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[LastFootnote]

Is there already a thread for posting fan card game reports? I don't know, but if so here's another one. Last evening X-tra and I played a few fan cards games using some of my cards (I'm finally jumping back into fan card design), some of his cards, and some cards from other creators here on f.DS. I'll start posting the games in the next post in case this becomes a big thing and I end up using this post for links or something.

[LastFootnote]

This first game was half Base Set, half my cards. I was able to win it, but X-tra had some pretty awful luck, constantly colliding all three of his Estates in his hand (without a Redistrict).

I like this version of my Convoy because the card you put back informs whether you want to spend a Gem (formerly Trade token) to keep going. I got quite a few Convoys and they did good work for me.

We bought and played a lot of Redistricts. X-tra collided his opening Redistrict and Militia on turn 3 or 4 and got a $5 card and a Gold, which could have been worse. I was worried about how often we might Redistrict Estates into Redistricts, but although that did happen it didn't feel like a problem.

Only I got a Foundry and I only played it three times. The first time I just triggered it immediately to gain a $3 and a $4. The second time I left it out for a while and triggered it after gaining a $5 with Redistrict, so it gained me a Gold. The third time it just sat out for the rest of the game, untriggered. So neither a huge success nor an abject failure.

I thought Profiteer would be a pretty weak card you bought in the early game, but the way it ended up I got one late and mostly drew the Gold right after playing it. I did get a Curse from the Swords I gave out, but it wasn't too harsh. I'll try it more like this.

Likewise I went into this game thinking Cliffside Village would be weak, and maybe it is, but we got lots of them this game and it felt good to play. We could use Mine to turn the Rubbles into Silvers or Sentry to trash them. I'll play more games with it, but possibly I'll need to reduce its cost to $4 or give it +1 Buy or some such.

[LastFootnote]

The second game was half Intrigue, with two of X-tra's cards and one of his Events, plus 3 other fan cards. Fittingly, he won this game.

I'm a big fan of X-tra's Appraiser. We only ended up trashing cheaper cards with it this game, but I'd like to play with it more and see the other options used as well. It was great for trashing the Curses coming in from Swindler and Replace, as well as getting rid of our starting cards. Unfortunately my Appraisers got trashed by Swindler twice, but I think I bought a replacement each time.

Grep's Craftsman also seemed cool, but I'm guessing it's too strong as it is. Too easy to get 8 cards in play on most boards and get a Province. X-tra and I want to try it as gaining a card costing exactly $1 per card you have in play. You can still gain Provinces with it, but it's a little trickier. Anyway we both used it this game. Fun card!

Chappy7's Silver Worker was interesting, I'll say that. X-tra's win was in large part due to pursuing Silver Worker as the strongest draw on the board, whereas I didn't go for them much. The discards for Silvers mattered a lot even in a large handsize, since discarding to Silver Worker meant you couldn't discard those same cards to Mill. I think the Silver gain would get out of hand in a game with lots of players, so I would simplify the card slightly by not having those gained Silvers go onto players' decks.

Something_Smart's Valley Town was elegant in its simplicity. One fun moment was when I Swindled X-tra's Valley Town into the last Valley Town in the pile, so that he wouldn't be able to reclaim his Valley Towns on his next turn if he activated them.

X-tra's Savings was a good workhorse card. Once this game he was able to take advantage of the fact that you can't go below zero Buys to rack up lots of Savings money and then get a buy (or two, can't recall) back. I think it'll be more interesting on a board with other +Buys available.

X-tra's Forest Fire is a nice, simple Event. I wish I'd taken advantage of it this game; he definitely did. I needed stronger draw to really make it work, and as I said I didn't get enough Silver Workers. I'd definitely like to play with this Event again.

[LastFootnote]

The third and final game of the evening: Five of my cards, thee of X-tra's cards (including one Event), and three cards from other creators. I managed to win this one. With no trashing it was a slog, but a fun slog. It's great when an all-fan card game goes so well!

Unfortunately we didn't buy Fragasnap's Lady this game. Sorry, Fragasnap! I'd like to see it in another game and give it a try, but this didn't seem to be the game for it.

My Refuge card worked out better than I expected. It was an important card this game. X-tra noted that you could use it after strong Duration draw (like Observer's) in order to guarantee a Province, and he did that once or twice. In general it was nice to have that Vault-like option sitting there. At least once I was able to use the +2 Actions to play Refuge, draw, and then trigger it at the end of the turn. So far, so good. It could probably cost more but it didn't seem problematically strong at $2.

This was not the dream "gain Province with 8 Coppers" board for my Mill Town, but the discard was useful with Pikeman and Almoner's draw-to-X. And of course we did gain some cards with Mill Town, especially early on. This is one of my oldest cards and I can't remember why I took it out of Enterprise. Maybe there were just too many other villages in the set? Anyway I was glad to give it another shot here. Seems good.

Full disclosure, I did not think I would like Scott_Pilgrim's Countryside. But boy was I blown away by how interesting it was. By the end of the game I had 3 Countrysides worth 4 VP each, due to having 4 Provinces and Estates. But it was a push-your-luck kind of card, right? When I got my third Countryside, I was hoping that I'd be able to grab a fourth Estate and fourth Province before the game ended. X-tra meanwhile had only one Countryside, but it was worth 6 VP. Such a great Alt-VP card.

My Sappers is maybe too much like Swamp Hag, but I wanted to try an Attack that gave out Rubbles and somehow this is what came to mind. Right now the Rubble pile is always 30 copies regardless of player count, since the main point of Rubble is to gain one alongside a strong card like Cliffside Village or Spelunker. Anyway Sappers gives you the +$2 now and works on gains instead of buys, but only hits expensive cards. Why am I describing this? You can just read the card. Anyway it played well (didn't get through even 10 Rubbles so no worries about being too oppressive so far) but I might end up killing it for a variety of other reasons.

X-tra's Observer was very cool. I didn't end up getting any because they would conflict with my Pikemen and Almoners. But when he played his I was often able to play a Convoy or other draw card, which was fantastic. We could foresee some potential rules issues, but it's a fun concept and I'm glad we played a game with it. Would play again.

Almoner is another very old card of mine that I just added +1 Buy to. It worked out well, though I got one pretty late. X-tra chose to gain a Copper to hand once (when he was pretty sure I wouldn't follow up with a Pikemen, probably). It's sure stronger than Scholar, which is a card I very rarely buy.

X-tra's Pikemen was a fun Attack card. I like that its bonus is draw-to-X, which is novel and worked great on this board. We talked about changing the attack effect a bit, but in general it's cool to have the discard with a possible junking attack. In this case we were able to make the attack hurt less by discarding Rubble, which isn't in the Supply.

Boy, this was not the board for my Spelunker. I bought one anyway, knowing that it would be weak. Just to try it out, you know? Usually it just drew one Copper, but once I got three cards off of it, which was great with Mill Town.

X-tra and I are both big fans of Gubump's Convoy. Such a sleek and well-designed card, and it feels great to play. I'm not even sure what to say about it other than that it seems very well balanced and I love how its two abilities interact. We each got a few of them and they were fantastic. Two thumbs up!

[fika monster]

neat thread!

[MrFrog]

Thanks for these reports! As someone who prints some fan cards every now and then, it's always helpful to read other opinios about new concepts.

[mxdata]

This first game was half Base Set, half my cards. I was able to win it, but X-tra had some pretty awful luck, constantly colliding all three of his Estates in his hand (without a Redistrict).

I like this version of my Convoy because the card you put back informs whether you want to spend a Gem (formerly Trade token) to keep going. I got quite a few Convoys and they did good work for me.

We bought and played a lot of Redistricts. X-tra collided his opening Redistrict and Militia on turn 3 or 4 and got a $5 card and a Gold, which could have been worse. I was worried about how often we might Redistrict Estates into Redistricts, but although that did happen it didn't feel like a problem.

Only I got a Foundry and I only played it three times. The first time I just triggered it immediately to gain a $3 and a $4. The second time I left it out for a while and triggered it after gaining a $5 with Redistrict, so it gained me a Gold. The third time it just sat out for the rest of the game, untriggered. So neither a huge success nor an abject failure.

I thought Profiteer would be a pretty weak card you bought in the early game, but the way it ended up I got one late and mostly drew the Gold right after playing it. I did get a Curse from the Swords I gave out, but it wasn't too harsh. I'll try it more like this.

Likewise I went into this game thinking Cliffside Village would be weak, and maybe it is, but we got lots of them this game and it felt good to play. We could use Mine to turn the Rubbles into Silvers or Sentry to trash them. I'll play more games with it, but possibly I'll need to reduce its cost to $4 or give it +1 Buy or some such.

How does Redistrict work with variable-cost cards, i.e., Fisherman, Destrier, and Wayfarer?  If I use Redistrict to trash, say, Wayfarer when the last-gained card was a Silver, then the first card I gain would be a $4.  Now, is the second card $2 more than the cost at the time it was trashed (thus $3 + $2 = $5) or $2 more than its current cost (thus $4 + $2 = $6)?  Likewise, if my discard pile is empty when I use this to trash Fisherman, do I get a $3 and a $7 (the cost having gone up from $2 to $5 after the first gain) or a $3 and a $4?

[LastFootnote]

How does Redistrict work with variable-cost cards, i.e., Fisherman, Destrier, and Wayfarer?  If I use Redistrict to trash, say, Wayfarer when the last-gained card was a Silver, then the first card I gain would be a $4.  Now, is the second card $2 more than the cost at the time it was trashed (thus $3 + $2 = $5) or $2 more than its current cost (thus $4 + $2 = $6)?  Likewise, if my discard pile is empty when I use this to trash Fisherman, do I get a $3 and a $7 (the cost having gone up from $2 to $5 after the first gain) or a $3 and a $4?

That…is an excellent question. I'm not sure I'm 100% up on current rulings, but I think it would check the trashed card's cost right before each gain. So in your examples, trashing the $3 Wayfarer would gain you a $4 card and a $6 card, and trashing the $2 Fisherman would give you a $3 card and a $7 card (assuming the gained card went to the discard pile and stayed there).

[scolapasta]

How does Redistrict work with variable-cost cards, i.e., Fisherman, Destrier, and Wayfarer?  If I use Redistrict to trash, say, Wayfarer when the last-gained card was a Silver, then the first card I gain would be a $4.  Now, is the second card $2 more than the cost at the time it was trashed (thus $3 + $2 = $5) or $2 more than its current cost (thus $4 + $2 = $6)?  Likewise, if my discard pile is empty when I use this to trash Fisherman, do I get a $3 and a $7 (the cost having gone up from $2 to $5 after the first gain) or a $3 and a $4?

That…is an excellent question. I'm not sure I'm 100% up on current rulings, but I think it would check the trashed card's cost right before each gain. So in your examples, trashing the $3 Wayfarer would gain you a $4 card and a $6 card, and trashing the $2 Fisherman would give you a $3 card and a $7 card (assuming the gained card went to the discard pile and stayed there).

This is how it works with, for example, Stonemason and Destrier.

[LastFootnote]

5 Seaside cards, 2 contest winners, 3 of X-tra's cards, and two of his Events.

I managed to win this game after coming back from being behind a lot. X-tra did Wonder relatively early to get 3 Provinces, but since there were 10 Provinces in the Supply (due to Capital City), I was able to build much more and do a 5-Province Wonder turn, followed by a Voyage turn to get the last Province and some other Victory cards.

We each opened with X-tra's Lease, then trashed them and got a couple more later. It does seem very strong as it is and X-tra is considering lowering the top +$2 to a +$1. But it did leave plenty of Coppers for Lookout and Ambassador to trash. Though it wasn't long before I Ambassador'd my Lookout over to X-tra and we started ping-ponging it for a bit.

I had 9 of the Capital Cities, and honestly it can almost be an engine by itself, with the help of almost any other cards. It can be your village, your draw, and your payload, and it tends to give you what you need at whatever point in the turn you are. I started pursuing them because they were the only non-Treasure payload for Voyage, but I quickly realized my deck could support almost any number of them (Native Village helped some there). I think the draw should probably be +3 Cards instead of +4 Cards.

Something_Smart's Crumbing City was very cool, and we got several. I would strongly recommend making it into a Duration card with "At the start of your next turn, discard this from play." That would really cut down on forgetting to set it aside, which I did once. Luckily X-tra reminded me. It almost always missed the shuffle, so I definitely don't think it's too strong. But nor do I think it's too weak.

Sadly we didn't pick up X-tra's Observer this game. The fear of an opponent playing e.g. Wharf was too strong.

Only I got a copy of Commodore Chuckles's Voyage, and it was definitely a huge part of my winning deck. I think it's an extremely powerful effect, but you have to work hard to build a deck that can take advantage of it. So far I don't think it's too strong.

X-tra's Citizenship was great and seems balanced to me. We each got it at least once. It has some similarities to Exploration, but I think it's nicely different and definitely worth having.

X-tra's Wonder is obviously hugely important. When do you choose to use your giant turn? Sort of like Seize the Day, but much different. I recommended that he move Capital City's setup to Wonder, since that would free up some much-needed space on Capital City and Wonder really benefits from a longer game. I bet you could fit that setup on one line by condensing it a little. "Setup: Add 2 more Provinces to the Supply."

Overall a great game.

[LastFootnote]

A game with 5 Hinterlands cards and 5 of my cards. I managed to win this one, though I thought it was a lot closer than it was for a long time.

Borough is a pretty simple village+ for $4. The bonus gets better the more of them you get, but it doesn't seem game-breaking by any means. We each got a few and got to use the ability some. I'm not sure it adds enough gameplay to be worth printing, but it's an inoffensive village.

Cannon/Artillerist is an Empires-style split pile with 5 copies of each. We almost got to the bottom of the pile, but X-tra and I both thought that only having 5 copies of a trashing attack was problematic. In this game, I ended up with 3 Cannons after I trashed both of his. I trashed a bunch of his good cards including one Tunnel, but I never managed to hit a Duchy or Province.

I think Cannon itself played well this game, but that may be partially down to having Crossroads. Crossroads's +3 Actions is especially nice for double-terminal Actions like Cannon since you can play one, trigger it, and then have an Action left over. Artillerist (which sadly probably won't survive due to the 5-Cannons issue) played nicely. It's a Lost City, but the extra +Action can only be used to trigger a Cannon. Still, it feels nice to draw 4 cards when you do that.

Emissary is probably really awful in a good engine, but it was a big player in the slightly sloggy sort of decks we had this game. Often we could play it on the turn after we'd used a bunch of good Action cards. And once I believe I did discard some Action cards with Emissary's on-play effect and then play them with its trigger effect. That's not the ideal use for it but it was nice to have the option.

I really can't judge Fund in this game that had no +Buy. I think it probably needs a different shape, but it's hard to tell what that shape should be without playing another game or two with it. This game I ended up having about 4 Gems left over at the end. So often I didn't need to play my Funds at all.

Pier is a possible entry for this week's card contest. It was very reasonable this game but now I'm wondering if it's too strong of a money enabler. I may try a few solitaire games with it to see how many turns it takes to get to 4 or 5 Provinces.

[LastFootnote]

And here we have the all-fan card game of the evening. Fittingly, it seemed like these cards needed the most work on average. Which is great in some ways. That's the point of testing: learning about how the cards play. I was ridiculously behind most of the game but only ended up losing by 6 VP in the end after a pretty massive last turn.

So first we have Belugawhale's Actor. I did get several of these and ended up not immediately using my Villager only once. I like how simple it is, but I'm not sure how often it'll provide a lot of gameplay. As a very cheap Action it was great fodder for Hidden Village, so that was a nice interaction. I'd play more games with it.

I basically didn't contest X-tra's Stallions pile. Currently that feels like a bit of a death sentence. Right now I think it's a pile you have to contest. I believe his Arabian Horse was worth 24 VP at the end of the game, since he was able to amass and keep 24 Horses (all the Stallions provide Horses in some way). Anyway we talked about the pile a lot. This kind of Castles-type pile is one of the very hardest things to balance in Dominion.

My Hidden Village was useful. Maybe a bit strong for $3, even though the actual village portion is a pretty lackluster "+2 Actions; +$1". I came up with this before Ways were a thing, but I think it's still different enough. It helps that no Way gives +3 Cards. Anyway I may bump it up to $4. I'm interested in people's opinions.

My Regent didn't wow me. It's a card you probably want quite early, and then it stays in play until you get a Duchy from it near the end. The funny thing is that had I thought about it harder, it's ridiculously good with Monarchy. So many turns I could have gained a $5 onto my deck. But in the general case I think it's meh. Well on the other hand, now I'm comparing it to Island or something. It's a one-shot at heart, so maybe it's fine that it just sits in play all game. And this wasn't a game where I wanted to gain a lot of $5 cards early.

We each got a copy of my Committee. It succeeded in providing player interaction and giving us both interesting choices, but I think it needs tweaking. When choosing for the other player, we never chose to give them +2 Gems, which would have effectively allowed them to make the next two choices themselves. My hope was that that would happen at least once so that the player could then choose between perpetuating their own choices by sometimes choosing to get more Gems. If you have a Gem and you choose +2 Gems every other time, the other player can't ever make decisions for you. But as it stands, I think I'm going to reduce it to +1 Gem. That way it can instead be: I choose about half the time and they choose about half the time. Maybe it can cost $2 or $3 at that point, dunno. X-tra did make me trash a good card once this game, so that was cool.

X-tra's Missionary is a bit of a power trasher. I think it beats out most other trashers when it's available, which is saying something since trashing cards are generally strong in Dominion. But it's fun to play with.

My Barter worked like it was supposed to for most of the game. We bought them with Silvers, getting Gems. Some of those Gems were spent on Committees, but some cards were gained to hand with Barter. But then on my last turn, I was able to gain I think 2 Provinces and a Duchy by trashing my Treasures. It's like Governor's remodel, except it doesn't give your opponents the opportunity to trash $4 cards for Duchies. It felt really strong. I may test it more as-is, but it's looking maybe its basic non-Gem ability might be too strong.

We sadly didn't buy X-tra's Bunker this game. I really wanted to try it out, but thought it would conflict with the handsize-increasers I had planned to buy. And for X-tra, the ridiculously broken Spelunker was a much better deal. Anyway, I hope to try Bunker soon.

X-tra's Dragons pile unfortunately didn't get a lot of play. There was a Blue Dragon on top, which I think already makes it a bit hard to start on the pile. Then after X-tra bought that Blue Dragon, the next card was a Green Dragon, which sort of had a Dame Josephine problem for me. I didn't want the VP now, and it could also trigger X-tra's Blue Dragon's ability. So that Green Dragon wasn't bought. I did get a bunch of Curses throughout the game, though. I don't know how common this situation is, where we don't get far into the pile. I'd like to try it in another game, which will have a different random order for the pile.

Finally we have my Spelunker, which was obviously super broken in a game with trashing, which this game had. X-tra was drawing 4 cards with it on the regular. So I'm going to try fixing it up a bit, probably giving a Rubble when you draw 4 cards instead of when you gain a Spelunker.

X-tra's Monarchy was neat. I wish I'd given it more thought. For some reason I've been really bad at remembering Events lately. X-tra used it to good effect this game, though.

[gambit05]

Nice idea to present fan-made cards in Action. I really like it. I have some comments on a few of the cards of your last Kingdom:

My Hidden Village was useful. Maybe a bit strong for $3, even though the actual village portion is a pretty lackluster "+2 Actions; +$1". I came up with this before Ways were a thing, but I think it's still different enough. It helps that no Way gives +3 Cards. Anyway I may bump it up to $4. I'm interested in people's opinions.

I have a related card Town Musician, which got a different wording in the mean time, but without changing its functionality. However and importantly, I increased the cost to $5, because I felt it was way too strong for $4. At $5 it seems to be fine. I didn't took the time to directly compare the strength of Hidden Village versus Town Musician, but I have the feeling that Hidden Village is too cheap for $3. In contrast to Town Musician, it is non-terminal on its own and because it is so cheap, it can be easily used on other copies of itself. I don't know whether this helps, but at least it doesn't hurt.

We each got a copy of my Committee. It succeeded in providing player interaction and giving us both interesting choices, but I think it needs tweaking. When choosing for the other player, we never chose to give them +2 Gems, which would have effectively allowed them to make the next two choices themselves. My hope was that that would happen at least once so that the player could then choose between perpetuating their own choices by sometimes choosing to get more Gems. If you have a Gem and you choose +2 Gems every other time, the other player can't ever make decisions for you. But as it stands, I think I'm going to reduce it to +1 Gem. That way it can instead be: I choose about half the time and they choose about half the time. Maybe it can cost $2 or $3 at that point, dunno. X-tra did make me trash a good card once this game, so that was cool.

How do you get the first Gem when no other Gem gainers are in the Kingdom?

What about this:

+2 Cards You may spend a Gem to choose one: +1 Action; or     trash a card from your hand.    Otherwise, +1 Gem and the player to the left chooses for you.

Either way, I feel that this card is quite strong early in the game as it is either a Lab or a trasher. With my version I suppose that a player can first let the other player decide to accumulate some Gems in order to be more flexible later in the game. At least it seems that my version offers more interaction between players in relation to spending and gaining Gems.

Finally we have my Spelunker, which was obviously super broken in a game with trashing, which this game had. X-tra was drawing 4 cards with it on the regular. So I'm going to try fixing it up a bit, probably giving a Ruins when you draw 4 cards instead of when you gain a Spelunker.

Do you really consider replacing Rubble with a Ruins?

I think, this card will be strong anyway, when trashing is available and rather weak without Copper trashing. What about getting 2 Rubbles on gain or 1 Rubble (instead of a Ruins) when 4 cards are drawn? Either way, I like the connection to Rubble, and I think this connection is what makes the card more interesting.

[LastFootnote]

Nice idea to present fan-made cards in Action. I really like it. I have some comments on a few of the cards of your last Kingdom:

My Hidden Village was useful. Maybe a bit strong for $3, even though the actual village portion is a pretty lackluster "+2 Actions; +$1". I came up with this before Ways were a thing, but I think it's still different enough. It helps that no Way gives +3 Cards. Anyway I may bump it up to $4. I'm interested in people's opinions.

I have a related card Town Musician, which got a different wording in the mean time, but without changing its functionality. However and importantly, I increased the cost to $5, because I felt it was way too strong for $4. At $5 it seems to be fine. I didn't took the time to directly compare the strength of Hidden Village versus Town Musician, but I have the feeling that Hidden Village is too cheap for $3. In contrast to Town Musician, it is non-terminal on its own and because it is so cheap, it can be easily used on other copies of itself. I don't know whether this helps, but at least it doesn't hurt.

Thanks for the comparison. I'm definitely willing to up the price on it if it's too strong. I might first try it in one more game at $3, maybe loading up on them to see how nuts it seems.

We each got a copy of my Committee. It succeeded in providing player interaction and giving us both interesting choices, but I think it needs tweaking. When choosing for the other player, we never chose to give them +2 Gems, which would have effectively allowed them to make the next two choices themselves. My hope was that that would happen at least once so that the player could then choose between perpetuating their own choices by sometimes choosing to get more Gems. If you have a Gem and you choose +2 Gems every other time, the other player can't ever make decisions for you. But as it stands, I think I'm going to reduce it to +1 Gem. That way it can instead be: I choose about half the time and they choose about half the time. Maybe it can cost $2 or $3 at that point, dunno. X-tra did make me trash a good card once this game, so that was cool.

How do you get the first Gem when no other Gem gainers are in the Kingdom?

What about this:

+2 Cards You may spend a Gem to choose one: +1 Action; or     trash a card from your hand.    Otherwise, +1 Gem and the player to the left chooses for you.

Either way, I feel that this card is quite strong early in the game as it is either a Lab or a trasher. With my version I suppose that a player can first let the other player decide to accumulate some Gems in order to be more flexible later in the game. At least it seems that my version offers more interaction between players in relation to spending and gaining Gems.

If I can leave +Gems as part of the choose one, I'd much rather do that. First because it makes the card simpler, but also because I think it's more interesting. However, it's possible that that won't work out. If that's the case, I'll likely try your version. My current plan is to change it to +1 Gem and cost it at $2.

Finally we have my Spelunker, which was obviously super broken in a game with trashing, which this game had. X-tra was drawing 4 cards with it on the regular. So I'm going to try fixing it up a bit, probably giving a Ruins when you draw 4 cards instead of when you gain a Spelunker.

Do you really consider replacing Rubble with a Ruins?

I think, this card will be strong anyway, when trashing is available and rather weak without Copper trashing. What about getting 2 Rubbles on gain or 1 Rubble (instead of a Ruins) when 4 cards are drawn? Either way, I like the connection to Rubble, and I think this connection is what makes the card more interesting.

Ah, no, I accidentally typed "Ruins" instead of "Rubble". I've fixed it now. Thanks for catching that!

The version I plan to test next gains a Rubble onto your deck when you reveal 4 cards. It doesn't give you a Rubble when you gain it anymore, due to complexity and space constraints. Also I'm tentatively renaming it "Miner", since I fell that fits the new functionality better.

[gambit05]

Talking about card names, I noticed the art of Pier, which I came across just a few days ago when I looked for art of one of my cards. Is there a Pier anywhere on that art?

[herw]

[...]
So first we have Belugawhale's Actor. I did get several of these and ended up not immediately using my Villager only once. I like how simple it is, but I'm not sure how often it'll provide a lot of gameplay. As a very cheap Action it was great fodder for Hidden Village, so that was a nice interaction. I'd play more games with it.
[...]
My Hidden Village was useful. Maybe a bit strong for $3, even though the actual village portion is a pretty lackluster "+2 Actions; +$1". I came up with this before Ways were a thing, but I think it's still different enough. It helps that no Way gives +3 Cards. Anyway I may bump it up to $4. I'm interested in people's opinions.
[...]

How about a combination of Actor and Hidden Village like Asper's Town/Road?



BTW: I like the idea of Rubbles. How many of them do you use in a play : 10 or (players-1)·10 like Ruins or still 30?

[LastFootnote]

Talking about card names, I noticed the art of Pier, which I came across just a few days ago when I looked for art of one of my cards. Is there a Pier anywhere on that art?

Yeah, that hadn't escaped my attention. It was called "Harbor" and I didn't yet take the time to find better "Pier" art.

[LastFootnote]

So these games were actually played 6 days ago, but I'm only now getting around to writing them up. It's been a busy week.




The first game was half Cornucopia/Guilds and half my cards.

We each picked up a Wanderer pretty early when we only hit $2, and that was a big part of our draw this game. However, X-tra had built a much more efficient deck than me (I tried not getting Rebuild to see if Trek could compete with it, which ha HA ha hah ha haaaah no, but more on that later). The upshot was that he was often struggling for draw because the Wanderers stayed in my deck far longer than his. Overall a success; it was a fun card to play with.

Racketeer we didn't buy, and honestly I'm not sure I'll even try to get it into another game. It seems pretty weak. I guess I could try it at +$3 for $5, and see if the attack is really as weak as it looks. But it's a wordy card and I don't know how compelling it'll really be.

We got Booms, and they felt pretty strong. We did all the things it was meant to do, though. We sometimes triggered it just to get it back in our deck and sometimes because we needed the extra $1 from the Copper. Sometimes we triggered it right away and sometimes waited for a future turn. If it is too strong, I'll probably get rid of the +1 Action on the triggering part and see if that still plays well.

Bladesmith is one of my oldest cards, though I just added the +1 Action. Only I got one, but it did its job, gaining some Swords which gave out some Curses. I guess I'll have to see if loading up on them is too strong or what. So far so good, though.

Trek needs work, I tell you what. Assuming a 3/4 split, by the time you get Trek and play it for Gems, and then play it again, it's too late for trashing. I mean if it were the only trashing on the board you might still do it, but anything that trashes faster is better. Since the premise is mostly how you get the tokens, I'll probably try some other ability in place of trashing, like +1 Action something else terse. X-tra made a very good point about how it can potentially get you a LOT of Gems. I worry that could be unbalanced with some other Gem cards, but it could also be a lot of fun. Needs testing.

EDIT: Oh I should say, X-tra won this one, though it was close.

[LastFootnote]

A game with 5 of my cards, 3 of X-tra's cards and 2 of his Events, and 2 other contest winners.

This was a wild one. The main thing is, this version of X-tra's District was brokenly strong, which I must emphasize is in no way an indictment of him! Sometimes you make a card and it's way too strong. Donald X. has done it. I've done it. Everybody's done it. That's what testing is for. But anyway, there were 16 copies of District in the pile and he won the split pretty heavily. I think it was 10 to 6. He was chaining those things like it was going out of style, and pretty easily drawing his deck each turn. Even with just 6 copies, I was usually drawing my deck as well. But you could only buy one card per turn on this board, and the District deck had one big weakness: Axeman.

Once I was pretty far behind, I realized that with a deck full of Districts, it was possible that he'd have to trash a Province to Axeman as the only card costing $3 or more in his hand. And sure enough it worked. I trashed enough of his Victory cards to pull off a win in this game. So it's tough to tell from this one game how balanced Axeman is, but it's pretty great against a deck that's mostly $2 cards.

OK, back to the start of the Kingdom. Here we had a new version of my Committee, and I'm trying to remember exactly how it went, since I also played another game with it around this time. I'm pretty happy with this version so far. The +1 Gem option was chosen several times. Needs more testing, but I'm optimistic. It can be slow to resolve, but I don't think you want a ton of these unless in your deck unless you have some way to get a ton of Gems.

Regent is growing on me. The threat of the late Duchy is significant. It's a bit like a reverse Distant Lands in that way. The fact that it can just stay in play for most of the game is significant for some cards, like Peddler and Merchant Village. I was able to get a Gold out of a Merchant Village this game, so mission accomplished.

Sadly Scott_Pilgrim's Countryside didn't really get to shine this game, although X-tra did pick one up. I remain a big fan of the card though, and in a game with more buys and/or gains, it's a great addition.

I got to use X-tra's Bunker this game and I like it a lot. That said, I do think this version is too strong. It would be fine at +3 Cards. As it is it's basically a super-Forum the first time you play one (assuming you have a Treasure to play) and then each subsequent Bunker is like [+4 Cards, +1 Action, discard 2 cards]. Of course other cards can make it better or worse, but if you've got good support for draw-to-X, it's very powerful. But anyway, I like that it encourages you to keep some Treasures in your deck. I like that it interacts in interesting ways with special Treasures. I think there's definitely room for another play-Treasures-in-your-Action-phase card and I think this is a great take on it.

Sadly we didn't get Gubump's Farmer this game. I think it looks like a very strong card, but District provided most of the draw we needed and I wanted to test Miner, so that's on me. I'm guessing it should reveal 5 cards, but can't make a good assessment yet.

X-tra's Hanging Gardens is cool, but it didn't get much play this game, again mostly due to the lack of +Buy. He did get two of them though, I think one was from a Gold or Province he trashed to Axeman. I'm looking forward to playing another game with Hanging Gardens. I think it has a lot of promise.

Miner is a new version of my Spelunker. I'm guessing it's balanced, but it looks and feels broken when it's drawing 3 cards. In this game we didn't use it, since District was drawing so many cards for us.

We both used Sack. I think it's a pretty fun Event, and well designed. The goal is not to leave too generous a deal for the next player, but sometimes you need to just have to let them have it. One turn I had $9 and got to buy this three times. X-tra had left a token on it, so I was able to trash 2 cards and then remove the tokens for +$6, if memory serves.

Excavation was cool and seems about right cost-wise. I think X-tra used it once, but I never did this game. I'd like to play another game with it for sure.

[LastFootnote]

For our last game of the evening, X-tra was generous enough to agree to one more game of all fan cards: 5 of mine, 6 of his (including 2 Events), and one contest winner. I managed to win this one pretty decisively.

Jubilee is one of my oldest cards, and it works just about how I remember. I think it played well this game, but now I'm staring at it and thinking, what if you deferred spending the Gem until Clean-up? I think that would be great except it would probably be harder to track; easier to forget and just discard it. Maybe I'll give it a try and see if it's a problem in practice.

We each got a copy of my Bookkeeper. It's not a card I'm excited about, but it seemed reasonable! It's kind of surprising this attack effect doesn't yet exist in the game. I might bump i to $4 and add +1 Buy, but that's mostly dependent on whether the set needs more +Buy once it's closer to finalization.

We didn't manage to get any of X-tra's Granaries this game. It looks like a reasonable card; better than Navigator, but not "strictly" better. I hope to see it in another game soon.

We each got at least one Tinker, and it needs work. Having to trash exactly two differently named cards is just far too restrictive. So many times we'd want to trash just a single card from our hand. It was nice being able to trash Estate and Copper for Jubilee, which gives you back your token. But when I next try Tinker, it will say "Trash up to 3 differently named cards from your hand."

X-tra's Booming Town was great, even without a Workshop to gain them right to your hand. Such a classic, simple card. 5 out of 5 stars! We got a bunch of them.

OK, this version of Knave is clearly awful except for the fact that Key to the City was on the board. I could play all (or sometimes all but one) of my other Treasures before using Key to the City to play Knave. My win was mostly on the back of this combo, I think. Anyway I've since tried Knave at $5, but with the order of its effects reversed. That's less cute but seemed clearly more fun. Key to the City is just great regardless of the Knave combo. Another very cool card by X-tra.

I saw Bailiff and thought, there's no way putting Duchies into your deck early is worth it to make this card work. But I tried it anyway and man was I ever wrong. King Leon has done a great job of actually making you want Duchies while building your deck. I don't know if it's too strong, but it's definitely not too weak, and it was a lot of fun. The parts of the card all work together beautifully. The one hitch is having to track how much it made, which you might have to do for a while since you're likely to play this early in your turn (+2 Cards).

In this game I actually did buy Miners. I believe it drew 1 card a bunch of times, 3 cards a bunch, 4 cards a couple of times, and never 2 cards. Weird. Anyway my deck was pretty junky this game, and Miner certainly didn't help by adding Rubbles to my deck. But in return it was good draw, and hey that's the premise of the card!

X-tra used Prey instead for his draw. The penalty of discarding his non-Treasure cards didn't seem as bad as I worried it would be, and the flexibility of the card is nice. I like the card's simplicity, though I should ask why it's called "Prey". I don't think I understand the theming yet. Maybe it's that it either runs away or you catch it for the $?

We didn't use Refurbish this game. This sort of sifting effect is a tough sell without +Buy, I think, and in this game we were often using low-$ amounts to buy Jubilees back. It seems like a reasonable effect on paper, though.

We did use Collect. It's an interesting set of effects. On the one hand it seems like a very powerful gaining effect onto your deck, but then you do have to discard an unplayed copy of the card you want to gain and the cost is limited. Thinking about it, I'm not sure it really needs the cost limitation. Gaining an even stronger card (like City Quarter) means not playing that very strong card this turn.

[gambit05]

Jubilee: I have a somehow similar card, Tulip Trader. It is exchanged for the non-Supply card Cart, which is a one-shot doing basically the same as Tulip Trader as long as there are no piles empty (note: any piles, not only Supply piles). The Cart pile contains a limited number of copies; currently 6 copies for 2 players +2 copies for each additional player.

 

Anyway, shouldn't Jubilee have the wording "...return this to the Supply..."?
Jubilee is a Kingdom card like Encampment and Experiment, which have this wording, whereas the non-Supply card Horse uses "...return this to its pile." Not really important, but I thought it doesn't hurt to mention it.

[LastFootnote]

Jubilee: I have a somehow similar card, Tulip Trader. It is exchanged for the non-Supply card Cart, which is a one-shot doing basically the same as Tulip Trader as long as there are no piles empty (note: any piles, not only Supply piles). The Cart pile contains a limited number of copies; currently 6 copies for 2 players +2 copies for each additional player.

 

Anyway, shouldn't Jubilee have the wording "...return this to the Supply..."?
Jubilee is a Kingdom card like Encampment and Experiment, which have this wording, whereas the non-Supply card Horse uses "...return this to its pile." Not really important, but I thought it doesn't hurt to mention it.

That's a good question and I'm not sure I know the current correct answer. Still, I like "to its pile", since it's unambiguous and also covers some hypothetical scenario where Kingdom cards are added as non-Supply piles. I don't currently have any card that does that, but I think I've tested such a card and I'm sure other fan cards do that sort of thing.

I like Tulip Trader and Cart. The draw on Cart is very cool. I don't know if I'd say "per empty pile" instead of "per empty Supply pile" just because it's a distinction that a lot of people might miss and I'm not sure how much extra gameplay it really gets you.

[gambit05]

Anyway, shouldn't Jubilee have the wording "...return this to the Supply..."?
Jubilee is a Kingdom card like Encampment and Experiment, which have this wording, whereas the non-Supply card Horse uses "...return this to its pile." Not really important, but I thought it doesn't hurt to mention it.

That's a good question and I'm not sure I know the current correct answer. Still, I like "to its pile", since it's unambiguous and also covers some hypothetical scenario where Kingdom cards are added as non-Supply piles. I don't currently have any card that does that, but I think I've tested such a card and I'm sure other fan cards do that sort of thing.

I like Tulip Trader and Cart. The draw on Cart is very cool. I don't know if I'd say "per empty pile" instead of "per empty Supply pile" just because it's a distinction that a lot of people might miss and I'm not sure how much extra gameplay it really gets you.

I've experimented quite a bit with Supply and non-Supply cards that are one-shots and I've even designed a few extra Kingdom card piles a la the Bane card of Young Witch. However, I never thought about or came across a Kingdom card that is not part of the Supply. Interesting idea, though maybe a bit confusing. In this case, I would use the wording "to its pile".

Nice that you like my cards. I don't want to spam your thread too much with them, so I just want to briefly mention a few things: One of the important features of Cart is that its pile has a limited number of copies (see my previous post). If a non-Supply pile is empty, it is most likely the Cart pile itself; so players are aware of this when they return their Cart. In addition, players usually don't miss things when it is for their own benefit, at least in my experience.

[Aureustgo]

In this game I actually did buy Miners. I believe it drew 1 card a bunch of times, 3 cards a bunch, 4 cards a couple of times, and never 2 cards. Weird. Anyway my deck was pretty junky this game, and Miner certainly didn't help by adding Rubbles to my deck. But in return it was good draw, and hey that's the premise of the card!

If you haven't already addressed it, I think one could simplify Miner slightly as follows.

+2 Cards.
You may gain a Rubble. If you do, look through your discard pile and put a Treasure into your hand. If you don't, gain a Copper and +1 Card instead.

i.e., side effects of digging/discovery/payment for miner. Text: 32 words versus 34.
Cost: $4. Not strictly worse or better than Smithy. Will depend on trashing.

If you need Miner to sift through deck, perhaps:

Do this twice: Gain a Rubble. Reveal the top card of your deck. Then reveal cards until you reveal a Treasure. Put it and another revealed card into your hand. Discard the rest.

Slightly shorter (33 words versus 34) and less variable. Drawing 4 cards each time, with some (desired or undesired) sifting and effectively two Ruins. Potentially massive payload, perhaps only +3 and a couple actions, or maybe just +2 and VPs.
Cost: $4.

Note that it should be impossible to dig without finding a Treasure, as a Rubble would trigger the card each time, if necessary. For comparison, Envoy draws 4 (likely) weaker cards but without the Ruins. Journeyman and Patrol have probably a similar draw, but they too without the Ruins. Death Cart gives two Ruins (ahead of time) for a +5 payload. A good check on the card's power is that it probably won't offer massive payload until later in the game, and will be a handicap early.

[Delaparis]

Well, I see that those fan card games seem like a lot of fun! I wanna say that recently, I’ve been having a great time creating private tables to play with my buddies. Besides, if you’re into card games like these, you might enjoy Gin Rummy. Basically, it’s a simple yet strategic 2-player draw-and-discard game that’s all about creating melds—either sets or runs. As for me, it's a nice change of pace if you're looking for something different from the usual card games like Hearts or Spades.