Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

351

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: July 02, 2019, 10:35:52 am »

Win: anordinaryman's Consul

Consul
Types: Action
Cost: $4
Trash a card from your hand. The player to your left names a more expensive Action card in the Supply. Choose one: Gain and then play the named card; or gain a Silver.

While I would prefer a different out for the Consul-chain than this Silver gaining option, Consul has a fascinating and board dependent concept that encourages players to get the most of out some otherwise less valuable Actions.

You may post the next challenge when you would, anordinaryman.

Wow, I’m honored and humbled to have my card selected! Thank you very much for the EXTREMELY detailed and helpful feedback. I agree with you, the silver is a little bit too much of a freebie. In the original conception of the card, I had attached +2 actions, but then I think it’s balanced at 5 instead, which makes the card much worse since you can no longer trash it for fives. I am now thinking a better solution is a +1 action on play. I may also need to provide a way to gain villagers to deal with the terminals in deck... perhaps gain 1 or 2 villagers on trash (and/or gain). Thoughts? The idea is to make consuls better in consul decks so opponents are less likely to give them all to you.

Also, I have the idea for the context, I will post it tonight (in less than 12 hours). As a preview: the contest will involve inspecting different expansions and fitting a specific type of card-shaped-thing to that expansion’s themes (emphasizing the newer expansions). Full rules and details to follow.

352

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: June 28, 2019, 08:09:12 pm »

No Attack submissions yet! Guess I'll have to make one:

A handsize attack and a curser for $3? What a bargain! Only problem is, you have to also discard something out of your hand to curse others. And it can't be that old moldy Estate that's just sitting around in your deck - it has to be at least a pawn or peasant if someone else discarded a copper. And you don't get any benefits out of playing the action so you better hope your curser activates...



Intimidate
Action - Attack - $3
Each other player with at least four cards in hand discards a card. You may then discard a non-victory card from your hand that costs at least $2 more than one of the discarded cards. If you did, each other player gains a curse.

I might be happy to have an attack card that gave Intimidates to my opponent in the beginning of the game. It's a terminal dead card with a weak attack and in order to curse me they will often have to discard a silver or better card? Often it's a very weak urchin. If there's no trashing on board, then the curse will really come in handy, but if there's no trashing on board, the discard hurts you probably a lot more and might not be worth cursing your opponents. I feel that I would always buy sea hag over this, and I would almost always buy militia over this.

This is a card that only really works if you have an over-drawing engine. Which I think is an interesting space for cards to be in, helping a slow to build engine finally come back in late-mid-game. I appreciate that design-space. I am wondering if there is any way to make this card more useful in the mid-game or even early game. +1 buy is a good way to make sure a card is always useful in mid-game, but doesn't fit the theme of this card, *and* violates the contest rules. I think you could attach a villager to this perhaps -- on gain?. You could probably even experiment this and have it come with a second intimidate (which has synergy because you can discard the second intimidate to give curses out).

353

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: June 27, 2019, 11:20:32 pm »

CHALLENGE #34 - No Vanilla Bonuses Submission: (Updated / final version)

Consul
Type: Action
Cost: $4

Trash a card from your hand. The player to your left names a more expensive Action card in the Supply.
Choose one: gain and then play the named card; or gain a silver.

 My favorite interaction cards are ones like Contraband, Advisor, and Envoy. So, here is a sorta upgrade variant in that vein! I will say this card nicely has some cool synergy with alt-cost cards without having to spell them out, and I like that. You can get your opponent to consul you into upgrading an engineer into an overlord -- not bad! You can always turn your golds into possessions (and transmutes if there are no other potion cards). Good advice! Of course, if you don't like your opponent's advice, you can always take the silver, but that doesn't go to your hand and is a pretty weak upgrade.

If you ignore the fun opponent part of this card, it's trash a card, gain a silver. Not the most inspiring on its own, but is definitely useful as a mediocre upgrader. The fun part, and the way to make the most of this card, is trashing the right cards and building a flexible enough deck, that you want the action cards your opponent gives you. And if your deck can't handle too many terminals, you can turn them into silvers, something that's often useful in decks that can't handle many terminals (exceptions being a minion deck with no villages ... that deck does not want too many silvers, it would rather have candlestick makers. Which your Consul can help you turn your coppers into!).

I have updated this to address the issue of your opponent giving you too many terminals. The way I originally I had this card in my own files attached a village effect to it and gained the card to hand, but I like the theming of a forced play. But the forced play does open up some issues, so I modified this so you always have a decent fallback -- silver. Silver is fine because there is always an action card costing 1 more than it -- Consul!

354

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: June 26, 2019, 05:27:49 pm »

Here's my entry.  Smelter is an odd trash for benefit card that offers a choice of either a Salvager/Beggar effect (trash a card, gain a bunch of Coppers to your hand) or a Forge-like gaining effect that works only on Coppers.  Early game, it's nice for turning clumps of Coppers into Silvers or engine parts, or occasionally for trashing Estates to hit a certain price point.  Later, the two options can work more closely in tandem (especially if you're able to play multiples per turn) for trashing expensive cards into Coppers and then the Coppers into Provinces.  Also be alert: Smelters can empty the Copper pile very quickly if you're not careful.

I have a hard time seeing the usefulness of this card.

At its price point it's not really an early game card, and even if you do get a 2/5 split, you could easily get unlucky and get Smelter-C-C-E-E or something like that on turn 3.

The ability to trash is necessary early on and by the time you can get it (turn 5-6) your deck has too many non coppers that make this ability less useful. Besides you only start with 7 coppers so how much can you use this (yes I know of it's other ability, I'll get to that in a second)?

It's other ability is gaining coppers which you usually don't want to do (beggar is usually not a great card unless there's some alt VP strat or something like that). Salvager would seem better. Not only is it cheaper, but it doesn't flood your deck with coppers.

Using the abilities together is not so great either. If you throne room a smelter (or play 2) to trash a card and then gain a card from all those coppers, you get an effect that is not as good as a single play of salvager (if you salvage a $4 card with $2 silvers in hand, you can buy a province or 2 $4 cards. If you Smelt a $4 card with 2 silvers in hand and then smelt again you get 2 $4 cards. You could get a province but then you'd have to keep the copper).

I think the price needs to come down probably to $3 (at least to $4 so you can open with it).

I disagree. If you build a draw engine a bit first, the ability to turn 4 coppers into a 4 cost (or 5 coppers into a 5 cost) is incredibly strong. This is far too strong at a $3. I think the mass-trashing and flexibility means this belongs as a 5-cost. To make it stronger a +buy could be attached (this makes some sense you can buy coppers with the +buy) or some sort of (you main gain a copper to hand), but I would buy this card for 5 for sure. I might treat it like a cheaper forge, and I think that sort of delayed-mass-trashing is better implemented by this card than forge.

355

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: June 26, 2019, 11:38:46 am »

Here's my entry.  Smelter is an odd trash for benefit card that offers a choice of either a Salvager/Beggar effect (trash a card, gain a bunch of Coppers to your hand) or a Forge-like gaining effect that works only on Coppers.  Early game, it's nice for turning clumps of Coppers into Silvers or engine parts, or occasionally for trashing Estates to hit a certain price point.  Later, the two options can work more closely in tandem (especially if you're able to play multiples per turn) for trashing expensive cards into Coppers and then the Coppers into Provinces.  Also be alert: Smelters can empty the Copper pile very quickly if you're not careful.

This is an amazingly designed card. It is very simple to understand since the two effects are basically mirrors of each other. Having a weak forge and a weak salvager with self-synergy and combined into one card... I just love this card. I very much could see this card existing in a Dominion expansion. Nice work!

356

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: June 26, 2019, 09:10:22 am »

CHALLENGE #34 - No Vanilla Bonuses Submission:

Consul
Type: Action
Cost: $4

Trash a card from your hand. The player to your left chooses an action card costing more than it for you to gain and play.

You probably want to add "other than Consul".

Why? Part of the risk/fun for me is that your opponent could turn the rest of your hand into consuls. Do you consider this too much of a weakness? Is the pile-driving potential too not-Dominion-y? This got heavily up-voted, so can you or anyone who up-voted it help me understand? There's a perspective I'm not seeing.

 It is intended that Consuls aren't so bad for you to gain since they cost 4 -- you can consul a consul into a 5-cost card. I have another solution in mind, but I wanted to understand what the problem is.

357

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: June 26, 2019, 09:00:34 am »

What are you envisioning is the use for this card? The only case I can think of where it's worth buying is Fool's Gold in a weak kingdom.

Kingdom treasures mostly? Or fishing for Potions. Possibly TfB. Now I think it will need to put your deck into your discard pile or something to not be terrible. Also of course it combos with Capitalism.

I'll think of some improvement. You're right that it's still too weak.

Make the card itself a treasure? Then there is *always* a Kingdom treasure with this. Because it only looks through discard pile, it's a lot weaker than it otherwise would be. It might make it too much stronger than you want (self-combo and now non-terminal), but I think the idea works a lot better with this self-synergy. Of course, you would have to sacrifice the ability to fish treasure for t4b if you make this change.

358

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: June 24, 2019, 08:40:54 pm »

THIS IS OUT OF DATE SUBMISSION. SEE NEWEST VERSION ON PAGE 104

CHALLENGE #34 - No Vanilla Bonuses Submission:

Consul
Type: Action
Cost: $4

Trash a card from your hand. The player to your left chooses an action card costing more than it for you to gain and play.

Seems like I only submit cards that involve some sort of trashing! My favorite interaction cards are ones like Contraband, Advisor, and Envoy. So, here is a sorta upgrade variant in that vein! I will say this card nicely has some cool synergy with alt-cost cards without having to spell them out, and I like that. You can get your opponent to consul you into upgrading an engineer into a fortune if those are the only debt-cost cards on board. You can always turn your golds into possessions. Good advice! Of course, watch out, your opponent might consul you to bring in more consuls and force you to trash something in your hand you don't want to, like a card that no action card that costs more!

Of course the losing track rule can make you not be able to play the card. I'm open to any feedback. I wasn't sure exactly the best way to phrase "gain and play."

359

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: June 24, 2019, 08:26:37 pm »

Sanctuary
Type: Action – Reaction
Cost: $5

Look at the top 4 cards of your deck. Put up to 2 into your hand. Discard the rest.
-
When you discard this other than during Clean-up, you may gain a Silver into your hand.

The normal language Dominion uses is "gain a Silver to your hand." For example, Artisan.

Not sure if a conditional +2 cards +$2 is worth 5. Especially since it is only a +2 the first one you buy. And it requires you to not be able to play a 5-card cost to get the silver gain. I do love the self-synergy, it's pretty interesting!

360

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: June 20, 2019, 12:06:04 am »

Tithe
Reaction - $1
When you buy any Action card in the supply, you may discard this from your hand. Trash a card from your hand for each $1 the Action cost.
-
When you buy this, +1 buy and put this into your hand.

This pile can empty instantly. Donald X. Considers this a bad thing when designing cards.

How? Forum can do the same thing, albeit with more required to get multiple.

It's much easier with this. Having a single cost-reducer in play is much more common than having 5. Along the same lines, having $10 is much easier than having $50.

Besides, technically you can do this with any card. It's possible to have 10 buys on a turn. It's just a question of how easy it is. A card which costs and doesn't cost a buy makes it much easier than every other card in the game.

I understand why you attached the +buy. It seems too weak to cost an entire buy. Because the secret in card design is that buys are precious resource, often more precious of a resource than $ is. Especially early on. And you want to buy this card early on because it's a trasher, but it seems too weak to be worth it to cost a buy. Thus you always attach it with a +buy. I recommend the following changes:

- "When you gain a card, you may discard this from your hand to trash a card from your hand for each 1$ the card costs." (I believe that when you buy a card, and then you gain it, so this would have the same abilities as before but now you can do it with gainers as well)
- "When this is your first buy in a turn, +1 buy" (prevents easy pile out. Notice how I take the wording from Messenger)
- You may add a  "This is gained to your hand (instead of your discard pile)." Similiar to Nocturne's night cards, if you want. I think you might get rid of this gain to hand idea though, it doesn't seem super necessary to me.

I don't understand why you restricted it to only action cards, and why you restricted it to only buys.

361

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: June 19, 2019, 01:38:41 pm »

Final update.

There are 12 copies of Convert in the Supply

-now you have to think more carefully about how many coppers you trash, if you trash all the way down to 4, you won’t be able to afford a 5 for some time, especially since the cards you gain won't be able to produce $.
-now there is the really complex and interesting decision about how many coppers to trash, and there's many more situations in which you would delay buying Converts.

CHALLENGE #33 - JUST REACT SUBMISSION:

I have made some changes to Convert. Also, convert is meant to be the noun version of convert, not the verb.

There are 12 copies of Convert in the Supply, instead of 10.
Summary of changes:
- I wanted to make it less of a no-brainer to always open double Convert. So, I weakened the on-gain significantly down. There are now more interesting questions... how many coppers can you afford to trash if you buy two. Do you want to be left with 4 coppers? That means it can be a while until you can get a 5-cost.
- I changed the trashing to happen on gain. This allows for synergy with itself (trash a Convert with upgrade, then gain a Convert to trash your hand) and more flexibility. The "may" clause prevents opponents from trashing your hand with ambassador.

Getting stuck with a Convert isn't so great anymore. I think that Smithy/Silver opening, and *then* trying for a mega-convert turn where you trash a lot more cards, might work in a lot of scenarios, rather than opening double Convert. There are more than 10 cards to allow you to delay Convert while still getting the opportunity to buy them later without them running out. It also lets 4 players all get 3 Converts.

And now I'm including my original thoughts that still apply

Well, it seems like I accidentally made something that would have been good for the previous contemplate skipping chapel contest. This sort of acts like an event by giving you the on-buy effect. It's a decent trasher, amazing at trashing the starting estates, but you can't trash the cards you had in play to buy it, and it's stuck in your deck as a dead card. Except it isn't a dead card-- if you can trash it, it turns it to something really special! How do you trash it? You could buy another convert. Whatever this religion is, it's spreading! Be careful, if you had terminal actions in hand, you'll have to lose those in the difficult conversion process. And if you started to collected provinces, well, adding another convert is going to really hurt.

One thing I like is that Convert is the great equalizer between openings. No matter your opening, you could open Convert/Convert and after shuffle 1 have 2 converts and 4 coppers. Not so bad. Buy a third convert hoping to trash both your converts and start building up is a fun way to start the game.

This trashes before the first shuffle. So, there's comparisons to bonfire. Well, as a trasher, bonfire gives you flexibility with the ability to trash cards in play and the ability to decide which ones to trash. You can play a bunch of money to buy some cards and then trash them later. However, Convert forces you to not play your treasures in order to trash them, so it effectively costs at least 1 more for every copper you want to trash. Also, Convert has no flexibility, it always trashes your entire hand. So, while at first it seems like you might always buy convert over bonfire, as soon as the game reaches mid or end-game, you're probably buying bonfire instead to clean things up. Similar to the fast trasher, chapel, The cost of $2 is necessary to make sure both players can open it. If it cost $3, 5/2 would be really brutal as you could only buy a 2-cost card and trash 2 coppers. While the 3/4 player could trash all their estates. The trashing would be a lot worse if it cost more, so then the price wouldn't fit as well.

362

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: June 16, 2019, 03:35:18 pm »

CHALLENGE #33 - JUST REACT SUBMISSION:
EDIT: this is not the final submission, there is an update to the on-trash posted later in this thread

I have made some changes to Convert. Also, convert is meant to be the noun version of convert, not the verb.

There are 12 copies of Convert in the Supply, instead of 10.


Summary of changes:
- I wanted to make it less of a no-brainer to always open double Convert. So, I weakened the on-gain significantly down. There are now more interesting questions... how many coppers can you afford to trash if you buy two. Do you want to be left with 4 coppers? That means it can be a while until you can get a 5-cost.
- I changed the trashing to happen on gain. This allows for synergy with itself (trash a Convert with upgrade, then gain a Convert to trash your hand) and more flexibility. The "may" clause prevents opponents from trashing your hand with ambassador.

Getting stuck with a Convert isn't so great anymore. I think that Smithy/Silver opening, and *then* trying for a mega-convert turn where you trash a lot more cards, might work in a lot of scenarios, rather than opening double Convert. There are more than 10 cards to allow you to delay Convert while still getting the opportunity to buy them later without them running out. It also lets 4 players all get 3 Converts.

And now I'm including my original thoughts that still apply

Well, it seems like I accidentally made something that would have been good for the previous contemplate skipping chapel contest. This sort of acts like an event by giving you the on-buy effect. It's a decent trasher, amazing at trashing the starting estates, but you can't trash the cards you had in play to buy it, and it's stuck in your deck as a dead card. Except it isn't a dead card-- if you can trash it, it turns it to something really special! How do you trash it? You could buy another convert. Whatever this religion is, it's spreading! Be careful, if you had terminal actions in hand, you'll have to lose those in the difficult conversion process. And if you started to collected provinces, well, adding another convert is going to really hurt.

One thing I like is that Convert is the great equalizer between openings. No matter your opening, you could open Convert/Convert and after shuffle 1 have 2 converts and 4 coppers. Not so bad. Buy a third convert hoping to trash both your converts and start building up is a fun way to start the game.

This trashes before the first shuffle. So, there's comparisons to bonfire. Well, as a trasher, bonfire gives you flexibility with the ability to trash cards in play and the ability to decide which ones to trash. You can play a bunch of money to buy some cards and then trash them later. However, Convert forces you to not play your treasures in order to trash them, so it effectively costs at least 1 more for every copper you want to trash. Also, Convert has no flexibility, it always trashes your entire hand. So, while at first it seems like you might always buy convert over bonfire, as soon as the game reaches mid or end-game, you're probably buying bonfire instead to clean things up. Similar to the fast trasher, chapel, The cost of $2 is necessary to make sure both players can open it. If it cost $3, 5/2 would be really brutal as you could only buy a 2-cost card and trash 2 coppers. While the 3/4 player could trash all their estates. The trashing would be a lot worse if it cost more, so then the price wouldn't fit as well.

363

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: June 15, 2019, 01:27:43 pm »

Attempt at a Throne Room for Victory cards.

Really Cool concept! I feel like there's some ambiguities on what to do with alt victory cards. If you do gardens, you have to count the size of your deck at that time? Distant Lands would be worth 0? Have you thought about different ways of dealing with that (Like OR 1vp for every 2$ it costs...)?

I think it's stronger than it looks. In many ways it's a much stronger Island. In deck-drawing engines, the end-game focusing on provinces, you would almost never buy duchies. In fact, buying 2 of them could be better than 1 province since you only have to line up one before the end of the game to get all those VP back and if you line up 2, well you got a lot more VP. I'm thinking this could potentially cost 6, especially if you add some clause to deal with non-standard victory cards.

But yeah, really cool card and idea! And it really fits best as a pure-reaction card.

364

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: June 14, 2019, 11:19:24 am »

One thing I like is that Convert is the great equalizer between openings. No matter your opening, you could open Convert/Convert and after shuffle 1 have 2 converts and 4 coppers. Not so bad. Buy a third convert hoping to trash both your converts and start building up is a fun way to start the game.

It's only at surface level equalizing though. After you've opened double Convert (which will be the right might on a vast majority of boards, there is a 33% chance that you'll only have 1 Convert in you next hand, which will put you at a significant disadvantage compared to a player who gets to trash both their Converts. Not to mention that there is a major problem with 4 players: Only two people will be able to buy 3 Converts.

I think it's too strong, and it will always play the same (Donate is also super strong, but the question of when to buy it and whether to get 1 or 2 make it interesting to play). Also technically it's not a Reaction, because when-buy and when-trash effects don't turn cards into reactions. It would be a no-type card.

EDIT: I see you addressed the "does not need to be a reaction" question before.

Thanks for the feedback.

I'm not sure if "too powerful" is necessarily un-interesting. You almost always open with Chapel. You would almost always open with this. Chapel is interesting. However, I think you're right, making a double-convert opening *always* the best I don't like. I want to make it more of an interesting choice, do I open double convert or convert/$5.

I'm wondering if you think I could minimize the gain on trash ability to be less powerful. Things I also played with "gain a treasure." or "gain a card costing up to 4." I'm wondering if those would be better. I had another idea to make the on-trash give some benefit to other players like draw a card, or gain a copy of the card you gained, or gain a card that costs less than the one you gained. Or perhaps you could gain debt when you trash it.

The 4-player critique is a really helpful one! I definitely hadn't considered that, since I am way biased to 2 player games. Thank you very much. Do you think it would justify making more than 10 cards in the pile? 12 is a magic number that divides evenly between 2, 3 ,and 4 players.

365

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: June 14, 2019, 02:25:24 am »

NOTE: Convert has been modified to be slightly weakened. Check out the edit on the next page



Well, it seems like I accidentally made something that would have been good for the previous contemplate skipping chapel contest. This sort of acts like an event by giving you the on-buy effect. It's a decent trasher, amazing at trashing the starting estates, but you can't trash the cards you had in play to buy it, and it's stuck in your deck as a dead card. Except it isn't a dead card-- if you can trash it, it turns it to something really special! How do you trash it? You could buy another convert. Whatever this religion is, it's spreading! Be careful, if you had terminal actions in hand, you'll have to lose those in the difficult conversion process. And if you started to collected provinces, well, adding another convert is going to really hurt.

One thing I like is that Convert is the great equalizer between openings. No matter your opening, you could open Convert/Convert and after shuffle 1 have 2 converts and 4 coppers. Not so bad. Buy a third convert hoping to trash both your converts and start building up is a fun way to start the game.

This trashes before the first shuffle. So, there's comparisons to bonfire. Well, as a trasher, bonfire gives you flexibility with the ability to trash cards in play and the ability to decide which ones to trash. You can play a bunch of money to buy some cards and then trash them later. However, Convert forces you to not play your treasures in order to trash them, so it effectively costs at least 1 more for every copper you want to trash. Also, Convert has no flexibility, it always trashes your entire hand. So, while at first it seems like you might always buy convert over bonfire, as soon as the game reaches mid or end-game, you're probably buying bonfire instead to clean things up. Similar to the fast trasher, chapel, The cost of $2 is necessary to make sure both players can open it. If it cost $3, 5/2 would be really brutal as you could only buy a 2-cost card and trash 2 coppers. While the 3/4 player could trash all their estates. The trashing would be a lot worse if it cost more, so then the price wouldn't fit as well. So, it's kinda like chapel in that it's very strong for its price. But it's the right price for it.

The first clause is on buy and not on gain because a clever opponent could ambassador you into trashing your hand on their turn. Not good.

I welcome positive/negative feedback on this. The only question I had was whether to make the gain up to $4 instead, as the power might fit a little better. But I think I enjoy the power and spike of being able to get the good Kingdom Cards.

366

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: June 13, 2019, 05:57:40 pm »

I have a question. Can we do a pure reaction card that wouldn't need the type reaction?

Certain "reaction" conditions (on-gain, on-buy, on-trash) do not add the type of "reaction" to the card. Would it be permissible to make a card that only uses those conditions instead of the other reaction-conditions (when an attack is played, when a province is purchased, when this is discarded, etc) that normally add the "reaction" type?

Such a card would technically need no type, but the reaction type would be helpful to remind you, hey this thing does things when you gain it and buy it, etc.

367

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: June 09, 2019, 04:29:48 pm »

My card submission Dowser gets another update. It is now a 5/5 split pile with a nasty Peddler variant which wants you to keep your Coppers. And it also makes it easier to draw further Dowsers, even if you have to discard a Victory card for this.

I feel like Pendulum is easily stronger than Oasis. Other than that, the design looks good now, but I am not sure they still fit the challenge.

It fits the challenge because it tries to make you skip trashing in general. You want a high-treasure density deck to make your pendulums fire, so it makes some sense to keep coppers around and skip Chapel. At least, that seems like the point here.

Each activated pendulum makes the next one you have in hand more difficult to activate, so it's weaker than it seems. You don't want too many. Oddly enough the fact that there are only 5 of them makes them stronger. I agree the cost of 2 is too low for Pendulum.

Dowser wants you to keep your estates and coppers, thus avoiding chapel. I really love the 2 cost of pendulum for Dowser. It's less elegant but I wonder if a 3-cost Pendulum with a Dowser that specifically calls out "0-2 cost or a Pendulum" would be better. I am unsure.

Dowser is strong enough to make you want to skip trashing, but it comes after 5 gains from the pile because it's a split-pile. That addressed the concerns of it being too strong in the first shuffle. I wonder what it would look like with 10 3 or 4 cost Pendulums that each had a "you may trash this to gain a Dowser" and Dowser is self-drawing (it could cost 2) and not in the supply. There could even be some conditions for triggering the Dowser gain ala urchin/mercernary. This would delay the Dowsers a bit so they aren't over-powered, which was some of the feedback it got the first time around.

368

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: June 09, 2019, 10:44:34 am »

There's two major ways to make you consider skipping chapel. Either make you not want to trash your cards (gardens, fountain, many of the submissions so far add penalties to trashing), or give a trasher that is strong enough that makes you not want chapel (donate, cathedral). I decided to go for the latter:



Chapel is very strong trashing but is weak since it provides no way to simultaneously build your deck. So, this card provides both! It's essentially a one-shot mega-copper trasher + remodeler that hands out debts based on how much of an upgrade/remodel/expansion you are doing. You can get burdened with debt, so you need to have a plan to get out of debt with the cards you gain, which makes it kingdom dependent. Sometimes you can get it instead of chapel, sometimes treasures are the only economy you want and Tithings won't work so well.

Clarifying examples:

• From a hand of 3 coppers, I play 2 and buy and play this card. I trash both coppers in play and the copper in my hand. I would take 2 debt and gain an embargo. Each other player chooses to gain 0, 1, or 2 coppers to hand.
• If my hand is 3 coppers and 3 estates, I could play 3 coppers, trashing them when I buy this, and turn an estate into a duchy. I would take 3 debt and each other player choose to gain 0, 1, 2, or 3 coppers to hand.
• If you have no coppers in play, you trash a card and gain a card costing exactly the same amount. You could turn a chapel into a pearl diver, for $1 by buying this card.

The debt is what makes this only conditionally better than chapel. If there are good economy 4 and 5 costs that help you repay your debt, you're going to trash early and hard. If there aren't, you won't have as good of a way of handling the debt, and chapel (or even bonfire) might be better. That is why I forbid the treasure gaining. Otherwise 3/4 is always very powerful with turning an estate into a gold second turn and paying off the debt. The other player copper gaining cause is to weaken this a tad bit (so bonfire becomes more competitive with this) and to smoothen out the difference between 3/4 openings and 4/3. (The 3/4 player can pay off all their tithings debt on second turn and still do tithings again while the 4/3 player can't as much. The copper gaining lets both players have a 4/4 opening). This could have been an event, but then I had the annoying "take debt at the end of your turn" to prevent instant pay-off, and I did not like that. So, it became a one-shot night to easily deal with the debt problem.

369

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: May 22, 2019, 12:12:13 am »

[...]
herw’s entry:

Dryads is really neat; one of the more creative ideas I’ve seen here, although I’m kind of wondering why you would bother promoting a Traveler in the first place if you plan on going back to it. Mountain Troll looks cool. The others are pretty similar to existing cards and don’t excite me much, but I do like that Mesuline is another way to make a Grand Market that’s hard to get.
[...]

The trick is not to go back to the first traveller but to Franfeluche or Melusine directly. So Dryads/Franfeluche or Dryads/Melusine are really one card!

I know that. I'm wondering why you would bother promoting either of those to Dryads if you're just going to go back to them.

Because it's a lost city on play.

370

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Cards with the Best Flavour

« on: May 14, 2019, 11:01:14 pm »

I really enjoy that animals breed like crazy: Rats, Magpie.
Bats might seem like an an exception, but they aren't animals -- they're actually Vampires in disguise!

Goat is an exception, but it does really fit with goats eating everything.

Trusty Steed, Faithful Hound, Familiar, seems like exceptions outnumber the rule.

Yes, but those three are all in the "animal companion" category, and we tend to be pretty good at controlling the breeding of animal companions. Magpies and Rats, however, are wild animals and will breed as and when they see fit.

Well, I had first written a response saying ipofanes, you're right! But now I have to agree with Jack Rudd. Good points all around.

What about something like Rabbits? They are wild but can be domesticated. I mean I guess the whole phrase "breading like rabbits" means they would have to duplicate themselves.

371

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: May 14, 2019, 10:45:57 pm »

Any feedback is always appreciated, but please keep in mind that the power level of a Traveller card generally does not correspond to its cost.

Not including the final upgrade for each traveller line, I'd say most of the cards are balanced at their "cost." if they were in the supply:
Page -- this would never be bought without it being a traveller. So, this is not priced right.
Treasure Hunter -- looks like costing about 3 works, potentially 2 would work. You might need to slap a +buy on this one to make it work as a 3. The price is close to being right.
Warrior -- This is balanced at 4, but being a traveller makes people tend to upgrade past it, and the final card offers a solution to the incessant trashing. So, if it were in the supply, there might have to be some mechanisms here to prevent the ease of playing a bunch, especially early (other action-trashers are all 5s for this reason). But I'd say it's definitely more than a 3 and less than a 5. The price is at least pretty close to being right.
Hero -- this is a pretty classic 5+. It's similar to Explorer, almost strictly better, but not quite. Think of it like forager/trade route. It would be priced at a 5 in the supply and I wouldn't complain. maybe a 6 because of the added gain any treasure flexibility. But looks good as is. Hm, on second thought I think a 6 would best. Still, pretty close to the right price.

Peasant -- This is totally priced right, it's a weaker herbalist, but still stronger than a 1. If Herbalist didn't exist, I'd be happy with this as a 2 and buy it without it being a traveller.
Soldier -- Similar to Gladiator, it's a +2 with a possible +3 (in this case, more) if a condition is met. It's about the right cost. 4 might work, but it's definitely a 3 or 4. I'd say 3 is actually the right cost for this if it were in the supply by itself.
Fugitive -- compare to ware house, forum, Inn. 4 again seems about right.
Disciple -- this I am less sure about. I think to be in the supply it would need an anti-self-gaining clause (which is covered right now by it not being in the supply). It could potentially cost 6. 5 might work.

So, almost all of the power levels of current travelers correspond very well to their cost. The notable exceptions being the end of the line, which I don't think would be easily balanced in the supply at any cost (Champion even more so) at all.

---

As far as feedback, I think actually using some of those cost analysis (especially for the beginning of the line) could help. Some of them seem oddly priced. I get that it's a 4 so people can't, under normal circumstances, double up on the traveller line T1 T2. But why don't you want that to happen? Could you redesign it such that it would be fine to double up T1 T2?
Personally, I am weary of things that say "other players can't do this." Getting rid of choices/strategies makes the game less fun. Matriarch preventing the stealing of artifacts rules out one of the whole fun mechanics of artifacts, stealing it back and forth!
I don't like that getting to Matriarch a few turns before someone could irrevocably change the tide of the game (they get a few artifacts and they are lost forever).
I do think that the four artifacts you included are quite interesting! To be honest, Reliquary seems really under whelming. Trade a card for a copper? This only helps with estates and curses... so it's unlikely to be helpful but it hits every turn. Seems more like a self-hex. Or perhaps that's the point, do you want to have that to power up your matriarch? Ah, I see now. That's pretty cool!!

372

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: May 14, 2019, 10:10:51 pm »

Mauler
$6 Action-Attack-Traveller
Each other player trashes an Action card from their hand (or reveals they can't).
If they did, they gain a Ruins to their hand.
Choose one of the trashed cards. +1 Coffers per it costs.
----------------
When this is trashed, trash the card that caused it.
----------------
When you discard this from play, you may exchange it for a General.

You need to have the looter type: ruins only come out if there is a Looter. You might actually have to put Looter on the in-the-supply traveller, or you might put it here. Types matter since your cards care about the number of types.

373

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: May 14, 2019, 12:05:52 pm »

Fur Trader is pretty cool, it turns your travelers into great halls, which you know is fine. What’s interesting is you really want TWO fur traders, which is an interesting difference from the existing traveler lines. But then you’ve upgraded two travelers into no longer being travelers. I’m not sure whether this antisynergy makes it too weak, but it certainly makes it interesting. Wait just realized the gold gives +buy, you’ll want that anyway regardless even if you don’t load up on travelers for vp. Cool idea!

Manor is also interesting, I wonder about its strength. In the line itself I have a way to fully upgrade multiple travelers, (theres trashing, cycling, and a village)  I don’t know if I would ever buy a province . 1vp is a small price to pay for a self-islanding province and it let’s me green early. Once I get 3 in play, I could just buy estates. I wouldn’t ever need to build economy. I’d love to see simulations but I imagine buying cottages every turn, trashing holding onto abbeys for a bit, while getting an early city hall for cycling and village, then continuing to drain the pile and upgrade fully, seems like a great single-pile strategy. Granted, it seems like a *fun* monolithic strategy, and there’s a lot of tactics on when to upgrade and how to not be over-terminal (a vanilla village actually makes this strategy less interesting and easier).

374

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: May 13, 2019, 10:03:49 pm »

"When you trash this" (Underground Railroad) shouldn't make something a Reaction. Catacombs, Cultist, and Rats (just to name a few) have this wording, and none of them are Reactions. Also, for Settlement, do you mean "you may play this, and get +1" -instead of its effect, or -in addition to its effect?

Other than that, this line looks really cool to me.

Ah yes, good catch, thank you! This is a remnants from when all 5 were reactions, then I changed them slightly... I will make those edits, thank you!. Settlement is meant to gain VP in addition to its normal on play, which has some interesting edge case potentials (Settlement lets you discard a Border Crossing to gain an estate during your opponent's last turn) but since it's a lab it's mostly a similar effect as simply playing it on your turn. It was the most elegant way to track the +vp without "losing" the hand increase by 1 effect, and without allowing you to stack the same +vp multiple times before your next turn.

There were three other options:
1. Discard the card and lose the +card effect. However, then all the sudden +1vp is not all the time worth it for sacrificing your hand-size increaser. I want it to be an automatic choice, you don't want someone to say "wait I want to think about whether I want to react to this," You want the choice to be automatic to not slow down the game! If you make the effect stronger to make the choice automatic, then it's probably too strong. I did play around with +2VP at first but realized that was way too much.
2. Discard the card but still get the +2 cards. Well, this allows infinite loops. If your deck/discard is empty you can get an infinite VP with just one Settlement. If you make the Discard happen after the +2 cards, well, now you can get an infinite loop with Two Settlements in hand.
3. The other option was to get the +1vp and "set it aside and return it to the start of your hand," which solves the problem handedly, but I find the whole "setting aside" not a very elegant solution. Where do I set it aside? And I think the slight corner cases you get from playing it are interesting. So, that's why I have you play a card. It also allows it to act as a Village on your turn. The cards are mainly good at sifting and slightly increasing hand size. But they can also give extra gains in the right situations (revealing Crusades or Discarding Boarder Crossings) and act as a village (playing a Settlement on your turn as a reaction after playing a bribery).

375

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Cards with the Best Flavour

« on: May 13, 2019, 07:04:29 pm »

I really enjoy that animals breed like crazy: Rats, Magpie.
Bats might seem like an an exception, but they aren't animals -- they're actually Vampires in disguise!

Goat is an exception, but it does really fit with goats eating everything.

Bureaucrat slows everything down (makes you have to redraw your estate).