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26

Game Reports / Governor vs Vineyards

« on: July 02, 2012, 05:51:26 pm »

I thought this was a potentially really interesting setup:
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/02/game-20120702-143657-978bda0c.html

The 12 chosen cards are Caravan, Develop, Festival, Governor, Margrave, Minion, Pearl Diver, Royal Seal, Spy, Swindler, Village, and Vineyard.
SpaceSquirrel vetoes Swindler.
Hampuse1 vetoes Margrave.
(SpaceSquirrel's first hand: 2 Estates and 3 Coppers.)
(Hampuse1's first hand: 3 Estates and 2 Coppers.)

I opt for a fairly formulaic Governor approach with Caravans to help with drawing.  At first I don't fully understand his strategy with no many Festivals and am don't notice a couple of his Pearl Diver buys.  His real plan with Vineyards doesn't occur to me until he buys his 1st potion on turn 11.

I managed to win on turn 17 despite being stuck with a Duchy on turn 16 ($7 hand with no Governor / draw). 

I remodeled an Estate into a Potion on turn 12 because I was afraid his strategy might be appreciably better than mine and wanted to deny him some Vineyards.  Now I'm thinking that may have been a mistake.  Sticking to my guns by gaining a gold and buying a province may be better.

Any opinions on whether the Vineyards approach "should" have a shot here?

27

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Is a Dominion 2P series like a tennis set?

« on: July 01, 2012, 06:08:01 pm »

I like that idea as well.  On a slightly unrelated note:  I understand the concerns about the need for random setups to be used in ranked games, but Ive always liked the idea of both a "rematch" and a "rematch with same board" both being rated options.

I love this idea.  Ideally it would be buttons that appear next to the "return to lobby" one.  It could be something like Rematch? [Same Board] .. [Veto] .. [Random] .. [Blind Random] where [Random] would show the cards and let both players accept / decline and [Blind Random] would just start without first showing the cards.  It would be nice to have a "blind random" option for auto-match / proposed matches.

What about a bid system, where both players bid a certain number of VPs to be player 1?

This is interesting as well.  Show the cards and then let the players bid VP chips to be first.  Could be either "blind bid" or go back and forth until 1 player won't go higher.  Would definitely change the way some games play out.

--meow here & BSW ... SpaceSquirrel on IsoTropic

28

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Is a Dominion 2P series like a tennis set?

« on: July 01, 2012, 03:06:17 am »

What's important to note is that the actual advantage P1 has varies from kingdom to kingdom.
With cursers, the P1 advantage can be huge and with a plain BM mirror, it's probably not so big.

So if there's no way to quantify this advantage and distill a "handicap" we should perhaps always play the same setup twice with both players starting one game. If both players each win a game, you could average out the points.

Obviously, this is not ideal, because it may lead to situations that a player doesn't want to end the second game on a win after losing the first one, because he has less points. Still, I think playing the same setup twice is a decent starting point.

I really like the idea of playing each set of cards twice swapping who starts the game (not averaging scores though ... a win is a win).  Along with helping even out first player advantage it brings an additional "skill" into the mix.  The traditional "different random setup for each game" emphasizes the the skill of analyzing the setup and coming to a good "first approximation" of the best strategy.  Playing the same set again emphasizes learning from that first game and potentially altering or refining the strategy and perhaps the nitty gritty details of executing it.

29

Solo Challenges / Re: Geronimoo's challenges - Making history

« on: June 28, 2012, 04:19:18 pm »

I tied shark_bait using Throne Room instead of Market.  11 Turns, 1106 points:
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201206/28/game-20120628-122235-3e91525b.html

I tried to do the "Talisman math" before the final buy phase.  I thought I would exactly use all 76 buys, but I ended up with a few (around 5 I think) left.  I suspect I could have still cleared the board playing 1 fewer Talisman, but don't feel like trying to do the post-mortem math on it.

I then spent way too long trying to get 11 turns with Throne Room + Market instead of Grand Market + Market, but couldn't make it happen.

30

Dominion FAQ / Re: Re: Frequently Asked Questions

« on: May 30, 2012, 09:20:13 pm »

There was a Regional Qualifier held at KublaCon in San Francisco this past weekend.  http://kublacon.com
There was originally some confusion as to whether the winner would be sponsored directly to GenCon.  I believe the latest word was just to the U.S. Nationals in Chicago in July.

31

Dominion World Masters / Re: Dominion Regional Qualifier, June 23 2012 @ Oakland University, Michigan

« on: May 30, 2012, 09:16:19 pm »

For what it's worth, we just held a Regional Qualifier at KublaCon in San Francisco ( http://kublacon.com ).  It used a 3 round "moving brackets" (similar to Swiss but slightly easier to calculate) preliminary round.  4 people from each of 2 preliminary rounds advanced to the semifinals.  A "strength of schedule" setup was used as a tiebreaker.  Basically adding up the points for 1st-2nd-3rd of all opponents each person faced.  Given the feedback, probably better than using VPs.  Whether better or about the same as using a coin-flip or other "random event" seems an open question to me.

I grew up in Michigan, and have been thinking about getting back there for the summer.  Not sure if I might make it by June 23rd or not, but it is tempting .

--
meow on BSW
JuiceBox @ KublaCon
not yet registered on IsoTropic