Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: brokoli on November 14, 2013, 03:08:56 pm
-
... that give to each player the same number of turns ?
-
I think that this thread should be in the Variants forum.
Beyond that, I'm sure that this rule was tried—or at least considered—while Dominion was being developed. It didn't make it into the published product.
I don't like the rule because it would exacerbate the Penultimate Province Rule into the Ultimate Province Rule for the first player. Thinking about buying that last Province? Better be sure your opponent can't overtake you with his remaining turn. He knows with 100% certainly that it will be his last turn and can play accordingly. It might "fix" first-player advantage, but it would likely just replace it with last player advantage.
Even worse is the "Phantom Province" rule that some players use, where as the turn order finishes up, the remaining players can buy non-existent Provinces.
-
... that give to each player the same number of turns ?
For Big Money-like games, it would have a minor effect.
It would completely change the dynamics of ending the game on piles though. 1st player then never has the opportunity to end the game on piles and win with a few vp, because second player would always get a free turn to buy nothing but vp. Second player, on the other hand, could safely end the game on piles and buy one estate more than p1.
-
This has been discussed a LOT on here (I think at least two threads), and the problem is that it takes first player advantage away and gives it to the second/last player. Usually the threads just end up saying the best way to get first player advantage gone is to make the last player win in a tie.
-
Okay, that's what I feared, but I wanted to be sure that you agree.
-
I would expect that the second player advantage of equal turns would be considerably smaller than the first player advantage we currently have. It changes the endgame strategy a bit on whether to buy those last few provinces a bit, and gives the first player something of a disadvantage in big engines which are likely to three pile, since they need to watch the VPs carefully. In games ending on Provinces, first player probably still has an edge though - they have the first opportunity to grab the last Provinces, while later players might only be able to take Duchies.
Currently Dominion does have a very significant first player advantage, and it would be nice if there were some reasonable way to fix it. Equal turns doesn't quite do that, but I think it would make things closer. It would however mean the first player could rarely trigger the endgame with a guaranteed win, but normally they'd be alright.
-
I've played with that rule variant a lot, and I think it's definitely better for 3-4 player, where controlling the end of the game is a lot harder, and turn-order advantage is somewhat greater, especially on boards with attacks.
-
I absolutely love how iso handled this issue. There everyone in the lobby was divided into two pools: a pool of winners and a pool of losers of their most recent game. Everyone who just logged in (only one lobby, how I miss those days!) started from the winners pool. Anytime a loser got matched up with a winner, the loser got to go first. If they both were from the same pool, it was random. As usual, tying from first player lost, I guess I have to be glad goko got that one right, because it goes without saying this was one of the excellent lobby features of isotropic goko failed to implement.
-
We have a house rule for our Dominion games as well....but im not sure im allowed to share it on a PG forum
-
We have a house rule for our Dominion games as well....but im not sure im allowed to share it on a PG forum
It's okay to talk about your games of Strip Dominion, but keep it in RSP.
-
We have a house rule for our Dominion games as well....but im not sure im allowed to share it on a PG forum
It's okay to talk about your games of Strip Dominion, but keep it in RSP.
First rule of strip dominion......
-
We have a house rule for our Dominion games as well....but im not sure im allowed to share it on a PG forum
It's okay to talk about your games of Strip Dominion, but keep it in RSP.
First rule of strip dominion......
...depends on the board.
Second rule is a house rule that prevents players from cooler climates from having an undue advantage.
-
Having the same number of turns is maybe ok with an infinite number of cards.
I mean, consider two players going for some sort of KC-Bridge engine.
Let's say that P1 puts the game into the "P2 has one more turn" state by "emptying" a pile. Basically this means buying at least the 8th Province/Colony or the 8th/10th card from a third pile.
In my case, P1 could buy Province 8 and 9 and P2 could end up getting Province 10, 11 and 12 on his equalizing turn.
-
"At the end of each buy phase, player 2 may add two Provinces to the supply, up to once per game. If this restores the Province pile the game continues".
How would that work out? I feel like that would be a good rule. It would fix those really annoying player one rushes where someone cannabalizes their deck, salvaging a Gold to win by one point on Province-Estate. Which is exacerbated when that player has taken more turns. Player 2 can pull those tricks but that's ok, he hasn't taken more turns.
(Note that buying Provinces in general is a light form of cannibalizing your deck without repercussion. A turn that is played with the understanding it will be the last turn of the game can be different from another kind of turn, and part of the edge of the player that ends the game is that he knows he is taking that kind of turn)
-
@popsofctown: You mean that player 2 can do that at the end of player 1's turn, after player 1 has bought the "last" province, right? In that case I think that the idea is very bad, and that we get a second player advantage.
For example in a Big Money mirror, P2 can now freely ignore PPR: if P1 buys the last province, P2 just lets the game continue (after he has done that P2 has to obey PPR as usual), this is huge. Basically P1 has to win twice: first after 8 provinces are gone and second after 10 provinces are gone
Also, engine are more viable for P2, because (s)he can decide whether there are two more provinces, which leads to a longer game.
In a engine-mirror which can reliably double province (okay, this doesn't happen often, but assume we are in this idealized case for the moment), P2 can use this rule to always get the last turn, and get 2 provinces which P1 cannot gain in any way (because they come into the supply after his last turn).
I can provide more examples in which this rule breaks things you don't want to break.
-
Personally, i like the idea of bidding points to go first after seeing your starting hand. (I think this was mentioned before somewhere)
That is, both players state the amount of points it would be worth to them to go first. Whoever bids the most goes first, and the person in second gets that amount of points. In the case of a non-zero tie, order is determined randomly and the player in second gets that amount of points.
That way, the particular kingdom AND your starting hand is built into the way that first-player advantage is reduced, and the player in first only has themselves to blame if they give too much advantage to P2.
The problem with adding provinces during P2's turn is it doesn't do anything to alt-VP games. Also, possession.
EDIT: although I don't think it's really necessary to even out advantages in >2 player games (since there's so many other sources of randomness) you could extend this, by submitting how many points you'd be willing to give to all your opponents to go first, and how many points you'd be willing to give to all your opponents whose turn comes after you to go second, etc.
-
Currently Dominion does have a very significant first player advantage, and it would be nice if there were some reasonable way to fix it. Equal turns doesn't quite do that, but I think it would make things closer. It would however mean the first player could rarely trigger the endgame with a guaranteed win, but normally they'd be alright.
I think there is a way to remove the "extra turn" advantage without giving the last player an end-game advantage, when players count points during the game:
Play equal turns, but after the ending condition was triggered, a player may not gain more points in his "extra" turn than the "triggering player" did in his last turn* - or rather, any surplus points gained don't count for the score.
So in a 2P game, if the first player ends the game, he can essentially choose whether the final score, or the score after the penultimate round, counts.
This way, each player can end the game with a guaranteed win (the first player by ending the game when leading before their last turn, the last player in the usual way). The first player can also "risk" to end the game without a secure win, e.g. by buying the last province or doing a megaturn. The PPR remains in force for both players (though with different numbers for first/second player).
I haven't tried it yet, but this rule should substantially reduce the first-player advantage, though not remove it completely.
*and may not remove VPs from him (due to cursers, trashing attacks etc.)
-
It's easier to take a lead, or end the game, than it is to take the lead and end the game. If Player 1 can win by doing those two on separate turns, and doesn't have to actually still be in the lead on the turn he ends the game, then he has an advantage.
-
Interesting idea. Not sure whether I'd want to play with it though (as it's pretty complicated). I don't think it solves the 3-piling problem either, because P1 would still be reluctant to, say, 3-pile-plus-estate when ahead, because it'd be easy for P2 to match that for a tie. Because P1 is spending $ to ensure the game ends while P2 isn't, it puts P2 at an advantage in that situation.
-
It's easier to take a lead, or end the game, than it is to take the lead and end the game. If Player 1 can win by doing those two on separate turns, and doesn't have to actually still be in the lead on the turn he ends the game, then he has an advantage.
But by my rule suggestion, Player 1 has to be in the lead on his last turn to win; and even this might not be enough if he didn't lead already before his last turn.
Interesting idea. Not sure whether I'd want to play with it though (as it's pretty complicated). I don't think it solves the 3-piling problem either, because P1 would still be reluctant to, say, 3-pile-plus-estate when ahead, because it'd be easy for P2 to match that for a tie. Because P1 is spending $ to ensure the game ends while P2 isn't, it puts P2 at an advantage in that situation.
P1 can still 3-pile for a secure win if he was ahead before his last turn (which is as it "should be" for a fair game IMO; you shouldn't be able to win just because of your extra turn). And if the players are tied before P1 3-piles by taking the last estate, P2 would need a duchy (or some other VP card) to tie, so the cases in which P2 has a potential advantage are very rare.
-
It's easier to take a lead, or end the game, than it is to take the lead and end the game.
I just want to emphasize this quote, because even outside the context of this discussion, this is a critical fact about Dominion that fundamentally underpins its balance and its strategic landscape. It's one of those things that I kinda-sorta knew already, but seeing it written explicitly and concisely made me do a double-take.