Print

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

[Chase Adolphson]

Discard down to 2 is way too powerful. You could probably do something with a 3 card hand. You can do way less with a 2 card hand.

Wait and its $15. So now its too weak cause who's gonna be able to reach it. Reaction seems fine on anything else, but not on something costing $15.

...have you gotten our message that there's a guide to making fan cards on this forum yet? I'll even link it to you: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=699.0

Villain is more brutal. With army they can only discard down to 2. With villain they can potentially discard down to 0. So you're saying that you're fine with villain since you didn't complain about it but you're not fine with army? ??

[Holunder9]

We always have $20+ but no extra buy. So I wanted to make that less frustrating.

This seems pretty exaggerated. Even in a Colony game you need a decent engine to hit 20.

As other people have already pointed out, there is a reason all the official cards that cost above 8 are Treasures, Victory or quasi Victory cards (Dominate). The most expensive existing Action cards is Prince. It is unique and it is, at its price, directly competing with Provinces. If you buy it too late or have some bad luck buying a Province would have been, at least in hindsight, the better choice.

This is why I don't think that Action cards that are even more expensive are feasible.

[dz]

Discard down to 2 is way too powerful. You could probably do something with a 3 card hand. You can do way less with a 2 card hand.

Wait and its $15. So now its too weak cause who's gonna be able to reach it. Reaction seems fine on anything else, but not on something costing $15.

...have you gotten our message that there's a guide to making fan cards on this forum yet? I'll even link it to you: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=699.0

Villain is more brutal. With army they can only discard down to 2. With villain they can potentially discard down to 0. So you're saying that you're fine with villain since you didn't complain about it but you're not fine with army? ??

Oh oops I forgot about Villain. Well Villain is even more expensive and more broken than Army. Obviously then, that's gotta go.

Legionary has "discard down to 2" but also has "draw a card" to make up for it. And it needs a Gold to be revealed. That makes it more fair than straight up "discard down to 2". Try a fix like that.

Also I've yet to see you input any changes to your cards. Maybe start doing that? You've already gotten a decent amount of replies.

[gambit05]

The main reason for the $20+ cards is that lots of times when I'm playing with my parents we always have $20+ but no extra buy. So I wanted to make that less frustrating.

I may have a helpful addition to your set:

Decadence
4$
Action – Attack - Reaction

+1 Card
+1 Action
+2 Buys
---------------------------------
If another player has 3$ or more coins
unspent in their buy phase,
you may reveal this from your hand.
If you do, they either gain a card with + buy
from the supply or trash a treasure they
have in play, their choice.

[faust]

The main reason for the $20+ cards is that lots of times when I'm playing with my parents we always have $20+ but no extra buy. So I wanted to make that less frustrating.

Well you can simply add more cards that give +buy, you know...

[ThetaSigma12]

The main reason for the $20+ cards is that lots of times when I'm playing with my parents we always have $20+ but no extra buy. So I wanted to make that less frustrating.

Do you guys specifically build kingdoms? If you play full random then you might get different results. And it seems like you might be overbuilding a tad bit...

[FemurLemur]

So I looked on Chase's profile and noticed that he's a little bit younger than the typical forum member. Given some of the stuff he has said, I don't think he is looking for the kind of feedback that most of us are interested in giving. It sounds like he and his family play a lot of Dominion together as a fun family activity and not necessarily as a cutthroat competitive experience, and that's great! Dominion appeals to different people for different reasons! The more the merrier! But I get the feeling that Chase was trying to flex his creative muscle, and is feeling overwhelmed because he didn't anticipate so much constructive feedback, and he's interpreting it as negativity.

Chase, I have a younger brother your age. You sorta remind me of him. He also plays the game a lot and really enjoys making fan cards. Although he hasn't even been playing for a full year yet, so you're probably a lot better than him. You seem to really enjoy Dominion, and that's great I hope you continue to for many years, because it's a wonderful game! I've noticed in other threads that people have gotten into small debates with you about which cards are good vs which ones suck. I also noticed in this thread that you said everyone was giving you crap. I worry that this forum might end up upsetting you if you're mostly used to talking about Dominion with family and friends. Please remember that people on this forum are highly opinionated, and they don't shy away from disagreement or honest critique. It's not because they are all jerks, it's because they are interested in honest analysis, playing the game at the highest level they can, and thinking about fan cards as a game designer would. Even Donald X, the guy who made the game, spends hours and hours designing, testing, and tweaking cards until they are perfect. It takes a lot of work and a desire to get honest feedback about your cards, and even then, sometimes an idea just doesn't work for him in the end and has to be thrown out.

If you had fun making these cards, and you have fun playing with them, then maybe that's all that matters. But if you're hoping to get a lot of positive feedback about them and just enjoy them for what they are, you might want to just share them with family and friends. Because I don't think you'll be happy with the feedback you'll get online. Some people here have been playing the game for 5-10 years, and have spent a ton of time designing cards. So when they see an idea that they think doesn't work, they get straight to the point, because they want to help you improve them. I hope you don't take that personally. Criticism is part of the creative process. You'll need to decide if you're interested in that kind of experience or not.

[O]

It's not because they are all jerks, it's because they are interested in honest analysis,

Your post was great overall but sadly I think this is a generous interpretation of what F.DS's interests are, especially in this subforum

[GendoIkari]

The main reason for the $20+ cards is that lots of times when I'm playing with my parents we always have $20+ but no extra buy. So I wanted to make that less frustrating.

If this is true, then you're all doing something terribly wrong. I'm not sure whether it's misunderstanding a rule, or simply making poor strategic decisions. But ask yourself... WHY are you creating a deck that can generate $20+, but doesn't have any +buy? Surely in any situation where you do that, you could have instead created a deck that generates consistently, and then bought a Province every turn until you won. What was your motivation in continuing to buy cards that gave you more money per turn, instead of buying Provinces and winning the game?

If it simply comes down to the choice that you prefer to build up huge engines that can do all sorts of crazy stuff; instead of actually trying to win the game by ending it while you have more points, then fan cards aren't what you need; you need a complete variant, or new game that's based on Dominion. With all these fan cards, the right move is to usually ignore them. When playing with your parents, if they continue to build up to get to $20 per turn, then you can simply beat them by not doing that, and buying Provinces with instead. So what you need to to create a brand new deck-builder, one that requires you to get much larger amounts of money in order to win.

[Chase Adolphson]

The main reason for the $20+ cards is that lots of times when I'm playing with my parents we always have $20+ but no extra buy. So I wanted to make that less frustrating.

Do you guys specifically build kingdoms? If you play full random then you might get different results. And it seems like you might be overbuilding a tad bit...

We randomize but we play a lot of prosperity and empires

[Chase Adolphson]

So I looked on Chase's profile and noticed that he's a little bit younger than the typical forum member. Given some of the stuff he has said, I don't think he is looking for the kind of feedback that most of us are interested in giving. It sounds like he and his family play a lot of Dominion together as a fun family activity and not necessarily as a cutthroat competitive experience, and that's great! Dominion appeals to different people for different reasons! The more the merrier! But I get the feeling that Chase was trying to flex his creative muscle, and is feeling overwhelmed because he didn't anticipate so much constructive feedback, and he's interpreting it as negativity.

Chase, I have a younger brother your age. You sorta remind me of him. He also plays the game a lot and really enjoys making fan cards. Although he hasn't even been playing for a full year yet, so you're probably a lot better than him. You seem to really enjoy Dominion, and that's great I hope you continue to for many years, because it's a wonderful game! I've noticed in other threads that people have gotten into small debates with you about which cards are good vs which ones suck. I also noticed in this thread that you said everyone was giving you crap. I worry that this forum might end up upsetting you if you're mostly used to talking about Dominion with family and friends. Please remember that people on this forum are highly opinionated, and they don't shy away from disagreement or honest critique. It's not because they are all jerks, it's because they are interested in honest analysis, playing the game at the highest level they can, and thinking about fan cards as a game designer would. Even Donald X, the guy who made the game, spends hours and hours designing, testing, and tweaking cards until they are perfect. It takes a lot of work and a desire to get honest feedback about your cards, and even then, sometimes an idea just doesn't work for him in the end and has to be thrown out.

If you had fun making these cards, and you have fun playing with them, then maybe that's all that matters. But if you're hoping to get a lot of positive feedback about them and just enjoy them for what they are, you might want to just share them with family and friends. Because I don't think you'll be happy with the feedback you'll get online. Some people here have been playing the game for 5-10 years, and have spent a ton of time designing cards. So when they see an idea that they think doesn't work, they get straight to the point, because they want to help you improve them. I hope you don't take that personally. Criticism is part of the creative process. You'll need to decide if you're interested in that kind of experience or not.

I'm also very opinionated which is why I'm not changing my cards. I'm not offended but I'm just disagree with the rest of them. The which ones are good and which ones suck is actually one thing that I thought of while making this expansion.

[Chase Adolphson]

I don't think any of you are getting the three themes of this expansion. They are high costing cards which expands on prosperity and empires. Types which is why none of the cards have the same type combo. Brutal attacks which is my favorite theme of this expansion.

[Commodore Chuckles]

I'm also very opinionated which is why I'm not changing my cards. I'm not offended but I'm just disagree with the rest of them. The which ones are good and which ones suck is actually one thing that I thought of while making this expansion.

The whole purpose of posting your fan cards here is so that you can make them better by others critiquing them. That's what's happening in every single other thread here.

I don't think any of you are getting the three themes of this expansion. They are high costing cards which expands on prosperity and empires. Types which is why none of the cards have the same type combo. Brutal attacks which is my favorite theme of this expansion.

If this is supposed to be a full expansion that can stand on its own, it needs some cheap cards. Otherwise what are you going to do if there's just these cards in the kingdom and nothing else? You'll spend a huge number of turns buying nothing but Silvers and Golds because those are the only things you can afford until you can manage to hit the $8 necessary to get the cheapest card on the board if you want that instead of a Province for some reason. Isn't that kind of boring?

[Commodore Chuckles]

The whole purpose is posting your fan cards here.

Fixed that for you. What are you doing?

I mean, are we just supposed to say, "cool cards, bro?"

[Chase Adolphson]

I'm also very opinionated which is why I'm not changing my cards. I'm not offended but I'm just disagree with the rest of them. The which ones are good and which ones suck is actually one thing that I thought of while making this expansion.

The whole purpose of posting your fan cards here is so that you can make them better by others critiquing them. That's what's happening in every single other thread here.

I don't think any of you are getting the three themes of this expansion. They are high costing cards which expands on prosperity and empires. Types which is why none of the cards have the same type combo. Brutal attacks which is my favorite theme of this expansion.

If this is supposed to be a full expansion that can stand on its own, it needs some cheap cards. Otherwise what are you going to do if there's just these cards in the kingdom and nothing else? You'll spend a huge number of turns buying nothing but Silvers and Golds because those are the only things you can afford until you can manage to hit the $8 necessary to get the cheapest card on the board if you want that instead of a Province for some reason. Isn't that kind of boring?

I was intending these cards to be with other cards mainly prosperity and empires maybe alchemy

[Commodore Chuckles]

I'm also very opinionated which is why I'm not changing my cards. I'm not offended but I'm just disagree with the rest of them. The which ones are good and which ones suck is actually one thing that I thought of while making this expansion.

The whole purpose of posting your fan cards here is so that you can make them better by others critiquing them. That's what's happening in every single other thread here.

I don't think any of you are getting the three themes of this expansion. They are high costing cards which expands on prosperity and empires. Types which is why none of the cards have the same type combo. Brutal attacks which is my favorite theme of this expansion.

If this is supposed to be a full expansion that can stand on its own, it needs some cheap cards. Otherwise what are you going to do if there's just these cards in the kingdom and nothing else? You'll spend a huge number of turns buying nothing but Silvers and Golds because those are the only things you can afford until you can manage to hit the $8 necessary to get the cheapest card on the board if you want that instead of a Province for some reason. Isn't that kind of boring?

I was intending these cards to be with other cards mainly prosperity and empires maybe alchemy

Well, that's not the way the official expansions were designed, if you care about that sort of thing. The official cards were designed so that they don't cause huge problems in completely random kingdoms. If you just made these cards for your own use, then none of this advice matters. But if you intended these to be used the same way other cards are used, you need to consider these things.

[Chase Adolphson]

With platinum the high costs will be reasonable

[Holunder9]

With platinum it the high costs will be reasonable

Nope. Villain costs 26 and is thus unavailable in some Platinum Kingoms without extra draw or Peddler variants as 5 Platinums only yield 25. Note that Donate is designed such that it is principally possible to buy it in every Kingdom (it costs 14 and a hand of 5 Gols yields 15).
Furthermore 2 Colonies will virtually always be a superior purchase over 1 Villain.

[Chase Adolphson]

With platinum it the high costs will be reasonable

Nope. Villain costs 26 and is thus unavailable in some Platinum Kingoms without extra draw or Peddler variants as 5 Platinums only yield 25. Note that Donate is designed such that it is principally possible to buy it in every Kingdom (it costs 14 and a hand of 5 Gols yields 15).
Furthermore 2 Colonies will virtually always be a superior purchase over 1 Villain.

Yeah but would you rather get two colonies or a country

[GendoIkari]

I don't think any of you are getting the three themes of this expansion. They are high costing cards which expands on prosperity and empires. Types which is why none of the cards have the same type combo. Brutal attacks which is my favorite theme of this expansion.

This thread is now reaching bomb-levels.

Theme is irrelevant. We all understand perfectly well what you are wanting to get out of this set; what you aren’t trying to do. And we have all been telling you why that idea doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because the player who ignores your cards and just plays normal Dominion will have won the game before the other player can afford to buy your cards.

And in the rare cases that your cards are obtainable (Lurker+Squire); then the high cost does nothing; you can obtain them as easily as if they cost $3. And then, the game becomes terrible for at least 1 player... the possibility of starting every turn with 0 cards in hand; or having every card in your deck trashed away. There’s good reason that KC-Masq pin was stopped in errata.

If the cards are only ever intended to be used in games with Colony/Platinum, then you can make that a rule of your set. It very slightly improves the main issue; but even then, I’m going to buy 2 colonies instead of 1 of your cards almost every time.

The only way to use your cards and have fun with them is to not care about actually winning the game. So just put those cards into a Dominion variant. One that has a different victory or game end condition completely.

[GendoIkari]

With platinum it the high costs will be reasonable

Nope. Villain costs 26 and is thus unavailable in some Platinum Kingoms without extra draw or Peddler variants as 5 Platinums only yield 25. Note that Donate is designed such that it is principally possible to buy it in every Kingdom (it costs 14 and a hand of 5 Gols yields 15).
Furthermore 2 Colonies will virtually always be a superior purchase over 1 Villain.

Yeah but would you rather get two colonies or a country

2 colonies; easy. I do that 4 turns in a row; and the game ends, 80-0.

[Asper]

So if you really are convinced that your cards can compete, you can do this simple test to convince yourself of the opposite:

Play against yourself, with two decks (of course you can ask a friend to play one of the roles, but it's not going to be much fun as both of you have to stick to a specified strategy).
Have one of of your player personas try to win using your super-expensive cards.
Have the other just always buy a Province (or if you are using Colonies, a Colony) when he can afford one, and if he can't, have him buy the most expensive base Treasure card he can afford (Silver, Gold or Platinum, but not Copper).
You will observe that the player going for the trivial Treasure strategy will end the game while having the most points, and therefore will win.

Why is this test meaningful? Because this trivial "Big Money" strategy is a baseline of Dominion. It is extremely simple to play and available in every game. Any strategy weaker than it is worthless, as it will always lose. On the other hand this means that every official card in Dominion must be able to be part of a strategy that beats "Big Money", as otherwise there is no reason to buy it, strategically speaking. I am positive that if you tried what I described you will find that your cards will not hold up to this test. And if your family actually gets to decks that produce 20 coins or more without a buy, their strategies won't hold up, either. And that's not even considering the fact that most official cards in Dominion allow building strategies much, much stronger than this baseline.

[Chase Adolphson]

With platinum it the high costs will be reasonable

Nope. Villain costs 26 and is thus unavailable in some Platinum Kingoms without extra draw or Peddler variants as 5 Platinums only yield 25. Note that Donate is designed such that it is principally possible to buy it in every Kingdom (it costs 14 and a hand of 5 Gols yields 15).
Furthermore 2 Colonies will virtually always be a superior purchase over 1 Villain.

Yeah but would you rather get two colonies or a country

2 colonies; easy. I do that 4 turns in a row; and the game ends, 80-0.

Country is a victory card as well

[dz]

Country is over double the cost of Colony. 20 VP for $22 is better than 15 VP for $26. The whole Gathering thing on Country doesn't matter if you can only get like 1 copy per game.

The only way to see if there's anything wrong with something in a game is to playtest. So do it! Seriously, do it. I'm sure if you enjoy playing Dominion, you'll enjoy playing with your cards (even if they have problems).

Do you think Donald X. just thought of all Dominion cards/mechanics sent it to get published? There are definitely cards that were good to go, but that rarely happens, so don't expect all your cards to be like that. And don't believe that all of your ideas will be able to work; just look at the outtakes in the secret histories.

[Holunder9]

Country is a victory card as well

Yes but due to its high cost the engine stuff it does is fairly irrelevant and 2 Colonies will most of the time be the wiser choice.