Each player counts up his victory points on the cards in his entire Deck (which includes his hand and his
Discard pile).

and the victory points tokens on his player mat (if playing with Prosperity)

I'll add pictures. Definitely need the basic icons as well as some pictures of tokens and whatnot. I'm still debating if I want to include photos of the actual cards. It seems mostly unnecessary but there are a lot of pages of black and white...

I vote no on pictures of cards. It eats up space and ink and adds little. I prefer the functionality of raw text.

If you can avoid it, keep card descriptions from spanning multiple pages, See Black Market for the worst offender.

It seems like the expansion should be listed in the section with the card text and cost, probably right under the name.

One more typo

Young Witch should have a Cornucopia Icon rather than a Prosperity chest next to its name.

Any plans to include Archivist in some fashion?

Which is? I've searched through all the rules documents and not found a single card called "Archivist." Is that a fan expansion or a card I am still magically missing? I've found nothing on Google related to "dominion archivist".

Is the Hinterlands icon official or something you found?

Which is? I've searched through all the rules documents and not found a single card called "Archivist." Is that a fan expansion or a card I am still magically missing? I've found nothing on Google related to "dominion archivist".

For those who are wondering what this new "Fan-Created" expansion is on Isotropic, have a look at our Dominion Fan Card Contest topic.

I'd like the discussion of the winning card and its results/strategy to take place in that topic and a general discussion about the inclusion of fan cards on Isotropic can be held here.

Just some quick info:

- The fan created card is called Archivist and is the winning card from our contest. It was designed by rinkworks.
- The fan-created expansion is a fake expansion, designed to hold only that card. It's done this way to make clear to the players that this isn't an offical Dominion card and isn't endorsed by Donald X. or Dominion in any way. Donald X. wanted to make sure players wouldn't get confused, that's why it's being done this way.
- You can enter "Archivist" into the Required Card(s) box and play with it that way
- This fan-created expansion isn't meant to open the flood gates and you shouldn't submit all your fan cards and expansions to either me or Dougz. The chosen card was the winner of a carefully constructed contest and ending up on Isotropic was a surprise for exactly that contest.
- I am uncertain if such a contest will ever be held again. If I do or someone else does, there is no guarantee that the winner will end up on Isotropic too.
- Dougz holds every right to maintain Isotropic in any way that he chooses. If he decides the fan-created category must go, it will.

But for now, we can all have fun with it!

Archivist: A Single Card Engine Card « on: September 25, 2011, 10:45:35 am »

The "single card engine" thread got me thinking about what other kinds of single-card engines are possible. I really like Minion (even though I get tired of playing them after a while), and so I was mulling over what might be similar but different.

When I realized we don't have a non-terminal "draw until X cards in hand"-type card, the rest came easily.

The problem with Library/Watchtower is that you can't spam them. Even if you threw on +1 Action, only the first one works; the rest become cantrips. But what if the card in question could also discard stuff, to set up the next one? So I came up with this, refined after a little playtesting:

Archivist
$5 - Action
+1 Action
Choose one: Draw until you have 6 cards in hand; or +$1 and discard 1 or more cards.

A single Archivist is roughly a Laboratory. Better if you can play Festivals and Fishing Villages first; worse if you draw it into your hand after your draw engine has started working.

But the idea of the card is to amass a critical density of them. With two in hand, you play one for the discard, throwing out the substandard cards in your hand so that the second one will draw a larger number of cards. With three or more in hand, you probably play for the draw first, so the second can discard more, so the third can draw more.

If your last Archivist draws an Archivist, just play the new Archivist as a cantrip. But if your last Archivist manages to draw two or more, you can repeat the cycle. The idea is that eventually you wind up with a 6-card hand with your best cards in it. Contrast with Minion, which earns more money as it goes but ends on a purely average 4-card hand.

It might sound like a lot of work to go to: a pair of Archivist is roughly a Cellar, after all, right? Well, not quite. Cellars use up spots in your hand. But because of the way Archivists draw, they don't really take up any space at all. So it's more like Cellars paired up with Laboratories.

I added the +$1 coin after playtesting showed it was still a little weak. But I think that did the trick. The bonus only applies to the discard part, because otherwise you don't get any benefit with that option other than to set up another one. Now you get benefit just by cycling in addition to the fact that you'll end the chain with your best cards in hand. It also allows you to get benefit from an Archivist if you only have one left, and your hand size is more than 6 cards. Play it, discard a Province, and you're up another coin.

It combos very interestingly with other cards. As I mentioned, Festivals and Fishing Villages and all the other cards boost a Minion engine will also boost an Archivist engine in the same way. It's also interesting when there are other drawers present, like Smithy or Rabble or Torturer, because you can try to time playing those to "up" points within the Archivist cycle to maximize benefit. That was probably the coolest thing I stumbled on. I really have to think that we'll get a non-terminal "draw until X" card in a future expansion, because even without the cycling piece of my card, the combos with other drawers are just too cool.

This is a Treasure worth 2 Treasures, like Silver. You play it in your Buy phase, like other Treasures. When you play it, you get an extra +1 Treasure per unused Action you have. This means Actions, not Action cards. So for example if you play Farming Village (which gives you +2 Actions), then Diadem, Diadem will give you an extra +2 Treasures, for 4 Treasure total. If you play no Action cards at all on your turn, you will have one unused Action, so you will get 3 Treasures total from Diadem. This is a Prize; see the Additional Rules.

Found a typo on page 23: Border Village. I believe "now then you play it" should read "not when you play it."
---
On page 73, the description for Diadem is incorrect and totally confusing.

Fantastic.

I'll throw it on the iPad for travel games so I can forget about bringing the manuals.

Thanks!

Text for Spy is still cut off, missing "back, your choice."

Other than that, everything else is great! Used this as the go to reference when playing several games with several "new" cards over the holidays.