by lavoieba
I have been toying with the idea of a new gemstone, I chose Topaz. This came out of the following analysis. I am an admitted geek and made a graph that has the card value on the x-axis and the card count on the y-axis to see a visual of the gem card distributions in the game.The distributions for Sapphire, Diamond, and Ruby are identical with 30 cards each. The quantity of cards in each deck is 3,6,12,6,3 yielding precentages of 10%,20%,40%,20%,10% for the -2,-1,Ave,+1,+2 cards respectively.
The Emerald deck has 36 cards and the quantity of cards with a distribution of 3,6,9,9,6,3 yielding 8.3%,16.7%,25%,25%,16.7%,8.3% for the -2.5,-1.5,-0.5,+0.5,+1.5,+2.5 around the average. This yields a broader and flatter distribution than the others.
After doing this it became apparant that there was a glaring omission if you like symmetry. The omission is that symmetry is restored if there was another gem, Topaz, that would have the same distribution as Emerald and had a base cost of 50 and its average value being 12.5 for values(qty) of 10(3),11(6),12(9),13(9),14(6),15(3).
The question was in my mind where to put this and the simple addition would be at Level 2 of the Knowledge of Fire, however make it such that anyone can enchant 1 Topaz once this Knowledge Level is obtained. At Level 4 either (or both) Ruby or Topaz can be enchanted up to a maximum of 5 of either type of gems in any combination. The Topaz could then become the poor man's Ruby.
The effect on the Druid is immediate. Previously, it took 85 to get the first Ruby which would be lowered to 60 for the first Topaz. The break even point for the first Ruby is 6 turns whereas for the first Topaz would be 5 turns.(on average).
I have 2 concerns: First does this make the Druid too powerful, and second does this effectively nulify diamonds. On the second question, it takes a minimum of 35 points for anyone other than the Druid to get 1 Topaz and another 35 to get more whereas the first Diamond comes at a +20 premium with a couple of VPs. The question of the Druid I think comes with the skill of the player.
I welcome the thoughts and comments of others.