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Author Topic: Interview with Donald X.  (Read 2127606 times)

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Voltaire

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1450 on: July 09, 2014, 03:28:48 pm »
+6

Can you tell us anything about Temporum?
I'm glad you asked. Because it means something must have been announced somewhere. I see, it's in a Dice Tower interview.

Well he does not appear to have said much about it. It's time-travel-themed; I made it; we expect it at GenCon. He mentions a "butterfly effect" card; that's Step on a Butterfly. It's a Ray Bradbury thing, not a chaos theory thing. I mean they're similar but well this butterfly is being stepped on, not flapping its wings and causing hurricanes. Anyway the game has at least one card, and with a cool name too.

It's a strategy game; it has the Donald X. Variety Mechanic. I reported those things previously but I can mention them again. I expect people who like my games to like it. The art is fantastic.

More about Temporum in today's New Game Roundup on BGG. Includes pictures of the front and back of the box.

(It also links to this thread, so beware possible recursive traps)
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allanfieldhouse

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1451 on: July 10, 2014, 10:50:00 am »
0

I was wondering if you could explain the reasoning behind the wording that makes prince not work with one-shots and duration cards. Were certain one-shots too powerful when princed? Were durations just too confusing to resolve with prince?
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soulnet

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1452 on: July 10, 2014, 10:57:09 am »
0

I was wondering if you could explain the reasoning behind the wording that makes prince not work with one-shots and duration cards. Were certain one-shots too powerful when princed? Were durations just too confusing to resolve with prince?

It is just the usual lose-track rule, really.  But one-shots would also be overpowered, especially Mining Village (if you trash it all the time, because, why wouldn't you?) which becomes almost better than GM.
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Holger

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1453 on: July 10, 2014, 12:02:58 pm »
0

I was wondering if you could explain the reasoning behind the wording that makes prince not work with one-shots and duration cards. Were certain one-shots too powerful when princed? Were durations just too confusing to resolve with prince?

It is just the usual lose-track rule, really.

No, the usual lose-track rule doesn't ever stop a card from being played, as discussed at length in the Prince thread:
(...) I don't see why the lose track rule would not apply in your scenario with no #4.

For the same reason the lose track rule doesn't apply to a throned feast. You don't need to know where something is in order to play it. Lose track only applies to moving something from one place to another. Basically a card cannot move another card (or itself) if the target card isn't in the place the acting card expects it to be.

Quote
But one-shots would also be overpowered, especially Mining Village (if you trash it all the time, because, why wouldn't you?) which becomes almost better than GM.

Prince-MV would be strictly worse (due to no buy) than Prince-GM, but very strong indeed. But since you can already Prince GM itself after cost reduction, I don't see this as prohibitive - Prince is a $8 card, after all. I expect the main reason for the parantheses is the non-losing track when scheming a princed card, which would be quite counterintuitive and confusing. Of the one-shots, only Prince of Madman would be insanely overpowered IMO.
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eHalcyon

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1454 on: July 10, 2014, 12:30:56 pm »
+1

If you could trigger a princed MV every turn, that would be OP. The difficulty of actually putting Prince-GM into play is not trivial; it's possible with cost reduction but it's not easy.

However, if Prince merely plays the card every turn (including one-shots) and doesn't explicitly bring them back from the trash, you'd only get the $2 bonus once, just as it works with TR or KC.
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Witherweaver

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1455 on: July 10, 2014, 12:36:08 pm »
+1

If you could trigger a princed MV every turn, that would be OP. The difficulty of actually putting Prince-GM into play is not trivial; it's possible with cost reduction but it's not easy.

However, if Prince merely plays the card every turn (including one-shots) and doesn't explicitly bring them back from the trash, you'd only get the $2 bonus once, just as it works with TR or KC.

Though, the neat thing about Prince MV is that, well, you have a Princed village which is not the best, but still a boon, and you're guaranteed to have +$2 at some point, so you can save it for a possibly game-changing turn.  Maybe you draw $6 with one Province left.  It's kind of like having $2 in the bank.

Unfortunately, you have to make the decision at the beginning of the turn, and there are better Prince options (you could just use a drawer and draw the mining village), plus the opportunity cost, so I can't see this being optimal.
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Holger

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1456 on: July 10, 2014, 12:44:59 pm »
0

If you could trigger a princed MV every turn, that would be OP. The difficulty of actually putting Prince-GM into play is not trivial; it's possible with cost reduction but it's not easy.

However, if Prince merely plays the card every turn (including one-shots) and doesn't explicitly bring them back from the trash, you'd only get the $2 bonus once, just as it works with TR or KC.

Right, you could still only trash it once per game. So Prince-MV would probably be weaker than Prince on another $4 Village (except WV), i.e. rather underpowered.  :P
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soulnet

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1457 on: July 10, 2014, 02:18:33 pm »
+1

I was wondering if you could explain the reasoning behind the wording that makes prince not work with one-shots and duration cards. Were certain one-shots too powerful when princed? Were durations just too confusing to resolve with prince?

It is just the usual lose-track rule, really.

No, the usual lose-track rule doesn't ever stop a card from being played, as discussed at length in the Prince thread:

Yes it does. Prince loses track so it cannot set aside. Then "play the set aside card" loses meaning if we interpret that as "the card set aside last time I told you to set aside something". I think the parenthesis clarify that.

Prince-MV would be strictly worse (due to no buy) than Prince-GM

Trashed MV gives an extra action compared to GM.
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amalloy

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1458 on: July 10, 2014, 02:31:06 pm »
0

I was wondering if you could explain the reasoning behind the wording that makes prince not work with one-shots and duration cards. Were certain one-shots too powerful when princed? Were durations just too confusing to resolve with prince?

It is just the usual lose-track rule, really.  But one-shots would also be overpowered, especially Mining Village (if you trash it all the time, because, why wouldn't you?) which becomes almost better than GM.

Edge case: the only other actions I can play are three Market Squares. I'd rather have an action in play (giving me four Peddlers for $0 each) than $2, which could only buy me a single $2 Peddler.
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Donald X.

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1459 on: July 10, 2014, 04:54:04 pm »
+2

I was wondering if you could explain the reasoning behind the wording that makes prince not work with one-shots and duration cards. Were certain one-shots too powerful when princed? Were durations just too confusing to resolve with prince?
It was a combination of duration cards being confusing, one-shots being powerful and confusing, and needing a wording that handled everything as tersely as possible. For stuff involving duration cards there's always the complication of Thrones on them to consider (since Thrones stay out with the duration cards for tracking).

Always having the card sitting there seems like a good safety net even if there's no known case where things gets messed up if you don't. Let's see, I Prince Sir Martin, he dies to another Knight, someone Graverobbers him, I'm still playing him every turn, wait he's the +Buys one right?

I did briefly playtest using Prince on one-shots and durations. And cards costing $5, and being able to get two cards a turn from a Throned Prince.
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Holger

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1460 on: July 11, 2014, 03:06:00 pm »
+1

I was wondering if you could explain the reasoning behind the wording that makes prince not work with one-shots and duration cards. Were certain one-shots too powerful when princed? Were durations just too confusing to resolve with prince?

It is just the usual lose-track rule, really.

No, the usual lose-track rule doesn't ever stop a card from being played, as discussed at length in the Prince thread:

Yes it does. Prince loses track so it cannot set aside. Then "play the set aside card" loses meaning if we interpret that as "the card set aside last time I told you to set aside something". I think the parenthesis clarify that.

Only the parantheses make Prince stop playing the card, otherwise it would continue playing it in spite of having lost track of it. "At the start of each of your turns, play that Action" (namely the Action card that was set aside when Prince was played) has a well-defined meaning, no matter where that card is now. Just like Throne Room plays the "lost" Feast from the trash the second time.


Quote
Prince-MV would be strictly worse (due to no buy) than Prince-GM

Trashed MV gives an extra action compared to GM.

Oh, right. :-[
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market squire

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1461 on: August 19, 2014, 10:23:17 am »
+2

Have you ever thought of (or tried) an Action that lets you decide when its effect will trigger? If not, why did you avoid this?

The only official concept like that that comes into my mind is coin tokens from Guilds. But what I mean is, Candlestick maker could also be a Duration like "+1 buy, when playing Treasures in a buy phase of your choice, +1$."
In the Dark Ages Outtakes, I found the first Procession, it was like: "+1 Action, set this aside --- when you play an Action while this is set aside you may put this into play and play the Action again." This is also the direction I am asking for, but it avoids my question by the set-aside.

I ask this because we make a Seaside fan-expansion in the German Dominionblog forums, and stumbled on this by making alternative Durations. E.g., I thought of your first Procession as a Duration "+1 Action, in any turn, one Action card that you play is played again." Or something like that. When you use it, it just leaves the "Duration zone". The problem that we found was how to track how often you can use it when it was played with Throne Room or King's Court; now I think of solutions like a mat or markers for those.
But I wonder what you think about effects like this.
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Donald X.

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1462 on: August 19, 2014, 05:58:12 pm »
+5

Have you ever thought of (or tried) an Action that lets you decide when its effect will trigger? If not, why did you avoid this?

The only official concept like that that comes into my mind is coin tokens from Guilds. But what I mean is, Candlestick maker could also be a Duration like "+1 buy, when playing Treasures in a buy phase of your choice, +1$."
In the Dark Ages Outtakes, I found the first Procession, it was like: "+1 Action, set this aside --- when you play an Action while this is set aside you may put this into play and play the Action again." This is also the direction I am asking for, but it avoids my question by the set-aside.

I ask this because we make a Seaside fan-expansion in the German Dominionblog forums, and stumbled on this by making alternative Durations. E.g., I thought of your first Procession as a Duration "+1 Action, in any turn, one Action card that you play is played again." Or something like that. When you use it, it just leaves the "Duration zone". The problem that we found was how to track how often you can use it when it was played with Throne Room or King's Court; now I think of solutions like a mat or markers for those.
But I wonder what you think about effects like this.
I don't understand why you don't think the earlier Procession counts. It was an action you could wait and use when you wanted; it seems like exactly what you're talking about.

That Procession required a mat. With a mat it would have worked fine. I prefer the mat to making them duration cards. The mat keeps it out of the way so you aren't accidentally discarding it. Throning the earlier Procession just didn't do much - you fail to set it aside again and that's it. When you Throne a duration card, the Throne stays out with the duration card until the duration card is done; this is in the Seaside rulebook.

There is not a lot of traffic in this thread currently, but still, questions along the lines of "did you ever think of" are bad, because they are tantamount to saying "hey look at my idea." This one was not so bad because hey there's Procession.
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eHalcyon

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1463 on: August 20, 2014, 06:55:39 pm »
+2


Some more information about Temporum was revealed at GenCon (and in this BGG update)!

I think you've stated before that most of Dominion's playtesting was done with 3 players.  Dominion is also incredibly popular with 2 players.  The player range for Temporum is listed on BGG as 2-5.  At what player count did you do the most testing?  Which player count(s) do you prefer, and what do you anticipate being most popular?

Are expansions for Temporum already in the works?  How many are planned?
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Donald X.

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1464 on: August 21, 2014, 03:21:03 am »
+6

I think you've stated before that most of Dominion's playtesting was done with 3 players.  Dominion is also incredibly popular with 2 players.  The player range for Temporum is listed on BGG as 2-5.  At what player count did you do the most testing?  Which player count(s) do you prefer, and what do you anticipate being most popular?

Are expansions for Temporum already in the works?  How many are planned?
I'm not sure I have actually played Dominion the most with 3; probably the quote was just, that I cared most about balancing it for 3, because that's how you try to get things good for 2-4 (I never worried as much about 5 although I worried some; I would not have supported 6). In the early days I played more with 2 or 4 than 3, though I also played with 3.

I actually recommend Temporum for 2-5. Publishers often stretch the range, but that didn't happen here. The game does vary between 2-5, in particular via ruling times. With 2 you have the classic situation where hurting your opponent lines up so well with helping yourself; in particular you'll struggle to stop them from ruling times, even when it just means tying so no-one rules it. With 3 you will care more about ruling a time yourself, since stopping someone else (without ruling it yourself) is just hurting one out of two opponents. With 4-5, two players can rule a time. This means that if I'm getting a huge advantage somewhere by ruling and also I'm not tied for most, then you can't personally just stop me by yourself - you get more crowns than me there and well I still rule there. Overall it's easier to rule places (although of course changing history can temporarily get rid of the place that's good for them). It's easiest with 4 since at 5 there is more competition. And then besides ruling, some abilities hurt all other players, so you get hurt a little more that way with more players. And obv. the more opponents you have, the more likely that one of them will get lucky in some way.

I have played less 2-player Temporum than any other player count; I have certainly played a lot with 5, because that's where any additional people have to get turned away. I've played with 2 though and it works well. I personally prefer the more social experience of more players. It's slower with more players because you take turns, and nothing at all compensates for that, it's just slower; but it moves at a fast pace even with 5 so it doesn't really matter.

I don't know how to guess what will be popular. I guess since sometimes you have 5 and are limited to games that work well with 5 and this does, 5 will see some action. There are so many choices for 2. Online play has pushed 2-player for Dominion; dunno if Temporum will get an online version. Also Dominion can be played by couples in a somewhat non-confrontational way; Temporum is more confrontational. OTOH lots of people play 2-player confrontational games.

I made an expansion for Temporum, but whether or not it comes out will depend on how well the game does and stuff. I haven't planned on a second one; there would need to be demand and I would need to think of more stuff worth doing.
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Watno

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1465 on: August 31, 2014, 09:58:53 am »
+2

Will you be at Essen this year?
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Donald X.

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1466 on: August 31, 2014, 06:57:17 pm »
0

Will you be at Essen this year?
No. I will probably always try to get out of going, but I guess it's possible I'll go back someday.

Altenburger wanted me to Skype, and I said okay, and then they changed it and I'm not sure what it is anymore. Possibly I'll answer questions just like I do over the internet except faster? Anyway it doesn't sound too impressive whatever it is but I guess something may happen there.
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market squire

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1467 on: September 01, 2014, 08:38:50 am »
0

I was curious because i'm a bit familiar to Heroes of Might and Magic III, so I tried it and finally managed to run it via DOSBox. It plays very well and mostly similar to Heroes, but your game philosophy comes through: "twists" that can be added to the game (eh, I already know this word from somewhere...), plenty of monsters with funny special abilities, many different paths to go by leveling up heroes etc.
I really like your game and I'll play it the next weeks, but I don't really understand why you call it best computer game ever. Do you know many other computer games? (Well, I myself don't really but I'm sure there should be some more recent games that could be better.)
It's one of those "it's funny because it's true" things. Dudes has awful art (I did most of it myself, but not the rock or the boot or uh man maybe one other thing), it's low on interface-frills, it's my take on an old game. At the same time I have actually played it more than any other computer game, and can find you uh at least three other people who will cite it as their favorite computer/console/arcade game ever.

Isn't Dudes a highly political game? When playing it, often 2 players fight each other, and afterwards a third one comes and laughs last because he can easily defeat the rest of the (former) conqueror's troops. I was just wondering because you emphasized you didn't like politics in games.
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Donald X.

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1468 on: September 01, 2014, 05:17:39 pm »
0

Isn't Dudes a highly political game? When playing it, often 2 players fight each other, and afterwards a third one comes and laughs last because he can easily defeat the rest of the (former) conqueror's troops. I was just wondering because you emphasized you didn't like politics in games.
Well yes it's political, but it has never been an issue for me personally, due to it being a computer game. If you play it alone, which is normally the case, there's no politics; if you play it with one other human, there's no politics. Whine about who's winning all you want; the computer will never factor that in.

When I have played with two other humans, we just played friendly, not fighting each other, trying to be the one looking the best when we quit (or actually finished the map). Played competitively, yes, politics would be a huge issue. I imagine most people would not play with two other humans though, because it goes so slowly. The computer players are much faster.

If I had ever tried to polish it up for publication, I would have tried to add a mode to better handle multiple humans. You can put four or six on two teams; for three I might go for a capture-the-center thing. My go-to solution of "when the player to your left dies you win" doesn't work here.
« Last Edit: September 01, 2014, 05:18:44 pm by Donald X. »
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Trogdor the Burninator

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1469 on: September 05, 2014, 12:05:09 pm »
0

I know that this is a change in subject, and that you probably have/are getting a lot of these types of questions, so forgive me if I'm being rude, but is Prince supposed to be the last sort of official release of anything Dominion related, like Guilds was the last official expansion, or are you still going to release Dominion stuff, but just at a much more staggered pace?
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Donald X.

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1470 on: September 05, 2014, 09:07:26 pm »
+21

I know that this is a change in subject, and that you probably have/are getting a lot of these types of questions, so forgive me if I'm being rude, but is Prince supposed to be the last sort of official release of anything Dominion related, like Guilds was the last official expansion, or are you still going to release Dominion stuff, but just at a much more staggered pace?
I am sure there will be more Dominion stuff, including expansions. The publishers would like them and I did not manage to just crank out spin-offs like I was hoping to (the first two turned into Kingdom Builder and Temporum). I do not know what the pace will be but "slow" is a good guess.

More words on this topic: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=73.0
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Watno

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1471 on: September 07, 2014, 05:16:27 pm »
+1

Any concrete plans for the next expansion yet?
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Donald X.

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1472 on: September 07, 2014, 09:31:13 pm »
+9

Any concrete plans for the next expansion yet?
When the time comes it will be up to RGG to announce it.
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blueblimp

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1473 on: September 08, 2014, 01:20:54 am »
+4

Will there be a secret history of Temporum once that's out? I'm especially interested in the development of the pascal's-triangle-like mechanic.
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Donald X.

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #1474 on: September 08, 2014, 03:57:06 am »
+7

Will there be a secret history of Temporum once that's out? I'm especially interested in the development of the pascal's-triangle-like mechanic.
Yes, I wrote the secret history some months ago. It doesn't go into much detail on the triangle though. I don't really have a story about the triangle. I made some time travel games in the late 90s that worked different ways. One of the ways was the triangle. It came from me just looking for a data structure to handle alternate realities. You could do a binary tree instead but it takes more space on the table. The Pascal's triangle is more compact. In the 90s the games with the triangle had fixed locations, rather then dealing out 10 cards each time. That part came from when Temporum was trying to be a deckbuilding game.
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