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1

Dominion: Guilds Previews / Re: Preview #4: Butcher

« on: June 06, 2013, 10:21:08 am »

Guilds still have Ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly art. Sorry.

I've tried to stop looking at the art.  It's not like I look at it on other sets.

Also, did anyone else get halfway through the text of the card before getting a headache?  There must be a better wording for this.

The wording "With a cost of up to..." sounds very strange to me.

2

LCG General Discussion / Re: Android: Netrunner

« on: September 14, 2012, 08:00:04 pm »

Android: Netrunner is even more assymetric than those games (although I don't have direct experience with A Few Acres of Snow).  Rather than just the cards being different, the fundamental rules governing the two sides are different.  In a game like Twilight Struggle the only (but the use of the word only here is ridiculous) difference between the two sides are action resolution order, the cards that benefit them, initial configuration (location of home countries, possession of China card, influence placement, etc.)  Yes, the two sides are radically different, and feel and play differently, and have strengths in different stages of the game, but I mean they both play and resolve cards, space race, manipulate the def con, use ops, etc. in fundamentally the same way.

In Android: Netrunner, not only are the two side's cards different and the wind conditions different, they have complete different actions available to them, and one side brings nearly all its cards into play facedown, as a sort of bluffing mechanic, and can try to mislead the other player into confusing their valuable and decoy facedown cards, while the other side's cards come into play in a more traditional way, and are organized very differently.  In fact, card types for the two sides are typically different also.

That's not to say Android: Netrunner is better than Twilight Struggle; I haven't even played the former yet, I'm just saying that the degree of asymmetry is different, which can be a good thing, a bad thing, or a neutral thing.  I haven't played many board games that are genuinely asymmetrical to this extent; War of the Ring is quite asymmetrical, though the two sides resolve combat in a similar manner.  Certain deduction games probably count though.  And of course, games like "Hide and Go Seek", "Tag", etc. are genuinely asymmetrical.

3

LCG General Discussion / Re: Android: Netrunner

« on: September 12, 2012, 03:32:01 pm »

It's 2p, right?

I liked Dominion because it allowed me to play with more than 2 (yes, it's possible!).
This is also a reason I didn't like Magic or any other such 2p game (yes, I know about multiplayer Magic).

So it's not for me as I don't have a regular gaming partner to play this with.

Yes it's a 2P game (with the playing styles of the two sides being very asymmetrical).

4

LCG General Discussion / Android: Netrunner

« on: September 11, 2012, 11:59:14 pm »

Has anyone tried this yet, or played the original? 

I bought two core sets of the new game (probably a bit excessive), and so far the rules seem very interesting, and I enjoy most of the artwork and graphic design (choice of fonts, etc.) on the cards, but I've yet to get a chance to play.  It seems different than most LCG/CCGs, in that a lot of the game is in the playing portion, rather than primarily being restricted to the deck design portion.  I thought it might appeal to some people on these forums.

5

General Discussion / Re: People that make me feel inferior

« on: September 10, 2012, 08:48:28 pm »

I like to call this sort of thing Salieri syndrome (I had recently watched Amadeus when I came up with this).  It's where you try your utter damnedest to be good at something, because you want to be the best at this thing more than anything in the world, and then someone (usually younger) comes along and is absolutely brilliant at your thing without even trying, and doesn't seem to care that they're the best.  Their closet is probably full of awards that are just slowly tarnishing.  "Oh, another Pulitzer/Oscar/Grammy/Nobel.  In the bin it goes!"

I have come to realize that this made for a great movie, but is never, ever true in real life.  The best 10 in the world at X, where X is just about anything, worked extremely hard to get there and fully appreciate their success.

Toward the end of the movie, there are certainly scenes (or at least one scene) where Salieri realizes that Mozart does in fact also put in much hard work, at least when working on some of his pieces.  But I'm inclined to agree that in creative and competitive endeavors, the best 10 all probably worked extremely hard, it doesn't mean they were the ten hardest working, but they were probably among the hardest working, nonetheless.  I think people at Salieri's talent level inevitably exist in many fields.  They do passably good work, and are even admired by some, but know that compared to the best of the best they are mediocrities; that said, not all of them are upset by this, and many lead fulfilling lives, and find additional fulfillment outside of their area of talent.

It goes without saying that I'm referring to the characters as written in the play/movie, and not the actual historic individuals; I really don't know what Salieri was like as a person, nor how good his music was.

6

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Riddle I came up, but have no solution of

« on: September 10, 2012, 06:03:36 pm »

Something that may be of help: a substantial fraction of permutations are derangements (that is, permutations where no object stays in its original position).  In fact, as n->infinity, the fraction of permutations on n objects that are also derangement, d_n/p_n, approaches 1/e, or about 0.3679, where e is the base of the natural logarithm.

Therefore, any method that can give you a uniformly random permutation, together with a method to check for whether or not anyone left their original chair, can be modified to solve this problem.  You simply keep trying until you get a random derangement, and on average, you only need to make e (about 2.7183) attempts.  98.98% of the time, you will find a derangement in 10 attempts or fewer.

EDIT: d_n/p_n = 0.3333, 0.375, 0.3667, and 0.3681, for n = 3, 4, 5, and 6, respectively, so the convergence to 1/e is very fast (note that the ratio is always falling, and hence, approaches 1/e from above), and hence, this technique is always valid.

7

Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: The most useless kingdom

« on: August 28, 2012, 09:48:18 pm »

I feel like a silver/gold would be virtually always preferable to a cantrip.

Would rats/fortress be able to do anything worthwhile in your kingdom though?

The Rats would eat a card already in your hand (Fortress), then give it back, changing nothing in your current hand (except that a card would replace the Rats, of course), so you're still left with a 5 card hand.  Essentially, all this does is give you an extra Rats "for free."  But Rats are useless anyway.

The only time you might take a cantrip though would be Border Village when you want a Duchy, so I guess it's not totally useless.

8

Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: Death Cart

« on: August 28, 2012, 09:45:44 pm »

I played a three player game, where the key cards were Rats, Death Cart, and Cultist.  I opened Cultist/Estate (trashing Hovel), and proceeded to buy a few more early Cultists and an early Sage (at this point, it was guaranteed to dig up Cultists, but I bought a Gold fairly early on too).  I think I had something like 6 Cultists, and I gave out all the Ruins, buying a Death Cart myself after the ruins were out (but I drew it without Sage/Cultists, so it trashed itself, still netted me a Province that turn). 

The other players were basically ruined too fast.  They didn't buy enough Death Carts early on (they both Opened Death Cart/something, and I think the something was Hermit or Silver), having 1-2 Death Carts each and a few Rats by the time the curses ran out.  Essentially, the were so ruined, they weren't hitting $4 too often in the early game. 

So my huge lead let me win, and their Rats/Death Cart engine never took off.  May have been due to poor play on their part, or maybe due to my lucking into a triple Cultist chain early on (but Sage is a great enabler, as it's essentially an extra Cultist in the early game, as long as you draw into it in your initial hand, rather than via Cultists, but even the latter case is okay if you have a Necropolis in your opening hand).  Anyone have any insights?

9

Other Games / Re: Catan World

« on: August 23, 2012, 12:52:06 pm »

At one point me and some others did a statistical test of the dice that came in the box, and concluded with reasonable certainty that they were unfair. Never could quite replicate that, so it might have been a fluke.

Did you test the joint probability of the sums (rolls of 2 through 12), or did you test each die individually (rolls of 1 through 6)?

10

Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: Dark Ages Retail Store Availability

« on: August 23, 2012, 12:44:44 pm »

My order from CoolStuffInc is processed and ready to ship, although it looks like they're still listing it as a pre-order item in the actual online storefront.

CoolStuffInc is nice because they have generally low prices, as long as you order at least $100 worth of stuff and get free shipping.  Not ideal if you don't want any other games, but they're selling Dark Ages for $29.49, although some sites seem to be selling it for even less.

11

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Has anyone ever attempted playing Dominion by Skype?

« on: August 23, 2012, 08:57:41 am »

I've played two player games of Arkham Horror over Skype (actually Google Talk's voice chat, but it's the same principle).  We didn't even use video.  Now this game may lend itself a bit better, because it's co-op, but it's a much more complicated game (not in depth, but in complexity of game state, and also requires you to dig out a lot of specific bits, find certain cards, etc.) than Dominion, and it worked really fine.

I think there wouldn't be a problem doing this, you just need to realize that it's going to be slow (unless the two players have very good rapport at managing the game flow). 

Maybe you can use some counters on each of the stacks to represent the cards purchased off them, so you can verify game state quickly.  But I think putting 2 d20s on the Silver will actually slow things down.  Wait, put every card on it's own scale!  Or not...

12

Other Games / Re: Catan World

« on: August 20, 2012, 06:33:57 pm »

In a Settlers game I played last month, which was incidentally the first time I played settlers in maybe 4 or more years (I played at least a few dozen games 5-6 years ago), I think 7 was rolled about 4-5 times, with the first 7 being rolled around the half way point in the game.  Only one player ever discarded cards to a 7.

13

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Official Version Launching 8/16?

« on: August 17, 2012, 11:56:51 pm »

I'm a 30-ish player on iso (or at least I was), and I've spent countless hours playing against bots now.

It's fun! Maybe you don't find it fun, but I do. It's not a "challenge", but it is fun, for me. I don't need offline mode because I only play on my computer, but I can see why people would want it.

Offline mode would be nice for when one is a frequent traveler, especially on flights that don't offer wi-fi (or charge a lot for it).  I think I'd play quite a bit in these situations.  It's also fun to build engines and think about the game without worrying about what your opponent is doing too much (although admittedly, that's a pretty substantial element of playing Dominion well).

14

Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: The most useless kingdom

« on: August 17, 2012, 10:35:52 pm »

This made me think - there are now 11 $6 cost cards (not counting Possession).  What would you do in this setup:

Adventurer
Nobles
Harem
Grand Market
Goons
Hoard
Fairgrounds
Border Village
Altar
Hunting Grounds

EDIT: Obviously, this would be a Colony game.

Probably BM+Goons, no?  Or BM+Hunting Grounds?  The Goons engine is tempting, but who wants to pay $6 for villages, so it's probably not fast enough.  Also, by this point you've probably had to buy so many treasures to afford these consistently, that your deck isn't trim at all, so you can't hit a high Density of Goons (and Altar is obviously too slow at trashing).  Hunting Grounds has nice draw though.

15

Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: The most useless kingdom

« on: August 17, 2012, 10:21:25 pm »

Fair enough, but I guess I was always looking to make such a Kingdom, and couldn't until Dark Ages came out.

16

Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: The most useless kingdom

« on: August 17, 2012, 10:04:52 pm »

How about this for a kingdom that is useless?:

Village
Hamlet
Worker's Village
Border Village
Native Village
Walled Village
Golem
Oasis
Throne Room
Scheme

Lol.

I guess I meant a Kingdom that has no bonuses (as in no ability to get 6+ card hands, +buys, +coins from Kingdom cards, potentially useful gains, attacks, etc.), but as WW pointed out, I am sort of flawed in claiming my Kingdom offers no bonuses, since the cantrips offer some minor control benefits, so when you want a pick up a Duchy with $6 or $7 you probably are better off taking the Border's Village and gaining the Duchy with that.  In your kingdom, Golem, Hamlet, Worker's Village, Native Village, and Oasis offer these benefits.

17

Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: The most useless kingdom

« on: August 17, 2012, 09:59:51 pm »

Yes, I actually considered that the cantrips give you some marginal flexibility, in that they allow you to not play them to not trigger a reshuffle, cycle slower, etc. when your hand is already strong.  I guess I meant none of these cards give you a tangible bonus outside of this minor cantrip effect, though you're certainly right.  Scout and Golem are also not worth getting, but Golem can give you 6 card hands (yay for +2 cards), or even larger hands by playing multiples, and Scout can, well... do what Scout is supposed to do.

18

Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / The most useless kingdom

« on: August 17, 2012, 09:46:00 pm »

I finally found a kingdom, where I think not only is ignoring all kingdom cards the optimal strategy, but having these cards in your hands never makes you better off than not having them, nor do on gain bonuses offer anything extra.  The only time gaining these cards makes you better off is if you need to run out a supply pile, which should never happen with a competently playing opponent. 

Here it is:

University
Scheme
Village
Fortress
Quarry
Rats
Throne Room
Walled Village
Band of Misfits
Border Village

This is the only such Kingdom I've been able to come up with.  There were two other cards that could almost make it in a Kingdom like this, but can offer small bonuses by themselves or in conjunction with some other cards in this Kingdom: Procession and Wandering Minstrel.

Can you think of any such other Kingdoms (or exhaustively prove that they don't exist)?

19

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Do we know when exactly it's going up?

« on: August 17, 2012, 10:56:54 am »

I didn't know how bad the security was so I didn't claim this publicly earlier, but I'll do so now that it seems like a general concern.  When I was invited to beta, my password was a former title of mine ("Assistant Research Technician"), I held earlier.  It was pretty specific, so I was pretty shocked to see it as my password.  Also, it didn't work.  I finally had them invite me through a different e-mail account and it worked.

Still, how did they get that title, as it didn't seem to be a coincidence?  I thought maybe they were scraping information based on our e-mail addresses from the internet.  I was told they didn't, then once they figured it out, they said they actually did do this using some third party software (for marketing research, demographic targeting, or what have you).  Still, that's pretty ridiculous and insecure.  And they must have written their code pretty badly if their scraper replaced a numerical password I was supposed to receive with an incorrect multi-word password based on my identity.  I'm not a huge privacy nut, but this is ridiculous, and if this had happened to someone else, I can understand if they would be furious.  I was hoping it was an issue on my end with my e-mail client (gmail, so not likely), replacing something in the html code of the e-mail.

20

Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: Pictures of All Cards (except ruins and havens)

« on: August 16, 2012, 03:03:29 pm »

As long as at least one treasure is trashed, Forager is a Peddler. Pretty nifty.

Nope, Forager gives +1 Buy, not +1 Card.  Not to mention that it requires that you trash a card.  It's much closer to Trade Route, although it cares about treasures in trash, rather than victory cards gained.  Unlike Trade Route, however, it does give +1 Action.  Trashers with +1 Action can be nice, especially since even if you trash a Copper with it, it generates at least as much as the Copper would have normally given you.

21

Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: Pictures of All Cards (except ruins and havens)

« on: August 16, 2012, 02:57:39 pm »

We also get our first VP/Action card since Intrigue. I never thought we would see that concept again.

Actually, Seaside: Island. 

22

Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: Two new cards!

« on: August 16, 2012, 01:24:22 pm »

It's Anna. There is also Sir Michael and Sir Bailey. Toss random names and I can check if they are in as Sirs/Dames/Ladies/whatever.

Where are you getting this?

I'd guess scraping goko logs or something.

23

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Do we know when exactly it's going up?

« on: August 16, 2012, 08:48:38 am »

From BGG's iOS Board Game blog:

Dominion Coming Very Soon
By now you've read in multiple places that the long anticipated and official digital implementation of Dominion is coming very soon. You can read about it here, here, here, and here.

The reason you didn't see a post from us is because Goko put an embargo on the information until 6am PST on August 16th and we chose to abide by the embargo. This is a fairly common public relations practice and we abide by it whenever it is requested by a developer. And given the perhaps overly-secretive history of this particular project, we were thrilled to finally know there would be a green light in the very near future for us to share what we had learned over the course of these long months. So, you may ask, an embargo on exactly what information? We are choosing to wait until then to reveal it, as requested. When we do post on it, and with correct information, you will see that the story is really about more than Dominion and about more than iOS. In the meantime, you can scour the interwebs for the Dominion scoops. They are easy enough to find.

So it seems like it might go live (or we'll at least receive some more news) by 6am PST, although I assume they mean PDT.

24

Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: Since the cat is out of the bag...Dominion Leaked Cards

« on: August 15, 2012, 09:15:21 pm »

Rinkworks and I totally designed a card almost exactly like band of misfits in the early days of the Fan Cards subforum. It's called Master of Disguise. I remember having multiple arguments about the wording and whether it should be a five or a six.

Note that you don't want to play one after a few Highways...

This is the thread:

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=417.0

I totally remember this, and I immediately thought of this when I saw Band of Misfits!  I even came up with my own way of designing it, but I never posted it.  Here's how mine would work (it was originally priced at 6, like Master of Disguise).  It ends up working slightly differently in practice.

Code: [Select]

Play an action card from the supply costing less than this, stacking it on this card.
---
When a card stacked here would be discarded during the clean up phase, instead return it to its supply.  Do not discard this card from play if there is card stacked on here.
So cards like Feast, Island, etc. would decrease the supply by one, whereas most cards wouldn't.  Throne Room/King's court (and now, Procession) could use this to trigger multiple cards.  Most other cards (including durations) should work the same way, although the supply limit is crucial.

25

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The History of Dominion, Isotropic and Funsockets in Dominion Card Pictures

« on: August 14, 2012, 10:02:34 pm »

My favorite was Jay as the person (King?) featured on the Venture card.  Not that I have anything against him (or RGG/Funsockets/Goko), but it made me chuckle.

The blog existed for a long time before the forums though, so that would be important in chronicling the history.