Re: what makes a good non-engine game?
importantly, there shouldn't actually be any bm cards, as in, you should not be able to look at the kingdom and estimate how many turns it would take to get 4 provinces, or anything simulatable like that.
Only playing kingdoms that privilege certain strategies will find the players who are best at executing those strategies and not the players who are best at Dominion. I'm highly opposed.
Hi,
I'm just submitting this interesting-ish junk board which was just generated while I played bots:
http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150727/log.50e7525ee4b0b5b74140a6c0.1437992084116.txt(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/f/f6/Silk_Road.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Silk Road) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/c/c4/Tournament.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Tournament) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/6/61/Treasure_Map.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Treasure Map) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/1/18/Cultist.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Cultist) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/7/7e/Fairgrounds.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Fairgrounds)
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/9/97/Oracle.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Oracle) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/8/8d/Scheme.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Scheme) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/8/8e/Shanty_Town.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Shanty Town) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/6/6d/Warehouse.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Warehouse) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/4/48/Familiar.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Familiar)Code: [Select]Oracle, Scheme, Shanty Town, Warehouse, Familiar, Silk Road, Tournament, Treasure Map, Cultist, Fairgrounds
Provinces/Shelters
Lots of Alt-VP, two kind of junkers, Fairgrounds to somewhat counter Cultist (not really, though), Tournament being not that big of a deal here probably but you could get some extra uniques if you dare to. I was wondering about if I should replace Treasure Map... I guess no one is bold enough to try Warehouse/TMap here, but why not ;).
Whats Blitz 60 btw...? Does it come from playing a chess match in 60 seconds or something like that?
Only playing kingdoms that privilege certain strategies will find the players who are best at executing those strategies and not the players who are best at Dominion. I'm highly opposed.
yea this is at the heart of why i see this as a problem. you can guarantee that every championship will feature a game where procession is important, and that just completely goes against one of the main points of dominion (variety). i think a wider range of macro-level strategies should be represented for sure.
i guess a good example of what i'm looking for would be a board from last season's championship where rebuild was arguably the way to go, but there was a competitive engine and it wasn't at all clear. both players just went for the engine there though, which speaks to awaclus's point in a way.
keep it coming yall~
It's gotten to the point where I don't really consider Big Money or slog options on boards where anything resembling an engine is viable because I know the competitors won't even attempt them.
Only playing kingdoms that privilege certain strategies will find the players who are best at executing those strategies and not the players who are best at Dominion. I'm highly opposed.
yea this is at the heart of why i see this as a problem. you can guarantee that every championship will feature a game where procession is important, and that just completely goes against one of the main points of dominion (variety). i think a wider range of macro-level strategies should be represented for sure.
i guess a good example of what i'm looking for would be a board from last season's championship where rebuild was arguably the way to go, but there was a competitive engine and it wasn't at all clear. both players just went for the engine there though, which speaks to awaclus's point in a way.
keep it coming yall~
When I'm picking kingdoms to use, I give good scores to the kingdoms where I read the cards and I don't know what I'm going to do like right away. I like interesting and difficult decisions.
Let me give you an idea of what you're up against here: each season we get anywhere from 20 to 55+ kingdoms to pick six of for the championship match. I don't remember exactly, but I can't think of any seasons where we had more than about three submissions where an engine was not possible to make. Also, on boards where Big Money was competitive, I've only ever seen players go for Big Money in one game -- it was Embassy+BM vs. a cool Talisman/Vineyards thing that in playtesting we found was usually better. MQ had a 5/2 and went for Embassy (which may be correct with that opening) and his opponent mirrored (don't remember who it was). It's gotten to the point where I don't really consider Big Money or slog options on boards where anything resembling an engine is viable because I know the competitors won't even attempt them. Like, I'll playtest them but the fact that they're just plain better than super-awful weak engines in like all of the playtesting games doesn't stop me from giving them good scores anymore.
We make a huge effort to make sure that the six games we pick all feel different. If anything I have a bias against Procession because it makes games take a lot longer and we used to lose the audience that way. That said, all six games this season had some kind of village, two of them had Procession, and all of them were engine games; and this is representative of the submissions we received. We will include less-intersting money boards or slog boards for the sake of variety when we have them, but there are seasons where we just don't.
So let's say there are people out there who don't like the kingdoms we pick for these matches. Very few of them have actually submitted kingdoms -- in fact the only one who has is funkdoc. If you don't like the kingdoms we're using then submit more of them! Be the change you want to see! I actually think it's just that simple. Any worries that non-engine boards people submit won't make it into the matches are entirely unfounded -- these types of boards have always had a higher chance of making it in than engine boards. I don't think anyone actually believes that the selection process is flawed, do they?
What makes an interesting non-engine board? That's a really interesting and difficult question to answer because you have to define engine, and you have to define interesting, which are both subjective terms anyways. Fortunately, the solution to what you all want to see is not affected by the answer to that question -- just submit more of the types of boards that you want to see, whatever they are.
And also if you want to be part of selecting the kingdoms, that's not hard either. Just ask. The answer will probably be yes.
My point is that maybe not only playtesting, but the players themselves are biased towards engine-play in kingdoms where it is a close decision.
JW: Beggar, Oasis, Shanty Town, Swindler, Baron, City, Hunting Party, Rebuild, Treasury, Wharf (Provinces/Estates)
JW: Transmute, Great Hall, Swindler, Trade Route, Bishop, Remake, Trader, Worker's Village, Knights, Fairgrounds, Provinces/Estates
I find it hard to believe that no-one on the team had played a remotely interesting game of Dominion in the last several weeks that didn't include a village or a throne-variant. Playtesting, and if necessary, tweaking, such boards to create a variety of games for the championship match will produce a set of games that better reflects the competitors' skills in different areas of Dominion play, not just engine building.
The main problem with evry board being an engine board is that it removes the strategical decision of wether you want to build an egine or not.
i'll refine this a bit, get more at the heart of what i'm looking for...
so my board that was used for the championship was as follows:
Haven, Lighthouse, Pawn, Remodel, Bandit Camp, Catacombs, Explorer, Market, Tactician, Torturer
this set off complaints from Wandering Winder in the chat, with him saying that this board doesn't offer any more interesting decisions than a number of money & slog games. to me at this point, that's an utterly mind-boggling statement - i *still* can't figure out whether double- or single-Tact is better here (heck, Stef even thought none might be best!), or how many Remodels you want...and the chat was strongly divided on all of this as well. i can't think of a slog board that's as open-ended in that regard.
that's what i'm wondering here, what i'm missing that a player as strong as WW is seeing!