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26

Dominion: Guilds Previews / Re: Preview #1: Baker

« on: June 12, 2013, 10:16:46 am »

Interesting note, Pirate Ship is now a card that doesn't fully function just by reading the text on the card.  That's because it says to "take a Coin token" but says nothing about putting it on the PS mat.  Without clarification from the rulebooks, you might expect to be able to spend the coin tokens taken by PS like you would spend the coin tokens received through Baker.  However, the text on the cards does not allow the reverse to happen; you would not expect that playing Butcher would increase the value of your Pirate Ships by $2 because the card specifies that it only counts coin tokens taking by PS itself.

Man, you could even spend those coin tokens without weakening your Pirate Ships.

Hilariously enough, if you're a person who thinks Pirate Ship needs to be buffed then this might be about right. (I'm not one of those people though.)

27

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Hunting party + X now with Dark ages

« on: June 09, 2013, 10:01:57 am »

In that vein HP + Butcher sounds awesome. Early on, you can build up cointokens and use them occasionally to get from $4 to $5 for a HP, but usually you can just save them, in order to later butcher HP->Province.

Butchering Shelters or Estates (and maybe also Curses and Ruins) would also be great. At worst you can turn them into Coppers, which would make Butcher one of the HP-friendliest terminal silvers in the game. At best it might turn out that other options are even stronger, such as turning them into Silver, HP, or a good $2.

28

Dominion: Guilds Previews / Re: Preview #5: Herald

« on: June 07, 2013, 09:37:47 pm »

Definitely the least guildy card we've seen yet. Unless the demand for heraldry is really sufficient to support a full guild of them?

29

Dominion: Guilds Previews / Re: Preview #5: Herald

« on: June 07, 2013, 10:52:32 am »

combo or nombo with scrying pool?

Seems really hard to make a cantrip that wouldn't combo with SP, especially one cheaper than $5. A classic SP deck would almost certainly benefit from the speed boost of being able to buy some Heralds on early non-Potion turns. In multiplayer it can happen that you run out of SPs before anyone has enough to get their engine functioning properly, and then it will be nice to have Heralds too.

I think the only question is, rather, if SP combos with Herald! Which is to say that maybe Herald alone turns out to be so strong that SP is an unnecessary diversion.

I'm curious how these overpay cards will play with Workshop-types. Is it fantastic to gain tons of Heralds with Workshop, or does your opponent beat you with the overpay bonus despite losing the Herald split? I guess this is just another way of formulating our constant question of "Which is more 'important,' the overpay power or the Action ability?" But it's a good way, at least, I think.

30

Dominion: Guilds Previews / Re: Preview #1: Baker

« on: June 06, 2013, 01:54:12 pm »

Qvist's Ghost Ship talk gets me thinking about an interesting (semi-)subtlety about Baker and probably coin token producers in general.

You never want to put Baker off for next turn, because hey you can still spend the coin next turn if you really want, so you're only restricting your options. Edge cases aside, you would always rather play it this turn or else you don't care. Okay most non-junk cards are better earlier than later, because you want to get them in before the next reshuffle. But Baker goes beyond that: it's considerably stronger on T3 than T4 in a way most cards aren't. (In fact if you open Baker/nothing, a T3 Baker guarantees a $5 turn.)

Does this mean that Baker is a deceptively strong target for Scheme, Scav, etc? Guess we'll see.

31

Dominion: Guilds Previews / Re: Preview #3: Journeyman

« on: June 06, 2013, 01:10:09 am »

Journeyman/Fool's Gold? You'd actually wind up naming Coppers more often then, I think, to maximise the chance of a collision. Journeyman/Fool's Gold with Mint follow-up?

Mint/FG with Journeyman followup beats it, or I'll eat all three piles.

Mint aside, Journeyman+FG sounds good but it's such tremendous overkill, I'd rather have weaker draw with +Buy attached. Well+Buy means buying more FGs so I think that seals it. But even if it weren't for that, I might prefer something like CR or possibly even Storeroom let alone Margrave or Wharf.

Of course Journeyman could be compatible with some outside sources of +Buy; for instance Counterfeit/FG/Journeyman sounds monstrous. But I expect then you'd want to open with the +Buy and pick up the Journeyman later. Really an early Journeyman is no use at all if you're just going to rush the FG pile; you might as well pick it up later, unless perhaps it's some kind of mindgame.

32

Dominion: Guilds Previews / Re: Preview #2: Doctor

« on: June 04, 2013, 05:27:10 pm »

The on-buy effect is weak, I mean, a trasher is best bought on turn 1 or 2, we all know that. Some we permit ourselves to get later, like Upgrade/JD, because they simply cost 5, but they're not terminal. So you'll likely get this on t1 or t2 at which points you don't have much money to overspend on it.

Most trashers are best bought on t1-t2 because that's what allows them to start trashing on t3-t4, which is really good. With Doctor, if you overpay on t1 then you are trashing on t1. It seems natural to assume that if t3 trashing is good then t1 trashing must be even better, but given that Copper is still valuable at this stage and you're likely to trash some here, maybe you do as well if you just wait.

We don't actually have much to go on here. We have Mint, which supports my point but of course that's a very extreme case. (As a sidenote, it strikes me that Mint gets a lot better in Baker games where you can buy it with CCCC+coin. That's fun.)

Spice Merchant is (in my humble opinion) a notable example of a trasher that is sometimes better to buy on t3 instead of t1, and I think it's a comparison worth making. Why can you get away with buying a strong $4 opener and picking up a Spice Merchant later? First, it's fast enough that t3 isn't simply too late to do any good. Second, it doesn't ruin your current hand, so you don't mind that it's still continuing its work throughout the mid- and even end-game. Doctor spoils your hand a little more than SM but less than most trashers (and arguably makes up for this by filtering). And it can be faster or slower than SM, depending how much you overpay and what cards you name (and also depending on luck).

33

Dominion General Discussion / Re: [poll] Scout's opportunity price

« on: May 07, 2013, 07:41:32 pm »

The thing is, you'd buy Scout if it were useful, and you won't buy it if it weren't. Altering its cost won't change that. The biggest problem is that Scout doesn't draw a card if it doesn't pick anything up, so I wouldn't take it even if it came for free a lot of the time.

Exactly.  To fix Scout, you don't need to change its cost, you need to change its text.  Would making it a cantrip be enough?

Or what about:
+1 Action
Look at the top 4 cards of your deck.  Put them back in any order.
+1 Card

That actually fits with the name a little better, and I think might be an okay card, even at $4.  But maybe too similar to Cartographer?

The fixed Scout is Vagrant.

34

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Combo: Procession / Apprentice / Border Village

« on: May 01, 2013, 05:35:36 pm »

This is actually 2 separate combos:
Procession + Border Village: One of the major drawbacks of Procession is that it causes you to trash your $5 actions. With Border Village, you can basically keep them (until the supply runs out).

This works pretty nicely with Band of Misfits too. Trash your Smithy into a BoM, and then use the BoM as a Smithy (or find an even better use for it). Although that "until the supply runs out" caveat gets a lot stronger.

35

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Hypothetical Treasure Chest Expansion Composition

« on: April 27, 2013, 11:54:05 am »

I don't imagine that would actually be relevant. The way to look at it isn't to consider Treasure Chest vs. nothing, but Treasure Chest vs. other stuff. If I could be talked into doing a 9th expansion in order to make a Treasure Chest, couldn't I also be talked into doing a 9th expansion that was just a new expansion?

Haven't you expressed concern though that cards are forced to become more complicated as you release more expansions, because most of the simple ideas have been done? I know there are a lot of arguments against making more expansions but my impression was this was one of the big ones. Treasure Chest then has the advantage that you've only released a handful of Duration/VP-chip/etc. cards; surely there must be a lot of simple cards left to make. I'm probably stating the obvious here but surprised I've never seen this brought up.

Or is that what you meant about Treasure Chest being easier to make? Implying (I guess) that this problem is always surmountable, it just means more work?

The point of this expansion would as a reward for the fans who have been there since the games beginning and want more cool stuff for the VP tokens and Potion cards, etc. It's a little something special.

This is great and all but it seems like it would be a lot more likely to get made if it could also function as a "sampler pack" to tempt new players into buying these sets. "Hey, look how cool this Duration card is, you should buy Seaside."

Edit: Perhaps this is risky though? Given these sets already sell like hotcakes as far as I'm aware; maybe there's little to gain and much to lose if one controversial VP chip card starts turning people away from Prosperity?

36

Dominion Articles / Re: Develop

« on: April 27, 2013, 09:02:08 am »

I've found it's ideal not just to have good cards separated by $2 (although this is obviously good especially when they form a combo) but a continuous spectrum like $3-4-5-6.

The problem I find is that if you just have your eye on a nice $3/$5 combo, then you're going to wind up a victim of your own success, with a deck full of $3/$5 cards where the good $4 Develop targets become hard to find. One solution that's been mentioned is using Rats/Fortress to provide a continual source of fuel. I think this can be generalized to other $4-gainers. It also helps to be running an engine which finds good Develop targets even if they are a little scarce. But another way is to plan on Developing the cards you gained by Develop, assuming there is a wide variety of useful and somewhat interchangeable cards at all price points, so that you can improve your deck quality this way instead of hurting it. A special case is perhaps to Develop a $4 into Develop/$5 and then next turn gain a $6/$4.

There's obvious synergy with on-gain and on-trash effects. I especially note BV and Catacombs.

37

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Combo: Forager/Draw-to-X

« on: April 26, 2013, 11:01:04 pm »

I tried Forager/Jack/Counterfeit (with some Village I think?) the other day but it didn't work out so hot. Maybe I executed it wrong but I think the Counterfeit just clogs it too much for Jack draw to cope?

38

Dominion Articles / Re: Some points on Armory

« on: April 18, 2013, 04:43:14 pm »

The point of opening Armory and using it to pick up the "opener" is that you wind up with the same opener you would have had, one turn later, but you also have a free Armory (well, almost free) that you wouldn't have if you'd done things the other way.

Of course if a free Armory is a bad thing for your deck, then you wouldn't want to do that. I (and I guess PitzerMike) had let that go without saying in my previous post because it is pretty obvious, as WW said.

39

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Two Great Uses for Band of Misfits

« on: April 18, 2013, 09:03:20 am »

Btw, does anyone know why BoM has this restriction to only be able to mimic cards still in the supply? I don't think it would be at all overpowered without it. Is it to keep easier track of your options in a live game? But then it doesn't sound too hard to remember that a card everyone spammed was in supply?

I would imagine it was just the simplest possible wording. It's complicated enough already; "Pick a card that was in the Supply at start of game" seems needlessly clunky. If it ruined the card it'd be one thing but it's a small issue and if anything it adds strategic nuance.

40

Dominion Articles / Re: Some points on Armory

« on: April 16, 2013, 08:36:50 pm »

When Armory came out I remember a lot of people saying it was great for alt-VP rushes, because topdecking Armories lets you get lots of Armories really fast and outweighs the annoyance of topdecking Gardens. (Or you can just buy Gardens with money and use the Armories for everything else). I don't think I've gotten around to trying it yet though. Has the consensus changed then?

And yes, gainers are really good for engine components, but the thing is you'll often open with Workshop if you plan on gaining lots of Village type cards. Armory is $4, and if there is a good terminal at $4 then you may be wasting an opening buy simply for the topdecking.

You're only half-wasting that opening buy though.

If you draw the Armory turn 3 then you can still topdeck whatever $4 opener you wanted, in time for turn 4, and you're unambiguously better off. If you get the Armory turn 4, well getting the other card on turn 5 isn't ideal but having an extra Armory in deck might make up for it. If you get the Armory on turn 5, that hurts pretty badly, but maybe it's no worse than if you'd opened the other card and got it on turn 5. In fact maybe it could be even better in some cases? You have the flexibility to just say it's too late for that other card, and get something more appropriate.

Edit: Opening Armory in hopes of drawing it on turn 3 seems like an especially good play in multiplayer, where you want the extra variance.

41

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Tag-lines for cards

« on: April 04, 2013, 10:36:20 pm »

Feast: It's what's for dinner.

42

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Guilds leaked on BGG

« on: April 01, 2013, 09:07:50 pm »

Peons is probably way overpowered; it's not that hard to get those coin tokens once your engine gets rolling.

I disagree; in principle it looks close to Stables, and in practice substantially more work to set up. Unlike Stables it works with Copper trashing, but then I'd bet it also suffers more from lack of Copper trashing. You also don't get the Stables trick of redrawing all your Treasure at the end.

Also most games won't have coin tokens and then it gets really weak. A Peddler/Peons engine (once built) is functionally very close to a Village/Smithy engine, but it's more expensive to build, especially if you allow for the sake of simplicity that Peddler is a ~$4 card (and even if we admit that sometimes you'll wind up keeping your Peddler money). Oasis/Peons is pretty close to the cheaper Hamlet/Smithy if Hamlet didn't give +Buy; Market/Peons is analogous to WV/Smithy; etc.

Supplementing these engines with actual Villages would probably help; then you would have a highly reliable engine (and if each midgame Village you buy frees up a Peddler coin for spending, you can think of the Villages as underpriced Peddlers). Still seems expensive though.

FV/Peons looks just hilariously strong though.

43

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Guilds leaked on BGG

« on: April 01, 2013, 08:16:13 pm »

Turnpike is worse than Duchy when you pay the extra $2.

Maybe. It does help you control whether the piles run out though, which would be important in a Turnpike rush or slog.

I guess I'm more concerned that Turnpike is worse than Gardens. Gardens is typically worth 3VP without the drawbacks. It's worth less if you thin your deck but I don't much see how Turnpike benefits from a thin deck.

Still no actual evidence that this isn't real. Just sayin'

Aside from being posted by user "A Fool"

44

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Guilds leaked on BGG

« on: April 01, 2013, 07:29:46 pm »

Well, name one village that doesn't look bad next to fishing village?

Yeah of course I won't argue with that.

Fishing Village comparisons aside though, Gypsy Camp still looks like a $2 card to me. Squire compares pretty well.

45

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Guilds leaked on BGG

« on: April 01, 2013, 06:19:04 pm »

Coin tokens can be saved for a later round, so they're probably quite a bit stronger than +$

Yeah but I have to think sooner or later you run into the "early buys are more important than late buys" effect. Being able to save your coin token until the perfect moment ten turns later is great and all; it's better than not having the option. And I can appreciate that it gives you a certain level of Courtyard-esque control over your income, which might give rise to some new strategies. But ideally you wouldn't want it to sit around useless any longer than is really necessary, and there's an opportunity cost to doing so.

With that in mind, Gypsy Camp looks pretty bad next to FV. FV gives you two turns to use that coin effectively, which is enough to give you a pretty good chance you'll get your money's worth. Then on top of that it gives money on another turn, as well as the extra +Actions.

To put it another way, the coin tokens seem like they're about reliability or flexibility rather than power. When I look at FV I don't see a card that needs to trade a lot of power for a little additional reliability.

46

Dominion General Discussion / Re: How Early Do You Start Taking Those Extra Coppers?

« on: March 30, 2013, 08:31:48 am »

The better your opponent is, the more you can assume they already know that you're going for the slog, so you might as well take the Copper. I mean we're assuming the slog is unambiguously the correct option, right? (Either the best option from the beginning, or the best given your previous play?) If so, they probably see it too, so you're not really hiding much.

If not then the bigger question is whether you should commit to the slog right now or continue to keep your options open. I'd say that one extra Copper is very seldom worth losing that flexibility.

Of course if you can see from their previous play that your opponent doesn't anticipate the slog, even though they ought to by now, then sure let them keep making mistakes. A Copper isn't worth ruining that. You will likely beat that player anyway though, so if you're not sure whether they've wised up or not, just play solidly.

47

Dominion: Guilds Previews / Re: Discussion on the description text

« on: March 30, 2013, 08:22:02 am »

How great is it that we've all been trying to wring a few drops of sweet sweet information from the leaked Guilds card costs, and now it turns out the costs are variable?

48

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Notation

« on: March 08, 2013, 11:54:46 pm »

Super cool.

It needs some provision for multiple-option cards, is the only oversight I can see outside of individual cards like Stash. The current notation is good enough to figure out what you did with a Count or Steward (insignificant edge cases aside), but cards like Pawn and Squire can lead to ambiguity.

Something like (+A) for +Actions could possibly work (although you might want to abbreviate some card name with A instead). But for the sake of generality, maybe you should do something like Pawn(1,3) to represent choosing the first and third Pawn options listed on the card, and then you're covered if there's a multiple choice card with off-the-wall options. I'm sure this could be omitted if you don't need it, as with Steward etc. It could also apply to optional effects; e.g. Scavenger(1, *C*) would mean that you opted to use Scavenger's first optional power (discarding your deck) before topdecking Copper.

Oh, also I suppose you have to cover "naming" a card (for Embargo, WW etc.  The "reveal" notation seems insufficient since WW also reveals a card; although I guess you could just skip showing what card was named and just show whether WW successfully draws a second card or not). How about quotation marks: "X" ?

I don't think abbreviating card names ought to be that hard. A lot of standard abbreviations have been established in the community already, and the limited number of cards available in a game makes it much less ambiguous (puzzles being different of course). If all else fails you can define abbreviations as you go. If it takes off I'm sure it'll standardize.

49

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Madman wording

« on: March 05, 2013, 08:13:31 pm »

I believe it means you cannot hit it with TR or KC, as the second time you play it, you cannot return it to the pile.  Contrast with Feast and Embargo.

You still get the actions.

Of course, using KC for something like that when you're about to draw a lot of cards is often a bad play.

Never mind that you'll draw one less card because the TR/KC isn't in hand anymore.

50

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Combos

« on: March 02, 2013, 06:39:54 pm »

Buying a Copper is better than buying a Loan if you're going for the Counting House: Loan discards one copper from your deck, which gives the next Counting House an additional copper to get. Copper by itself is an additional copper for the next Counting House, so they're similar in that aspect. But Copper also doesn't discard your Counting House, doesn't ever hit a Loan and increases the maximum # of copper you can put in your hand.

So, even though Loan might have some synergy with Counting House, you should practically never buy a Loan if you're planning to rely on Counting House later.

Adding insult to injury, there's also the set of cases where Loan (but not Copper) would force an undesired reshuffle that stops you from using that newly discarded Copper. You'd like to be able to say that it makes up for this the rest of the time by cycling your deck into your discard faster; but I don't think that really holds up.