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26

Variants and Fan Cards / Dominion: Bestiary - Cards that reference themselves (beta: just a few ideas)

« on: August 16, 2015, 07:42:42 am »

Inspired by Rats and Magpie (but not Trusty Steed)

Attempting to make a small expansion out of cards that reference themselves. Ideas so far:

King Parrot
Action - $3
Do this twice:
Play an Action card you have in play that isn't a King Parrot or a Duration card.

Cats
Action - $4
Gain a Cats
Trash a card from your hand. Gain a card costing exactly $1 more than it.

Toad
Action/Attack - $4
+$1
You may gain a Toad. If you did, each other player gains a Curse. Otherwise, return this to the supply.

Tiger
Action - $4
+2 Cards
You may play an Action card that isn't a Tiger from your hand.

27

Variants and Fan Cards / Dominion: Populace (Beta)

« on: June 06, 2015, 11:07:11 pm »

After seeing "Cabal/Turncoat" I got thinking about the idea of cards that give you cantrips. They can be both beneficial and damaging.

There's a deck of 50 cards that's not in the supply. These are the "citizen cards".

All of them have names, and are of the format:

John Smith
Action/Citizen - $X*
+1 Card
+1 Action
---
When you trash this, (beneficial effect), and return it to the citizen pile.
(This card is not in the supply)

X may be anywhere from 2 to 6

Some vague card ideas

Town Hall
Action - $4
+2 Cards
You may play any number of Citizens
---
When you gain this, gain a Citizen from the Citizen pile.

Retrain
Action - $5
+1 Action
Trash a card from your hand. Gain a card costing up to $2 more than it, and a Citizen from the Citizen pile.

Tyrant
Action - $5
+4 Cards
Gain a Citizen from the Citizen pile.

Cabal (a card by CookieLord)
Action/Attack - $4
+$2
Each other player discards a Citizen from his hand, or reveals a hand with no Citizens
---
When you gain this, each other player gains a Citizen from the Citizen pile.

Opportunist
Action/Attack - $4
+1 Card
Each player (including you) reveals his hand. If he has fewer citizens in his hand than you, he gains a Curse and a Citizen from the Citizen pile.

Trust
Treasure - $4
Worth $1
+1 Buy
+$2 for each Citizen in your hand.
---
While this is in play, when you buy a card, gain a Citizen from the Citizen Pile. 

Conurbation
Action - $4
+1 Card
+2 Actions
Citizens produce an extra $1 this turn
---
While this is in play, when you buy a Victory Card, gain a Citizen from the Citizen Pile.

Pristine Land
Victory - $6
Worth 5VP, -1VP for every 2 citizens in your Deck
---
In games using this, if you have any $ remaining at the end of your turn, gain a Citizen from the Citizen pile.

28

Variants and Fan Cards / Cards that could have been Events?

« on: April 23, 2015, 11:15:22 pm »

Cache
Event - $5
Gain a Gold and 2 Coppers

---

Masterpiece
Event - $3+
Gain a Copper. When you buy this you may overpay. Gain a Silver for each $1 you overpay.

---

Ill Gotten Gains
Event - $5
Gain a Copper and a Silver. Each other player gains a Curse

---

"Special Village"
Action - 3*
+1 Card
+2 Actions
This card is not in the supply

Port
Event - $4
Gain 2 Special Villages from the Special Village pile.

Border Village
Event - $6
Gain a card costing less than this and a Special Village from the Special Village pile.

Bazaar
Event - $5
Move your +$1 token to the Special Village pile. Gain a Special Village from the Special Village pile.

Worker's Village
Event - $4
Move your +1 Buy token to the Special Village pile. Gain a Special Village from the Special Village pile.

Lost City
Event - $5
Move your +1 Card token to the Special Village pile. Gain a Special Village from the Special Village pile. Each other player draws a card.

Village
Event - $3
Gain a Special Village from the Special Village pile.

29

Simulation / Reverse Polarity Challenge: A>B, but B>C>A

« on: September 24, 2014, 07:17:24 am »

The rock paper scissors challenge (A>B, B>C, C>A) was a success, with ephesos finding a decisive triangle of Beggar/Gardens, Double Mountebank and a Masquerade Pin.

Here's the next challenge relating to non transitive strategy: Can you find 3 strategies, A, B and C such that in a 3 player game, when it comes to the percentage of wins

Strategy A>Strategy B>Big Money
AND
Strategy B>Strategy C>Strategy A
(Or B>A>C, or C>B>A)

Strategy C also must beat 2 Big Money bots in 3 player (so it's a real strategy that can win games).

The winner is the strategy that demonstrates the most decisive shift in the balance; the highest possible score is 200 (which would be a 100:0 changing to a 0:100).

30

Dominion General Discussion / How different would Dominion be if your hand wasn't hidden from other players?

« on: September 05, 2014, 11:12:41 am »

Imagine a card that was just
Action/Attack - $2
+1 Card
+1 Action
Each other player reveals his hand.

Pretty weak card right? It seems like knowing the contents of your opponents hand is only relevant to a few scenarios.

Likewise would cards like Lookout, Navigator etc. be much worse if they were "reveal" instead of "look at"?

Gaining is never secret, and it isn't that hard to keep track of which player has which card unless masquerade is in the kingdom.

Even strategies are hard to conceal.

I just dislike the idea that dominion comes down to the strategy you pick in the first turn, easily learnable and predictable tactics, and luck.

31

Simulation / Challenge: Rock/Paper/Scissors

« on: September 05, 2014, 06:40:18 am »

Challenge: Find 3 strategies (A, B, C), all of which beat Big Money, that have a rock/paper/scissors relationship (i.e. A beats B, B beats C, C beats A).

In addition, all 3 strategies must be playable in the same kingdom (so only 10 cards total can be referenced between the 3 strategies except for the cases of Young Witch and Black Market).

There will be 3 win loss ratios between the strategies. The winner will be the triad with the highest win loss ratio in the triads closest matchup (so a triad with 99/1, 99/1, 51/49 is not as good as a triad with 70/30, 70/30, 65/35)

32

Variants and Fan Cards / Return a card from the trash to the supply

« on: August 16, 2014, 02:45:17 pm »

Is there any reason why this effect would be broken on a card?

It would be a real factor in games with both trashers and cursers, especially Sea Hag.

The card I'm thinking of doing is:

Diggings:
Action - $4
+1 Card
+2 Actions
Return a card from the trash to the supply.
---
When you gain this, if it is your Action phase, you may play it immediately.

I wanted to make it more interesting with Remodel type cards and there aren't that many workshop type cards so there's another little effect.

33

Variants and Fan Cards / What should and shouldn't be an attack?

« on: March 30, 2014, 06:47:23 pm »

Sometimes it's uncertain whether a card is an attack or not. The official cards can be explained; Masquerade isn't an attack because of rules confusion with Moat, and Tribute and Possession only affect the player to your left and not in a negative way. IGG can't be an attack as an on gain effect without some confusing "gaining this card is akin to playing an attack" wording. The compulsory non attack interactions are generally seen as positive (eg draw a card, gain a silver) and the mixed ones like Bishop and Vault are optional.

However I have issues with a few of my cards that don't have obvious answers:

Annex
Action/(Attack?) - $4
Each other player may discard any number of cards from his hand
Draw until you have twice as many cards in hand as any other player

Now this card is obviously nasty, but you don't technically have to do anything, so you aren't necessarily being attacked. On the other hand the nature of this card makes it seem appropriate to be able to use reactions like Secret Chamber and Beggar.

Pariah
Action/(Attack?) - $5
Gain a card costing up to $6. Each other player may gain a curse, putting it on top of his deck. If he did, he also gains a copy of the card you gained.

It's all in your opponents hands, and both options (nothing vs curse and $6 card) are meant to be viable and better in some situations and worse in others. One of them, however,  if you take away the "wash" effect of gaining, is most definitely an attack however. Similarly, would soothsayer be an attack if Curse+Card was optional?

Conqueror
Action/Attack - $5
Gain 2 cards with a total cost of up to $7. Each player (including you) looks through his discard pile and either trashes a card from it or puts a card from it on top of his deck.

This card is almost always beneficial to your opponent, but if, for example, their supply pile entirely consisted of Victory Cards (that they want), then it's an attack. It's probably an attack as often as Governor's Silver. This ambiguity can of course be solved by making the effect optional (and you get the 3 letters back by getting rid of the "es" in trashes and "s" in puts).

Prospector
Action/(Attack?) - $2
Gain a Treasure costing up to $6, putting it in your hand. Each other player gains a copy of that treasure, putting it on top of his deck.

Now this card, if you choose to gain Copper, is most definitely an attack that hurts. However if you reveal a moat, then your opponent gets to choose to Gain a Gold in hand without benefiting you, making you regret revealing the reaction, so the optimal play when you have a moat in hand is probably not to reveal it. Similar effect with Lighthouse. Almost makes it worth not being an attack. Also of all the treasures you can choose, only one of them would almost always be considered an attack; triggering Beggar then being given a Gold seems like a strange interaction indeed.



Please let me know whether you think each card should or shouldn't be an attack, and I'm interested in hearing edge cases of your own.

34

Rules Questions / Contraband and Knights

« on: March 11, 2014, 10:50:13 pm »

If a player plays a Contraband, and is prohibited from buying the top knight (eg he names Sir Michael), and then gains that Knight through other means (Haggler, Horn of Plenty, Black Market), is he then allowed to buy the next Knight in the pile (eg Dame Anna), as it isn't the card named for Contraband?

35

Variants and Fan Cards / Card Modifying Competition?

« on: February 20, 2014, 03:31:09 pm »

Threads about how to fix existing cards have been very popular. Would it be worth running a competition similar to the Design Contests for "fixing" existing cards? For example, which of the many scout variants suggested here is the best?

Things to consider:
Which cards to include (just take the usual suspects, or should there be nominations)
What constitutes a variant of an existing card and not a whole new card? Does it matter?
The submissions process (I'm assuming an open process where overlapping ideas are put in the same entry)

36

Puzzles and Challenges / Infinite throne room

« on: February 14, 2014, 08:06:25 am »

Infinite Room
Action - $10
You may reveal an action card from your hand. Play it until remaining plays have no effect on the rest of your turn.

Now questions:

1) Given the following conditions below, are there any cards where you will be stuck playing the card forever

• +Action=Unlimited actions
• +Buy=Unlimited buys
• +$=Unlimited Money
• +VP=You have infinite VP, and are guaranteed to win (although you can share your victory with other players who have played infinite room)
• Take a coin token=You have unlimited coin tokens (ie unlimited money for every remaining turn in the game)
  
• If a deck searcher (or even a card like Thief) will never find any more cards of the type it's searching for, then the end result is all the remaining cards in the discard pile (since that's where all the cards ultimately end up, and the shuffle it ends up as won't be determined by your playing of that card
• If nothing changes between decisions, then making additional decisions doesn't count (eg if you play it with chapel and have 2 cards left in your hand, neither of which you want to trash, that's not going to change no matter how many times you say no)

1b) If that isn't a comprehensive enough set of rules, then what need to be added so that it will work with every dominion card?

2) Without VP chip cards in the Kingdom, are there any cards that guarantee 1st place (shared or otherwise) when played with this card? There is at least one (I think).

3) Can you design a Kingdom where the card is worthwhile, but not broken?

37

Variants and Fan Cards / How similar is too similar?

« on: January 30, 2014, 07:16:49 am »

Say the following card came out (note: this thread isn't about this card specifically, just an example)

Junk Dealerette
Action - $5
Choose 3 (you may not choose the same option twice):
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
Trash a card from your hand.

It plays differently to junk dealer, but it's so similar.

Would you resent its existence?

The only real cards that I thought were too similar to real cards were fixed versions of other cards (Thief/NB, Chancellor/Scavenger, WW/Mystic), which if anything makes me annoyed the original went to print over good out takes.

38

Dominion General Discussion / What cards would you happily do without?

« on: January 30, 2014, 06:41:18 am »

A genie makes a deal with you: For every card you wish out of existence  a new card will be released.

Which existing dominion cards would you happily get rid of?

39

Variants and Fan Cards / Victory card that searches for victory cards; which one is the most interesting?

« on: January 26, 2014, 12:57:29 am »

Option 1:

Homestead
Action/Victory - $3/$4
Worth 1VP
---
+2 Actions
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal a Victory card. Put that in your hand and discard the other revealed cards.

Option 2:

Serf
Action/Victory - $4
Worth 1VP
---
+1 Action
+$1
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal a Victory card. Put that in your hand and discard the other revealed cards.

Option 3:

Plantation
Action/Victory - $4/$5
Worth 1VP
---
+1 Action
+1 Card
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal a Victory card. Put that in your hand and discard the other revealed cards.

I'd rather a $4 card most of all, but which of the ideas make the most interesting use of the "non terminal that draws either itself or a dud" mechanic?

40

Variants and Fan Cards / Prospector - Symmetrical treasure gain

« on: January 23, 2014, 06:09:47 am »

Prospector
Action - $2
Gain a Treasure, putting it in your hand. Each other player gains a copy of that treasure, putting it on top of his deck.

With copper it's an attack (should it be typed as such?) otherwise it's highly strategic. You get the platinum, but so do they next turn. It will be great for the last turn.

I've been trying this idea for a while now, but I think this might be a general variant that works.

41

Variants and Fan Cards / How bad is too bad for a hand to be made by an attack

« on: January 21, 2014, 02:56:48 pm »

A rabble chain can leave the opponent with a "2 card" hand that they have no control over, and there's the pins (which are either way too hard to pull off or definitely too strong).

I'm wondering in the context of this idea:

Midas
Action/Attack - $5
Each player (including you) gains a Gold
Each other player discards his hand and puts the gained Gold into his hand.

Having enough money to buy a Silver in addition to the free Gold isn't too shabby, but the attack is brutal late game.

Nothing to see here, just a terrible card.

Another card where this comes into consideration:

Realtor
Action/Attack - $4
+1 Card
+1 Action
Each player (including you) gains a Copper. Put the gained Copper into your hand. Each other player puts the gained Copper on top of his deck.

It's all about location, location, location

Now if you stack these, the other player, has $5 to spend next turn without other attacks. That's not all that bad a turn. With a Cutpurse stack you can pin, but below $3 is still going to be quite difficult.

Edit: Put Midas in its place.

42

Dominion General Discussion / Other types of attack?

« on: January 21, 2014, 01:26:43 am »

There are four common types of attack in Dominion:

1: Mess with their hand (discarder)
2: Mess with their deck (mucker)
3: Destroy their good cards (trasher)
4: Give them bad cards (junker)

Are there any other possible types?

I've seen "Each other player reveals his hand", which is very weak, but could be important in some kingdoms
I've seen "Each other player loses a Coin token/VP token", which is something different, but probably too situational
I've seen durations that stay in play while increasing the price of all cards.
Maybe there's something to be said for the "slowing down" effect of Ghost Ship and Bureaucrat beyond other what other deck muckers (eg Rabble) do, since generally having fewer reshuffles is bad early and mid game. I suppose it's just a variant of "you need more time to get to your good cards", but there's a definite feeling when it takes forever to finally get to use a good card you gained (which happens for both Ghost Ship and Rabble).

There's definitely innovation to be done with combining two or more types in an intuitive and interesting way (eg Swindler).

43

Dominion General Discussion / Is Dominion dynamic enough?

« on: January 18, 2014, 02:57:46 am »

Sometimes it seems like Dominion is about figuring out the best strategy at the beginning of the game, then playing it out. There's some short term tactics but they don't seem all that important, especially compared to Luck.

There was that thread about the simulators that discovered that there wasn't much "rock/paper/scissors" in Dominion; the best strategy beats all other strategies. This means that there's no point concealing your strategy, or changing your strategy on the fly. To play a strategy, then figure out a better one and alter your strategy is to play suboptimally, but to explain your every move is not.

Is this fair on the game?

44

Variants and Fan Cards / How many cards would be too many?

« on: January 18, 2014, 02:49:13 am »

Let's say they continued releasing Dominion expansions indefinitely. Is there a point where there'd be too many cards in existence?

Personally, I don't think things that are issues for other board games expanding are an issue for dominion, with its limit of 10 cards in a kingdom. You could design a really complicated kingdom with 10 intersecting additional rules, but if you look at the way existing expansions are done that's not really an issue unless you set out not to have fun. The design contests show that there's no shortage of decent and original card ideas, and even then, the consequence of a poorly designed card is mitigated by all the other cards you can play with.

45

Mini-Set Design Contest / Proposal for future rounds

« on: October 23, 2013, 03:46:36 am »

I think the "cards can be tweaked, vote for concepts you like" is the best aspect of the competition, and submissions and voting should be in line with this. The cards winning competitions this time are more interesting than last time where a lot of slight twists on existing cards won. However I think cards will still be ignored because they look/are imbalanced, undercosted etc. The worst is when a card isn't voted for because it "won't fit the set". Some of the most interesting ideas will come from users who aren't intimately familiar with the balance of the game, or who make a mistake with their proposal. There's also a lot of misconceptions about how a card would work, and clarifying intent BEFORE voting would have been helpful.

Therefore a proposal for future rounds -
Instead of just submitting a card, you submit a concept (the more concise the better), and then submit a "sample card".

For example, a card from the intrigue competiton (not mine) was this:

Tiller
Action - $4
Trash a card from your hand. The player to your left chooses a card in the Supply costing at least $2 more than the trashed card. Gain it.

Now this card is obviously bad because it's strictly worse than remodel for the same cost. I suspect that the creator intended it to be "more than $2 more". However the concept is interesting and I would have gladly voted for it. So the new submission

Tiller:
Concept: A powerful card where someone else chooses the card you gain
Sample card:
Tiller
Action - $4
Trash a card from your hand. The player to your left chooses a card costing at least $2 more for you to gain.

While the card is still imbalanced, it is more explicit that the concept is what's being voted on.

If the idea eventually wins, and it becomes apparent that the set is missing a $2 card, then it could be a $2 card that goes up $3, and if it needs a $5 card, it could remodel up $5 (as examples).

Associated ideas:
* You could leave out costs to emphasise.
* It could be run in rounds, for example
- Concepts you'd like to see (round 1)
- Pick the concept you want to develop (round 2)
- Design parameters (cost? vanilla effect? etc.)
* A good place to start with this would be the "alchemy" round, as I'd like to vote on different ideas for how the potion cost could be used in an interesting way.

I'd like to see the minds of this forum collaborate to make the best attempt at a fan set that adds a significant amount to the game.

46

Dominion General Discussion / Dominion Junior

« on: October 15, 2013, 03:05:39 am »

Inspired by a post in another topic, what set of 25 cards would you choose for a game suitable for young children.
The age range for the base set is suggested as 10 and up; cold you make a game suitable for 5-9 year olds?

I have no idea what is and isn't suitable for young children, some possible requirements:
* Simple to understand, not much text or maths beyond adding up money and counting
* Easy to keep track of things like money so the  (cards like Mining Village that give money then disappear aren't a good idea)
* Few ambiguities with rules, to the point where the game could be functional or even fun when people screw up the rules. Cards like possession with 1 page FAQs aren't going to be very fun.
* Tread carefully with attacks - don't want to be starting fights with Torturer and Ghost Ship, but maybe they can be fun and interactivity is good.
* Some cards might need retheming

The base set is a good starting point.

47

Dominion General Discussion / If you had to buy each card invidually, which ones would you avoid?

« on: October 12, 2013, 10:23:39 am »

Say that when goko was first implemented, instead of giving you the whole base set for free and selling packs based on expansions, you had to buy or earn each card individually. With what you know about all 205 cards, which ones would you avoid buying or only buy for completionism.

48

Dominion General Discussion / Challenge: Design a Kingdom that doesn't need the base cards

« on: October 11, 2013, 03:35:52 am »

Your friends are insistent on playing a game of Dominion, so you go to fetch it from your cupboard. Oh no; the box containing your base treasure and victory cards (including platinum and colony) has disappeared. You still have 6 premade starter decks (7 coppers, 3 Shelters), and all of the kingdom cards in other boxes. Curses, Potions and the Dark Ages specific cards are still available. You still want to play Dominion; can you make a fun kingdom without the normal base cards?

The following cards are automatically disqualified for mentioning cards that aren't available:
No Estates: Baron, Followers, Hunting Grounds
No Duchies: Duke, Tournament, Transmute, Count, Duchess
No gainable Copper: Mountebank, Noble Brigand, Cache, Ill Gotten Gains, Beggar
No Silver: Bureaucrat, Trading Post, Explorer, JOAT, Trader, Embassy, Squire, Feodum, Masterpiece, Governor
No Gold: Treasure Map, Hoard, Fool's Gold, Tunnel, Market Square, Sir Vander, Soothsayer
(A card in the above list may not be allowed for multiple reasons, eg all 3 of the cards that mention Provinces)

Cards like Rebuild and Mine would be a hard sell but they are technically allowed.

Other than the fact that there are no base cards, the rules are exactly the same. However you don't have to include a Dark Ages card to start with Shelters.

Let's see if there's still fun to be had.

49

Variants and Fan Cards / Base set without virtual $ and +buy

« on: October 11, 2013, 02:16:24 am »

These are the cards that give virtual $ and or +buy in the Base Set:
Chancellor
Woodcutter
Militia
Moneylender
Market
Festival
Council Room

I wonder if it would have been possible to swap them around with later cards to make for an even simpler base game (In terms of mechanics). It would have been cool to have a base set that really emphasised Treasures as the source for $, and it seems to have cards that play into that perception (Adventurer, Mine, Bureaucrat). Also a stricter rule of "you may only buy one card" (in the base set) would have emphasised the need to transition to greening in the basic rules.

So what cards would best replace them? I think Spoils are simple enough to include in the base set.
Chancellor: A card that speeds up cycling, like Cartographer.
Woodcutter: Explorer, or a simpler version that's just "Gain a Silver in Hand" for $4 covers the money+gain niche.
Militia: Ghost Ship and Torturer are too brutal for the base set. How about a horse traders variant: "Gain a spoils in hand. Each player (including you) discards down to 3 cards in hand". Too good for $4?
Moneylender: "You may trash a copper. If you do, gain a Spoils in hand"
Market: To cover the "peddler variant": "+1 Card, +1 Action, Each player (including you) gains a copper. Put yours in your hand". Probably a $4 card.
Festival: "+2 Actions, gain a Spoils on top of your deck"

And then
Replace Council Room with Soothsayer, Replace Witch with Altar, Make Adventurer cost $5, replace Feast with Coppersmith.

There's the base set as I would have had it.

PS: There's enough room for Spoils in the base set. The base set has 7 blank cards and placeholders for the base cards.

50

Dominion General Discussion / What if the Base Set was released last?

« on: October 11, 2013, 12:50:47 am »

Imagine if the base set was released after all the other sets, with a theme like "no frills" and a name like Dominion: Frugality.

What cards would you have chosen for previews, and what would you have said about them?

Would it have been the worst expansion?