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[Asper]

Crown
1$
+ 1 Buy
----------------------
While this is in play, when you buy a victory card: + 1 VT
Cost 5$ / 6$
(Up to playtesting to see if 6$ is still okay this way.)

after playtesting, unfortunately this still somewhat has the 4 Crowns and a Chapel dilemma.

just keep buying 2 Estates every other turn until they're gone and rack up your VT.

i do have a new idea though. the +VT thing doesn't work well with Crown so i might ditch it altogether. let's try this:

CROWN, $4, Treasure-Victory
$?
Worth $1 per Victory card in your hand.
----------
Worth 1VP per Province you have.


strictly not as good as Duke or Secret Chamber (and they aren't great themselves either) but should combo better with other cards such as Scout and Ironworks.

You might want to halve the VP or increase the price. In most normal games this card will be a better buy than duchy for the VP alone. I do like the minor self comboing though.

As NoMoreFun wrote everything i wanted to say while i was typing, i'll just make the point that this latest version of Crown might make a nice price card for tournament.

[sylas]

i playtested the latest version a few hours ago and, you guys are quite right, it IS a bit cheap for what it does. it basically got bought out like candy as soon as we were able. after that, Duchys rarely got bought with everyone first getting extra Estates and Great Halls for the extra $, then it became a race to buy out the Provinces. of course, i was lagging behind since i made the mistake of buying Crowns without first buying enough Treasure so i lost by a bit. it was fun to Saboteur 3 Provinces though making a couple of player's Crowns worth little or nothing. came a close second in the following game. Crowns were really useful and fun in an Intrigue game. it combos well with less obvious cards like Steward but can be a pain if you get Tributed. i'm bumping the cost up to $5 now and hopefully that will be that.

CROWN, $5, Treasure-Victory
$?
Worth $1 per Victory card in your hand.
----------
Worth 1VP per Province you have.

[Asper]

Before i almost thought 7$ would be allright, but that obviously is too much. You don't buy dukes if you don't have at least 3 duchies, and if you allready own six provinces, it's likely that you'll win anyhow... I'm really not sure what would be a reasonable price, but i'm curious to hear about what your next playtests say

[dondon151]

Strictly speaking, it should be $6. If the expected value of the card is 4 VP by the end of the game (assuming Provinces split 4/4), then it should cost $6, which is similar to Fairgrounds.

The Treasure portion will throw a wrench in its cost, but it's really weak, so I think $6 should still be alright.

[sylas]

my group wants to leave this card for a bit to playtest other cards, so please can someone playtest it for me. once as $5 then as $6 to see which is better. thanks

[Asper]

my group wants to leave this card for a bit to playtest other cards, so please can someone playtest it for me. once as $5 then as $6 to see which is better. thanks

I'd gladly, but i have no one to play with at home. They're all annoyed with my obsession of Dominion and won't even help playtesting my own cards...

[Asper]

I happened to have some time for playtesting today, and 6$ is definately too much.

You'll mostly buy this card after your first 1-2 provinces, at least when junk-giving attacks are in the set (a card of mine gave out coppers). The thing is, to get more than 4 VP of it, you have to win the province split anyhow. Of course one could say duke is worse (i think i said something along those lines about an older version), but the thing is that for duke you do not have to fight over duchies, at least not with everyone. Everyone fights about provinces, so a duke player might just collect dukes and duchies by himself, while a crown player has to fight. As a treasure it was mostly worth 0$, and did not change the outcome of the game. One player had 5 provinces and 2 crowns, the other had 4 crowns and 3 provinces. Even if the second one had all remaining six crowns on a two player game, player one still wins.

I think those two things are the biggest flaws this version of the card has. It does not encourage going for other cards than provinces (which duke does), and with junking attacks or without trashing, its value as a treasure card is underwhelming. Sorry...

[sylas]

I happened to have some time for playtesting today, and 6$ is definately too much.

You'll mostly buy this card after your first 1-2 provinces, at least when junk-giving attacks are in the set (a card of mine gave out coppers). The thing is, to get more than 4 VP of it, you have to win the province split anyhow. Of course one could say duke is worse (i think i said something along those lines about an older version), but the thing is that for duke you do not have to fight over duchies, at least not with everyone. Everyone fights about provinces, so a duke player might just collect dukes and duchies by himself, while a crown player has to fight. As a treasure it was mostly worth 0$, and did not change the outcome of the game. One player had 5 provinces and 2 crowns, the other had 4 crowns and 3 provinces. Even if the second one had all remaining six crowns on a two player game, player one still wins.

I think those two things are the biggest flaws this version of the card has. It does not encourage going for other cards than provinces (which duke does), and with junking attacks or without trashing, its value as a treasure card is underwhelming. Sorry...

first off, thank you for playtesting Crown.

seems like the card isn't as good as expected. it is weak as a Treasure but we knew that already. probably right about the Province thing. too cheap at $4, too dear at $6; i'd better keep it as $5. i think the trick is to not get rid of your Estates if you plan on buying these. in fact, strive to buy Gold early then buy a couple more Estates. too many Crowns spoil the broth, though they can be really good in a decent drawing engine. shame it didn't work that well with your set of cards. i rather liked it with Intrigue but that's only about a tenth of the selection. cheers though.

[dondon151]

The big problem with Crown is that its two effects don't actually synergize. For example, Crossroads is accessible early in the game and works decently with cards that you normally wouldn't want to keep. Crown's treasure portion is already harder to combo with (because Crossroads draws more cards, allowing you to play more things), but its victory portion is strictly an endgame thing, plus the VP is strong enough that Crown has to cost a lot. If you buy it early to use the treasure part, you'll more likely kick yourself in the foot when it comes to endgame, and if you pick it up in endgame just for the points, then you're not using the treasure part very much at all.

Contrary to what you're saying, keeping Estates is not really beneficial. Each Crown in hand makes your Estates worth $1 more. But okay, if they were just Coppers instead, then you're already getting the same value out of a single Crown. That's not even getting into drawing engines, where the difference between having an Estate and a Village in hand could mean the difference between a dud and a big turn.

If you want to make people want to use Crown as a treasure, then you'll have to make it worth less VP-wise and reduce its cost. If you want it to primarily function as just an extra source of VP, you can either give Crown a vanilla bonus ($1 on top of its extra effect) or a VP formula that doesn't depend strictly on the number of Provinces.

[sylas]

okay, let's try version 54:


CROWN, $5, Treasure-Victory

Reveal your hand.
Worth $1 plus the number of Victory cards in your hand.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Worth 1 Victory Point if you have an odd number of Crowns.
Worth 2 Victory Points if you have an even number of Crowns.


bit like Harem but cheaper due to its variability. might even be worth $4.

[sylas]

i finally got a Crown i was happier with so i hope it's not because it's overpowered:

CROWN, $5, Treasure-Victory

When you play this, it is worth $1 plus the number of Victory cards in your hand.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Worth 1 Victory Point if you have an odd number of Crowns.
Worth 2 Victory Points if you have an even number of Crowns.



and a new card idea i got recently. usefulness really depends on the Kingdom cards available:

SUPPLANT, $3, Action-Attack
+1 Action

Each other player reveals a card from his hand.
Choose one: he discards it and draws a card; or he returns it to the supply and gains a card with the same cost that you choose, putting it into his hand.

[Asper]

SUPPLANT, $3, Action-Attack
+1 Action

Each other player reveals a card from his hand.
Choose one: he discards it and draws a card; or he returns it to the supply and gains a card with the same cost that you choose, putting it into his hand.

This is a bit like Swindler, but worse. If you want to keep this, make the bonus for the one playing it better. A second action, or two coins instead of the action, for example? After all revealing an Estate or Shelter (other than Necropolis) will either help me or not do anything, and as this card is pretty cheap it will mostly be considered as a starting buy - or not. Of course if you manage to make me discard Estates until my whole hand is Copper, it becomes a curser, but even then each play after that is useless - unless you let me discard the Curse next time and hope i draw a Copper again. Even then, my hand might still be better than what i started with. Of course this can turn 5$ to Duchies, but i have to reveal it for that. I have no choice with Smuggler. Especially Victory Cards in the end phase and Provinces in the endgame are basically free tickets to draw a new card. Even if you play two of them, you probably have no clue what i will reveal after that - an early game Chancellor, maybe?

TLDR: Swindler is way better.

[sylas]

how about this? sounds a bit awkward but that might be alright:

SUPPLANT, $3, Action-Attack
+2 Actions

Each other player reveals 3 cards from his hand.
Choose one: he discards one card that you choose, draws a card, and puts the rest back; or he returns one card to the supply and gains a card with the same cost that you choose, putting it and the rest into his hand.


this way you might get to choose to do something to a card you might actually want to do something to.

[Asper]

how about this? sounds a bit awkward but that might be alright:

SUPPLANT, $3, Action-Attack
+2 Actions

Each other player reveals 3 cards from his hand.
Choose one: he discards one card that you choose, draws a card, and puts the rest back; or he returns one card to the supply and gains a card with the same cost that you choose, putting it and the rest into his hand.


this way you might get to choose to do something to a card you might actually want to do something to.

Hmmm... Maybe this is better. +2 Actions are close to a Village, so the attack doesn't need to be that strong. So, Province is still quite save, but that's allright. It should be. Duchy is not - that's allright, i guess, too. If i reveal at least one Copper (likely), i will gain a Curse to my hand. I might gain up to three of them early game, but then i have Estates that i can reveal, too... I guess it's allright for it's price, if i didn't miss something important

[sylas]

DEMAGOGUE, $5($6?), Action

Draw 3 cards, putting them into play as they are drawn. If a Demagogue is drawn, discard it instead.


the effect is to play Action cards drawn through a single Action. i've tried this at $4 but it seemed really powerful for the price, particularly when '+Action' cards were drawn. it's kind of a pseudo +3 Cards, +3 Actions effect, except that you don't get to choose whether you want to play those Actions or not, or in what order. most of the time you'd want to play them anyway but drawing Trashing cards is sometimes a hindrance. loses a bit of oomph when you start buying victory and treasure cards though. i included the discard Demagogue to ensure the draw didn't get too confusing.

[eHalcyon]

DEMAGOGUE, $5($6?), Action

Draw 3 cards, putting them into play as they are drawn. If a Demagogue is drawn, discard it instead.


the effect is to play Action cards drawn through a single Action. i've tried this at $4 but it seemed really powerful for the price, particularly when '+Action' cards were drawn. it's kind of a pseudo +3 Cards, +3 Actions effect, except that you don't get to choose whether you want to play those Actions or not, or in what order. most of the time you'd want to play them anyway but drawing Trashing cards is sometimes a hindrance. loses a bit of oomph when you start buying victory and treasure cards though. i included the discard Demagogue to ensure the draw didn't get too confusing.

It can still get confusing.

eHalcyon plays a Demagogue.
... revealing and playing an Estate.
... revealing and playing a Golem.
......revealing an Estate, a Silver, a Demagogue, a Golem, and a Demagogue.
......playing the Demagogue first.
.........revealing and playing a Golem.

Hmmmmm.

[sylas]

Golem is completely new to me but it is a problem. are there many cards that also get confusing when playing this? any suggestions?

[Asper]

Golem is completely new to me but it is a problem. are there many cards that also get confusing when playing this? any suggestions?

There are a few that make you reveal from your deck until something is hit, but Golem is clearly the worst - probably because it somehow resembles your card. It reveals cards from your deck until two Action cards other than Golem are revealed. Then you play both of them in the order you choose.

[eHalcyon]

That was the second problem I highlighted.  The first one was that you could also get weird situations like having to play VP.

It may also get a little confusing if you play it with King's Court.  The confusion comes from having to resolve cards IN THE MIDDLE of resolving Demagogue.  The easy fix is to reveal all three at once, then play those three one by one.  It can still be confusing, but not much more confusing than giant action chains that are already possible.

[enfynet]

Golem is completely new to me but it is a problem. are there many cards that also get confusing when playing this? any suggestions?

Check out this site. It has scans for all the currently published cards.
http://dominion.diehrstraits.com/?set=All

[eHalcyon]

Golem is completely new to me but it is a problem. are there many cards that also get confusing when playing this? any suggestions?

Check out this site. It has scans for all the currently published cards.
http://dominion.diehrstraits.com/?set=All

Or, you know...

http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/

[enfynet]

Golem is completely new to me but it is a problem. are there many cards that also get confusing when playing this? any suggestions?

Check out this site. It has scans for all the currently published cards.
http://dominion.diehrstraits.com/?set=All

Or, you know...

http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/

I wasn't promoting the other site as much as I was using it as a visual tool of everything all at once.

[eHalcyon]

Golem is completely new to me but it is a problem. are there many cards that also get confusing when playing this? any suggestions?

Check out this site. It has scans for all the currently published cards.
http://dominion.diehrstraits.com/?set=All

Or, you know...

http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/

I wasn't promoting the other site as much as I was using it as a visual tool of everything all at once.

Haha, fair enough.  Promoting the other site is fine too.  But the wiki is very handy!

There is also this list, which is imageless.

[SirPeebles]

The Golem thing isn't a problem.  Putting a card into play is not the same thing as playing it.  The Golem would count towards lowering Peddler cost, could be top decked by a Scheme, and could miss a reshuffle.  But then Golem wouldn't played, so in particular it wouldn't activate Conspirators.

[eHalcyon]

The Golem thing isn't a problem.  Putting a card into play is not the same thing as playing it.

Huh?  If you interpret it that way, then Demagogue is really weak.  It would be a Smithy that guarantees action cards are drawn dead (minus edge cases like Peddler, HoP).