151
Mini-Set Design Contest / Re: The Contest Set Card List
« on: May 27, 2016, 11:02:50 pm »I called mine seer.Wow, that's even worse than calling it mint.
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152
Dominion: Empires Previews / Re: Empires Bonus Preview #2: Crown
« on: May 27, 2016, 06:14:46 pm »My first game with Saboteur was a five-player game where everyone was so afraid of them that we basically developed an unspoken agreement not to use them (it reminded me a little of the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction during the Cold War). Then late in the game, one of the players who was trailing got desperate and bought one, and soon everyone was going for them.I suspect Dominion somewhat lacks Timmy-appeal.
That's because our game is actually balanced
Well, we still have stuff like Scout and Thief that are kind of equivalent to Magic's Timmy stuff in terms of power level.
I think a better analogy might be stuff like Treasure Map, which looks hugely powerful, but really isn't.
EDIT: I guess sometimes Scout and Thief look really strong to rookies.
"You mean Saboteur TRASHES THEIR CARDS!?!?!?!?!?!? OMG SO POWERFUL OP"
I remember the first game I played with Intrigue cards. It was a 6p game. The first played opened Saboteur and then the rest of us rushed the Ironworks. Maybe it didn't help that we had just played a Uni/Vineyards game so we were all in the mindset of "must get all the action cards".
153
Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Max VP tokens from Goons.
« on: May 03, 2016, 01:39:28 pm »
I've actually been tinkering with this for some time as the ultimate infinite Golden Deck (i.e., a deck that's guaranteed to work regardless of shuffle luck and will never end the game). In addition to using Trader, you can have a 6-player game so there are 30 Estates (12 in the supply and 18 in the starting decks, which you can acquire with Masquerade) and you can empty a third pile without ending the game. You can also use Black Market and have it contain one of each card that's not in the kingdom (the FAQ only says "at least 15 cards"), and save the Kingdom slots for cards you need multiples of (so things like Trader and Masquerade can come from the Black Market deck). Finally, you can use Procession-Hireling-Graverobber to draw your deck (so you can use Counterfeit and Contraband for extra buys without requiring a kingdom slot for multiple Scrying Pools). It then becomes a question of how many buys you can generate, but I'm confident you can get well over 10000VP, every turn, forever.
For reference, you'll have 48 Goons (8 Goons (with one left in the supply for BoM and one set aside for inheritance) + 10 BoMs + 30 Estates), so you'll be getting 48VP per Buy.
Oh, and you should definitely inherit Goons, not King's Court. VP=Goons x Buys, and King's Court only helps increase Buys. Because you should already have far more Buys than Goons, your priority should be increasing Goons, not Buys.
For reference, you'll have 48 Goons (8 Goons (with one left in the supply for BoM and one set aside for inheritance) + 10 BoMs + 30 Estates), so you'll be getting 48VP per Buy.
Oh, and you should definitely inherit Goons, not King's Court. VP=Goons x Buys, and King's Court only helps increase Buys. Because you should already have far more Buys than Goons, your priority should be increasing Goons, not Buys.
154
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Realms
« on: April 13, 2016, 10:34:42 pm »For Fallen Empire, although you said the order choice was because of the large difference between 6-3 and 9-0, I think it might work better as either mandatory 6-3 or random, because of platinum. Start with a 9-0. t1: Buy platinum. t2: Buy copper. t3/4: buy gold. proceed to build whatever engine strikes your fancy, because you have that much money and still only 7 or 8 cards. And that's assuming you didn't choose survivors for your ruins.Technically, you can do that even on a 6/3 if one of your Ruins was Abandoned Mine. With Ruined Market as the other ruin, you can take off pretty quickly. But so can your opponents, which is why I'm okay with it.
I apologize for being harsh. I suppose it fits my profile pic.No problem at all, I appreciate the feedback.
From a phone it's hard to give good feedback, but I like Terrains more than Governments. They are simpler and seem to change the game in a way to make it more fun (and presumably that's the goal of fan cards).So do I, mostly, though I still like the Governments sometimes. That's actually why I made it so that you're twice as likely to have a Terrain with an effect than a Government with an effect, and why I made it so that you can have multiple terrains but not multiple Governments (that, and the fact that Fallen Empire and Uninhabited Lands don't work well together).
Rocky Highlands could have some unplanned effects though. Think about Great Hall, Nobles, Harem, Inheritance, etc.True, and I did consider the effects on hybrid VP, but it hasn't been a big issue in games we've played.
I do like Ancient Kingdom though, but in combination with cost reducers it could get really bad. Trash a Duchy to have a Tactican turn then buy it back for $1!True, but that's only really all that powerful with Bridge, Quarry, or Highway. Bridge Troll and Ferry stay in effect at the start of your turn and reduce the number of cards you draw, and you can't have more than one copy of Princess. And honestly, occasionally getting to pull off maneuvers like that is more fun than annoying, at least to me.
The real broken combo is with Fortress, but again, I'm okay with that.
I'll admit that some of these can affect the balance of the cards and make some cards stronger or weaker than normal. But I haven't run into a lot of problems, and I like the change in strategy (and in my experience, these are no more likely to create games with a single dominant strategy than a normal full-random setup).
155
Dominion General Discussion / Re: What does everyone think is the best village 2.0
« on: April 05, 2016, 07:15:36 pm »If you're worried about everyone voting for King's Court, you could always change the question to "What is the best village other than King's Court"?Well, I guess I have to add the TR variants nowWell that's hardly an argument against having a proper list of villages, is it.I did not add the Throne Room variants because I think they are quite different from villages. They just allow other cards to be played like villages.
Not at all! You don't necessarily even need any cards with +1 Action for Throne Room to be a village. Start a hand with Throne Room / Throne Room / Smithy and keep the chain going with more throne rooms and payload / draw.
Good point! Never thought of that. If lots of people vote your comment up, or have similar posts, I will add them. However, once KC is added, almost everyone will vote for it.
I personally count Throne Rooms as full-on villages, when counting villages, to make sure I have a good number of villages. They can be harder to use but then so can some of the other villages.
156
Variants and Fan Cards / Dominion: Realms
« on: April 02, 2016, 11:00:52 pm »
So, a couple months ago, before Empires was announced, I was wanting to mix things up a bit, so I came up with the idea of "realms." These are fixed effects, chosen as part of the Kingdom selection, that affect all players (for example, a realm that said, "At the start of each of your turns, +1 Card," would have the same effect as each player having a Hireling in play, barring edge cases like Peddler). Some of them do nothing, so you still get some normal games. Note that a couple of them do use Coin tokens or Dark Ages cards (shelters and ruins).
There are two types of Realms: Government, and Terrain. They are mixed together in a deck, and you draw until you've drawn one of each. Keep the first Government Realm, and all Terrain Realms (except superfluous Grasslands; see below). Put the selected Realms next to the Supply.
Of course, you can tweak the setup rules and the number of "No effect" Realms to suit your tastes.
Terrains:
Grasslands (4 copies): No effect.
Note: As noted, I'd recommend not using this if you also drew another Terrain card (and not using more than one Grasslands if you drew multiple copies). If your only Terrain card is a single Grasslands, it's nice to have it to show that there's no Terrain effect, but otherwise, it's just superfluous.
Fertile Plains: At the start of each of your turns, +1 Action.
Coastlands: At the start of each of your turns, +1 Buy.
Note: I started with the basics. I didn't include +1 Card or +$1 Realms because I didn't think that would change the gameplay as much as automatically getting an extra Action or Buy each turn (having 6-card starting hands isn't that much different from having 5-card starting hands, and there are plenty of ways to generate income).
Great River: When you gain a card, you may put it anywhere in your deck. If you would put a gained card on top of your deck (except by this ability), you may instead set it aside. If you do, put it in your hand at the start of your next turn.
Rocky Highlands: Victory cards are worth 1VP more. Provinces and Colonies cost $2 more, and all other Victory cards cost $1 more (prior to any cost reductions).
Note: The reason Provinces and Colonies have a bigger cost increase than other Victory cards is to reduce the adverse effect on alt-VP.
Vast Steppes: Each non-Kingdom Victory pile has 50% more cards than normal.
Note: Yes, this requires both the base game and Intrigue (or the Base Cards set) for multiplayer, but I assume most players have that. In a perfect world, it would also affect Kingdom Victory cards, but that wouldn't work in multiplayer (unless you had multiple copies of the same set, or used placeholders).
Groves: At the start of the game, each player places a Coin token on each Kingdom Supply pile. The first time you gain a card from a pile, take your Coin token from it.
Note: A little reward for variety. The reason it only effects Kingdom cards is because it
Dense Woodlands: After resolving each Action and at the start of your Buy phase, you may discard a card from your hand. If you do, choose one: +1 Card, +1 Action, +1 Buy, or + $1. You may choose each bonus only once per turn.
Note: You have to select a bonus if you can (so if, for some reason, you want to discard a fourth card when you've already selected +1 Action, +1 Buy, and +$1, you have to take the +1 Card, even if you'd rather not draw a card). However, after you've selected all of the bonuses, you can still discard cards if you want (although Dense Woodlands doesn't give you anything for it). I tried a version that set aside cards and discarded them during the Clean Up phase to avoid triggering Tunnel, but I'm not sure that combo is so overpowered to require the additional complexity (compare, say, Market Square-Bonfire or Market Square-Plan).
Rich Valley: At the start of the game and the first time you gain a Victory card, take 3 Coin tokens.
Note: A nice boost to the opening, and another when you start greening. You could purchase an early Estate just to get the Coin tokens sooner, but unless you have a specific plan for it, I don't think it's generally worth it.
Governments:
Feudal Kingdom (8 copies): No effect.
Fallen Empire: Replace your starting Coppers with 1 Estate, 1 Curse, 2 Ruins of your choice, and 3 Spoils. You may choose the order of your starting deck (prior to drawing your first hand).
Note: Make sure to buy some Treasure (or virtual coin, gainers, etc.) or you could be stuck buying Copper. I let you choose the order of your starting deck because the difference between a 6-3 split and a 9-0 split is often too great to leave it up to luck (or maybe I'm just risk-averse; to be honest, I already normally play with a house rule that you can choose the order of your starting deck).
Ancient Kingdom: At the start of each of your turns, you may trash a card from your hand; if you do, +1 Card per [coin] it costs. You may buy or gain cards in the trash as though they were in the Supply.
Note: The initial idea was to buy or gain cards from the trash, which meant I needed an incentive to trash decent cards. In the end, the Apprentice ability overshadowed the gain-from-trash ability, but it's turned out to be fun enough that I kept it.
Noble Cities: The first player starts with a Curse as an additional starting card. At the start of each of your turns, +2 Cards, then put a card from your hand in the discard pile of the player to your left.
Note: This was my brother's idea. Like Masquerade, but without the trashing (and it gives you +2 Cards for the same reason as Masquerade). I added the starting Curse because I thought it would be fun to have an "Old Maid" to pass around in games without junkers. Note that the Curse doesn't come from the Supply; you still have (n-1)*10 Curses in the Supply in an n-player game (just like how starting Estates don't come from the Supply).
Uninhabited Lands: Start the game with no starting cards and 5 Coin tokens (prior to any setup effects). Include Platinum and Colonies in the Supply. When you would trash a card during your turn, you may instead gain a Copper; if you do, +$1.
Note: This is the oldest Realm; it started from an idea that it would be fun to play a game with a single Workshop as the only starting card, or with no starting cards and Alms in the Kingdom. The reason for including Platinum and Colonies is just to add to the "building an empire from nothing" feel. The trashing language is so that trashers aren't worthless. The reason you don't just gain the Copper to your hand (which would be simpler) is to keep it from being too easy to autopile Rats (which happened in one of our early games). The "during your turn" clause is to keep it from blocking trashing attacks. Note that if you play a mandatory trasher and don't have any eligible cards to trash, you can still choose between gaining a Copper and trying to trash a card (even if the latter ultimately fails). The same is true if there are no Coppers in the Supply (although you don't get +$1 unless you actually gain a Copper).
There are two types of Realms: Government, and Terrain. They are mixed together in a deck, and you draw until you've drawn one of each. Keep the first Government Realm, and all Terrain Realms (except superfluous Grasslands; see below). Put the selected Realms next to the Supply.
Of course, you can tweak the setup rules and the number of "No effect" Realms to suit your tastes.
Terrains:
Grasslands (4 copies): No effect.
Note: As noted, I'd recommend not using this if you also drew another Terrain card (and not using more than one Grasslands if you drew multiple copies). If your only Terrain card is a single Grasslands, it's nice to have it to show that there's no Terrain effect, but otherwise, it's just superfluous.
Fertile Plains: At the start of each of your turns, +1 Action.
Coastlands: At the start of each of your turns, +1 Buy.
Note: I started with the basics. I didn't include +1 Card or +$1 Realms because I didn't think that would change the gameplay as much as automatically getting an extra Action or Buy each turn (having 6-card starting hands isn't that much different from having 5-card starting hands, and there are plenty of ways to generate income).
Great River: When you gain a card, you may put it anywhere in your deck. If you would put a gained card on top of your deck (except by this ability), you may instead set it aside. If you do, put it in your hand at the start of your next turn.
Rocky Highlands: Victory cards are worth 1VP more. Provinces and Colonies cost $2 more, and all other Victory cards cost $1 more (prior to any cost reductions).
Note: The reason Provinces and Colonies have a bigger cost increase than other Victory cards is to reduce the adverse effect on alt-VP.
Vast Steppes: Each non-Kingdom Victory pile has 50% more cards than normal.
Note: Yes, this requires both the base game and Intrigue (or the Base Cards set) for multiplayer, but I assume most players have that. In a perfect world, it would also affect Kingdom Victory cards, but that wouldn't work in multiplayer (unless you had multiple copies of the same set, or used placeholders).
Groves: At the start of the game, each player places a Coin token on each Kingdom Supply pile. The first time you gain a card from a pile, take your Coin token from it.
Note: A little reward for variety. The reason it only effects Kingdom cards is because it
Dense Woodlands: After resolving each Action and at the start of your Buy phase, you may discard a card from your hand. If you do, choose one: +1 Card, +1 Action, +1 Buy, or + $1. You may choose each bonus only once per turn.
Note: You have to select a bonus if you can (so if, for some reason, you want to discard a fourth card when you've already selected +1 Action, +1 Buy, and +$1, you have to take the +1 Card, even if you'd rather not draw a card). However, after you've selected all of the bonuses, you can still discard cards if you want (although Dense Woodlands doesn't give you anything for it). I tried a version that set aside cards and discarded them during the Clean Up phase to avoid triggering Tunnel, but I'm not sure that combo is so overpowered to require the additional complexity (compare, say, Market Square-Bonfire or Market Square-Plan).
Rich Valley: At the start of the game and the first time you gain a Victory card, take 3 Coin tokens.
Note: A nice boost to the opening, and another when you start greening. You could purchase an early Estate just to get the Coin tokens sooner, but unless you have a specific plan for it, I don't think it's generally worth it.
Governments:
Feudal Kingdom (8 copies): No effect.
Fallen Empire: Replace your starting Coppers with 1 Estate, 1 Curse, 2 Ruins of your choice, and 3 Spoils. You may choose the order of your starting deck (prior to drawing your first hand).
Note: Make sure to buy some Treasure (or virtual coin, gainers, etc.) or you could be stuck buying Copper. I let you choose the order of your starting deck because the difference between a 6-3 split and a 9-0 split is often too great to leave it up to luck (or maybe I'm just risk-averse; to be honest, I already normally play with a house rule that you can choose the order of your starting deck).
Ancient Kingdom: At the start of each of your turns, you may trash a card from your hand; if you do, +1 Card per [coin] it costs. You may buy or gain cards in the trash as though they were in the Supply.
Note: The initial idea was to buy or gain cards from the trash, which meant I needed an incentive to trash decent cards. In the end, the Apprentice ability overshadowed the gain-from-trash ability, but it's turned out to be fun enough that I kept it.
Noble Cities: The first player starts with a Curse as an additional starting card. At the start of each of your turns, +2 Cards, then put a card from your hand in the discard pile of the player to your left.
Note: This was my brother's idea. Like Masquerade, but without the trashing (and it gives you +2 Cards for the same reason as Masquerade). I added the starting Curse because I thought it would be fun to have an "Old Maid" to pass around in games without junkers. Note that the Curse doesn't come from the Supply; you still have (n-1)*10 Curses in the Supply in an n-player game (just like how starting Estates don't come from the Supply).
Uninhabited Lands: Start the game with no starting cards and 5 Coin tokens (prior to any setup effects). Include Platinum and Colonies in the Supply. When you would trash a card during your turn, you may instead gain a Copper; if you do, +$1.
Note: This is the oldest Realm; it started from an idea that it would be fun to play a game with a single Workshop as the only starting card, or with no starting cards and Alms in the Kingdom. The reason for including Platinum and Colonies is just to add to the "building an empire from nothing" feel. The trashing language is so that trashers aren't worthless. The reason you don't just gain the Copper to your hand (which would be simpler) is to keep it from being too easy to autopile Rats (which happened in one of our early games). The "during your turn" clause is to keep it from blocking trashing attacks. Note that if you play a mandatory trasher and don't have any eligible cards to trash, you can still choose between gaining a Copper and trying to trash a card (even if the latter ultimately fails). The same is true if there are no Coppers in the Supply (although you don't get +$1 unless you actually gain a Copper).
157
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Dominion Cards You Hate
« on: March 30, 2016, 01:01:35 am »I do tend to try to go for deck-drawing engines more often than I should. I doubt it's purely the Stables:Treasure ratio, though, because of all the Stable-less hands (which are more common than the treasureless hands). Or is Stables more of a money-ish card where you might hope to play a couple on a good turn but not rely on it for significant draw, and just accept that a significant percentage of your hands aren't going to have any draw in them (almost halfway between an actual engine and Big Money-Terminal Draw)?Stables. Whenever I try to use it, I always keep drawing a hand with treasure but no Stables followed by a hand with several Stables and no treasure (or vice versa). And then in the next game when Stables look like a good idea, I tell myself that there's no such thing as an "unlucky card," that Stables shouldn't be that bad, and that my past experiences are just a statistical outlier (with maybe a bit of confirmation bias) and no predictor of how good Stables will be in the current game...only for it to happen again and make me lose. So frustrating, especially since I know that it's really not a bad card, just one I tend to have bad experiences with.
I'd have to see how you're playing. That almost never happens to me. You might be overbuying Stables, for example.
158
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Dominion Cards You Hate
« on: March 29, 2016, 10:43:36 pm »
Stables. Whenever I try to use it, I always keep drawing a hand with treasure but no Stables followed by a hand with several Stables and no treasure (or vice versa). And then in the next game when Stables look like a good idea, I tell myself that there's no such thing as an "unlucky card," that Stables shouldn't be that bad, and that my past experiences are just a statistical outlier (with maybe a bit of confirmation bias) and no predictor of how good Stables will be in the current game...only for it to happen again and make me lose. So frustrating, especially since I know that it's really not a bad card, just one I tend to have bad experiences with.
159
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Printing Fan-made cards with art included
« on: January 11, 2016, 10:41:36 pm »Check out http://www.makeplayingcards.com/. I've done some looking around at many sites for professionally printing fan cards (although for games other than Dominion), and that site has a nice layout for printing your cards, and lots of quality options.By my calculations, the closest size is Bridge size, which is 1/20 in (1.27 mm) too small in each direction (which doesn't sound like much, but would be obvious if you're paying attention).
There are other similar sites as well, and it is probably way cheaper than you think (I know it was for me!).
Most of the sites range around $35-$50 US for a deck of 216 custom cards. (Each single card can be customized too, front and back!)
The only issue with Dominion is the size of the cards. Make Playing Cards has many option for card sizes, but I'm not sure if they have the Dominion size or not.
160
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Seasons - the set the community has been waiting for!
« on: January 11, 2016, 06:41:05 pm »Sanitarium is the draw-up-to-x village that for some reason still doesn’t exist in Dominion. It comes with a very engine-friendly on-gain bonus that only works in Spring. Otherwise it would be overpowered. The trash-on-gain incentivizes you to gain Sanitarium during the opening and, with weak or no other trashing around, as many of them as possible on turns 3 to 5. Of course that’s not always going to be the best strategy but most of the time, Sanitarium’s unique abilities will make the decision not to prematurely gain a village non-trivial.I always assumed there was a reason why non-terminal draw-to-x doesn't exist. With an action-based deck and a card that lets you discard non-actions, you can easily go through your deck each turn (and the fact that this is a village makes it easier to use non-drawing terminals as payload). I'm not sure this is enough to be overpowered, but it will definitely require testing.
161
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Make a flavorful X or Z card
« on: January 07, 2016, 11:58:05 pm »
Zitherist
$5 - Action
+1 Card
+2 Actions
You may gain an Action card costing up to $4.
$5 - Action
+1 Card
+2 Actions
You may gain an Action card costing up to $4.
162
Rules Questions / Re: Mission and Outpost
« on: January 07, 2016, 09:22:50 pm »Oops, misread which clause you were referring to.^ Huh? You can't use the Mission effect unless the previous turn wasn't yours, as written on the card. Without Outpost, you can only have two turns in a row before your opponent gets a turn. There is no Infinite Mission strategy.Right. You would need to finish a turn with enough money and buys to buy many multiple Missions.
You can't even do that. It says "Once per turn" at the start of the card text.
Yeah, the discussion branched off from here:Although, I've often wondered how messy Mission gets without the Once Per Turn clause.So leaving the "Previous Turn" statement in place, what kind of shenanigans could you come up without the Once Per Turn statement.
In that case, there probably aren't as many potential abuses (especially since cost reduction doesn't work on Events), but it could still get bad if you had a deck that used a lot of Gainers and VP tokens and managed to buy it several times. Best case scenario is probably something like you use a bunch of Gold/Plantinum to buy Missions, then slowly remodel it into Provinces/Colonies. A Governor deck could probably get good use out of it (get Gold with Governors, use Governors to draw your deck and buy lots of Missions with the Gold, then use the Remodel function to pick up Provinces from your Gold on the Mission turns). I can't think of any extreme scenarios offhand, but I can see why it would be more balanced with the limit.
Not to mention that having to sit while your opponent takes several turns in a row (which would likely happen at low-level play even if the Mission-buyer had no way to capitalize off of those extra turns) is no fun.
163
Rules Questions / Re: Mission and Outpost
« on: January 07, 2016, 06:09:11 pm »Although, I've often wondered how messy Mission gets without the Once Per Turn clause.
It's pretty horrific with Monument:
1. Build a deck that's guaranteed to generate $4 every turn (simply trashing your Estates/Shelters is sufficient if you don't add any stop cards other than your trasher and a single Monument) and contains at least one Monument.
2. Play Monument if it's in your hand; either way, play $4 and buy Mission.
3. Repeat #2 as many times as you can stand, gathering an unlimited number of VP tokens (remember, they're not component-limited).
What makes it worse is, unless there's some way to 3-pile, there's no way to actually end the game, meaning you have to eventually give a turn to your opponent. If he can mirror before you can end the game, it eventually comes down to a test of patience.
Alternatively, if you can gain a VP lead without sacrificing your ability to always hit $4, use a single copy of a Workshop variant to very slowly pile out Copper, Silver, and any Action card that provides +1 Action and either +1 Card or +$1 (either of which ensures you still hit $4).
You can also use the infinite Mission strategy to try to get the perfect hand (although situations where this works are probably rarer than might be initially thought; connecting Treasure Maps is the first thing that comes to mind, but that probably wouldn't be as broken or slow as other situations).
Basically, the ability to take infinite turns as long as you always hit $4 makes things go really slowly as long as you can accomplish at least something productive with at least some of those turns (even if it's just reducing the Copper pile by 1 once per shuffle). And that's assuming that people are playing to win legitimately; it gets even worse if someone just wants to stall until his opponent resigns.
164
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: You make the card: An F.DS community-created fan card! (Part 8)
« on: December 15, 2015, 06:02:27 pm »
How about a discreet discrete diss Crete poll?
Quote
Which of the following is the worst thing about Crete? (all responses are hidden)
165
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: You make the card: An F.DS community-created fan card! (Part 5.5)
« on: December 04, 2015, 05:57:25 pm »
One question to ask about each of these triggers is, "Do we want to pause the game (or does the game already pause) every time this happens just to check whether someone wants to react?" For example, if there were a reaction that reacted to playing a Treasure, players would have to play their Treasures slowly, pausing after each one to check whether anyone wanted to react (in fact, I think Donald X has used such a trigger as an example of the principle I'm describing). Ideally, the triggers should either be something that creates a natural pause in the game (like an Attack), or something the owner of the Reaction does (so he doesn't need to check whether anyone else wants to react).
166
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions
« on: December 01, 2015, 07:27:53 pm »These are both speculative, but they seem promising.
Cultist + Save
A Cultist chain is a great way to draw a bunch of other action cards you can't play! Normally, to play other action cards after Cultist, you need to lead with a village. But it takes a lot of villages to reliably open with a village. It's really sad to open with no village, play a bunch of Cultists and draw a village (and other action cards). Well, with Save and a couple villages, you only need to experience this sadness once; simply save the unplayed village for your next turn! Rinse and repeat for a decent engine fueled off of Cultist's draw.
Cultist + Coin of the Realm
Or, even better, grab a couple Coins of the Realm. Because they're treasures, you can play them after a Cultist chain. On the next turn, you can play your Cultist chain and call Coin of the Realm if you have any other actions you want to play. Play your second Coin of the Realm and you're in a great position!
Haven, Fishing Village, Scheme, Courtyard, Mandarin, and Gear can all do this too.
167
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: New Reserve - Investment
« on: December 01, 2015, 07:22:32 pm »
What about making it a cantrip (and making the trashing optional, but a requirement for matting it)? That makes it stronger as a one-shot trasher, and keeps it from being a Confusion after you call it.
Investment
- Action-Reserve
+1 Card
+1 Action
Trash up to 2 Treasures from your hand. If you trashed a Treasure this way, put this on your Tavern mat.
---------------------------------------------------
When you gain a Province, you may call this, to gain a Gold, putting it on top of your deck.
I think "Trash up to 2 Treasures" is better than "You may trash 2 Treasures" because the latter causes ambiguity about what should happen if you only have one Treasure in your hand (Can you choose to trash 2 Treasures and then fail to fully carry it out? What keeps you from lying about only having one Treasure when you have, say, a Copper that you want to trash and a Gold that you don't?).
This does let you trash a Copper/Silver for a Gold next turn if you play it on a turn when you buy a Province, but I'm not sure that's overpowered (compare it to Taxman).
Investment
- Action-Reserve+1 Card
+1 Action
Trash up to 2 Treasures from your hand. If you trashed a Treasure this way, put this on your Tavern mat.
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When you gain a Province, you may call this, to gain a Gold, putting it on top of your deck.
I think "Trash up to 2 Treasures" is better than "You may trash 2 Treasures" because the latter causes ambiguity about what should happen if you only have one Treasure in your hand (Can you choose to trash 2 Treasures and then fail to fully carry it out? What keeps you from lying about only having one Treasure when you have, say, a Copper that you want to trash and a Gold that you don't?).
This does let you trash a Copper/Silver for a Gold next turn if you play it on a turn when you buy a Province, but I'm not sure that's overpowered (compare it to Taxman).
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Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2015 Edition: $5 cards
« on: November 24, 2015, 06:36:13 pm »I ranked Treasure Trove 30th, here it's 59th.Care to elaborate? I've seen it used to good effect in Big Money and can see the synergy with Copper-trashers and scaling trash-for-benefit, but don't feel I really understand the card.
Guys, Treasure Trove is totally broken. It's a difficult card to use in engines but oh mansies, this thing is enormous. I think the community really needs to rethink this card; there's a Treasure Trove of potential here that most people appear to just not be seeing.
I ranked Distant Lands 20th, here it's 54th.I agree. Mathematically, Distant Lands gives you more VP for your money than Provinces (3 Distant Lands give the same VP as 2 Provinces but cost $1 less), and is the only non-scaling VP card other than Colony to do so. And while it costs an action to play (and shouldn't be bought unless you're confident you'll draw and play it before the end of the game), it removes itself from your deck, making greening easier.
*evil laugh* I remember losing so many games in playtesting because I thought I could just get by without going for Distant Lands. Don't let this happen to you, unless you're playing meDistant Lands is vastly underrated by the community, it's a wonderful card and it is really powerful. Going for Distant Lands will change the way you build your whole deck, where it feels like you are just spinning your wheels for four or five turns, but it's so many points and I think that's where people are misreading this card.
In a deck-drawing engine (which seems to be increasingly common nowadays), I often find it best to empty the Distant Lands before starting on Provinces. As long as you have the actions to play your Distant Lands every turn, you'll easily outpace a Province-buying opponent, who'll have to buy 7 Provinces (which is a lot of greening) before you can buy 7 Distant Lands and 2 Provinces (ignoring Estates/Duchies for purposes of argument).
169
Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2015 Edition: $5 cards
« on: November 19, 2015, 12:07:53 pm »Had anyone ever bought Harvest?I once used it as payload in a double-Tactician engine where I drew my deck, then discarded four differently-named cards with Storeroom to guarantee that all of my Harvests were worth $4. Outside of that narrow situation, though (deck-drawing engine with a Vault variant and no better payload, including Gold/Platinum), it doesn't seem worthwhile.
I think I didn't, at least in the last couple of years.
170
Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2015 Edition: Prizes
« on: November 17, 2015, 09:35:47 pm »The biggest shock to me here is that the guy who filled his list out backward thought Diadem and another card were worse than Bag of Gold.
Assuming all of the outliers were from the same person, it looks like his list was as follows:
1. Diadem ("It was voted ... only on #4 and #5 except once where it was voted first.")
2. Princess
3. Bag of Gold ("It was ... never above #3.")
4. Trusty Steed ("It was voted ... never last and once on #4.")
5. Followers ("It was ... always between #1 and #3 except once where it was voted last.")
After correcting the inversion, this is the same the final results, except for ranking Bag of Gold higher, which seems plausible to me. Some players think free Gold is amazing, especially if they still favor BM over engines (a preference that would also lead to ranking Princess and Diadem lower).
I agree that this is probably the same guy who voted Duchess, Fortune Teller, and Scout "first."
171
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Letting a computer program make cards
« on: November 17, 2015, 09:25:25 pm »Quote
DemtherIt's not an Expand, but you can dream...
$4, Action
Trash a card from your hand. Look at a card costing up to $3 more than the trashed card.
On the other hand, here are some more interesting ones I've found:
Quote
Farming MancandAssuming "Discard the other cards." means "Reveal your hand and discard any cards that are not the named card.", this is an interesting concept, although I doubt it would work in practice.
$6, Action
Name a card. If you do, +1 Card per card in your hand. Discard the other cards.
Quote
Farming SilpA cheaper, non-terminal Altar that can't gain $5 cards, or a more expensive, non-terminal Remodel that's better at trashing $0 cards and no good at upgrading non-junk. Either way, it's an interesting idea.
$5, Action
+1 Action, Trash a card from your hand. Gain a card costing up to $4.
172
Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2015 Edition: $3 cards
« on: November 07, 2015, 10:59:59 am »Really, they shouldn't even be different cards - adding a +Buy to Chancellor makes it a reasonable $3, if still not that good.said Donald, then he thought, "Wait, I already have Chancellor and Woodcutter at $3, so to keep it from being strictly better than them, let's bump it to $4 and throw in an interesting on-buy ability or something."
173
Mini-Set Design Contest / Re: 2015/2016 Card Design Contest?
« on: November 07, 2015, 10:56:38 am »Theme suggestion:That would be otterly ridiculous.
Otters.
174
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions
« on: November 05, 2015, 12:21:00 pm »
Alms + Mint/Mandarin: Mint and Mandarin remove your Treasures from play, so if you have a spare buy, you can use Alms to pick up a $4 card for free.
Alms + Woodcutter variant (or any virtual money with +buy): Play Woodcutter, buy a $2 card, get a $4 card from Alms. Not super-powerful (a gainer would often be faster if there is one), but if there are good cards at $2 and $4, it can help you build your engine faster than those who are trying to buy their components with Treasure.
Alms + Woodcutter variant (or any virtual money with +buy): Play Woodcutter, buy a $2 card, get a $4 card from Alms. Not super-powerful (a gainer would often be faster if there is one), but if there are good cards at $2 and $4, it can help you build your engine faster than those who are trying to buy their components with Treasure.
175
Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2015 Edition: $0-$2 cards
« on: November 05, 2015, 12:10:40 pm »Even if you're planning on adding treasure latter, Alms can still be useful for double-buys in the early game, as long as you have enough virtual coin for a single card and a +buy. I've often done things like play a Woodcutter variant and buy a $2 card and Alms. Basically, if there's enough virtual money to get a desirable card (and your engine relies on cards costing 4 or less), Alms rewards picking up a +Buy significantly earlier than you normally would.I see Alms as favouring engines that have lots of virtual coin and some spare buys (and 4-cost or less cards worth getting).
Alms favors engines that have ONLY virtual coin and some spare buys (and 4-cost or less cards worth getting).
It's not super-powerful, but it's a handy boost in the right engine.