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Author Topic: Cities! :O  (Read 36452 times)

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ipofanes

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Re: Cities! :O
« Reply #100 on: September 24, 2013, 12:43:23 pm »
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2. Get rid of the new Special Achievements.

Would you keep the 8 - #players + #expansions rule for number of achievements?
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Kahryl

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Re: Cities! :O
« Reply #101 on: September 24, 2013, 12:59:35 pm »
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"Draw when you splay" makes splaying too good
[...]
IMO keep the rule like it is unless someone has a better idea.
Does it mean you are fine with "splaying too good"?

No but I think it's the least bad option.

Hmm. I wonder if perhaps a slightly rarer city event would be better. Like "draw a city when you tech up" (i.e. meld a card whose value is higher than any top card on your board).

..except, again, this is basically telling the player "tech up whenever you can!"

I think the real problem here is that cities is the first expansion that ADDS draw events instead of replaces them. You drew an echoes or figures card when you would normally draw a base. But you draw cities when you normally would not draw any card.
« Last Edit: September 24, 2013, 01:06:10 pm by Kahryl »
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Jerk of All trades

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Re: Cities! :O
« Reply #102 on: September 24, 2013, 01:48:31 pm »
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One City drawing solution is to make it optional. At all times if you were to draw a card into hand, you may draw a city of the same value instead.

A lot of the other city drawing rules have resulted in games with both players having massive hands, making bicycle and some of the hand stealing/attacking cards far too powerful.
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TrojH

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Re: Cities! :O
« Reply #103 on: September 24, 2013, 02:01:57 pm »
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2. Get rid of the new Special Achievements.

Would you keep the 8 - #players + #expansions rule for number of achievements?

Yep. Remember, there are Cities that give an extra achievement simply by being in your tableau. I think that's good enough; no need for Special Achievements as well.

I think the real problem here is that cities is the first expansion that ADDS draw events instead of replaces them. You drew an echoes or figures card when you would normally draw a base. But you draw cities when you normally would not draw any card.

Not quite; the Figures expansion added new draw events, also. With the Figures expansion, you draw a Figures card whenever another player claims a normal achievement. That's a new draw event.
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ipofanes

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Re: Cities! :O
« Reply #104 on: September 25, 2013, 02:42:47 am »
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"Draw when you splay" makes splaying too good
[...]
IMO keep the rule like it is unless someone has a better idea.
Does it mean you are fine with "splaying too good"?

Hmm. I wonder if perhaps a slightly rarer city event would be better. Like "draw a city when you tech up" (i.e. meld a card whose value is higher than any top card on your board).

If it is a common meld action instead of a card effect, similar to the other city drawing rule, I think you'd be on to something. Otherwise, Mathematics would be sick in that it provides its own fodder, like shard Mathematics does.

Another possibility is "draw when you would splay in a new direction, instead of splaying." Like some "if" karma effects. Note: This would make Philosophy an early Machine Tools.


 
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popsofctown

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Re: Cities! :O
« Reply #105 on: September 25, 2013, 11:03:26 am »
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Brainstorming some draw rule suggestions.

"Whenever you score a card, you may return a card from your hand and draw a city of that value."
"Whenever you draw a card while you have exactly 3 cards in hand, you draw a city" (really nice for letting an Agriculture or Oars opener catch up with a Sailing opener.  Wheel would seem to benefit a lot, but it's actually not so much, wheel-meld-meld-wheel-meld-meld won't churn out cities as fast as draw-meld-draw-meld"

"Whenever you take a draw action that is not a share bonus, you name a color.  If you draw a card of that color, you may return it and draw a city instead."
Alternatively, put it on top and draw a city instead.
"Play with the top city of the [1] stack revealed.  Any dogma effect that features an icon that appears on that city will draw cities instead of echoes or base, drawing from the second card of the pile (right beneath the revealed one).  After the end of any dogma that features an icon appearing on that city, return the top card of the revealed city stack.
Whenever a player achieves an age [alternate rule: melds up to a certain age] [alternate rule: everyone has melded at least to age X], stop revealing the [1] stack or current stack, return the top card of that stack, and use that new age's city stack for this rule"
When I write it out it's complicated but I hope it's a native villagey thing.  If you do a dogma and it uses either icon on the top city, the dogma's effects draw random cities instead or random bases or random echoes.  Then it cycles and a new city is on top so some new icon might become important.  If the top card is a leaf and all you've got to work with is medicine then you can still use the dogma just to cycle the stack to something you might be able to match.
« Last Edit: September 25, 2013, 11:05:11 am by popsofctown »
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ksasaki

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Re: Cities! :O
« Reply #106 on: September 25, 2013, 03:41:53 pm »
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This draw when splaying IS too good.  I brainstormed this earlier, but my opponent pulled this stunt on me twice today with reformation / flute tucked (splay yellow left, splay yellow right draw two cards, keep building power like a madman).  Flute is just a devastating card, constantly trolling your opponent's bonus cards while splaying up your board / drawing up more fodder for another endorsement.  Even if your opponent is level with you on crowns the endorsed share is not bad, you get a free effect and a bonus figure.  If you had bad runaway leaders in echoes, I'd say the problem got even worse in this cities expansion.  At least FiTs tried to address balance (which I thought was a good thing); nowadays, it is just a little out of control.
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ipofanes

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Re: Cities! :O
« Reply #107 on: September 26, 2013, 03:58:04 am »
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This draw when splaying IS too good.  I brainstormed this earlier, but my opponent pulled this stunt on me twice today with reformation / flute tucked (splay yellow left, splay yellow right draw two cards, keep building power like a madman). 
What's worse is you still managed to win the first match. Yes, I felt a bit dirty after those two matches. Would have rather liked to play them against Carl.
Quote
Flute is just a devastating card, constantly trolling your opponent's bonus cards while splaying up your board / drawing up more fodder for another endorsement.
Yes, but two thirds of this are irrelevant in the situation described above, as its echo effect only splays. And Flute only splays left, not up as you say, so without the City drawing rule this Echo effect quickly wears off. By the time Flute is covered the Echo effect is not even needed in many situations.

I think we can agree that the draw City when you splay rule should go.
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Kahryl

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Re: Cities! :O
« Reply #108 on: September 26, 2013, 11:59:42 am »
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"Whenever you score a card, you may return a card from your hand and draw a city of that value."
"Whenever you draw a card while you have exactly 3 cards in hand, you draw a city" (really nice for letting an Agriculture or Oars opener catch up with a Sailing opener.  Wheel would seem to benefit a lot, but it's actually not so much, wheel-meld-meld-wheel-meld-meld won't churn out cities as fast as draw-meld-draw-meld"

I like both of these a lot. Especially the scoring one; scoring just seems almost pointless in the cities xpac.

Plus one often struggles to find a reason to score if they are very behind in score.

AND this gives a reason to keep cards in your hand. One thing that thematically bugs me about Innovation is that your hand is not treated as a consistent reserve tank for surprise moves, but more like half-swallowed food to be gotten rid of as fast as possible.
« Last Edit: September 26, 2013, 12:03:21 pm by Kahryl »
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Ref

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Re: Cities! :O
« Reply #109 on: September 26, 2013, 02:49:28 pm »
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I agree. Those are good rules. But currently what bothers me much is the achievements.

The old attack cards were cool, they just needed a bit balancing.
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Kahryl

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Re: Cities! :O
« Reply #110 on: September 28, 2013, 02:57:10 am »
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As much as I dislike the new achievements, they pass the most important test: you can't get them by spamming Industrialization :P
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ksasaki

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Re: Cities! :O
« Reply #111 on: October 01, 2013, 02:09:16 pm »
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I think the achievements should be attack cards to fit into the general theme.

Think about it:
echoes (blue) - light bulbs became that much more important
figures (green) - lots of culture / trade (scoring became more important again)
no place (red) - war, destruction, attack, burn
?? (purple) - purple feels like civics / religion, later more science
?? (yellow) - yellow feels like farming / agricultural later medicine
« Last Edit: October 01, 2013, 02:13:43 pm by ksasaki »
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ipofanes

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Re: Cities! :O
« Reply #112 on: October 02, 2013, 03:23:11 am »
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We had:

base: achievements that honour different aspects (splaying, icon depth, teching up, fast scoring/tucking) that you want to go for anyway.

echoes: more achievements that can be collected incidentally with a phat board (I hold this against the expanison, as much as I like it otherwise).

figures: achievements that require a non-trivial investment (returning your whole hand can be huge) but give a one-time boon.

How about: achievements that require little investment (such as return a top [1]; should probably be a bit more expensive) but handicap you for the rest of the game (such as a minus one Archimedes karma effect). 

The investment should require a bit more effort towards the end of the game (that's the reason for the top [1]) so the handicap lasts longer than the split second between you claiming the achievement and the "You win!" banner showing.
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NoMoreFun

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Re: Cities! :O
« Reply #113 on: October 03, 2013, 12:18:04 am »
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Some mechanic ideas that could add flavour in lieu of echo/inspire effects:

* Effects that trigger if the icon is visible and you meld a card on that pile and/or you meld a card on top of it. Makes sense thematically as some cities keep on growing and influencing the world as they grow.
* Effects that trigger as soon as you reveal the icon (ie the initial meld, and when it first comes out of hiding when you splay a pile). Could be called "displays" or "festivals".
* Effects that trigger when that card is scored, or when a card from the pile/of that colour/some other link is scored. "Rubble" effects? "Ruins" effects?
* There could be an icon (top middle) that signals that the city in play is achievable (standard or special) and when you achieve it, something happens. Maybe it could activate the same effects as the "when scored" effects.
* In cities games, the standard achievements could be required to be cities cards. When you get a standard achievement you could reveal what the card is, and activate some kind of effect (eg one of the above 2).
* Double icons
* Cards where the icon distribution is part of some joke (eg a "Valencia" card with 6 flag icons)
« Last Edit: October 03, 2013, 12:52:03 am by NoMoreFun »
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HB

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Re: Cities! :O
« Reply #114 on: November 14, 2013, 05:13:40 pm »
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http://innovation.isotropic.org/gamelog/201311/14/game-20131114-140813-4f833fd2.html

look how many cards Miami drew me turn 16. cities are awesome.
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