Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: NoMoreFun on October 11, 2013, 12:50:47 am
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Imagine if the base set was released after all the other sets, with a theme like "no frills" and a name like Dominion: Frugality.
What cards would you have chosen for previews, and what would you have said about them?
Would it have been the worst expansion?
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The idea of Dominion existing for years without Chapel is mind-blowing.
But it's a paradoxical question, since the set was specifically designed to be first: if the base set had been released last, most or all of its cards would have been picked for the first set instead, so what exactly would have been released last then?
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The idea of Dominion existing for years without Chapel is mind-blowing.
But it's a paradoxical question, since the set was specifically designed to be first: if the base set had been released last, most or all of its cards would have been picked for the first set instead, so what exactly would have been released last then?
In this universe, Intrigue would have been the "base" set, and for a simpler alternative, what we know as the base set was released after guilds to offer players a simpler introduction to the game. Same cards.
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I think I'd be really disappointed. I'd think "all these have been done before".
I'd preview Adventurer and Chapel just to see what people think of it :D
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Chapel will be the standout, and people would be all up in arms about the fact that such a powerful card exists. A card that trashes better than Count and almost as well as Forge for 2?!?!
Library, Bureaucrat, Gardens, and Mine are unique enough. Festival too, although that may be too Vanilla.
Militia and Smithy can have the "Whoa that's cheap" reaction that Chapel will get, though not to the same extent. I especially think with Smithy the community consensus would have been that "+3 Cards" is too good for $4, not good enough for $5 before its release.
Maybe Moneylender would be seen as quite interesting since seeing +$3 as well as a positive effect for $4 would be quite a novelty. Could easily imagine people grossly overestimating how good it is.
Similarly, Remodel would be niche enough because Butcher is extremely versatile, and people would have noticed only needing $2 up for Gold->Province, so a relatively cheap card that does that would be noteworthy.
Council Room, Moat, Throne Room have effects that wouldn't really be noteworthy given the other known cards, but nobody would begrudge their existence as nice little additions with their own strategies.
Village, Laboratory, Market, Cellar, Workshop and Witch would be good at demonstrating that it's the "simple" set, and none of them would really change the landscape at all.
I'd keep Thief, Spy, Feast, Chancellor and Adventurer in hiding for as long as possible. They're cards with problems that would be obvious as soon as they are revealed to an experienced Dominion playing community (except maybe "Scavenger without the topdecking for $3" if people liked Scavenger enough). Not sure whether Woodcutter would fit into this category or the above category.
Overall it would probably be seen as disappointing, but it would achieve its aims and most Dominion players would probably still buy it. I'd preview Remodel, Gardens, Library, Moneylender and finally Chapel to get the fans in an uproar.
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Chapel will be the standout, and people would be all up in arms about the fact that such a powerful card exists. A card that trashes better than Count and almost as well as Forge for 2?!?!
Count is a very poor trasher.
Remake and steward are much more effective.
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Chapel will be the standout, and people would be all up in arms about the fact that such a powerful card exists. A card that trashes better than Count and almost as well as Forge for 2?!?!
Count is a very poor trasher.
Remake and steward are much more effective.
Count is an elite trasher. I certainly wouldn't skip Steward or Remake on a 4/3 open with Count on the board, but with 5/2 I prefer Count over Remake 100% of the time.
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Count is an elite trasher. I certainly wouldn't skip Steward or Remake on a 4/3 open with Count on the board, but with 5/2 I prefer Count over Remake 100% of the time.
This. Count is faster at trashing than Remake and Steward, topdecks the good card instead of discarding it if you have one in hand, becomes nuts if you can draw extra cards before playing it and those happen to be bad cards, and it continues to be useful throughout the entire game. Remake has the upside of giving you $3s in exchange for your Estates, which is obviously great, but sometimes it also has the downside of giving you Poor Houses or Estates for your Shelters and Coppers. Steward doesn't really have any upside over Count except for costing $3.
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Village would be amusing... people would be like "wow, weaker Mining/Worker's/Walled/Farming Village that costs $3 instead of $4".
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Village would be amusing... people would be like "wow, weaker Mining/Worker's/Walled/Farming Village that costs $3 instead of $4".
I'd be amused that its name is simply "Village".
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Village would be amusing... people would be like "wow, weaker Mining/Worker's/Walled/Farming Village that costs $3 instead of $4".
I'd be amused that its name is simply "Village".
True. We'd probably think that it's really clever flavor.
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If the base set was released last, we'd have seen most of the cards as fan cards before the release.
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If the base set was released last, we'd have seen most of the cards as fan cards before the release.
Hard to say with that one. Fan cards are basically never vanilla, even though there's several vanilla combinations that the official cards don't do. I think for sure Market would have been done as a fan card, but the rest of the vanilla cards may have been considered too boring.
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If the base set was released last, we'd have seen most of the cards as fan cards before the release.
Hard to say with that one. Fan cards are basically never vanilla, even though there's several vanilla combinations that the official cards don't do. I think for sure Market would have been done as a fan card, but the rest of the vanilla cards may have been considered too boring.
We'd have a thread titled, "Why are there so few Vanilla cards?" and we'd all have been wondering for ages what Donald has against simplicity. We'd have an extended discussion about what the price of the cards we know as Lab, Smithy, Village etc and probably get very close to the actual cards at the actual costs. When the simplicity theme is announced, we'd all discuss how many of the Vanilla cards that we've come up with will be in the simplicity set, and we'd probably guess the name Village.
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If they didn't exist and then came out, the following cards would:
Be blasted for being blunt, crude, inelegant ways of achieving their goal: Moat, Chapel. Chapel is obvs, Moat seems so direct compared to any other anti-attack reaction. It would probably be considered game-warping in a negative fashion too, until actual playtesting.
Possibly Village. It would be interesting to see people's reactions to a $3 village, since aside from Village itself almost every village that draws a card costs $4.
Make unique additions to the game:
Festival, actually. Considered as a village for hardcore engines, it sits at a really odd price-point and corner of design space: +buy and its own money source, but no draw? Odd.
Mine, possibly Workshop.
Seem like obvious and fitting additions to the game: Gardens, Laboratory, Smithy. I would love to see Donald's write-up of Gardens if it hadn't already existed.
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I would preview the Four Pillars of Dominion: Frugality.
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I would preview the Four Pillars of Dominion: Frugality.
Hmm, I don't think Thief and Witch make interesting previews in a universe that already contains Noble Brigand, Pirate Ship, Familiar, and Cultist. Chapel and Gardens, certainly. Also Smithy, as arguably the best expression of the theme. Then possibly Moat, Library, and Festival? Bureaucrat is also a card that has nothing quite like in any other expansion.
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In this alternate universe, did Donald already have the cards designed and just ended up pushing them to the end, or did he actually design these cards later than those that came before (like Dark Ages)? If the latter, then there are actually some cards that might not have made it through, and other cards that did in earlier sets. For example, Lab might have been cut because a Lab+discard might exist at $5 in some earlier set. Thief might look different too because, as is, it would just look like a powered-down NB that sometimes (but rarely) did a little better.
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If the base set was released last, we'd have seen most of the cards as fan cards before the release.
Hard to say with that one. Fan cards are basically never vanilla, even though there's several vanilla combinations that the official cards don't do. I think for sure Market would have been done as a fan card, but the rest of the vanilla cards may have been considered too boring.
I think this is right. People would have ridiculed "Alchemist without potions", "Goons Jr.", "Worker's Peddler", "A reaction that simply blocks attacks", "Cultist with Curses" etc. as fan cards, and that's before looking at cards like Thief and Chancellor. Gardens would have often been proposed, but not 1VP for every 10 cards. I think the most likely cards to have shown up would have been cards like Library.
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In this alternate universe, did Donald already have the cards designed and just ended up pushing them to the end, or did he actually design these cards later than those that came before (like Dark Ages)? If the latter, then there are actually some cards that might not have made it through, and other cards that did in earlier sets. For example, Lab might have been cut because a Lab+discard might exist at $5 in some earlier set. Thief might look different too because, as is, it would just look like a powered-down NB that sometimes (but rarely) did a little better.
Exact same cards.
I'd imagine some scenario where Rio Grande at the 11th hour decided the base set was "boring" and released intrigue first, and after releasing all the other sets they changed their mind and released it as is.
I don't think Thief would survive in many other scenarios.
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Make unique additions to the game:
[…]possibly Workshop.
Really? There are Ironworks, Armory, (Horn of Plenty).
Moat is new, but every attack can be blocked or at least weakened by other reactions.
Chapel is already redone with Forge and Count can serve as trasher as well, also there is Steward, Ambassador, Remake.
Cellar has Warehouse.
Village has brother(s) in every expansion, especially Farming Village and Fortress. I think people would wonder why village was not released earlier.
Chancellor: There is Scavenger, and Scavenger is so much better.
Woodcutter: Goons and Nomad Camp
Workshop: as mentioned above Ironworks, Armory, Horn of Plenty.
Bureaucrat: Jack, Fortune Teller, Rabble, Ghost Ship combined. New enough, though.
Moneylender: Spice Merchant. New enough, though.
Gardens: New.
Militia: Ghost Ship, Goons(!), Margrave, Followers, Mercenary. There are already many discard attacks.
Remodel: Butcher was released half a year ago, come up with new ideas!
Spy: Why is that so much weaker than Scrying Pool?
Throne Room: A smaller KC, Procession.
Feast: New enough. (Well, there is Altar, but you will rather open Feast to minimize shuffle luck).
Smithy: Torturer, Wharf, Rabble, Margrave, Catacombs, Journeyman, Envoy.
Thief: Noble Brigand and Pirate Ship.
Council Room: Governor's draw, Hunting Grounds. Still new enough, I think.
Festival: Squire and Fishing Village come into my mind. However, nothing too similar was released so far.
Market: cantrip buy like Market Square, Peddler variant.
Library: There is Watchtower.
Lab: Alchemist, Hunting Party, Stables.
Mine: There is taxman. Still, they play differently.
Witch: There are Junkers in every Expansion, and this one might be incorporated in an Engine nicely.
Adventurer: Venture. It should cost $5.
I would preview Gardens, Witch, Mine, Moneylender, Chapel.
Overall, people would wonder why they are pushed back to BM.
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Theory's reaction to cellar would be: Why would he even print this, it's just a worse warehouse.
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Count is an elite trasher. I certainly wouldn't skip Steward or Remake on a 4/3 open with Count on the board, but with 5/2 I prefer Count over Remake 100% of the time.
From my experience, as a trasher, count is quickly useless. In a basic hand of 5 cards, it trashes maximum three cards. That is not bad, but as soon as you have useful actions and a good drawing power, it becomes clearly limited. If you want to trash a remaining copper or estate, you have to use/discard/topdeck all your other good cards which is often not easy.
Of course, Count is often better at $5 than remake, because it have a nice long-term benefit which remake usually don't have. But otherwise, again as a trasher and a trasher only, remake is better and I'm pretty convinced by that.
And in Dominion, there are no moves that are strictly better than other 100% of the time :P
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And in Dominion, there are no moves that are strictly better than other 100% of the time :P
No, everything is strictly better than buying Scout :)
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Count is an elite trasher. I certainly wouldn't skip Steward or Remake on a 4/3 open with Count on the board, but with 5/2 I prefer Count over Remake 100% of the time.
From my experience, as a trasher, count is quickly useless.
It's quickly useless as a trasher precisely because it trashes so good. It's only poor trashers like Trade Route that you keep trashing with throughout the game.
In a basic hand of 5 cards, it trashes maximum three cards. That is not bad
That's quite the understatement. Trashing 3 cards at once is really, really good.
but as soon as you have useful actions and a good drawing power, it becomes clearly limited.
That's why you prioritize trashing over anything else, so that by the time you have other useful actions and good drawing power you also have a clean deck and no longer need trashing.
If you want to trash a remaining copper or estate, you have to use/discard/topdeck all your other good cards which is often not easy.
That's no big deal. In most decks you'll do perfectly fine without trashing down beyond the last Copper or Estate or two.
And in Dominion, there are no moves that are strictly better than other 100% of the time :P
That's nonsense, especially when different price points are concerned, but even at the same price point: opening Ironmonger over Scout is better 100% of the time.
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From my experience, as a trasher, count is quickly useless.
So is Chapel. That is a sign of being an extremely good trasher.
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That's nonsense, especially when different price points are concerned, but even at the same price point: opening Ironmonger over Scout is better 100% of the time.
That's not true. First off, there are always edge cases for such things. No matter what cards you are talking about or what they do, you might want card A over card B because it will make your fairgrounds or horn of plenty better if you already had card B. In your particular example, if the top 4 cards of your draw deck are all victory cards, then you would much rather have a Scout in your hand than an Ironmonger most of the time. Especially if you have a Crossroads in hand. Ridiculous, I know, but brokoli is right, there are no absolutes like that.
The only move that is right 100% of the time is "if you know you have the most victory points, and you can end the game on your turn, you should do so."
Not counting strange tournament things where it could theoretically be better for you to lose this 1 game in the long run.
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It might help to actually read something before you respond to it:
That's nonsense, especially when different price points are concerned, but even at the same price point: opening Ironmonger over Scout is better 100% of the time.
And no, there are no exceptions to this.
Moreover, pointing out that there are always edge cases to anything is not only flat out wrong, it's also very annoying to people who just want to have a sensible discussion. It's like pointing out grammatical errors in the banter of your friends when you're having beer.
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It might help to actually read something before you respond to it:
That's nonsense, especially when different price points are concerned, but even at the same price point: opening Ironmonger over Scout is better 100% of the time.
And no, there are no exceptions to this.
Moreover, pointing out that there are always edge cases to anything is not only flat out wrong, it's also very annoying and anything but insightful to people who just want to have a sensible discussion. It's like pointing out grammatical errors in the banter of your friends when you're having beer.
Sorry, I indeed missed the word "opening". No need to be upset about it.
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It might help to actually read something before you respond to it:
That's nonsense, especially when different price points are concerned, but even at the same price point: opening Ironmonger over Scout is better 100% of the time.
And no, there are no exceptions to this.
Moreover, pointing out that there are always edge cases to anything is not only flat out wrong, it's also very annoying and anything but insightful to people who just want to have a sensible discussion. It's like pointing out grammatical errors in the banter of your friends when you're having beer.
Sorry, I indeed missed the word "opening". No need to be upset about it.
No problem, and you're right, I shouldn't be upset about it. It's just that I've seen fruitful discussions get derailed by pedantic nitpicking a little too often around here.
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It would have been seen as the Dominion: Junior expansion. Finally you can play Dominion with your kids!
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Moat seems so direct compared to any other anti-attack reaction. It would probably be considered game-warping in a negative fashion too, until actual playtesting.
I dunno, we already do have a comparison point for Moat. I suspect people might look at Moat and say "so... it's like Lighthouse but terminal? that sounds pretty weak actually". And they'd be right!
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It might help to actually read something before you respond to it:
That's nonsense, especially when different price points are concerned, but even at the same price point: opening Ironmonger over Scout is better 100% of the time.
And no, there are no exceptions to this.
Moreover, pointing out that there are always edge cases to anything is not only flat out wrong, it's also very annoying to people who just want to have a sensible discussion. It's like pointing out grammatical errors in the banter of your friends when you're having beer.
If you open Scout or Ironmonger and Warehouse, and the top 3 cards of your deck are all estates, then you'll have one more card to discard to Warehouse, and then you'll hit $6 instead of $5.
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It might help to actually read something before you respond to it:
That's nonsense, especially when different price points are concerned, but even at the same price point: opening Ironmonger over Scout is better 100% of the time.
And no, there are no exceptions to this.
Moreover, pointing out that there are always edge cases to anything is not only flat out wrong, it's also very annoying to people who just want to have a sensible discussion. It's like pointing out grammatical errors in the banter of your friends when you're having beer.
If you open Scout or Ironmonger and Warehouse, and the top 3 cards of your deck are all estates, then you'll have one more card to discard to Warehouse, and then you'll hit $6 instead of $5.
That doesn't work because you can't assume the top 3 cards of your deck are Estates. You have no way to predict how your shuffle goes, and you have an Estate in hand that could potentially go anywhere. Any way to guarantee knowing you have 3 Estates on top requires you to shuffle first, aka it'll only work for one specific deck state.
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Moreover, pointing out that there are always edge cases to anything is not only flat out wrong, it's also very annoying to people who just want to have a sensible discussion. It's like pointing out grammatical errors in the banter of your friends when you're having beer.
If not for edge cases, this forum would be a lot more boring.
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If Base set was released last:
- Library would probably be previewed.
- Moneylender would be almost universally panned for being a worse Counterfeit.
- People would try to argue why Cellar can sometimes be better than Warehouse.
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Moreover, pointing out that there are always edge cases to anything is not only flat out wrong, it's also very annoying to people who just want to have a sensible discussion. It's like pointing out grammatical errors in the banter of your friends when you're having beer.
If not for edge cases, this forum would be a lot more boring useful.
FTFY
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Moreover, pointing out that there are always edge cases to anything is not only flat out wrong, it's also very annoying to people who just want to have a sensible discussion. It's like pointing out grammatical errors in the banter of your friends when you're having beer.
If not for edge cases, this forum would be a lot more boring.
Edge case: when discussing a boring edge case.
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Pink Elephants and Blue Dogs: How Confusing Rules and Edge Cases Enhanced My Understanding of Dominion
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I think that there's an analog of Godwin's law for all Dominion-related threads on f.ds, but instead of nazi comparisons it's edgecases.
Pretty sure this is official now.
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Pink Elephants and Blue Dogs: How Confusing Rules and Edge Cases Enhanced My Understanding of Dominion
Would this be a 1000 page tome composed of mostly footnotes?
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- Moneylender would be almost universally panned for being a worse Counterfeit.
Saying that card A is worse universally worse than card B is almost never true if A is cheaper than B, especially if the cost of A is 4 and the cost of B is 5. In that case, you can always open A, but mostly not open B, which makes a huge difference. Compare Witch to Young Witch: YW is so much weaker than Witch, but it is usually strong enough to open with.
If Moneylender and Counterfeit are both on the board, I'm not sure if I always skip Moneylender for Counterfeit (in a 4/3-opening). Moneylender is a pretty strong opener: terminal silver + trashing a card is nice, and trashing early is very important. But you're right, Counterfeit does the job much better.
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It would have been seen as the Dominion: Junior or expansion. Finally you can play Dominion with your kids!
This is the winner. And it would be better than Apples to Apples: Junior.
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Pink Elephants and Blue Dogs: How Confusing Rules and Edge Cases Enhanced My Understanding of Dominion
Would this be a 1000 page tome composed of mostly footnotes?
And the 1000th page just has this, right?
(http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/avatars/Dominion%20Cards/illgottengains.jpg)
Edit: I missed a zero. :(
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Pink Elephants and Blue Dogs: How Confusing Rules and Edge Cases Enhanced My Understanding of Dominion
Would this be a 1000 page tome composed of mostly footnotes?
And the 100th page just has this, right?
(http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/avatars/Dominion%20Cards/illgottengains.jpg)
Why would it have Last_Footn...oh.
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Pink Elephants and Blue Dogs: How Confusing Rules and Edge Cases Enhanced My Understanding of Dominion
Would this be a 1000 page tome composed of mostly footnotes?
And the 100th page just has this, right?
(http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/avatars/Dominion%20Cards/illgottengains.jpg)
Why not the 1000th page? It's the last one, not the 100th...
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Pink Elephants and Blue Dogs: How Confusing Rules and Edge Cases Enhanced My Understanding of Dominion
Would this be a 1000 page tome composed of mostly footnotes?
And the 100th page just has this, right?
(http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/avatars/Dominion%20Cards/illgottengains.jpg)
Why not the 1000th page? It's the last one, not the 100th...
Typo! Fixed.
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Pink Elephants and Blue Dogs: How Confusing Rules and Edge Cases Enhanced My Understanding of Dominion
Would this be a 1000 page tome composed of mostly footnotes?
And the 100th page just has this, right?
(http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/avatars/Dominion%20Cards/illgottengains.jpg)
Why would it have Last_Footn...oh.
I like that "Ill-Gotten Gains" isn't necessarily the first thing that comes to mind.
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- Moneylender would be almost universally panned for being a worse Counterfeit.
Saying that card A is worse universally worse than card B is almost never true if A is cheaper than B, especially if the cost of A is 4 and the cost of B is 5. In that case, you can always open A, but mostly not open B, which makes a huge difference. Compare Witch to Young Witch: YW is so much weaker than Witch, but it is usually strong enough to open with.
If Moneylender and Counterfeit are both on the board, I'm not sure if I always skip Moneylender for Counterfeit (in a 4/3-opening). Moneylender is a pretty strong opener: terminal silver + trashing a card is nice, and trashing early is very important. But you're right, Counterfeit does the job much better.
Saying Moneylender is worse than Counterfeit is even more unfair than saying Cellar is Worse than Warehouse, given the significance of the 4$ to 5$ jump.
To be clear, I merely suggested that it would be anyway, not that it is in fact worse than Counterfeit. In fact, I really like Moneylender, but it's almost embarrassing that Counterfeit is almost strictly better once in your deck.
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Well, Moneylender isn't a very good card, so it's fine for there to be a strictly better version at $5. Cartographer is almost strictly better than Scout.
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Journeyman and others are better than Smithy
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Donald would have had more time to review and change cards, and i'm certain neither Woodcutter nor Thief would look like they look. I guess poor Chancellor wouldn't be there at all.
But he is, hooray! :D
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Donald would have had more time to review and change cards, and i'm certain neither Woodcutter nor Thief would look like they look.
I'm certain Woodcutter would.
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Donald would have had more time to review and change cards, and i'm certain neither Woodcutter nor Thief would look like they look.
I'm certain Woodcutter wood.
FIFY.
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Maybe we would have the +buy of woodcutter and the discard deck of chancellor in a single card, this idea has been already proposed and I really like it. The interesting thing is that both effects synergize : you buy more cards and that go straight in your draw deck.
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Donald would have had more time to review and change cards, and i'm certain neither Woodcutter nor Thief would look like they look.
I'm certain Woodcutter wood.
FIFY.
I thought explaining jokes was out of fashion already...
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Imagine if the base set was released after all the other sets, with a theme like "no frills" and a name like Dominion: Frugality.
What cards would you have chosen for previews, and what would you have said about them?
Would it have been the worst expansion?
Absolutely the worst. I suspect that Dominion would actually be a more interesting game if you played it with only the expansions.
Most expansions have a few miscalibrated cards, but at least a third of the base set is either overpowered or overpriced, both relative to the other expansions and even relative to the base treasures. Releasing those cards was understandable at the time, but releasing them now would just be negligent.
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Absolutely the worst.
Agree.
There are some fun cards in there, but if I had to pick one box to remove from dominion that would hurt the game least, I would certainly pick the base.
Except that it might make the game much less likely to attract up new players.
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Imagine if the base set was released after all the other sets, with a theme like "no frills" and a name like Dominion: Frugality.
What cards would you have chosen for previews, and what would you have said about them?
Would it have been the worst expansion?
Absolutely the worst. I suspect that Dominion would actually be a more interesting game if you played it with only the expansions.
Most expansions have a few miscalibrated cards, but at least a third of the base set is either overpowered or overpriced, both relative to the other expansions and even relative to the base treasures. Releasing those cards was understandable at the time, but releasing them now would just be negligent.
Throne Room, Library, and Gardens are some of my favorite cards. I'd hate to not have them.
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When I played first with Base and Intrigue only, Remodel and Torturer were my favourite cards (although Torturer needed villages to work efficiently ; I disliked Witch for this reason).
When I discovered the other sets... I looked as Remodel as something poor, and Torturer was still one of my favourites. I also understood how Chapel could get strong with all those possibilites of engines, even though I quickly understood trashing was important and Chapel could change the game (beware of not trashing too much of your coppers ^^) but since Intrigue also had Masquerade, Stewart and Trading post, it wasn't blitzing.
And today, Torturer is still my favourite attack.
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Another hypothetical could be if the sets were released from last to first. So Guilds, then Dark Ages, then ending with Base.
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Another hypothetical could be if the sets were released from last to first. So Guilds, then Dark Ages, then ending with Base.
The game would be pretty stupid until the base cards would be released after Dark Ages.
On a more serious note, at least Rebuild would have been initially considered weaker than it actually is, since about half of the games would have Shelters.