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Mafia Game Threads / Re: Mafia I: Murder in the Gardens signups
« on: May 11, 2012, 09:04:23 pm »
I'm still in, and would prefer the one week per day timeframe. I've not played mafia before, but I'm excited for the game!
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Mafia Game Threads / Re: Mafia I: Murder in the Gardens signups
« on: May 11, 2012, 07:17:21 pm »
I'm in!
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Other Games / Re: Mafia [split from In defense of Monopoly]
« on: May 10, 2012, 01:15:51 pm »
I would love to join in to a game.
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Variants and Fan Cards / Re: New Gainer
« on: March 21, 2012, 01:25:24 am »
I think "discard 6 cards to gain-and-play a nobles" is a perfect example of how a card like this shouldn't be used, akin to using workshops to gain a bunch of cutpurses. The cards that are the most fun and balanced are the ones that perform better in some circumstances than in others, while rarely being useless and very rarely being over-the-top powerful. Of course you don't want to use conscript to gain-and-play an action that has an incredibly weak effect for its cost (what are you going to do with a spare +2 actions or +3 cards after having just discarded all your treasure?). You want to use it for an action with a powerful effect relative to cost, like a curser or goons, or one that synergizes with your now very reduced handsize, like library or watchtower, or both like minion. In the absence of these sorts of complementary cards, you may want to pass on conscript in favor of another card for your $5, and that's OK. It still might be useful if you want to flood your deck with action cards, say in a vineyards or gardens game, or if there are just lots of spammable cheap actions that you want. The inherent ability of gain-and-play you are proposing with this card is extremely powerful. The trade-off I usually associate with the other gainers is the ability to easily gain more copies of a desired card in exchange for not getting to play those cards for an extra shuffle due to spending the first buy on the gainer. Conscript largely eliminates that cost, and so it needs to be inferior to the other gainers in some other respect, such as by being harder to use effectively, costing more, or both.
As for allowing it to discard non-treasures, I think that would be a bit too strong in general, and set up totally crazy interactions with trimmed action-heavy decks; imagine throwing it into a scrying pool deck. Also this would eliminate the penalty for having conscripts collide, which I think would be a bad thing as this card may have a tendency to get spammed.
As for allowing it to discard non-treasures, I think that would be a bit too strong in general, and set up totally crazy interactions with trimmed action-heavy decks; imagine throwing it into a scrying pool deck. Also this would eliminate the penalty for having conscripts collide, which I think would be a bad thing as this card may have a tendency to get spammed.
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Variants and Fan Cards / Re: New Gainer
« on: March 20, 2012, 10:08:30 pm »If I was to go the discarding route without using the "worth" of the discarded cards, I would probably do something like "You may discard one or more Treasures. Gain a card costing up to 2X, where X is the number of Treasures you discarded."
While this sort of wording is perhaps a touch more awkward than simply getting +$, I think you are right that it might be better, and is simple enough to be easily understood. For one, it separates the buy/gain from any virtual money you have accrued from actions played before conscript, making getting power cards harder. It also keeps you from getting any "on buy" effects from cards like noble brigand, which may or may not be a good thing. But I think 2X is just too much power. It allows for things like turn 3 goons plays, gain-and-play caravans for 2 coppers, gain-and-play minions (obviously for 4-card hands) for 3 coppers, etc. I think this also takes away the potentially most fun aspect the card, that you would need some way to get a hand with lots of treasure cards and an action left to make the best use of it. You will already have plenty of power with the ability to chose an action to gain-and-play based on the game state at the time, especially with draw-up-to cards like library and watchtower, and things that like to be played when you are holding few or useless cards, like menagerie, minion and tactician. If you think 1X is too weak (I don't), maybe you could try 1+X, but that may start to feel contrived. Also, I think the "if you do" clause is probably warranted. It's common enough that people understand it, and eliminates some potential problems with cost reducers and action multipliers.
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Variants and Fan Cards / Re: New Gainer
« on: March 20, 2012, 08:45:37 pm »
As for the treasure, you could also try other mechanisms, such as something like "For each treasure discarded +1$". This treats all treasures as exactly $1 for the purpose of the card, but it may help balance things a bit while not superficially limiting the card gaining the same way the other gainers do. Maybe this weakens the card too much though? Either way, just a thought.
I very much like this idea for the card. It gives it an additional differentiation from Black Market while eliminating weird interactions with special treasures, essentially solves the potential problem of a long chain of conscript gains, and makes it tougher to get the really powerful $5+ actions that may make this card too powerful (hard to get 5-7 treasure in hand along with conscript with an action left). It also creates interesting decisions for the player both within the current turn (imagine having enough money to buy a power action, but because some of it comes from big treasure, only being able to afford a lesser action if you choose to use conscript) and in overall strategy by making copper more important relative to larger treasures when conscript is on the board. In my opinion this is just a cool and unique mechanic, plus it could set up a fun combo with counting house
. Great suggestion.
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Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Cards for Christmas Presents
« on: November 07, 2011, 10:55:21 am »
I also really like the idea behind overhaul, and agree that a price point of $5 is probably better. I think this is a really neat card and one I'd like to play with (though I also like upgrade so maybe I'm biased).
I also agree that covered wagon is not such a well-made card. It seems like your other gift cards are mainly suped-up versions of favorite cards, so maybe a better idea for the grand market lover is another grand market style card, that is a very strong non-situational card with buy restrictions. Maybe something in the lab family to differentiate it from grand market would be fun.
Colonist seems like it could be hated by someone who likes playing colony games, as most of those people like making uber-engines and colonist discourages that. It seems more for the kind of player that likes islands. Maybe think more about the sorts of decks this person likes to make to play colony games and give him/her a power card that facilitates that style.
Magic lamp seems like it does the job well.
Very cool idea by the way to make cards to please specific players, well done.
I also agree that covered wagon is not such a well-made card. It seems like your other gift cards are mainly suped-up versions of favorite cards, so maybe a better idea for the grand market lover is another grand market style card, that is a very strong non-situational card with buy restrictions. Maybe something in the lab family to differentiate it from grand market would be fun.
Colonist seems like it could be hated by someone who likes playing colony games, as most of those people like making uber-engines and colonist discourages that. It seems more for the kind of player that likes islands. Maybe think more about the sorts of decks this person likes to make to play colony games and give him/her a power card that facilitates that style.
Magic lamp seems like it does the job well.
Very cool idea by the way to make cards to please specific players, well done.
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Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Conquest - the 4s
« on: October 02, 2011, 12:51:35 pm »
I missed that Mercury was a treasure rather than an action; my apologies. I could claim that a treasure-attack is so exotic that I hadn't considered it, but really I just read your post too fast. Seems like as a treasure it's probably balanced, but presents the new problem of being just not very interesting. On most boards the attack is just about a wash, and apart from that Mercury is just a "slightly better than silver" priced at 4, which others have pointed out may be a problem. Seems not really bad, just not really interesting either. I would like to see a similar card with a stronger attack, but a less money produced than the standard treasure at it's price point.
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Council Room Feedback / Re: Achievements inaccurate?
« on: October 02, 2011, 01:26:11 am »
Are you guys still interested in reports of inaccurate achievements? If so, I have some I could let you know about.
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Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Conquest - the 4s
« on: October 02, 2011, 01:22:36 am »
Ore:
I agree that without the +buy it's very weak as it is almost exactly equivalent to silver in that case (actually slightly worse), and this would make it a dead card on maybe too many boards. So I think it needs to come with it's own +buy. I also think a "just slightly better than silver" treasure shouldn't cost 4, as an interesting part of strategy is whether to buy silver with $4, and this is almost strictly better than silver with a +buy. So maybe you could just give it the +buy and make it cost 5. Compared to bridge, it isn't a terminal action, can't be chained together to reduce a given card's cost by more than 1 (dual-type cards aside), and costs $1 more. This may be too similar to bridge for some people's tastes.
Soldier's Village:
Seems a bit strong, as in many setups you often have a card you can't use in your starting hand, making this better than lab even at $4 instead of $5. Even if the worst card you have is copper (pretty rare case when this isn't true, and if it is your deck may be so tight you can draw it all by end of turn anyway) it is essentially +2 actions, +2 cards, -$1, so it is a lab plus paying a dollar for +action. As many others have said, mixing +cards with +actions leads to a sum greater than the parts, so +2 of each is very strong. Imagine this coupled with any good drawer, particularly on a board with minimal trashing. I wouldn't say broken at $4, but seems a bit too strong. Not sure what changes could be made here.
Mercury:
Um...Militia? This card is just about strictly worse, and MUCH worse. They get to pick 4 cards out of 6 instead of 3 out of 5? And if they have more than 5 they don't even discard down to 4? Cool name though.
I agree that without the +buy it's very weak as it is almost exactly equivalent to silver in that case (actually slightly worse), and this would make it a dead card on maybe too many boards. So I think it needs to come with it's own +buy. I also think a "just slightly better than silver" treasure shouldn't cost 4, as an interesting part of strategy is whether to buy silver with $4, and this is almost strictly better than silver with a +buy. So maybe you could just give it the +buy and make it cost 5. Compared to bridge, it isn't a terminal action, can't be chained together to reduce a given card's cost by more than 1 (dual-type cards aside), and costs $1 more. This may be too similar to bridge for some people's tastes.
Soldier's Village:
Seems a bit strong, as in many setups you often have a card you can't use in your starting hand, making this better than lab even at $4 instead of $5. Even if the worst card you have is copper (pretty rare case when this isn't true, and if it is your deck may be so tight you can draw it all by end of turn anyway) it is essentially +2 actions, +2 cards, -$1, so it is a lab plus paying a dollar for +action. As many others have said, mixing +cards with +actions leads to a sum greater than the parts, so +2 of each is very strong. Imagine this coupled with any good drawer, particularly on a board with minimal trashing. I wouldn't say broken at $4, but seems a bit too strong. Not sure what changes could be made here.
Mercury:
Um...Militia? This card is just about strictly worse, and MUCH worse. They get to pick 4 cards out of 6 instead of 3 out of 5? And if they have more than 5 they don't even discard down to 4? Cool name though.
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Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Conquest - the 4s
« on: October 01, 2011, 10:41:19 pm »
While I don't think exhaust is workable as a cheap cantrip, I really like the idea of a copper-giver. Giving coppers is strategically interesting (I think it solves the "alternative curse" card problem) and has the potential to have interesting interactions with cards like coppersmith, counting house, moneylender, venture, and the like. The way I see it, giving copper is a good deal less powerful than giving curses, but still quite powerful on many boards. The core issue is that it has the potential problem of not being limited to 10 total cards to dole out. So I think a copper giver has to have another check put on it to limit the number of times it can be played. Seems like making it a terminal is almost a necessity. It could give you more benefit than a curser of similar cost though, so at the $4 level, maybe a simple +$2 or +2 cards, or if those seems too good, maybe +$1, +buy.
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Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Conquest - the 4s
« on: October 01, 2011, 02:52:02 pm »
I think the issue with exhaust is not that it is too powerful, but that it will make for an unintersting game on many boards. As a garbage-giver, it will be popular. As a cantrip, it is extremely spammable. And having multiples played against you leaves you with a deck FULL of copper, because unlike cursers, exhaust has an almost in-exhaustable source of garbage. Many boards don't have a good use for lots of copper, and since both or all players will often want this card, it will often lead to long games where nobody can get enough buying power to buy many power cards, and will have no chance to put together any sort of engine. This will be exacerbated in multiplayer. This card has the potental to be game-warping, and in a way I think most players won't find fun. A copper-giver just can't be a cheap cantrip.
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Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Rule suggestion: 2nd player wins if draw in 2 player game
« on: September 30, 2011, 03:05:47 am »
I agree with the OPs suggestion (at least for competitive play). The first player has an advantage even in games that end in even turns, as they always have the ability to end the game (or threaten to end the game) with a slight lead for the win having taken one more turn than their opponent. The second player can only choose to end a game after even turns, and still must have a lead to win. The second player can choose to end the game in a tie, but this is of very little advantage. They can also see what the first player does, which can be a big advantage in certain situations, but I think is not as valuable as a potential extra turn on most boards. Not knowing the kingdom cards, I would choose to go first even if ties were counted as wins for the second (or last-playing player involved in the tie in multiplayer). I would be interested to see an analysis of councilroom data regarding win rate based on table position for all players (remembering that better players tend to play in second position more often). Plus, who likes playing for a tie?
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