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[NoMoreFun]

Would it be possible to design a base set, with existing cards, that ends up suggesting very different strategies to what Dominion as we know it has? For example, by including lots of cards like Coppersmith, Counting House, Gardens etc., would that then suggest a game where trashing coppers is seen as bad?

Of course you could do trivial things like not include any cards with +actions or +buy, but is it possible to do this with a "normal" looking set?

[timchen]

If you maintain the costs and values of the green cards, then I think the answer is no. Well it is not impossible to design cards such that you can consistently reach 8 using coppers, but if those strategies are to be viable more often than not then i think they have to be on fewer cards so u dont have this problem of having to buy them then draw them together then play them(say u combine counting house and cellar, or coppersmith and smithy.) But those cards then are overpowered.

[Tables]

$2:
Cellar
Secret Chamber
Duchess

$3:
Masquerade
Warehouse
Village
Workshop

$4:
Baron
Coppersmith
Gardens
Remodel
Noble Brigand
Horse Traders
Bureaucrat
Spy

$5:
Soothsayer
Duke
Counting House
Council Room
Festival
Rabble
Count
Jester
Cartographer

$6:
Hunting Grounds

I think that's a 25 card set, which hopefully looks fairly normal, although there's probably some oddities in it I didn't pick up on. And if this were the only 25 card available in Dominion, or were the first 25 cards available, I think this would often have bigger decks being preferable for various reasons - Gardens is a big one, along with things like Counting House, Coppersmith and Baron to key off of those cheaper cards. On top of this, there's no good trashing - Masquerade and TfB are there, but nothing that can trash multiple cards per turn. There is however a number of sifters, which will make slimmer decks relatively less valuable. There's two alternate VPs, each with support, and combined with the things comboing with cheaper cards, perhaps this would lead to the more valuable cards seeming relatively less good?

Of course, all these things will depend on the card which appear in the game, but if this were the first set, I suspect the 'general' ideas people would have would be very different to what they are now.

[NoMoreFun]

$2:
Cellar
Secret Chamber
Duchess

$3:
Masquerade
Warehouse
Village
Workshop

$4:
Baron
Coppersmith
Gardens
Remodel
Noble Brigand
Horse Traders
Bureaucrat
Spy

$5:
Soothsayer
Duke
Counting House
Council Room
Festival
Rabble
Count
Jester
Cartographer

$6:
Hunting Grounds

I think that's a 25 card set, which hopefully looks fairly normal, although there's probably some oddities in it I didn't pick up on. And if this were the only 25 card available in Dominion, or were the first 25 cards available, I think this would often have bigger decks being preferable for various reasons - Gardens is a big one, along with things like Counting House, Coppersmith and Baron to key off of those cheaper cards. On top of this, there's no good trashing - Masquerade and TfB are there, but nothing that can trash multiple cards per turn. There is however a number of sifters, which will make slimmer decks relatively less valuable. There's two alternate VPs, each with support, and combined with the things comboing with cheaper cards, perhaps this would lead to the more valuable cards seeming relatively less good?

Of course, all these things will depend on the card which appear in the game, but if this were the first set, I suspect the 'general' ideas people would have would be very different to what they are now.

I love it. Other than having both Cellar and Warehouse, and the fact that Count would look super confusing (why is "gain a Copper" a bad option, while "trash your hand" a good option?), it looks perfectly unassuming.

My favourite part is how Noble Brigands Copper gaining attack looks like (and possibly is) a penalty for failing to hit with the trashing.

I'd love an alternate universe in which this was the base set, and then "intrigue" came around with Beggar and Cache in the previews, shocking everyone with their power creep, then the set comes out with cards like Chapel, and those cards turn out to be the worst in the set.

[philosophyguy]

Add IGG and Silk Roads. Rush and alt-VP!

[Ratsia]

Would it be possible to design a base set, with existing cards, that ends up suggesting very different strategies to what Dominion as we know it has? For example, by including lots of cards like Coppersmith, Counting House, Gardens etc., would that then suggest a game where trashing coppers is seen as bad?

An alternative viewpoint to this: Would Dominion have been anywhere near as popular if the first set(s) had been like that?

The thing I'm most missing in almost all deck-building games is efficient thrashing (*), and when I play those games it feels quite a bit like playing a slog game in Dominion. Those are occasionally fun, but more often than not it would be more fun to play with a bit more control and a smaller deck, and definitely I would not want to play only slogs. If Dominion would come out only now, either as the original Base set or as an alternative version that was fine-tuned to be an optimal stand alone introduction, I would think that its best contribution to the deck building genre would be exactly in efficient thrashing.

So, even though it might be an interesting academic exercise to think of an alternative Dominion that teaches people to just keep the coppers, I would have hated to see a game like that.


(*) I haven't tried anywhere near all of them, not even the major ones, since deck-builders are not too popular in where I come from, but think about games like Quarriors!, Thunderstone, DC/Lotr Deck-building game, Eminent domain, or even the otherwise brilliant Trains. All of them have some sort of thrashing, but it is either much harder to thrash majority of the initial cards or at least it requires more skill or specific type of conditions. Even if a skilled player would be able to get rid of the junk, the regular players will not get the feeling that they could build their strategy around it. In the end, they hence end up playing more a deck-addition game instead of a deck-building one.