Print

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

[dz]

To those of you not in the TGG discord server (the company making the mobile version of Dominion), the rules for Coffers are getting changed, and this change also requires errata to 2 cards.

The change: You can spend Coffers at any time during your turn.

The reason: The original rule was awful and goes against intuition. How often have you bought a card, and then either realized you didn't spend enough Coffers, or you spent too many?

Side effects include being able to use Coffers to power up action-phase Storytellers, and you can immediately use the Coffers that you get from Spices.

Now there are two cards that need errata because of this. The reasons why is an exercise for the reader (or you can just go to the wiki, where I explained why).
-Merchant Guild: It will give Coffers at the end of your buy phase, and is no longer a dividing line ability.
-Patron: Only gives Coffers during an Action phase.

Also in general "while in play" is disappearing for "this turn." You may have noticed this change has already started with the Hermit errata I mentioned months ago.

These changes are already on the TGG client, and it'll come to D.G uh eventually. Probably at the same time that the other endless list of errata comes out.

I'm sure someone is going to be sad that a random combo that-comes-up-1%-of-the-time is going to disappear, but I'm not worried about that, and DXV isn't worried either.

[spineflu]

Is there a reason for Patron being phase-dependent rather than "if you haven't spent a Buy yet"? As the random Venture enjoyer of the board, that enabling combo was pretty nice.

Also kind of a bummer Merchant Guild isn't going to be enabled as a Way. Some good combos with wot Pig and others.

[dz]

Is there a reason for Patron being phase-dependent rather than "if you haven't spent a Buy yet"? 

Remember that the wording needs to take into account that it's possible to reveal your own Patron on an opponent's turn. Also "when you reveal this in an Action phase" is shorter than 'when you reveal this, if you haven't spent a Buy yet this turn."

As the random Venture enjoyer of the board, that enabling combo was pretty nice.

Also kind of a bummer Merchant Guild isn't going to be enabled as a Way. Some good combos with wot Pig and others.

I'm sure someone is going to be sad that a random combo that-comes-up-1%-of-the-time is going to disappear, but I'm not worried about that, and DXV isn't worried either.

[spineflu]

Is there a reason for Patron being phase-dependent rather than "if you haven't spent a Buy yet"? 

Remember that the wording needs to take into account that it's possible to reveal your own Patron on an opponent's turn. Also "when you reveal this in an Action phase" is shorter than 'when you reveal this, if you haven't spent a Buy yet this turn."

Yeah but you aren't spending buys on opponents turns so it always procs then; Also Patron isn't exactly in the Noble Brigand "hurting for text space" category. My way keeps more of the original functionality.

[spineflu]

also: No changes for Spices or Silk Merchant?

[Donald X.]

also: No changes for Spices or Silk Merchant?

No change for those.

[Jeebus]

These changes are already on the TGG client

Do you have the card texts for Urchin Hermit, Merchant Guild and Patron? They don't seem to be in the Wiki, and as you note in the old Urchin Hermit post, the wording matters for how they play.

[GendoIkari]

Also “if you haven’t spent a buy yet” doesn’t keep the current functionality; in which you could buy a card during your action phase or even during your play-treasures half of your buy phase; and then still spend coffers.

[Jeebus]

Also in general "while in play" is disappearing for "this turn." You may have noticed this change has already started with the Hermit errata I mentioned months ago.

I can't find any other card than Urchin Hermit that is "while in play" and "this turn". Are you talking about Way of the Frog? Improve? Treasury and Scheme? Scepter? (And, you or Donald, please post the new card texts.)

[spineflu]

Also “if you haven’t spent a buy yet” doesn’t keep the current functionality; in which you could buy a card during your action phase or even during your play-treasures half of your buy phase; and then still spend coffers.

are you referring to like, Black Market? because that doesn't spend a Buy; or are you referring to a Villa/Cavalry style backtracking?

[dz]

These changes are already on the TGG client

Do you have the card texts for Urchin, Merchant Guild and Patron? They don't seem to be in the Wiki, and as you note in the old Urchin post, the wording matters for how they play.

I don't recall an Urchin post; you mean Hermit? Donald X. hasn't announced those wordings yet. Most text changes are of course, going to be updated as sets get reprinted.

Patron:
+1 Villager
+2 Coins
---
When you reveal this in an Action phase (using the word "reveal"), +1 Coffers.

Merchant Guild:
+1 Buy
+1 Coin
At the end of your Buy phase, +1 Coffers per card you bought this turn.

Also in general "while in play" is disappearing for "this turn." You may have noticed this change has already started with the Hermit errata I mentioned months ago.

I can't find any other card than Urchin that is "while in play" and "this turn". Are you talking about Way of the Frog? Improve? Treasury and Scheme? Scepter? (And, you or Donald, please post the new card texts.)

I don't understand, how is Urchin (or is that Hermit) special here? And how are Frog/Improve/Treasury/Scheme/Scepter relevant either?

The text changes are more like:

Highway:
+1 Card
+1 Action
This turn, cards cost 1 less.

There are most likely going to be some random side effects (and I don't just mean the interactions with Throne Room and Ways). For example, I think the best Lighthouse wording is to just match Guardian (they currently work differently against Black Cat).

Lighthouse:
+1 Action
+1 Coin
At the start of your next turn, +1 Coin. Until then, when another player plays an Attack card, it doesn't affect you.

[Jeebus]

I don't recall an Urchin post; you mean Hermit? Donald X. hasn't announced those wordings yet. Most text changes are of course, going to be updated as sets get reprinted.

Sorry, I meant Hermit every time I wrote Urchin.

You said that these are in the TGG client already, but I guess since it's still in Beta, the card texts could theoretically change again and that's why it's not official yet?

I don't understand, how is Urchin (or is that Hermit) special here? And how are Frog/Improve/Treasury/Scheme/Scepter relevant either?

I misunderstood your phrase '"while in play" is disappearing for "this turn."' I didn't get that "disappearing for" was supposed to mean "replaced by".

So this means that "while in play" will be removed from all cards? Wow. We have these:
Bridge Troll, Goons, Groundskeeper, Haggler, Highway, Hoard, Lighthouse, Merchant Guild, Princess, Quarry, Royal Seal, Sauna, Talisman, Tracker, Urchin

This is certainly not a "change as little as possible" move from Donald! Throne Room + Goons! I wonder why.

[GendoIkari]

Also “if you haven’t spent a buy yet” doesn’t keep the current functionality; in which you could buy a card during your action phase or even during your play-treasures half of your buy phase; and then still spend coffers.

are you referring to like, Black Market? because that doesn't spend a Buy; or are you referring to a Villa/Cavalry style backtracking?

Well both; but I was indeed mixing up “spend a buy” with “buy a card”. I’m not a fan of the former; because all though we all likely know what it means; it’s not a clearly defined term in Dominion as far as I know.

[Jack Rudd]

Also, since the introductions of Events, one can spend a buy without buying a card.

[spineflu]

Also, since the introductions of Events, one can spend a buy without buying a card.

exactly what I was aiming to mitigate with Gamble, Pursue, Scouting Party, etc.

[Donald X.]

You said that these are in the TGG client already, but I guess since it's still in Beta, the card texts could theoretically change again and that's why it's not official yet?

Yes. The TGG program needed the wordings, since it will only ever have the new Coffers rule.

The idea to the Coffers change is to have it work more like people do it irl. It's simpler. The rule was trickier just to deal with Merchant Guild; instead Merchant Guild should deal with itself.

So this means that "while in play" will be removed from all cards? Wow. We have these:
Bridge Troll, Goons, Groundskeeper, Haggler, Highway, Hoard, Lighthouse, Merchant Guild, Princess, Quarry, Royal Seal, Sauna, Talisman, Tracker, Urchin

This is certainly not a "change as little as possible" move from Donald! Throne Room + Goons! I wonder why.

Exactly which cards will change and how is still not official; wordings will become official as sets are reprinted, and you will see my exact choices then.

"While in play" is confusing in a way that "this turn" is not. That's what it comes down to.

[Jeebus]

"While in play" is confusing in a way that "this turn" is not. That's what it comes down to.

So you're not worried about the change in power level? Goons was already pretty powerful, now it seems that it will be insane whenever there's a Throne Room in the kingdom. Maybe the same can be said about Groundskeeper and some others.

[Donald X.]

"While in play" is confusing in a way that "this turn" is not. That's what it comes down to.

So you're not worried about the change in power level? Goons was already pretty powerful, now it seems that it will be insane whenever there's a Throne Room in the kingdom. Maybe the same can be said about Groundskeeper and some others.

For a typical card, I'm not worried. For specific cards, details will have to wait for those sets to be reprinted.

[Holger]

To those of you not in the TGG discord server (the company making the mobile version of Dominion), the rules for Coffers are getting changed, and this change also requires errata to 2 cards.

The change: You can spend Coffers at any time during your turn.

The reason: The original rule was awful and goes against intuition. How often have you bought a card, and then either realized you didn't spend enough Coffers, or you spent too many?

Side effects include being able to use Coffers to power up action-phase Storytellers, and you can immediately use the Coffers that you get from Spices.

Now there are two cards that need errata because of this. The reasons why is an exercise for the reader (or you can just go to the wiki, where I explained why).
-Merchant Guild: It will give Coffers at the end of your buy phase, and is no longer a dividing line ability.
-Patron: Only gives Coffers during an Action phase.

[...]

You give a good reason for errata-ing Patron in the wiki, but could you expand on the reason for errata-ing Merchant Guild? Its wiki article only says "With the new rules to Coffers, you would be able to spend Coffers that you gained from Merchant Guild during the same Buy phase."

Though this would strengthen MG significantly, I don't see why it would make MG overpowered. If you immediately spend the gained coffers on further buys, MG essentially becomes kind of a Bridge variant: Instead of a cost reduction by $1, you immediately get $1 back for each buy.
While Bridge is a very strong $4 card, MG costs $5, so it should be okay for it to be usable as an "almost immediate" cost reducer.

Spices seems more problematic to me: With the coffers change, it effectively becomes a $3 card that's strictly (and significantly) better than Silver whenever you have 2 coffers (or a spare $2) at the beginning of your buy phase.

[Donald X.]

You give a good reason for errata-ing Patron in the wiki, but could you expand on the reason for errata-ing Merchant Guild? Its wiki article only says "With the new rules to Coffers, you would be able to spend Coffers that you gained from Merchant Guild during the same Buy phase."

Though this would strengthen MG significantly, I don't see why it would make MG overpowered. If you immediately spend the gained coffers on further buys, MG essentially becomes kind of a Bridge variant: Instead of a cost reduction by $1, you immediately get $1 back for each buy.
While Bridge is a very strong $4 card, MG costs $5, so it should be okay for it to be usable as an "almost immediate" cost reducer.

Spices seems more problematic to me: With the coffers change, it effectively becomes a $3 card that's strictly (and significantly) better than Silver whenever you have 2 coffers (or a spare $2) at the beginning of your buy phase.

The fix to Merchant Guild preserves its existing functionality, as well as possible. The intention of the Coffers change was not to make cards turn into different cards; Merchant Guild would still like to be Merchant Guild.

There was no such simple fix possible for Spices. I can e.g. Remodel into Spices, then use the tokens the same turn.

At the same time I consulted experts. The feeling was that Spices was not really so different. The value in the tokens lies in saving them for later.

[cookiedrugs]

To those of you not in the TGG discord server (the company making the mobile version of Dominion), the rules for Coffers are getting changed, and this change also requires errata to 2 cards.

The change: You can spend Coffers at any time during your turn.

The reason: The original rule was awful and goes against intuition. How often have you bought a card, and then either realized you didn't spend enough Coffers, or you spent too many?

Side effects include being able to use Coffers to power up action-phase Storytellers, and you can immediately use the Coffers that you get from Spices.

Now there are two cards that need errata because of this. The reasons why is an exercise for the reader (or you can just go to the wiki, where I explained why).
-Merchant Guild: It will give Coffers at the end of your buy phase, and is no longer a dividing line ability.
-Patron: Only gives Coffers during an Action phase.

[...]

You give a good reason for errata-ing Patron in the wiki, but could you expand on the reason for errata-ing Merchant Guild? Its wiki article only says "With the new rules to Coffers, you would be able to spend Coffers that you gained from Merchant Guild during the same Buy phase."

Though this would strengthen MG significantly, I don't see why it would make MG overpowered. If you immediately spend the gained coffers on further buys, MG essentially becomes kind of a Bridge variant: Instead of a cost reduction by $1, you immediately get $1 back for each buy.
While Bridge is a very strong $4 card, MG costs $5, so it should be okay for it to be usable as an "almost immediate" cost reducer.

Spices seems more problematic to me: With the coffers change, it effectively becomes a $3 card that's strictly (and significantly) better than Silver whenever you have 2 coffers (or a spare $2) at the beginning of your buy phase.

Traveling Fair comes to my mind. If you have three MGs in play, you can alternately buy Traveling Fair and Copper and get additionally a Coffer. After the Copper pile is empty you have +46$.

[pubby]

Is patron better worded as "if it's not your buy phase..."? That way it works more often.

BTW presumably debt needs a rule change too?

[Holger]

You give a good reason for errata-ing Patron in the wiki, but could you expand on the reason for errata-ing Merchant Guild? Its wiki article only says "With the new rules to Coffers, you would be able to spend Coffers that you gained from Merchant Guild during the same Buy phase."

Though this would strengthen MG significantly, I don't see why it would make MG overpowered. If you immediately spend the gained coffers on further buys, MG essentially becomes kind of a Bridge variant: Instead of a cost reduction by $1, you immediately get $1 back for each buy.
While Bridge is a very strong $4 card, MG costs $5, so it should be okay for it to be usable as an "almost immediate" cost reducer.

Spices seems more problematic to me: With the coffers change, it effectively becomes a $3 card that's strictly (and significantly) better than Silver whenever you have 2 coffers (or a spare $2) at the beginning of your buy phase.

The fix to Merchant Guild preserves its existing functionality, as well as possible. The intention of the Coffers change was not to make cards turn into different cards; Merchant Guild would still like to be Merchant Guild.

There was no such simple fix possible for Spices. I can e.g. Remodel into Spices, then use the tokens the same turn.

At the same time I consulted experts. The feeling was that Spices was not really so different. The value in the tokens lies in saving them for later.

Thanks for your answer, Donald! Yes, changing the wording to keep the existing functionality of Merchant Guild makes perfect sense.

For Spices, I will of course defer to the experts. (FWIW, I would consider you the topmost Dominion expert yourself  .)

Still, I think it would be possible to change Spices' wording in order to keep its functionality in most cases, by changing it to:
"When you gain this, at the end of this phase, +2 Coffers."

This would still allow you to gain Spices in your Action phase (e.g. with Remodel) and use the Coffers in the same turn's buy phase, but would not allow you to immediately use Coffers received by buying Spices.
The only difference to Spices' current functionality (AFAICS) would be the rare case when you gain Spices during the "play treaures" part of your buy phase (e.g. with Horn of Plenty or with Scepter+Artisan).

[Donald X.]

Still, I think it would be possible to change Spices' wording in order to keep its functionality in most cases, by changing it to:
"When you gain this, at the end of this phase, +2 Coffers."

I considered and rejected that. It maintains previous functionality better, but is some weird text that I don't think I need.

[Donald X.]

Is patron better worded as "if it's not your buy phase..."? That way it works more often.

BTW presumably debt needs a rule change too?

I haven't looked at debt yet. It's worth considering though.

Yes Patron could specifically look for the Buy phase. Almost everything else is the Action phase though.