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[JimJammer]

I was introduced to Seaside yesterday and the concept of durations. Thought i'd have a go at a card with durations.

As far as I know there don't exist any cards at the moment with -ve actions or buys or coins, until now...


Spillage Village
Type: Action
Cost: 3$

Either -1 buy and start your next turn with 3 actions or put this card anywhere you choose in your deck.

[Holunder9]

I was introduced to Seaside yesterday and the concept of durations. Thought i'd have a go at a card with durations.

As far as I know there don't exist any cards at the moment with -ve actions or buys or coins, until now...


Spillage Village
Type: Action
Cost: 3$

Either -1 buy and start your next turn with 3 actions or put this card anywhere you choose in your deck.

Just compare it with Fishing Village which is better in two respects: spreading the Actions more equally which significantly increases consistency and providing 2 Coins in order to compensate for not drawing.

This is a delayed Mega-Necropolis and would be pretty bad even without "spend a Buy" (which is how I would word it).
I cannot fathom a situation in which the second option would ever be good. You are literally spending an Action and a Card to Secret Passage something which only does something in the second turn anyway.

[GendoIkari]

One problem with "-1" anything is that it's not clear what should happen when you are at 0 of the thing and you get another "-1". Whether that thing is buys, coins, or actions. Poor House is the only official card that does "-1", and it specifies on the card itself "You can't go below ".

So if I start my turn with 1 buy, then play 3 -1 buy, then a +1 buy, do I now have a buy?

"Start your next turn with 3 actions" is strange wording. Do you specifically intend for it to not stack, as opposed to "At the start of your next turn, +2 actions"? As Holunder mentions, this is very weak. Even without the -1 buy part it would still be very weak. It's as bad as a Curse on your current turn.

[JimJammer]

What if I made it 10 actions on your next turn?

[Holunder9]

Even plain "+10 Actions", without delaying it or paying for it via a Buy, is dubious:
The payoff is huge, you don't need any further splitters during that turn, but the risk is large; meaning that the card doesn't draw so chances to pair this with draw are smaller than when you play a normal village (assuming normal starting hands, 4 cards vs 5 cards). So for a given deck you probably need nearly as many MegaNecropolises as you need Villages or arguably even more due to the consistency issue (for the same reason you always prefer two Villages over "+1 Card +3 Actions").
This is why "+10 Actions" is perhaps not (that much) better than Village.

The delayed version for which you have to spend a Buy is most definitely worse than Village.

By the way, paying with Buys is a cool idea but it shouldn't be put on a critical card like a village as that card will not be bought in a Kingdom without extra Buys. I'd rather stick it on a non-critical $5.

[crj]

+10 Actions is a big enough number that Champion is probably what you need to compare with.

[Holunder9]

Not really. One Champion suffices to de-terminalize your entire deck for the rest of the game. Unlike the other infinite Durations Hireling it also works on the turn you play it.
"+10 Actions" on the other hand only de-determinalizes your deck for one turn at the net cost of 1 Card. That's strong but you still need several copies of it in your deck and most likely not (significantly) fewer than you'd need ordinary villages (that you get more Actions out of it than out of a normal village is partially compensated by it now drawing). Unless you are fine with your engine often misfiring.

For consistency reasons other non-drawing villages like Fishing Village are probably better. Unlike Coins Actions are a resource which you want evenly spread.

[Asper]

Please can we kill the term "splitters"? There is just so no need for it considering Village has always been used and understood by everyone, including less experienced players, and all its use does is make it two competing standards. As a result, the expression makes matters more confusing, not less.

Even assuming it was an elaborate and overly-long meta joke based on the life of Brian.

[Holunder9]

I disagree. It is usually good to use words that are anchored in something concrete.

Splitter means the same as village, not Village which is one particular type of village or splitter. Given that it reflects how many people physically play Action cards that net yield an extra Action in their play area (I use the splitter method to track Actions myself and always recommend it to Dominion newbies) splitter is a pretty good term (except perhaps for the crowd that only plays Dominion in a digital form).

While talking about different type of splitters and differentiating between drawing and non-drawing village or conditional and unconditional villages I prefer to use the term villages over splitters (which I only use to refer to villages in general) but that's just a stylistic kind of thing.
If you talk about Village and villages in general at the same this can become pretty confusing (e.g.: even though a deck requires less copies of Spillage Village than copies of Village it is a pretty bad, high risk village) so this is where splitter is the stylistically superior term that helps to increase readability.

[Asper]

[Holunder9]

That's a nonsensical comparison. Standards are important where diversity has ruinous consequences, like different paper formats, screw sizes, and unity is beneficial, like USB.

Language rarely gains anything from purity or uniformity. It is an anarchic, creative, evolving thing and imposing "standards" on it is highly dubious, especially if there are no arguments put forward for why a certain term should be used and why another shouldn't. When I first read the term splitter I thought it was totally idiotic but after some time I realized its benefits for the reasons I outlined above. Even if I still thought that it were an idiotic term I wouldn't argue for not using it but would simply use the term I prefer .. but as already pointed out, having two terms can increase clarity and readability while talking about splitters.

[Commodore Chuckles]

The problem with "splitter" is that no one can agree on what it actually means and how it's different from "village". I was thinking that it would make the most sense if "splitter" is anything that lets you play multiple action cards in a turn and "village" is a subset that always gives you +2 actions when you want them. I still think this. It turns out, though, there's a bunch of people who strongly disagree, so, well, that's that.

[Awaclus]

Village has always been used and understood by everyone

No it hasn't, there are people who don't understand that Summon is a village.

[crj]

People use "village" as a common-sense, intuitive term for things which look and smell a lot like "+1 Card, +2 Actions". In part, because so many of them have "village" right there in the name.

This isn't a precise taxonomy, and doesn't need to be. There will be borderline cases for everyone, and the border will lie in a different place for each of us. But so what? It's still a useful way to talk about a group of twenty or so cards.

[Holunder9]

People use "village" as a common-sense, intuitive term for things which look and smell a lot like "+1 Card, +2 Actions". In part, because so many of them have "village" right there in the name.

As Awaclus has pointed out, splitters include conditional villages, i.e. cards without +2 Actions written on it: Summon, Throne Room (variants), Herald, Tribute, Conclave and Golem can sometimes net yield an Action or more. Incidentally none of them have the word "village" in their name which could be a further reason to call them splitters.
In my playing group we go together over the Kingdom and afterwards I quickly point towards important card types, i.e. trashers, junkers and villages, precisely to avoid issues like forgetting that even a card without +2 Actions or village in its name can be a splitter.

[smuggler]

people like these don't know that they are called "splitters" either ... and this won't help'em as well ...

why, for christ sake, make it harder than it is?!

conditional village or village variants would be fine, too

Village has always been used and understood by everyone

No it hasn't, there are people who don't understand that Summon is a village.

[crj]

In my playing group we go together over the Kingdom and afterwards I quickly point towards important card types, i.e. trashers, junkers and villages, precisely to avoid issues like forgetting that even a card without +2 Actions or village in its name can be a splitter.

That must be enormous fun. For you.

[Gazbag]

I like it when people use the term splitter because it lets me know how seriously to take the rest of the post.

[Holunder9]

In my playing group we go together over the Kingdom and afterwards I quickly point towards important card types, i.e. trashers, junkers and villages, precisely to avoid issues like forgetting that even a card without +2 Actions or village in its name can be a splitter.

That must be enormous fun. For you.

Going over the Kingdom together to avoid misunderstandings and slightly equalize play experience differences has more to do with fair play than fun.