaken. If we agree that in a 2p game the curse givers are a must buy, in a 3p/4p game where everyone starts not buying them, then one can certainly improve his own strategy by getting one. Therefore there is no equilibrium that no one buys any curse giver.

On the other hand, I have noted in the title that this is my personal opinion. I think we have discussed this before.

[guided]

If we agree that in a 2p game the curse givers are a must buy, in a 3p/4p game where everyone starts not buying them, then one can certainly improve his own strategy by getting one.

This doesn't follow. (And I wouldn't rate the cursing attacks must-buy in 2p so much as usually-buy, but that's neither here nor there.)

My objection is to your position that the cursing attacks other than Young Witch are fundamentally unbalanced for all player counts. That is not an assertion that can be papered over and excused with "That's just my opinion."

[timchen]

Let's say this way: I welcome the view that I am trying to hold the position you are against. But I won't say it as you say it; balance is subjective anyway. And in fact I don't quite agree with it, as there surely is interesting player interactions going on with more than 2 players.

Nevertheless, in the strict sense we talk about it, what I have said has to follow. If you don't agree with it please say how it does not. Maybe just let me say it again in case if there is any misunderstanding:

Assume that in a two player game one is always better off getting a curse giver. That is, any strategy you play you can make it better by getting/substituting a curse giver into your deck. This is just an assumption. In reality the curse giver is not that good; but it is not far away from it either.

Now in a 3p/4p game, suppose everyone starts with a no curser strategy. The definition of equilibrium is that any modification of the strategy of a single player only worsens his chances. If a single player changes his strategy to accommodate a curse giver, in the same way as if he is playing a 2p game, he would increase his chances, as the curse count is the same (0-10-10) if others are not cursing. (Well, I neglected the change of the probability of 3 piles and other things, but if a curser vs. no curser is always a win in a 2p game with arbitrary setup, those things seems negligible.) This would imply that no-curser-giver-strategies cannot be in equilibrium.

Now, of course, whether a card is unbalanced if it is always involved in an equilibrium is a subjective matter. But I think we can agree on that if it is not (and not to the extent that it is always not involved), it should be more balanced.

[guided]

Now in a 3p/4p game, suppose everyone starts with a no curser strategy. The definition of equilibrium is that any modification of the strategy of a single player only worsens his chances. If a single player changes his strategy to accommodate a curse giver, in the same way as if he is playing a 2p game, he would increase his chances, as the curse count is the same (0-10-10) if others are not cursing. (Well, I neglected the change of the probability of 3 piles and other things, but if a curser vs. no curser is always a win in a 2p game with arbitrary setup, those things seems negligible.) This would imply that no-curser-giver-strategies cannot be in equilibrium.

The other players' planned or likely responses are part of their strategy. A player might strategically prefer not to buy Witch on a particular board if nobody else buys Witch while also planning to buy Witch if somebody else does. The effectiveness of such responses will differ with player count. If two buy Witch and one doesn't, the outcome is much more in doubt (particularly for the 3rd player) than it is in a 2p game with one player cursing and one not. Knowing this possible result of buying a Witch, the first player has no overwhelming onus to buy one in the first place and may choose to build some non-cursing deck instead.

I didn't elaborate again because I'd already been over this.