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1

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Math request: Nomad Camp

« on: January 20, 2013, 11:48:55 am »

Problem 18.14.
A 52-card deck is thoroughly shuffled and you are dealt a hand of 13 cards.
(a) If you have one ace, what is the probability that you have a second ace?
(b) If you have the ace of spades, what is the probability that you have a second ace?
Remarkably, the two answers are different. This problem will test your counting ability!

Last two lines are straight from the textbook.
[/quote]

I apologize in advance for the necro-post, but damnit, what's the answer to part (b)?

Part (a) is pretty straightforward.  Take an ace out, and you have 51 cards, 3 of which are aces, so that's 1/17, and then the question is basically just what's the probability of an ace being in 12 of those , so 1/17 * 12/17.

I can't think of how it is different knowing that the ace you have is a particular ace, and the answer is not in the link, and I can't seem to google the same scenario...argh.

2

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Why aren't *you* playing on Goko?

« on: January 04, 2013, 06:44:29 pm »

As for the hand of cards, I think it's great as-is. When your hand gets large, it groups together identical cards. You're complaining that the cards move after you play one, but do you have a solution for that?

Yep, easy.  Isotropic solved that, by laying out the cards side by side, and then adding an interface for selecting a card that needs to be discarded, trashed, etc.

In addition, Goko needs to add an option to completely eliminate the animations, sounds, and play a stripped down version that only gives you what you need to play, much like the text version on Isotropic.

Although some people like the animations, without the option to get rid of them, many others aren't going to play.  And of those many others, my guess is that that group contains a disproportionate number of people who are the better players (that's not me btw ;P), who would be likely to play tournaments on Goko, and who you need in your user-base to keep the community going.

What's crazy, is I only listed a couple issues.  Goko has made so many UI missteps, it's borderline insane, given that most of the solutions have already been come up with, or are incredibly easy to figure out and implement.

It's also possible I'm a bit of a UI snob, so how bad the experience at Goko is for an average user is certainly not as bad as I make it out to be. That being said, the UI makes it not worth playing for me, and it seems like enough people are turned off by enough of these issues, that Goko Dominion is not getting nearly the traction it should for being such a great game.

3

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Why aren't *you* playing on Goko?

« on: January 04, 2013, 05:00:40 pm »

I played for a few hours, and the interface is something that I found I could not get around.  I won't try Goko again unless I hear about a significant UI update.

It's been discussed already, but the interface is...incredibly poorly thought out.  Especially given that many of these issues were already resolved on Isotropic.  And that's not to say that Isotropic has all of the perfect UI answers, just that there are a lot of things that were ironed out that the Goko developers appear to have ignored.

An example is creating/looking for a game.  Looking for a game on Isotropic is a little buggy (selected parameters seems to reset sometimes) and I really don't like that the chat window makes the checkboxes a moving target, but most of the options I want are there.  Goko needs to add at least some of these options, so people can play the kind of games they want, versus the type of opponents they want.

And even just setting the number of players for a game in Goko is kludgy.  There are 5 blank tiles, and you click on the tile before the last unselected tile to toggle it as available/unavailable?  I'm trying to be nice here but really, who's idea was that?

And then having the cards display graphically as a fan was poorly thought out.  It forces the player to click on a sliver of a card, especially in big draw engines, and then, even with the animations on the fastest speed, you have to be careful to wait until the anim has completed before attempting to select the next card, as it moves to a new location as the cards adjust to fit the new hand size after a card is played.  I've already trashed cards, passed cards, played cards I did not want to, and that is just not fun.

I could go on and list the details of numerous issues like this that I encountered in just a few hours, but I normally get paid to do that, so not today.  Anyway, I'm not playing on Goko due to the sheer number of UI annoyances that make the experience not worthwhile.

4

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Mandarin: How do we use the $5/$5 split?

« on: May 18, 2012, 05:11:20 pm »

It's been sort of hinted at with Upgrade, but the combo I'd like to play around with is Mandarin>Mandarin>Remake, especially with Grand Market or Goons on the board.

5

Dominion Articles / Re: Thoughts on going from level 25 to 35

« on: May 08, 2012, 05:28:21 pm »

I haven't hit 25 yet, so maybe this is "thought's on going from 20 to 25," but I think the hardest thing for me right now was not mentioned above, and that's opportunity buys.

By this I mean you've looked at the board, figured out your strategy, and then suddenly you hit, say $6 or $7 on turn 3, and a card that you discounted, perhaps because it would not be much of a factor by the time you got it, is suddenly available, and an alternate strategy is possible.  Of course, you've already spent a couple turns heading in one direction, so switching is probably not a good idea, but then again, it may be.  Dominion involves skill, but it's still a card game with a luck element, and good players know when to shift their strategy and when to avoid the temptation of buying that shiny, expensive card when it won't get them to more victory points faster.

The solution is probably the same for most strategy problems, play more games.  I think it will take me a lot of games before I have a decent grasp of this though.

6

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Cards you absolutely despise or adore

« on: May 08, 2012, 01:09:23 pm »

Despise:
Snugglers (Smugglers) - 'cause they're so...smug.

Adore:
Omelette (Hamlet) -The card I have no problem buying with $4.

7

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Getting my family to like Dominion with base Dominion

« on: May 08, 2012, 09:44:45 am »

I had no problem getting my parents into Dominion with just base.  I figure next time I visit I'll bring intrigue.

We played random sets, keeping the cards out for a game or two the first couple games so they could get the mechanics down without learning a bunch of new cards.  I also recommend some of the set-ups described in the base rules on the last page.  They seemed to like that, and the kingdoms were pretty balanced that way.

The only thing they didn't like was Chancellor, but who can blame them?

8

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Idea about trashed cards

« on: April 26, 2012, 03:54:17 pm »

I was just thinking the same thing.  The trash pile is a totally unused resource for a game mechanic that could be pretty fun.

I think there are a few catches though:

1. The card itself should be a trasher, so that a trash pile would exist if this card was in the game.
2. It should probably use existing mechanics.

I was thinking of something like this:

$2
Junk Yard
ACTION
Trash a card from your hand.  You may choose to trash this card as well, gaining $1 for each card in the trash pile, including this card, and returning all cards in the trash pile to the Supply.
-------------------

9

Introductions / Re: Hi!

« on: April 26, 2012, 11:27:08 am »

Hiyas!

We've played a couple times, including last night I think.  And that is a pretty good moniker.