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Messages - Arctic Penguin

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1
Dominion Online at Shuffle iT / Re: "Features" threads
« on: April 28, 2016, 03:23:32 am »
3.  Ability to select "timed game" as an option.  One way to implement a "timed game" would be to enable the players to set a base time (i.e, 5 minutes, whatever), and an increment (i.e., 2 seconds).  Each player starts with the base time, and during his or her turn, it ticks down, while being increased by the increment with every action taken.  So the opponents' base time is the "dead time" I'm willing to invest in the game, since the increments offset the time spent by the opponent actually playing and taking action.  Players could even set separate (personal) base times and increments (perhaps as a profile setting), and the matching feature could enable the ability to accept only opponents meeting a chosen threshold for base time / increment.  In this way, players could be operating with different starting "base and increment" times, while all players are satisfied with the timing setting.

In my oppinion a timer should not be a standard feature for Dominion. It can be something like a special add-on, but the way Dominion is designed doesn't really fit a timer.
I think a lot of you are a bit influenced by chess, where timers work great since every move (not the thinking about it, but the move itself) takes almost the exact same amount of time. In Dominion, however, the difference between resolving Smithy and Scrying Pool can be huge. This means (and you've seen this with the Blitz feature in the MMF mod) that a timer greatly influences the strength of certain cards and the viability of certain strategies, which is not really the point of a timer.

Well, the idea is that *every* action you take during your turn would trigger the increment.  So every time you play Scrying Pool on your turn, you trigger the increment.  Every time you play Smithy, you trigger the increment.  This way, it does not matter which cards are in the kingdom; it just matters that play proceeds with reasonable flow, even if entire turns vary drastically in terms of their actual length.  Both a quick Smithy turn and a lengthy Scrying Pool turn would result in (approximately) the same time remaining in the bank, if the player plays both turns with the same pace.
Your turn:
Play Cartographer (+5 seconds), draw card, look at top 4 cards, decide which to discard, rearrange the rest (takes 8 seconds)
Play Scrying Pool (+5 seconds), decide on opponent's card, decide on own card, draw a shitload of cards (takes 5 seconds)
Net: -3 seconds

My turn:
Play Village (+5 seconds), draw card (takes 1 second)
Play Smithy (+5 seconds), draw 3 cards (takes 1 second)
Net: +8 seconds
Although it's not common in chess, I think delays would work a lot better than increments in Dominion. With a delay, the clock freezes for a short amount of time after a move but extra time is never added to your total. With a ~3 second delay after every decision, the clock won't count down while you are making simple decisions but will when you are making more complicated ones. The Cartographer/Scrying Pool player loses very little time drawing their deck because they are making so many decisions that the clock is frozen for most of their turn and the Village/Smithy player doesn't gain any time by making a simple engine because unused time isn't added back to their clock. They each end up having close to the same amount of time to make the big decisions like what to buy. Some strategies will obviously still require a lot more thinking time to play, but with a sufficiently long time control (15 minute time bank per player + X minutes increment added per turn + Y seconds delay per "decision") I don't think it would make any decks unplayable.

In any case, it doesn't sound like this is something that many people want. It would definitely need to be optional and that might end up splitting the player pool and increasing the wait to find a game. Maybe it's something worth experimenting with a bit down the line if there are a lot of players.

2
Dominion Online at Shuffle iT / Re: Creating Dominion
« on: April 22, 2016, 02:19:42 pm »
I'm very excited to see how good online Dominion can be when people who actually care about and understand the game have the chance to design it. I'm not sure if you're looking for any feedback, but here is some anyway.

I'm not big on monthly fees because I'm not likely to play daily or even weekly, but $3 is a monthly price that I would probably pay just to play some Dominion in the short term.  If you have to go a lot higher, maybe you could offer a lower price for a limited number of games. You might also consider ad supported and limited games for non-subscribers as a way to encourage new users to try the game.

Statistics! I'd love to see something like the old CouncilRoom stats return now that you have a chance to rewrite the code and logs in an intelligent way. If they were really detailed and organized they might even encourage me to pay a recurring fee just to explore the stats even if I play most Dominion games offline.

Timed games. You mentioned this in the post, but I just want to say this is pretty important for me. I'd like to know before I see the Kingdom that I'm not going to be stuck playing for an hour against a slow opponent. Clever use of increments or delays (i.e. the clock freezes for ~1 second after you perform an action) can probably keep even action heavy decks viable. Another thing that might work well for Dominion is an hourglass time control (you time out if you've used X minutes more than your opponent total) so if a board heavily favors an action heavy strategy that both players feel obligated to go for the total game time scales with them.

Mostly I'm just happy to see that the people making online Dominion are finally willing and able to innovate. I'm really looking forward to seeing what new ideas you come up with. Best of luck!

3
Without doing anything automated and just to get a very rough estimate, I glanced through 57 pro games between Stef and Mic Qsenoch. There were 20 resignations, 19 three pile endings, and 18 emptied Provinces/Colonies. It's hard to say if the resignations would have split differently if they were played out. It seems like a 50:50 breakdown is a pretty good rough estimate for high level games, but obviously that could vary a lot depending on each person's playing style.

4
Goko Dominion Online / Re: Gokoins/payment discussion
« on: April 21, 2015, 02:59:29 pm »
Since we're talking about ways for Dominion Online to make money post new version and Adventures, I think I'd pay for some new themes, especially if there was a minimalist theme of some kind. Maybe with a simpler background and a cleaner display of useful information. I guess you could argue such a theme should just be free by default, but perhaps the current theme is more appealing to new players and that's what you want as a default. In any case, I'd be happy to pay for a new one, if it looked nice.

5
Dominion: Adventures Previews / Re: Adventures on Wiki
« on: April 20, 2015, 08:51:41 pm »
I wasn't sure if high image quality or English was a priority, but the English versions of Scouting Party and Quest are up now. Most of them will need to be replaced soon anyway once someone can scan the cards.

6
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Ranking Events
« on: April 18, 2015, 01:31:47 pm »
I think they really have to be mixed in with the other cards. There are so few events at each price that ranking all of them together would be very difficult and probably not very useful. It's already hard comparing powerful cards like Chapel and King's Court directly; if the cost is not at least close then the rank doesn't provide much value. Events aren't so different from a card like Pillage that has an effect for one turn and then leaves your deck. It makes more sense to me to rank the effect each card/event has at each price, whether it enters your deck for the rest of the game, for one play, or not at all.

7
The rules are up! I guess Pacific time has its perks occasionally.

EDIT: The wiki now has most of the information and low res images from the rules if you're interested in browsing the cards.

8
There's a relatively new Android app, Jack of All Dominion, that I think looks very nice. It's the only app I've found that includes all of the card text (not the art), which can come in handy when you're playing with people who haven't memorized all the cards and the Kingdom is facing away from them. It has a nifty little VP counter if you can't live without one of those. It has all the published recommended Kingdoms. It has all the Promos and even already includes 13 of the previewed Adventures cards.

9
Goko Dominion Online / Re: strange rating again
« on: April 09, 2015, 03:44:30 pm »
If you're going to be making fun of the online version, you should at least get the name right. They even changed it into a mnemonic, and still no one remembers...

Can someone explain this rating?
Just had a game, where the player with about 4100 goko points quit just before finish. I was in front (my score is 3990) and the second player (about 3850) was second.
Player:    Rank: VPs:    Turns:    Quit?
eellzzss    2nd    31    19    
papadjango    1st    39    19    
Instant Moniker    3rd    27    19    Quit

I only got 2(two!) points for my victory!?
Because of the quit? Or why?
According to this thread it looks like you were awarded a win over the quitting player, Instant Moniker, but shared 1st with eellzzss. Perhaps the rating system counted it as the sum of a win over Instant Moniker and a draw/loss to eellzzss because he/she started after you?

10
I like the option to "Pick 5 from 2 sets" whether it has a separate rating or not. If Dominion Online does implement this, it seems better if the cards are chosen to maintain roughly the same odds of seeing a specific card across all sets. Instead of "Pick 2 sets, then pick 5 cards from each set" it could be something like "Pick 2 cards, then pick 4 other cards from the sets of the original 2". Otherwise, you'll be seeing any given Cornucopia, Guilds, or Alchemy card twice as often as a card from a standard sized set, and almost 3 times as often as a Dark Ages card. If you don't weight the set selection by card count, then a Cornucopia card like Tournament will appear in ~7.7% of all games, while a Dark Ages card will appear in ~2.8%.

11
Hmm, how can we find a use for Estate Maps... Well it's a stretch but here goes!

Your opponent goes for Treasure Maps and then Embargoes them multiple times after getting two. You set up a Market Square megaturn, but there's no trashing available and buying a Treasure Map will waste a turn and clog your deck with curses. On a 7$ hand, you buy Inheritance to turn your Estates into Treasure Maps so you can trash them to activate a big hand full of Market Squares. You draw your deck with Storytellers and trash one Estate Map at a time to discard all of your Market Squares for lots of Gold. Then you spend 3 Golds and another Storyteller to draw 10 cards, mostly your discarded Market Squares and newly gained Golds. You repeat this until you run out of Storytellers or Estate Maps and then you end the game with tons of money and all of your extra Market Square buys.

12
Dominion: Adventures Previews / Re: Champion and Teacher speculation
« on: April 07, 2015, 04:14:48 pm »
I can't pass up the chance for idle speculation even if it means being laughed at.

I think it would be neat if each level of Traveller has similar vanilla effects. The Page to Champion line could all be terminal silvers of increasing power that have a monetary theme and the Peasant to Teacher line could all be card drawers (or maybe cantrips) of increasing power that have a similar theme. They've had a life full of adventures, but deep down you can still see a little bit of the Page in that daring Champion. On the one hand, it makes sense to not have Travellers exchanged for other cards that play drastically different roles in your deck, that way you'd almost always want to exchange for the next best Traveller. On the other hand, if Travellers in the same line do play different roles then it adds some interesting decisions, like do I exchange away the only village or card draw or +Buy in the kingdom just to get to the strongest level.

13
If you ever play with designed kingdoms or use an app then it will be a lot easier to find a specific Event out of a separate 20 card pile than in a massive 256 card randomizer pile. Even though I sometimes use the physical randomizer deck, I was already a bit hesitant to mix in the Events.

14
Dominion: Adventures Previews / Re: Teasers!
« on: April 01, 2015, 03:13:58 pm »
With 3 uses of "game" left, perhaps there's room for other permanent Durations with simple effects. +1 Action for the rest of the game seems pretty strong, but might make for fun games like playing with Fishing Villages. +$1 for the rest of the game could be pretty handy in a long slog, and you've got some nice symmetry with Wharf:Merchant Ship, Hireling:Recruit(?). Maybe +1 Action forever is too strong and +1$ forever is not useful enough? They both seem like they could work at the right price.

15
Do Reserve cards still hanging out in the Tavern go back into your deck at the end of the game to count for Vineyards, Fairgrounds, and Gardens?

16
I could be way off, but it seems like there are times you might want to get lots of Magpies early when you have a high density of treasures and they more often function as labs (or at least gain you a $4 cantrip). Then later in the game in decks where you have gotten rid of most of your treasures and the Magpie pile is empty, they are basically just cantrips and you can use Trash for Benefit cards on them like Rats (without the extra on-trash effect). This works much better when Magpie costs $4 rather than $2, which seems like the same argument for making Rats $4.

17
Goko Dominion Online / Re: Features Thread
« on: March 30, 2015, 11:15:29 pm »
Here are a few Salvager features that I really hope make it into the new version 1.0:

1. Logs displayed on the side that don't require clicking a pop-up. It's also great that they are CTRL+F searchable in Salvager so you don't have to spend time searching manually for that one thing you forgot.
2. Optional point tracking.
3. An easy way to enter custom Kingdoms for Casual games. I don't like the built in Deck Builder tool; it takes too long to find each card. I love the Salvager Kingdom generator where you can just copy and paste a fun Kingdom you found in text form. It's also nice to specify extra conditions when choosing the Kingdom, for example do you want at least 3 cards from Alchemy, or at least 1 Attack. (See this page: https://github.com/aiannacc/Goko-Salvager/wiki/Kingdom-Generator).

18
Dominion: Adventures Previews / Re: Preview: Storyteller
« on: March 30, 2015, 09:11:49 pm »
Quote
You are rich with life experiences, but have had trouble trading them for goods and services.

I suppose this line in the Flavor Text refers to Storyteller. She's sharing all her life experiences but never making any money to spend on goods and services.  :'(

She does know how to draw a crowd though.

19
Dominion: Adventures Previews / Re: Preview: Storyteller
« on: March 30, 2015, 08:02:25 pm »
Would Storyteller + Masterpiece work as the foundation of a deck? As long as you have a Storyteller in hand, your Silvers become Labs. With a sufficient number of Storytellers in your deck, it's almost like getting a Lab for every coin you overpay when buying Masterpiece. Once you've drawn your deck, you should have roughly half your Silvers remaining for spending money.

Lining up 2 Storytellers with 6 Silvers is enough to draw a 19 card deck on its own, counting the 8 cards you have to spend before your buy phase. If your deck is already mostly Silver with a pinch of Masterpieces, +Buys, extra Storytellers, and other cards, the remaining 11 cards are likely enough to double Province. Lining up 3 Storytellers with 9 Silvers is enough to draw a 26 card deck on its own. If your deck is flooded with Silvers from Masterpiece, and has extra Storytellers, getting close to this doesn't seem too far fetched. As a bonus, your remaining 14 card hand is likely to have a lot of money in it from all those extra Silvers, money you can use to overpay for more Silvers from Masterpiece, buy more Storytellers, buy multiple Provinces, or three pile. Since your deck has so many cards, a few Provinces may not even get in the way all that much, and you can probably continue to double Province for a few turns.

You'll likely need extra Storytellers (i.e. more than you are actually going to use each turn) to maintain a reasonably high density of them and reduce the chance of drawing hands without one. If you have one Storyteller per 5 total cards, then you should have a ~67% chance of getting at least one with your first 5 cards, and with enough Silver in your deck a ~75% of hitting the second one in a row. Alternatively, it may help if there's a way to make sure you always start your hand with a Storyteller (Haven, Scheme, Cellar, Warehouse, Inn, Watchtower, etc).

Synergies:
Scheme guarantees you a storyteller to start your next turn, and with a few schemes storyteller becomes very reliable with even more Silver.
Haven saves those extra Storytellers you didn't use to kick-start your next hand.
Sifters like Cellar and Warehouse also seem great for sifting out your Storytellers from your Silvers to line up multiple Storytellers in a row.
Forager gets you the +Buy, helps trash your coppers and estates away, and even fuels the storyteller draw by quickly being worth $3 (Copper + Masterpiece + Silver).
Golem helps you skip over the silver and hit multiple Storytellers in a row.
Extra non-terminal draw cards, like Stables, can make dead turns even less likely.

20
Dominion: Adventures Previews / Re: Preview: Storyteller
« on: March 30, 2015, 03:59:23 pm »
Does Storyteller + Philosopher's Stone work or is it too hard to line them up early enough in your turn? Normally, Philosopher's Stone gets you a decent amount of money but you can't do much with it because you can't draw your deck without making the Stones useless when you enter the buy phase. With Storyteller, you can play those Stones early when they are still worth something, and use that extra money to draw your deck.

If you have a sifter like Cellar or Warehouse, you can line up your Stones with Storyteller hopefully before you play or draw too many cards. If you have a Vault, Secret Chamber or Storeroom, and enough villages, then you can use them with Storyteller to line up Storytellers and Stones while still leaving plenty of cards in your deck and discard pile to power up the Stones. Then, once you've drawn most of your deck with Storyteller/Stone, you can use Vault/Secret Chamber/Storeroom to discard all the junk you drew for some economy as you enter the buy phase.

If you can line up a hand with Storyteller + 3 Philosopher's Stones, then you can draw 3/5 of your remaining cards without really wasting any money (the Stones will be useless once you've drawn your deck anyway). Even if you only get one Stone with the Storyteller the first time around, you can still draw more than 1/5 of your deck, which may be enough to line up a second Storyteller with some remaining Stones or else get you some other drawing cards. In a game with lots of junking and/or large decks (perhaps Vineyards, since you've already got a Potion lying around), maybe that could make some nice engine-like turns from what might otherwise be a slog?

21
Dominion Articles / Re: The Haiku Card Challenge
« on: March 27, 2015, 08:48:38 pm »
Here are some Haikus about cards in use. See if you can guess the card and situation described.

Wishing Well
Atop wooden deck
You spy me, peer inside, and
Wish for more wishes.

Tournament
O' landed knight come
Claim thyne prize! To puzzled looks
You choose horse, not gold.

Torturer
Once fear'd tormentor,
Thy rival mutters curses.
Alas, they've run out.

Shanty Town
Night finds you alone,
In a dismal town. Fearful,
You call for more friends.

Harem
Poor choices brought you,
Still, you wonder, why pay to
Be objectified?

Lighthouse
On the horizon,
Hope shines bright. To spectral ship
You say, "Not today!"

Transmute
Alchemists dream of
Making gold from lesser coin,
Instead, get more junk.

22
Goko Dominion Online / Re: Goko Dominion Salvager Discussion
« on: March 12, 2015, 08:06:20 pm »
The new viewer links using http work perfectly for me.

23
Goko Dominion Online / Re: Goko Dominion Salvager Discussion
« on: March 12, 2015, 07:04:04 pm »
In Chrome, the Salvager log viewer using "https://" started triggering a warning that says "This page is trying to load scripts from unauthenticated sources." I don't remember this happening until a few weeks ago. If you click the shield on the right of the address bar and allow it to "Load unsafe scripts" then the everything works fine. Alternatively, if you visit the viewer link at "http://" instead of "https://" then it works as well. Otherwise you just see a message that says "Loading" and no log.

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