Print

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

[math]

Crumbling Castle might be worth it in a Rebuild game, since it gives you an on-trash benefit.  The problem is that you can't buy Humble Castle, since that would let your opponent buy the Crumbling Castle.

Well, in a rebuild game it shouldn't be too hard to hit 4 after you Rebuild an Estate.
But suspect you want the Duchy in most of those situations. 2 free vp's are probably not worth the risk of losing the Duchy split.

Well, the Duchy split won't matter; you can Rebuild them into bigger Castles, and then into Provinces.

[Seprix]

Castle Rebuild will possibly be a thing past the $4 Castle.

[Accatitippi]

Crumbling Castle might be worth it in a Rebuild game, since it gives you an on-trash benefit.  The problem is that you can't buy Humble Castle, since that would let your opponent buy the Crumbling Castle.

Well, in a rebuild game it shouldn't be too hard to hit 4 after you Rebuild an Estate.
But suspect you want the Duchy in most of those situations. 2 free vp's are probably not worth the risk of losing the Duchy split.

Well, the Duchy split won't matter; you can Rebuild them into bigger Castles, and then into Provinces.

But that's one extra use of Rebuild, and those are going to be scarce, even with alternative stepping stones other than Duchies. It still doesn't seem to be worth it for 2vp's and a couple of Silvers.

[Davio]

I don't like cards where it's either: Everyone should buy them or no one should buy them, like Knights.

If no one starts buying them, there isn't much of an incentive to get one. But if your opponent goes for them, you're pretty much forced to fight them just to deny them some Castles.

With Knights, the next card in the pile may be better, may be worse, you don't know, so you can just gamble and get the top one anyway.
Here, you know that the next Castle will actually be better, so the best strategy is to wait, but your opponent is also waiting and in the end, no one buys them.

My fear is that it will be a waste of a kingdom slot more often than not.

I'd love to hear some playtesting comments about this. However it would suck if playtesters just endlessly spoiled the journey of discovery for everyone on all of the new cards, really when you think about it would make it just plain bad to have previews at all, so no, no playtesters will be speaking up, shucks.

[Elanchana]

Really random thought - I wonder if I've visited a chateau in France that fits every castle description. My parents and I did some touristing in the Loire valley and the Acquitaine, so I got to go to the crumbling castle of Chinon, the sprawling castle of Chambord, a humble castle owned by a private family with records showing the owners for the last thousand years...

[Donald X.]

I'd love to hear some playtesting comments about this. However it would suck if playtesters just endlessly spoiled the journey of discovery for everyone on all of the new cards, really when you think about it would make it just plain bad to have previews at all, so no, no playtesters will be speaking up, shucks.

I see what you're saying, really that makes a lot of sense. Especially the part in red that I added.

At the very beginning, in 2008, Valerie spoke up about Chapel. Between then and Adventures, no playtesters spoke up about anything ever. Everyone had to figure out the cards for themselves, or of course wait for other non-playtester people to figure them out. I believe strongly that that was more fun for everyone.

I recruited playtesters from dominionstrategy because that's where the players were. Most of them have been nicely tight-lipped and well I will be pursuing stricter assurances there in the future.

For sure some people will hate some of the cards, there's no way around that. Some groups will play with some cards but never buy others. Just assume that everything you don't like probably sucks even harder than you imagine; I don't mind. It's not something for playtesters to tell you though.

[Mr Anderson]

I don't like cards where it's either: Everyone should buy them or no one should buy them, like Knights.

If no one starts buying them, there isn't much of an incentive to get one. But if your opponent goes for them, you're pretty much forced to fight them just to deny them some Castles.

With Knights, the next card in the pile may be better, may be worse, you don't know, so you can just gamble and get the top one anyway.
Here, you know that the next Castle will actually be better, so the best strategy is to wait, but your opponent is also waiting and in the end, no one buys them.

My fear is that it will be a waste of a kingdom slot more often than not.

I'd love to hear some playtesting comments about this. However it would suck if playtesters just endlessly spoiled the journey of discovery for everyone on all of the new cards, really when you think about it would make it just plain bad to have previews at all, so no, no playtesters will be speaking up, shucks.

I am not a playtester, but on first glance the fact that the first Castle is worth 1 per castle you have might actually be an incentive to buy the first Castle and hope to get more later on, especially the last two.

[junkers]

Most of them have been nicely tight-lipped and well I will be pursuing stricter assurances there in the future.

So what does your ideal preview look like? Will you make a template for folks to follow in the future?

I liked how LFN revealed this pile: hinted at strategies, but didn't bludgeon us with an essay. It let the forum deconstruct the cards themselves, and ponder about their interactions, whilst remaining in the dark because of a lack of actual playing experience with the cards at hand. Almost like some sort of view of the cards, before actually getting our grubby mitts on them.

[Davio]

Oh I love the journey, I mentioned this already.

I just hope that split piles will be worth it to add to a Kingdom in randomly generated games. I guess this and the VP card landmark is already an incentive. And a lot of other Empires stuff might care about them.

[Mr Anderson]

And Donald X is a genius, so I am sure they will be worth it. They can't all be the best card ever, but they can't all be Scout either.

[Davio]

Well Scout does seem to get a boost with Empires. Lots of incentive to grab VP cards.

[Beyond Awesome]

In the Secret History we'll learn this expansion was made specifically to make Scout a good card.

[junkers]

In the Secret History we'll learn this expansion was made specifically to make Scott a good card.

Scott's got to be feeling like the prettiest girl at the ball right about now.

I just hope that split piles will be worth it to add to a Kingdom in randomly generated games.

Catapult looks like it's going to be fun no matter what it's added to; Gladiator has good functionality and the pay-off on Fortune is something that, no matter how ridiculous it seems, is always going to be gnawing at you whatever Kingdom it appears in; and I'll be completely honest I haven't given Bustling Catanners much consideration yet...

[Accatitippi]

In the Secret History we'll learn this expansion was made specifically to make Scott a good card.

Well, I'm not sure. Scott loves Action-Victory, but he doesn't really work well with vp tokens...
And anyway, I think that if Nobles-Scout isn't great (and it isn't), then not much is going to work anyway. 

[Donald X.]

So what does your ideal preview look like? Will you make a template for folks to follow in the future?

The previews aren't the issue; I just don't want playtesters to feel like they can talk about the cards. Really, even to reassure people.

In retrospect I will be nixing previews like Adam's, which I could have in advance but didn't. It was fine when WW, who hadn't played with any cards, endlessly analyzed a card last time. Adam played with the cards and well it just feels anti-fun to me to hear him say, this is what happened in those games.

[Davio]

I can understand that,  it's much more fun to let us rave against jack of all trades and snicker in a corner. 

[Tables]

Fun little fact: Humble Castle on its own (no other Castles) is the infamous "Half Harem" fan card that often gets suggested despite being a pretty awful card. Obviously this doesn't have the same issues that card has, though.

[Davio]

Fun little fact: Humble Castle on its own (no other Castles) is the infamous "Half Harem" fan card that often gets suggested despite being a pretty awful card. Obviously this doesn't have the same issues that card has, though.

Humble Castle has way better art than Harem.

[ConMan]

Disappointed there is no Swamp Castle.  Or a Howl's Moving Castle.

I'd love a Takeshi's Castle, or a Dontgonearthe Castle.

brb, going to RBCI.

[crj]

Wait for Dominion Legacy.

In that, you'll get to use a Sharpie and name the Castle the first time you buy it.

[junkers]

I'd love a Takeshi's Castle

Takeshi's Castle
Action - Duration - Victory Card ($11)

15VP

When you gain this, put it into play.

For the rest of the game, at the start of each other player's turn, that player may attempt to cross the living-room/game store floor by running atop a series of giant foam dominoes while armed with only a water pistol.

If they make it to the door, they gain control of this card and put it into play immediately.

Setup: replace the floorboards or carpet with rats.

[tristan]

I like the general idea of this. Humble Castle could be problematic though as you could buy it in order to disincentivze other players from going for a Castle strategy. Then again the opportunity costs could be high enough to not make this worthwile.

[chipperMDW]

Setup: replace the floorboards or carpet with rats.

Talk about an annoying card to have in the Black Market deck. All that work and you probably don't even see the card.

[Joseph2302]

Rules question: With Black Market, can only 1 Castle be in the deck? And how do you choose which one?
Same question for the split piles,  can you have either of the cards in the BM deck, and how would you choose it?

[LastFootnote]

Rules question: With Black Market, can only 1 Castle be in the deck? And how do you choose which one?
Same question for the split piles,  can you have either of the cards in the BM deck, and how would you choose it?

I believe Donald's ruling for this so far has been: do what you want. Which is a fine ruling, I think.