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 General Discussion / Re: Poor House + Hamlet?

« on: December 17, 2012, 08:16:35 am »

How were you planning on playing 4 Poor Houses and buying two Provinces?

Er, hmm, I must have been thinking of a variant there I tried with another card in the mix. You're right about that not adding up. Regardless, it's my impression that just Hamlet/Poor House buys a Province reliably enough and quickly enough to beat big money, but I'm just not sure whether it can be the basis for a truly competitive strategy (with the addition of other cards).

2

Dominion General Discussion / Poor House + Hamlet?

« on: December 17, 2012, 07:15:33 am »

Poor House can net you Provinces, but to do so you need a way to get rid of your treasures, and you need +actions. It's also good to have drawing ability, and it's very nice to have +buys (for extra Poor Houses and other engine cards early, and extra provinces toward the end). So combos like Poor House + Worker's Village + Chapel seem promising to me. But lately I've been exploring whether I can get Poor House to work without Chapel (or other heavy trashing), and a combo that has surprised me is Poor House / Hamlet. Hamlet gets rid of Coppers by discarding them, and gives you a card, up to +2 actions, and +1 buy.

The simulators don't play it very well, but I've found that buying only Poor House, Hamlet, and Province seems to beat big money. An early-midgame turn might look like "play Hamlet, Hamlet, Poor House, and buy 2 Poor Houses and a Hamlet", and a lategame turn can look like "play 3 Hamlets and 4 Poor Houses, buy 2 Provinces".

The thing is, I'm not a good enough player to know if this can be tweaked into an actual good strategy. I know it can be swingy from having too many cards in the deck. I may not be playing it as well as I could, and I'm sure the strategy could be improved with other cards to buy: a light trasher (e.g. Forager) might be useful, though a heavy trasher would just negate the advantage of Hamlet. What do you guys think? Is this a workable combo?

3

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: A Perfect Ten

« on: May 18, 2012, 02:47:42 pm »

Voltgloss: Well found!

4

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: A Perfect Ten

« on: May 18, 2012, 02:39:39 pm »

Ozle: Embassy is not it, and I'm not entirely sure you have the puzzle figured out. What do you think the link is?

GendoIkari: Very well, here's a rather cryptic hint. Strictly speaking, the words on the cards do not matter at all for this puzzle. That includes the cards' titles. But it is important to note what is printed on the cards.

5

Puzzles and Challenges / A Perfect Ten

« on: May 18, 2012, 01:47:01 pm »

New puzzle: "A Perfect Ten".

The following ten cards have something specific in common. Can you figure out what it is? And there is one more Dominion card (so far) that would also fit in with these ten... can you name it?

• Council Room
• Expand
• Farmland
• Festival
• Harvest
• Saboteur
• Spice Merchant
• Trusty Steed
• Vault
• Warehouse

6

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: What card is missing?

« on: May 17, 2012, 05:59:56 pm »

So what's the answer? Is Kirian right?

7

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: What card is missing?

« on: May 16, 2012, 08:29:10 am »

Intriguing. It's clearly not the type, flavor text, abilities, set, or artist. I can't find any unifying theme in the artwork. That leaves the name. I bet it can be solved just looking at the list, without knowing anything about the cards... but I can't get it. My best guess is that it has to do with another cultural product that I'm not familiar with, such as "shares a name with a card in Game X" or "shares a name with a chapter in the X series of books" or something.

8

Simulation / Re: Ranking BM+X terminals

« on: May 11, 2012, 01:12:35 pm »

Could you give information about what optimized play method is used in these simulations? I assume, for instance, you're just buying one or possibly two Smithies, but all the Vaults you can get. But I'm honestly not sure for Courtyard. Even a short-hand description of the optimized play would be helpful.

9

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Has Isotropic crashed?

« on: May 10, 2012, 08:51:09 am »

Thanks for getting the system back up!

10

Variants and Fan Cards / Trash and draw to replace

« on: May 09, 2012, 09:15:43 am »

One mechanic I haven't seen explored much is a "trash and then draw to replace" ability. This could be quite powerful, and could lead to some interesting decisions. Here are two possible cards ideas that use such an ability.

Winnow ($4)
Trash 2 cards from your hand. Draw until you have 5 cards in hand.

Abandon ($5)
+1 Action
Trash your hand. If you trashed any cards this way, +3 cards.

Note that Abandon fails to deliver if you have no other cards left in your hand, whereas Winnow works fine then. And Winnow is a "dead draw", whereas Abandon gives you an action. Although based on a similar idea, I suspect these cards would play quite differently. Winnow seems like it would work well in a BM deck, and could be effectively incorporated into an engine with no-draw villages like FV. Abandon seems like it would work best in engines that want to get rid of your treasures anyway, combining with things like Scrying Pool and Conspirator and any cantrip.

So what do you think, at first glance? Do these seem balanced? To swingy?

11

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Homage to the Best Card

« on: May 06, 2012, 09:49:37 am »

In a fit of pure silliness:

12

Solo Challenges / Re: My Second Solo Challenge: Nothing

« on: May 03, 2012, 08:06:24 am »

Hm, reminds me of War Games.

13

Solo Challenges / Re: My Second Solo Challenge: Nothing

« on: May 02, 2012, 11:26:43 am »

Wow! Geronimoo's explosive game is amazing. I would never have guessed that the entire kingdom could be purchased that quickly!

14

Solo Challenges / Re: My Second Solo Challenge: Nothing

« on: May 02, 2012, 09:59:45 am »

On a tangent, has there ever been a solo challenge to win by emptying all the kingdom card piles in the fewest possible turns? Obviously it would have to end on a turn that bought at least 8 cards, but that's common enough. The trick would be to set up a kingdom with cards you could afford to buy nine or ten of and still have a working engine. It sounds fun... has it been done?

15

Solo Challenges / Re: My Second Solo Challenge: Nothing

« on: May 02, 2012, 09:54:52 am »

(But at that link, the solution is a dead link. Not too hard to figure out, though.)

16

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Homage to the Best Card

« on: April 28, 2012, 07:28:05 am »

17

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Homage to the Best Card

« on: April 28, 2012, 07:25:46 am »

18

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Homage to the Best Card

« on: April 28, 2012, 07:24:52 am »

19

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Card Idea - Shaman, a different way to trash

« on: April 27, 2012, 09:03:30 am »

Neat concept! I like one of Jonts26's original suggestions, that it should be able to trash any number of cards in play. You might only use it once, trashing it the first time you play it along with a bunch of copper. Or you could keep it around to get rid of cards that have outlived their usefulness, such as Sea Hags or Barons. It would in some ways be better than a Chapel, in that it can get rid of itself (while having the obvious downside that it can't trash Estates or Curses). I like the idea of it being a cantrip, but I worry that might make it too powerful for a very low cost. Though I haven't playtested it, I would imagine this would stand a decent chance of being balanced:

Shaman - Action - $3
+1 action
While this is in play, during your cleanup phase you may trash any number of cards in play instead of discarding them.

This would be especially good in places where you want to keep Estates around (e.g. Baron), or where you have other ways of dealing with Estates (e.g. JOAT).

20

Solo Challenges / Re: My first solo challenge: The Forges

« on: April 27, 2012, 08:20:54 am »

Warehouse is obviously good, and Workshop too, I think. I got 30 turns, though, on the first try. :/ (I kinda doubt that's competitive.)

21

Dominion Isotropic / Re: Isotropic on iPad Problem

« on: April 26, 2012, 11:17:16 am »

http://i.qkme.me/3ozczz.jpg

And, of course, http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3ozf1d/

22

Solo Challenges / Re: Geronimoo's challenges - Indiana Jones and the acquisition of a lot of money

« on: April 26, 2012, 10:57:51 am »

I'm definitely looking forward to seeing the quickest solutions to this.

23

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Throne Room

« on: April 24, 2012, 11:00:05 am »

Olneyce, your tips on Throne Room are great, and could be the beginning of an article. But I'm confused about this:

The fact that Throne Room autoplays is one other reason that it's worse than King's Court.  That doesn't matter all that often, but it can be a real killer sometimes.

I know that KC says I "may" choose an action, while TR forces me to, but I wouldn't normally play Throne Room unless I wanted to choose an action. I can only think of two cases where that would matter. I can imagine playing Golem, revealing a Throne Room and something else, and only having a Trader (or another mandatory trasher) and good cards in my hand. That would have to be be pretty rare, I'd imagine, and would be no riskier than the direct danger of revealing the Trader with my Golem.

The other situation I can imagine is having 2 Throne Rooms and a terminal drawer in my hand. Simply throning the drawer would get me extra cards, but no way to play the actions I draw. Throning the TR and then choosing the drawer would allow me to draw and then play (twice) any action I draw... but would also require me to play it (twice). This could lead to an amusing Ambassadorial disaster, for instance. Is this the sort of situation you meant?

24

Simulation / Re: Cache as an Opener

« on: April 20, 2012, 08:37:42 am »

I can't get Dominiate to force a $5/$2 split, but I can tell it to buy Cache and Chapel on turns 1 and 2 if it does get the $5/$2 split, and play like Big Money in all other cases. (This strategy beats Big Money 54% of the time.) I can pair that strategy with a strategy that buys Chapel and Silver on a $5/$2 split, and plays big money in all other cases, and the former beats the latter 51% of the time.

So in Big Money decks, Chapel/Cache seems slightly better than Chapel/Silver. Bear in mind, though, that Chapel is not very good in Big Money, and Cache is. Conversely, of course, Chapel is quite helpful for many engines, while Cache is less likely to be. So in games with actual strategy, I still don't know if Chapel/Cache > Chapel/Silver or not.

EDIT: P.S., Big Smithy is improved by opening Cache/Nothing (rather than Smithy/Nothing) on a $5/$2 split. This is probably true for many Big-Money-plus-X strategies. Though not DoubleJack, it seems.

25

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Least game-warping expansion

« on: April 19, 2012, 08:33:25 am »

The "Base Cards" expansion will probably be the least game-warping, once it's released.