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Messages - Synthesizer

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1
Dominion: Guilds Previews / Re: Preview #4: Butcher
« on: July 31, 2013, 03:56:58 am »
this will probably be the first remodel variant which in the german version has not ***bau in its name

remodel - umbau
upgrade - anbau
rebuild - neubau
remake - nachbau
develop - aufbau
expand - ausbau
butcher - Metzger/Fleischer/Schlachter?

And now every time I play Develop, I will think of electron configurations.

I love this forum. I don't remember any I've visited where someone would actually get this joke, let alone where somebody else posts it! +1 for you!

It's not really a joke, is it?

typical thoughts:
Quote
de·vel·op  [dih-vel-uhp]  Show IPA
verb (used with object)
1.
to bring out the capabilities or possibilities of; bring to a more advanced or effective state: to develop natural resources; to develop one's musical talent.
2.
to cause to grow or expand: to develop one's muscles.
3.
to elaborate or expand in detail: to develop a theory.
4.
to bring into being or activity; generate; evolve.
5.
Drafting. to transfer the details of (a more or less two-dimensional design, pattern, or the like) from one surface, especially one that is prismatic or cylindrical, onto another, usually planar, in such a way that the distances between points remain the same.

and/or

Quote
German to English:
Aufbau:
composition ; construction ; building ; arrangement ; classification ; disposition ; ranging ; position ; marshalling ; superstructure ; premises ; edifice ; structure ; lot ; textile ; fabric ; cloth

as opposed to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aufbau_principle

2
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Showdown
« on: July 31, 2013, 03:47:53 am »
In a quick search, the earliest listing for Ascension I see on BGG is from 2010 (not counting a different non-deck-building game of the same name from 1982).  Dominion is from 2008.  Am I missing the original listing?  It's hard to tell because they all seem to have a tagline in the name.  I am fairly certain that Dominion was the very first deck building game.

Edit: to make the rest of your post more succinct, you seem to be saying that Dominion is more strategic while Ascension is more tactical.  Having not played Ascension, I have no idea if this is true.  But I'd say that Dominion has plenty of tactics in it as well.

Edit 2: Oh wait, you said YOUR first, not THE first.  My bad.

And in fact, Justin Gary (Designer of Ascension) totally gave credit to DXV for inventing the deckbuilding mechanic. Something along the line of, "I love Magic draft, but I love the draft bit actually a bit more than the actual Magic playing bit, then I played Dominion, totally loved it, and decided to make my own deckbuilding game". Can't be bother to look for the quote though. But I just wanted to add this tidbit of information before anybody got their panties in a twist.

3
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Showdown
« on: July 31, 2013, 02:42:17 am »
Here's a question: how many of the deckbuilders out there have a Dominion-style card supply? By this I mean a supply that consists of several piles of (usually) identical cards. It seems like most deckbuilders (Thunderstone, Ascension, Star Trek, apparently Lord of the Rings) have a card supply that constantly cycles, which presents two "problems".

First, it means that it's much harder to have a long-term strategy. You have very little control over whether the cards you need will be available to purchase when you [need/can afford] them. I'm a big fan of tactical play and making the most of what's handed to me (Kingdom Builder rules!), but it's best when you can pair that tactical acumen with a coherent strategy.

Second, it makes each play of the game feel more samey. Sure, you may have a big deck with over 50 unique cards, which is a lot of variety. You shuffle the deck, and the order these cards become available makes each game play differently. Perhaps you won't get through the entire deck in most games, so you may never see certain cards in every game. I can name another game that meets all these characteristics: Uno.

The fact that Donald X. games in general (and Dominion in particular) don't include every card in each game is huge. No two games of Uno are ever going to feel as different as a King's Court engine is from a Duke slog. I'd argue that this, not the deckbuilding mechanic, is the defining characteristic of Dominion and the thing that gives the game such incredible staying power. It also makes it easier to make and sell expansions. Imagine if Dominion only had two sets with 100 Kingdom cards per set, but only 1 to 3 copies of each. It'd be a worse game AND wouldn't have made nearly as much money! Yet this is a mechanic that most subsequent deckbuilders chose not to incorporate. Go figure!

I'm not interested in appearing on the podcast but I'll add this for the one who eventually does go on:

My first deckbuilder was actually Ascension, a game I still love (and it's the only other deckbuilder I played). The three main reasons that Dominion sees more table time have nothing to do with variety but:
1. My friends are really put off by the theme in Ascension. "this looks like Magic"
2. Because of the continuously varying supply, the first few games have a lot of card exlaining DURING THE GAME (rather than before the game as is the case with Dominion)
3. Ascension gets worse with more players

First two are obvious, third I'll get to later.

Other than also having the deckbuilding mechanic, the "feel" of the game is different and the games are tough to compare as  a result. An analogy:
In football (which is called soccer in some backward countries :p) the players and the coaches have a completely different perspective. The coaches analyze the conditions, their own tools (i.e. player skills) and the tools of the opponents before the game, and decide on a strategy taking into account all this. Once the game is going, their influence on the game is very limited; they are allowed just 3 substitutes, and can give some further instructions to their players. Sometimes bad or good luck happens (lucky goals, injuries, bookings, etc.) and they have to adjust accordingly. But if any really major adjustments are required, there is only so much they can do.
For the players on the other hand, they go in with the instructions of the coach (a general strategy), but once the game gets going, for them it is more of a moment-by-moment game; stuff happens, they have to respond, to which the opponent responds, etc. A small error; an unlucky referee call; fouls; getting under the opponent's skin - that is the game for the players.

I'd say Dominion is more similar to what the coach experiences, while Ascension is more similar to what the players experience.

In Dominion, you look at the board, decide what to do, and do it. Even though you do have to take into account what the opponent might do and/or does, often when you have to seriously adjust, either due to bad draws or due to the opponent choosing a strategy you didn't identify earlier or due to just having picked a bad strategy, it's an uphill battle. Also, there is very little you can do to stop your opponent from doing their thing - you have attacks, but which attacks are available was known before the game even started; card denial is limited to winning the split; sometimes you can flexibly open preparing for either slog or rush; and then you have Duchy dancing and three-pile-control.

In Ascension, you play more on a turn by turn basis - you grind the margins, each turn you try to find the balance between scoring more points than your opponent, making your opponent score less than you on his next turn (card denial is HUGELY important), and cutting your losses to set yourself up for more point scoring later (either gambling on favourable center row draws or buying cards that allow you to control the center row). Go with the flow, continuously adjust to the current conditions and to the opponent.

Both are a different beast, I like both.

Then I return to the >2 players problem of Ascension:
Inherently, each turn you're trying to do better than the player who went before you, and you're trying to set things up so things suck for the player after you. In two player games, the player before and after you is the very same player, so it's all fine and dandy. With more than two, however, you respond to one player, while making a third player respond to you. Your influence on any other players is negligible. This means that the player who sits behind the worst player has a distinct advantage. Which sucks.

For 4 (or 6) player games they did come up with a fix: TEAM GAMES! In this you play in player order A1-B1-A2-B2, and add the scores for team A and team B at the end of the game (but each player has a separate deck during the game!). You can choose to pay extra to send the card you bought to your team mates deck rather than your own. This sounds awesome, but since everybody I play with wants to play Dominion, I haven't been in the position to try it. Oh well. It's not like I'm not having fun with Dominion. My 5 province - 2 Duchy HoP megaturn of two days ago certainly was enjoyable...:)

4
qbba, I sent you a PM.

eHalcyon, yep, Nederlands <--> Dutch; Deutsch <--> German. Yes, it is confusing; must have been a cock-up in Medieval times that was never fixed. Thanks for the tip on the app.

5
Dominion: Guilds Previews / Re: Preview #4: Butcher
« on: July 29, 2013, 05:59:05 am »
this will probably be the first remodel variant which in the german version has not ***bau in its name

remodel - umbau
upgrade - anbau
rebuild - neubau
remake - nachbau
develop - aufbau
expand - ausbau
butcher - Metzger/Fleischer/Schlachter?

And now every time I play Develop, I will think of electron configurations.

I love this forum. I don't remember any I've visited where someone would actually get this joke, let alone where somebody else posts it! +1 for you!

6
IRL, I used to own two sets (base + seaside) and I have been using the randomizer cards for kingdom generation. Recently, we added cornucopia to the mix. Now, the stack of randomizers starts to become unmanageable. Or in the least, a nuisance.

So I downloaded two (free :)) Dominion randomizer apps to our iPad. Thing is, we're from Holland and our card names are in Dutch. Both randomizer apps I downloaded don't seem to support Dutch card names. I could of course translate, but an app with Dutch language support would be better.

Does anybody know of a kingdom generator app that has Dutch language support? Preferably for iOS, but if it's for Android, post anyway - I don't have a smartphone yet (no, really), but my current mobile phone is starting to fall apart, quite literally, after about a decade of loyal service. So Android might come to our house in the somewhat near future. That, and someone searching the forum for an Android randomizer app might find this topic. Sometimes I ramble.

7
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to have see my Ironworks about making me some Silver.

Yet, for some inexplicable reason, Ironworks is not in Alchemy.

8
Mama always told me be careful who you love, be careful what who you do, because a lie becomes the truth

FTFY

9
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Dominion - What Happens Next?
« on: July 15, 2013, 06:06:30 am »
Donald has stated that he would consider doing spin-offs. As in, a set of Dominion cards that reference a component of some kind (e.g. a board); but contained in its own little game, incompatible with other Dominion sets, such that every game with this set would actually involve said component. His rationale was that he wanted to avoid the scenario where you have to set up this new component thingamajig, only to find out that this game turned out as a wharf-BM vs. witch-BM match, and nobody bought the card that used the fancy new component and the whole thing goes back in the box unused after the game.

So I voted the reboot option.

10
General Discussion / Re: Tour de France 2013
« on: July 10, 2013, 06:32:12 am »
And also the psychology in the bunch in the flat stages:
Lotto, Quick-Step, Argos and Cannondale all want the OTHER teams to chase the breakaway group, so they have fresher guys at the end themselves. I wonder whether teams ever consult game theorists?

Indeed, in flat stages, I either have the radio or a live-ticker on, or I have the TV on, but muted while doing something else. I just glance every now and then which team is taking the lead, to try and guess who is feeling good today.

11
General Discussion / Tour de France 2013
« on: July 10, 2013, 04:48:52 am »
I know, I know, Tour Dopage, EPO, all books about Lance Armstrong have been moved to the "fiction" section, etc. Any "cheating in sports" comments in a different thread please; I'd say RSP forum is the place for that, it being an ethical discussion and all that...

-------------------

Anybody here watch cycling? I have been loving it all my life, I grew up watching Indurain take 5 Tour wins in a row (though I was too young to understand it fully), I saw McEwen do his wheelie on top of Alpe d'Huez at the end of his time trial there, I saw cool attacks, big losses, big wins, and have been annoyed at the Schlecks for years. Which is good, because any sports event needs an enemy!

This year is awesome! I saw a few really nice sprints, with lots of different winners, I saw great team work by team Cannondale to gift Sagan a victory (well done!), Team Sky's power trip in the first mountain stage was memorable, Team Sky's utter FAIL in the second mountain stage was just as memorable (though Froome defended well), and the Dutchies are doing well! Whoo-hoo! Ten Dam and Mollema in top5; what a luxury! And then also, the Argos boys (Dutch team, German sprinters) taking two stages already, showing off how good they really are at the sprinting game! And finally, finally, FINALLY, after years of being annoyed at the pathetic appearances of the Dutch riders, also attacks! No stage victories for us (yet), but at least they are in the picture BEFORE the winner has crossed the finish line!

Cav was an asshat yesterday though. At least he eventually apologized....

12

"Sir, we've established a village on the borders of our territory."
"Hmm, we need someone to govern it. Better appoint some Nobles."

"But Sir, the Nobles require too high of a salary."
"You're right.  Let's put the Witch over there instead and let her have at it."

"Oh no, this will turn into a Rabble...."

--------------

"Don't worry, I'll send my Minion"

--------------

"Well, too bad for the people there, I then only have this Torturer available"

--------------

(I think this one has run its course. Thing is, I'm not a funny guy, so I have no replacement available, anybody?)

13
Dominion: Guilds Previews / Re: 5/3 Openings
« on: July 03, 2013, 09:52:30 am »
Would double pirate ship be good?
Pirate ship is typically too slow to achieve high enough value, AND you clear the opponent's copper. But if you have two, and they don't collide, the additional build up speed might just make it viable.

How about double moneylender?

I might even consider [powerful $5] / chancellor....

14
General Discussion / Re: Americans and draws
« on: May 31, 2013, 02:53:58 am »
The core difference between US sports and Euro sports is that US sports are about drama.

Whereas in the US, drama happens between teams, in Europe, apparently it happens between fans...

:D

But anyway, Euro sports are just as much about drama. It's just that drama != goals. The pushing and shoving and holding and pinching in the goal area before a corner kick in soccer is drama. The pushing and shoving and holding and pinching to obtain a good position for the final sprint in cycling is drama. (hey, that sounds similar :)) Someone setting a good time in speed skating, and then having to wait for 20 more contestants to finish their races, showing faster split times but ending slower is drama (though arguably, the US had the best speed skater ever with Eric Heiden, and also Shani Davis kicks ass). The tension before a penalty corner in field hockey is drama.

It's not really clear to me what works where - basketball and hockey have all the right ingredients to be popular in the Netherlands - but they aren't. Basketball is popular more in the south of Europe; hockey more in the north and east. Field hockey and soccer have all the ingredients to be popular in the US - but they aren't. For some reason there is only one tiny little country in the northwest of Europe that seems to care much about speed skating, and then one larger but less populated that sort of cares (the US has more golds but less total medals. Oh, and roughly 20 times higher population.)

15
General Discussion / Re: Americans and draws
« on: May 30, 2013, 07:29:48 am »
I went to a Phillies game. A friend of a friend, upon hearing I was from Europe, asked if I liked soccer. I responded, "I'm from Europe, duh." He said, "I can't bear watching that, watching a whole game hoping to see only a few worthwile moments."

"Yet here we are, at a baseball game."


I can totally appreciate the fact that some sports are an acquired taste. Supposedly, when you really know all that's going on (rather than a general understanding of the rules), baseball can be incredibly tense to watch. So I have been told. I found the actual Phillies game in question incredibly boring. The other tens of thousands of spectators disagreed. Nevertheless, we had a lot of fun that night.

I can actually "get" that if soccer is not part of your sports culture, it will be difficult to appreciate.

-----------------

Ties make soccer more interesting. For large disparity between teams, a tie will be experienced as a sort-of-win for the lower ranked team, and as a loss for the higher ranked team. In soccer, large disparities are very common, even within leagues. There is a >10-times difference in budget between teams in the highest Dutch soccer league, last year it ranged between 62 and 5 million Euros. A similar difference can be found in European matches, where top teams have budgets up to about half a billion; in some extreme cases more than the entire budget of the richest Dutch team is spent on individual players.... Playing for a draw is pretty much often the only chance for success.

16
General Discussion / Re: Americans and draws
« on: May 30, 2013, 02:58:55 am »
Americans don't know what sports rivalry is. You have to have seen a line of mounted riot police charge straight at you to really appreciate sports rivalry. (to this day, I do not know how I managed to jump a fence that high as an evasive maneuver, while peeing myself) (and I wasn't even "in" the riot - I was just not paying attention and wandered straight into it...)

Actually, I really do think Americans have it right, by the way. You really should be able to attend any sports match without fear of getting your skull cracked.

17
Dominion Articles / Re: Save the Hovels!
« on: May 30, 2013, 02:47:44 am »
[snip]...and that extra card less *could* have made a big difference.  After writing all this, I could see some benefit to keeping the Hovel, but only in games where I'm likely to have several reshuffles AFTER I've started buying endgame victory cards.

Up to the point where you draw {hovel/estate} in the turn where you buy a province, there is no difference.
From this point forward, if you have trashed the hovel for an estate, each time you draw the Estate, you effectively minion-ed yourself (you drew a random hand of 4 instead of 5). This only matters if that 5-th card would have sent you over the {8, 13, 16, 21, etc.} coin threshold with {1, 2, 2, 3, etc.} buys respectively.

(Does this comment help anyone one bit in playing better? Nope. My excuse: I suck. :))

18
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Almost always the best strategy
« on: May 27, 2013, 01:53:18 am »
1) kidnap opponent's wife and/or children
2) photograph kidnapped subject while holding them at knifepoint with phone
3) play until opponent appears to be winning
4) grab phone, browse to picture, show to opponent
5) win
6) clean up the game by putting all kingdom, treasure and victory cards in the respective slots in the box, putting the box on its respective position on the shelf, executing all witnesses, and taking forensic countermeasures when disposing of the corpses.

19
Dominion Articles / Re: Counting House
« on: May 24, 2013, 05:37:14 am »
How about adding this:
You may discard 3 coppers. If you do, +action.

I think that would increase the power of the Counting House tremendously, while keeping it interesting. The extra action will seriously increase combo-ability; not just Coppersmith, but also e.g. cellar to find your village (scoop up all the coppers, discard 3 to be able to play the cellar, dump the rest of the coppers, hey, there's my village/smithy combo, my engine just fired!),  you can play a terminal +buy card, etc. There is no self synergy, because you could of course play another CH to scoop those 3 coppers back up, but that has no net effect.

I'm not sure whether 3 is the right number to discard, it might need to be higher or lower to find the balance between "irrelevant" and "totally overpowered".

Also, I really think adding any kind of +buy (even with discarding of a number of coppers) will make the card too powerful; or at least boring. (i.e. I would expect it to be: "buy province, counting house or copper, whichever you can afford with each buy. Standard BM rules for buying Duchies apply." Perhaps a cap on the number of counting houses.)

20
First, you donate money and Estates to the church in the Chapel, in the hopes of being blessed with a highly productive populace. After a while though, it becomes eerily clear that the dominant religion in Dominion-Land definitely isn't catholicism; when the Chancellor, Baron and Coppersmith wander into the Chapel, only to disappear forever...

21
Other Games / Re: Suggestions?
« on: May 15, 2013, 02:55:51 am »
Main reason I don't like Munchkin and Killer Bunnies is that in every game I played (granted, 2 or 3 of each), at least one player got killed, tried to enter the game again, drew something ridiculous that killed him again, and so on, for a significant part of the game. Basically, that player was just waiting for other players to finish their turns, after which he couldn't do anything in his own turn, rinse, repeat. Even though eventually the player will get out of the rut, and even have a chance of winning, it pretty much just means that this player is WAITING rather than PLAYING through (part of) the game. Not too much fun, if you ask me. I'd much rather play Bohnanza, Take5!, Pickomino, heck even a kids game like Chicken Cha Cha Cha: at least everybody is actually PLAYING through the whole game.

22
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.
« on: May 14, 2013, 05:40:04 am »
In the rules forum it was noted that some of the rules were mistranslated. I asked a question about that but it got snowed under, and perhaps it is better here.

Sometimes stuff gets mistranslated - I think it's a bad thing (who doesn't) but hey, people are people and mistakes happen.

But in some game translations, entire sections of rulebooks are altered, removed and/or added. Not just for Dominion, but I remember seeing it for other games as well.
Donald, could you tell us a bit about how the translating business works? I can't imagine that game designers such as yourself rejoice in translators changing the rules; but this has to balance with you probably not being able to verify the translations yourself (simply because it is impossible or at least impractical for you to learn every language in existance) and publishers probably simply not having the resources to explore every nook and cranny of game-rulesets. Who OK's the translations? etc. etc.

I tried to leave the question as non-judgemental as I could on purpose, to open up the possibility for you to share as much as you can without pissing off the game publishers your income depends on :)

23
Rules Questions / Re: bad (Dutch) translations & rules
« on: May 13, 2013, 06:21:14 am »
"Prozession" is Procession, and it's mostly the same. It only lacks one word. In the german translation, Procession says "Nimm dir eine Karte, die genau eins mehr kostet" (Gain a card costing exactly 1 more) instead of "Gain an ACTION card costing exactly 1 more". Of course this makes it possible to Procession Witch and gain a Gold after that. Even worse: They repeated the mistake in the manual and even added an example turn in which a "Herzogtum"(Duchy) is gained with Procession. Not to mention they used it to replace the sample turn part of the english rules where Procession fails to gain an Action card costing 6$.
Worst, you can't notice the error on your own, as nothing implies translation problems. Only thing is an Errata on their german web page...


Mistranslations are one thing; translating stuff is difficult, people make mistakes. translating +action as +buy (in OP) is a pretty big one though...

But coming up with whole new sections of rules... Who OK's adding stuff to the rules rather than just translating 1-to-1? I would imagine that a translator would check this kind of thing with the game designer? Yet, I can't imagine Donald X. approving this... EDIT: I put this last bit in a question in the "interview with Donald X." thread, I think that's a better place for it.

24
Other Games / Re: Suggestions?
« on: May 07, 2013, 02:43:05 am »

Dixit isn't my favorite game in the world, but if everyone else wants to play a party game, I find Dixit to be better than Apples to Apples and other stuff like that, and they like Dixit just as much, so I would recommend it.
+1

Settlers of Catan is always a good one.

Carcassonne improves a lot if you add the first expansion (and degrades slowly as you add more :))

I have a card game called Take5!; in Germany it's called 6Nimmt!; I don't know about other countries; but it is extremely simple to explain, and really fun to play while remaining challenging and still working for up to 10 players.

Trans America is fun, simple to explain and fun with groups up to 6. And it has a train theme; even though the game is nothing like Ticket to Ride, the theme might convince people to at least try it :)

Pickomino is kinda fun http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/15818/pickomino

St. Petersburg might also be worth looking into. Only allows up to 4, but is great fun and not too complicated.

25
Other Games / Re: Terminology
« on: May 01, 2013, 10:23:22 am »
BTW, a less serious suggestion would be "LanceArmstrong". You would have to include injection needles, EPO ampoules and bags of blood in the components though.

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