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151

Help! / Re: Apparently Duchy/Duke CAN ignore Familiar? Even on a Wharf/Village engine board?

« on: December 19, 2012, 01:18:34 am »

I'm not quite sure, but I like the idea of ignoring Familiar.  It slows down your early game so much, and I think a Wharf/WV Engine would be able to trash fast enough to beat this.  Either of them should beat Duchy/Duke. 

I would open Remake/Silver, and grab one more silver before buying nothing but Worker's Village and Wharf.  Once you can draw your whole deck, or just before start to buy a little more money to get up to 16.  In a sample it took me 17 turns to get 8 provinces. 

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/18/game-20121218-221113-ddb342ec.html

Also this kingdom is really fun to play around with.  This is definitely not realistic, but hey 120 points in 19 turns is fun .

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/18/game-20121218-220506-9fddd8cd.html

152

Game Reports / Throne Room Engine

« on: December 17, 2012, 03:02:54 am »

This was a fun game, with a nice Throne Room Engine.  I wasn't really convinced of the engine when i first started, but it turned out quite well.  Moneylender is not the best trashing, but in a Colony game there is a lot of time.  I was able to spike an early Throne Room Moneylender that got me a Grand Market.  I think this was really lucky, and made a huge difference in how fast i was able to set this up. I had a lot of fun building this Engine. 

Colony, Grand Market, Moneylender, Monument, Platinum, Potion, Saboteur, Throne Room, Torturer, Tournament, Vineyard, Watchtower, and Woodcutter

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/16/game-20121216-213405-e641e881.html

153

Help! / Mountebank

« on: December 17, 2012, 02:57:38 am »

So I got a 5/2 on a Mountebank board against 4/3.  I felt a little bad, and assumed I had a huge advantage.  It would seem I was a little mistaken.  I'm not sure of my Crossroads at the open vs. nothing. 

Mostly I'm curious about my opponents strategy.  What would you open with 4/3?  I'm think I would go Silver/Silver or Silver/Militia.  I think S/S may be better due to later collisions with Mountebanks, but the chance of keeping your oponent off of Mountebank with Militia may be worth it.  He opened Loan/Militia.  This feels risky.  Loan instead of Silver decreases your chance of getting a 5 the next reshuffle which is key with Mountebank.  However, he got 5 anyways and was in a great position, now being able to thin his deck with Loan.

When is it worth going for a risky opening like this?  Am I off base; is this a good opening?  After this he spikes a KC on the next resuffle, and KC Mountebank the next shuffle.  I think the game is over then. 

Chancellor, Colony, Coppersmith, Crossroads, Fairgrounds, King's Court, Loan, Militia, Mining Village, Monument, Mountebank, and Platinum

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/15/game-20121215-172227-6214a713.html

154

Goko Dominion Online / Match Making

« on: December 17, 2012, 02:11:56 am »

After recent Dark Ages games IRL I wanted to play some online.  I thought I'd give Goko a chance.  I have similar complaints to many others, but there are only 2 things that I care about at all.  They are correct implementation of the rules and interface, and a reasonable match making system. 

OK, so I hate to be blunt, but Dominion has rules, and if you intend to sell it to people, you should have them right!  The Interface should also work.  I still have trouble with Chrome crashing, and in a recent game I played Band of Misfits was not displayed properly.  It is just a blank gray spot where the card would be.  I was very confused when the computer asked me what I wanted to trash to a Knight attack: a Laboratory or an empty gray card.

The match making system is REALLY important to me.  I play dominion to play with other players of a reasonable skill level.  I'm currently level 40, and typically set isotropic to +/- 20 levels, but am fine playing with anyone above 5.  I'm just looking for someone I can have an interesting game with.  On Goko, I play on the "Pro" leaderboard.  Without any system set up for match making of equal skilled opponents I usually host a game and play with who ever joins.  This is much slower than some sort of auto match system, but I'm more concerned with finding some one of equal skill.  I played 5 games on Goko today, and 3 of them players left half way into the game because it was so lopsided.  I'm fine with resigning, but i would like my games to be competitive.

Here is a log to one of the saddest games of Dominion I've ever played.  I felt bad during the whole game, and was sorta glad they left so i didn't have to drag it out.  I'm not trying to make fun of the person I played, just trying to state that we shouldn't be playing.  We were all new at sometime, and its fun to learn the game, but not against someone who is 40 levels above you.  On a related note, I would advise against Rats/Chapel as an opening. 

http://dominionlogs.goko.com//20121216/log.50775a4a0cf28ed55d9d6fd3.1355727003701.txt

155

2012 / Re: Gardens Division: Bracket and Results

« on: December 16, 2012, 03:34:46 pm »

eliegel34 4-3 over chuckleslovakian

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/16/game-20121216-112026-9fa7a7ba.html
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/16/game-20121216-113057-06cf3abf.html
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/16/game-20121216-114102-edf11403.html
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/16/game-20121216-114835-138f84fb.html
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/16/game-20121216-120740-458b7ec0.html
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/16/game-20121216-121703-2985d567.html
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/16/game-20121216-122612-cd81489c.html

156

Game Reports / Hunting Party/Counting House

« on: December 11, 2012, 02:11:59 am »

I've played a lot of different Hunting Party/X games, but i never thought of Counting House as a good X.  I was looking at this set, and figured with no other obvious strategy i'd try HP/CH.  It was a pretty fun combo to try!  Hunting Party does a great job of sifting through your whole deck once you have enough of them, and then Counting House pulls all the Coppers out of the discard. 

I think i could have set it up faster, but it was such a weird game with Smugglers.  I don't think it's worth the time to buy Gold in this deck but i'm not sure if a free one from smugglers hurt or not.  I think this could be pretty strong on a board with some sort of non terminal +Buy since it would be pretty easy to build up to double Hunting Party turns, Province/Hunting Party turns or maybe even double Provinces.  It sure was weird to play with Counting House in a game that wasn't a slog!

 Bishop, Cellar, Counting House, Crossroads, Great Hall, Hunting Party, Smugglers, Tribute, Village, and Walled Village

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/10/game-20121210-225338-0c01b34b.html

157

2012 / Re: Gardens Division: Bracket and Results

« on: December 03, 2012, 10:03:35 pm »

eliegel34 4-0 over kaboom30000 (sillle14)

eliegel34 54 : 53  kaboom30000 http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/03/game-20121203-181029-6cd9a550.html
eliegel34 24 : 16  kaboom30000 http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/03/game-20121203-181843-898bc8cc.html
eliegel34 103: 41 kaboom30000 http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/03/game-20121203-183423-d55b7961.html
eliegel34 50 : 12  kaboom30000 http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/03/game-20121203-184141-46150daf.html

Thanks to kaboom30000 for some fun games of dominion in my first every tournament. 

I went for the golden deck in game 1 with Chapel/Bishop, and was quite slow at building it.  I was able to just squeak out a win with a more reliable deck in the end.  I know I didn't play optimally, but I'm not sure how i'd play that shuffle luck.  Game 2 was a Sea Hag slog, that i was able to transition out of just a little faster with some Apprentice play.  Game 3 was a Colony game with a crazy Black Market and a very slow to set up King's Court/Torturer deck.  He got 3 Colonies before i could lock his deck with Torturer, and the game was much closer than the score would suggest.  Game 4 was Hunting Party/Swindler vs. Minion.  I was able to trash faster with Forge, and attack him enough slow him down from there. 

158

Dominion Isotropic / Re: Attention-whoring thread.... I did it!!

« on: November 30, 2012, 06:35:42 pm »

As the thread says, I did it.  For me it was making it up to level 40 and into the top 50 (I'm 40.070 and 48th on the board). 

I've been trying pretty hard to get this for the last few weeks.  I've played ~700 games this month which is way above my usual.  Its been really addictive as well, with the impending threat of iso going down, I didn't want to stop till i got this.

Trying to get to a new skill level makes playing really exciting, but it also feels stressful.  I have had to try pretty hard not to rage when you lose to a worse strategy that gets lucky.

159

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Combo: Ill-Gotten-Gains + Coppersmith

« on: November 29, 2012, 05:19:10 pm »

I'm going to agree with GenndoIkari that Coppersmith/IGG is a good combo.  I've played this a couple times and it feels pretty good. 

I would typically open CS/Silver since in your first reshuffle it will likely be a terminal silver.  After that I think on average its better.  IGG doesn't give you that many curses if you are playing the mirror.  When to take Copper with IGG is a tougher question, but if you only take it when you need it, you would end up with a deck of something like ~10 Copper, 5 IGG, 5 Curses, 3 Estates, and ~2 Coppersmiths (yea i made it 25 cards to make the math easy).  With that deck composition you average 3 Copper/hand making Coppersmith a terminal Gold and increasing the chances of spiking a Province. 

Plus it feels awesome to win with Coppersmith, since it is usually not a great card.

160

Help! / Possession :(

« on: November 29, 2012, 02:36:06 am »

This game made me a little sad.  I know that I don't play Possession very well, but this is just frustrating.  I build a better deck, he uses it more than i do, and he wins.  I thought about getting Possession in the mid game, but his deck wasn't as good as mine, so i didn't really want to use it that badly.  That was defiantly a mistake; even if its just used as a +Buy it would have helped and wasn't too far out of the way.  I just have no idea what to do in this set.  Any suggestions? 

Apprentice, Merchant Ship, Pawn, Pirate Ship, Possession, Potion, Scout, Scrying Pool, Shanty Town, Trade Route, and Vineyard

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/28/game-20121128-232950-1258777c.html

161

Help! / Re: Sabbed to Death

« on: November 28, 2012, 02:16:39 pm »

Copper copper everywhere, but not a drop to drin… reveals 4 Pearl Divers, 11 Estates, and 10 Coppers but has no card to sabotage.

That's one of the saddest things I've seen in a log.  That's a brutal game.

162

Help! / Counting House Wins, but I Think There is a Better Engine

« on: November 28, 2012, 01:15:56 am »

So, I won this game, but i don't think either of us played optimally.  I went for Counting House with Worker's Village, and Warehouse support.  My opponent went for Mint/Lighthouse into big money, with a detour for transmute. It was a really fun game to play with both of us going for weird strategy's.

I think we both missed the engine possibilities that exist on this board.  I think it would be a Mint/Apprentice engine where a Platinum can be Minted and then Apprenticed for huge draw with WV for +Buy building up to multiple Colony buys.  This is a pretty weird engine to me, and i'm not quite sure how to build it.

 I think getting the Apprentice ASAP is key, so i'd open Silver/Silver or maybe Silver/Warehouse.  From there i'd grab Mint at the first good chance, probably after Apprenticing something big to draw as many coppers as possible.  My next question is when to green?  I guess it probably depends on draws, and what the opponent is doing, but my guess is double or triple Colony.  In a solo game this engine was much faster than what my opponent and i tried to do. 

Apprentice, Colony, Counting House, Forge, Inn, Lighthouse, Menagerie, Mint, Platinum, Potion, Transmute, Warehouse, and Worker's Village

Counting House vs. BM Mint
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/27/game-20121127-002351-06eeeae8.html

Solo Engine Attempt
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/27/game-20121127-214833-b716dbb2.html

163

Game Reports / Bridge mega turn Without King's Court

« on: November 27, 2012, 01:42:05 am »

This was a really fun kingdom, so i wanted to share it.  I think there are a few different routes that could lead to a Bridge mega turn.  It's pretty fun to use Caravan with Library since normally that would be terrible.  I suspect this could be done faster, but i'm not quite sure what I would change. 

The other funny thing in here is with Worker's Village as the action source and Garden/Fairgrounds, this has huge comeback potential with ~16 buys floating around; it seems likely that even done 7/0 in provinces you could come back by setting this off. 

Apprentice, Bridge, Caravan, Crossroads, Expand, Fairgrounds, Gardens, Library, Secret Chamber, and Worker's Village

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/26/game-20121126-215642-b8b863c1.html

164

Help! / Loan/Loan into Tunnel

« on: November 27, 2012, 01:33:02 am »

I don't see anything strong on the board so i just go for double Jack with support from stables and and Farmland tricks.  My opponent goes for Loan/Loan into Tunnel, using Courtyard quite effectively to put back Tunnels and discard them with Loan.  Its a really cute strategy, but in several attempts I can't seem to match the speed that he excecuted this.  So my question is whether or not there is anything on this board that could beat double Jack on average?  Did i just get unlucky?

On a side note, the simulator says BM Courtyard beats double Jack, 52/44 so, there's that.

Courtyard, Explorer, Farmland, Jack of All Trades, Loan, Oracle, Pearl Diver, Stables, Stash, and Tunnel

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/26/game-20121126-201732-7a443bdf.html

165

Game Reports / Re: Post your cute double Tac decks here!

« on: November 27, 2012, 01:17:44 am »

Double Tactician is becoming one of my favorite engine. Here's another one.  I think Scrying Pool would be better with any extra buy on the board, but Tact is the only +buy.  I think single Workshop was pretty important to speed the building up.  Also Steward was really good here for the trashing, and for the money.  With the double Tact setup and all those Fishing Villages, I pretty much had unlimited actions.

Bazaar, Fishing Village, Native Village, Potion, Scrying Pool, Silk Road, Steward, Tactician, Warehouse, Wishing Well, and Workshop

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/26/game-20121126-203615-48438fda.html

166

General Discussion / Re: His Dark Materials?

« on: November 27, 2012, 12:08:13 am »

This is one of my favorite series.  The second book is also my favorite.  Its so fun to watch the interactions between Lyra and Will.  Iorek Byrnison is awesome.  I doubt many people have listened to the books on tape, but the voices on it are awesome especially Lyra. 

167

Help! / Chapel/Sea Hag

« on: November 19, 2012, 10:43:40 pm »

I got a board today that had both Chapel and Sea Hag in it.  I figured i'd trash down with Chapel and allow me to play my Sea Hag more.  It works really well with Witch and Mountebank.  If you've never tried Chapel/Sea Hag, it feels a lot like you have no money.  I got pretty bad shuffle luck with T3 being CCEEE, and T4 being ChapelCCCC.  I think i should have bought silver on T4, but instead i chapeled all 4 copers; I was set on chapeling my deck!  T3 i bought a second chapel which i believe is always the wrong play, but i really wanted to get rid of my deck.  After this it was disaster of horrible hands that i brought on myself, and i didn't buy anything from T3 until T14 at which point my deck was ChapelCCC  .

I suspect the bad T3/T4 shuffle luck, and poor choice to chapel 4 coppers really hurt me, but I'm wondering how to use Chapel in a Sea Hag game?  Is it best to open Chapel/Hag?  It seems like Silver/Hag into a T3 or T4 Chapel is probably stronger.  BM hag may also be stronger. 

Back to the game, to clear up the it depends on the kingdom question.  There was Wharf and City so an engine coming out of the curse battle, or maybe even before Hag is possible.  I was able to build up to double Province turns just in time to win.  When would you start to build an engine on this board?  Would it be better to just play BM Wharf after the curses are out?  This was one of the weirdest games I've ever played.  I doubt I'd open Chapel/Sea Hag again.


http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/19/game-20121119-192427-b596c462.html

168

Game Reports / Re: Post your cute double Tac decks here!

« on: November 18, 2012, 08:04:47 pm »

This is a pretty straightforward double Tactician board.  Its lacking in plus buy, but Princess was able to help with that once i got going on the prizes.

Apprentice, Caravan, Colony, Conspirator, Counting House, Envoy, Platinum, Royal Seal, Smithy, Tactician, Tournament, and Venture

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/18/game-20121118-165015-910f048d.html

169

Game Reports / All Your Curses Are Belong to Us

« on: November 16, 2012, 08:19:30 pm »

Here's a game where i went for Wharf/Fool's Gold against Familiar.  I took all 10 curses but was still able to win.  This is the first time i think I've gotten all the curses and won (short of buying them in a goons game or something).  It's interesting to find a strategy that is fast enough to ignore a curser.  I doubt I could have ignored anything other cursing card though.  I think this would have been really close if i didn't have a 5/2, but Wharf/FG is such a strong opening. 

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/16/game-20121116-171245-e5d59a84.html

170

Game Reports / Re: Dear My Opponent: I am Sorry

« on: November 15, 2012, 11:55:59 pm »

Dear NotSarah,

I'm sorry that my single Chancellor confused himself with Stash and ended up in my first hand the the shuffle 6 hands in a row (in a deck of 30 cards).  It wouldn't be so bad if the weren't all good hands: 4 Provinces and 1 Pstone bought with a deck that was total crap.  You can't beat that kinda luck. 

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/15/game-20121115-204906-a7c91d8a.html

171

Feedback / Re: So Dominion Strategy has hit over 3 million visits

« on: November 14, 2012, 04:25:46 pm »

Are you iterating 10^7 times to figure that out? That's a lot of computation. You can just use the poisson approximation to binomial. P=1-exp(-g^2/(2t))

Yea did run 10^7 calculations since i wanted to plot games vs. probability.  It only takes 30 seconds to run in MATLAB.  Extremely inefficient, but marginally more accurate.

172

Feedback / Re: So Dominion Strategy has hit over 3 million visits

« on: November 14, 2012, 03:32:05 pm »

This question is just a larger version of the birthday problem.  Let t=the total number of kingdoms (1.17*10^15) assuming 150 kingdom cards; and g=the number of games played.

The probability of each game adding a unique kingdom to the set is p=(t-g)/t
for i =1:g
p(i)=(t-i)/t

Taking the product of each of these g terms for how many games have been played gives you the probability that for g games played that a all kingdoms are unique.
pn(1)=p(1)
for j=1:g-1
pn(i+1)=pn(i)*p(i+1)

This leads to a probability of 4.19% that we have played the same kingdom twice after 10 million games.  If we keep playing there will be a 50% chance after 40 million games.

173

Help! / Re: Shraeye tries to get better

« on: November 14, 2012, 01:33:54 am »

Like the others have said this game the priority is a wharf engine where you draw your whole deck every turn.  There are a couple different ways to get there, but i would recommend remake into conspirators. 

Remake is great at trashing quickly since it upgrades 2 cards on the same turn, and there are tons of cool tricks you can play with it in this set. Remake is also good here since you can trash estates into Wishing Well, which activates your conspirators as well as increase hand size.  It allows you to draw your whole deck faster by reducing the size. 

I'm going to make a bold statement: Conspirator is awesome here!  It needs the Wharf BV engine to get it started and draw your whole deck but it helps you get to that point to without putting money like silver and gold that take up space in your deck.  I would recommend never buying money and only BV, Wharf, WW, and Conspirator.  The priority is to draw your whole deck as soon as possible so BV and Wharf are most important.  When you miss those early get WW or Conspirator.  Conspirator is essentially a cheep Grand Market in this set.  BV Wharf gives you a large enough hand size that it is always activated, and all the buys that you will ever need.   

There are a ton of cool tricks you can do with remake in this set.  Early on you want to remake estate to WW as first priority and kill copper second.  Once you are starting to draw your deck it is easy to remake a WW to a Conspirator and still draw it that turn with other WW or Conspirator.  Typically you want to balance how your Wharfs are split; if you have 4 Wharfs, you want to play 2 each turn.  If you end up with 3 on 1 turn before you are drawing everything, you can always remake a Wharf into a BV and Wharf.  Free Boarder Village. 

I played with this for a while, and here is an example log solo: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/12/game-20121112-234632-0ec833da.html

174

Game Reports / Scrying Pool with Secret Chamber

« on: November 14, 2012, 01:11:15 am »

A few people have posted reciently about the Scrying Pool Secret Chamber combo.  Basically you draw your deck with a Scrying Pool or two and then discard all your actions for money (except 1 SP) and then draw them all back with 1 SP.  Simple enough.  This game did seem to be made for this combo though with tons of cheap cards and Worker's Village as the action source. 

Chapel, Duke, Familiar, Mine, Pawn, Potion, Scout, Scrying Pool, Secret Chamber, University, and Worker's Village

My opponent went up 5/0 on the Provinces, until my last turn where i discarded the actions my actions 5 times to get 101$.  All and all a fun game.  I did feel a little bad at the end since this takes forever to discard 100 cards.

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/13/game-20121113-215525-cfd4ad28.html

P.S.  Hi everyone,
I've been reading this for like 5 months and figured i could actually join the forum.

P.P.S I got the how much does gold cost (question to join forum) wrong not once but twice!  I read it as how much is gold worth.  Or i played 3 highways.