Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Variants and Fan Cards => Topic started by: XerxesPraelor on July 08, 2015, 01:13:58 pm
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I've often the Ruins to be not dissimilar enough from Confusions to really show off their bad-actionness. Here's a few changes to make them feel more like actions instead of plain junk.
Ruined Village - Action/Ruins - $1
+2 Actions
Ruined Library - Action/Ruins - $1
Draw to 5 cards in hand.
Ruined Mine - Action/Ruins - $1
Gain a silver.
Ruined Market - Action/Ruins - $1
+1 Buy
+$1
Survivors - Action/Ruins - $1
Trash a card from your hand.
Cultist should still be okay.
Death Cart should still be fine.
Marauder can give them the ruins on top of their deck.
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Ruined village + Ruined Library would be nearly good !
Also, Survivors can be nice on the long run !
Quick note about marauder : you should make the Sea hag effect (discard first card, first) to avoid having Ruins stacked, even your upgraded versions.
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Ruined village + Ruined Library would be nearly good !
I agree. Ironically, if you get them both together, they equal out to nothing!
My favorite part is the Ruined Village - it makes checking the Ruins deck worthwhile on a couple kingdoms with otherwise no villages. I guess the only problem is it *almost* makes you consider bundling the ruins into non-ruins games
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A slight problem is that a ruin can now be a key piece in a strategy. Previously it only apply to Ruined Market, but now Ruined Village could be the only village, Ruined Library could be the only draw and Survivors is the only trashing. Since the distribution of ruins is sort of random, the race to that key ruin become swingy.
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Ruins that are good are bad.
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Ruins that are good are bad.
You mean you think they're too good? Any particular reason?
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Ruins that are good are bad.
You mean you think they're too good? Any particular reason?
Uh, yeah they're too good. They point of ruins is that they're awful. And a ruin that's a Necropolis? Are you kidding me, that's pretty good.
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I agree with Seprix. The point of Marauder and Cultist is to junk your opponents, not slightly annoy, maybe help them. Death Cart junks yourself because it has a really good on-play effect. What's the point in warping those cards? Would you also say Curses are too bad as they are and suggest something like:
Curse, $0, Victory card
Worth 0VP if the Curse pile is empty, otherwise it's worth -1VP.
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No, as I explained in the OP, the real ones seem a little too similar to Confusion, and don't have nearly and much individuality as is suggested by their names. I thought it would be better if Ruined Village were indeed a Village, but a bad one, or if Ruined Library were a worse version of library.
If I were to change Curse (I wouldn't, it's quite elegant as-is), it would be because I would think the negative points didn't do enough. If I had to change it, I'd either make it a straight confusion, and have no negative points, or I'd have it negate a victory card in your deck of your choice at the end of the game, so it's more likely to matter and as an incentive to buy estates.
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Perhapes the following would be ruined enough for your taste?
Ruined Village - Action/Ruins - $1
You may discard an action card from your hand. If you do, +2 Actions.
Ruined Library - Action/Ruins - $1
Draw up to 4 cards in hand.
Ruined Market - Action/Ruins - $1
Choose 1: +1 Buy, +$1.
Ruined Mine - Action/Ruins -$1
You may discard a Copper from your hand. If you do, gain a Silver.
Survivors - Action/Ruins -$1
Trash a card from your hand. Discard the rest.
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I don't see the issue with Ruins being similar to Confusions as Confusion is a hypothetical card! It doesn't exist in published Dominion, presumably because it would be a boring card. So instead, there are 5 different junk cards that serve as an interesting alternative to Curse which isn't quite as bad. So why would you make them even better? As I stated above, this would make Looters imbalanced.
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These changes would make Cultist half as good, and Maurader very awful.
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I don't see the issue with Ruins being similar to Confusions as Confusion is a hypothetical card! It doesn't exist in published Dominion, presumably because it would be a boring card. So instead, there are 5 different junk cards that serve as an interesting alternative to Curse which isn't quite as bad. So why would you make them even better? As I stated above, this would make Looters imbalanced.
Yeah what's wrong with Ruins being like Confusions? Like, the looters could have been designed to always give out a card with the Ruined Library effect and there wouldn't be a significant drop in the interestingness of the looters.
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I agree with Seprix. The point of Marauder and Cultist is to junk your opponents, not slightly annoy, maybe help them. Death Cart junks yourself because it has a really good on-play effect. What's the point in warping those cards?
Well Death Cart is pretty bad, and Cultist is insanely good, so it makes sense to give Death Cart a big buff and Cultist a big nerf. Death Cart adds less than a Silver's worth of money density to your deck, but maybe you don't mind taking the Ruins as much if they'll do better things when they miss the Death Cart. And maybe you would actually have to think about whether you want a Cultist with the new Ruins. Hurting just Marauder's power level to help out DC and Cultist's power level seems reasonable to me, and you can maybe change Marauder as XP suggested to make up for the difference.
I don't see the issue with Ruins being similar to Confusions as Confusion is a hypothetical card! It doesn't exist in published Dominion, presumably because it would be a boring card. So instead, there are 5 different junk cards that serve as an interesting alternative to Curse which isn't quite as bad. So why would you make them even better? As I stated above, this would make Looters imbalanced.
Yeah what's wrong with Ruins being like Confusions? Like, the looters could have been designed to always give out a card with the Ruined Library effect and there wouldn't be a significant drop in the interestingness of the looters.
That is exactly what's wrong with them. There's unnecessary complexity in having 5 different effects that don't add much interestingness to the game. If you want to have five different kinds of Ruins, they should be different enough to make it worth doing five different kinds of them. If they're too weak, you won't notice the difference between them, and you could have done the same effect much more simply with just all Ruined Libraries (or Confusions).
Now of course people will disagree on how useful and different they have to be in order to add enough to the game to make up for the extra complexity of having different kinds. Personally I've always felt like they needed to be stronger to make the "five different junk cards" mechanic worthwhile.
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I agree with Seprix. The point of Marauder and Cultist is to junk your opponents, not slightly annoy, maybe help them. Death Cart junks yourself because it has a really good on-play effect. What's the point in warping those cards?
Well Death Cart is pretty bad, and Cultist is insanely good, so it makes sense to give Death Cart a big buff and Cultist a big nerf. Death Cart adds less than a Silver's worth of money density to your deck, but maybe you don't mind taking the Ruins as much if they'll do better things when they miss the Death Cart. And maybe you would actually have to think about whether you want a Cultist with the new Ruins. Hurting just Marauder's power level to help out DC and Cultist's power level seems reasonable to me, and you can maybe change Marauder as XP suggested to make up for the difference.
I don't see the issue with Ruins being similar to Confusions as Confusion is a hypothetical card! It doesn't exist in published Dominion, presumably because it would be a boring card. So instead, there are 5 different junk cards that serve as an interesting alternative to Curse which isn't quite as bad. So why would you make them even better? As I stated above, this would make Looters imbalanced.
Yeah what's wrong with Ruins being like Confusions? Like, the looters could have been designed to always give out a card with the Ruined Library effect and there wouldn't be a significant drop in the interestingness of the looters.
That is exactly what's wrong with them. There's unnecessary complexity in having 5 different effects that don't add much interestingness to the game. If you want to have five different kinds of Ruins, they should be different enough to make it worth doing five different kinds of them. If they're too weak, you won't notice the difference between them, and you could have done the same effect much more simply with just all Ruined Libraries (or Confusions).
Now of course people will disagree on how useful and different they have to be in order to add enough to the game to make up for the extra complexity of having different kinds. Personally I've always felt like they needed to be stronger to make the "five different junk cards" mechanic worthwhile.
Yeah Death Cart feels pretty weak. I think I'd prefer the ruins to be all the same effect. Maybe make them all +2 cards to balance out Cultist and Marauder Death Cart, although dead draw can make +2 cards worse than +1 card. Maybe make them +2 coin instead. Cornucopia suffers from the loss of diversity, but the Cornucopia cards are strong enough without Ruins anyway.
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Donald is rolling in his grave, and he's not even dead yet. In fact, I'd say his game is effectively ruined.
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dead draw can make +2 cards worse than +1 card.
We should also price Hunting Grounds at $3 as it is clearly worse than Smithy.
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dead draw can make +2 cards worse than +1 card.
We should also price Hunting Grounds at $3 as it is clearly worse than Smithy.
I like to think of +cards as getting better and better at higher amounts of draw as described by a polynomial function. +2 to +3 cards is the turning point where the added benefit of extra draw outweighs the increase chance of dead draw.
That's how it feels for me anyway.
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I like to think of +cards as getting better and better at higher amounts of draw as described by a polynomial function. +2 to +3 cards is the turning point where the added benefit of extra draw outweighs the increase chance of dead draw.
The turning point is +1 to +0 cards.
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dead draw can make +2 cards worse than +1 card.
We should also price Hunting Grounds at $3 as it is clearly worse than Smithy.
I like to think of +cards as getting better and better at higher amounts of draw as described by a polynomial function. +2 to +3 cards is the turning point where the added benefit of extra draw outweighs the increase chance of dead draw.
That's how it feels for me anyway.
This doesn't make a lot of sense. You think Moat would be better with +1 card? Witch would be better with +1 card? And, by extension of your argument, +1 card is worse than +0 cards. So a Moat that does nothing on play would be better than the Moat we have, and a Witch that draws nothing better than the usual Witch.
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dead draw can make +2 cards worse than +1 card.
We should also price Hunting Grounds at $3 as it is clearly worse than Smithy.
I like to think of +cards as getting better and better at higher amounts of draw as described by a polynomial function. +2 to +3 cards is the turning point where the added benefit of extra draw outweighs the increase chance of dead draw.
That's how it feels for me anyway.
This doesn't make a lot of sense. You think Moat would be better with +1 card? Witch would be better with +1 card? And, by extension of your argument, +1 card is worse than +0 cards. So a Moat that does nothing on play would be better than the Moat we have, and a Witch that draws nothing better than the usual Witch.
Usually no, but sometimes yes. The question is how swingy do you want cards to be that are forced into your deck. If you have 8-10 Moats in your deck, then the chance of dead drawing increases.
+2 cards might be better on average, but is it worth the chance of increased frustration when it comes to a card forced into your deck?
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Quick note about marauder : you should make the Sea hag effect (discard first card, first) to avoid having Ruins stacked, even your upgraded versions.
Or better yet: Each other player reveals the top card of his deck and discards it if it's an Action card.
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Personally I've always felt like they needed to be stronger to make the "five different junk cards" mechanic worthwhile.
I totally agree, you rarely play ruins, but in my opinion most straightforward improved ruins would be too strong. For example Ruined Village is too weak but making it a Necropolis would be too strong. Xerxes idea ("You may discard an action card from your hand. If you do, +2 Actions.") sounds fine but I think that one has to be wary of making the interaction among Ruins too strong:
Let's say for arguments sake that you have a hand with all 5 different Ruins. Then Xerxes's Ruined Village and Ruined Library implies a net effect of +1 action +2 cards respectively that you can discard three ruins and draw two new cards.
I find it hard to tell whether this is too strong or too weak.