I have a question regarding the new version of Emergency Cache costing 3xp in the most recent update:
When distributing supply tokens among investigators at your location, does that include all keywords represented by supply tokens (eg "charge", "ammo", "secrets", etc) or just those called "supply"?
no, supply is supply. Ammo is ammo. Charges are charges.
this card is kind of interesting though, just because it does something that seems dramatically different from the original printed card.
Cards which currently use supplies: First Aid, Flashlight, Liquid Courage, Lockpicks, Painkillers, Smoking Pipe, Strange Solution.
The idea of being able to refill them is nice, but I'm not sure it's a good plan economically. Pretty much all of the options are far more resource-efficient as a played card, where the new EC refills them at 1 resource for 1 supply.
It would have been well worth it if you could distribute the 4 resources as well, but at 3 XP it feels like a very expensive card for a very marginal and inefficient upgrade.
1 hour ago, Buhallin said:Cards which currently use supplies: First Aid, Flashlight, Liquid Courage, Lockpicks, Painkillers, Smoking Pipe, Strange Solution.
The idea of being able to refill them is nice, but I'm not sure it's a good plan economically. Pretty much all of the options are far more resource-efficient as a played card, where the new EC refills them at 1 resource for 1 supply.
It would have been well worth it if you could distribute the 4 resources as well, but at 3 XP it feels like a very expensive card for a very marginal and inefficient upgrade.
Specifically for strange solution, you save 1 XP and 2 resources by recharging the one you have instead of playing a new one.
24 minutes ago, TheNameWasTaken said:Specifically for strange solution, you save 1 XP and 2 resources by recharging the one you have instead of playing a new one.
The XP savings is largely irrelevant, or at least a wash. You want the second one to improve your chances of drawing it, not specifically for the extra supplies.
Note sure why you think it saves you resources to recharge? With EC you can either get 4 resources or 4 supplies. That effectively makes each supply cost 1 resource. So if you play another one, you're spending 1 resource to get 4 supplies. If you play EC, you're giving up 4 resources to get 4 supplies. And that's ideal - if it isn't empty, then they're even more expensive.
3 minutes ago, Buhallin said:The XP savings is largely irrelevant, or at least a wash. You want the second one to improve your chances of drawing it, not specifically for the extra supplies.
Note sure why you think it saves you resources to recharge? With EC you can either get 4 resources or 4 supplies. That effectively makes each supply cost 1 resource. So if you play another one, you're spending 1 resource to get 4 supplies. If you play EC, you're giving up 4 resources to get 4 supplies. And that's ideal - if it isn't empty, then they're even more expensive.
Fair point about draw consistency. Then you could see this as a *third* copy, maybe?
I just realized strange solution only costs 1, not 2. So I should've said you save 1 resource, not 2. And you save that resource because if you need to get a charged solution and have one in play already, there are two ways to do that. Option one: pay 1 resource, play a new copy from hand. Option two: pay nothing, play EC, get up to 4 charges, and some money if you took fewer charges. You can't say each supply costs 1 resource, because taking supplies actually gets you supplies on the card you want to recharge, but taking money means you still need another card, action and some of that money you just took to get supplies. And that's if you want to recharge only one card; if you wanted to get, say, two charges on a flashlight and two on strange solution, taking money and playing new cards would mean more actions spent (though more charges gained).
Also, what did you mean with that "if it isn't empty" part? There are no caps on how many supplies a card can have.
11 minutes ago, TheNameWasTaken said:You can't say each supply costs 1 resource, because taking supplies actually gets you supplies on the card you want to recharge, but taking money means you still need another card, action and some of that money you just took to get supplies.
You can say exactly that, because that's exactly what it does. For every supply you take, you get one less resource. It's a textbook opportunity cost.
I'm not comparing the cost of playing EC3 and then Strange Solution - I'm just comparing them as alternative card plays as a way to refill an asset. Both use one action. Both use a card. If you play the EC3 you're opportunity-spending 4 resources for 4 supplies, if you play another Strange Solution you're spending 1 resource for 4 supplies.
11 minutes ago, TheNameWasTaken said:Also, what did you mean with that "if it isn't empty" part? There are no caps on how many supplies a card can have.
Fair point - I knew that
true, but you can only have a maximum of 2 strange solutions in your deck. Running 2 Solutions and 2 Emergency Cache-3 doubles (or more, because some Solutions only have 3 supplies) the available uses of Strange Solution that you can get. It's not purely about what is the most resource-efficient if you are running a deck that has SS as the lynchpin of your strategy.
Just an odd extenuating situation, but since you can place them on other investigator's cards, the benefit here is that someone ELSE can recharge your expended Strange Solution: Acidic Ichor if you are currently engaged with an enemy. Thus, you will avoid an AoO you would take to play another one supposing you have another in hand. Not a major advantage as the player using the card could also potentially engage and kill whatever happens to be hunting your seeker down.
The benefit here is that you can use the ichor early without hesitation and you or your friend could rely on the emergency cache as a backup as you'll still have the "empty" asset in play. It may also be handy in weird situations in which you can play an event, but not an asset. Remember too that Sefina can double/triple play events if she uses painted world, which will effectively give you even MORE ichor (clearly the most useful supply card we have at the moment) or lockpics. She can also pull it into her hand at any time and it is safe from being forcibly discarded by encounters so long as she does not pull her weakness.
Also, in the case of lockpicks, the supply could actually end up being more than one use.
These are odd cases, but just some thoughts.
I imagine somewhere down the road we will see encounters that will drain supply from your assets. This will obviously be a good counter measure to make sure you still have an opportunity to use the card you played initially.
Edited by Soakman6 hours ago, awp832 said:true, but you can only have a maximum of 2 strange solutions in your deck. Running 2 Solutions and 2 Emergency Cache-3 doubles (or more, because some Solutions only have 3 supplies) the available uses of Strange Solution that you can get. It's not purely about what is the most resource-efficient if you are running a deck that has SS as the lynchpin of your strategy.
I'm never a fan of 1-2 combos. If this is really the goal, then EC becomes a dead card when you draw it before the Strange Solution. IMHO this is a general truth - Arkham is not a game which rewards combo play. The combination of fairly slow draw rate, and the ever-present land mine of your weaknesses if you do draw aggressively, makes combos an underdog compared to cards which just do what they do well.
I also think that if your lynchpin requires 7-14 XP before it comes into being, you're doing something very wrong in deck design.
<shrug> Not saying it hasn't got the potential to be handy, but the number of pieces that have to fall into place to make this a worthwhile card are hefty. Sure, IF you draw only one of your Solutions, AND you draw an EC, AND you need more uses, AND you can afford the action, then it will be nifty. But there are way too many 'and's in there to make it anything but niche. Same thing goes for Soakman's scenarios - IF you're playing Sefina, AND you've got a Seeker in the group, AND there's so little kill that Strange Solution is your primary attack tool, AND you've survived enough of the campaign to get to that point, AND everything above...
5 hours ago, Soakman said:I imagine somewhere down the road we will see encounters that will drain supply from your assets. This will obviously be a good counter measure to make sure you still have an opportunity to use the card you played initially.
Possibly. What we do have now is encounters that outright discard your assets - Yog-Sothoth would undoubtedly chuckle in amusement as a bad draw sends your 8-supply Ichor to the discard
I don't see myself using it but maybe Sefina might be able to find some use for it if she had too many exp to spare.
3 hours ago, Buhallin said:I'm never a fan of 1-2 combos. If this is really the goal, then EC becomes a dead card when you draw it before the Strange Solution. IMHO this is a general truth - Arkham is not a game which rewards combo play. The combination of fairly slow draw rate, and the ever-present land mine of your weaknesses if you do draw aggressively, makes combos an underdog compared to cards which just do what they do well.
Combos: No? Not a fan of extra ammunition? I think it's great. Agree to disagree there I guess. I mean sure, you have to get combo part 1 before you can play combo part 2, obviously. But in the case of EC-3 at least, it specifically *isnt* a dead draw if you don't get your strange solution. That's like the whole point.
I also didn't say it was great, and you can always use it for your own supply if you don't actually have a chargeable card in play. The key to the card is that you can use it in more than one way and also to affect more than one card. It's flexible. Will I use it? Not likely. But there is going to probably be a reason it isn't a terrible card.
I would think if they are introducing this card, they are likely going to include some more cards with supply charges as well. Who knows, it could become very good in the right hands once we see the whole set of player cards from Carcosa.
7 hours ago, awp832 said:
Combos: No? Not a fan of extra ammunition? I think it's great. Agree to disagree there I guess.
Why would I disagree? Extra Ammunition IS great.
Extra Ammunition is rarely a single-match combo. When I can use it for my .45, or my Shotgun, or my Lightning Gun, the combo becomes far more meaningful.
It's also much more efficient. 1 resource for 3 shots, which makes it 3 times more efficient than EC. The assets it reloads are also very resource-inefficient in terms of ammo: .45 is the best at 1:1, Shotgun is 2.5:1, Lightning Gun is 2:1. So replacing an Acidic Ichor vs. replacing a Lightning Gun is literally 6 times more efficient.
You can't just say "They both add uses so they're equally awesome." You have to compare what the different approaches to reloading are, and how efficient. It's obvious you hadn't done that.
6 hours ago, Soakman said:But there is going to probably be a reason it isn't a terrible card.
I would think if they are introducing this card, they are likely going to include some more cards with supply charges as well. Who knows, it could become very good in the right hands once we see the whole set of player cards from Carcosa.
Our other supply-replacement card, Contraband, would like to know why it's not a terrible card too
If we get more interesting cards that use supply then certainly the value would go up. But based on what we have now - which basically comes down to trying to pair it with Strange Solution - it's really underwhelming for 3 XP.
I like it better than Emergency Cache (2). Still, I suppose you are better leveling other cards. It all depends what you are building up to.
2 hours ago, Buhallin said:Why would I disagree? Extra Ammunition IS great.
Extra Ammunition is rarely a single-match combo. When I can use it for my .45, or my Shotgun, or my Lightning Gun, the combo becomes far more meaningful.
It's also much more efficient. 1 resource for 3 shots, which makes it 3 times more efficient than EC. The assets it reloads are also very resource-inefficient in terms of ammo: .45 is the best at 1:1, Shotgun is 2.5:1, Lightning Gun is 2:1. So replacing an Acidic Ichor vs. replacing a Lightning Gun is literally 6 times more efficient.
You can't just say "They both add uses so they're equally awesome." You have to compare what the different approaches to reloading are, and how efficient. It's obvious you hadn't done that.
Our other supply-replacement card, Contraband, would like to know why it's not a terrible card too
If we get more interesting cards that use supply then certainly the value would go up. But based on what we have now - which basically comes down to trying to pair it with Strange Solution - it's really underwhelming for 3 XP.
I don't understand your math. The new EC is 0 resources for 4 supply, which is, if you want to go there, infinite times more efficient than Extra Ammunition. The go-to for this card IMO is not Strange Solution, it's Flashlight.
Flashlight is a great choice if you aren't min/maxing your playing party with the standard Seeker/monsterkiller mash-up. I think it's a great card to use for play where you are running more middle-of-the-road investigators that DO rely on flashlights more.
2 hours ago, cfmcdonald said:I don't understand your math. The new EC is 0 resources for 4 supply, which is, if you want to go there, infinite times more efficient than Extra Ammunition. The go-to for this card IMO is not Strange Solution, it's Flashlight.
EC gives you 4 resources or 4 supplies, in any combination. So for every supply, you're giving up a possible resource. That makes it a 1:1 cost.
1 hour ago, Buhallin said:EC gives you 4 resources or 4 supplies, in any combination. So for every supply, you're giving up a possible resource. That makes it a 1:1 cost.
So you're saying a hypothetical card with 0 cost that only gave you 4 supplies would be more efficient than this one that lets you take 4 of either resources or supplies.
Edited by CSerpent41 minutes ago, CSerpent said:So you're saying a hypothetical card with 0 cost that only gave you 4 supplies would be more efficient than this one that lets you take 4 of either resources or supplies.
Or if Extra Ammunition gave you the option of 3 ammo or 20 resources, it would be a worse (less efficient) card?
Edited by cfmcdonaldhttp://www.investopedia.com/terms/o/opportunitycost.asp
Yes, a zero-cost card which gave 4 supplies would be far more efficient for replacing supplies . You wouldn't be giving anything up any resources to get those supplies. If Extra Ammunition gave 3 ammo or 20 resources, it would be an AWFUL card for gaining ammo. The game could last another dozen years, and you'd be able to count on one hand the number of times anyone ever used it for ammo, because the opportunity cost would be massive.
Let's propose a different wording:
Gain 4 resources. Then, spend up to 4 resources to place an equal number of supply tokens.
Same exact effect, but it makes clearer what's happening - at that point before the "Then", you're +4 resources. You're now going to spend them at 1:1 to buy supply tokens. It doesn't matter how many you buy, each supply costs you one resource.
1 hour ago, Buhallin said:Gain 4 resources. Then, spend up to 4 resources to place an equal number of supply tokens.
Same exact effect, but it makes clearer what's happening - at that point before the "Then", you're +4 resources. You're now going to spend them at 1:1 to buy supply tokens. It doesn't matter how many you buy, each supply costs you one resource.
You could just as well say that the card gets you +4 supplies with the opportunity to buy resource tokens for one of those supplies each. If you say that paying one resource for one supply is a rip-off, then getting one resource for one supply must be a steal, right?
6 hours ago, Buhallin said:http://www.investopedia.com/terms/o/opportunitycost.asp
Yes, a zero-cost card which gave 4 supplies would be far more efficient for replacing supplies . You wouldn't be giving anything up any resources to get those supplies. If Extra Ammunition gave 3 ammo or 20 resources, it would be an AWFUL card for gaining ammo. The game could last another dozen years, and you'd be able to count on one hand the number of times anyone ever used it for ammo, because the opportunity cost would be massive.
Let's propose a different wording:
Gain 4 resources. Then, spend up to 4 resources to place an equal number of supply tokens.
Same exact effect, but it makes clearer what's happening - at that point before the "Then", you're +4 resources. You're now going to spend them at 1:1 to buy supply tokens. It doesn't matter how many you buy, each supply costs you one resource.
Okay, I guess I get it for comparing a reload card versus another copy of a card it can reload. But it seems like a pretty useless, even harmful, measure for evaluating a card in general. You would have to assess anything that has two abilities as worse than something that only has one. All else being equal, there's no way anyone would prefer a card that does "X" over a card that does "X or take some resources instead".
Anyway, I'd argue that the comparative opportunity cost is 4:5 versus 4:4. You're ignoring the fact that just by choosing the Ichor, you've cost yourself the 4 potential resources.
With the hypothetical card, you're at -4 resources as soon as you choose it, by that reasoning.
I dunno, I mean, it's still 4 resources vs the 3 you would get from the unupgraded version, plus the ability to distribute those directly to your supply cards.
I don't think it's bad. At the very worst, it's an upgrade to a card that you wouldn't include in your deck unless you were resource hungry.
It's fine. And it's likely only going to get more useful as cards release.
This whole discussion is also overlooking that you can charge your own Ichor AND someone else's flashlight AND someone else's Painkillers in one action. That's not insignificant.