Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

1

Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: Band of Misfits rules questions

« on: August 15, 2012, 07:49:18 pm »

Let me start by saying that I don't think this particular situation is probably going to come up a lot, but it's a good discussion to have nonetheless.

I think a lot of the issue comes from assuming that TR/BoM/Feast can be resolved by examining TR/BoM and BoM/Feast and then combining them, and I don't think that's correct. We can see that if we Throne Room BoM with any card that doesn't trash itself (Bishop, say) that's exactly the same as TRing a Bishop. No problem, it's clear from the card wording. We can also see from using BoM on Feast that it stops being a Feast as soon as we trash it. But in the specific case of Tr/BoM/Feast I think it works a little bit differently...

TR: we play 1 card twice. Note that it's "THIS card" and not "THIS BoM" which we can see from the usual TR/BoM interaction. We also fully resolve the first play before we do anything on the second play, standard TR stuff.
BoM: resolving this card fully means that it becomes Feast for as long as it's in play.
Feast: resolving this card fully means that BoM is no longer in play, which means it's back to BoM again. Right? So when we start to resolve the second part of TR... remember, we're not resolving "THIS BoM" or even "THIS BoM which is now exactly the same as Feast" but "THIS card" which happens, at the time we resolve it, to be BoM again. It's wonky, but TR/Feast has always been kind of wonky, so this just amplifies that.

My takeaway is that, in the unlikely event that you drew TR/BoM, had Feast AND ANOTHER <$5 card on the board that you wanted to play instead of Feast... you probably could. But if it gets ruled differently I'll play that way. I still don't think I understand all of the Trader corner cases so we can just add on to that pile.

2

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Handicapping

« on: November 10, 2011, 01:25:52 pm »

Have you thought about pre-selecting Kingdom cards? I can't think of any examples off the top of my head that really level the playing field (Tournament? Various Attack cards?) but it seems like there should be some. Or you can sit alternating experienced and inexperienced players, and then put cards like Smugglers, Tribute, and Possession out.

Another way you could hinder yourself without giving your friends too much of a benefit would be to select cards that play differently in multi-player Dominion. It's often forgotten on these boards, but the game isn't always 1v1. Cards like Jester play completely differently when there's a lot of players around. Masquerade isn't quite as obvious, but it's a little less predicatable with 4 than with 2.

3

Dominion Articles / Re: Goons engine: Consistent 20 VP Chip each turn!

« on: October 23, 2011, 12:36:21 pm »

And I learned that it is much slower than KC-Wharf +Goons+Scheme. It s not funny, it can just draw the whole deck every time, it doesn't even need golem. And it s very fast and easy to build. It s also able to end pile quick.

Nice! Except that it shouldn't work. Scheme is "if you discard" which means it doesn't apply to duration cards like Wharf, or cards that are currently modifying a duration card like KC. It would be super-powerful to be able to snag your KC/Wharf back into your hand after throwing it off which is why Scheme doesn't allow it. You could probably make it work; you'd need to have an expiring Wharf and a KC that was played on something else, either Goons or Scheme, which makes it a bit more finicky.

4

Dominion Articles / Re: Goons engine: Consistent 20 VP Chip each turn!

« on: October 21, 2011, 01:33:43 pm »

I like what you're suggesting here but it's going to take forever to get going. KC is $7, Golem needs a potion (that you won't be doing anything with after you buy the Golem), Scheme is the only cheap card here and it's probably the one you want to buy last because the +Buy/+Coin you're getting from Goons is going to help you there. But I worry that by the time you can put it all together AND draw KC/Golem at the same time a BM deck will have stomped you.

I also like the idea of trying to break this down into different combos and seeing how strong they are and what substitutions they can gain. We can pretty much assume that "KC+" is always going to make any combo we find stronger; seeing Golem + Scheme is the new part

5

Other Games / Re: Are any Dominion inspired games worth playing?

« on: October 04, 2011, 06:42:06 pm »

To bump this thread:

I played Rune Age at GenCon, enjoyed it, but wouldn't say it's very Dominion-like. It's just a card version of RuneWars, which I also enjoy, but it plays faster. It's got the same advantage as that game in that each of the 4 factions plays differently while still being well-balanced, so if you try it and hate your guys you might like a different group.

I also played Blood Bowl Team Manager. Also awesome. Also not Dominion-like. Actually not Dominion-like at all; you have a "deck" and you "build" it by winning games but you don't see the cards before you gain them. As I understand this was initially a much closer DomClone but they playtested that out of it and now we have a fun game that plays much cleaner than the tabletop and will never make you think of Smithies.

6

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Best/Worst Openings discussion

« on: October 04, 2011, 05:18:29 pm »

I have the same aversion to turn-3 collision, but this thread is making me reconsider it. Remember: if your worst-case scenario is drawing amb/amb/C/C/E turn 3, you are still drawing amb.

As discussed above, there's roughly a 33% chance of a collision with 2 terminals. If that happens, you shrink your deck by 2 and increase your opponent's by 1. If not, you shrink by 4 and increase them by 2. In other words, amb/amb gives you an advantage of (1/3*3 + 2/3*6) = 5 cards. That's incredibly powerful.

Or, if you think better in words than in math (how did you end up here?) the payoff for best-case amb/amb is SO good that it's worth the non-trivial chance of getting an early collision.

7

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Decline of My Dominion Skills

« on: September 30, 2011, 10:34:40 am »

I thought about Dominion a lot while reading this:
http://www.cracked.com/article_19303_6-reasons-professional-poker-way-harder-than-it-looks.html
One point he keeps coming back to is that in order to get better you have to lose a lot, because you're playing against more skilled opponents. My Isotropic score has been dropping like a stone recently and I'm trying not to let it get to me. Some of what I'm doing is just bad play, some of it has been discussed earlier (not wanting to "play the Swindler game" and losing as a result), but some of it has just been playing at a different pace. I just got stomped in a Market/Grand Market/Tactician game because there were a few times where I had to choose between Province and GM and I chose wrong. But now I've got a better feel for the pace of that particular Kingdom and so (hopefully) I'll play better the next time I see that setup.

8

Game Reports / Re: How Many Mistakes Did I Make?

« on: September 26, 2011, 01:24:41 pm »

I open Monument/Silver and see that he goes Sea Hag/Silver. I decide not to play the Sea Hag game; instead I'm going to use Vault to skip over those Curses, get me up to Goons, and start hitting him with that. Was this Mistake #1?

Each play of a monument gains you a vp. Each play of the sea hag loses your opponent a vp. So the question is whether the +2$ acceleration from the monument is worth taking the curses into the deck.

Thanks! This is exactly the question that I didn't even know I needed to ask. Now that I see it I can evaluate the board better.

9

Game Reports / How Many Mistakes Did I Make?

« on: September 25, 2011, 01:39:11 pm »

It really felt like I was in this one until the end, but that might be generous:
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110923-071430-f904de03.html
It's not a great board, all terminal actions, but I keep thinking about it because my opponent and I took different strategies and his ended up paying off. I want to know if I lost because of luck, or if his was just clearly the better option.

I open Monument/Silver and see that he goes Sea Hag/Silver. I decide not to play the Sea Hag game; instead I'm going to use Vault to skip over those Curses, get me up to Goons, and start hitting him with that. Was this Mistake #1?

On Turn 7 I get $8 and pick up my first Province. With a deck this slow and no real way to speed it up other than Vault I'm not concerned about putting together a bunch of treasures. This might have been Mistake #2 but I think I made the right call. This is also a turn where he had (unbeknownst to me) a Goons/Sea Hag collision, which I cleverly avoided by skipping Sea Hag altogether. So at least he had to deal with that, but I don't think it hurt him much.

Turn 8 I pick up another terminal, I go with Monument over Sea Hag because I'm still concerned about money and I think this is going to be a close game; the victory chips could decide it. Mistake #3?

Second Province on turn 10 so I'm still pretty confident about what I'm doing. I know I'm going to slow down but I think I've built up enough of a lead to ride out the rest of the game. I am wrong. He gets his first Province immediately after, on his Turn 11.

It looks like the turning point was Turn 15, where he was able to switch over to Duchies and I only had enough to pick up a Courtyard. Still, I felt like I was in it until the end. Was I right?

Other observations: I bought a lot of Silver, and didn't use my Goons +Buy to get Copper/victory chips, which he started getting towards the end. I was still banking on getting enough $ in hand to get the last Province. Should I have backed off of the Silver early on, or ramped up on the Copper in the late game?

10

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Most/Least Fun Dominion Cards

« on: September 22, 2011, 04:29:51 pm »

I'll second Menagerie as a super-fun card. Drawing Menagerie/Menagerie/3 unique cards just fires all of the pleasure centers in my brain.

For me, Tournament is a super unfun card, but that's more because it makes the game about the race rather than how the physical manipulation of it works.

I do get a kick out of playing any village-style card if I'm playing with a real deck, because I'll lay cards over the ones I've played to track how many actions I've got left, and if I get a chain going I build up a lovely pyramid in front of me.

Another fun one to play is Watchtower, especially vs. Mountebank. Revealing it is basically considered an obscene gesture in my group.

11

Rules Questions / Re: Throne Room - Tactician

« on: September 07, 2011, 02:02:15 pm »

As an intellectual exercise, a friend was able to come up with a way to "double Tactician" (apologies if this has been covered before):

Golem>Tactician>Laboratory

This does rely on drawn Tactician + another card (so that you can still discard your hand) but we're clearly looking for edge cases here. And it opens up a whole line of similar effects, e.g. Golem>Tactician>Library (more reliable but it requires a Village before you set it off).

Now, I'm not sure how effective that is as a strategy... Tactician itself tends to be most useful either in the early game or when you've got a lot of Market-type cards that let you get a Buy phase after discarding your hand. But maybe someone clever will see an application.

12

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Compare the Smithies

« on: September 02, 2011, 07:56:30 pm »

It's odd; I'll often pick up Torturer or Rabble for the +3 Cards, considering the attack portion just a "kicker". But I never buy Smithy on its own. Maybe it's time to re-evaluate?

I hate Nobles. I hate it so much. It's the weakest action splitter out there, and it's only worth having if you have 2-3 of them in your hand at once. If it didn't put you so far behind on points I'd just ignore it, but you can't let the other guy take them all.

I agree with your assessment of Envoy: it's extremely powerful if your "good" cards and "bad" cards are roughly the same; otherwise it's very very dicey. As such it's best when combined with strong trashing or upgrade-type cards.

I generally avoid Council Room because it's great for me and good for my opponent and I'm not a fan of that; but then, I do play Bishop all the time and Vault pretty often. That said, Council Room can be really powerful, and needless to say it's the best of the "Smithies" to KC.

13

Game Reports / I Luck Into a Win Against a Clearly Superior Opponent

« on: August 26, 2011, 01:19:51 pm »

Had to share this, because it contains my personal Greatest Hand Ever:

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110823-200640-534b8208.html

Possession is one of those cards that gets more powerful the more skilled your opponent is compared to you, so of course I grabbed it ASAP.

And then... Turn 21.

King's Court/Possession. Nothing surprising, by itself.
...except that I managed to Island away his only Possession.
...and had a Moat in my hand, so I could keep playing his Rabble without hurting my next hand.
...and I King's Courted his Grand Market, allowing me to pick up 3 GMs of my own.

He made a valiant effort to repair the gap, but I managed to KC a GM and double Colony a few turns later and he resigned.

There is no chance I could ever pull this off again; it was purely a matter of drawing several cards at absolutely the best possible time, but I still think it's entertaining.