Dominion Strategy Forum

Archive => Archive => Dominion: Renaissance Previews => Topic started by: brokoli on September 29, 2018, 05:29:31 am

Title: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: brokoli on September 29, 2018, 05:29:31 am
So we have finally seen all previews and that was a very exciting week.
In this thread I'm interested to read your opinions about all the previewed cards, and of course, I'll give mine.
This thread is not about discussing power level of the cards (it can be part of the discussion though). It's more about the design.

I think a perfect dominion card (kingdom or card-shaped) has to fulfill three criteria : creativity (new ways to think the game), fun, and depth. Also, simplicity is welcome because a complex card is not necessarily more interesting than a simple card, but adds unnecessary work for memory.

So here are my thoughts :

Moutain village : This makes the player really aware of what is in his discard pile. So you may want to order actions differently to make the best use of the dig-in-discard part. It rewards clever plays. A very interesting village variant ! Excellent.

Priest : With priest you can create degenerated deck that works. A lot of combo potential here : but having to play priest before the trasher is a constraint, so building the perfect priest deck seems not so easy. Excellent.

Seer : Seer also needs a particular deck to work at its best, but it's very versatile and can work even in non-optimized decks. With seer you may focus a little more on the 2-4 range and sometimes you may want to trash coppers before estates. So this is a nice lab variant and we needed more lab variants. Very good.

Scholar : While simple, this is a brillant card design. With experiment, it shows that there is still room for simple cards. Scholar plays differently than the library variants because you have to discard your whole hand first. This is often a benefit but it can hurts when you have other terminals (especially payload) you have to discard. So a deck with Scholar has to be built differently than a classical draw to x : with more action space, or with fewer terminals. So scholar use a known concept (draw to x), but with a different twist. Excellent.

Experiment : This is a very interesting lab variant and the tempo is crucial here. If you get experiments early, you will benefit from its natural deck-cycling and you will get $5+ more easily, but at the cost at losing experiments early. If you get experiments later in the game, losing the experiments hurts less and they are pretty much cheap laboratories. So, the most important about experiment seems to be gaining them at the right moment : very interesting decision. Excellent.

Acting Troupe : I like the villager concept and this is the the most simple way to use villagers. Villagers play differently than usual village, and that's good for the creativity aspect of the game. Very good.

Sculptor : The fact that you get the villager when gaining a treasure and not an action brings a very interesting constraint. This makes sculptor a very tricky gainer. I love the gain-in-hand concept : sculptor pushes it even further than Artisan. Excellent.

Recruiter : I love all tfb, there is no exception. They are all among the deepest cards of the game in my opinion. Recruiter was the obviously missing trash for actions, with villagers it can now exist. Love it. Excellent.

Villain : I love the fact that attacks are getting weaker now, but still strong enough to be useful in the right circumstances. While maybe a little too luck-based, the attack of villain is an interesting variant of the usual hand-reducing attacks. Good.

Ducat : I don't see the point of a candlestick maker treasure, although the discord did a good job at catching their differences. Disappointing.

Silk merchant : I was skeptical at first, but it turns out that the on-gain/on-trash abilities are very useful and leads to very interesting combos and tactical decisions. A very elegant way to use villagers and coffers. Excellent.

Flag bearer : I'm worried that the battle for the flag can turn games into ridiculous slogs, because it seems to me that even if you are getting more flag bearer than your deck can afford, the flag is too powerful to be ignored. The on-trash effect is very useful for that kind of situations. But what if we have no trashers ? Time will say. Anyway flag bearer a nice card that use the artifact mechanic in a very elegant way. Very good.

Swashbuckler : I'm not sure how often treasure chest is really worth it, to me it's not the most important part of the card. The most important seems to gain the coffers, and this is where the card gets interesting... but also a little bit too random for my taste. Good.

Treasurer : It seems to me that with treasurer players have two ways to play : either they fight for the key, or they trash coppers. Gaining from the trash is potentially interesting with tfb. Very versatile. But like flag bearer, the artifact seems strong, maybe too much. Good.

Fair : An interesting thing about projects is that they are limited to once per turn. So a game with fair as the only +buy means maximum 2 buys every turn. I like that kind of game, between no +buy and full +buy. If other +buy in the kingdom, deciding if it is the right move to spend $4 for fair is not so evident. The timing on when to get fair is, in both case, very important. It's a simple project that really adds something to the game. Excellent.

Silos : I like card that makes copper better (rip coppersmith). With silos, you often still prefer to trash your coppers but at least silos almost garantee a good starting hand. This is not the most interesting project to me but I think we needed more ways to play around coppers. Very good.

Citadel : The thing I like the most about citadel is the once-per-turn village potential. A recent game showed me that it can be a vast trap, but I think in the right situations it can work very nicely. Otherwise, citadel still seems to be an auto-buy almost always, it bothers me a little. Also there is the randomness about having the best card to throne in your hand. Good.

Star chart : This project is not so automatic, a well thinned deck usually doesn't need the power of star chart. I don't find star chart very exciting, but it's well balanced for its price. Good.

Sewers : I have to say sewers is very fun, but also too much an auto-buy with soft trashers like moneylender, spice merchant, etc. I find Plan (the event from adventures) more interesting while probably weaker. But anyway, sewers is fun. Very good.

Innocation : I love this new way to play actions during the buy phase and I did so many awesome things in just few games : With estate in hands I bought free barons, with golds in hand I got Governor for the remodel effect, I princed a candlestick maker... This one of the funniest and most creative cards of the new set. Might be too strong but I don't care. Excellent.

So overall I think this is a very promising expansion. I love the fact that cards are simpler than the cards from Nocturne and Empires. The new mechanics are not mind blowing, but very efficient. Of course after playing more, my opinion will probably change a little. But what I've seen so far woke up my love for Dominion. Thanks a lot to Donald X and playtesters for this awesome week of previews !
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: Holunder9 on September 29, 2018, 07:41:02 am
Swashbuckler : I'm not sure how often treasure chest is really worth it, to me it's not the most important part of the card. The most important seems to gain the coffers, and this is where the card gets interesting... but also a little bit too random for my taste. Good.

Silos : I like card that makes copper better (rip coppersmith). With silos, you often still prefer to trash your coppers but at least silos almost garantee a good starting hand. This is not the most interesting project to me but I think we needed more ways to play around coppers. Very good.
Just to show that Swashbuckler isn't totally random, Silos is a way to often put something into your discard at the start of your turn.

You are right that Silos make sifters and Copper trashers worth less as Copper is worth more but I would rather phrase it as "Copper is less bad". Also, the sifting is really incredible and you sometimes want it even if sifters/trashers are present and you can e.g race quickly through a Traveller line.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: Commodore Chuckles on September 29, 2018, 09:51:10 am
The previews were awesome. The cards were not only great on their own but so was finding the subtle interactions between them.

I didn't dislike any of them. Some of them were weak power-wise, but not in an annoying way.

My favorites were:

Experiment - This turned out to be better than I expected. Having to constantly re-buy them is usually fun rather than annoying; the fact that you get 2 of them was a good design choice.

Swashbuckler - Also turned out to be better than I expected. There are plenty of ways to get cards into your discard, and gaining the coffers and Golds is fun.

Scholar - Minion without the stupid, which is fantastic.

Seer - Might be my favorite. It's often surprising how good it ends up being and the fact that it can't draw itself is also a terrific way to limit the spam potential.

I agree that the main disappointment was Ducat, but the fact that it's basically a way to replace your coppers with something slightly better is kind of interesting.

Overall, this appears in first glance to be the most meticulously designed set yet. My hat off to Donald for this excellent piece of work.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: merlyn8804 on September 29, 2018, 10:55:10 am
Sewers is nuts with lurker!

I found silk merchant to be considerably better than I had expected

Overall, lots of interesting cards, it's going to be a lot of fun to play with these.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: Trogdor the Burninator on September 29, 2018, 11:38:23 am
I think Renaissance is going to be a very good expansion for facilitating the Engine-type strategies and decks. The Villager tokens are probably my favorite new mechanic that's been introduced so far.

My favorite cards were Mountain Village, Recruiter (I'm a big fan of Apprentice, it may be my favorite Alchemy card, so it's nice to see a similar effect on Recruiter with the Villager tokens), and Acting Troupe. I also thought that Ducat was really interesting. The Projects also look pretty cool, too.

Renaissance will probably be one of my top 3 favorite Dominion expansions, until the next one comes out  :P
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: tripwire on September 29, 2018, 11:40:20 am
I'm too lazy to go card by card. But I just wanted to give a shout-out to Donald X for awesome work with these previews. I am really excited about this expansion in a way that I haven't been with some of the more recent expansions (I was really excited about Empires as it focuses on many of my favorite things in Dominion, but I'm not a huge fan of Adventures and still haven't bought Nocturne).

I really appreciate the focus on elegance and easy-to-understand mechanics in Renaissance. I play primarily with more casual (and often younger) players in person, so I appreciate the accessibility. This expansion also seems much less fiddly than Adventures can be and Nocturne looks to be. What's most impressive is that despite their "simplicity" I don't think any of these cards are boring. Most of them still provide unique experiences and decisions. And, I think the biggest testament to villagers being awesome is that now, after playing with them, I already miss them when they aren't available on the board. Ultimately, I think this is going to be one of the most refreshing expansions that's come out in a while.

Good work Donald and thanks! I look forward to seeing the rest of the expansion.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: ObtusePunubiris on September 29, 2018, 11:49:11 am
I didn't try out the preview cards online and can't really talk about them individually.  I can give impression of the set in general though.

While I didn't have an issue with the complexity of the last few expansions, I also don't mind the simplicity of this one.  To me, new Dominion cards are good Dominion cards.  Some of the people in my gaming group, however, are somewhat less enamored of the more complex cards/mechanics.  They still enjoy the game and all, but I'm sure they will be happy with this turn towards simplicity.  Which means they will want to play more often, and that makes me happy.

I also think it's impressive that Donald was able to find design space this simple, and yet still compelling, this far into the evolution of the game.  The increasing complexity of the last few did make me think that perhaps there wasn't much further the game could go without becoming unwieldy.  Renaissance gives me hope that such is not the case.

The one minor disappointment I have, and several people have mentioned this, is that Projects aren't multi-stage.  I envisioned having to buy them in 2-3 stages with either no or small benefit until they were complete.  I can imagine some of the complexities (and I'm sure there are some I haven't imagined) such a mechanic would present, both in design and game play, so I understand the decision to simplify.  I still think they would have been cool that way though.  I'll be especially interested to read the Secret History for Projects since Donald mentioned that they were more complex at one point during development.

Overall, I think the set looks great.  I like the theme, the cards look fun to play, they seem impactful, and I can hardly wait to get my hands on it.  Bravo!
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: markusin on September 29, 2018, 11:57:11 am
I gave my impressions of the preview cards in a video recording that I uploaded to my YouTube channel.

Watch here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWHyjnEjE0k
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: Gherald on September 29, 2018, 06:08:46 pm
The one minor disappointment I have, and several people have mentioned this, is that Projects aren't multi-stage.
Really? Base Dominion already has pretty complex multi-stage projects that change with every board; they're called a deck ;)
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: ObtusePunubiris on September 29, 2018, 06:41:59 pm
The one minor disappointment I have, and several people have mentioned this, is that Projects aren't multi-stage.
Really? Base Dominion already has pretty complex multi-stage projects that change with every board; they're called a deck ;)
Sure, but what I want is a deck-building game so complex that even my multi-stage projects have multi-stage projects.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: Donald X. on September 29, 2018, 08:28:16 pm
The one minor disappointment I have, and several people have mentioned this, is that Projects aren't multi-stage.
As usual, people had to guess at what the mechanic would do from the name, but I had these cards and had to call them something. The fact that they were originally more complex is just a coincidence there.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: ObtusePunubiris on September 29, 2018, 09:05:41 pm
The one minor disappointment I have, and several people have mentioned this, is that Projects aren't multi-stage.
As usual, people had to guess at what the mechanic would do from the name, but I had these cards and had to call them something. The fact that they were originally more complex is just a coincidence there.
I guess that did sound like I was suggesting that if they use to be more complex, they must have been so in the specific manner I envisioned.  Obviously, I have no way of knowing that.  And to be sure, any disappointment I have is the result of my own speculation, not because of any flaw with the final product.  I do think Projects will fun play with.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: jomini on September 29, 2018, 09:13:54 pm
Star chart is basically an automatic buy. In a thin deck it is a permanent Scheme - worth it at $3 any day - always starting the shuffle with a village in hand is pretty amazing from the mid-game onwards. In the early game it prevents you from missing your clutch card to the shuffle (e.g. always hit Steward at the top of the shuffle). In the mid-game you can often turn mediocre turns into power turns by pick the card to top deck if your draw triggers the shuffle mid-game (e.g. place a silver on deck top if you are dead drawing, a Seer or something is you have one live draw left). In the late game you can ensure your last shuffle starts with the good card (e.g. top decking the Remodel you just bought with a spare $4). Outside of engine games, ensuring that each shuffle starts with your clutch card (e.g. your gainer for a slog, your draw for BM) is actually pretty strong.

After all your odds of missing the shuffle with important cards is something like [one to five + dead draw]/[deck size]. Spitballing the top to average out around 5 and the bottom to around 25 means that each shuffle we have 20% of whiffing.   With 3 shuffles in a game, expectation value is just under 50% of saving you a whiff. With more you are getting down to territory where you are all but assured of converting a whiffed (e.g. duchy) hand into a hit (e.g. province).

Timing your charting, well that is different. When is it worth it to give up a Silver? What happens if you want a power $3 like Fishing village? Very non-trivial. Should you get it? Pretty much any time you have $3, a good card in deck, and more than 3 shuffles left in the game.

Remember the clutch thing in Dominion is to play your good cards more often. Doing that at the top of the shuffle can make that happen for so many reasons - protection from trashing attacks, not missing the shuffle, control of sequential card effects (e.g. trash the copper with Moneylender before Foraging an estate), starting each hand with unreliable villages (e.g. Xroads, Nec, Ghost, Tr), etc. Add in deck tracking (e.g. knowing I can do an easy Tmap/Urchin lineup) and the value of charting rises to pretty high levels.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: Donald X. on September 29, 2018, 09:39:38 pm
I guess that did sound like I was suggesting that if they use to be more complex, they must have been so in the specific manner I envisioned.
I wasn't saying that I had any idea what you thought they might be.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: Minotaur on September 29, 2018, 10:18:23 pm
Empires was too much token mini-gaming for me.  There's a little of that here, but for some reason it's not as oppressive.  Travelers and Spirits also annoyed me a bit, but Reserve and Night were fine.  Split piles were a headache...  Anyway, it sort of feels like this is a new expansion I could actually ask other people to play.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: ben_king on September 29, 2018, 10:49:43 pm
I gave my impressions of the preview cards in a video recording that I uploaded to my YouTube channel.

Watch here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWHyjnEjE0k

It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out who Melisha was.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: ObtusePunubiris on September 30, 2018, 12:19:44 am
I guess that did sound like I was suggesting that if they use to be more complex, they must have been so in the specific manner I envisioned.
I wasn't saying that I had any idea what you thought they might be.
Gotcha.  Well, even so, what you said made me realize I was being unclear.  So thanks.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: Donald X. on September 30, 2018, 12:55:41 am
Gotcha.  Well, even so, what you said made me realize I was being unclear.  So thanks.
I'm there for you, even in these obscure weird ways.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: Asper on September 30, 2018, 05:59:13 am
Said this before, but I'm incredibly glad about the route game design has taken with Renaissance. It just shows that, yes, there still is enough room for simple card designs.

As a fan designer, I'm just happy none of my cards (or card-shaped things) was shot down by redundancies.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: Awaclus on September 30, 2018, 06:07:18 am
As a fan designer

Cool, I never knew that you designed fans!
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: Asper on September 30, 2018, 08:04:58 am
As a fan designer

Cool, I never knew that you designed fans!

I will forgive your ignorance out of sheer habit.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: Donald X. on September 30, 2018, 12:09:16 pm
Cool, I never knew that you designed fans!

I will forgive your ignorance out of sheer habit.
And let me just say, that sheer habit is quite fetching.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: MatthewCA on September 30, 2018, 12:41:52 pm
Cool, I never knew that you designed fans!

I will forgive your ignorance out of sheer habit.
And let me just say, that sheer habit is quite fetching.

I'll be fetching this expansion as soon as I can.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: Cave-o-sapien on September 30, 2018, 01:57:07 pm
Cool, I never knew that you designed fans!

I will forgive your ignorance out of sheer habit.
And let me just say, that sheer habit is quite fetching.

Nunnery project all-but-confirmed.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: markusin on October 01, 2018, 09:20:20 pm
I gave my impressions of the preview cards in a video recording that I uploaded to my YouTube channel.

Watch here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWHyjnEjE0k (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWHyjnEjE0k)

It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out who Melisha was.

And it took me maybe ten seconds to figure out what you were talking about.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: Commodore Chuckles on October 02, 2018, 07:22:59 pm
And it took me months to realize that the baby face in Cave's avatar was from Duchess. I realized it just now, in fact.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: Kirian on October 02, 2018, 09:05:13 pm
Flag bearer : I'm worried that the battle for the flag can turn games into ridiculous slogs, because it seems to me that even if you are getting more flag bearer than your deck can afford, the flag is too powerful to be ignored. The on-trash effect is very useful for that kind of situations. But what if we have no trashers ? Time will say. Anyway flag bearer a nice card that use the artifact mechanic in a very elegant way. Very good.

Treasurer : It seems to me that with treasurer players have two ways to play : either they fight for the key, or they trash coppers. Gaining from the trash is potentially interesting with tfb. Very versatile. But like flag bearer, the artifact seems strong, maybe too much. Good.

It makes sense that the stronger Artifact is on the weaker card--terminal Gold plus trash a Copper is pretty strong, but I think $1 every turn is kinda weak.

The Flag Bearer fight, though, is going to be annoying to figure out every game.  That +1 Card is so powerful, especially when unavailable to everyone else (unlike Hireling).  Do I go for it early; is it going to get stolen often; etc.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: jomini on October 03, 2018, 09:11:56 pm
Quote
Seer : Seer also needs a particular deck to work at its best, but it's very versatile and can work even in non-optimized decks. With seer you may focus a little more on the 2-4 range and sometimes you may want to trash coppers before estates. So this is a nice lab variant and we needed more lab variants. Very good.
Seer is much better than a Lab variant in most decks. It beats lab once 33% of your deck is in the $2-$4 range. Your deck starts 30% $2-4 and drops to 27.3% when you buy the seer. But honestly, it will be over 33% if you do most any of the following: trash the coppers, buy silvers, use a $2-4 action as anything but a singleton. Yeah it doesn't like debt or pots, and a deck full of $5s is bad ... but you should generally expect Seer to draw better than Labs in most decks.

And more importantly you can change the top deck order. This means you be sure to place villages on top (or bottom) as needed which is pretty strong. You also can get massive mileage with other top deck control - dump cards on top with Kc/Count and draw them all back, with deck drawing you can discard and pretend you have Champion/Hgrounds, alternating Seer/Apothecary is insanely good and even Navigator can work. Seer gets even better with silver gainers or $3/4 gainers in general - of which there are many.

Quote
Experiment : This is a very interesting lab variant and the tempo is crucial here. If you get experiments early, you will benefit from its natural deck-cycling and you will get $5+ more easily, but at the cost at losing experiments early. If you get experiments later in the game, losing the experiments hurts less and they are pretty much cheap laboratories. So, the most important about experiment seems to be gaining them at the right moment : very interesting decision. Excellent.

Expedition costs exactly the same and gives you the same net effect most of the time. Expedition is not bad. What makes Experiment is that it tends to be so much more flexible: you can choose not to play them when you draw particularly well, you can use Tr with them for engine spawning, you can gain them off most any gainer, and they can function as a pseudo +buy (e.g. Forager nets a +buy every other turn), they accept cost reduction, they are immune to more attacks than Expedition (even the things, like Swindler, that can nuke them typically have low odds), and they can draw cards gained mid-turn. You lose control over exactly when in the shuffle they hit, but in general they seem much stronger than Expedition.

Ultimately, there are a lot of times where Experiment should basically be gained every turn with spare $3 gains/buys.

The really fun thing is how the pile warps the end-game. 5 gains to empty a pile is wonderful for threatening end game. But also fun is the option of cease gaining them to stretch the game out.

Quote
Flag bearer : I'm worried that the battle for the flag can turn games into ridiculous slogs, because it seems to me that even if you are getting more flag bearer than your deck can afford, the flag is too powerful to be ignored. The on-trash effect is very useful for that kind of situations. But what if we have no trashers ? Time will say. Anyway flag bearer a nice card that use the artifact mechanic in a very elegant way. Very good.
If the Flag is worth going for, at all, is worth buying one more bearer than the opponent. The more junked your deck, the more valuable that 6th draw card is to get.

As it favors second mover, you often benefit from waiting for your opponent to flinch first & grab it (or conversely grabbing it when you opponent is going to be too tempted by the $5s). I suspect there will eventually be a bunch of high level games where nobody buys it as a single River's Gift isn't worth the worst possible terminal silver. This calculus changes if you realistically expect to empty the pile or can get something useful out trashing the suckers.

I strongly suspect this will be a terrible Bm crapshoot.

Quote
Swashbuckler : I'm not sure how often treasure chest is really worth it, to me it's not the most important part of the card. The most important seems to gain the coffers, and this is where the card gets interesting... but also a little bit too random for my taste. Good.

Chest is extremely valuable. The comparable action is a prize that takes up a draw slot and gets you the gold one turn sooner at best. Other gold gainers have some pretty big detriments (Bandit can steal from itself, Mint requires trashing treasures in play, and basically all of them but Courtier are terminal).

That something out your mid-game (when you gain coffers) is really valuable too. Eventually even gold clogs decks, some faster than others, so you can let it go pretty often in the late game.

Quote
Treasurer : It seems to me that with treasurer players have two ways to play : either they fight for the key, or they trash coppers. Gaining from the trash is potentially interesting with tfb. Very versatile. But like flag bearer, the artifact seems strong, maybe too much. Good.
Gaining treasure is quite strong, with something like Remodel or Counterfeit you are basically playing Courtier with dual-action type; oh and as a benefit you thin out the early coppers too.  I am not sure that key is really all that strong. Sure you can hit price points more easily ... but trashing coppers is also powerful. Ignoring Key is dangerous, but so is not trashing soon enough.

Quote
Silos : I like card that makes copper better (rip coppersmith). With silos, you often still prefer to trash your coppers but at least silos almost garantee a good starting hand. This is not the most interesting project to me but I think we needed more ways to play around coppers. Very good.
More importantly, silos makes it very easy to hit power cards sooner. Things like Remodel/Estate get a lot better with Silos; things at $3, like Develop are exceedingly good.

The other nice thing is that it can create a stock of cards in the discard to draw at the end of the deck. Moving copper to the end of your draws means you can tolerate a lot more coppers.

Quote
Citadel : The thing I like the most about citadel is the once-per-turn village potential. A recent game showed me that it can be a vast trap, but I think in the right situations it can work very nicely. Otherwise, citadel still seems to be an auto-buy almost always, it bothers me a little. Also there is the randomness about having the best card to throne in your hand. Good.
Citadel loves the Lab family; absent villagers/durations/CotR you either get to Throne a terminal or go for some type village effect. It oddly can also work well with cheap terminal silvers. Once you have it, you can spam the deck with Silvers and Terminal silvers. Getting to $8 is easy as all get out with when you need $4 from 4 cards.

Quote
Innocation : I love this new way to play actions during the buy phase and I did so many awesome things in just few games : With estate in hands I bought free barons, with golds in hand I got Governor for the remodel effect, I princed a candlestick maker... This one of the funniest and most creative cards of the new set. Might be too strong but I don't care. Excellent.

Almost complete auto-buy, often with your first $6. Works exceedingly well with anything that gives +buy and most attacks. It functions as a Pseudo-village, besides the obvious gain a non-terminal, you have fun things like buying a clutch terminal for a second action (e.g. Bishop/Monument, Squire/Chouse)
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: JW on October 03, 2018, 10:54:54 pm
Jomini means “potions” by “pot”, in case anyone else was wondering.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: jomini on October 03, 2018, 11:57:30 pm
Jomini means “potions” by “pot”, in case anyone else was wondering.

Jomini thinks people reading this board will assume that "debt or pots" clearly refers to brownies because that, and only that, could possibly make any contextual sense with the rest of the sentence.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: LastFootnote on October 04, 2018, 12:29:43 am
Jomini means “potions” by “pot”, in case anyone else was wondering.

Jomini thinks people reading this board will assume that "debt or pots" clearly refers to brownies because that, and only that, could possibly make any contextual sense with the rest of the sentence.

Stop trying to make “pot” happen. It’s not going to happen.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: singletee on October 04, 2018, 02:43:58 am
Jomini means “potions” by “pot”, in case anyone else was wondering.

Jomini thinks people reading this board will assume that "debt or pots" clearly refers to brownies because that, and only that, could possibly make any contextual sense with the rest of the sentence.

Mn, wh nds vwls? Th mnng f th sntnc s clr wtht thm.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: Donald X. on October 04, 2018, 02:54:29 am
Jomini means “potions” by “pot”, in case anyone else was wondering.

Jomini thinks people reading this board will assume that "debt or pots" clearly refers to brownies because that, and only that, could possibly make any contextual sense with the rest of the sentence.

Mn, wh nds vwls? Th mnng f th sntnc s clr wtht thm.
You can aslo jsut smrbclae wrdos as lnog as you lavee the fsrit and lsat lteerts in the smae ptsiinoos.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: ipofanes on October 04, 2018, 04:13:58 am
I hope you had some program which did this for you.

I really stopped reading this potentially interesting text at "pots".
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: hypercube on October 04, 2018, 04:15:10 am
Jomini means “potions” by “pot”, in case anyone else was wondering.

Jomini thinks people reading this board will assume that "debt or pots" clearly refers to brownies because that, and only that, could possibly make any contextual sense with the rest of the sentence.

Mn, wh nds vwls? Th mnng f th sntnc s clr wtht thm.

Thr hndrd thrt mlln ppl spk smtc lnggs rnd th wrld, hw hrd cn t b?
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: Asper on October 04, 2018, 04:59:56 am
Unrelated (?): I wonder whether we will see Fool again in Nocturne's 2nd edition.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: ThetaSigma12 on October 04, 2018, 08:40:49 am
Unrelated (?): I wonder whether we will see Fool again in Nocturne's 2nd edition.

I wonder whether we'll see a Nocturne 2nd edition at all.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: GendoIkari on October 04, 2018, 09:08:15 am
And more importantly you can change the top deck order. This means you be sure to place villages on top (or bottom) as needed which is pretty strong.

Well there aren't many villages outside the (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png)-(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2a/Coin4.png/16px-Coin4.png) range.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: greybirdofprey on October 04, 2018, 09:21:00 am
Jomini means “potions” by “pot”, in case anyone else was wondering.

Jomini thinks people reading this board will assume that "debt or pots" clearly refers to brownies because that, and only that, could possibly make any contextual sense with the rest of the sentence.
Mn, wh nds vwls? Th mnng f th sntnc s clr wtht thm.
You can aslo jsut smrbclae wrdos as lnog as you lavee the fsrit and lsat lteerts in the smae ptsiinoos.

Why can I read this with no trouble whatsoever.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: chipperMDW on October 04, 2018, 09:59:00 am
Thr hndrd thrt mlln ppl spk smtc lnggs rnd th wrld, hw hrd cn t b?

What are osmotic languages?
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: jomini on October 04, 2018, 10:03:55 am
Jomini means “potions” by “pot”, in case anyone else was wondering.

Jomini thinks people reading this board will assume that "debt or pots" clearly refers to brownies because that, and only that, could possibly make any contextual sense with the rest of the sentence.
Mn, wh nds vwls? Th mnng f th sntnc s clr wtht thm.
You can aslo jsut smrbclae wrdos as lnog as you lavee the fsrit and lsat lteerts in the smae ptsiinoos.

Why can I read this with no trouble whatsoever.

Largely from how speakers of non-logographic languages store words in their brain; most people map words by sounds via circuitry in Wernicke's area. We recognize the most important sounds as the beginning and end as those tend to have the greatest variety and can recognize the rest as sounds somewhere in the middle. There are actually relatively few words that a close enough for this trick not to work. Donald's sentence, for instance has zero common words with which you might mistake these words. Things get trickier with more analytic languages and a few other quirky things.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: GendoIkari on October 04, 2018, 10:22:25 am
Unrelated (?): I wonder whether we will see Fool again in Nocturne's 2nd edition.

I wonder whether we'll see a Nocturne 2nd edition at all.

Donald has said that Empires and later (or was it Adventures?) is already second edition to start with. I would think it pretty unlikely that a newer printing would remove or add any cards.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: heron on October 04, 2018, 11:40:13 am
Since we're already off topic, I want to say that although jomini's posts often have a lot of abbreviations which make them difficult to read, this particular one does not have that problem. There are like two abbreviations and pot for potion is pretty common (maybe not here, but in other games with potions).

So I really doubt any of you actually had a huge amount of trouble understanding jomini's post.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: LastFootnote on October 04, 2018, 12:06:55 pm
There are like two abbreviations and pot for potion is pretty common (maybe not here, but in other games with potions).

It may be a common abbreviation for potion in other games, but

1) I don't play those games.
2) It's a terrible abbreviation because although "pot" contains the same first three letters as "potion", it contains almost none of the same sounds.
3) It's so easy to type three extra letters and avoid confusing people, but jomini's just too lazy to do it. I don't have much sympathy there. I mean if you want to use "CotR","JoaT", and "IGG", that's totally reasonable. "Potion" does not need the abbreviation treatment.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: GendoIkari on October 04, 2018, 12:19:58 pm
Since we're already off topic, I want to say that although jomini's posts often have a lot of abbreviations which make them difficult to read, this particular one does not have that problem. There are like two abbreviations and pot for potion is pretty common (maybe not here, but in other games with potions).

So I really doubt any of you actually had a huge amount of trouble understanding jomini's post.

I only figured it out because it was next to "debt"; otherwise I would have never known.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: Asper on October 04, 2018, 12:42:29 pm
Unrelated (?): I wonder whether we will see Fool again in Nocturne's 2nd edition.

I wonder whether we'll see a Nocturne 2nd edition at all.

Donald has said that Empires and later (or was it Adventures?) is already second edition to start with. I would think it pretty unlikely that a newer printing would remove or add any cards.

A year after base's release, you would also have thought it pretty unlikely that a future edition would remove some of its cards, wouldn't you?
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: GendoIkari on October 04, 2018, 12:50:14 pm
Unrelated (?): I wonder whether we will see Fool again in Nocturne's 2nd edition.

I wonder whether we'll see a Nocturne 2nd edition at all.

Donald has said that Empires and later (or was it Adventures?) is already second edition to start with. I would think it pretty unlikely that a newer printing would remove or add any cards.

A year after base's release, you would also have thought it pretty unlikely that a future edition would remove some of its cards, wouldn't you?

Certainly... but the difference is that Donald has specifically spoken about Empires and Nocturne being considered second edition already. So before it was an issue of not knowing second edition would ever be a thing. I suppose in this case it would be more about a third edition.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: jomini on October 04, 2018, 01:42:02 pm
And more importantly you can change the top deck order. This means you be sure to place villages on top (or bottom) as needed which is pretty strong.

Well there aren't many villages outside the (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png)-(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2a/Coin4.png/16px-Coin4.png) range.

These days there are many with Lost Arts and other tricks. The point still stands, moving your Rabble to deck top can be just as valuable to ensuring turn reliability. Even little things like moving Provs to deck top to flip away with Pools can be pretty amazing.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: Holunder9 on October 04, 2018, 02:06:26 pm
Even little things like moving Provs to deck top to flip away with Pools can be pretty amazing.
I don't know what this means but it kinda sounds even more illegal than pot.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: Asper on October 04, 2018, 04:31:20 pm
Unrelated (?): I wonder whether we will see Fool again in Nocturne's 2nd edition.

I wonder whether we'll see a Nocturne 2nd edition at all.

Donald has said that Empires and later (or was it Adventures?) is already second edition to start with. I would think it pretty unlikely that a newer printing would remove or add any cards.

A year after base's release, you would also have thought it pretty unlikely that a future edition would remove some of its cards, wouldn't you?

Certainly... but the difference is that Donald has specifically spoken about Empires and Nocturne being considered second edition already. So before it was an issue of not knowing second edition would ever be a thing. I suppose in this case it would be more about a third edition.

I'm fine with this statement.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: Chappy7 on October 04, 2018, 05:08:26 pm
smtc

This word actually stumped me for a bit.  Turns out vowels are nice
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: Eran of Arcadia on October 04, 2018, 05:11:31 pm
Even little things like moving Provs to deck top to flip away with Pools can be pretty amazing.
I don't know what this means but it kinda sounds even more illegal than pot.

By which you mean potions, right?
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: Donald X. on October 04, 2018, 06:38:08 pm
The second editions of the main set and Intrigue let me fix up the two most popular products. All these early duds, replaced by real cards. It's an issue with Seaside too, but some of the duds there were cemented in. It's less of an issue with Prosperity though I could certainly patch it up some; Alchemy would rather not exist than get more work put into it; and then Cornucopia and on don't have nearly as many duds.

For the other sets, we fixed up the layout and some wordings. Why do this? Man. It was a ton of work and mostly just means, I can feel better about those sets. We were doing fine with the awful layout and not-as-good wordings versions. But, whatever, some sense of wanting the expansions to be better, they got fixed up.

We were able to replace cards in the main set and Intrigue via selling the new cards separately in the update packs. That doesn't work with just replacing e.g. Rebuild. Possibly we could have had one update pack for all other sets; I'm sure some people would have complained, "hey I bought the new Dark Ages but the old Hinterlands and now to get this replacement card you're making me re-buy something, you suck so hard, boycott boycott boycott." I'm not sure how bad it would have been. It's a classic "this is why we can't have nice things" situation. It would be great to replace just any specific cards that want replacing; some people would hate us for that; we get less hate by having the inferior product. It's a bummer, but I can't change human nature.

At the same time I feel like we got away with e.g. the Masquerade tweak. Not without zero complaints, but you know, it wasn't so bad as to stop us from doing that again. So conceivably someday I'll decide, man, I have to fix Band of Misfits / Overlord / Inheritance. They would usually play exactly the same, and some people would be enraged that they'd have to buy new copies of those sets if they wanted the new wordings printed on their cards, but I think it could happen. Empires just got reprinted though, and I did not change Overlord. So, it's not happening today.

If it had been okay to change cards willy-nilly, I would have changed a lot more. Lots of little things. Like, Mining Village should be e.g. "at the start of your buy phase, you may trash this from play..." Those changes weren't possible because they'd need update packs, and those update packs would be awful products. I don't need to rule out this stuff ever happening, but well, it would require some big shake-up, I mean as it stands it's "put in lots of work, enrage players (have a better product)."
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: LastFootnote on October 04, 2018, 10:05:40 pm
You could release a promo and say, “Hey, you could slot this into Dark Ages in place of Rebuild.”
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: ipofanes on October 05, 2018, 04:06:40 am
Well there aren't many villages outside the (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png)-(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2a/Coin4.png/16px-Coin4.png) range.

These days there are many with Lost Arts and other tricks.

The cards I tend to upgrade with Adventures tokens tend to be on the cheap side. I'd rather Lost Arts a Candlestick Maker or Pearl Diver than a Mystic (to name examples where the Lost Arts create actual splitters).
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: Donald X. on October 05, 2018, 04:28:33 am
You could release a promo and say, “Hey, you could slot this into Dark Ages in place of Rebuild.”
Possibly a promo is enough to just replace a single card; put the card into Dark Ages in place of Rebuild, and if you wanted this card and already have Dark Ages, well for now it's a promo.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: Commodore Chuckles on October 20, 2018, 02:28:18 pm
Even little things like moving Provs to deck top to flip away with Pools can be pretty amazing.
I don't know what this means but it kinda sounds even more illegal than pot.

By which you mean potions, right?

I hope Renaissance has a card called "Potter" so that the "pot" abbreviation can't be used anymore.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: LastFootnote on October 20, 2018, 03:03:03 pm
Even little things like moving Provs to deck top to flip away with Pools can be pretty amazing.
I don't know what this means but it kinda sounds even more illegal than pot.

By which you mean potions, right?

I hope Renaissance has a card called "Potter" so that the "pot" abbreviation can't be used anymore.

Oh it’ll still be used, just by two different cards, for extra confusion. See “FV”.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: ackmondual on October 22, 2018, 11:23:09 pm
The one minor disappointment I have, and several people have mentioned this, is that Projects aren't multi-stage.
Really? Base Dominion already has pretty complex multi-stage projects that change with every board; they're called a deck ;)
Sure, but what I want is a deck-building game so complex that even my multi-stage projects have multi-stage projects.
Have patience... Dominion: Legacy will be the multi-stage projects that contain multi-stage projects, of multi-stage projects!
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: ObtusePunubiris on October 23, 2018, 12:22:17 am
The one minor disappointment I have, and several people have mentioned this, is that Projects aren't multi-stage.
Really? Base Dominion already has pretty complex multi-stage projects that change with every board; they're called a deck ;)
Sure, but what I want is a deck-building game so complex that even my multi-stage projects have multi-stage projects.
Have patience... Dominion: Legacy will be the multi-stage projects that contain multi-stage projects, of multi-stage projects!
Sounds cool.  Will I get to rip up cards though?
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: LastFootnote on October 23, 2018, 12:32:20 am
Technically, you can always rip up your cards.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: AJD on October 23, 2018, 12:52:53 am
Technically, you can always rip up your cards.

Sure, but then you're playing a variant.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: faust on October 23, 2018, 01:08:45 am
Technically, you can always rip up your cards.
Is the definition of "your" the same here as on Inheritance?
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: Aleimon Thimble on October 23, 2018, 04:25:43 am
Well there aren't many villages outside the (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png)-(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2a/Coin4.png/16px-Coin4.png) range.

These days there are many with Lost Arts and other tricks.

The cards I tend to upgrade with Adventures tokens tend to be on the cheap side. I'd rather Lost Arts a Candlestick Maker or Pearl Diver than a Mystic (to name examples where the Lost Arts create actual splitters).

Lost Arts on a card with +1 Action is amazing on a board with no other Villages. In fact, it's almost required if you actually want to have an engine. Lost Arts on Smithy seems nice until you realize you committed yourself to a single terminal. Which is possible sometimes, but still.
Title: Re: Your reviews of the previews
Post by: ackmondual on October 23, 2018, 09:23:35 pm
The one minor disappointment I have, and several people have mentioned this, is that Projects aren't multi-stage.
Really? Base Dominion already has pretty complex multi-stage projects that change with every board; they're called a deck ;)
Sure, but what I want is a deck-building game so complex that even my multi-stage projects have multi-stage projects.
Have patience... Dominion: Legacy will be the multi-stage projects that contain multi-stage projects, of multi-stage projects!
Sounds cool.  Will I get to rip up cards though?
That's one way to get a whiff of their blackcore goodness!