Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Rules Questions => Topic started by: santamonica811 on November 28, 2014, 07:40:56 pm
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I've played games where Fairgrounds is one of the choices. Then (of course) you spend your money and your buy your card.
Here is my situation. I am playing the online game via Facebook. When I click on a particular level (I'm in Cornucopia, at the third skull icon on the FB site, if that makes any difference.), it shows the 10 cards that will be in play--in a few seconds--once the game is started. In the previous 200 different levels, what you see on this screen (ie, the 10 individual cards) is what you see at the next screen . . . the actual game. The 10 types of cards at the preview screen mirrors the cards that are available in the actual game. Duh. :-)
But here, in this one level, I'm getting something odd. When I'm at the "prior" screen, it shows Fairgrounds as the most expensive (ie, the only "6") card. (The other 9 cards: Young Witch; Harvest; Horn of Plenty; Jester; Fortune Teller; Menagerie; Horse Trader; Remake; and Tournament) BUT!!!!!, when I click on the 'start game' button, the Fairground card has disappeared!!! Instead, a 2-coin card is swapped in (this card varies...each game I lose, we get a new and different low-value card for the next game).
Now, through Tournament, if you put in a Province and no one else does, you can (well, you are forced to) swap your province for a prize. And, one of those prizes is a single Fairground card. BUT, in the 3 games I've played, one of the other players is always able to obtain multiple copies of Fairgrounds. And this is being done, somehow, though the playing of the Remake card. Huh????
I've tried buying and playing this Remake. But no "secret" purchase options opens up for me, allowing me to buy Fairgrounds. So far, in all 3 games, having these multiple Fairgrounds has been the difference in the game . . . so it's frustrating being prevented from buying this card, while all the other players have that option.
1. Any idea what I'm doing wrong / overlooking? (I did do a forum search here, but "Fairgrounds" yielded nothing remotely helpful.)
2. Any idea why a card that's shown in the "preview" screen suddenly disappears in the actual game. I'm assuming it's a bug in the Facebook software, but maybe not. Hmmm . . .
Any advice or feedback is appreciated.
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What you are seeing is one of the most atrociously confusing design choices made for Dominion Online.
What's causing this is Young Witch. Young Witch adds an 11th card to the supply to be the bane. Because Dominion Online is designed to only show 10 Kingdom cards, the most expensive card is going to be displayed on the second page, which you access by clicking on the castle button (which is displaying below the Estate pile)
It isn't a bug, it's just confusing to new players. Hopefully the new version of Dominion Online will display things in a more straightforward way.
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Young witch is in the game, so you have 11 kingdom cards and one is the bane. In the bottom right corner of the kingdom cards display click the arrow. Yes this is a terrible UI flaw.
The prizes are also listed here, but Fairgrounds is not a prize. Also, tournament does not swap your province for a prize. You discard your province; you do not trash it.
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Much thanks to both of you. Good to know that Province is discarded, not trashed. (I was not seeing why anyone would want to do this, but now it's making much more sense.)
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it would indeed be kinda silly to trash a province for a duchy
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it would indeed be kinda silly to trash a province for a duchy
unless you had 14 unique cards and no duchies but 8 fairgrounds and that turn you were ending on piles.
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Hydrad,
Thanks. By the way, when one is playing online, is there any way to see how many cards one has, which specific cards, etc? In real life, it would be easy of course . . . just add up the cards in your hand, unused deck and discards. But not sure how to do this online.
Also, is there a way to view the cards you already have? (Obviously, it would have to be directly before a full reshuffle, otherwise people would use the process as an excuse to see what cards are coming up next.) Or, is it part of the game strategy to write down each new card or otherwise memorize them . . . and if you don't bother to do this, then you're merely at a competitive disadvantage as compared to a player with a better memory and/or a sheet of paper + pencil? :-)
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Hydrad,
Thanks. By the way, when one is playing online, is there any way to see how many cards one has, which specific cards, etc? In real life, it would be easy of course . . . just add up the cards in your hand, unused deck and discards. But not sure how to do this online.
Also, is there a way to view the cards you already have? (Obviously, it would have to be directly before a full reshuffle, otherwise people would use the process as an excuse to see what cards are coming up next.) Or, is it part of the game strategy to write down each new card or otherwise memorize them . . . and if you don't bother to do this, then you're merely at a competitive disadvantage as compared to a player with a better memory and/or a sheet of paper + pencil? :-)
You are not allowed to count or look through the cards in your discard pile. You can only see the top card, and on goko, even that is buggy.
There is no way to see which cards you have. With the salvager extension, there is a game log on the side which lists all the actions taken in chronological order. Without salvager there is still a log, but it is not as readable. However, it is controversial as to whether reading the log to find out what yours and others deck compositions are is allowed. Pencil and paper are also questionably allowed. I like to play with reading the log and the option to write things down, but others might say that is not allowed. Memory is certainly helpful.
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Hydrad,
Thanks. By the way, when one is playing online, is there any way to see how many cards one has, which specific cards, etc? In real life, it would be easy of course . . . just add up the cards in your hand, unused deck and discards. But not sure how to do this online.
Also, is there a way to view the cards you already have? (Obviously, it would have to be directly before a full reshuffle, otherwise people would use the process as an excuse to see what cards are coming up next.) Or, is it part of the game strategy to write down each new card or otherwise memorize them . . . and if you don't bother to do this, then you're merely at a competitive disadvantage as compared to a player with a better memory and/or a sheet of paper + pencil? :-)
Usually counting things like that arn't allowed and unable to do it in online. I believe the pen and paper method is not allowed in most tournaments either but if you have house rules thats fine to play with. So you are basically forced to use your memory to remember.
I think you are able to count how many cards are in your draw pile but you can't count your discard? (I could be wrong here) So if you just had a shuffle and are playing a gardens deck you might be able to count how many cards you have and use that to know where you are at.
PPE: lio beat me to it.
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Hydrad,
Thanks. By the way, when one is playing online, is there any way to see how many cards one has, which specific cards, etc? In real life, it would be easy of course . . . just add up the cards in your hand, unused deck and discards. But not sure how to do this online.
Also, is there a way to view the cards you already have? (Obviously, it would have to be directly before a full reshuffle, otherwise people would use the process as an excuse to see what cards are coming up next.) Or, is it part of the game strategy to write down each new card or otherwise memorize them . . . and if you don't bother to do this, then you're merely at a competitive disadvantage as compared to a player with a better memory and/or a sheet of paper + pencil? :-)
When playing real life Dominion, the following things are allowed: Counting your draw deck, counting the cards in the supply piles, looking at the top card of any player's discard pile
The following are not allowed: Looking at the cards in any player's deck, counting any player's discard pile, looking at any but the top card of any player's discard pile
Having a feeling for what your deck is built like is an integral part of Dominion, but those are all the tools you get. The designer himself has made clear that he considers taking notes on players' cards against the rules.
Hope this helped.
Edit: Wow, i should stop posting here with my phone. When my post is finished everybody has allready left the building...
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The designer himself has made clear that he considers taking notes on players' cards against the rules.
While I don't doubt this, I'd like a quote or link, just so I know exactly.
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As you get better at understanding the strategies, remembering what cards there are in your deck becomes a lot easier. When there are clear goals that you have in mind ("I'm going to buy two Villages and two Smithies this shuffle"), it's pretty easy to remember how much of those goals you have completed already, and whenever you're forced to do something that wasn't a part of your plan, that's also easy to remember.
The designer himself has made clear that he considers taking notes on players' cards against the rules.
While I don't doubt this, I'd like a quote or link, just so I know exactly.
In all games, within game contexts, you may only do things expressly allowed by the rules. This is what it means to have rules; it is the covenant you have agreed to by agreeing to play. You can play tic-tac-toe in a van while yodeling, but putting a Z in a box is out of the question. It is not up to any rulebook to say that you can't use a memory aid; rather it is up to the rulebook to specifically allow it, or else you can't use one. It doesn't matter how much the game for you is not about this memorization, how much the memory thing seems tangential to whatever fun the game provides; you do not get to use anything other than your brain to handle that memorization, unless of course you are explicitly playing a variant. You also do not get to - and this is important - scrawl notes to yourself on your belly using your own blood. Games between players are played between players, and "players" do not by default include notebooks or pencils, even makeshift ones that are constructed from the players. Expecting all rulebooks to repeat this is nonsense, and anyway would offend people who don't like to talk about blood.
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The easiest way to count your number of unique cards for Fairgrounds is to go through the piles one by one and ask "do I have one of those?" This is much easier than trying to produce a mental list of what you've bought and count that.
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If you're going for Fairgrounds, you usually want to have a majority of the kingdom cards by the end of the game (10, 15, or more). I find it easiest to count the cards that I haven't bought yet. In your standard no-Colony game (by standard, I mean no Young Witch, Shelters, Prizes, Spoils, Knights, or so on), there are 17 unique cards. I usually figure out which 2 of them I'm not going to get, and go from there. Keeping track of what you have already does take a little getting used to, but usually there's a number of cards that you're actively using for much of the game that you probably have a few copies of, and then you just need to keep track of the ancillary cards that you're only picking up to boost the Fairgrounds.
Watch out for trashers (like Remake or Remodel), though. Several times I've been sure I bought/gained 15 unique cards, only to find that I had Remodeled my one Gold into a Province, or Remade all my Coppers.
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The easiest way to count your number of unique cards for Fairgrounds is to go through the piles one by one and as "do I have one of those?" This is much easier than trying to produce a mental list of what you've bought and count that.
Ruins usually ruin (pun intended) this, though. Knights too, to some extent, but at least you know that they are all unique so as long as you remember how many you have, you also remember how many uniques you have.
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When playing real life Dominion, the following things are allowed: Counting your draw deck, counting the cards in the supply piles, looking at the top card of any player's discard pile
The following are not allowed: Looking at the cards in any player's deck, counting any player's discard pile, looking at any but the top card of any player's discard pile
Also allowed: Looking through the trash pile.
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yeah, it's usually easy to know how many different knights you have. all you have to know is, how many do you have relative to your opponent. if you know you have one more, all you need to do is look how many are in the trash and how many are left in the supply.