I thought of an interesting variant based on discussions I've been reading comparing Dominion to other deckbuilders. This variant adds an element to the game that I hope will change the strategic landscape of the game without adding much extra complexity or changing most of the core gameplay. I'm very curious to hear input from the community about this variant. What's good, what's bad, what tweaks should be made?
The main changes in this variant are the addition of a board with scorekeeping spaces (a bunch of eurogames are perfect for this, and a pen and paper would work just as well) and changing the text of the supply VP cards to say: "+1 Action; Move X spaces." Where X is the number of VP the card is worth. The game would end when a player reaches a certain number of spaces, let's say 100, or when piles run out.
I would suggest a few other rule changes:
-Curses would be a one time, one space setback (when the curse is gained) and would then essentially be confusions in your deck.
-VP tokens are tricky. Making them one-shots significantly weakens them, so my suggestion would be that every time you gain a VP token, you move spaces equal to the number of tokens you have. This makes these cards super strong when they appear together, but oh well.
-Alt VP would need to be reworked or scrapped. I'm not sure of a solution to keep them remotely balanced, but there might be something out there. For example, Gardens could be: "At the end of the game, do this twice: Move 1 space for every ten cards in your deck." It could be a nice catch up card.
-It's possible that the supply VP cards would need to be more expensive to keep some semblance of balance.
Effects on the game:
-Huge impact on strategy. The specific number of spaces needed to end the game should be balanced to give various strategy archetypes a fighting chance without forcing the game to last too long. Anyway, the addition of a board opens up new strategies focused on playing your VP more often, and also would impact building and playing for both big money and engines. Sadly, megaturns may not be as viable unless they use VP tokens or alt VP.
-Cursing becomes weaker. Mildly so, but a single curse early in the game is much more than offset by a single estate over the course of the game. Confusions still hurt though.
-Consequently, looters become stronger relative to cursers. Curses and ruins become more similar, and that could make cards like Cultist a must-buy.
-Trashing is likely a bit weaker. A thin deck is still very desirable, but estates are definitely pulling their weight more here!
-Filtering changes depending on the circumstances: you probably never want to discard a province, but sometimes you may want to dig for one.
-As written, these new VP cards combo with TR/KC and I'm not sure if that's good or even ok. Likely a very strong interaction.
-Weakens Rebuild
-Combos with Scout!
Let me know what you think!!