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Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #171: Gains Upon Gains
« on: December 09, 2022, 01:57:33 pm »
This challenge was quick for me, I already created this double workshop variant a few weeks ago:
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Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #170: 2/7 Offsuit
« on: December 05, 2022, 11:51:29 am »
Its effect *is* a cantrip with a quirky wording. "You may play an Action from your hand." is not exactly equivalent to "+1 Action" (it matters for thrones etc), but it's not significantly weaker. I'd personally prefer e.g. something like "+1 Card +1 Action If the Action card you played just before this is also a Picket, each other player with 4 or more cards in hand discards a card.", but the current text is also correct.
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Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #170: 2/7 Offsuit
« on: December 05, 2022, 02:15:08 am »
On a $3 or $4 mandatory trashing increases the price, because it's very useful in the beginning of the game, but when you can afford and play a $7 card, the game is already very close to the end (and there is a high chance that your junk is already trashed), so the trashing becomes a net negative.
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Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #170: 2/7 Offsuit
« on: December 04, 2022, 02:20:34 pm »
Very simple card, but I think "players start building until they reach $7, then the cursing starts" would be an interesting situation that is not covered by the usual "buy it as your first $5 card" Witches. (The closest official cards are probably Cauldron or Black Cat, but they tend to dump heaps of curses at once, which is a very different experience.) The high cost also means that the "attacks should be terminal" rule is less relevant (you probably won't own too many copies of a card that costs $7) – so I used Laboratory as the vanilla bonus of this card to further differentiate it from other cursing attacks.
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Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #169: I Am Not Throwing Away My [One-]Shot
« on: November 23, 2022, 03:11:10 pm »Morgue
Action - $3
+4 Cards
At the start of your buy phase, you may reveal an Action from your hand. If you didn't, return this to its pile.
This seems to be way too strong for $3 because the "you must have at least one unused Action card in hand" criterion is very easy to satisfy. If there is village support, Morgues will draw your deck even without trashing the starting cards, and then keeping one cheap action card (e.g. one extra copy of Morgue, because owning more provides consistency and it's still cheap) in hand allows you to keep all the Morgues that you play. (It's also very good for e.g. spiking $6 or even $7 in the opening, although in those cases there is a chance that it will be returned.)
I think you should either raise the cost of this card to $5, or raise the cost to $4 and write "discard" instead of "reveal" in the return condition.
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Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #169: I Am Not Throwing Away My [One-]Shot
« on: November 22, 2022, 03:31:42 pm »
Yup, that's another way of looking at it. I think that if we consider a single card in isolation, then the return-to-supply of Encampment is slightly more interesting than the self-trashing of Hero's Demise, but the value of "it's different from the other similar card" is a good reason to implement Hero's Demise this way.
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Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #169: I Am Not Throwing Away My [One-]Shot
« on: November 22, 2022, 07:12:42 am »
And my own submission, a one-shot Remodel variant:
This is primarily a strong oneshot Estate trasher, which is somewhat similar to Island, but gains a strong card instead of the 3 VP hidden away for the endgame. (It will frequently gain $5 Actions, acting like a single-use Altar, but it becomes even better in the presence of good $6 cards.) In the opening/early game this is a very good choice for $4; but if you have $5, you probably buy the best $5 card directly (if its first play is more useful than "Trash an Estate from your hand.").
Similarly to other Estate trashers, it has an unhappy case where it appears with 4 Coppers in turn 3/4; in that case it can trash one Copper to either regain itself or gain another $4 card. Unlike most cards that work with Estates, this remains relevant in games with Shelters, because it can still turn a Shelter into a nice $5 card.
Later in the game it can be used for gaining Provinces, especially when there are Workshop variants to gain lots of Bricks and enough +Cards/+Actions to support this terminal, handsize-reducing payload. In the presence of the usual suspects (Fortress, Rats, Trail) it is powerful, but those strategies pile out Provinces or other strong cards (as opposed to Bishop/Fortress, which just generates VP) and still require repeated $4 gains to recover the Bricks.
Bricks return to the Supply (instead to trashing itself) to make it more viable as a Curse removal tool (when there are no other trashers), but some copies will still end up in the trash when two Bricks are used to gain a Province. (Theoretical note: this could participate in infinite loops, but the mandatory trashing means that it only loops with a gain-from-trash card; so those loops won't be simpler than the already existing ones.)
I was thinking about making this throne-compatible, but I had to add the "If you do" because otherwise it would have been crazy with Captain / Band of Misfits / Overlord.
This needs to be a one-shot card (instead of an Event or a new token type) because "being a stop card" is a significant part of its cost and the Bricks + Bricks = Province interaction will be relevant in many games.
This is primarily a strong oneshot Estate trasher, which is somewhat similar to Island, but gains a strong card instead of the 3 VP hidden away for the endgame. (It will frequently gain $5 Actions, acting like a single-use Altar, but it becomes even better in the presence of good $6 cards.) In the opening/early game this is a very good choice for $4; but if you have $5, you probably buy the best $5 card directly (if its first play is more useful than "Trash an Estate from your hand.").
Similarly to other Estate trashers, it has an unhappy case where it appears with 4 Coppers in turn 3/4; in that case it can trash one Copper to either regain itself or gain another $4 card. Unlike most cards that work with Estates, this remains relevant in games with Shelters, because it can still turn a Shelter into a nice $5 card.
Later in the game it can be used for gaining Provinces, especially when there are Workshop variants to gain lots of Bricks and enough +Cards/+Actions to support this terminal, handsize-reducing payload. In the presence of the usual suspects (Fortress, Rats, Trail) it is powerful, but those strategies pile out Provinces or other strong cards (as opposed to Bishop/Fortress, which just generates VP) and still require repeated $4 gains to recover the Bricks.
Bricks return to the Supply (instead to trashing itself) to make it more viable as a Curse removal tool (when there are no other trashers), but some copies will still end up in the trash when two Bricks are used to gain a Province. (Theoretical note: this could participate in infinite loops, but the mandatory trashing means that it only loops with a gain-from-trash card; so those loops won't be simpler than the already existing ones.)
I was thinking about making this throne-compatible, but I had to add the "If you do" because otherwise it would have been crazy with Captain / Band of Misfits / Overlord.
This needs to be a one-shot card (instead of an Event or a new token type) because "being a stop card" is a significant part of its cost and the Bricks + Bricks = Province interaction will be relevant in many games.
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Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #169: I Am Not Throwing Away My [One-]Shot
« on: November 22, 2022, 04:57:24 am »
I think Herald and Hero's Demise have approximately the same strength because Herald is very weak at the beginning of the game and "comes online" only when you managed to trash most of your starting deck. I'd perhaps make Hero's Demise return to the supply (like Encampment) because otherwise it has a chance to just "disappear" from the game, but it's a good card in its current form as well.
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Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #168: Turkey Time
« on: November 14, 2022, 02:20:22 am »
Marmalade, a delayed draw card following the example of Research and Archive. The main difference from Archive is that this is a "bulk deal" that puts 3 cards into the jar and makes them all available at the start of next turn (instead of providing filtering by making one available immediately and delaying one by two turns); and unlike Research this is not trash-for-benefit but fixed-size draw card. A secondary difference is that this is a Treasure, so e.g. this can set aside cards that were just gained by terminal gainers or treasures like Supplies or Anvil.
Obviously, this card will be strong in the early game and in slow, money/slog decks where shuffling is rare and the delay is less significant. On the other hand, this provides a form of draw, which is stronger when the average value of cards is higher; so this remains somewhat relevant in engine strategies, especially if other sources of draw are limited, +Actions are expensive, and/or you can use discard-for-benefit or certain Horse gainers (Paddock, Cavalry, Supplies, ...) to control which cards will be set aside.
I wanted to name this card after a fruit preserve, because we're putting things into a jar for later use; then I spotted a picture of marmalade and recalled that it has the same bright color as Treasure-Duration cards (which was a secondary motivation for turning this into a Treasure instead of a non-terminal Action like Research).
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Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.
« on: October 28, 2022, 05:19:20 pm »
What is the usual delay between the printing date and the previews / online availability? (What was the delay for the last few expansions?)
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Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #167: Monster Mash
« on: October 28, 2022, 04:05:53 pm »
Thanks for the wording suggestion, I applied it. As a nice side effect I was able to change the second part of the text without the text placement issues that I encountered earlier:
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Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #167: Monster Mash
« on: October 28, 2022, 11:58:20 am »
EDIT: obsolete version, see current one below.
A multi-type card-shaped thing that likes multi-type Action cards. Rule clarifications:
This can act as a source of +Actions (limited by the available Favors) and also as a source of +Cards if there are suitable multi-type actions. (Usually there will be at least an Action-Liaison, but e.g. Attacks and Durations are also good candidates.)
I'm also thinking about saying something like "spend up to 3 Favors for +1 Action each" but that would make the text longer (and trigger a display ugliness in the card image generator). EDIT: I did something like this, see below.
A multi-type card-shaped thing that likes multi-type Action cards. Rule clarifications:
- This card-shaped thing belongs to the Allies pile and can be randomly selected from there when there is a Liaison in the Kingdom.
- The text on this card-shaped thing should be interpreted as a Way: both the draw and the +Actions option happens when you play an Action and choose Way of the Beast.
This can act as a source of +Actions (limited by the available Favors) and also as a source of +Cards if there are suitable multi-type actions. (Usually there will be at least an Action-Liaison, but e.g. Attacks and Durations are also good candidates.)
I'm also thinking about saying something like "spend up to 3 Favors for +1 Action each" but that would make the text longer (and trigger a display ugliness in the card image generator). EDIT: I did something like this, see below.
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Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #166: Who still cares about buying?
« on: October 19, 2022, 07:40:53 pm »
I also like Colonnade and it is nice to see another card with that kind of effect 
As the wording of Symposium is already similar to Imp, what would you think about giving it an Imp-like "that you don't have a copy of in play" restriction? This would allow you to e.g. decrease the cost from $6, add +1 Buy and/or increase the VP bonus back to the original +2VP / buy of Colonnade; and the fact that you cannot stack more +VP onto each buy would make this card less similar to Collection and Groundskeeper (which give 1 VP / gain, but you usually stack many copies of them).
As the wording of Symposium is already similar to Imp, what would you think about giving it an Imp-like "that you don't have a copy of in play" restriction? This would allow you to e.g. decrease the cost from $6, add +1 Buy and/or increase the VP bonus back to the original +2VP / buy of Colonnade; and the fact that you cannot stack more +VP onto each buy would make this card less similar to Collection and Groundskeeper (which give 1 VP / gain, but you usually stack many copies of them).
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Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #166: Who still cares about buying?
« on: October 18, 2022, 04:59:01 pm »I feel like the "can't buy 0" rider on Old Bridge is really only there to justify the card costing $1. It will almost never come up when trying to buy any other card, and just because you can't stack copies of a card doesn't mean it's balanced. Candlestick Maker and Ducat are both comparable to this (being non-terminal cards that give +1 Buy), and they both cost $2. Herbalist is also similar, and it doesn't even replace the action. I think you're undervaluing the bridge effect.
I also don't get the flavor. "Old Bridge" conjures to mind a rickety bridge that can't take too much weight, yet this card says that it can't take too little wight?
I think that the simple "+1 Action +1 Buy, cards cost $1 less this turn" card would be a balanced card for $4 that is comparable to Bridge: initially the +$1 of Bridge is stronger than the +1 Action, but it is significantly easier to build a megaturn when you don't need so many villages (or you can use the villages to support e.g. smithy variants). Also note that, similarly to Bridge Troll, there would be lots of stuff bought for $0 in the last few important turns, because Coppers are usually trashed and getting a Silver / Gold is almost always weaker than yet another copy of "+1 Action +1 Buy -1 cost". Personally I would dislike this card, because it is too centralizing: the optimal strategy is to trash quickly, get as many copies of it as you can, and then empty three piles. (Other cost reducers are more complex: with Highway, you need to get Buys/gains, with Bridge, Inventor and Bridge Troll you need to get villages.)
I added the "can't buy 0" condition to rule out decks that use this card as the only payload and make pileouts a bit more interesting (taking the last Estate may be difficult...). And once this condition is present, the cost of $1 ensures that it is easy to get the first Old Bridge, but it is difficult to buy up many copies of it quickly (unless there is another strong source of +Buy) – which mirrors the fact that the first copy of this is relatively weak, but many copies are very strong together.
These mean that Old Bridge differs from the existing cost reducers in the following areas: (1) it does not help gaining more copies of itself (2) it needs more $ production than other cost reducers and (3) it is less effective for pileouts (you cannot buy up the Estates or last few copies of cheap action cards).
I completely agree that the name "Old Bridge" is unfortunate – it fits the low cost, but does not fit the "cannot gain cheap card" effect. Does anyone have a better idea?
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Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #166: Who still cares about buying?
« on: October 16, 2022, 11:19:46 am »
Ok, then I choose Old Bridge (if the "cannot buy" effect fulfills the "cares about buying" goal).
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Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #166: Who still cares about buying?
« on: October 15, 2022, 05:57:43 pm »
Two independent submissions:
- Con Artist is a relatively strong source of +Cards and trashing, but becomes problematic when the player starts greening and doesn't want to trash provinces.
- Old Bridge is a cost reduction card that only costs $1, but (as far as I see) does not break the game immediately, mostly because you cannot buy an Old Bridge after playing an Old Bridge.
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