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51

Rules Questions / Re: Crown + Small Castle

« on: December 24, 2019, 03:09:28 pm »

Hmm. Well, first of all, I don't know if you meant to imply otherwise, but what "expectedly" means is actually clear. It's if another ability moves the card. Ability x tracks a card, and loses track if any other ability moves it (including the tracked card's own ability of course).

The wrinkle here is that the tracked card doesn't actually have to move while it is being tracked. If it's not where the ability expects to be, for any reason, at any point, the ability loses track. The classic example is when a card is played from the trash. The card's own play ability expects it to be in play. Since it's not, it loses track of the card from the moment it starts tracking it. But it doesn't technically "lose" track, since it never got track in the first place!

And this is actually an important use of the lose-track rule now, since we have Necromancer, Captain, new BoM, new Overlord and new Inheritance (in addtion to TR variants playing a card that trashed itself or moved itself somewhere else).

So is "stop moving" better then? For the reason I said above, I don't think so. But... at first glance you have a point that a card is lost track of because it moves, and then can't move further, so it "stops moving". However! that is, actually, often not the case at all. Let's take a closer look. Let's say Captain plays a Mining Village. The MV's play ability loses track of the MV from the start, even though it has not moved at all! We see that it's the exact same thing for the classic TR + MV. Yes, the MV was trashed earlier, but when MV is played for the second time, it loses track because it's not in play, not because it moved.

So to amend what I said above: To be last track of, the tracked card doesn't actually have to move at all. It only has to not be where the tracking ability expects it to be.

Oh man, this gives me flashbacks of when Band of Misfits was a shapeshifter and stopped being locked into its chosen card while being throned if it moved to the trash.

You can argue that "resisting movement" like a mining village being played from the trash by a command card is also a form of movement, but I see your point. I still think "stop moving" gives a better idea of when you should be looking up the rules, as it describes the consequence of the rule rather than a descriptor for the cause.

52

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions

« on: December 22, 2019, 11:30:59 pm »

Thanks to the errata, Band of Misfits can now collect the 4VP off the Farmers' Market pile without trashing themselves.

53

Rules Questions / Re: Crown + Small Castle

« on: December 21, 2019, 11:56:28 pm »

Yes, this is why I think renaming the rule was a good move; far too many people get confused and think that lose track means you can't play a card.

True, but I think "lose track" is more accurate, because it says that abilities keep track of cards. "Stop moving" just describes what happens, not why or when. Donald pointed out that he changed the name because usually the player doesn't lose track of the card, but it's actually important to know that abilites keep track of cards. That's why it doesn't make a difference if the card moves back. It isn't enough to say that an ability expects a card to be in a certain place at the moment the ability tries to move it. The ability actually tracks the card from the moment it refers to it. Whenever the card moves from the expected location, the ability immediately loses track of it. So it has already lost track if the card moves back.

It gets muddy because the reason a card loses track of the thing it's tracking is always that the card moved "unexpectedly". It's sort of a coincidence that a card "stops" moving due to it having moved in a way that it is "lost track" of. "Stop moving" has the word "moving" in it, which is related to the reason a card is lost track of, so it's sort of appropriate, but only by coincidence.

54

Rules Questions / Re: Crown + Small Castle

« on: December 19, 2019, 10:37:45 am »

When I use Crown (or Throne Room I guess) on Small Castle, is it possible to use the "trash this" option both the first and second time playing it to gain the next two Castles?

If not, why? What I want to know is if either of these (hypothetical) rules apply here:

• Crown "loses track" of Small Castle when it trashes itself?
• Small Castle cannot trash itself for benefit when it's already in the trash?

It is actually both of those rules. Either of those things by itself would be enough to stop you from gaining a second castle, and they both hold true.

A classic example of this exact same thing is Throne Room + Mining Village. The fact that you can't trash it twice with Throne Room is spelled out in the official FAQ.

The lose track rule doesn't apply in this case, though.  A card that trashes itself can still be played from the trash.  E.g., if you play a Tragic Hero with a Throne Room/Crown, and it gets trashed on the first play, you can still play it the second time.

Yes, it does. Lose track has nothing to do with playing a card - you don't have to have track of a card to play it. The lose track rule is invoked when the card tries to trash itself and can't find itself. Nobody in the entire thread has claimed that Small Castle isn't played a second time.

Yeah, the Lose Track rule (renamed "Stop Moving rule") means that a card cannot move to another zone if the card isn't where it normally expects to be. For cards like Mining Village, it expects to be in play. If it's already in the trash, well it can't trash itself because it is not in play. If you play Mining Village with Band of Misfits (post errata), the Mining Village still cannot trash itself because it is still in the supply and not in play, and so you can't get the +$2 because you did not "trash" the card if it didn't move to the trash pile. You do however get the "+1 Card +2 Action" effect. This is the Lose Track rule in action.

Really, I think the whole "can't trash a card already in the trash" rule is redundant in the face of lose track and nothing would change if the former did not exist at all. There are no cards that attempt to trash a card and expect it to be in the trash and then care about whether or not the card was trashed.

55

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Homage to the Best Card

« on: December 19, 2019, 09:50:34 am »

There's Remake on the board. Lots of Remodel variants/trash which cares about card being trashed lend themselves to keeping Estate in hand.

Also, there's Crossroads in the kingdom, which along with Sheperd would be another reason to keep Estate for milling towards something better than Copper.

From just looking at the image, I can't tell if Coin of the Realm is on the tavern mat or not.

56

Dominion Articles / Re: Inheritance - Highway PSA

« on: December 17, 2019, 12:11:17 pm »

Wait, what's wrong with inheriting Death Cart?

"You may trash this or an action card from your hand, for +5" is the new text for Death Cart (one of the online changes made alongside the "Command" type update). The +5 is now contingent on trashing something.

It's still useful if you have something to trash, of course.  You just can't use it as a one-shot Platinum anymore

As if Death Cart needed a nerf. (OK maybe an impersonated Death Cart needs one.)

It was still a fun game, and I had Fair in the game you there was always the extra buy of another Estate. But more often than not there was no action left to trash.

Pillage also got the same nerf. An impersonated/commanded Pillage is pretty nuts.

57

Other Games / Re: Slay the Spire

« on: December 14, 2019, 12:38:23 pm »

The game is definitely ugly af and I think there's a way in which with Binding of Isaac grew on me and I got an appreciation for it but with Slay the Spire it's just like, I've seen this thing for the 90th time and it's still ugly.

I got this game on sale too. I am constantly misinterpreting the art on the cards, and my interpretations go back to my initial impression even after I zoom in to see what's going on. Example, from far Noxious Fumes looks like a guy in a red hood and a purple cape casting the green-ish mist cloud.

58

Rules Questions / Re: Necromancer + Band of Misfits + Duration

« on: December 14, 2019, 12:32:51 pm »

Counterfeit is a "Throne-like" card. So it stays out as long as the Duration card (Merchant Ship) it double played. The Duration card didn't stay out (it left play even earlier than Cleanup), so there is no reason for Counterfeit to stay out. That means, unfortunately, that you''ll  need to remember the Merchant Ship effect next turn without a tracking mechanism.

Lol I guess Counterfeit should have also received errata to say "non-duration Treasure".

59

Dominion Online at Shuffle iT / Re: Why is the server so fuct right now?

« on: December 09, 2019, 11:19:25 am »

#isotropicwasbetter

honestly at this point other than logs there's nothing really left to miss about iso

Well, that and the prototype Dominion art.

60

Rules Questions / Re: Necromancer + Band of Misfits + Duration

« on: December 09, 2019, 08:17:22 am »

On the original question, mxdata is right. From the errata:

Some cards, like the new Band of Misfits, can play a card that isn't put into play. When you play Band of Misfits, leave it in play as long as you would have left the card it plays in play.
...
These rules apply to all of the cards that play cards without putting them into play: currently, Band of Misfits, Overlord, Inheritance, Necromancer, and Captain.

So the Necromancer cares about then when Band of Misfits would leave play. But by the same rule, that Band of Misfits cares about when Fishing Village would leave play. The Fishing Village would leave play on your next turn, not this turn. That means the Band of Misfits would leave play on your next turn as well. That means the (actually in play) Necromancer will leave play on your next turn.

Right, it's a bit confusing because if you play Throne Room to play a Throne room that plays a duration, only one or those Throne Rooms would stay out. But, the cards in the Band of Misfits have different rules. Normally the command typing already prevents the scenario of such a card playing a copy of itself, but necromancer gets a pass on needing the command type.

If I understand it right, if a necromancer plays a Band of Misfits from the trash, and that Band of Misfits plays a Throne Room from the supply, and that Throne Room plays a duration, the Necromancer also stays out, correct? The Band of Misfits would have stayed out since the Throne Room it plays would have, and the Necromancer stays out because the Band of Misfits it plays would have stayed out.

61

Dominion FAQ / Re: Enchantress

« on: December 09, 2019, 12:10:16 am »

It also deals with Caravan Guard, which really is a reaction that causes a card to be played as an action on someone else's turn.

62

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Really bad card ideas

« on: December 06, 2019, 02:24:48 pm »

Communist Extremism
Project
Cost: <8>

Cards printed with the "Treasure" type are now Actions, and are no longer Treasures.  During your turns, such cards give +1 Action.

- The League of Conspirators.

63

Dominion General Discussion / Re: DOMINIÖN (An Ode to Treasure Map)

« on: December 06, 2019, 02:21:06 pm »

I wish I could upvote this twice for the "Ö" in the thread title.

64

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Product Idea - Dominion: Memories

« on: December 04, 2019, 01:14:42 pm »

I thought Bank was like the fixed Coppersmith.

65

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Really bad card ideas

« on: December 04, 2019, 11:45:48 am »

Chapitalism
$5 - Project

During your turns, Actions with "trash" in their text are also Treasures.

66

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Easy Puzzles

« on: December 04, 2019, 11:09:12 am »

Several Monument cards start the game with 12 VP chips on them, to be gained under certain circumstances. However, in some kingdoms it is impossible to gain anys. 

Across all possible Kingdoms, what is the smallest non-zero maximum number of VP chips it is possible to gain off of one of these cards?

I'll give this a shot.

In 2-player, 12VP on the landmark, I can get it down to 6VP max:
The kingdom has Labyrinth and Blessed Village, and the rest of the kingdom does not provide any extra source of +buy/gain. The only source of Labyrithn points are the 10 Boons that can be received from gaining Blessed Village. There are 5 Boons that give +buy/gain: Earth, Forest, Mountain, Sky, and Swamp. If two of those five boons are the bottom two cards of the 12-card boon deck, then one can only gain an extra card on their turn up to three times, yielding 6 VP total across the game.

Concerning 3+ player games:
If we go to 3+ players, then the minimum number goes down to at least 4VP:
The Kingdom is Castles, Collonade, and the rest of the kingdom consists of non-actions. The only source of Collonade points becomes buying Small Castle when having the other Small Castle in play and Opulent Castle when the other Opulent Castle is in play.

Oh, for the 2p, 12VP puzzle, I can get it down to2VP by replacing Blessed Village with Cursed Village and putting two of Plague, Locusts, and Greed on the bottom of the Hex deck.

67

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Easy Puzzles

« on: December 04, 2019, 10:51:37 am »

Several Monument cards start the game with 12 VP chips on them, to be gained under certain circumstances. However, in some kingdoms it is impossible to gain anys. 

Across all possible Kingdoms, what is the smallest non-zero maximum number of VP chips it is possible to gain off of one of these cards?

I'll give this a shot.

In 2-player, 12VP on the landmark, I can get it down to 6VP max:
The kingdom has Labyrinth and Blessed Village, and the rest of the kingdom does not provide any extra source of +buy/gain. The only source of Labyrithn points are the 10 Boons that can be received from gaining Blessed Village. There are 5 Boons that give +buy/gain: Earth, Forest, Mountain, Sky, and Swamp. If two of those five boons are the bottom two cards of the 12-card boon deck, then one can only gain an extra card on their turn up to three times, yielding 6 VP total across the game.

Concerning 3+ player games:
If we go to 3+ players, then the minimum number goes down to at least 4VP:
The Kingdom is Castles, Collonade, and the rest of the kingdom consists of non-actions. The only source of Collonade points becomes buying Small Castle when having the other Small Castle in play and Opulent Castle when the other Opulent Castle is in play.

68

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The bad luck thread

« on: November 27, 2019, 07:55:53 am »

Another reason the Mountain's Gift sucks:

C buys and gains a Blessed Village.
C takes The Mountain's Gift.
C receives The Mountain's Gift.
C gains a Silver.
Cargo Ship loses track of Blessed Village (it was covered up).

A shame you missed the errata by a few months.

69

Rules Questions / Re: Fortune Secret History

« on: November 26, 2019, 02:10:10 pm »

I think the point was exponential growth. Allowing Fortune to work more than once would have allowed exponential growth; in a way similar to how KC is exponential. It's just more direct with Fortune, you can literally see 2^n in the calculation for how much money you get when you play n Fortunes (if it weren't limited to once per turn). With KC, the formula is more complicated.

That's not quite doubling either. As you say, KC+card is 3 card effects for 2 cards, so 50% more. With two KCs and three cards you get 9 for 5, so 80% more. With three KCs and five cards you get 15 for 8, so 87.5% more. It will never be double.

KC isn't exponential either, as Jeebus points out. It doesn't even grow without bound, as a linear, or even logarithmic would. The ratio of cards played to card-effects received (which is (-3+6x)/(-1+3x) after the first KC in the chain) will never reach 2.

A better analogy which is already in the game is City Quarter, which exponentially grows your handsize (until your deck runs out, of course).

I think the number of non-KC actions you triple with n KCs is 2n - 1, which is linear growth. Comparatively, the number of non-TRs you double with n Throne Rooms is just n. So KC chains grow twice as fast as Throne Room chains.

True. But neither are exponential.

Yes. Even the total money generated by Banks grows faster than the number of effects yielded by King's Court.

70

Rules Questions / Re: Fortune Secret History

« on: November 26, 2019, 10:10:46 am »

I think the point was exponential growth. Allowing Fortune to work more than once would have allowed exponential growth; in a way similar to how KC is exponential. It's just more direct with Fortune, you can literally see 2^n in the calculation for how much money you get when you play n Fortunes (if it weren't limited to once per turn). With KC, the formula is more complicated.

That's not quite doubling either. As you say, KC+card is 3 card effects for 2 cards, so 50% more. With two KCs and three cards you get 9 for 5, so 80% more. With three KCs and five cards you get 15 for 8, so 87.5% more. It will never be double.

KC isn't exponential either, as Jeebus points out. It doesn't even grow without bound, as a linear, or even logarithmic would. The ratio of cards played to card-effects received (which is (-3+6x)/(-1+3x) after the first KC in the chain) will never reach 2.

A better analogy which is already in the game is City Quarter, which exponentially grows your handsize (until your deck runs out, of course).

I think the number of non-KC actions you triple with n KCs is 2n - 1, which is linear growth. Comparatively, the number of non-TRs you double with n Throne Rooms is just n. So KC chains grow twice as fast as Throne Room chains.

71

Rules Questions / Re: Fortune Secret History

« on: November 25, 2019, 03:47:36 pm »

King’s Court creates an extra effect; more total effects than are in your deck. KC+Smithy is only 2 cards; but gives you 3 cards’ worth of effects.

This advantage of KC is very strong when you chain them. No matter how many Throne Room’s you chain; you still end up with at most 1 card effect per card played. But if you KC a KC; now you can triple 3 other cards; which is like getting 9 card effects with only 5 cards.

That's not quite doubling either. As you say, KC+card is 3 card effects for 2 cards, so 50% more. With two KCs and three cards you get 9 for 5, so 80% more. With three KCs and five cards you get 15 for 8, so 87.5% more. It will never be double.

Well if you KC a card and then KC another card, you tripled two cards. If you KC a KC, you tripled three cards, as if you got Citadel to double your first KC. In that sense you can think of one one the KCs as having been doubled vs. the two KCs having tripled separate cards.

72

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

« on: November 24, 2019, 01:35:22 pm »

Dear my opponent,

I'm sorry I was player 1 and had this opening, where my Overgrown Estate drew another Market Square and your didn't:

Code: [Select]

Kingdom: Colony, Donate, Hermit, Market Square, Necromancer, Platinum, Plaza, Remodel, Royal Seal, Salt the Earth, Seer, Shelters, Tracker, Tunnel, University

Turn 1 - markusin
m plays 3 Coppers. (+$3)
m buys and gains a Market Square.
m draws 2 Coppers, a Hovel, an Overgrown Estate and a Pouch.

...

Turn 2 - markusin
m plays 2 Coppers. (+$2)
m plays a Pouch. (+$1)
m gets +1 Buy.
m buys and gains a Market Square.
m buys a Donate.
m shuffles their deck.
m draws 3 Coppers, a Market Square and a Necropolis.

Between Turns
m puts 3 Coppers, a Hovel, a Market Square, an Overgrown Estate and a Pouch into their hand.
m trashes 6 Coppers, a Hovel, a Necropolis and an Overgrown Estate.
m reacts with a Market Square.
m discards a Market Square.
m gains a Gold.
m shuffles their deck.
m draws a Market Square.
m reacts with a Market Square.
m discards a Market Square.
m gains a Gold.
m reacts with a Market Square.
m discards a Market Square.
m gains a Gold.
m shuffles their deck.
m shuffles a Pouch into their deck.
m shuffles their deck.
m draws 3 Golds, a Market Square and a Pouch.



73

Dominion Articles / Re: A Different Way To Look at Dominion

« on: November 20, 2019, 08:57:20 am »

I also think that you can exaggerate interactiveness. If you judge the Kingdoms correctly and see that the best way to play is aim for a 2 Provinces per turn engine, you should build until that very moment, i.e. relatively independently of what the opponent does. The notion that you should build up (although you reached the sweet spot) further because it is not a solo game is then highly dubious.

I think the greater sin is people not paying enough attention to their opponent. Knowing what your opponent's deck can do in general, and in particular next turn (or next shuffle) seems absolutely key to me.

Why would this not matter? IMO this sort of tracking and assessment separates good players from great ones.

I used a particular example: evaluating a Kingdom ex ante correctly (obviously you can only guess that you did so in hindsight) with the result that an engine that gains 2 Provinces per turn is best. Now if the opponent starts to green before you do (to make the argument more forcefully, suppose he plays money), throwing your entire plan into the sink hole and not building up another turn until you have the greening power that you actually want could end up being contraproductive.

Of course you gotta watch the opponents but you also gotta trust your assessment.

Assessments are allowed to change though. You should always be reevaluating as much as your mental stamina will allow you. Say on your example, the opponent greens two turns before you can double Province, then the decision becomes trickier, as it can lead to a 4-4 Province split if you aim for double Province and come down to estates.

74

General Discussion / Re: Brag Board

« on: November 18, 2019, 11:48:33 am »

I know like 90% of people have played Undertale now, but should you not be spoiler tagging Sans, really? It's a fairly unexpected boss I would say.

I thought about it; but it is a pretty old game, and I feel like if someone actually knows who Sans is, then they also know that you fight him.

I don't even know who the non-Sans final boss is supposed to be.

75

Dominion Articles / Re: A Different Way To Look at Dominion

« on: November 18, 2019, 09:37:01 am »

A nice article all around, reminding one of the things they should be considering when in the heat of Dominion war.

 If you are building an engine, you will always be wondering when enough is enough. How many actions/drawers/payloads do you need before it is purely gratuitous. If the answer depends on your opponent's behavior, then you have a very easy heuristic to answer your question.

Yes..."easy". Your article touches the surface on just how complex the interaction between you and your opponent can actually get. Understanding when to start greening, or if you should even bother to green before the last turn of the game that ends on a pileout, is among the toughest things in Dominion, and a thing that players screw up all the time.

I'll throw in some additional thoughts.

There are games where neither player ever has the "stronger army" by the time the start of their turn rolls around, because both players keep one-upping each other's deck with the cards they gain. The logical conclusion to this is that the game ends on 3 piles with one player winning by a single green card they gain on the last turn. It's quite possible to see who will be the chosen victor in this conflict, just like you can foresee the result of the "loves me - loves me not" game by counting the number of pedals on the flower ahead of time. If you are not favoured in this situation, then you can't let it play out to near its conclusion, and you must green so that the other player cannot both overtake your points and pileout. You have to consolidate between having a strong enough deck to green over a few turns, while not waiting until the point where your opponent has such a strong deck that they can green better than you while having little to no risk of dudding. If the shoe is on the other foot and you have better capability to reach your deck's full potential every turn and empty piles, just be sure you can afford multiple green cards too if your opponent can already do so.

Another thing is to take lessons from shoot'em ups, and make decisions not solely based on where they are, but where they are going to be. You want to understand what kind of deck your opponent is building before they succeed in building it. You want to know how much time it will take your opponent to, for example, start getting two provinces instead of one each turn. If your opponent is going to double their coin output in the near future, then maybe you want to green early and then looks for ways to end the game soon after, either with 3 piles or by draining the Province pile with stuff like Remodel Province to Province or Salt the Earth. If you can't foresee beating their future deck by maintaining your current pace, then you should probably build some more in the hopes of at least matching their output. If you can't do either, well then you messed up somewhere (e.g., "letting yourself" have bad luck  ) and have to make the plays that give the highest chance of your opponent having a dud or making a wrong decision (I mean, maybe they haven't read articles like this one  ).