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[SirPeebles]

With the contest underway, I'm wary of posting any card ideas since I made be spoiling someone else's idea.  But hopefully this idea wasn't on anyone's mind.

Foothills
$?  Victory

Worth a number of victory points equal to the median cost in coins of the cards in your deck, rounded down.

So I chose to use the median cost since that would be reasonably quick to determine without computations.  This card wants a deck composition with a distinctly different flavor from Gardens and Fairgrounds.  What do you think would be a common value for your median cost?  Also, what might a card like this cost?  Its cost has an interesting effect on its own power.

[popsofctown]

Not too hard to get to a median of 5$, I don't think.  You could go the whole Duke angle of 5$ for five VP, but that seems kind of aggressive to me, 6$ seems like a better fit.  And six dollars, like Fairgrounds, let's you live the dream and make them cheap Provinces sometimes.

It's pretty hard to go hard with the cost on this guy, really.  If you price it at 0$ it is too good, but man it sounds like a fun mirror.

[eHalcyon]

Ooh, this is kind of weird.

First concern is if it is really so easy to calculate.  20 cards is still a pretty small deck to end with, and now you have to sort through by cost.  However, you're going to be sorting all the cards back into their respective piles anyway, so maybe that's just fine.  And in an online implementation it's a breeze, of course.

There was some discussion about cards that work at any cost (and had a setup mechanic that randomized the cost of the card).  Could this work with Foothills?  The higher its own cost, the more VP Foothills is likely to be worth.

The median cost of the cards in your deck will depend a lot on the kingdom.  If there is no trashing, the starting Coppers and Estates will just hurt Foothills a lot.  But if you can get rid of all those, Foothills may end up worth a lot more.  It has interesting synergies with Remodel-family cards, which increase the median cost of cards in your deck (removing a lower one and adding a higher one), but this may be hard to judge during the game (it's best when you remove a card lower than the current median value and gain one that is higher).  Cursers and Looters also do a lot more damage to Foothills than usual.

If you can get rid of starting junk, probably you still have a fair amount of $3 cards (Silver, various engine components), but you'll be unlikely to have any $0-$2 cards.  And then the rest depends on the board.  It would probably be pretty easy to get a high median though.  Again, contingent on trashing.

[Dsell]

It hates spoils/prizes/alt-gained cards. It loves Peddler!

[eHalcyon]

The pricing issue is pretty strange.  Whatever you pick, it pulls the median cost of the deck towards its own cost, especially so if you can trash the cheap junk.  But if you cost it low, then you can get into weird situations where buying more of them causes their total value to go down... OK, that's probably a rare situation, but it could happen.  A bigger issue is that the best strategy would just be picking up one or two for big VP (without letting its low cost negatively impact median cost by too much).  At a higher cost, it starts looking a lot like Province.

Maybe it should count the Median cost of all cards other than Foothills?  You'd have to account for the fairly-common cases of strong trashing, which means a higher potential VP and thus higher price.  Maybe it should just not count Treasures (or Coppers) at all, so it's still viable even without trashing.

[scott_pilgrim]

With the contest underway, I'm wary of posting any card ideas since I made be spoiling someone else's idea.  But hopefully this idea wasn't on anyone's mind.

It's actually fairly similar to a card I was planning to submit for one of the later expansions.  I think my idea is different enough that they don't really look the same though.

I want to comment on your card, but I don't feel like I can do that without comparing it to my card.

[sudgy]

It could cost $7, it would make it hard to get, worth a fair bit, and the only $7 Victory.

But, it might be too similar to Province then...

[WalrusMcFishSr]

Foothill/Hoard sounds nice.

[Warfreak2]

Please don't make me count all of my cards into piles ordered by cost. That isn't my idea of a good time. Normally at the end of the game you just put all the irrelevant cards back into the supply.

[Awaclus]

Please don't make me count all of my cards into piles ordered by cost. That isn't my idea of a good time. Normally at the end of the game you just put all the irrelevant cards back into the supply.

I always do that anyway, except that instead of ordering by cost, I order by cardname. Then I take a look at my deck and check how accurate I was at tracking it during the game and how well-built it was in order to see how I can improve my playing in the future.

[AHoppy]

Please don't make me count all of my cards into piles ordered by cost. That isn't my idea of a good time. Normally at the end of the game you just put all the irrelevant cards back into the supply.

Yeah it's a pain, but I still think it's a really cool card.  I mean, IRL Scrying pool and hunting party are worse than this...

[AJD]

Please don't make me count all of my cards into piles ordered by cost. That isn't my idea of a good time.

Is it a worse time than scoring, say, Fairgrounds?

[LastFootnote]

Please don't make me count all of my cards into piles ordered by cost. That isn't my idea of a good time.

Is it a worse time than scoring, say, Fairgrounds?

I'd say so, yes. Because after you sort them, you still have to determine which one is the median.

First you have to determine how many cards are in your deck (as much time as Gardens), then you have to sort them into piles (as much time as Fairgrounds), then you have to order them by cost and re-count until from one end of the cost spectrum until you get to the median (even more time). So it's significantly worse than Gardens and Fairgrounds combined.

EDIT: Even in an online implementation, I wouldn't be in love with the card. It makes you want a deck with expensive components, which isn't really different from the deck you want in the absence of alt-VP cards.

[AHoppy]

Also, with alt-vp it can often be detrimental to buy a province but with this card a province could actually help you.  Depending on if it's a rush card or no though... I doubt it would be a rush.  You can't get expensive components super quick.

[popsofctown]

Please don't make me count all of my cards into piles ordered by cost. That isn't my idea of a good time.

Is it a worse time than scoring, say, Fairgrounds?

I'd say so, yes. Because after you sort them, you still have to determine which one is the median.

First you have to determine how many cards are in your deck (as much time as Gardens), then you have to sort them into piles (as much time as Fairgrounds), then you have to order them by cost and re-count until from one end of the cost spectrum until you get to the median (even more time). So it's significantly worse than Gardens and Fairgrounds combined.

EDIT: Even in an online implementation, I wouldn't be in love with the card. It makes you want a deck with expensive components, which isn't really different from the deck you want in the absence of alt-VP cards.

But you are not in the absence of alt-VP cards, you're in the presence of one.  That's what makes it interesting.  Unless this is priced at 7$, the game will be a bit sloggier, and the trashing that this card values will also be devalued by the higher green density.

[LastFootnote]

But you are not in the absence of alt-VP cards, you're in the presence of one.  That's what makes it interesting.

The point I was trying to make is that this alt-VP cards, unlike other alt-VP cards, doesn't really make me want to build my deck in a significantly different way than I usually would.

Unless this is priced at 7$, the game will be a bit sloggier, and the trashing that this card values will also be devalued by the higher green density.

Even priced at $4, I don't see the game getting much sloggier. You want to trash your starting cheap cards and buy expensive ones, like usual. You just have to be careful that these $4 cards don't bring your median value down too much at the end. Really it just pushes you toward an engine with a slight additional push toward a mega-turn where you buy a bunch of these at once.

[popsofctown]

But you are not in the absence of alt-VP cards, you're in the presence of one.  That's what makes it interesting.

The point I was trying to make is that this alt-VP cards, unlike other alt-VP cards, doesn't really make me want to build my deck in a significantly different way than I usually would.

Unless this is priced at 7$, the game will be a bit sloggier, and the trashing that this card values will also be devalued by the higher green density.

Even priced at $4, I don't see the game getting much sloggier. You want to trash your starting cheap cards and buy expensive ones, like usual. You just have to be careful that these $4 cards don't bring your median value down too much at the end. Really it just pushes you toward an engine with a slight additional push toward a mega-turn where you buy a bunch of these at once.

I feel like you're saying, "This would be worse than every other alt-VP card in official Dominion, because it changes your deck less than all of those and is thus less interesting."
I absolutely agree.  Duke, Gardens, Vineyards, Feodum, Silk Road, and Fairgrounds are among the best designed cards in the game and the most interesting impacts on the board

Being the worst designed alt-VP card would make you the worst of an elite bunch.  This card does make you build your deck at least a little bit differently, I'm buying nothing over Pearl Diver at the least, and I'm valuing cards that let me trash my Silvers during the final turns of the game, like Salvager, Lookout, Trade Route, and Forager.
 

The megaturn thing you bring up makes me wonder if it's not an issue that Vineyard shared, and if this might be best as a 0P$ card.  Hard to megaturn that.

[SirPeebles]

A potion cost is one of the ideas I had in mind.  A cost of something like $2P would make it hard to buy them up en masse, while still requiring you to put effort into raising the median cost.  This would pigeon hole it into the Alchemy contest though, and the since it ignores the Potion part of the cost, Alchemy is essentially the expansion where Foothills would perform worst.

[sudgy]

How do you find the median cost with potion costs?

Edit: never mind, I didn't see that the original card said "cost in coins".

[SirPeebles]

Also, you don't need to count how many cards are in your deck.  Order them by cost (cheapest at bottom).  Then cut your deck roughly in half, and flip over the cheaper half.  Now one pile has your cheapest card on top, the other your most expensive.  Now just start discarding equal numbers of cards from each pile, say in chunks of four since can recognize that number intuitively without counting.  Keep doing this until one pile is empty.  Now your median cost is the median cost of what is left, which ought to be small enough to just fan out and see the median readily.

[WanderingWinder]

Also, you don't need to count how many cards are in your deck.  Order them by cost (cheapest at bottom).  Then cut your deck roughly in half, and flip over the cheaper half.  Now one pile has your cheapest card on top, the other your most expensive.  Now just start discarding equal numbers of cards from each pile, say in chunks of four since can recognize that number intuitively without counting.  Keep doing this until one pile is empty.  Now your median cost is the median cost of what is left, which ought to be small enough to just fan out and see the median readily.

This is basically counting but without keeping track of the number - I don't see how it's better.
On the other hand, gardens makes you count your deck, and it's not big problem. Philosopher's stone also exists.


Anyway, I would definitely say no to median (or mean) of your deck; basically, it makes you have to keep track of every single card you have in your deck to know how much it is worth, and that doesn't sound like fun game to me.

[SirPeebles]

Well, counting once is better than counting, dividing by two, and then counting half again.  And since you don't need to concern yourself with the exact number of cards, you don't need to worry as much about miscounting.

[Warfreak2]

Is it a worse time than scoring, say, Fairgrounds?

Normally I can remember how many different types of cards I bought, especially in a Fairgrounds game. YMMV. It's harder to remember how many of each, though.

[Warfreak2]

Cutting the deck in half is OK, you don't need to count off to make sure both halfs are the same size, just put them next to each other on the table and compare height. It's the part where I have to sort all of my cards in cost order that puts me off.

[LastFootnote]

Cutting the deck in half is OK, you don't need to count off to make sure both halfs are the same size, just put them next to each other on the table and compare height.

This works great as long as you're not sleeving fan cards, which makes them thicker. Fan cards like, say, this card.