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26

Game Reports / Re: The Apothecary/Warehouse combo

« on: June 19, 2011, 09:48:26 pm »

Now try adding Counting House and Scout!

27

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: What would you like to see in Dominion?

« on: June 19, 2011, 03:22:39 pm »

Explorer (when do you NOT want to reveal the province? Why is it "may")

The real reason it's 'may' is the same reason Throne Room should be -- your opponent shouldn't have to trust you that you don't have a Province in hand if you don't reveal one. In general, forced actions conditional on private information are a big nono in (physical) game design.

On the other hand, Bureaucrat and Cutpurse.

28

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Keeping track of turns...

« on: June 18, 2011, 08:57:07 pm »

This is an interesting exception to Donald's claims of 'no errata', since it's pretty clear from the literal wording of the rules that they should count.

The actual policy is 'no errata, except for typos or cards that don't actually work'. I think that 'I totally knew this had to be in the rules, and totally missed putting it in' can count as a typo.

29

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: What would you like to see in Dominion?

« on: June 18, 2011, 08:39:04 pm »

I would like to point out that not all reactions are moat, some already should make you hesitate about some attacks (not the curse givers, but other attacks).
Watchtower makes swindler very problematic (early, in late game it's problematic in any case).
Secret Chamber is very powerful against Swindler, Saboteur, Thief, Pirate Ship, Fortune Teller and Jester.
Horse Traders makes the attack of minion an actual gain for your opponent.

There are several more cards that are likely to cause hand-size reducing to be counter-productive (Menagerie, Library, Watchtower). So the problem should not be a reaction that makes avoiding the attack better than playing it.

There's a difference between a Reaction that makes things better for the victim of the attack and one that makes things worse for the person playing the attack. The cards you mentioned all still have a chance of misfiring (maybe Secret Chamber doesn't give you two Victory cards to feed to the Thief, for example), and the other players are still hit with the full Attack, so you still come out ahead.

And for Horse Traders vs. Minion: first, Minion is powerful enough that maybe it needs to be a little risky to play it. And second, much of the time you're not even using Minion for the attack; you're using it for the +$2, or to cycle your own hand. That's enough of an incentive to play it anyway, even if it benefits other players as well.

Actually, that's an interesting question for Donald X: Did he ever try Minion without the Attack aspect? Just as '+1 Action. Choose one: +$2; or discard your hand and +4 Cards.'

30

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Which is the card you hate the most?

« on: June 18, 2011, 08:24:34 pm »

You'll usually have only one or two Herbalists, so clean them up first, and then the list will collapse down to just the Alchemists. I think that, strictly speaking, this isn't supposed to work, but it does.

No.

Presumably you're using the Herbalist to load your Potion. Then your Potion is no longer and play, and your Alchemists go straight into your discard. I have made this mistake on isotropic before.

That's how it's supposed to work, yeah. But I just tried it, and isotropic does indeed give you the option to put Alchemists back after you put Potions back.

Here: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201106/18/game-20110618-172052-36f3b3e7.html

31

Dominion Isotropic / Re: Decline of civility on isotropic?

« on: June 18, 2011, 05:48:28 pm »

This.

I dislike players taking too long to end an obviously-won game. Losing stinks, especially if you've had bad luck in a game, so I can understand some soreness from losers. But if you've already won, just end the game. If you only need to ironworks a $2 card to get a third pile, don't keep running your engine and buying VP. I can understand being worried that your thin deck is about to stall out, so you need to get enough points to prevent a comeback.  There's no points for margin of victory.  RUTSing is truly lame.


Just had a colony game where other player is up by 30+.  "You've got this one," I say, pop the score from the point counter. I try to be subtle: I buy three estates, so there's only two left. He buys a colony and a silver.  I buy another estate - and point out that he could've ended the game and won.  He buys a Province and a duchy.

I'll walk from that kind of game.  Just leave the window open and make him wait for the time-out.

That is assholery IMO.  If you've lost, just leave.  Don't take 5 minutes from this guys life.  The winner can't leave and get his win, but you can leave and get your loss.

If it becomes known that being an ass means you'll have to wait an extra 5-10 minutes before you officially win, perhaps that will be an incentive to not be an ass.

32

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Which is the card you hate the most?

« on: June 18, 2011, 03:44:28 pm »

I hate playing Alchemist/Herbalist engines on isotropic, but only because it makes you look through the whole massive text list of cards in your play area and click on each Alchemist individually every damn time

You'll usually have only one or two Herbalists, so clean them up first, and then the list will collapse down to just the Alchemists. I think that, strictly speaking, this isn't supposed to work, but it does.

33

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Does Horse Traders too effectively counter Minion?

« on: June 17, 2011, 04:22:11 pm »

Sure, you get to draw an extra card with the Horse Traders, but that means in a multiplayer game, it can't "react" again for the remainder of the round.  So if I'm player A, and B plays a Minion, I discard my Horse Traders, but it doesn't do much when C plays his...

Except it does, by taking you down to four cards, so that Minion doesn't do anything.

(Which is the bit I was missing in my earlier response to Death to Seas Hags's post, so ignore that one.)

34

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Does Horse Traders too effectively counter Minion?

« on: June 17, 2011, 02:33:35 pm »

Also, if the other four cards in your hand suck than using the HT isn't really a boon.

If the rest of your hand sucks when Minioned, you've still got two pretty good options. 

(1) you could reveal the HT, and get $3 for some crap + coppers.  You might even draw something decent from the HT when it comes back.
(2) NOT reveal the HT: this is a free discard of a crap hand.  HT lets you take advantage of Minion to pick the hand you want to play.  That's pretty awesome.

If you've got more than one HT in your deck, then option (2) becomes even better: you might draw another HT in the second hand, and when your opponent plays another Minion (don't they always?) you'll get to draw back up to 5 cards next turn.

What? Horse Traders doesn't prevent the discard or anything. Except possibly for some corner cases, setting aside the Traders, then getting it back + another card is better than discarding it with the rest of your hand.

35

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: When do you need a plural for Diadem?

« on: June 17, 2011, 02:09:55 pm »

Maybe something with Mint or Smugglers where you attempt to gain a copy of the Diadem, but 'there are no Diadems to gain'? I don't think that that's how isotropic phrases that, though.

36

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Pirate Ship in 3+ player games.

« on: June 17, 2011, 01:18:39 pm »

But eventually we realized that on most boards you can play around it with +coin effects and say "thanks!" for the free copper trashing.

Yeah, this is usually how I play it too. The thing is, Pirate Ship is itself a pretty good +coin effect.