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1

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Strictly Better

« on: Today at 04:38:37 pm »

If on the other hand we are simply talking about a very general list of when it is appropriate to use the term "strictly better", then that's just a question of terminology, and not one of listing out different Dominion effects. For example, I recently responded to a fan card in the Weekly Fan Card Contest thread by saying it had an effect that was strictly weaker than another card because it required you to discard. I and the person I was responding to know that technically, discarding a card can be an advantage. But that wasn't relevant; we knew that it's normally a disadvantage; so there's no issue with using the term "strictly better" there.

And that's exactly what I've been arguing about the whole time here and in the argument that started this thread to begin with. What started that argument was my claim that + is strictly worse than reducing costs by , because the latter is normally a bigger advantage, so there shouldn't have been any problem with my statement.

Yeah and I was completely with you on that thread... I think it's fine to use "strictly better" in a casual context meaning "close enough to strictly better that it's bad card design to make it cost the same".

2

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Strictly Better

« on: Today at 04:20:19 pm »

I think we need a new term for what people often mean (or least what I do) when they say a card is strictly better than another

Well, according to this discussion, a Lost City without its on-gain effect isn't actually strictly better than a Lab and (ignoring the existence of Lost City) therefore doesn't actually need to cost more, but it clearly does.

Something doesn't have to be strictly better in order to have to cost more. Lab isn't strictly better than Woodcutter but it has to cost more.

Yes, but Lab would need to cost regardless of Woodcutter's existence. Before Poacher existed, most people agreed that a pure Peddler would be balanced at , and a pure Peddler would almost certainly be balanced at if Poacher didn't exist. Yet because of Poacher, a pure Peddler cannot exist since it would be strictly worse than Market and comparatively better than Poacher (Tunnels and draw to X might make you want to discard cards).

My point is, if an extreme edge case like Diadem + Storyteller is enough to disqualify a card from being strictly better than another, strictly better doesn't really mean anything because you could disprove most "strictly better/worse" pairs with enough mental gymnastics.

There's a reason that the other thread is in the puzzles subforum... because if being technical and pedantic, then determining what is strictly better or not includes thinking of ridiculous and obscure edge cases; an exercise that constitutes a puzzle.

If on the other hand we are simply talking about a very general list of when it is appropriate to use the term "strictly better", then that's just a question of terminology, and not one of listing out different Dominion effects. For example, I recently responded to a fan card in the Weekly Fan Card Contest thread by saying it had an effect that was strictly weaker than another card because it required you to discard. I and the person I was responding to know that technically, discarding a card can be an advantage. But that wasn't relevant; we knew that it's normally a disadvantage; so there's no issue with using the term "strictly better" there.

I guess my point is that there's 2 different discussions you could have. One is about a general terminology use, which it seems like this thread was intending to do. But in that discussion, there's no reason to list out the specific possible things you can add to a card to keep it strictly better. That sort of lists belongs in the other discussion; the one about puzzles.

3

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Strictly Better

« on: Today at 03:49:09 pm »

I think we need a new term for what people often mean (or least what I do) when they say a card is strictly better than another

Well, according to this discussion, a Lost City without its on-gain effect isn't actually strictly better than a Lab and (ignoring the existence of Lost City) therefore doesn't actually need to cost more, but it clearly does.

Something doesn't have to be strictly better in order to have to cost more. Lab isn't strictly better than Woodcutter but it has to cost more.

4

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Strictly Better

« on: Today at 03:30:15 pm »

I think we need a new term for what people often mean (or least what I do) when they say a card is strictly better than another

5

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Strictly Better

« on: Today at 03:29:36 pm »

Diadem forces you to convert all your Actions to .

This is not how Diadem works. You don't lose the Actions (which would matter in Villa Kingdoms). So more Actions are always betters than less.

I didn't mean literally "convert" as in lose the Actions; I just meant that you are forced to get the .

6

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: Today at 02:38:18 pm »

Here's my pure reaction card - with two choices.

The "Choose one" bit doesn't really make sense, because there's never a time when you are choosing which of the 2 options to do. Rather, when you gain a card, you can choose to react or not. And when an opponent plays an attack, you can choose to react or not. But you can never just choose one of those 2 options.

As for the functionality, it sounds like it's just a much weaker version of Watchtower. The second reaction is a strictly weaker version of Watchtower's reaction; both because you can't trash the incoming card and because you have to discard Secret Cove to do it; so you can't use it on multiple cards in the same turn. The first reaction seems very weak; a conditional one-shot that gains a Gold... even if it discarded instead of trashing itself that wouldn't be a strong effect.

And on top of that; Watchtower has an on-play ability and costs less.

7

Rules Questions / Re: Lying Treasurer

« on: Today at 02:35:32 pm »

I had wondered about that as well.  I noticed that on ShuffleiT there is an option to "do nothing" even if you don't already have the Key and there are Treasures both in the trash and your hand.  That seemed to be a minor mistake if each of the options is treated as mandatory once you've chosen it.

Really? That's very odd; the card wording is quite clear that "do nothing" is not an option that you have. And accountability isn't even an issue online; if you choose "trash a treasure from your hand" then the game can force you to actually do it.

I don't have the card myself, so I can't go back and check my memory, but from what I recall the interface shows all the treasures in the trash, highlights all the treasures in your hand, and has options for "Take the Key" and "Do Nothing" on the right.  If you already have the key then the "Take the Key" option is missing.  If you click on your hand it will trash that Treasure, and if you click on one in the trash it will gain it; you never explicitly choose one of the three options, so it's not clear which option you are passing up if you click Do Nothing.

Weird. Seems like it could just have what you describe, except that "do nothing" just replaces "take the Key" in situations when you already have the Key, and it isn't an option otherwise.

8

Other Games / Re: My Origins games

« on: Today at 01:45:10 pm »

Yeah I heard about the Roll expansion a few days ago; apparently CoolStuffInc had it on sale... on sale for $40! For an expansion. I'm sure it's because it has a lot of dice and stuff. I still have the first expansion sitting on my wish list though.

I played TrapWords about a month ago. Really cool concept; the mind games are fun. But I found it dragged; by the last couple of rounds we were all wishing it had already ended.

9

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Strictly Better

« on: Today at 01:37:22 pm »

- Adding "your opponent takes Miserable/Twice Miserable/Deluded"

There's probably 3-4 player scenarios where this actually doesn't work....


There is 1 Province left.

You have 1 point, opponent A has 0 points, opponent B has 6 points. Opponent A has a Lighthouse in play. Opponent A was start player. You can't afford to buy any points on your turn, and neither can opponent B. But Opponent A has in hand.

If you play card with "your opponents take Miserable", then opponent B goes down to 5 points. Opponent A will buy Province and end the game in a win.

If you play the same card except without "your opponents take Miserable", then opponent A can't buy the last Province without losing due to the tie breaker. When it comes back to your turn, you can buy the last Province and win.

10

Rules Questions / Re: Lying Treasurer

« on: Today at 01:28:16 pm »

I had wondered about that as well.  I noticed that on ShuffleiT there is an option to "do nothing" even if you don't already have the Key and there are Treasures both in the trash and your hand.  That seemed to be a minor mistake if each of the options is treated as mandatory once you've chosen it.

Really? That's very odd; the card wording is quite clear that "do nothing" is not an option that you have. And accountability isn't even an issue online; if you choose "trash a treasure from your hand" then the game can force you to actually do it.

11

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Strictly Better

« on: Today at 11:45:42 am »

If only one card is preventing something from being strictly better, I think you can go ahead and call it strictly better. Otherwise, there would be no such thing as strictly better thanks to Possession.

In the other thread, people in general decided to call Possession as a "universal edge case" to be ignored; along with cost and name. Because if you don't choose to ignore those 3 things, then it's trivially true that no card in Dominion is strictly better than any other card.

The existence of Storyteller is different than the existence of Possession, because Possession makes every single card being discussed not strictly better. Storyteller's existence still allows for some things to be strictly better.

12

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: Today at 11:34:12 am »

Is that correct? Or are you not able to "recover" track of B after it gets covered up? I'm pretty sure I've read some similar examples somewhere, so I'll look and see if I can find any precedent.

I am pretty sure you aren't allowed to "recover" track. The canonical example is Watchtower + Border Village. Gain Border Village. Resolve its on-gain to gain Duchy. React with Watchtower to put Duchy on top of deck. You are not allowed to now also react with Watchtower to put Border Village on deck, because Border Village has been lost track of. It was covered up at a point in time, it doesn't matter that it's not covered up any more.

(In that case you could just resolve the on-gain in a different order to first put Border Village on hand and then gain Duchy if you wanted).

Great example, that case makes sense. So "recover track" is not allowed.

However, that is in cases where the gains are separate actions. With discarding all at once, I'm still unsure if lose track applies. Please bear with me. and a couple of potential examples

1. When you clean-up, I've also interpreted that as everything being discarded all at once. But then you'd only be able to Scheme one card, no? Or is my interpretation incorrect?

2. I feel like Faithful Hound is the closest example (where Faithful Hound retrieves itself, instead of another card). With this interpretation, if you reveal two Faithful Hounds to a Cellar, you would only be able to set one aside. I hoped to find an official ruling on this, but have not yet.

Hmm, I think that both Scheme and Faithful Hound imply that Retriever would work. Perhaps the reason this works here is that no effect started tracking the discarded cards until after they were already covered up. Effects start tracking at a certain point, and Lose Track applies when a card is moved (or covered up; because covered up is a type of moving; moving from the top of the discard pile to no longer the top of the discard pile).

In the case of discarding multiple cards at once; the second-to-top card in your discard pile was always the second-to-top card of your discard pile from the time that an effect started caring about it. It didn't go from being top-of-discard to no longer top-of-discard. So Lose Track won't apply. Instead, the effect is expecting the card to be second-from-top of discard, and that is in fact where it is; so it can be moved.

13

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Strictly Better

« on: Today at 10:57:45 am »

Adding both +Action and + can cause the same issues as adding +Cards, when combined with Diadem and Storyteller.

Replacing with Coffers doesn't work because of Black Market.

Also, see here for a long discussion dealing with all of this: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=11280.0.

+Buy can be converted into + via Priest+Watchtower, so I guess +Buy doesn't count either?

No, at least for now no card ever forces you to use any buy you have available. Storyteller forces you to use all your , and Diadem forces you to convert all your Actions to . Nothing forces you to use any buys just because you have them.

14

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: Today at 10:56:22 am »

Is that correct? Or are you not able to "recover" track of B after it gets covered up? I'm pretty sure I've read some similar examples somewhere, so I'll look and see if I can find any precedent.

I am pretty sure you aren't allowed to "recover" track. The canonical example is Watchtower + Border Village. Gain Border Village. Resolve its on-gain to gain Duchy. React with Watchtower to put Duchy on top of deck. You are not allowed to now also react with Watchtower to put Border Village on deck, because Border Village has been lost track of. It was covered up at a point in time, it doesn't matter that it's not covered up any more.

(In that case you could just resolve the on-gain in a different order to first put Border Village on hand and then gain Duchy if you wanted).

15

Rules Questions / Re: Lying Treasurer

« on: Today at 10:49:15 am »

You are allowed to choose impossible choices; see Torturer when Curses are empty. So it's simply an example of a card not having perfect accountability; same as Graverobber and first edition Throne Room.

16

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Strictly Better

« on: Today at 10:34:39 am »

Adding both +Action and + can cause the same issues as adding +Cards, when combined with Diadem and Storyteller.

Replacing with Coffers doesn't work because of Black Market.

Also, see here for a long discussion dealing with all of this: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=11280.0.

17

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: Today at 09:22:53 am »

Also, my examples of Cellar or Oasis were incorrect. When cards discard other cards from your hand, you would just choose to discard Retriever.

The good news is that there are still plenty of cards that discard during your turn from the top of the deck, for example, Hunting Party, and other cards where you "discard the rest".

This card makes me think of rule questions... like when you discard multiple cards from your hand (Cellar/Warehouse-style), do you do that one at a time or all at once? If the latter, I am unclear on whether you could react to a multiple discard with 2 Retrievers to get 2 cards or if in that case lose-track would apply for the cards that aren't on top of your discard pile.

It's all at once; this has always mattered in terms of giving your opponent info; they only get to see the card you choose to put on top of your discard.

So yes, Lose Track should apply. It seems similar to Tunnel, which already requires you to reveal a card that is lost tack of if you discard multiple Tunnels, but Tunnel's reaction doesn't require you to actually move it; only to reveal it.

18

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Easy Puzzles

« on: June 16, 2019, 11:05:57 am »

Mandarin

I may or may not have used regular expressions to solve this.

Ah, I wondered if there were some kind of thing like that.  I checked all the card names one at a time.  (I considered adding the extra challenge of trying to solve it from memory...)

There's actually a FOURTH card, though, that can similarly be completely expressed using the postal abbreviations for US states.  But I doubt any computer program can find this one.

What card am I thinking of?

Did anyone ever solve the fourth card?

ENVY

Explain? I see different parts of it in different states, but no real connection other than every letter appearing somewhere in a state abbreviation.

19

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: June 16, 2019, 10:53:46 am »

These alternate wording suggestions reveal that the card is actually just a Duplicate with the downsides of being one-shot, having to be in your hand at the right time, and only working on Victory cards. But with the upside of not having a price limit.

20

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: June 16, 2019, 10:44:25 am »

How about "gain another, setting aside"? It has less confusion.

Seems good. Another option that’s a bit crazier... “set this aside with the gained card. This becomes a copy of that card”.

Stronger because it keeps both VP out of your deck. Maybe even strong enough to give it a $6.

21

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Really bad card ideas

« on: June 15, 2019, 08:35:00 pm »

Headphone Jack of all Trades
Action - $5

Gain a Silver.
Look at the top card of your deck; you may discard it.
Draw until you have 5 cards in hand.
You may trash a non-Treasure card from your hand.
You may listen to music and charge your phone at the same time.

22

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: June 15, 2019, 01:28:46 pm »

Sure, if you want to get hyper-technical it is not necessary and you could always avoid the Duration type.
Here it makes a lot of sense though. It is not like that type was introduced for mere fun back in the days but to remind players visually not to clean up some cards.
Furthermore it is helpful in gauging the strength of cards. When you see something orange, you immediately associate it all the downsides of Durations.

You don't need the visual reminder not to cleanup; it gets set aside at cleanup and played your very next turn. You never have a cleanup of yours (besides the one you play it in) between when it leaves your hand and when it should get cleaned up. I don't think I should make it a duration just to help people gauge its strength, especially because sometimes it plays immediately and sometimes it does not.

You're supposed to be hyper-technical when designing cards.

My point is that you could phrase any official Duration card such that you it would not require the Duration type. It would be technically correct but not particular practical. Visual stuff in games like icons and colours exists to make game data easier to read than a mere block of text.

I am not a rules expert but as far as I know only Durations can remain in your play area between turns (respectively Durations in combination with TR variants) with Prince being the only exception. And Prince isn't really the best example for a clear design (not a critique of the card, I like it and there unlikely to be a much better way to word it but for many players it takes some time to get their head around).

In other words, ordinary players associate orange stuff with "remaining in your play area" and unless you play with Dominion experts who know all rules and FAQs by hear, such visual reminders are incredibly useful.

Right but the problem is that it doesn't remain in your play area. It doesn't follow the actual rules set for Duration cards, which is that they are only cleaned up when they are done doing something. It doesn't get cleaned up because it isn't in play. You don't clean up set-aside cards, only cards in play. I don't think it makes sense within the rules to make it a Duration, because it will never actually be in play with that type (unless it is copying another Duration card).

23

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: June 14, 2019, 05:08:32 pm »

Does anyone know if there are any ordering rules for Reactions like Fool's Gold that multiple people can React with at the same time? For instance, in a 3 player game, Player_01 can buy a Province and both Player_02 and Player_03 can react with Fool's Gold to topdeck a Gold. But what if there is only one Gold left. Who gets it? Player_02 because they are the next player? Or whoever reacted first? The former seems most likely, but I cannot find any rules on this.

It's in turn order. It is governed by the general rule that says that any time anything happens to multiple people, it happens in turn order, starting with the current player. So technically what happens is that player_01 buys a Province. Then player_02 either trashes Fool's Gold or passes. Then player_03 either trashes Fool's Gold or passes.

24

Other Games / Re: Nintendo Switch

« on: June 14, 2019, 04:14:27 pm »

I don't yet know how large the Link's Awakening download will be. Mostly the decision will come down to where I can get the best deal. And damn I'm willing to wait, since I've already played this game multiple times over the years and they're charging $60 for it. $60! Also Amazon pre-orders are already sold out both on the game and the amiibo.

I was surprised by the "full price" for an old game at first, but a friend reminded me that it's not just a port... the remake part of it means it basically would require a full ground-up development; so it's basically a brand new game. Still obviously not the scale of BOTW for the same price though. But it also has this dungeon builder thing...

Anyway, apparently they added Link's Awakening to the list of "voucher" games. So you can get it for $50 if you have an even number of games that you want.

Got my Switch an hour ago. Got it all set up; buying the stuff I want, etc.

25

Other Games / Re: Nintendo Switch

« on: June 14, 2019, 09:20:51 am »

Anyway, the list of games we'll be buying right away:

Since you're playing with someone else, the other game I recommend is Overcooked 2.

Cool, got it.

Also got Celeste.