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[spineflu]

Contest 131: Novel Ways to Overpay
this might be a weird/hard one

Overpay is one of the rarer mechanics in Dominion; only four canon cards have it, and three of them use it in the same way - do a thing for each extra $1 you spend. Only Stonemason does something different, where it can meaningfully use potions for overpay.

Your goal for this is to design a Kingdom pile that uses overpay in a way that none of the cards from guilds do (it's fine if you and another member end up using it the same way in your entry). The effect you get can be something we've seen before - sometimes you need something to pile out the silvers, right? - but the way in which the overpay is performed should be novel. For instance, maybe you make a card that has a downside if you don't overpay. Or a bonus if you do. Maybe you make a card that does a 2:1 overpay ratio (make sure to include how you're rounding). Or 1:2, if you're feeling bold. Or something entirely different from those.

Your entry must be a non-split pile / non-unique pile kingdom card. It can use non-supply piles, and should use types/mechanics from canon dominion - fan mechanics are fine as long as you're ok with including a short write up describing how they're used. Please no landscapes this contest.

Please study the existing four overpay cards for how to word your overpay segment. I understand overpay is inherently wordy and will not be docking points for longevity, provided you can keep your card under ten or so lines. It may behoove you to keep the on-play portion brief if your overpay clause is long though.

Contest will close out on the 16th / 24 hr warning on the 15th.
Please let me know if you have any questions.

[The Alchemist]

Does this count as a novel way to overpay?



Bibliothecary: Someone has to maintain the libraries! Archaic name for librarian, this card nets out to a terminal Discard 2, Draw 3, unless you've managed to shrink your handsize by playing non-draw actions first that is. And hey, here are some villagers to help you out with that!

[spineflu]

Does this count as a novel way to overpay?



Bibliothecary: Someone has to maintain the libraries! Archaic name for librarian, this card nets out to a terminal Discard 2, Draw 3, unless you've managed to shrink your handsize by playing non-draw actions first that is. And hey, here are some villagers to help you out with that!

nah, that's the same "pay $1 extra for 1 <thing>" that I want you to avoid in your designs. It's a cool card, but that's specifically the type of overpay I want you to avoid for this contest. That is, the prize (villagers, in this case) isn't the novelty I want you to pursue in your design.

[JW]

Isolated Village
- Action
+1 Card and +2 Actions.
You may spend a Villager to trash a card from your hand.
When you buy this, +1 Villager and you may overpay for it. If you do, for each you overpaid, +1 Villager (max 4). If you don’t, each other player gets +1 Villager.

Clarification: you can’t overpay by $0. But you could overpay by so that other players do not get +1 Villager.

[emtzalex]

Updated Submission:

SCOUNDREL ACTION Cost: $5+ +3 Cards You may play from your hand an Action card from the pile with your Cur token on it. When you buy this, you may overpay for it. If you did, gain an Action card costing the amount you overpaid and move your Cur token to its pile.

My new submission is Scoundrel. Discussed at the new post here.



My old submission (withdrawn):

TOPIARY GARDEN VICTORY Cost: $3+ Worth 1VP per 10 tokens on your Topiary mat (round down). When you buy this, you may overpay for it. For each $1 you overpaid, add three tokens to your Topiary mat.

[lompeluiten]

$2 Developing Village
+2 Actions
-
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. If you did, return to your action phase and +1 action. For each $1 you overpaid, draw an card.

You can kickstart your engine again if it just needs an little boost.

[xyz123]

Totem
Action $4

+1 Card
+1 Action
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
While this is in play, when you buy a non-victory card you may overpay $1 per $2 it costs (round up). If you do gain a copy of it.



- Don't know if this is in the rules for this or not, so apologies if it isn't.
- I am finding this quite difficult to price.

[spineflu]

Totem
Action $4

+1 Card
+1 Action
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
While this is in play, when you buy a non-victory card you may overpay $1 per $2 it costs (round up). If you do gain a copy of it.



- Don't know if this is in the rules for this or not, so apologies if it isn't.

This qualifies, this is a novel way to use overpay. If you use this with, say, Masterpiece, do you also do Masterpiece's overpay (that is, is it double dipping)? Or are the two forms of overpay separate?

[xyz123]

Totem
Action $4

+1 Card
+1 Action
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
While this is in play, when you buy a non-victory card you may overpay $1 per $2 it costs (round up). If you do gain a copy of it.



- Don't know if this is in the rules for this or not, so apologies if it isn't.

This qualifies, this is a novel way to use overpay. If you use this with, say, Masterpiece, do you also do Masterpiece's overpay (that is, is it double dipping)? Or are the two forms of overpay separate?

If you have enough money available you can use either or both overpay options.

Note though that the additional card from Totem is gained, not bought, so you can only use the overpay option on the card you initially bought, not the second copy gained with Totem. This only makes a difference with Stonemason though.

[Gubump]

Totem
Action $4

+1 Card
+1 Action
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
While this is in play, when you buy a non-victory card you may overpay $1 per $2 it costs (round up). If you do gain a copy of it.



- Don't know if this is in the rules for this or not, so apologies if it isn't.

This qualifies, this is a novel way to use overpay. If you use this with, say, Masterpiece, do you also do Masterpiece's overpay (that is, is it double dipping)? Or are the two forms of overpay separate?

If you have enough money available you can use either or both overpay options.

Note though that the additional card from Totem is gained, not bought, so you can only use the overpay option on the card you initially bought, not the second copy gained with Totem. This only makes a difference with Stonemason though.

That doesn't really answer spineflu's question. What he meant was, if you buy Masterpiece and overpay by , do you gain an extra Masterpiece and 2 Silvers, or would you have to overpay for Totem's effect and another for Masterpiece's overpay separately? I gather from your "if you have enough money available" qualifier that you intend for the latter?

[emtzalex]

This looks too good relative to Province.
Let us assume an average of 4 Provinces per player. This is the same as buying Topiary Gardens 4 times while overpaying 5 each time such that there are 60 tokens on the mat. Now the Topiary Gardens are worth as many VPs as Provinces with the additional feature that you can buy further 6VP cards for $3.

It's true that buying 4 of these at $8 makes them worth the number of VP as a Province (and creates the opportunity to buy another at $3), but I disagree that this makes them better. When you buy a Province you have a guaranteed 6VP (absent it getting Swindled into a Peddler or Prince; Topiary Garden is much more vulnerable to Swindler). With this, the first 3 TGs you buy at $8 are not guaranteed to end up being worth 6VP, which makes buying one instead of a Province a potentially risky prospect. And because in 2 or 3 player games there are 4 TGs per player (and fewer games with more players), there is a non-negligible chance that you will not get the chance to buy a 5th one (or even a 4th).

Also, think about how this would happen practically. Imagine we are playing a 2 player game and you and I each have bought 3 Provinces at $8. If I hit $7, what am I going to do? Buy a Gold? A Duchy? I have an extremely strong incentive to buy a 4th TG at $7. Now, if you buy a 4th for $8, I've got a pretty big problem, but I would have had that anyway unless I was going to hit $8 on the following turn. If you don't hit $8 the turn after I buy the penultimate TG, you nevertheless have an extremely strong incentive to buy one at whatever you can spend, because if I buy that 5th one at $4, I now have 5 TGs worth 6 VP each. Thus, I think actually getting 4 TGs at $8 is going to be extremely rare.

[AJL828]

Uproar
Action ($4)

+1 Card
+1 Action
You may discard 2 cards for +2 Cards.
-----
When you buy this you may overpay for it. If you overpaid at least:
$1: Each other player Exiles a Curse.
$2: Each other player with 5 or more cards in hand puts a card from their hand onto their deck.

The on play is a weaker version of forum, as you only get to draw 1 card before having to decide what to discard (it is optional at least). The main idea of the card however, is the overpay. I wanted to try making an on-gain "attack" that was dependent on overpaying. Because players could potentially gain a few of these in a turn, I wanted to keep the attacks fairly on the light side, since the card itself is a cantrip and won't junk you up like IGG might.

[xyz123]

Totem
Action $4

+1 Card
+1 Action
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
While this is in play, when you buy a non-victory card you may overpay $1 per $2 it costs (round up). If you do gain a copy of it.



- Don't know if this is in the rules for this or not, so apologies if it isn't.

This qualifies, this is a novel way to use overpay. If you use this with, say, Masterpiece, do you also do Masterpiece's overpay (that is, is it double dipping)? Or are the two forms of overpay separate?

If you have enough money available you can use either or both overpay options.

Note though that the additional card from Totem is gained, not bought, so you can only use the overpay option on the card you initially bought, not the second copy gained with Totem. This only makes a difference with Stonemason though.

That doesn't really answer spineflu's question. What he meant was, if you buy Masterpiece and overpay by , do you gain an extra Masterpiece and 2 Silvers, or would you have to overpay for Totem's effect and another for Masterpiece's overpay separately? I gather from your "if you have enough money available" qualifier that you intend for the latter?

Sorry, yes it is the latter.

[Timinou]

Uproar
Action ($4)

+1 Card
+1 Action
You may discard 2 cards for +2 Cards.
-----
When you buy this you may overpay for it. If you overpaid at least:
$1: Each other player Exiles a Curse.
$2: Each other player with 5 or more cards in hand puts a card from their hand onto their deck.

The on play is a weaker version of forum, as you only get to draw 1 card before having to decide what to discard (it is optional at least). The main idea of the card however, is the overpay. I wanted to try making an on-gain "attack" that was dependent on overpaying. Because players could potentially gain a few of these in a turn, I wanted to keep the attacks fairly on the light side, since the card itself is a cantrip and won't junk you up like IGG might.

The way I read this is that if I overpay by $2, my opponents would both Exile a Curse and suffer the mini Ghost Ship attack (since I’ve fulfilled both overpay conditions).  Is that the correct interpretation?

[AJL828]

Uproar
Action ($4)

+1 Card
+1 Action
You may discard 2 cards for +2 Cards.
-----
When you buy this you may overpay for it. If you overpaid at least:
$1: Each other player Exiles a Curse.
$2: Each other player with 5 or more cards in hand puts a card from their hand onto their deck.

The on play is a weaker version of forum, as you only get to draw 1 card before having to decide what to discard (it is optional at least). The main idea of the card however, is the overpay. I wanted to try making an on-gain "attack" that was dependent on overpaying. Because players could potentially gain a few of these in a turn, I wanted to keep the attacks fairly on the light side, since the card itself is a cantrip and won't junk you up like IGG might.

The way I read this is that if I overpay by $2, my opponents would both Exile a Curse and suffer the mini Ghost Ship attack (since I’ve fulfilled both overpay conditions).  Is that the correct interpretation?

Yep, that’s the intention. The effects stack since both overpay conditions are fulfilled.

[anordinaryman]

Here's a wild one

Town Square | Victory | $1
Worth 1% if you have no Duchies.
-
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. If you do, +1 card per $2 you overpaid (rounded down) and set aside any number of Action cards from your hand that cost equal or less than the amount you overpaid. Return to your Action phase and play the set aside cards in any order.

Town Square's really want a +1 Buy (a natural synergy with your Market Square, perhaps), but isn't entirely useless without one (although often it is).

If you pay for Town Square with $6 and a Potion, you then draw 2 cards (overpaid by $5 and divide by 2 and round down), then set aside any action cards from hand that cost 5P or less, return to your Action phase and play all the set aside cards in any order. If you pay for Town Square with $2, well you can play a Poor House after you played all your Treasures. Nice.

Basically this lets you overpay for a sort of Villa/Calvary fushion to save a turn. Although you're going to need a lot of $ to make it shine. And then Town Square sits dead in your deck as a fairly weak victory card. It's strictly worse than estate as a Victory Card, which is why it costs less. Also $1 felt like the best base cost for this over-pay mechanic.

Open to feedback, of course. This is verbose as hell but I don't think I can simplify the wording anymore. It's less interesting to me as just a card drawer, and too weak as just an Action player.

[Freddy10]

This looks too good relative to Province.
Let us assume an average of 4 Provinces per player. This is the same as buying Topiary Gardens 4 times while overpaying 5 each time such that there are 60 tokens on the mat. Now the Topiary Gardens are worth as many VPs as Provinces with the additional feature that you can buy further 6VP cards for $3.

It's true that buying 4 of these at $8 makes them worth the number of VP as a Province (and creates the opportunity to buy another at $3), but I disagree that this makes them better. When you buy a Province you have a guaranteed 6VP (absent it getting Swindled into a Peddler or Prince; Topiary Garden is much more vulnerable to Swindler). With this, the first 3 TGs you buy at $8 are not guaranteed to end up being worth 6VP, which makes buying one instead of a Province a potentially risky prospect. And because in 2 or 3 player games there are 4 TGs per player (and fewer games with more players), there is a non-negligible chance that you will not get the chance to buy a 5th one (or even a 4th).

Also, think about how this would happen practically. Imagine we are playing a 2 player game and you and I each have bought 3 Provinces at $8. If I hit $7, what am I going to do? Buy a Gold? A Duchy? I have an extremely strong incentive to buy a 4th TG at $7. Now, if you buy a 4th for $8, I've got a pretty big problem, but I would have had that anyway unless I was going to hit $8 on the following turn. If you don't hit $8 the turn after I buy the penultimate TG, you nevertheless have an extremely strong incentive to buy one at whatever you can spend, because if I buy that 5th one at $4, I now have 5 TGs worth 6 VP each. Thus, I think actually getting 4 TGs at $8 is going to be extremely rare.

I totally disagree. Absent trashing attacks, your card is strictly better than Province.

So it will be very centralizing in nearly all Kingdoms, i.e. players will build up their engines more than in an ordinary Kingdom and then try to massively overpay for Topiary Gardens (a player overpaying less than $5 for them is not a strategic equilibrium as the other players can simply go for Provinces then)-
There is no reason to go initially for the inferior and less flexible Provinces.

This does not lead to good play. It is called alt-VP for a reason, it should be a real choice and not a virtually always mandatory strategic path.

You will also need a lot of tokens, won't be better to adjust the numbers to gain less tokens when overpaying?

[NoMoreFun]

Token
Action - $2+
+$3
+1 Buy
Return this to the supply
____________
When you buy this you may overpay. Either way, gain a card costing less than the total amount you paid for this card.

Example: If you buy it and don't overpay, gain a card costing $0 or $1. You can overpay $1P, making the total cost you paid
$3P, so you can gain an Apothecary ($2P).

[JW]

Company Town
Action - $2+
+1 Card
+2 Actions
____________
When you buy this you may overpay. Either way, gain a card costing less than the total amount you paid for this card.

Example: If you buy it and don't overpay, gain a card costing $0 or $1 after you do. You can overpay $1P, making the total cost you paid $3P, so you can gain an Apothecary ($2P). It has the same functionality as Border Village if you overpay $4, except the village costs $2 instead of $6 so it's worse for TFB (i.e. it isn't "strictly better" than Border Village)

The issue I see with this card is that it is strategically too simple. There are plenty of times when, even aside from Company Town, you have more $ than a card you want to buy costs. Company Town makes all of those situations into "have a free Village" until the pile runs out, which it generally would quickly.   

[Xen3k]

Ritual Attendant - $3+
Action - Attack - Fate - Doom
Receive a Boon. Each other player receives the next Hex.
----
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. For each $1 you overpaid, discard the top Boon and Hex. You may remove 1 Hex and/or 1 Boon discarded this way from their pile.

A cheap/weak attack that can be made better by thinning the Boon and Hex piles. I am not sure if it is priced correctly for the ability to get both a Boon and hand out a Hex, but the randomness early on should make it harder to maximize the effectiveness of either part. Hate buying a single Ritual Attendant to get rid of the most damaging/beneficial cards from each pile is definitely an option. I originally tried having it have a base effect of +1 Buy or +$1, but was not sure if it could stay cheap enough for the overpay ability to be used. Feedback is more than appreciated.

[spineflu]

Ritual Attendant - $3+
Action - Attack - Fate - Doom
Receive a Boon. Each other player receives the next Hex.
----
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. For each $1 you overpaid, discard the top Boon and Hex. You may remove 1 Hex and/or 1 Boon discarded this way from their pile.

A cheap/weak attack that can be made better by thinning the Boon and Hex piles. I am not sure if it is priced correctly for the ability to get both a Boon and hand out a Hex, but the randomness early on should make it harder to maximize the effectiveness of either part. Hate buying a single Ritual Attendant to get rid of the most damaging/beneficial cards from each pile is definitely an option. I originally tried having it have a base effect of +1 Buy or +$1, but was not sure if it could stay cheap enough for the overpay ability to be used. Feedback is more than appreciated.

to be clear, the removed boons/hexes don't get shuffled back in?

[Xen3k]

Ritual Attendant - $3+
Action - Attack - Fate - Doom
Receive a Boon. Each other player receives the next Hex.
----
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. For each $1 you overpaid, discard the top Boon and Hex. You may remove 1 Hex and/or 1 Boon discarded this way from their pile.

A cheap/weak attack that can be made better by thinning the Boon and Hex piles. I am not sure if it is priced correctly for the ability to get both a Boon and hand out a Hex, but the randomness early on should make it harder to maximize the effectiveness of either part. Hate buying a single Ritual Attendant to get rid of the most damaging/beneficial cards from each pile is definitely an option. I originally tried having it have a base effect of +1 Buy or +$1, but was not sure if it could stay cheap enough for the overpay ability to be used. Feedback is more than appreciated.

to be clear, the removed boons/hexes don't get shuffled back in?

Correct, they are removed from their respective piles.

[Gubump]

Ritual Attendant - $3+
Action - Attack - Fate - Doom
Receive a Boon. Each other player receives the next Hex.
----
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. For each $1 you overpaid, discard the top Boon and Hex. You may remove 1 Hex and/or 1 Boon discarded this way from their pile.

A cheap/weak attack that can be made better by thinning the Boon and Hex piles. I am not sure if it is priced correctly for the ability to get both a Boon and hand out a Hex, but the randomness early on should make it harder to maximize the effectiveness of either part. Hate buying a single Ritual Attendant to get rid of the most damaging/beneficial cards from each pile is definitely an option. I originally tried having it have a base effect of +1 Buy or +$1, but was not sure if it could stay cheap enough for the overpay ability to be used. Feedback is more than appreciated.

Shouldn't this fail to qualify for the same reason as The Alchemist's Bibliothecary? It's also a "pay for 1 thing" overpay.

[Xen3k]

Ritual Attendant - $3+
Action - Attack - Fate - Doom
Receive a Boon. Each other player receives the next Hex.
----
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. For each $1 you overpaid, discard the top Boon and Hex. You may remove 1 Hex and/or 1 Boon discarded this way from their pile.

A cheap/weak attack that can be made better by thinning the Boon and Hex piles. I am not sure if it is priced correctly for the ability to get both a Boon and hand out a Hex, but the randomness early on should make it harder to maximize the effectiveness of either part. Hate buying a single Ritual Attendant to get rid of the most damaging/beneficial cards from each pile is definitely an option. I originally tried having it have a base effect of +1 Buy or +$1, but was not sure if it could stay cheap enough for the overpay ability to be used. Feedback is more than appreciated.

Shouldn't this fail to qualify for the same reason as The Alchemist's Bibliothecary? It's also a "pay for 1 thing" overpay.

I tried a version of this design that revealed the top "X" number of cards from the Boon and Hex pile, allow you to remove one revealed card from each pile, then discard the rest. The wording was ridiculous and convoluted. Unfortunately the "for each $1 paid" format is just more concise. Either way the design does not let you get more things for each $1 paid, just look at more cards from each pile. I understand if it does not qualify as is, but the replacement will be a wall-o'-text if I try to keep this design.

[spineflu]

Ritual Attendant - $3+
Action - Attack - Fate - Doom
Receive a Boon. Each other player receives the next Hex.
----
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. For each $1 you overpaid, discard the top Boon and Hex. You may remove 1 Hex and/or 1 Boon discarded this way from their pile.

A cheap/weak attack that can be made better by thinning the Boon and Hex piles. I am not sure if it is priced correctly for the ability to get both a Boon and hand out a Hex, but the randomness early on should make it harder to maximize the effectiveness of either part. Hate buying a single Ritual Attendant to get rid of the most damaging/beneficial cards from each pile is definitely an option. I originally tried having it have a base effect of +1 Buy or +$1, but was not sure if it could stay cheap enough for the overpay ability to be used. Feedback is more than appreciated.

Shouldn't this fail to qualify for the same reason as The Alchemist's Bibliothecary? It's also a "pay for 1 thing" overpay.

not quite - the things are flattened into one thing (well, one removal from each pile) regardless of how much you overpay. If someone wanted to make a "for each $1 you overpay, reveal the top card of your deck. Put one of the revealed cards onto your deck, and discard the rest", that would also qualify. The intermediate step scales at 1:1, but the end step is ∃:1.