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426

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: 22 cards that need your input

« on: June 25, 2012, 05:38:20 pm »

First thoughts and reactions:

Baked Goods
$0 Treasure
+$2
Trash this card.

Free one-shot Silver? With extra buys it would probably be a pile to empty pretty quickly. I like it, I think.

Drone
$2 Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
If this is in your hand during your Buy phase, +$1, +1 Buy.

Wording:

Drone

+1 Card +1 ActionIn games using this, at the start of your Buy phase, reveal your hand: +$1, +1 Buy for each Drone in your hand.

$2 ACTION

Interesting concept, but I don't think I would often if ever keep it in my hand for only a single coin bonus though.

Deuce
$2 Action
Choose one: +$2; or gain a Silver.

I struggle to find anything to say about this card. Both effects are painfully weak and uninteresting.

Feedbag
$3 Action-Reaction
+$2
If you discard or trash this card, +2 Cards.

Okay, so what about when I discard this during Clean-Up. Do I get a 7 card hand next turn when I discard this from play or do I discard the top 2 cards of my deck. The draw isn't even optional so it has to be done. Let me suggest some simplification:

Feedbag

+$2When you discard this or trash this except during a Clean-Up phase, you may reveal this. If you do, +2 Cards.

$3 ACTION - REACTION

It could be decent, but I'm not terribly excited to see it just for its bland action effect.

Refurnish
$3 Action
Trash a Treasure card from your hand. Gain a Victory card costing up to $2 more than the trashed card.

A worse Remodel as I see it. It seems like it would largely serve as another placeholder card to show up and never be used in a lot of games.

Dealer
$3 Action
Each player chooses a card in his hand. The person to your right reveals their chosen card, then you reveal yours. +$1 per total cost in coins of those cards. Each player passes his chosen card to the left. You may trash a card from your hand.

It's a Masquerade without a draw that encourages you to pass something good but still asks each other player to pass the worst thing in his hand. It just makes me wish for Masquerade.

Homesteader
$3 Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
If you reveal any Estates from your hand, +1 Card.

Wording:

Homesteader

+1 Card +1 Action Reveal your hand. If you reveal any Estates, +1 Card.

$3 ACTION

I like both Laboratory variants.

Comradery
$4 Action
+1 Action
For every Comradery in your hand, +$2.
If there are no Comraderies in your hand, +1 Card.

Wording:

Comradery

+1 Action Choose one: +1 Card; or reveal your hand. For each Comradery revealed, +$2.

$4 ACTION

Seems more swingy and frustrating than Conspirator.

Old Hag
$4 Action-Duration
+2 Cards
If another player reshuffles his deck before the start of your next turn, he gains a Curse on top of his deck.

First: As a Duration card, this is discarded during the first clean-up phase because it is the last turn that it will do anything. More importantly, I love Duration cursers, but this isn't a terribly novel idea. It will usually miss its mark because players won't shuffle while it's in play and the player often can't control when that will happen (and if they can, this discourages playing Actions). In addition, this would stack rather terribly in multiplayer.

Dilemma
$4 Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
Choose one: gain a Silver; gain 2 Estates.

Not much of a dilemma. Gain Silvers early, gain Estates later. This would be killer with Silk Roads, but is otherwise doesn't look like it would do much.

Mutator
$4 Action
Trash a card from your hand. If it's an Estate, Copper, or Curse, gain a Silver; otherwise, gain a Gold.

I would drop this down to $3. Gaining a Gold is pretty strong, but you have to trash a card that you would likely otherwise want to get the Gold and a 1 card trash for benefit isn't going to do anything for slimming your deck.

Cheapskate
$4 Action
Choose one: gain a card costing $2 and a card costing $4; or gain a Silver and a card other than Silver costing $3.

Gardens would be happy to see this card, but otherwise, I can't see myself buying this card.

Conquistador
$4 Action-Attack
+$2
Each other player reveals their hand, trashes any Gold in their hand, and gains that number of Silvers, putting them into their hand.

It's hard to trash players' cards with Attacks. Swindler and Saboteur are very careful in doing so and even still lots of people hate the cards. There is something to be said for this card discouraging big money, but a terminal Silver that trashes every Gold in each player's hand seems like quite a lot of damage to wreak in one action, even if it does replace those Golds with Silvers. If it only replaced one Gold, then the attack would likely be hard enough to hit with to not completely over power Treasures.

Prohibiter
Action-Attack
Cost: $4
+1 Card
+1 Action
+1 Buy
Each other player discards a Gold (or reveals a hand with no Gold).

Ow. Cutpurse (the obvious comparison) hurts a lot because, as an opener, it hits the Coppers you're either using to buy more cards or attempting to trash. This thing, being a cantrip, rather painlessly slaps Golds out of players' hands. If you give it a different bonus and allow players to draw cards for losing a Gold it might be okay, but a free possible $3 hit to your opponent's next turn is not cool.

Silo
$4 Action
+1 Action
Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. Place revealed Treasures costing $6 or more on the top of your deck, in any order. Draw the other revealed cards into your hand.

At first blush, this seems fine: Non-terminal draw that leaves Golds, Platinums, and Harems on the deck. Then I remembered that Silvers aren't too shabby. This and a metric ton of Silvers could easily take over a game.
I would recommend leaving something that must inherently be in a deck on top of the deck: Victory cards or cards costing less or more than some number.

Entrepreneur
$4 Action
+1 Buy
Gold is worth $1 more this turn.

Coppersmith is weak and Coppers are the most numerous treasures in our starting decks. I think it would be extremely difficult to get the density of Golds necessary to make this card even partially useful.

Placer Mine
$5 Action
You may reveal a Gold from your hand. Gain a copy of it. You may trash any number of Coppers from your hand.

I can't think of a scenario I wouldn't rather have Mint. The only thing that makes this better (different, rather) is that it can trash Coppers after it is bought.

Golden Village
$6 Action
+2 Actions
When you buy this, gain a Gold.

This is rather contradictory. It wouldn't work in most draw engines (since that card draw is a huge part of what makes village cards decent), but it gives you Gold as though it wanted to work in draw engines. I'd have to see this one in play.

Acreage
$7 Action
Trash this card. Gain a Province. Each other player gains an Estate.

There should probably be an "if you do" clause to prevent players from going up 15 points by playing this with King's Court, but I otherwise like this "seven coins for a Province" idea.

Gilded Village
$3 Action
+2 actions
Reveal your hand. +1 Card for every Gold in your hand.

Streets of Gold
$4 Victory
Worth 1VP per every 2 Golds in your deck, rounded down.

Gilded Witch
$4 Action-Attack
+2 Cards
Reveal your hand. If you have any Gold in your hand, each other player gains a curse.

Do we really need to encourage buying Gold? I can't think of many games where I didn't want to buy as many Golds as I could-- these would simply make an already powerful treasure even stronger.

427

Mini-Set Design Contest / Re: Mini-Set Design Contest, Part 1!

« on: June 25, 2012, 03:20:02 pm »

Can Duration cards and dual type cards be submitted, or are there card type limitations?
Are we allowed to use VP chips, mats, or unique tokens?
For the Peddler variant, may the card conditionally, but not inherently, provide more than 1 Card, 1 Action, and 1 Coin?

428

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Which Cards are the least fun?

« on: June 17, 2012, 02:09:53 pm »

This is exactly why Possession is interesting.  If there is a strong engine combo on the board, it is often part of a dominant strategy, but Possession nudges you slightly in the direction of greening early making the decision a lot more difficult and making the game quite different than if Possession were not on the board.

It can change a game significantly even if neither player touches it.  If I make the adjustments necessary I am normally very happy when my opponent buys possession since they will often see a hand full with at least one Duchy.

Interesting? That wasn't my argument. My argument is that Possession discourages every other fun strategy in the game. Possession forces players to buy victory points early thereby forcing them to wade around in the greening phase far too long for a single game of Dominion to be fun.
This is mitigated somewhat on isotropic simply because we don't have to fiddle with real cards-- but in real life games, greening early on Duchies becomes a complete slog that every player wishes would come to an end.
My argument isn't that Possession is uninteresting: My argument is that Possession is an ill-conceived card on the grounds that it is not fun to play with.

429

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Which Cards are the least fun?

« on: June 05, 2012, 09:58:14 am »

Possession is the most ill-conceived card in all of Dominion.
You wanted to build an engine that will consistently draw your deck? Too bad: Possession. You wanted to set up a megaturn to buy all the Provinces at once? Too bad: Possession. You wanted to work a double Tactician deck? Too bad: Possession. Thought it might be fun to try Apothecary/Native Village? Too bad: Possession.
Instead, you have to hope some good discarding\cursing Attacks or VP gainers are available or else just cross your fingers. And don't even get me started with Throne Rooms and King's Courts. Why there isn't a multiple turn clause on Possession as Outpost is entirely beyond me.

Possession is the primary reason that I did not, have not, and will not buy Dominion: Alchemy.

430

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan expansion: The Delta (needs more 5's)

« on: June 04, 2012, 06:47:51 pm »

I'm posting up rewordings that handle the issue I mention for each card. Feel free to use them or not.

Jeweler's wording of repeating an action endlessly is awkward. Just make it play itself recursively. Do note that this change makes the first discard optional which could matter for Golem and technically adds to the tally of the number of actions played which would matter for Conspirator.

Jeweler

You may discard 2 cards. If you do, gain a Silver and play this again.

$3 ACTION

Stowage can be put on top of your deck when discarded from play. Get 5 of them and they are instantly ridiculous on a table with Duke.

Stowage

$1 When you shuffle, you may put this anywhere in your deck.When you trash or discard this except from play, you may reveal it. If you do, put this anywhere in your deck.

$2 TREASURE - REACTION (Special Backing)

Paladin can take a page from Remake and simplify its text. I agree with Rinkworks though: This is a very weak card.

Paladin

Do this twice: You may draw a card. If you do, each other player draws a card. Each other player discards down to 3 cards in hand.

$3 ACTION - ATTACK

Almanac has only two "if" statements. Just use an "else" clause.

Almanac

If you have 5 or fewer cards in hand, draw until you have 7 cards in hand. Otherwise, discard any number of cards. +$1 for each card discarded.

$5 ACTION

Brothel's reaction during Attacks does not require that it be revealed from the hand. In addition, it can be revealed during Clean-Up which makes its drawback completely inconsequential since you can trash the Curses it gives you when you discard it from play-- let alone the fact that it puts Curses into your hand which makes the compulsary discard a weaker drawback.

Brothel

+4 Cards +1 Action Gain a Curse, putting it into your hand. Discard 4 cards.When another player plays an Attack you may reveal Brothel from your hand or if you discard Brothel except during a Clean-Up phase, you may reveal it. If you do, you may choose your hand or your discard pile, look through it, reveal a card from it, and then trash that card. Then discard Brothel.

$4 ACTION

Stowage - special backing
2$ Treasure - Reaction
+1$
When you shuffle, you may put this anywhere in your deck.
_______________________________________________
When you trash or discard this, you may reveal it.  If you do, put it anywhere in your deck.

Can't think of a situation where I'd want this.  Also, I have no idea what would happen if this gets trashed by an opponent's Thief.

The lose track rule I believe takes care of this. When Stowage is trashed by Thief, it stowes itself somewhere in the defending player's deck. Thief looks for the cards it trashed and Stowage isn't there, therefore the player of Thief cannot gain the Stowage.

431

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What cards are the most fun?

« on: June 03, 2012, 08:34:48 pm »

I've found one of my favorite cards is the Ill-Gotten Gains. Lots of players find the Duchy rush of the Ill-Gotten Gains strategy to be very annoying, but I think it only shows the wonderful balance Dominion possesses. Ill-Gotten Gains is competing with Duchy. No one wants to buy the last Ill-Gotten Gains because it signifies the start of the Duchy race. No one can start buying Duchies until the race begins, lest they misfire and be stuck with Duchies and Curses. At a table of players who understand the rammifications of Ill-Gotten Gains' pile emptying, the Ill-Gotten Gains can become a wildly important centerpiece of the table and exists alongside Contraband as one of the few single cards that creates a mind game on its own. Plus it is almost as funny to watch as a set of players unwilling to empty the City pile.

432

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Card Idea: Supply Trasher

« on: May 31, 2012, 06:51:14 pm »

Wording suggestion:

Slave Driver

Gain a card costing up to $4 other than Slave Driver and play it. If you do, when you would discard it, trash it instead.

$5 ACTION

If you gained a Victory card with it, it goes to your discard pile and cannot be put into play, thusly, the second part asking you to trash it will never occur.
Its trashing occurs just before it would be discarded, so any card attempting to redirect a discarded card (Scheme) would fail. The only thing that could save the gained card is top decking it with Watchtower (thus causing it to not be played because Slave Driver would lose track of the card) or top decking a Treasure by buying Mandarin, and such a synergy is very limited, even with Highway.
Its effect isn't very strong. I would most commonly grab this to use a trashing card like Chapel so that I would have a slightly more useful card in my deck when I was done. I would drop it to $4 as a Workshop plus (like Ironworks): Not to mention it would make its text (that it excludes itself) more logical.

433

Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: Dominion: Dark Ages on Rio Grande Games' Website

« on: May 25, 2012, 02:23:05 pm »

Did anyone else notice the game's length is measured in "minutes minutes"?
Physics students in the room can read that as, "minutes squared." Apparently, Rio Grande has admitted to how grossly off the 30 minute length was and has started measuring time in the fifth dimension as well. Has anyone else figured out how square minutes work? I certainly can't.

On topic though, I'm pretty excited. 500 cards, 35 kingdom cards, Shelters, and Ruins make (35*10 + 35 + 24 + 30) 439 cards announced right off the bat. That leaves us with 61 undefined cards in the set: Plenty of room for all kinds of "upgrade" shenanigans.

434

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Bribing for Prizes

« on: April 24, 2012, 06:28:49 pm »

Why does Banquet make a player with no $3+ cards in his hand gain a Curse? That only increases the chance that the player won't have a $3+ card in his hand next time you play it! I'd just make a player who does not have any $3+ cards in his hand discard his hand and draw to 4 cards (to prevent most any benefit [yeah, Tunnel]).

Guard's reaction is worded poorly. Try "When another player trashes a Treasure you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, that player gains the trashed card."
Regardless, this is a bit aggressive towards an individual player. And unless you really get a pounce on this card (perhaps with Bribe), its Action and Reaction effects are largely useless because you won't have any Treasures to trash and other players won't be trashing any treasures.

Guild Crest should likely refer to a Guild Crest token, as opposed to a Coin token. Otherwise, it seems okay. It's just about useless in most 2 player games, and quite maybe too strong in 4+ player games, but that's alright.

I like Jewel.

Putting all the Curses back and making Curses good for you with Necromancer could be pretty fun, but you might want to make some other sort of catch for it. If you "restart the Curse war," it's not as big a deal for you since you could actually want the Curses, but it could mess everyone else up. If you grab it towards the end (as its on-gain would indicate), it ultimately reads: You can decrease opponents' scores but they can only increase yours. You probably want the player with Necromancer to stop gaining Curses during other players' turns somehow.

Bribe probably doesn't need to put a Curse into your deck since it requires you to trash 2 Silvers or a Gold (barring Bridge, Highway, and Princess) which is punishment enough. In addition, it doesn't stick the Prize on top of your deck like Tournament does.

Have you considered only including 5 random Prizes? It would make Tournament and Bribe much more dynamic, I think.

435

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Enterprise (Beta)

« on: April 01, 2012, 04:46:25 pm »

I might say Clerk's Action is a bit too good for $2. You get the best of 3 cards and an extra $1 on the side. I might remove the $1 or lower the number of cards that are revealed.

I agree that the Action effect might be a touch too powerful. I might nerf it back down to looking at the top 2 cards of your deck rather than the top 3. The thing is that the reaction effect is useful, but slow. I wanted to give the action effect a bit more kick to compensate. At one time the reaction effect trashed down to 3 cards in hand, but I thought that would be too constricting. If there were some concise way to word Clerk such that upon revealing it you were allowed to trash any number of cards from your hand as long as you didn't dip below 3 cards in hand, I would go for that.

I had no qualms with Clerk's Reaction (and it did seem to be the main event of the card), but it is slow. The most semantically correct and concise method I can think of acquiring your effect is invoking the infinite-reveal clause and abusing that. "When another player plays an Attack card and you have 4 or more cards in your hand, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, trash a card from your hand."

Otherwise, you could go for something that doesn't require such intense knowledge of how Reactions work: "When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, you may trash cards from your hand until you have 3 cards in hand." (which is to say, this is a loop that repeats until you have 3 cards in hand or choose not to trash a card)

436

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Enterprise (Beta)

« on: April 01, 2012, 03:00:00 pm »

I love the way you've handled this one-shot theme. Having most one-shots be optional or avoidable is an interesting risk to the game and is a wonderful bit of decision making.

I might say Clerk's Action is a bit too good for $2. You get the best of 3 cards and an extra $1 on the side. I might remove the $1 or lower the number of cards that are revealed.

I like Gambler-- though would probably prefer the name refer to the Gambling Hall rather than the man doing the gambling. That's semantics though. Mechanically, its effect is cute as a trasher, but it sucks as a drawer since it is a one-shot. I probably wouldn't buy it unless I wanted its trashing effects or had an extra buy and didn't need more Silver.

I'm a big fan of this one, but Mill Town might run faster if you "reveal 3 or more Coppers from your hand and gain a card costing up to the number of Coppers revealed" since we wouldn't be stuck in the awkward analysis-paralysis of trying not to reveal too many or too few Coppers. Why can't Mill Town gain a card that costs $2, anyway?

Surveyer is okay. +2 Cards I've always found to be a weak, nearly useless effect thrown onto cards with stronger alternate effects-- and that seems to be the case here. I'm pretty unimpressed by this card overall though. I wouldn't usually buy it-- even with a spare $3 unless there was a really good $6 Action in play that I wanted more than one of.

The price decerement supplied by Fund would rarely be worth anything. The best thing about Bridge is decreasing the price of what you want to buy to nothing so that you are limited by your buys rather than your coins, but Fund can only decrease prices by $1 on its own (which is to say, it would only be worthwhile if Bridges and Highways were in play). I'd only maybe buy one if I needed a Silver and had $4, but I can't think of any scenarios that Fund's effect would be anywhere near as useful as Bridge's or Highway's.

Monopoly sounds like one of those luck-based Kingdom Cards I would veto constantly. Its ability to trash cards from the Supply is something I'd like to play with though...

Barracks might be more useful if Conscripts wasn't gained, but could be purchased while Barracks was in play (and perhaps Conscripts are returned to their Supply instead of being trashed). As it is, I wouldn't pay $5 for Barracks unless a different, better Attack was in play. And now that I think about it, adding a +$1 to it might not be all that bad. Imagine a Market without a +Card... yeah, it has +$2 instead and is called Festival.

Well, he says [Mercenary]'s a powerful $4 card. That's different from saying it's a powerful card.

Spy is also $4 and this seems a lot better than Spy to me.

Spy can affect the top of your deck which I usually found to be the most beneficial thing it can do (especially with other cantrips in play). Affecting others was just a little bonus. Mercenary only affects other's decks and is trashed if you don't discard one of those Treasures that you could otherwise use.
It looks to me like a weaker Stables with a Spy-like effect thrown on top.

437

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Expansion - Dominion: Piston Town

« on: March 24, 2012, 09:05:04 am »

Replace would generally be useless I think. You'd usually use it to swap out cards that you should have bought in the first place. In Swindler and Highway games, it could be used to some effect, but otherwise, it's almost entirely worthless.

Reassemble is a terrible card. In order to get the affect of a terminal Upgrade you have to already have 2 in your hand. If you made the upgrade of it based on some sort of token system I think it could work.

Saloon might be overpowered. I'd have to see it in a game.

Gas Geyser, when played from a standard 5-card hand, leaves the player with a 2 Card hand in order to give each other player a Curse and 3 card hands. It seems like it would hurt you more than, or at least as much as, everyone else.

Femme Fatale discourages strategies that hinge upon Actions by targeting them. I don't like this card since it pushes players towards Big Money.

Demolition Team is a better trasher than Chapel. In addition, it can unavoidably force other players to trash cards. Even without that second ability, it is a better trasher than Chapel. I don't think it needs to do anything else.

I love Drilling Machine, but it needs some kind of check-- namely because if you get enough Highways and Bridges into play, you will draw your entire deck.

Mastermind would be really boring to wait through.

I'd suggest wording Buried Ore similarly to Stash: Before you shuffle, look through your discard pile and set aside 2 cards. When you shuffle, place the set aside cards and this on the bottom of your deck in any order.
The mention of "per Buried Ore" is unnecessary, because it is implied that you have to set aside 2 cards for each Buried Ore. Any more explicit and it reads more like the description from the booklet than the card.

I like the idea of Tenant Housing, but because it's only worth 1VP and only returns 1 card, it is mostly useless. I might make it cost more and allow it to return more than one card.

438

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: A new card idea

« on: March 05, 2012, 10:11:17 am »

Perhaps it would be balanced if you could only duplicate a single Treasure once.

Do you mean per card or per hand? If you mean per hand, then what would be the point in buying this card?

I mean once per Stock per Treasure. Something simple like the Throne Room's description. How about:

Stock

Pick a Treasure in your hand that is not Stock and play it twice.

TREASURE $3

If it cost $5 it would be worthless (because that's too close to Gold's cost). With its rather crippling weakness (see below), $4 might be too much. If it cost $3 though, I think it could work.

I'd change it to "choose a treasure card in play" to avoid the sad situation where you accidentally play it last (or end up pulling it up last via Adventurer or Venture).

As Tables said, this would be neat in games with Platinum or alternate Treasures.  It also makes it difficult to price... $5 would be OK in those scenarios, but in a game where Gold is the best treasure, it would probably be completely ignored at $5.

A problem that remains -- what happens if this is the only Treasure card have in your hand?  Is it completely worthless then?

Stock being the only Treasure in your hand would be worthless-- and that's the rub of it. With theoretically infinite duplication (that every Stock can act as the strongest treasure in your hand\in play), it is too strong with Platinums and alternate Treasures, but way too weak without them. If it could only duplicate one Treasure and it cost only $3, the trade-off could be challenging and could possibly pay off.
If you draw it by itself or as the last Treasure you draw with Venture it is completely worthless, but if you draw it with a Bank...

439

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: A new card idea

« on: March 04, 2012, 07:31:20 pm »

That doesn't give me the throne room affect I want. How about this:
Stock
type: treasure
cost: 5
Choose a treasure card in your hand. Play this card like you would plat that treasure
This way you can play this card as treasures like bank or quarry.

This would be practically useless for duplicating Copper, Silver, and Gold, considering its price. It would generally be better to just purchase the Treasure you wanted in the first place.
The ability to duplicate Golds in your hand could be neat, but the card would need to be cheaper. This is only as good as the best Treasure in your hand, so dropping the price to $3 could probably be justified. Then again, every copy of this is as good as the best Treasure in your hand, so $3 would likely be too cheap. Perhaps it would be balanced if you could only duplicate a single Treasure once.

440

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Idea - way to make "Blood Money" balanced?

« on: February 13, 2012, 12:20:06 pm »

Blood Money - $5
Treasure
$3
------
When you gain this, gain a Curse.

The drawback is that this is a total freebie in games where the Curses run out.  Maybe this is not that big a drawback, but it counts for something.

You could state something along the lines of:

Blood Money

$3 When you would gain Blood Money, gain a Curse as well. If you do not, trash Blood Money and instead gain a Silver and a Copper.

$5 TREASURE

Because you must first acquire a Curse from Blood Money, you'd have to not block the Curse in order to gain the card (admittedly, Watchtower trashes the Curse after you gain it, so that would work, but Trader stops you from gaining the Curse altogether). If all the Curses were gone, purchasing Blood Money would only put that card in the trash and earn you Silver and Copper. If you were in a Gardens game, you could purposfully dodge the Curse to trash Blood Money and get 2 cards instead of 1. Though I'm sure I've forgotten something or worded this incorrectly...