Print

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

[Kirian]

I made Crown A. Attack me! Give me your hate!!

Don't do it! Hate only increases his power!

Actually, Scout jokes increase his power.

[liopoil]

well, I got kinda in the middle of the pack, and I'm happy with that . My card was mafia. It was intended to be a bigger thief as many people pointed out, in a similar vein as KC is a bigger throne room, and expand is a bigger remodel. Both of those others are 7 cost prosperity cards that just increase to cost of a 4$ base set card to 7 and turn a 2 into a 3. Mine did the same, except to make it not too weak I added the VP thing. I still think it would usually not be a very good card, but well, neither is thief.

[liopoil]

how many people voted?

[scott_pilgrim]

Silk Merchant
Types: Action
Cost: $5
+$2. You may trash two cards from your hand. If you do, +1 VP per token on the Trade Route mat.
Setup: Put a token on each Victory card Supply pile. When a card is gained from that pile, move the token to the Trade Route mat.

Clarification: The Trade Route mat and tokens referred to by Silk Merchant are the same as those referred to by Trade Route.  If both Trade Route and Silk Merchant are in the kingdom and/or Black Market deck, use only one token on each victory card pile.

Most of the discussion on my card covered things that I would have said about it if I were to comment on it.  I'm surprised nobody compared it to Trading Post, with the $5 cost, the +$2 and trash two cards.

SirPeebles mentioned an important problem which I hadn't considered, and I doubt that it would come up very often, but it is a major concern when it comes up.  Still, there are a few of those things in official Dominion, like Bishop Fortress, or tight KC Monument decks.  (I personally have never seen it happen, but I assume there have been cases in which, if each player were to play optimally, the game goes on indefinitely.)  I would think that the problem of Silk Merchant leading to unending games would come up roughly as often as Bishop or Monument leading to unending games, so I don't really see it as being a huge issue.  (There's also the Goons-Trader trick but I doubt that that ever comes up in a real game...)

A lot of people talked about the name "Silk Merchant" and was that trying to make a reference to Spice Merchant or Silk Road or what.  Well, I didn't really specifically think "Spice Merchant" when I thought of the name, but I thought that things that involve trading in Dominion always trash things (Trade Route, Trader, Trading Post, and Spice Merchant).  Well now I realize there's Horse Traders which doesn't fit the pattern but I didn't think of that until right now.  So I thought I would name it a Trader of some kind.  So I thought "Silk Trader" because silk was an important thing back then and it also made sense with Silk Road, since both like for you to have lots of different victory cards.  But I didn't like how "Trader" was a subset of the name "Silk Trader" even though the effect of Trader was not a subset of the effect of Silk Trader.  Like, "Worker's Village" containing "Village" in it is fine, because Village's effect is a subset of Worker's Village's effect.  Of course there are exceptions like Native Village or whatever, but Silk Trader's effect was not even closely related to Trader's effect except for the trashing, so I thought it made more sense to call him a Merchant.  Then I saw the similarity to Spice Merchant, but at least then the name "Spice Merchant" wasn't a subset of the name "Silk Merchant".  Of course now I realize that like this whole paragraph is invalid because of Horse Traders, but that was how my reasoning went at the time.

Man, who knew you could put so much thought into a card name...

[markusin]

I wanted to make my card the way it was because, hey, why does Dark Ages have cards that give +2 buy and not Prosperity, I always found +2 buys weird.

[SirPeebles]

Some of you may notice that I also reworded Indulgence again after thinking about it for a while. "Name a card" in Dominion has always been free and unfettered by constraints like "must be in the Supply", "must cost between $3 and $6", and "must be a real Dominion card". Thankfully, there's precedent for the actual wording we want, which is "choose". So now it has the player to your left choose a card in the Supply costing between $3 and $6.

Also, I specified that you get the VP "when" you gain a copy of the chosen card, rather than "if". This means that if you buy multiple copies, you get 2 VP each time. Was this the intent, SirPeebles? If not, we may need a more tortured wording, since "if" could be interpreted either way.

My intent was that you would get extra VP if you bought more than one copy, yes.

[LastFootnote]

how many people voted?

By my count, 42 people voted.

[Dsell]

Cathedral
Types: Action
Cost: $7
Gain two action cards costing less than this and a Gold.

This was my card. It got some criticism for having a bad name (which I totally agree with, I wasn't even thinking about it, I was thinking along the lines of like monument) and for being too strong. I haven't tested it, but I'm not convinced it's too strong. It's situational, of course, but the opportunity cost of getting this, and even playing it, are pretty high. It's a lot better in engines, which can use it to its fullest potential. But I'm not so sure it's broken.

I had considered a couple other versions (including gaining silver instead of Gold and a duration card that gained them at the end of the next turn, but durations weren't allowed here) but settled on this.

[cluckyb]

Wow Prospector got 14 votes? It seemed like everyone here agreed it was overpowered in big money games and not very useful in other games. (also funny that the other treasure scout got the same number of votes)

It was fun to see the comparisons. I forget who it was, but I was glad someone properly compared it to Woodcutter which I think its actually a better comparison than Envoy/Council Room as all it does in most games is give you +$. Sure its more powerful, but despite drawing it was really terminal coin + buy rather than a drawer.

Still, I agree in hindsight it was probably too powerful for the cost. Anyone have ideas for what would make the treasure scout work? I guess you could probably weaken it a lot by forcing you to put the cards back on deck. At first when I created it I thought forcing the discard made it weaker, but in hindsight that would both a) limit the cycling making it worse in BM and at the same time b) not make it as bad in non BM games.

Plus then treasure scout and scout could actually synergize leaving you with a bunch of actions on top for your next turn! 

[sudgy]

I came up with Crown (B) without much thought, and knew it probably wasn't too great...

[mail-mi]

I made Crown A. Attack me! Give me your hate!!

Don't do it! Hate only increases his power!

Actually, Scout jokes increase his power.

But... Mine was the one that comboed with scout!

Yep, griffin was mine. And I'm glad it didn't only get my vote!

[Schneau]

I made Crown A. Attack me! Give me your hate!!

Don't do it! Hate only increases his power!

Actually, Scout jokes increase his power.

But... Mine was the one that comboed with scout!

Mine doesn't combo with Scout that well -- it's not like Scout gets you Treasures to improve or anything.

[Jack Rudd]

I think I'll give up on trying to make Railway Town variants work. It seems they always end up underpowered, overpowered or terribroken. Ah well.

[mail-mi]

I made Crown A. Attack me! Give me your hate!!

Don't do it! Hate only increases his power!

Actually, Scout jokes increase his power.

But... Mine was the one that comboed with scout!

Mine doesn't combo with Scout that well -- it's not like Scout gets you Treasures to improve or anything.

No. Just... No.

[ConMan]

I guess I'll be happy with the 4 votes Dividends got - clearly it was not a stellar card, but it also wasn't completely broken. Interesting how some people said "Only good with alt-treasure", some said "Overpowered any time you want lots of Silver", many noticed "Gold that gains Silver", several missed the gain-to-hand bit and thought you only got $1 this turn. Interesting that no-one compared it to IGG or Masterpiece, which it is kind of an amalgamation of. I think it works well in more situations than many people gave it credit for - it does synergise well with most of the alt-Treasures, particularly the ones in Prosperity, and it's also worth getting any time that Silver would improve your deck which includes a lot of slogs.

All that aside, congratulations to the winner and almost-winners. I'd love to see what a bit of playtesting decides as to which of the top few cards are really as good as they seem.

[ConMan]

Also, a slightly random question - what criteria did you use to decide what to vote for? Were people voting for "This card [possibly with tweaks] is stellar and I want to see it available in every game I play", or "This card works and [possibly with tweaks] would fit well into the rest of the set", or "There's an interesting mechanic here, even if I'm not sure it could ever be meaningfully implemented"? I was going more for the second, but I'm guessing some people went for the first more.

[jackelfrink]

Golden Touch
Types: Action
Cost: $5
Trash the top card of your deck. Gain a Gold, putting it on top of your deck.

Shouldn't be that big a shock that this was mine since I already had a thread going about it.

The 'this might trash a providence' paranoia has taught me a lesson about just how much people hate Saboteur. This is not exactly blind trashing and if I had wanted it to be blind trashing I would have added "+1 card" to it. Top decking gives perfect info and one out of every seven of the published dominion cards has some way of knowing what the top of your deck is. So a kingdom will usually have some card this combos with. (My card actually DOES combo well with Scout!)

But ignoring combos with another card (people had less than a minute per card to think about it so I shouldn't be surprised that everyone did not think about combos for ANY of the cards, not just mine), the problem of trashing a Providence can easily be avoided by just not playing this any longer after I have purchased my first Providence. As such, I likely should have made this $4 to emphasise that this is an early game card that gradually morphs into a dead card in late game.

In the past week I wrote the code to this in the simulator to see what the bots had to say. The price I lowered to 4, implemented simple deck tracking play rules, and had it buy one then play big money. I also assumed no combos with any top-decking cards. (Never could program the put-back rules corectly to test this against GhostShip.)Results were sort of counter intuitive. BigMoney was 80/20 and BigSmith was 60/40 and that was to be expected. I figured that junking attacks would just give Golden Touch more 'fuel' to turn into gold. This was true for DoubleAmbassador at 89/11 and BigMoneyMasquerade at 68/32, but Golden Touch got totally trounced by DoubleWitch at 22/78 and DoubleMountebank at 32/68. But then it goes toe to toe with ChapelMountebank at 49/51. Why one kind of junking matters over another so much makes me realize I have a lot yet to learn about Dominion. Also puzzling to me was its performance in Platinum games. Golden Touch stomps on KingsCourtWarf at 79/21 but gets stomped on by BankWarf at 31/69. Then just when I thought it couldn't get any stranger came the discard attacks. Golden Touch wins against DoubleMilitia 60/40 but loses against DoubleGoons at 41/59.

I just sort of threw this one into the contest as a lark cause I felt it matched the 'mo money' theme of Prosperity. But this cards legitimate home is still in my upcomming 'mythology' fan set with the Phoenix and the Hydra and the Minatur

[eHalcyon]

Also, a slightly random question - what criteria did you use to decide what to vote for? Were people voting for "This card [possibly with tweaks] is stellar and I want to see it available in every game I play", or "This card works and [possibly with tweaks] would fit well into the rest of the set", or "There's an interesting mechanic here, even if I'm not sure it could ever be meaningfully implemented"? I was going more for the second, but I'm guessing some people went for the first more.

This card fits well into the rest of the set AND there is an interesting mechanic here that may be stellar, possibly with tweaks.

If significant changes would be necessary, I would not vote for it.  If it does not appear on-theme, I would not vote for it.

And even then I only voted for my favourites, not every card that I liked.  I mean, I liked my own card but did not vote for it because there were quite a few cards that I liked better.

[Asper]

My card was Aqueduct (B). It was an awful idea to put it in a Prosperity contest, and what i learned was not to participate if i'm not happy with the card, myself. I didn't have another Prosperity card, though, and was sure Aqueduct was nice enough. Seems many people hated the no-attack clause (which made, as playtesting showed, a very strong 5$ a mediocre 5$), and by now i decided to remove it. So... Progress.

By the way, i voted for cards i liked, not so much considering whether they were fit for the set. Considering mine was one of few cards that didn't fit, that probably made no difference... I didn't vote for Aqueduct, myself, and now i wonder who did.

Also i considered voting for Silk Merchant, then decided against it and regretted it soon after.

What i noticed too was that because there are so many cards to look through, you can't possible read and consider carefully enough.

[markusin]

I guess I'll be happy with the 4 votes Dividends got - clearly it was not a stellar card, but it also wasn't completely broken. Interesting how some people said "Only good with alt-treasure", some said "Overpowered any time you want lots of Silver", many noticed "Gold that gains Silver", several missed the gain-to-hand bit and thought you only got $1 this turn. Interesting that no-one compared it to IGG or Masterpiece, which it is kind of an amalgamation of. I think it works well in more situations than many people gave it credit for - it does synergise well with most of the alt-Treasures, particularly the ones in Prosperity, and it's also worth getting any time that Silver would improve your deck which includes a lot of slogs.

All that aside, congratulations to the winner and almost-winners. I'd love to see what a bit of playtesting decides as to which of the top few cards are really as good as they seem.

Dividends
Types: Treasure
Cost: $6
Worth $1. When you play this, gain a Treasure card costing less than this, putting it into your hand.

The presence of Venture in the kingdom would make this too strong. Otherwise it's kinda like Explorer and Masterpiece.
Hmmmm....

No one reads my posts *sniff*.

[Polk5440]

Also, a slightly random question - what criteria did you use to decide what to vote for? Were people voting for "This card [possibly with tweaks] is stellar and I want to see it available in every game I play", or "This card works and [possibly with tweaks] would fit well into the rest of the set", or "There's an interesting mechanic here, even if I'm not sure it could ever be meaningfully implemented"? I was going more for the second, but I'm guessing some people went for the first more.

Well, I thought I was pretty specific, anyway.

[Nic]

Also, a slightly random question - what criteria did you use to decide what to vote for? Were people voting for "This card [possibly with tweaks] is stellar and I want to see it available in every game I play", or "This card works and [possibly with tweaks] would fit well into the rest of the set", or "There's an interesting mechanic here, even if I'm not sure it could ever be meaningfully implemented"? I was going more for the second, but I'm guessing some people went for the first more.

I used the most sensible criteria I could think of for approval voting: "Would I be pleased if this card won, or displeased that it beat my favorites?" I checked off eleven from the list and narrowed it down to seven or eight on my ballot. I did in fact vote for my own card, but SirPeebles and WW both thought it was strong but not broken, and the negative responses were pretty tepid. If my card got unanimous dislike, I certainly wouldn't have voted for it regardless of my personal feelings.

[ChocophileBenj]

Palindrome Bard, Why didn't you even vote for your own card ? ^^

And why is my card (Artist : costs $6, +$3, trash this for 3 VP when you buy victory / +1 VP per victory cards bought while in play) as good as Smelter, Gold Touch, and Treasure chest (Sorry for the authors, I didn't look at your name ! ^^)

[Archetype]

Treasure Chest
Types: Treasure
Cost: $4
Worth $1. When you play this, discard the top card of your deck. If it is a Treasure, gain a Silver

I'm surprised so many people didn't like this! It's true that it's only good for BM, but that's sort of the point of Prosperity! Ah well. If I could change it, I'd probably change it to "When you play this, look at the top card of your deck. You may discard it. If it is a Treasure, gain a Silver." and then make it cost $3.

Congrats, Sir Peebles! Tables' Philanthropist was my favorite, so I'm sad it didn't win. Even though I didn't end up voting.

[eHalcyon]

I'm surprised so many people didn't like this! It's true that it's only good for BM, but that's sort of the point of Prosperity.

It's actually not!  A great deal of Prosperity is better for Engines.  Colonies.  King's Court.  Goons.  Only a few Prosperity cards seem more BM-ish to me -- Vault and Hoard.  Some others may promote a Treasure-centric deck, but more tailored to the specific card rather than traditional BM -- for example, Venture and Bank.