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Author Topic: Donald X on Rebuild  (Read 66557 times)

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Warfreak2

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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #100 on: December 14, 2013, 08:29:05 am »
+4

Terminal Rebuild makes it weaker, but worsens the Interestingness/Strength ratio. If Rebuild is terminal you can't pair it up with Scavenger, Horse Traders or Rogue, for example; the space of viable strategies becomes much more limited.
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Davio

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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #101 on: December 14, 2013, 02:25:41 pm »
0

I have been thinking about this version:

Rebuild - $5

+1 Action
-------------------
Look through your discard pile. You may trash one Victory card from it.
If you do, gain a Victory card costing up to $3 more than the trashed card.


So basically this trashes from your discard instead of your deck and you can target any card without the awkward "name a card you don't want to trash". Being able to trash any card looks stronger on paper, but you're shuffling way less, so you'll get to play Rebuild less often, and of course have to deal with the "Counting House" problem where you won't always have the card you want in your discard. So overall I wonder if this stronger, weaker, or somewhat similar.

Thoughts?
I like this one. It would make rebuild vary more in strength depending on the kingdom in the same way tunnel does - goes great with sifters and counters discard attacks. What about making it like hermit and letting you choose the trash or your hand?
Making it like Hermit could work.

Honestly I don't know without playtesting, but to me one if Rebuild's strengths is its accelerated shuffling.
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blueblimp

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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #102 on: December 14, 2013, 03:26:32 pm »
0

Terminal Rebuild makes it weaker, but worsens the Interestingness/Strength ratio. If Rebuild is terminal you can't pair it up with Scavenger, Horse Traders or Rogue, for example; the space of viable strategies becomes much more limited.
Yes, and Donald X actually tested terminal Rebuild and rejected it, so I don't know why people are so tempted to re-introduce it.
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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #103 on: December 14, 2013, 03:41:04 pm »
+5

Terminal Rebuild makes it weaker, but worsens the Interestingness/Strength ratio. If Rebuild is terminal you can't pair it up with Scavenger, Horse Traders or Rogue, for example; the space of viable strategies becomes much more limited.
Yes, and Donald X actually tested terminal Rebuild and rejected it, so I don't know why people are so tempted to re-introduce it.

Because by his own admission neither version was thoroughly playtested?
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SirPeebles

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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #104 on: December 14, 2013, 05:01:19 pm »
+12

Rebuild
$5 Action

+1 Action

Reveal cards from the top of your deck until you reveal a Rebuild.  Discard the other cards.  Trash the Rebuild and gain a Rebuild from the Rebuild variant pile.
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Puddleglumm

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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #105 on: December 16, 2013, 09:47:46 am »
+2

Terminal Rebuild makes it weaker, but worsens the Interestingness/Strength ratio. If Rebuild is terminal you can't pair it up with Scavenger, Horse Traders or Rogue, for example; the space of viable strategies becomes much more limited.
Yes, and Donald X actually tested terminal Rebuild and rejected it, so I don't know why people are so tempted to re-introduce it.

I was just thinking about how unusual Rebuild is relative to the rest of the cards in the remodel family. Every other one works on something in your hand, and the only other one that is nonterminal is upgrade, which only lets you go +1 cost.

Every other Remodel variant has basically some small bonus - remake lets you go twice, upgrade is a cantrip, mine puts the card in your hand but only treasure, procession lets you play the card twice. And then bam, here comes Rebuild, it's nonterminal, it doesn't need a card in hand, and it give you insane deck cycling.

It's interesting too that since the base game there has always been Mine, the treasure specific remodel that gave you +3 cost and the in-hand bonus, but the action-specific remodel (Graverobber), and victory-card specific one came at the very end.
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LastFootnote

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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #106 on: December 16, 2013, 10:19:07 am »
+3

I'd say Procession is the Action-specific Remodel.
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AJD

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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #107 on: December 16, 2013, 11:22:27 am »
0

I'd say Procession is the Action-specific Remodel.

Graverobber is the Action-specific Expand, in the way that Mine and Rebuild are the Treasure- and Victory-specific Expands.
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SirPeebles

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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #108 on: December 16, 2013, 11:29:21 am »
0

But Graverobber isn't action specific.
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Puddleglumm

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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #109 on: December 16, 2013, 11:31:00 am »
0

I'd say Procession is the Action-specific Remodel.

Graverobber is the Action-specific Expand, in the way that Mine and Rebuild are the Treasure- and Victory-specific Expands.
Right, that was the framework I was thinking through when I wrote that - you have Remodel and Expand as the general purpose cards, and Mine, Rebuild, and Graverobber sitting between them; giving you +3 but only on certain cards. (Although I did not realize Graverobber let you gain non-actions, I'm still new to DA)

At any rate Rebuild still seems rather exceptional to me in terms of what you get relative to other Remodel-family cards. Maybe the thought was that it needed some extra oomph because it doesn't actually improve your deck, just gives you more points.
« Last Edit: December 16, 2013, 11:33:57 am by Puddleglumm »
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LastFootnote

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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #110 on: December 16, 2013, 12:08:17 pm »
0

The old Rebuild would have been a general Remodel for cards not in your hand. I think it's interesting that Silver would be a great target for such a card, even though it's one of the worst targets for Remodel.
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AJD

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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #111 on: December 16, 2013, 12:51:17 pm »
+1

But Graverobber isn't action specific.

I mean, like, "trash an Action card from your hand".
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SirPeebles

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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #112 on: December 16, 2013, 02:11:05 pm »
+2

Ah.  I imagine that LastFootnote mentioned Procession both its input and output are Actions, just as Mine's are Treasures and Rebuild's are Victories.

I had never thought of Procession in this way, but it really a strikingly elegant way of designing a dedicated Action upgrader.
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scott_pilgrim

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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #113 on: December 16, 2013, 02:18:41 pm »
+3

I had never thought of Procession in this way, but it really a strikingly elegant way of designing a dedicated Action upgrader.

I always have this idea to design a TfB card which gives a benefit based on what the card that you trash does (rather than just the cost or type of the card), but the result always comes out looking like Procession.  It really is a wonderful card.
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LastFootnote

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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #114 on: December 16, 2013, 02:20:19 pm »
+2

Ah.  I imagine that LastFootnote mentioned Procession both its input and output are Actions, just as Mine's are Treasures and Rebuild's are Victories.

I had never thought of Procession in this way, but it really a strikingly elegant way of designing a dedicated Action upgrader.

Exactly.

Concept: A card that upgrades Action cards.
Problem: People want to play their Action cards, not trash them.
Solution: Have the card play the target Action before upgrading it. Twice.

Mine and Rebuild upgrade their respective card types by $3 because that's the necessary threshold on most boards. Actions at adjacent costs are the norm, so an upgrade of $1 makes sense.
« Last Edit: December 16, 2013, 02:23:03 pm by LastFootnote »
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LastFootnote

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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #115 on: December 16, 2013, 02:22:46 pm »
+3

I had never thought of Procession in this way, but it really a strikingly elegant way of designing a dedicated Action upgrader.

I always have this idea to design a TfB card which gives a benefit based on what the card that you trash does (rather than just the cost or type of the card), but the result always comes out looking like Procession.  It really is a wonderful card.

Oh man, this happens to me all the time. Trying to fix up a card often turns it into an existing published card.
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SirPeebles

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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #116 on: December 16, 2013, 02:42:18 pm »
+1

Ah.  I imagine that LastFootnote mentioned Procession both its input and output are Actions, just as Mine's are Treasures and Rebuild's are Victories.

I had never thought of Procession in this way, but it really a strikingly elegant way of designing a dedicated Action upgrader.

Exactly.

Concept: A card that upgrades Action cards.
Problem: People want to play their Action cards, not trash them.
Solution: Have the card play the target Action before upgrading it. Twice.

Mine and Rebuild upgrade their respective card types by $3 because that's the necessary threshold on most boards. Actions at adjacent costs are the norm, so an upgrade of $1 makes sense.

With a few exceptions, higher priced Treasures/Victories are strictly better, so "up to" isn't much of a problem.  With actions, if Procession let you upgrade "up to" $1 more that would be way stronger.  And if you made it upgrade by exactly $2 (or exactly $3) you would hit dead ends too quickly, perhaps.
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soulnet

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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #117 on: December 16, 2013, 02:47:47 pm »
0

With a few exceptions, higher priced Treasures/Victories are strictly better, so "up to" isn't much of a problem.  With actions, if Procession let you upgrade "up to" $1 more that would be way stronger.  And if you made it upgrade by exactly $2 (or exactly $3) you would hit dead ends too quickly, perhaps.

In particular, it would make Procession extremely close to "strictly better than Throne Room" (is not because of the "while in play" clauses and Peddler, HoP and such) and I like it that they both cost the same, especially when they appear together and I have to decide when/if to buy each. Having TR available also really makes you learn to use Procession properly.
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terminalCopper

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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #118 on: December 16, 2013, 03:08:10 pm »
+4

To be honest, I don't care that much about what Donald X. says about rebuild. He didn't playtest it enough before the deadline? Well, that makes we wonder why in hell he should have deeply playtested any variant of rebuild after the redactional deadline. Sure, he knows more about Dominion than most of us do - but then again, he doesn't know everything.

My opinion about Rebuild is that the best possible variant is the card we have right now.

The biggest downside is that it vastly reduces strategic decisions, and so, luck gets more important. So far, so true - but is that really such a big problem? I mean, if we don't want to have luck involved, we should play chess. In my opinion, the most important problem with luck is that you don't have to waste too much time in a situation you didn't deserve. But this usually never happens with rebuild, as it leads to very fast games. You might get knocked out by a player 15 levels below, who plays straight turbo rebuild, but probably the only consequence will be, that two minutes of your dominion life might be slightly boring. (Sure, your rating will drop right now, but in the long run, every player will get the same portion of luck).

This is maybe what I like most about the actual version of rebuild: The number of interesting decisions per minute you have to make is pretty high. Most of them are rather tactical than strategical, but that accentuates the amazing variety dominion games can have.

If I play against a player 10 Levels weaker than me, I prefer to have a rebuild battle than a scryingPool-Hamlet-Storeroom-Board.
With rebuild, I might lose 40%, but there will probably some interesting tactical moments, and 4 minutes later, I can play a new board.
With the mentioned engine, I might lose only 30%, but the risk to watch (or play) a boring engine with tons of simple decisions, ending after half an hour, is much higher.

tl;dr: A slightly more luck-based card leading to a simpler, but fast game, with some tricky decisions left, is an interesting diversification, not a problem.










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LastFootnote

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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #119 on: December 16, 2013, 03:17:16 pm »
+3

The biggest problem is not that Rebuild reduces strategic decisions. It's that Rebuild games are boring and mostly play out the same because 1) almost no cards combo with Rebuild and 2) Rebuild shrugs off almost all attacks.
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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #120 on: December 16, 2013, 03:55:57 pm »
0

The biggest problem is not that Rebuild reduces strategic decisions. It's that Rebuild games are boring and mostly play out the same because 1) almost no cards combo with Rebuild and 2) Rebuild shrugs off almost all attacks.
Strategy-wise, yes, but the tactical moves vary.
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LastFootnote

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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #121 on: December 16, 2013, 04:04:30 pm »
+2

The biggest problem is not that Rebuild reduces strategic decisions. It's that Rebuild games are boring and mostly play out the same because 1) almost no cards combo with Rebuild and 2) Rebuild shrugs off almost all attacks.
Strategy-wise, yes, but the tactical moves vary.

But not in a way that most players find enjoyable, I think. I understand that some players enjoy the tactics of a Rebuild game. I also love tactical decisions, which is why I'm so fond of Hinterlands. But I get sick of making the exact same set of tactical decisions pretty fast.

The main draw of Dominion is the sheer variety inherent in it. When one card takes over almost every board it appears on, it works against that. It's like Donald said, the other cards are too unlikely to get involved in your Rebuild deck.
« Last Edit: December 16, 2013, 04:05:31 pm by LastFootnote »
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SirPeebles

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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #122 on: December 16, 2013, 04:21:05 pm »
+5

One thing that I found really interesting about Donald's comments relative to this thread's discussion is how adamant f.ds seems to be on keeping a Rebuild variant.  There is this sense of the published cards being the chosen ones, and that at most we may wish to tweak them.  Yet Donald's perspective is different.  He starts from various large collections of card ideas without any of them being particularly special.  For him, if Rebuild turns out to be unbalanced, the natural solution is to throw out Rebuild and use Card Idea X instead, rather than endlessly tweaking Rebuild until it works.

On the other hand, for the purposes of forum discussion, tweaks provide a much more manageable scope than all of the possible replacement cards.
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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #123 on: December 16, 2013, 04:28:09 pm »
0

One thing that I found really interesting about Donald's comments relative to this thread's discussion is how adamant f.ds seems to be on keeping a Rebuild variant.  There is this sense of the published cards being the chosen ones, and that at most we may wish to tweak them.  Yet Donald's perspective is different.  He starts from various large collections of card ideas without any of them being particularly special.  For him, if Rebuild turns out to be unbalanced, the natural solution is to throw out Rebuild and use Card Idea X instead, rather than endlessly tweaking Rebuild until it works.

On the other hand, for the purposes of forum discussion, tweaks provide a much more manageable scope than all of the possible replacement cards.
Exactly. If it were possible, I'd just go ahead and use the card he suggested in the BGG thread, boom done. (But of course that's not possible on Goko.)
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Holger

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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #124 on: December 16, 2013, 05:04:19 pm »
0

One thing that I found really interesting about Donald's comments relative to this thread's discussion is how adamant f.ds seems to be on keeping a Rebuild variant.  There is this sense of the published cards being the chosen ones, and that at most we may wish to tweak them.  Yet Donald's perspective is different.  He starts from various large collections of card ideas without any of them being particularly special.  For him, if Rebuild turns out to be unbalanced, the natural solution is to throw out Rebuild and use Card Idea X instead, rather than endlessly tweaking Rebuild until it works.

But Donald did consider terminal Rebuild unbalanced and (unfortunately) tweaked it to the current version, instead of replacing it by a different card. Only now that this does turn out to be unbalanced in the other direction does he mention a different card idea as a possible replacement.

Donald's alternative Rebuild to me seems like a not-too-interesting Lookout variant with potentially even higher luck factor - instead of the remote risk of trashing a Province, you may be lucky to rebuild a Gold in the late game, or unlucky and only reveal Coppers. I'm not sure if it's really more interesting than a fixed Rebuild; back then, Donald's playtesters didn't think so (of course, they already considered Rebuild fixed). Maybe LastFootnote has some experience playing with his "Build" now...

On the other hand, for the purposes of forum discussion, tweaks provide a much more manageable scope than all of the possible replacement cards.

Indeed; it's easier to judge a card that's similar to an existing one, I think.
« Last Edit: December 16, 2013, 05:06:45 pm by Holger »
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