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1251

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Base set: When should I start buying Provinces?

« on: September 22, 2019, 04:57:08 am »

Hello, I’m a relatively new player and only using the base set.

I’ve learned how to build an engine, which is way more fun than running big money. By late game I have multiple buys and plenty of coin.

I try to avoid victory points until very late game. I’ll even choose to buy action cards when I could otherwise have afforded a Province.

However, by the time my engine is chugging, other players have already been buying Provinces and it’s often too late for me to catch up.

How can I determine the right time to start buying Provinces?

It is simple: you overbuilt. Dominion is not multiplayer solitaire, when the other players start greening you have to think twice about building up further.
So next time simply start greening earlier. You can only rarely get more than 2 Provinces per turn so starting to green once your engine yields 2 Provinces/turn. That's a decent benchmark and you will soon learn the subtleties about tempo and greening.

1252

Dominion General Discussion / Re: COMBO: hunting party/patron

« on: September 16, 2019, 01:36:55 pm »

This isn't really a combo; there isn't much of anything that makes hunting party differ from eg menagerie or any other reveal card here, and hunting party makes it difficult to actually find all your patrons

combo threads are generally for things that completely change the game when present: hermit / market square, lurker / hunting grounds, etc

(hunting party is much better than menagerie here because you reveal the patrons that you don't draw as well as the ones in your hand; point taken that the word "combo" is controversial)

Yeah, this is the entire point. Maybe try it out before declaring it "not a combo?" In a Hunting Party strategy you're revealing your *whole deck* *many times* *every turn* (edgecasesedgecases). There is no comparison with Menagerie.

In a typical Menagerie strategy (also known as an "engine"), you can easily be revealing your *whole deck* *many times* *every turn* and the +buy is a lot easier to fit in.

Hunting Party reveals all the Patrons in hand and all the ones in the deck whereas Menagerie only reveals the one in hand.
That's a significant difference.
While Patron does indeed give an incentive to buy far more Superbaker-Menageries than you would otherwise, you will have to play some copies of Mengagerie until they yield the same amount of Coffers as Hunting party. Not to mention that a "many Patron" strategy kind works against the variety of Menagerie, i.e. you can only use them as Superbakers and not as drawers.

1253

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: September 10, 2019, 01:26:56 am »

This is just a rough idea. The obvious parameters to change are the price (although at $6 it is arguably too similar to Gold) and the non-terminality.

1254

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Kudasai's Random Dominion Cards

« on: September 09, 2019, 03:43:19 pm »

I think that this is a cool idea. I'd make the selection of it in turn order such that the starting player advantage is very mildly mitigated (choosing later is always better, but not by much).
Devout is indeed crazy, e.g. with Warehouse, but I don't think that it has any rule issues.

1255

Dominion General Discussion / Re: ThunderDominion Card List Results, 2019

« on: September 08, 2019, 09:33:50 am »

For example a Kingdom with Village, Market, Workshop, a trasher and Conspirator behaves very differently without Conspirator.

And how often does a kingdom with Village, Market, Workshop, a trasher and Conspirator come up again?

This is a nonsensical point as I could write the same thing with "Smithy" instead of "Conspirator".
I obviously just included the usual components that make an engine viable to illustrate that there are draw as well as cantrips engines.

I don't argue that the latter appear as often as the former or that they even are as good as the former. But they exist. Not ever Kingdom boils down to "Village variant plus Smithy variant".

1256

Dominion General Discussion / Re: ThunderDominion Card List Results, 2019

« on: September 08, 2019, 09:20:48 am »

The point is that you can remove Conspirator from any kingdom where it's present and the kingdom will play out largely the same,

I disagree.
While you are totally right that draw engines are the normal kind of engine, there are also engines with only cantrips, without cards that net draw.
For example a Kingdom with Village, Market, Workshop, a trasher and Conspirator behaves very differently without Conspirator.

1257

Dominion General Discussion / Re: ThunderDominion Card List Results, 2019

« on: September 08, 2019, 08:15:52 am »

I continue to be shocked at how underrated Conspirator is. It's a key card on the vast majority of boards.

Without the stuff that's above it, it's just a $4 Duchess.

That's like saying that Smithy without a village in an engine is like a dead card (hey, Conspirator is at least a terminal Silver!). There is always a risk of failing to match engine components.

I also don't get the Comspirator hype. It's just decent payload. Sure it's cool that it can be sort of a cheap double Peddler or whatever, but this isn't remotely gamebreaking. Throne Room is a Village and payload multiplier and so much more all in one card.

Nobody is arguing that Conspirator is overpowered or whatever. But to see it below Mining Village, a weak village plus one-shot, is pretty weird as Conspirator is, after Grand Market, the best payload in an engine after Grand Market.

I agree though that Throne Room is better as it is more versatile.

1258

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: September 07, 2019, 01:43:08 am »

I think that $25 is too large and that for too long this will be a cheap Double Lab.

1259

Dominion General Discussion / Re: ThunderDominion Card List Results, 2019

« on: September 07, 2019, 01:17:11 am »

I continue to be shocked at how underrated Conspirator is. It's a key card on the vast majority of boards.

True that, a $7 card for $4 is pretty sweet.

1260

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: September 04, 2019, 01:17:32 am »

I've gone simple. You generally lose the best card in your hand so that $4 isn't as big as it looks, so build the deck to support it well. It can be interesting for you to use and sometimes for them to choose the guilty party carefully, but...it may lose out on innovation.

I think that this is far too weak. At best you only play other virtual money, one Culprit and no Treasures. If you even have one Copper in hand, this is weaker than Sacred Groove (which is arguably just a more expensive Bridge).

In Kingdoms without easily available virtual money besides Culprit, I don't see how it is even better than Woodcutter or Herbalist.

1261

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Industrial Revolution!

« on: August 29, 2019, 11:40:39 am »

Theatre is fine with the current parameters.
You talk about what it does and costs during setup and if folks have a hard time keeping that in mind, you can write a little note and put it besides the card. It is all just parameters with costs and vanilla stuff so nothing complex like "gee, what does this card called Possession actually do?".


In 4 of the 8 cases it is identical to existing cards (Market Square*, Village, Working Village and Lab), a cantrip for $2 is also OK, a Lost City for $6 is OK (IMO it is better than the actual Lost City) and the funky stuff like Lab with a Buy for $6 and Lost City with a Buy for $7 seems also OK.

In case of the funky stuff, let's keep in mind that it is highly unlikely that one would often go for a 'Lost City with a Buy' monoengine (that thing only exists if the Kingdom has zero engine potential beyond that one card).


* - You could argue that it is weaker than Market Square as it lacks the Reaction but I would argue that it is actually stronger: in a Kingdom without extra Buys you are pretty happy about a cantrip that provides Buys for $3.
Strictly better/worse are slightly less relevant here as Theatre is only ever identical to the official card X if X, or close cousins of X, is not in the Kingdom. Or in other words, as Theatre provides the very resources that the Kingdom lacks, it is automatically slightly stronger than the very card it emulates is in general, averaged over many Kingdoms.

1262

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Industrial Revolution!

« on: August 29, 2019, 10:58:32 am »

I like the idea to focus on cheap and expensive cards. Smog is also a cool self-junking idea and quite thematic.

One should always be super careful with cantrips than gains VPs but Meeting House looks viable. You need drawpower to draw into the card you want to trash and you need gainers or extra Buys to gain junk. So a Meeting House engine is not easy to pull off or even abuse.

I like the totally flexible (including flexibility of phases!) conversion idea of Stock Exchange and it feels like an classic. But I guess that the card is too expensive.

1263

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: August 29, 2019, 10:25:43 am »

Merchant Village
cost $3 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+1 Buy
You may play a Merchant Village from your hand.
Gain a Merchant Village.
---
There are 20 copies of Merchant Village, rather than the usual 10.

This completely outclasses Market Square when there are no trashers.

Beyond that, I’d say it outclasses Village and maybe Worker's Village as well. With the self gaining, it should be very common for them to collide multiple times per turn.

Fmm... this is a Village only when two collide. In 20-card deck, how reliable? This is not worth $4. Enormous Buys aren't so great.

I totally disagree. Due to the unconditional self-gaining this would be a very powerful $4, perhaps even stronger than Port.

A simple nerf would be conditional self-gaining, e.g. "You may play a Merchant Village from your hand. If you did not, gain a Merchant Village." That could still be too strong for $4 but at least it is not totally crazy anymore.

1264

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: August 28, 2019, 12:09:29 pm »

Middleman • $3 • Action - Reaction
+1 Action
Gain a Silver
-
When another player gains a card costing $4 or more, you may reveal this and set it aside. At the end of their turn discard this, then for each card they gained during their turn, gain a Silver.

this might be underpriced.

This looks slightly weaker than Treasure Hunter and I don't think that Treasure Hunter as a Kingdom card could cost more than $3.

1265

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: August 28, 2019, 11:25:14 am »

Pennymonger
Cost: $4
Type: Action

+2 Cards
+1 Action
Gain a Copper.
————————————
When you gain this, you may put it into your hand or onto your deck (instead of to your discard pile).

As a self-junker this might have missed the spirit of the challenge. A fairly vanilla card. I first thought about gaining the Copper to your hand but this is probably too strong and without anything extra the card is too weak (consistent play makes this behave like Peddler, i.e. the extra card you draw into is a Copper, but the deck bloating makes this worse than Peddler).
Hence the idea to buff it via optionally gaining it to your hand (which makes sense if you gain it via Workshop or Remodel variants) or onto your deck. I included the second option as a consolation price if you buy the card (in a non-Villa Kingdom).

1266

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Now and Next-Turn Golem Variant: Guildmaster

« on: August 28, 2019, 11:02:50 am »

the ability to choose which two of three to use makes it a bit more powerful than Golem imo; can probably price at 6 or 7 as written, or change to just do two Action cards for $5.

Hardly. Trashers are indeed a problem for late game Golem but otherwise you obviously prefer an immediate instead of a semi-delayed Golem. Three (OK, that's not preice: you discard one of them at the start of your next turn so you can draw into it) Actions being out of your deck for one turn is a significant downside. We know this stuff from Throning Durations as well as Duration Thrones like Ghost.

Archive also keeps stuff out of your deck but unless you are hyperthin you can keep also keep the bad stuff out ... and above all Archive net draws double the amount of other Lab variants.

1267

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Now and Next-Turn Golem Variant: Guildmaster

« on: August 28, 2019, 06:25:01 am »

I like this a lot. At the first glance, a semi-delayed Golem for $5 seems to be on the cheap side. But I guess that 2 Actions instead of 1 being out of your deck is a subtle nerf (of course it is also situationally good, e.g. when you don't have to play a Lookout late in the game.)

1268

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Contest #42: Monogainer

« on: August 27, 2019, 05:51:24 pm »

Not sure if this counts. It can only gain one name of card per game (barring the edge case of Knights/Split Piles), but which card that is is decided per player and when you buy Campaign.

Version History:
v1.0: Original version.
v1.1: Changed type from Project to Event.

Given that you gain on average 4 Provinces in 2P and 3P, I think that this can get away with costing $6 (and perhaps even  without any cost restrictions, even if it arguably becomes crazy in Prince and Possession games).

1269

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: August 27, 2019, 11:42:24 am »

in my brain, it falls into the same flavor of dilemma as not buying the second-to-last province if you aren't 98% sure you're ahead; in Mason's Lodge's case, late game, if you're not the Lodgeplayer, you spend your cash on one large buy rather than a couple smaller buys.

This is a dubious argument as Bridge variants can lead to megaturns and piling out. The Coffers then arrive one turn too late.

1270

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: August 27, 2019, 12:21:53 am »

I'm last minute changing my entry - withdrawing Executioner, entering Mason's Lodge:

Mason's Lodge • $5 • Action - Duration
+1 Buy
Until the end of your next turn, cards cost $1 less (to a minimum of $0) for all players, and all players get +1 Buy at the start of their turn.
Whenever a player gains a card after their first, you get +1 Coffers.

(also, to head off the #1 criticism of "why would i buy/play that", you get two turns of +Buy/Cost Reduction to everyone elses one turn of it, your second turn after you have a big ol' pile of coffers from everyone else taking advantage of your group price reduction)

Bridge for everybody is a very cool idea. I first thought that getting some Coffers does not make up for the lack of the -1 Coin token attack (of Bridge Troll, the benchmark) and the powerful gift of a Highway plus a Market Square for the other players but after running through some simple examples, the card looks similar in strength to Bridge Troll. But only in multiplayer:

If Bob and Clementine each buy 3 cards such that Alice gets 4 Coffers, the cost reduction amounts to the equivalent of 3 Coins for each opponent. So relative to Bridge Troll that's a difference of +4 Coins for each opponents (relative to the Bridge Troll benchmark the which implies that the -1 Coin token attack has to be considered) and +4 Coffers for you.
If they buy 2 Cards, it is +3 Coins vs +2 Coffers.
Seems decent for Alice.

In a 2P game it is different though. Here Bob buying 3 Cards is +4 Coins vs. +2 Coffers and him buying 2 Cards is +3 Coins vs. +1 Coffers. That's too good for Bob.

So I'd try out a version that gifts a Coffers on the very first buy but only for one opponent.

i mean, players can elect not to use the extra buy in an effort to stifle the coffers bonus.

I find it hard to imagine a situation in which forsaking the buying of a card which is reduced in price is worth not gifting a Coffers to the opponent. Market Square plus Highway is better than Baker.

1271

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: August 26, 2019, 05:26:19 pm »

I'm last minute changing my entry - withdrawing Executioner, entering Mason's Lodge:

Mason's Lodge • $5 • Action - Duration
+1 Buy
Until the end of your next turn, cards cost $1 less (to a minimum of $0) for all players, and all players get +1 Buy at the start of their turn.
Whenever a player gains a card after their first, you get +1 Coffers.

(also, to head off the #1 criticism of "why would i buy/play that", you get two turns of +Buy/Cost Reduction to everyone elses one turn of it, your second turn after you have a big ol' pile of coffers from everyone else taking advantage of your group price reduction)

Bridge for everybody is a very cool idea. I first thought that getting some Coffers does not make up for the lack of the -1 Coin token attack (of Bridge Troll, the benchmark) and the powerful gift of a Highway plus a Market Square for the other players but after running through some simple examples, the card looks similar in strength to Bridge Troll. But only in multiplayer:

If Bob and Clementine each buy 3 cards such that Alice gets 4 Coffers, the cost reduction amounts to the equivalent of 3 Coins for each opponent. So relative to Bridge Troll that's a difference of +4 Coins for each opponents (relative to the Bridge Troll benchmark the which implies that the -1 Coin token attack has to be considered) and +4 Coffers for you.
If they buy 2 Cards, it is +3 Coins vs +2 Coffers.
Seems decent for Alice.

In a 2P game it is different though. Here Bob buying 3 Cards is +4 Coins vs. +2 Coffers and him buying 2 Cards is +3 Coins vs. +1 Coffers. That's too good for Bob.

So I'd try out a version that gifts a Coffers on the very first buy but only for one opponent.

1272

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Questions from newish player

« on: August 26, 2019, 10:21:55 am »

In my opinion Dominion scales well from 2-3 players. I would not recommend 4 player games.

While there are some intra-expansion combobs, there are also inter-expansion combos so mixing expansions is no problem at all.

The only reason to not mix everything together at once is a didactic one, i.e. if you don't want to confront yourself and your gaming group with too many mechanisms at once.
Obviously that depends on how well versed your fellow players are with deckbuilders. I started off in my gaming group with all the expansions until Dark Ages with no fundamental problems (there are always some funky rule issues that you have to read up) and then introduced each new expansion as it was released (then initially playing with 5 Kingdom cards from the new expansions and 5 Kingdom cards from all the old ones).

1273

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: August 26, 2019, 01:56:47 am »

For this week's contest, I decided to make a Plan variant with the twist that you get the benefit not just on your buys but on anybody's gains.

Prepare

Move your Prepare token to a kingdom supply pile. (When any player (including you) gains a card from that pile, +1 Coffers.)

Event
$4

My hunch is that this is too good and that it might have to cost $5. As it stands, putting the token on the village pile is a more or less  guaranteed 10 Coffers.

1274

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: August 25, 2019, 01:29:03 pm »

The problem of a quadruple village like Phantom Village is that it doesn't really decrease your optimal village density that much.
The notion that a deck with 6 terminals and one Phantom Village works is wrong, you still need several copies such that the likelihood that you have one in hand at the start of your turn is large enough.
Or in other words, Port is better than Busting Village (of course that's not totally true as the latter can draw), you prefer 2 villages over a double village.

That's why I think that the drawback is too nasty.

1275

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: August 22, 2019, 02:06:52 am »

Right now I'm thinking of very few ideas that any play group of any size can use. Maybe I set myself too difficult a challenge here. So here's a card I've posted on the forum already but not in this exact form (terminal at $3), getting supply pile blocking to work using a State. No State does this yet but if Targeted isn't a State what is it? Exchanged cards (vampire) would leave the pile and be trashed, and returned cards (encampment) enter it and would be trashed. Maybe too much wonkiness but I'm trying for simple cleanness.
And I'll say it again, if you want a fresh idea I will comply.

Considering how rare it is for a card to enter or leave a supply pile other then when that card is gained; it seems like it would make more sense just to have it be when -gain.

This feels too much like a less-fun version of Embargo.

There is a significant mechanical difference between Curse tokens that stack and make the buying of cards progressively worse and a singular block token which moves among piles.
I like the new, terminal version of Ambush. With the old one, the blocking was more of an en passant thingy (hey, I want a non-terminal Silver so it is kind of neat that it comes with a little extra) whereas the terminal really puts it into the spotlight. Now I guess it leads to much "tighter" play in non-mirrors, especially with Alt-VP.