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1

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Don't bother getting the yellow cards out of the box

« on: June 20, 2018, 03:35:42 pm »

I don't think that online vs on tables was the part he was talking about. It was 2-player full random vs 3/4 player set-specific.

Yes, just the "competitive" 2-player all random format.

Oh, I see.

That's just down to logistics. Neither Donald or I are ready to say, "Sorry I know this game supports 4 or 5 players, but we have a 2-player quota we need to hit." That seems like a good way to lose playtesters.

If you're talking about a 4 player game, it can be pretty trivially done as 2 separate 2 player games as well. Which gets you twice the amount of new card testing for less time spent. Not saying you shouldn't be doing any 4 player testing also, but it doesn't make much sense to say that you need to do only 4 player testing so that you are allowing more total people to play.

Obviously test games can't be "full random", because then some of them wouldn't include new cards at all, and few would include more than two. That would make testing way too slow. And also I don't want to cart around all of Dominion for every game session. It's impractical. I'll grab the base cards, the set being tested, and then one or two other sets. And then I randomize a game with 5 new cards and 5 cards from another set. Plus Events/Landmarks, if it's a group that's used to Dominion, which it usually is.

Well obviously when play testing, "full random" would actually be purposefully using some specific cards from the new set, while the rest of the Kingdom is chosen at full random. Of course there can be practical limitations to having every set available; but it seems that at least some playtesting would be done at people's houses, where they already have all the sets ready and combined into one storage solution.

2

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Don't bother getting the yellow cards out of the box

« on: June 20, 2018, 02:56:48 pm »

Bear in mind that most of the playtesting that gets done is with at least three players, and often with four or more. You don't always have the time or resources to build the perfect Treasure-less engine in those games. For Nocturne specifically, basically 100% of the testing was done at Donald's IRL table or mine, and I bet you could count the number of 2-player testing games on two hands.

This is sort of hair-raising. A huge chunk of Dominion games are played online in a 2-player random kingdom format. I am astonished that this format receives "basically 0%" of the attention in playtesting.

Explain to me how we are meant to do 2-player online playtesting without an online simulator that has the cards being tested? During development the cards are changing all the time, and it's a tall order to ask somebody to create, maintain, and update an online version. We had access to isotropic for Adventures and part of Empires, but eventually even dougz threw in the towel.

I don't think that online vs on tables was the part he was talking about. It was 2-player full random vs 3/4 player set-specific.

3

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Pile Control Card --Reinforcements?

« on: June 19, 2018, 11:03:41 am »

“Less than this” in the top half referring to the card itself is super confusing, it definitely sounds like it’s talking about the card being trashed. I would definitely say “costing up to $5” instead, otherwise it sounds like it’s a card that lets you trash a Colony from the supply to gain two Provinces. “Less than this” in the on gain ability is fine as there’s no other subject to confuse it with.

Originally I did have it this way; the change was because if the on-gain effect said $5, with a single highway in play, the whole pile could be emptied instantly, which seemed wonky. So I just changed the wording on all of it to be consistent (also it makes it sligggghtly weaker, which seems good)

The on-gain effect should/needs to say "less than this". But there's no good reason for the on-play effect to say that. Just make the on-play "up to ".

4

Feedback / Re: Two expansion that were permanently unlocked are locked again

« on: June 16, 2018, 09:58:03 am »

Your’e right that it doesn’t seem right; but as Awa said, it was Goko that did the thing that wasn’t right, not ShuffleIT.

As an analogy, imagine that you bought a new Ford car from a dealership, and they told you that the car would last forever. Then a couple years later, that car broke down and stopped working, and not only that, the dealership that sold it to you went out of business, so you couldn’t get your money back.  Then, a new Toyota dealership opened up, and because they felt bad about your old car; they agreed to loan you a new Toyota completely free for a year. Like a really long test drive. After that year; the loan was up, and you have to lease the car in order to keep driving it.

5

Dominion Online at Shuffle iT / Re: Champion doesn't stop Masquerade attack

« on: June 15, 2018, 09:34:56 am »

Another example would be the on-buy effect of Ill-Gotten Gains.

And the on-buy effect of Noble Brigand; even though Noble Brigand is an attack card, because it only stops things when the attack card is played.

Also Tribute and Possession.

6

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Fix the worst cards

« on: June 13, 2018, 08:29:28 pm »

My wife and I played Dominion over Gchat when Dominion first came out and I was overseas; I will always think of these cards as we talk about them the fact that this is our private shorthand should not be that topic derailing. I type this up between doing other things so it is not like I am going to bother proof-reading a simple post that much nor try to be sure that things which are clear in context meat some arbitrary definition of reasonable abbreviations. Sorry, but f.DS is not that important to my life.

And yes Potions are Pots, just like how Settlers of Cataan somehow developed Sheep over Wool or how Puerto Rico magically had Chuts and 3Sug.

It is frankly sad how pretty much every thread on this board eventually has people come in who would rather mock than engage. Likewise how deviation from the groupthink is discouraged.

Since I’m the one who first mentioned it, I should let you know that I didn’t mean for my response to be mocking. It was meant as a light jest. Sorry if it came off rude.

Perhaps the boards would rather posters just stayed mute.

I can’t tell if this was on purpose or not.

7

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Fix the worst cards

« on: June 13, 2018, 09:44:37 am »

This post makes me want to update my extension to automatically replace "Mute" with "Transmute".

8

Dominion Online at Shuffle iT / Re: eight Coppers?

« on: June 10, 2018, 11:32:31 am »

In order to make it more like real-life Dominion, ShuffleIT allows your opponent to sneak a Copper into your deck while you aren’t looking.

9

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Holunder's cards

« on: June 08, 2018, 03:09:43 pm »

Lich is inspiread by Kudasai's Old Witch but will play quite differently. It is a half-Curser, meaning that the first time you play it everybody else gets the negative VP and the second time the junk lands in their decks. In addition to that it is mainly a Copper junker (you can put Curses on the mat to delay the inevitable or put a Silver there just like you would trash a Silver to make Forager better) and provides some scalable payload.

I am not sure about whether the card is good enough and shouldn't rather be buffed into a Night card or whether the whole mixture sucks, meaning that the half-cursing should be tacked onto something else.

Did you mean Copper trasher instead of Copper junker?

You should probably update "coin tokens" to the coffers wording.

The half curser idea is cool. No idea how strong the rest is; limiting it to non-victory is a big nerf.

10

Dominion FAQ / Re: Tracking + Actions/Buys/Coins (Use for Blank Cards)

« on: June 06, 2018, 05:14:36 pm »

Shows how groupthink things happen in games... pretty much everyone I play with does the tree thing; and I just assumed almost all Dominion players did...

11

Dominion FAQ / Re: Tracking + Actions/Buys/Coins (Use for Blank Cards)

« on: June 06, 2018, 11:22:18 am »

For tracking actions, the best thing is to just build a tree... if a card gives +1 action, play the next action directly below it. If a card gives +2 actions, play the next action under it to one side:


        Village
      /          \
  Smithy      Market
                       |
                   Village
                 /          \
             Village     Market
           /          \         |
         Smithy


You can quickly look at the cards you have on the table and see that you can still play 2 more actions.

12

Other Games / Re: Loot Box Clicker (a new idle game, by me)

« on: June 05, 2018, 09:50:05 pm »

Are updates coming soon?

13

General Discussion / Re: Random Stuff Part IV

« on: June 05, 2018, 02:27:33 pm »

Most DVDs have always had a skip intro button, called next chapter. Though sometimes DVDs have poor chapter divisions where that doesn't work. In which case fast-forwarding for a few seconds does the same thing, but takes 3-5 seconds instead of 1 second.

And yeah, it's annoying with shows like Family Guy, where they will occasionally have a joke stuck in the middle of the opening credits. It's only happened like 3-4 times in the first 14 seasons, but you still have to watch (or at least fast-forward through) all the credits just in case.

14

Dominion FAQ / Re: Counterfeit Clarification

« on: June 05, 2018, 12:21:34 pm »

For number 3, you generally do narrorate things as you do them, such as “I play Village, draw a card. Silver, Silver, Cooper, buy a Witch. Your turn.”

But the difference between Pawn and Counterfiet is that with Pawn, stating your choices out loud is the only way to let your opponent know what you have chosen. With Counterfiet, your choice becomes known because you actually play something else.

In other words, you don’t need to say “I play Counterfiet, choosing Gold.” Instead, you would put Counterfiet on the table, then put Gold on the table, announcing each card as it goes on the table. So yes, you do announce things; all I meant was that you actually play the Gold, you don’t simply name Gold.

Announcing it might still be right.  What if I play Counterfeit, then choose to not counterfeit anything, then continue playing treasures. (Lord Rattington taught me that awesome strategy) In that case it seems like you'd need to announce that you aren't choosing anything, or you'd need to announce the cases when you do choose a treasure to play twice.

Yeah especially when it comes to playing or not playing Spoils with Counterfeit. You can't say "oh he trashed the Spoils so obviously he played it with Counterfeit" because the Spoils doesn't get trashed either way. Maybe this matters for Storyteller + Villa or Black Market, who knows.

To further clarify, my point was only meant that you actually play the gold when Counterfeit tells you to play a treasure twice, as opposed to the question I was replying to: "Do I announce the Gold is the one I'm playing twice and then immediately trash it to take it out of play". That question sounded to me like it was implying that either he thought you would just play all treasures at once, and then state "Of these Treasures, Gold is the one that's being doubled". Or that you would move Gold directly to the Trash without literally playing it twice.

15

Feedback / Re: The forum isn't protected by HTTPS

« on: June 05, 2018, 09:29:14 am »

I mean... is anything we do here really that important? We’re playing a card game. Who cares about the extremely unlikely event that someone steals somebody’s log in in order to... impersonate them here? Which would be really quickly obvious and dealt with?

Plenty of other reasons to use https (mainly for people not smart enough to use multiple passwords for things) but I mean I wouldn’t say it’s particularly urgent.

Although password reuse is frowned upon; I'm pretty sure a lot of people still do it. Meaning that if someone's F.DS password is stolen, then that could cause lots of other issues for a person as well.

16

Dominion FAQ / Re: Counterfeit Clarification

« on: June 04, 2018, 08:07:04 pm »

For number 3, you generally do narrorate things as you do them, such as “I play Village, draw a card. Silver, Silver, Cooper, buy a Witch. Your turn.”

But the difference between Pawn and Counterfiet is that with Pawn, stating your choices out loud is the only way to let your opponent know what you have chosen. With Counterfiet, your choice becomes known because you actually play something else.

In other words, you don’t need to say “I play Counterfiet, choosing Gold.” Instead, you would put Counterfiet on the table, then put Gold on the table, announcing each card as it goes on the table. So yes, you do announce things; all I meant was that you actually play the Gold, you don’t simply name Gold.

17

Dominion FAQ / Re: Counterfeit Clarification

« on: June 04, 2018, 05:13:17 pm »

If you Procession a Duration card, the Duration card is out of play, but its effects remain, but they are not doubled. For example, if I Procession a Wharf, first I draw 2 cards and add +1 Buy to my "Buy bank." Then I draw 2 more cards and add +1 Buy to my "Buy bank" (for a total of +2 Buys, or 3 Buys). Then I trash the Wharf and gain an Action card costing 6 - say, for example, an Artisan - onto my discard pile. I then make between 0 and 3 Buys with whatever Treasure I have, and in Clean-Up, I discard the Procession and the Treasure cards. Then at the start of my next turn, in what I guess you'd call my "zeroeth Action," as it were, because it happens during my Action phase but does not cost me an Action, I draw 2 cards and add +1 Buy to my "Buy bank," for a total of 2 Buys. The Wharf's effects now being gone, it has been completely resolved, and I don't draw 2 more cards and get another +1 Buy, nor do I start the turn after that with +2 Cards and +1 Buy as my "zeroeth Action." Correct?

Not correct. When you Procession Wharf, you play Wharf twice. So you do this:

(First play)
1) Draw 2 cards and get +1 buy
2) Start of next turn draw 2 cards and get +1 buy
(Second play)
3) Draw another 2 cards and get another +1 buy
4) Start of next turn, draw another 2 cards and get another +1 buy.

So at the start of next turn, you will draw a total of 4 cards and get +2 buys. There is no difference in effects between playing 2 separate Wharfs, and playing the same Wharf twice, whether using Procession or Throne Room to do so.

The important thing here is that the Wharf doesn't need to be in play to do anything next turn. You played it twice, so you get all of its effects twice, both this turn and next.

Assuming that first question is correct that remains true even if another player has - between the end of my last turn and the start of the next, taken that Wharf out of the Trash by playing, say a Graverobber. Right?

Right, it doesn't matter at all what happens to the actual physical card after you play it. Makes no difference if it is in the trash, in play, or in your opponent's library or in their play area.

So if I play a Counterfeit, and I play subsequent Treasure cards one-by-one, let's say I play a Counterfeit and then a Gold. Do I announce the Gold is the one I'm playing twice and then immediately trash it to take it out of play, but still have the 6 Coins it confers? (I ask for in the future, when I get Prosperity and may wish to do this with a Counterfeit on a Copper to buy a Grand Market, for instance.)

To be technical, you don't just "announce" Gold in any way, you simply play it, twice, then trash it. Each time you play the Gold, you will get +, so it will give you a total of +, in addition to the from Counterfeit. Just like with the action cards and Procession, it doesn't matter what happens to the Treasure cards after they are played. They give you when you play them, and you still have that whether the Treasure stays in play, or gets trashed, or gets moved to the top of your deck with Mandarin.

On that note, if I play a Counterfeit on a Spoils, is it just like my above question, except after that, I put the Spoils back on the Spoils pile? Or does it stay in the Trash? (I ask because that matters for something like, say, Forager.)

Spoils will not ever go to the trash in this case. You always do everything in the order it is written..
1. Play Counterfeit, which tells you to play a treasure twice.
2. Play Spoils. Get , and return Spoils to the Spoils pile.
3. Play Spoils. Get , and try but fail to return the Spoils to the Spoils pile, because it has already been moved there.
4. Try and fail to trash the Spoils, because it has been moved, so the Counterfeit cannot "find" it to trash it. This is called the Lose-Track rule.

The last question implies that you are missing the important fact that you must do everything written on the cards in order. So when Counterfeit tells you to play a Treasure card, you play that Treasure card, doing everything it says fully, before you ever get back to Counterfeit's "trash that Treasure". Spoil's "Return this to the Spoils pile" happens first.

18

Dominion FAQ / Re: Counterfeit Clarification

« on: June 04, 2018, 01:42:29 pm »

or completeness, the expansions complicate this a little:

• Action phase:
  • Start-of-turn effects (e.g. those caused by having played a Duration last turn)
  • While you still have actions, play as many Action cards as you like, one by one
• Buy phase:
  • Start-of-buy-phase effects
  • Play as many Treasures and coin tokens as you like, one by one
  • As many times as you like:
    • Pay off debt, or
    • (providing you still have buys and are not in debt) buy a card from the Supply, or an Event
  • End-of-buy-phase effects
• Night phase: play as many Night cards as you like, one by one
• Clean-up phase:
  • Start-of-cleanup-phase effects
  • Discard the cards you have in play - except Durations that are still in force - and the cards remaining in your hand (in any order)
  • Draw a new hand of 5 cards
  • End-of-turn effects
• Check to see if the game has ended
• After-your-turn effects

Do start of your turn effects happen in your Action phase?  I've always assumed they happen before your Action phase.

Technically they do. There's nothing before the Action phase.

Yes, this actually matters if you Prince or Summon a Crown (using cost reduction).

19

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Neat card interactions that were useful in the game you found them in.

« on: June 01, 2018, 03:07:51 pm »

Lurker + Pixie

Cycle through the Boons, when you find a good one (like say, Swamp's Gift), trash the Pixie, then grab it from the trash with Lurker.

If you're going to get the Pixie back, wouldn't you almost always go ahead and trash it, even if it's for a Boon that wasn't the one you hoped for? Or do you mean if you have several Pixies in hand, and one Lurker?

You have a finite number of Lurkers; you probably want to use them to do other stuff, too. In my deck I had 3-4 Pixies and ways of cycling my other cards. I could afford to be choosy with the Boons.

I can see that, but it seems like you could have a Lurker for each Pixie if you wanted, also. You usually want several Lurkers anyway, don't you? And they both cost the same.

20

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Neat card interactions that were useful in the game you found them in.

« on: June 01, 2018, 02:34:50 pm »

Lurker + Pixie

Cycle through the Boons, when you find a good one (like say, Swamp's Gift), trash the Pixie, then grab it from the trash with Lurker.

If you're going to get the Pixie back, wouldn't you almost always go ahead and trash it, even if it's for a Boon that wasn't the one you hoped for? Or do you mean if you have several Pixies in hand, and one Lurker?

21

Rules Questions / Re: Inheritance + Island (or Great Hall or Mill)

« on: May 31, 2018, 05:56:00 pm »

You can't Inherit Victory cards.

Likely to prevent this sort of thing from being a question.

That part is good too, but what happened was, if you can Inherit Islands, you do it. Nothing competes.

Really? I can think of a lot of things i would rather inherit then islands.

Assuming that without the no-victory limitation, Inheritance would have also added the VP value; then Estates inheriting Islands become Duchies that don't stay in your deck. They'd just be worth too much VP for the cost.

22

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Neat card interactions that were useful in the game you found them in.

« on: May 31, 2018, 04:26:24 pm »

Pasture/Hunting Grounds

3 Estates = 6VP so trashing your Hunting Grounds is as good as gaining a Province. Even better if you can Remodel it into a Province.

Well, it's as good as gaining a Province and 2 junk cards, which is actually far worse than gaining just a Province. Still a neat thing if you don't think you'll shuffle again this game.

23

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Semi-Interesting Dominion Moments Thread

« on: May 31, 2018, 11:36:46 am »

In the early game, buying an Estate to trash two Hovels is likely the best play you can make, to the extent that you certainly should pass Overgrown Estate and possibly Necropolis over Hovel if you can, only to prevent your opponent from doing that.

I'm pretty sure this is a joke. Masquerade alone gives you both the ability to trash OE for the +1 Card and a use for Necropolis.

It's not a joke. Getting rid of a dead card in your deck is stronger than Necropolis or a one-time +1 card.

Yeah, buying an Estate with 2 Hovels in hand is basically the same thing as buying a Laboratory. So there certainly might be better buys; but really depends on how much you have to spend on the turn that you drew both Hovels (which is very likely to be less than ).

24

Other Games / Re: Loot Box Clicker (a new idle game, by me)

« on: May 31, 2018, 02:37:10 am »

Once you have enough training that opening a chest of completion would open a lot at once, the whole thing crashes.

Does level 15 in Avarice mean that you will automatically open all chests at once every time?

25

Other Games / Re: Loot Box Clicker (a new idle game, by me)

« on: May 31, 2018, 02:15:23 am »

Got the Chest of Completion!