Is this card designed to be really annoying, or what? Every time you play one of these, you have to count all your cards? How the hell did this make it past the playtesting stage?
I believe that this card was secretly designed to give a mostly-Treasure player something to do while he waits for the player to his right to resolve all of his Apothecaries, Golems, and Alchemists.
I played with it, and it was managable. bought 2 provinces in separate turns because of the stones too... thanks to the Chancellor. I got shafted twice though as my difference of deck/discards was 7/11 and 10/12
No one complained when I did the math, but those of us who are speed dominion players can easily tell how much its going to be worth
Looking at these stars suddenly dwarfed my own troubles and all the gravities of terrestrial life. I thought of their unfathomable distance, and the slow inevitable drift of their movements out of the unknown past into the unknown future. H.G. Wells
Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect. Chief Seattle
I don't like this card either. To me the value of Dominion is that it's fast paced, and easy to introduce to non-gamers. Having players sitting and counting cards doesn't sound like fun to me.
Is this card designed to be really annoying, or what? Every time you play one of these, you have to count all your cards? How the hell did this make it past the playtesting stage?
How annoying.
I played with it tonight. It's not hard to do. I had to count twice, every other time I knew I was over what I needed to buy what I wanted. The times I did have to count it was a matter of seconds.
I played with it, and it was managable. bought 2 provinces in separate turns because of the stones too... thanks to the Chancellor. I got shafted twice though as my difference of deck/discards was 7/11 and 10/12
No one complained when I did the math, but those of us who are speed dominion players can easily tell how much its going to be worth
I think you are supposed to add the counts together, rather than work out the difference 'between them', so you should have had 3 coin and 4 coin consecutively.
I don't think this will slow the game too much. If you need 2 more coin to to buy what you want, just count the first 10 cards and you're done.
I played with it, and it was managable. bought 2 provinces in separate turns because of the stones too... thanks to the Chancellor. I got shafted twice though as my difference of deck/discards was 7/11 and 10/12
No one complained when I did the math, but those of us who are speed dominion players can easily tell how much its going to be worth
I think you are supposed to add the counts together, rather than work out the difference 'between them', so you should have had 3 coin and 4 coin consecutively.
I don't think this will slow the game too much. If you need 2 more coin to to buy what you want, just count the first 10 cards and you're done.
When I buy the game I'll need a clarification on this. The translation of this set doesn't seem as smooth as some others have been. For now, I'm trying to work out the math on BSW, but the new "feature" of hiding your own treasure from you the instant you're ready to use it obscures its value.
Being able to count the cards in your discard pile is interesting seeing as you are not supposed to look through your discard pile during the game... Is there some foot note that says you have to turn the discard pile face down to count the cards? That would keep in line with the rule since the card doesn't specifically break it.
It'd be nice for someone to just flat out come up with an alternate rule for this card. I was thinking +2$ per action card revealed from your hand (not the ones in play). This captures the spirit of Alchemy's actions focused theme. +1$ would be kind of like a weak Vault, that's why I said +2$. Maybe that's too strong.
I don't really care cause I'm not getting Alchemy, but someone might come up with an alternate rule that lets the people who have Alchemy but don't like counting still have fun with Philosophers Stone. I don't know, just a thought.
Posted Tue May 4, 2010 9:53 am
