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76
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Dominion Strategy Blog Returns!
« on: September 18, 2017, 08:08:28 pm »
Thief should be removed from the list of Base Dominion cards.

77
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Playing with Black Market for Real
« on: September 18, 2017, 12:13:32 am »
I've played with it a few times in person and used cards from a particular expansion, usually the base set. The simple cards reduce reading time and the likelihood less experienced players are bogged down by unfamiliar cards.

78
Dominion Articles / Re: Gold
« on: September 17, 2017, 11:43:32 pm »
I have rewritten the second half of the article, mainly appropriating the very good comments directly from the thread.

In the next few days, I will review the games suggested above. I would like to add an example games section.

This article is primarily aimed at newer players right? I think this is a great opportunity to bring up the "First Game Engine" because of the lessons it teaches us about Gold.

https://dominionstrategy.com/2012/07/30/building-the-first-game-engine/

The way Geronimoo suggested to get an early Gold or two before switching to Markets really stuck to me. Gold being a bouncing board to help you afford the more expensive engine pieces seemed like a great insight. And then you could even Remodel the Gold into Province for that final push to victory.

Then the "First Game" simulator challenge came to be, and it was like, "Yo, why are you buying Gold when you can just use Mine to build up to Gold instead while you buy more Markets and engine parts?". With 2nd Edition Base and Intrigue introducing Bandit and Courtier, it feels more and more like you can improve efficiency by using Action Cards to gain Gold as payload to match your engine's growth, and perhaps even use the $6 cost price point of Gold to Remodel/Replace them into Province as you gain Gold.

This is kind of how I've come to understand Gold. It doesn't feel great to buy them at $6, but Gold becomes an asset if you can find more efficient and better timed ways of gaining it. I think it's good that you bring this up in your article. Indeed, it's easy to gain too many Golds for your own good even if you aren't spending a costly buy on them.

This is such a good comment and basically exactly what I was looking for in the thread. Can I include your commentary for the First Game Engine as an example in the OP?

79
Dominion Articles / Re: Gold
« on: September 15, 2017, 12:10:54 pm »
I would mention how the low cost and uncompetitive price point of Silver, in addition to the abundance of available gainers for it, often makes it better payload / economy on boards where you do resort to Treasure economy.
You should absolutely mention the value of Gold in a moneyish strategy
I will work on integrating your comments over the weekend/early next week for the next draft. This is helpful.
 
The fewer cards you play on your turn, the better gold tends to be.
This is a great pithy rule of thumb; I will find a place to add it.

You can find plenty of examples of opponents buying Gold when they shouldn't on Burning Skull's How to Base Dominion series.  You're going to have a much harder time finding top players incorrectly invest in Gold while building an engine.
Thanks. Yes, this is what I was looking for. Not necessarily two top players against eachother, just commentary by a top player. I was considering the final game of the League championship match this season since Rabid bought a Gold and SCSN and Mic both went "NO!" in the commentary, but that situation was complicated and Gold was not the primary focus.

80
Dominion Articles / Gold
« on: September 14, 2017, 08:30:53 pm »
Update 9/17/17: Re-wrote second half of article reflecting comments in thread below. Example games still to come.
Update 9/21/17: Edited section headings; minor tweaks to first half of article; removed some wishy-washiness; added example games; added concluding challenge.




“Over you gold shall have no dominion.”
Lady Galadriel, The Fellowship of the Ring


Gold increases your buying power, does not cost an action to play, and is available in every kingdom. What a great card! You can’t draw it dead with Smithy! It’s so shiny! A no-brainer buy, right? No. Do not succumb to dragon sickness.

"Just because you can afford it, doesn't mean you should buy it." This aphorism -- who knew Suze Orman gave such great Dominion advice? -- is especially true with Gold. In fact, buying Gold whenever you can afford it or even just when you can first afford it is often an unmitigated disaster.

Why does the allure of glittery Gold spell your eventual defeat?

  • Gold is a “stop card”, preventing drawing or cycling through your deck.

Ask yourself at the beginning of the game: “What’s my ideal deck going to look like? What cards do I need lots of? What’s my plan?” With each passing expansion, a deck that buys mostly Treasure with only a couple of Action cards is increasingly a losing proposition to Action-heavy decks thinned of cards that stop you from drawing or cycling through your deck. Estates, Coppers, Shelters, sure, they’re junk, and too many terminal Actions can obviously stop up your deck, but even though Gold produces $3, it, too, is a “stop card” that slows you down.

  • Gold isn’t the strongest card you can afford.

Costs in Dominion are a funny thing. Just because something is expensive does not mean it’s better than all of those other cheaper things. There is usually something better to buy to advance your plan and improve your deck than Gold, and it may not cost $5 or $6 either. Do you need a village for more actions? Or maybe desperately need an extra buy? Sure, it may feel pretty terrible to buy a $6 Herbalist at first, but if you need the card, get the card! And it makes sense, right? What's the point of having lots and lots of cool Kingdom cards and lots and lots of expansions from which to pull those cool cards if buying Gold on $6 is always the right call? Boring! Dominion expansions would be such a rip off.

  • Gold is not the best payload in the kingdom.


“Payload” is what you actually use to end the game with a win. Gold should be thought of as the payload of last resort, not the default one. There are lots of great cards in Dominion and lots of interesting decks you can build that do not rely on Gold as the payload to buy Provinces outright. For example, Gold isn’t always the best Treasure available for maximizing your coin available. Or maybe you are building a very Action heavy deck that gets more than enough coin and buy from Action cards, instead. Maybe you are able to gain lots of cards and empty piles early. If your answers to “What’s my ideal deck going to look like? What cards do I need lots of?” and “What’s my plan?” do not involve lots of Gold, then don’t buy it! Don’t be afraid to buy something more useful, instead.

I’ll admit, there are some good uses for Gold.

  • Gold can be engine fuel and a trash for benefit target.

Gold in a engine? Yes! A timely Gold or two can directly fuel a draw engine that relies on Encampment or Storyteller. It’s also the necessary companion card for Legionary’s attack, which is great for slowing down your opponent while you continue to build. Finally, Apprentice loves the high cost of Gold, drawing you as many as six cards. 

In fact, Gold is often a great target for many types of trash for benefit. It’s exactly $2 away from Province which is very convenient for cards like Remodel and Governor, and the $6 cost is great for VP from Bishop and Ritual, boost of coin from Salvager, or gaining expensive engine components or late Duchies from Stonemason.

  • Gold is sometimes the only payload option you've got.

So even though I just knocked the idea, sometimes Gold is the best payload for implementing your plan (you haven’t forgotten your plan, right?), either through generating lots of coin, then buying Provinces or through trash for benefit. (Hey, sometimes it happens!)

However, even if Gold is your designated payload, resist the urge to add Gold to your deck sooner than you need it. Build your deck first, then add Gold as payload as late as possible. You need to first ensure that you have enough draw in your deck to handle the additional stop cards (i.e. The Golds). When you add the Gold before you're able to reliably draw it, it will simply get in the way.

  • Gold can be a good card in a money-ish deck.

Sometimes you just can’t build a deck that draws a huge hand every turn or cycles efficiently through the junk. In fact, the fewer cards you play on your turn, the better Gold tends to be. For example, in a Legionary game with no way to increase handsize, gaining multiple Golds is almost certainly going to be essential to victory.  On the other hand, a deck with Embassy and Treasures can get by fine with 0-2 Golds.

  • Gold provides economy.

Sometimes you just need the money to act as a reliable springboard to more expensive engine pieces. I get it. Just don’t get greedy. Ask yourself “Do I really need a/another Gold now?” If there is a critical Attack, trasher, engine component, or other card you need first to execute your plan, and you can afford it, get it. Do not be afraid to buy a cheaper card that you need, and look for other ways to integrate the necessary Gold gaining, instead.

Also, even if you have to rely on Treasure to get the necessary economy for your deck, ask yourself whether you really need Gold, specifically. You already got to $6, didn’t you? Was it a perfect shuffle to get there? Or is your deck already capable of what you need? In many kingdoms, due to it’s convenient price point and the many possible gainers, Silver may be the only Treasure you need.

Free Gold is better, but not always good.

When using Gold as engine fuel, payload, economy, or even in a money-ish deck, the last thing you want to do is waste a precious buy and $6 on such an expensive lump of coal. Luckily, Gold is often easier to gain than to buy. The gaining is built-in on cards like Governor, and interactions like Apprentice-Market Square and combos like Hermit/Madman-Market Square rely on Gold gaining to work. Lots of cards like Tunnel, Soothsayer, Bandit, Courtier, Bag of Gold, and events like Windfall, can give you the necessary golden fodder easily, as well.

However, do not get bogged down with too much Gold. It’s tempting to overuse the “gain Gold” option. Every Gold you add to your deck is a stop card, even if it’s free. Too much Gold and you’re just Cursing yourself to the delight of your opponents.

Example games.

Burning Skull Base Dominion #06:

Burning Skull focuses on his plan of building a draw engine, so he buys cheaper cards he needs even when he could buy Gold. In contrast, his opponent grabs Gold at their first opportunity. Even gaining Gold for free through Bandit is a mistake because their deck is not at a place where the Golds’ buying power can be utilized effectively.

Encampment Cage Match, Game 1:

Mic Qsenoch’s game plan is to eventually utilize Tactician and Encampment for draw while maintaining control through trashing, cycling, and attacks. Gold is not important to his plan. Turn 6 he opts for Potion over Gold with the idea of getting University for extra gains. Also, even though Mic Qsenoch utilizes Encampment for draw, Gold is not is not needed to keep the draw going. Instead, he uses the extra gains his deck produces to add Encampments back to his deck.

Fun fact: A Gold is not gained until an hour and a half into the match!

My challenge to you.

If you are stuck in a rut with your play with your friends, always buying Gold on $6, then try this: commit to never buy a Gold. Ever. You will likely find that once you re-orient your game plans, it's not a handicap at all and your play will actually improve. And the situations you lose because you avoided buying Gold? Well, you will find they are fewer and farther between than you thought.

81
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Dominion Strategy Blog Returns!
« on: September 13, 2017, 01:02:29 pm »
On a related note, I encourage Beyond Awesome (or delegate) to comb through the last 3-4 years of articles and feature the best ones on the blog.  There's no need to start from scratch.  I'm sure the community would be willing to help you identify the gems.

I'll start since I combed the Articles archive a year ago or so. Here's my list of greatest hits from 2015 that can probably be repurposed, some of which did appear on the blog before it went dormant, I think. Probably worth focusing on combing 2016-2017 rather than going further back.

Light-Hearted Strategic Fun:
=================================
The 10-Word Card Summary Challenge (OP is not updated. Whole thread is good.)
The Haiku Card Challenge

I would LOVE to see responses in these threads made into blog posts. Ten cards from the 10-word card challenge or ten haikus. Something like that. And these threads are lacking post-Adventures posts.

Strategy:
=================================

Engine Economies and the Limitations of Money Density (WanderingWinder, March 2015)

Rebuild in Non-Mirrors (WanderingWinder, April 2015)
     Related: Rebuild Mirrors (ragingduckd and SCSN, June 2013)
     I believe this appeared on the blog already?

Key Cards (ehunt, August 2015)
Something like this would need to be updated. But I like the rubric style.

Weak Cards (werothegreat, October 2015)
Also partly outdated, but I liked the idea.

End Game Example (DG, February 2015)

Cards, Combos, and Events:
================================
Coin of the Realm (werothegreat, June 2015)
Combo: Bridge and Royal Carriage (aku_chi, October 2015)
Combo: Counting House and Travelling Fair (gamesou, June 2015)
(Crosspost) Duke (Wandering Winder, December 2015)
Menagerie (AdamH, August 2015)
Pilgrimage (jsh357, October 2015)
Rats (Dingan, August 2015)
Watchtower (liopoil, October 2015)



82
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Dominion Strategy Blog Returns!
« on: September 12, 2017, 08:21:45 pm »
Possible 101 topic: What is Dominion 2nd Edition? And Where Did Scout Go?

83
Dominion Articles / Re: Occasionally Relevent Rule Edge-Cases
« on: September 10, 2017, 11:16:34 pm »
Quote
How about something like "Card A costs more than Card B if Card B's cost is a subset of Card A's cost, for example [examples])"?

That's much better than what I had.

Not that I disagree, but I think that would only sound more clear to the people that wouldn't have a problem understanding how costs work in the first place?

Yeah, that's also my concern. Didn't GendoIkari make a picture explaining costs once? I haven't been able to track it down but I was planning on using that instead of trying to explain it with words.

Yes, but it hasn't been updated with Debt.

Is "Card A costs more than Card B if Card A's price has at least as much coin, Potion, and Debt in it as Card B's price" any better?

84
Dominion Articles / Re: A Note on Durations
« on: September 10, 2017, 09:16:09 pm »
Major revisions to OP. Clarified examples; added examples; added discussion about effects that do not stack. Comments still welcome. Thanks!

85
Dominion Articles / Re: A Note on Durations
« on: September 10, 2017, 08:23:12 pm »
This looks nice!

Thanks!

Quote
But I'm confused about the Bridge Troll example. Usually, you still want to spread them out as much as possible: For the megaturn, it's ideal to play 4 on turn X-1 and 4 on turn X rather than all on turn X as it minimizes the number of +actions needed.
 

So, I disagree that what you describe is "spreading them out as much as possible". What I had in mind for the example is a case where to end the game you are going for a big turn that empties piles, eg. Provinces, in one go. The classic Bridge mega-turn. In order to do this with Bridge Troll, you need 7 or 8 in play on a given turn. I agree that getting 8 into play is more easily accomplished by having a deck capable of playing 4 then 4 then ending the game, but this is not a requirement nor necessarily desirable. You can get 8 in play by playing 8 in one turn, 4 in one turn and having 4 played the previous turn, 3 played in one turn and 5 played the previous turn, etc. It doesn't really matter and you are not (usually) going to hold out on playing one of your 5 Bridge Trolls that you have in hand right now with actions to spare until the next turn if your goal is to get them all into play by next turn, anyway. You might hold out on playing some Fishing Villages or Wharfs, though. The difference from the "consistency" goal is that you are going for one big turn rather than having the same number of them in play consistently and indefinitely.

I need to think about rewording the example if you think this is not clear.

Quote
It might be worth pointing out the extra importance of consistency for the non-stacking effects of Haunted Woods, Lighthouse, Enchantress.

That's a good idea. I will work on adding something to the article.

86
Dominion Articles / Re: Occasionally Relevent Rule Edge-Cases
« on: September 10, 2017, 05:25:35 pm »
* Estate as Crossroads can never give +Actions, because Estate keeps its name. When you play an Estate, it can never be "the first time you played Crossroads this turn". For similar reasons, Estate as Treasure Map doesn't work.

Wow, I actually learned something.

A "gotcha" scenario is one where someone tricks someone. They "gotcha". Not a good connotation with little known rules-pedantry. Maybe reword? (Awaclus hat off.)

Hey, that's not something that I would say.

Apologies. 

Quote
How about something like "Card A costs more than Card B if Card B's cost is a subset of Card A's cost, for example [examples])"?

That's much better than what I had.

87
Dominion Articles / Re: Occasionally Relevent Rule Edge-Cases
« on: September 10, 2017, 11:10:18 am »
Some comments.
"gotcha" scenarios

A "gotcha" scenario is one where someone tricks someone. They "gotcha". Not a good connotation with little known rules-pedantry. Maybe reword? (Awaclus hat off.)

Quote
order matter.
order matters.

Quote
$4P > $3P > $3, and 8 debt > 4 debt, and $3P is not comparable to $4. This isn't a very tricky rule

Maybe explicitly state the rule in colloquial language as possible? Something like, Card A costs more than Card B if you can purchase Card B with the money you paid for Card A (and they do not have the same cost). What you have are basically all examples of the rule.

Quote
Band of Misfits / Overlord + Conspirator

When you play Band of Misfits as another action card, it counts as two action plays for Conspirator. The first action is the Band of Misfits, and the second is the card you copy.

Yes, this means that if all 3 are in the Kingdom, you can play Overlord as Band of Misfits as Conspirator for your first action, and the Conspirator will be activated. Let me know if this ever happens to you.

Overlord-Conspirator came up in a game for me yesterday. I did not know this one. In Discord, Mic Qsenoch pointed out that there was a rule change/ruling change since Dark Ages came out that affected this interaction. I would like a link to when this happened.

88
Dominion Articles / Re: A Note on Durations
« on: September 09, 2017, 11:16:30 pm »
Thanks for reading!

Durations are great at creating consistent decks because their effects are spread over multiple turns. You don’t need to start every hand with a Village in order to have extra actions every turn, for instance, you only need to start every other turn with a Fishing Village in hand. That smoothing effect lets decks “kick off” easier and leads to fewer dead turns.

Minor nitpick: you might not need to start any turn with Fishing Village.  You could have two, playing one a turn whenever you happen to draw it.

I rewrote to the following:

Quote
Durations are great at creating consistent decks because their effects are spread over multiple turns. For instance, consider using Village versus Fishing Village to supply extra actions for a deck. With Village, in order to have extra actions on a given turn, you need to play a Village, and often, that means starting with one in your hand. With Fishing Village, you could play a Village on that turn or have played one at any point the previous turn in order to have extra actions. That it usually easier to accomplish and lets decks “kick off” easier, leading to fewer dead turns.

Is that a better paragraph?

89
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Chris's Minor Dominion Tweaks
« on: September 09, 2017, 03:53:26 pm »
Ok, so how bad would it be, really, if Transmute gained an Action without restriction?

90
Dominion General Discussion / Re: DominionStrategy Blog Update
« on: September 09, 2017, 01:28:02 pm »
Update the Card Lists tab to include new tabs for Adventures, Empires, and Nocturne (coming soon!). Update the All Cards subtab.

91
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=17545.0

BA is now in charge.

That is a misreading of that thread. Theory is letting BA update the static pages while he decides what to do.

92
Dominion Articles / Re: A Note on Durations
« on: September 08, 2017, 04:51:50 pm »
This is one of the reasons why Duration cards can tend to lump up even when you are trying to play a consistent number of them each turn.

Aren't they less likely to lump up (collide)?

My thoughts got muddled. I deleted that sentence in the OP. Thanks!

93
Dominion Articles / A Note on Durations
« on: September 07, 2017, 06:06:02 pm »
[[This is an example of what I would eventually like to see as far as article type on the blog. Not too long, not necessarily card-specific, and friendly to all players.]]
[[Updated 9/10/17]]

Duration cards, cards that do something after your turn, were introduced in Seaside and expanded upon in Adventures and Empires. They usually have a small effect now and a large effect later. For instance, Caravan simply replaces itself in your hand this turn, but next turn you get to start the turn with an extra card.

There are primarily two very different ways Duration cards can be utilized: to create consistency and to create big turns. Consistency makes play predictable, minimizing bad luck. No one likes tripping up at the finish line because of a bad draw. Contrastingly, big turns are important because Dominion is often a game of thresholds rather than continuity. Often, $7 is not much better than $6, but $8 is much better than $7. A deck that can create very big turns, even at the cost of some completely lost turns, can often generate a win.

Durations are great at creating consistent decks because their effects are spread over multiple turns. For instance, consider using Village versus Fishing Village to supply extra actions for a deck. With Village, in order to have extra actions on a given turn, you need to play a Village, and often, that means starting with one in your hand. With Fishing Village, you could play a Village on that turn or have played one at any point the previous turn in order to have extra actions. That it usually easier to accomplish and lets decks “kick off” easier, leading to fewer dead turns.

When using Durations to create consistency, it’s important to not let them “lump up” when playing them. For instance, suppose you have 2 copies of Haunted Woods in your deck and you want to use them to create a larger starting hand every turn in order to increase the chance you are able to kick off your engine to draw your deck every turn. Suppose further that you end up with both in hand after an unusually good turn. Then, consider playing one copy this turn and holding off on the other. This is going to create more consistent future draws. If you play both now, next turn will be guaranteed to be great, but what about the turn after that? It could be a costly dud. Smoothing so you play one a turn rather than two then zero then two then zero… could benefit you long term.

Making sure you have at least one Duration card in play every turn is especially important for the cards where part of the effect does not stack: Lighthouse’s defense, Haunted Wood’s attack, Bridge Troll's attack and Enchantress’s attack. One card in play is all you need to get the effect and having one in play every turn maximizes the use of that effect. For example, while Lighthouse is a very good card in many two-player kingdoms, Lighthouse is often the key card in multiplayer games. Having one Lighthouse in play every turn to prevent junking attacks is critical; one missed turn can easily lead to 3, 4, or more Curses! If you draw more than one, consider saving that second Lighthouse instead of playing it. That extra $1 is probably not worth it.

When using multiple Durations to create big turns, you do want their effects to lump up. For example, suppose you are building a deck with the idea of using a slew of Bridge Trolls to lower the cost of Provinces in order to buy out the pile in one turn (the classic "Bridge Megaturn"). Playing one or two Bridge Trolls consistently is probably not going to cut it. Get 7 or 8 in play in the span of two turns for the big win! What’s nice about Bridge Troll in this example is that, as opposed to Bridge, you have 2 turns to get the necessary cards in play rather than just one turn. The duration effect stacks nicely while requiring less of your deck to accomplish the stack. For example, you could play 5 Bridge Trolls one turn then 3 the next rather than all 8 at once.

Duration cards can sometimes be used for consistency and other times used for big turns. For example, Tactician alone creates a monster hand size next turn at the expense of this one, giving you a chance to pull together some key cards for a big buy. But you could employ two Tacticians in combination with lots of virtual money, Black Market, or Villa to build a deck that consistently starts each hand with 10 cards while still having a powerful turn (the classic “Double Tactician” deck).

Duration cards’ major downside is an increased chance of missing the shuffle because they usually stay in play for at least one more turn after playing them rather than being cleaned up with the other cards in play. However, because Durations do tend to miss the shuffle and also stay in play longer than your normal Action, a deck can handle a lot more terminal Duration cards than it can pure terminal actions.

Sometimes one great turn is better than two smaller turns. Sometimes consistency is critical. The trick with Durations is being able to utilize the cards’ strengths to create consistency or create big turns and play into those strengths.

[Edit: see comments below; changed paragraph order; clarification of Village/Fishing Village example; added paragraph on non-stacking effects with Lighthouse in multiplayer games as an example; clarified big turn; added additional Tactician discussion.]

94
In short, I agree with Adam in the sense that the blog needs an admin, not a head writer. I am happy he and others are making the case to be that admin.

95
Start by creating a backlog of articles that are ready to be published and a really easy pace -- one article per week, for example (all of the numbers here are just examples, they can be adjusted easily). Once you have enough content for three months, you start publishing. If you ever don't have enough content for one more month in reserve, slow down the pace. If you ever have enough content for 4 months (and have maintained that amount/pace for X time), speed up the pace. Let the creation of articles dictate the pace of the blog and start with expectations very low. If it ever becomes unsustainable, you'll get plenty of advance notice because you've capped the rate at which the backlog gets smaller, so there's this built-in time to solicit new articles and have them created at a relaxed pace so that they're actually good, as opposed to "oh crap I need to write another article by tomorrow" so I throw something together that really isn't good.

This model is something sustainable. However it's something I can't implement as just a content creator, I would need to be in a position where I can control the flow of when things get published. Well I guess now that I've shared this idea anyone can do it but honestly, was this going to happen before I shared it here? Stuff like this is why I need to be involved at the level I'm asking for, and I have a lot more...

Actually, I was just writing up a post that makes this exact point because I was concerned no one was emphasizing the need to pace out new material. It's not some secret sauce no one but the in-club knows. Administering the blog and curating content should be straightforward. Something is better than nothing. We just need someone with time to do it. Heck, I was going to suggest to theory to just add me or someone else as an admin to the blog just to push announcements and existing content to the front page until this thread showed there is already wide-ranging interest in a revival.

There are 16 weeks between now and the end of the year. Between now and the end of the year the blog could advertise the current Online Championship, post Nocturne previews, an announcement of Nocturne release, post Donald X's secret history of the Nocturne cards, and post links streams of the Championship match. That leaves only 10-12 spots for articles. There are already some good ones on the forum that could be curated into posts and requests can be put out for additional articles. That seems completely reasonable for really anyone with time and a minimal amount of skill to do.

96
Third, I think there should be some sort of process for the community to submit content - perhaps a thread describing expectations for content and how to submit.

The Articles subforum used to serve this purpose. Good articles that got lots of upvotes or comments appeared as a "guest post" on the blog as-is or in some edited form. One or two blog posts even came out of Simulations and other subforums. So, I think it would be good for whoever is in charge of the blog to be aware of what is being written long-form on the forum, as well, in order to curate good content.

97
maintaining the domain, etc. including covering the costs associated with that.

This is a big deal for the blog and for the forum. theory does an amazing job and it's important that if he goes completely MIA, someone can handle tech upkeep. Remember the weird attacks that kept taking down the forum a while back? 

Quote
What I want is a more appropriate platform than my personal blog and reddit for publishing Dominion content where people can see it, since neither of those platforms are very good. The dominionstrategy blog is probably the best thing out there, provided it would be properly maintained.

Agreed.

The thing is, the blog is very useful. You're an irl person, you're looking for a way to beat your friend, so you look up "Dominion board game strategy" and boom, Dominion Strategy has all the keywords already.... Anything is better than it sitting there doing nothing.

Agreed. It's still in my blog feed on the hope of a brighter future.

98
I'd give wero control of the blog.

Agreed.

99
You know if this changeover happens in a timely fashion, the front page could have Nocturne previews.

And there could be a blog post right now pointing people to the ShuffleIT tournament.

The menu tabs could be updated (card lists, youtube, glossery, New to Dominion? page, etc.).

I liked it when the blog highlighted choice material from the forum and filed it under General Strategy, Annotated Games, etc.

Beyond Awesome had a similar idea, but more of me being a co-runner with himself.  He has quite a few ideas about doing podcasts and game commentaries.  I guess my idea would be a bit more prosaic - I was thinking of having two weekly posts: one aimed at newer players (which I could write myself), and one aimed at expert players (which I would not be comfortable writing, mainly as I've found expert players tend to say my expert advice is bad), which could be a rotating guest post.

Ideas for new player posts:
-basic strategic concepts (why is it good to trash, how do I engine)
-individual card articles
-Let's Explore [expansion of the week] - go through a set's themes and mechanics, what's interesting about it, the impact it's had, why you should add it to your collection, etc.

Well, I cannot speak for others, but I would also be interested in writing the occasional beginner's article. I think I would have been doing so over the last couple years if the blog had been active.

I would be interested in helping out, writing, curating content, editing/reviewing before publishing, etc. if the main blog runner needed it.

Once a week, twice a week, at most, seems like an ideal frequency for new blog posts.

100
You make some very good points, and I agree with a lot. But, I do think there is an obvious case for pessimism.

1)
More expansions came out. Cards got more complicated.

This is a big deal. If you view every card as a new rule, then this makes is harder to learn the rules of Dominion before even beginning to play a game in the "big leagues", i.e. full random. Every expansion added makes full random less and less friendly regardless of the strategy advice out there. There are reasons why collectible card games like Magic have cards that come in and out of rotation, and it's not just to force you to buy new cards. It's also to keep the complexity down and make the experience better for new players. When Magic is simpler than Dominion (and we're almost there, if not there already), then we've lost one of the main selling points of Dominion and what certainly attracted me to the game as a new player originally.

2) There are a lot of really good, new games that compete directly with Dominion. It's very likely that Dominion has reached it's high water mark in board game geek rankings, for instance.

3) Online Dominion is no longer optimally conducive to giving and taking strategy advice, especially for new players. It's very hard to find and analyze old games. The Game Reports and Help! section of the forum is all but dead. Spectating and streaming is not nearly enough.

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The natural question is: can we bring the Golden Age back? Well, what is the Golden Age? Is it the concentration of Dominion discussion in a single place? Is it the rapid production of content? I think those are elements of it, but the most important one is the experience of the new player. Can we make it easier for new players to get into the game, and grow the Dominion community?

I think that the answer is yes, but it's going to require explaining a bunch more Dominion theory.

You make a very good case, and I want to share your optimism, but I think the answer is not explaining a bunch more Dominion theory. It's 1) explaining important, existing, core strategy concepts well, 2) identifying power/key cards (as you mention) and 3) having competitive experiences that are more new player friendly.

For instance, update the blog with simple introductory articles. Maybe theory can add some new admins to keep things current. Have a newbie friendly tournament that uses only Dominion, Intrigue, and the newest available expansion for generating kingdoms. RGG still gets the hot-new-thing promotion, but it's not prohibitively complicated for new players.

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