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2001

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Pawn-like card

« on: July 08, 2012, 02:39:32 am »

I've tried this card before. I had +2 Buys because I was lazy, but whatever.

I'm very sure that this card is balanced, since each effect is weaker than a $2 card, and you get to choose the effect. But it's somewhat unsatisfying to play. If you only have one, you often just play it for +$2, or +2 cards. If you have 2, well you want to play both, so you play one for actions, and then you play the other, and the end result is that you played 2 Pawns but with less flexibility.

I think the reason I didn't like playing the card was that it felt far too restrictive, whereas with Pawn there wasn't a similar feeling. Sometimes you just want +1 Card +1 Action; this doesn't quite give it.

2002

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Working on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic expansion

« on: July 07, 2012, 01:32:30 pm »

Some notes from the guy who made the linked expansion:

1. I tried to make the benefits mostly "draw a card", because I was worried about memory problems, especially in multiplayer. Drawing a card is immediate: getting actions and buys requires you to remember when it gets to your turn. This might not be as big a problem as I think, but it's worth remembering.

2. Cards that help everybody speed up the game a lot. It also makes +Buy a lot stronger. +Buy is useful in the original game, but only when the game gets to the point point where you have excess money. When you help everyone, you reach that point faster.

3. The usefulness of the effect given to the opponent is directly related to how well they can use it. There's little difference between an 8 card and 10 card hand if there isn't +Buy, and there's not much point in getting +1 Action unless you have plenty of actions. So, you want to make sure that there is generally a use for the benefit they get. Cottage is an example of a way to do this: it probably won't be picked up unless there's an engine, so the extra action is going to help.

Edit: Oh, and also there are some balance changes to the cards I posted that I want to make. I'll probably just edit them in at the end, it's not worth bumping the thread.

2003

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Alternate (pure) VP Cards

« on: July 05, 2012, 08:35:25 pm »

In Duke/Duchy you want as many Duchies as you can, then you switch to Duke. I like to think of it this way: there are 2 scenarios.

1. You go Duke/Duchy and your opponent doesn't. You want to pick up Duchies fast, so you go for a strategy that reliably gets $5. Your strategy will give you more Duchies than your opponent, so Dukes will become less useful as a "consolation prize" in the late game for your opponent. And because you probably ran out the Duchy pile, your opponent won't be able to pick up a Duchy instead.

2. It's a Duke/Duchy mirror. If one person gets more Duchies than the other, then they essentially win because their Dukes are worth much more VP. So you need Duchies asap.

2004

Solo Challenges / Re: Titandrake's (Only) Solo Challenge - Let's make no sense whatsoever.

« on: July 05, 2012, 03:30:55 pm »

shark_bait, the deadline is June 3rd, 2013.

However, all posted criteria is now null and void, so now you get 0 points. Yay!

2005

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Should Chapel cost $3?

« on: July 05, 2012, 03:23:06 am »

I suspect that the same argument does not work for Ambassador because Ambassador is weaker in 3p, which is what Dominion was playtested on if I remember correctly.

Are you saying this from experience? Because when we play a 3-player game, and two people buy Ambassadors and the third doesn't, we call that guy "the Ambassador bitch."

Yeah, I've seen that too. If everyone picks it up, it's weaker since it becomes much harder to get a smaller deck. It's still strong; everyone has to pick it up even if just as a defense against 2 other players. That actually says bupkis about why its cost is $3 over $2, if everyone needs to pick it up anyways. Wooooooops.

I'm not very good at Ambassador, but my feeling is that a good $5 could be enough to overcome a T1/T2 ambassador. Whereas with Chapel getting it after turn 1 or 2 is terrible.

Edit: Okay I'm just going to justify Ambassador being $3 over $2 to myself as limiting the ability to easily get multiples and move on

2006

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Should Chapel cost $3?

« on: July 05, 2012, 02:28:17 am »

It's because the difference between Chapel/- and Chapel/Silver is much bigger than Chapel/$5 card and Chapel/Silver. The 5/2 vs 3/4 game is inherently unfair for one player, but a $2 cost Chapel makes the difference a bit smaller. This is especially true when you consider that there weren't many good alternative $2 cards in Base, which would make the 5/2 opening especially bad if Chapel were $3.

I suspect that the same argument does not work for Ambassador because Ambassador is weaker in 3p, which is what Dominion was playtested on if I remember correctly. So if you open 5/2, you do not necessarily have to open Amb/nothing. Also, multiple Chapels are generally useless in any deck, whereas multiple Ambassadors are very good in engine decks, so you need to make them harder to pick up with +Buy.

2007

Solo Challenges / Re: Titandrake's (Only) Solo Challenge - Let's make no sense whatsoever.

« on: July 03, 2012, 08:00:25 pm »

Resigning after spending over 50 turns doing lots of random stuff that was not at all apparent would have given you the most points. I hadn't bothered to figure out the maximum points yet.

2008

Solo Challenges / Re: Titandrake's (Only) Solo Challenge - Let's make no sense whatsoever.

« on: July 03, 2012, 07:49:26 pm »

I really don't want to triple-post this, but I don't have much of a choice in the matter.

In 3rd place is Schneau, who scored 11 points.
In 2nd place is Tdog, who scored 12 points.
In 1st place is shark_bait, who decided to take initiative and submit 3 logs instead of 1. I averaged out the scores between the 3 games, which turned out to be 16 points.

sjelkjd got 6 points because I barely rewarded Gardens at all.

Logs:
Schenau: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201206/29/game-20120629-183011-463eb60f.html

Tdog: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/03/game-20120703-054337-832caf69.html

shark_bait: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/02/game-20120702-083359-dfb9fe57.html

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/02/game-20120702-083615-27671e07.html

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/02/game-20120702-084037-567359cf.html

sjelkjd: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201206/29/game-20120629-193319-d75b5270.html

Criteria:
Resigns on turn 1: +15 points
Resigns on any turn besides 1: +10 points
Ends in 15 turns or less: +1 point
Ends in 20 turns or less: +1 point
Ends in 25 turns or less: +1 point
Ends in 50 turns or more: +3 points
Ends the game with negative VP: +3 points
Ends the game with less than 10 VP: +1 point
Trash has 11 or more cards: +2 points
Bought at least 1 copy of every Kingdom card: +1 point
Bought at least 1 copy of every available card: +2 points
Bought at least 1 copy of every Kingdom card except Fairgrounds: +3 points
End game with a Gardens worth at least 3 VP: +1 point
End game with a Fairgrounds worth at least 6 VP: +2 points
End game with a Gardens worth 0 VP: +4 points
End game with a Fairgrounds worth 0 VP: +4 points
Buy Chapel: +1 point
Never buys Chapel: +2 points
Plays pure Big Money: +4 points
Has more than 3 VP by the end of turn 5: +2 points
Has 3 estates in deck at the end of turn 4: +1 point
Has a deck of 1 card at any point in the game: +3 points
Buys a Duchy: +1 point
Buys an Estate: +1 point
Ends the game on Provinces: +1 point
Buys out the Duchies: +3 points
Buys out the Estates: +2 points
Isotropic name starts with a vowel: +2 points
Buys a Scout: +3 points
Buys a Swindler: +1 points
Never buys Fishing Village: +2 points
For each differently named card in the deck, there is an even number of that card at the end of the game: +2 points
For each differently named card in the deck, there is an odd number of that card at the end of the game: +3 points

2009

Solo Challenges / Re: Titandrake's (Only) Solo Challenge - Let's make no sense whatsoever.

« on: July 02, 2012, 06:26:27 pm »

So anyway, I got 3 entries.

I'm pushing the deadline to June 3rd of next year because of the forum downtime.

2010

Mini-Set Design Contest / Re: Mini-Set Design Contest, Part 1!

« on: July 02, 2012, 06:16:22 pm »

AHHHHHH

too many cards to judge

AHHHHHH

2011

Solo Challenges / Re: Titandrake's (Only) Solo Challenge - Let's make no sense whatsoever.

« on: June 30, 2012, 01:56:12 am »

Wow I am terrible with dates.

Tell you what, the deadline is June 2nd of next year. But I'm going to actually calculate stuff before that.

2012

Solo Challenges / Re: Titandrake's (Only) Solo Challenge - Let's make no sense whatsoever.

« on: June 29, 2012, 09:12:09 pm »

Going to be tricky to make that June 2nd deadline.

I'm still unsure what the deadline should be on this.

Young Nick: The great thing about this is that I can make stuff up along the way. There are 10 right now. There are certainly going to be more than that by the time of the deadline.

2013

Solo Challenges / Titandrake's (Only) Solo Challenge - Let's make no sense whatsoever.

« on: June 29, 2012, 06:50:05 pm »

Kingdom: Gardens, Chapel, Scout, Fishing Village, Herbalist, Peddler, Fairgrounds, Trader, Envoy, Swindler, !Platinum

Challenge: End the game.

Okay, so here's how this goes. I have a list of goals to reach, each of which is worth some amount of points. PM your logs to me. I'll figure out how many goals you satisfied. At the end, whoever has the most points wins.

Do you get to know what the criteria is? No.
Is this completely arbitrary? Yes.

Basically, think of this as me attempting to translate Bastard Mafia into a Solo Challenge.

This only works if people actually submit logs, so please just mess around and send stuff to me. Deadline is Monday, June 2, 12 PM PST.

2014

Dominion Isotropic / Re: Complete list of Things that are better than Isotropic

« on: June 29, 2012, 05:51:07 pm »

I feel that I play better on isotropic, because a lot of information (cards left in each pile, cards left in draw, cards in deck) is just there. Whereas in real life, I'd actually have to count everything, and that makes me less inclined to keep track of things.

When I play IRL, it's more personal and fun. When I play on Iso, it's not as personal, so there's more drive to win. Still, Isotropic has definite benefits compared to physical cards. It's just not as silly.

2015

Game Reports / Re: most silvers played in a turn?

« on: June 29, 2012, 01:09:10 am »

Kinda reminds me of that old log from the Greatest Isotropic Moments post.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20101212-111354-9caf757c.html

It's a bit less impressive because it's 21 silvers, and they were all gained that turn, but it's still hilarious.

2016

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Homage to the Best Card

« on: June 28, 2012, 04:46:13 pm »

I've stolen this joke from the TeamLiquid forums.

I don't care, I think it's good enough to steal.

2017

Dominion General Discussion / Re: With my Dominion Time Machine...

« on: June 27, 2012, 08:57:13 pm »

I'd leave Scrying Pool attack because it makes the action chain part of Scrying Pool less obvious. The discovery opportunity of "Oh wait, Scrying Pool isn't Spy, it's much better than Spy!" seems like a better thing to keep. Also, I'm pretty sure that the long turns are more a result of the deck being an action-chain, rather than Scrying Pool itself being the problem. (This is for Iso; in real life it would probably be quite horrid.)

Honestly, I'd rather Possesion not be a card, but if it must stay in the set it should work more than once per turn. It's too deliciously evil! You can't get rid of something that mean, it makes people like Morgrim7 sad

The rest seem reasonable, although the Masquerade case shows up so rarely that the added text might feel out of place.

2018

Game Reports / Re: The "I bought 10 curses on the final turn to win the game" thread

« on: June 27, 2012, 02:37:29 am »

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201206/22/game-20120622-043301-4fb54d55.html

Final turn saw me with a VP lead, 11 buys and 23 money but the cheapest stack to buy out costing 27 in total.  Until a flash of inspiration hit me.  I feel pretty good about this one given his Pirate ship hit my Gold on turn 7.

Couldn't you have bought 8 estates for $16?

And herein lies why I've only done this once: if you have the buys to get 10 curses, your engine almost certainly has the money to run out a different pile with fewer buys. It's only the right call if you absolutely need the money to buy Provinces/Colonies.

The one time I've done it, I technically didn't buy them. I had a pretty large lead and wanted to copy a Greatest Isotropic Moment. So I Embargoed Village a ton and bought 2 to end the game.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110530-224358-5046d7d8.html

2019

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: If witch cost $6 would you buy it over gold?

« on: June 26, 2012, 06:25:29 pm »

Adventurer is useful in a Chapel-BM deck to ensure your deck doesn't sputter while greening. I think.

It has to cost $6 though. It doesn't take much Silver/Gold to get $3 fairly consistently, and terminal +$3 is a strong $5 if I remember correctly. At least Harvest encourages you buy variety (e.g. actions, not just Silver/Gold).

2020

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Really bad card ideas

« on: June 25, 2012, 09:28:03 pm »

Onion
Action - $0

Peel this card in half. Then trash it.
Each other player gains a Curse.

2021

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Pin

« on: June 23, 2012, 08:50:58 pm »

I love that it's a Reaction-Attack. It just seems so contradictory for the card to be defensive-offensive.

The thing that bugs me the most about this card is that it doesn't have an effect when you play it, which makes it harder to justify it being an attack. Maybe...

Pin
$5
Action - Attack - Reaction

Each other player discards down to 3 cards in hand.
__________________________________________________
Whenever an action card is played, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, place this on top of that action card. Both of these cards remain in play until the end of the game. (At the end of the game, all cards go back into their owners decks).

So this way, it's not totally useless if you don't feel like pinning down a Pawn. And if you felt like it, you could Pin down a Pin, which is way too silly to pass up. Militia discard because it seemed to fit the flavor of the name Pin the most.

I'm pretty sure this is costed horribly wrong but I don't care! It's also political, but I also don't care.

(Also if multiple people want to pin something, it would probably go in turn order starting from the player who played the card.)

2022

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Card idea : discard-to-gain

« on: June 20, 2012, 02:33:04 am »

I'm not quite convinced this should cost $4.

Yes, early on if it costs $3 then a Cavern/Cavern opening will rush a $5 pile very quickly. But as the game goes on, its usefulness drops off much faster than Horse Traders. If the other 4 cards in hand are $5 or more, it's useless. In comparison, Horse Traders can still discard 2 Coppers (and even a Copper + Silver) for at least some benefit. Additionally, Horse Traders money is a lot more flexible than the gain effect.

In an engine, I think Horse Traders would be perform slightly better or the same as Cavern in the building phase. They break even at 2 dead cards in hand, and Horse Traders +$ is better than the gaining. Later on, Cavern would get better.

I think it would be a very strong $3, but a fairly weak $4 that wouldn't feel fun on a visceral level unless it was played in an engine. Up to you...

2023

Dominion Articles / Re: Optimizing Play

« on: June 18, 2012, 01:43:04 pm »

Perhaps worth also explicitly mentioning KC/Choice cards. Minion is the big one here. Discard the hand first (if you planned to anyway). Take the money only after you have drawn up another minion/whatever you want to dig for. Same type of thing with pawn. If you have no other actions in hand, you don't need the action right now anyway.

Also, probably doesn't need mentioning, but villages THEN conspirators. I don't know how many times I get into auto-pilot mode and just click on that conspirator first with two other villages/cantrips in hand.

Oh I completely forgot this one, I'll add it. Also I'll add HoP too.

As for the whole Apprentice/Trash for benefit thing in general, there's quite a bit of grey area there. I think the real idea is that you leave the option of trashing higher cost cards open all the time, and not just in the endgame.

2024

Dominion Articles / Re: Young Witch

« on: June 18, 2012, 03:09:36 am »

Moat is a $2 card that just draws 2 cards. If you factor in the cost of getting Scheme over a Silver, I'd put YW at a weak $2.

The only situation I can think of where you might want YW for only the cycling is a game with lots of free Actions (TR/Villages), and  Watchtower, and terminal +$ (if it's non-terminal, I don't think YW is worth detouring for), and something like Ironworks/Talisman to get lots of them fast enough for it to be viable.

Also, if your Scheme gets Minioned away, or if you choose to discard it because you could guarantee a Province, then YW could hit.

2025

Dominion Articles / Re: Optimizing Play

« on: June 15, 2012, 09:59:59 pm »

but just remember that you're choosing between playing the Action and losing the cards in hand/play for some turns.

You're not choosing between those two.  Those two are part of one choice; the other choice is "not playing the action and having the cards in hand/play after the next shuffle".

Woops, I'm fixing the choice thing. As for the TFB on copper, I think that's more of a self-evident thing: it's all upside if you don't need the Copper, so I'm not sure whether it's worth listing. The Upgrade/Remake trashing bit could be clearer, so I'll add that.

Edit: I added the Copper thing anyway.