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151

Game Reports / Re: Horse Traders + Duke/Duchy

« on: June 29, 2011, 10:03:37 am »

Oops thanks, I had money on the brain!

So it's closer than I thought. Has anyone done an average-turns analysis to see what the best counter to duke/duchy is? Either fight him on duchy/duke, or just race to empty provinces.

My gut still tells me that helping him 3-pile sooner is only benefiting him. I mean, he started duchy on turn 3, so if you mirror his strat, you are certainly behind him. Maybe rushing a province finish could lose, but I think mirroring his duchy strat is a sure-loss.

Even simple big-money is looking at 4 provinces by around turn 16 or so. Most big-money + some support strategies are looking at 4 provinces by around turn 14. The duke/duchy player seems to be hitting 50ish points by turn 23, and will stall out hard past that.

What is the average turn for an 8-province empty unassisted using a typical big-money + support card strategy? I'm thinking it has to be in the range of 22 turns?

152

Game Reports / Re: Horse Traders + Duke/Duchy

« on: June 29, 2011, 09:43:26 am »

In both of these sample games, wouldn't simply going for a province pile empty counter this? It looks like having the opponent try to counter by buying dukes/duchy is actually helping him, because the game ends faster on 3-piles. His turn 1 copper, turn 3 duchy deck would certainly be countered more effectively by letting it stall out longer and just racing him on provinces.

The games are going to turn 20-23h... if instead the opponent just went for a province empty, they could easily have 6+ provinces at this point, with the HT/Duke/Duchy opponent having a much weaker overall deck.

Sure, his later dukes are getting stronger if he is allowed to take them all, but he will still have a hard time getting to $5 regularly, even with HT. Meanwhile, even a pure big money strategy could empty provinces fairly close to this point.

Am I missing something? It seems to me that the opponents did him a favor when they fought him on dukes/duchy, because they ended the game before his deck REALLY stalled out.

For a comparison... how long would a duke/duchy/Horse trader strategy take to 3-pile Duke/Duchy/Estate without assistance from the opponent? I'm willing to bet it is upwards of turn 30.

Couldn't a province empty strategy get all 8 provinces by the time the duke/duchy hit say 6/6 duke/duchy? That would be 48-51 points (for the province player) vs 54-58 points (depending on #estates).

/edit... it's closer than I thought... I had miscalc'd the provinces at 8 points each! 

153

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

« on: June 23, 2011, 05:33:28 pm »

It has also been around for approximately 1500 years longer.

154

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Do you have non-competitive friends?

« on: June 23, 2011, 05:31:45 pm »

Good idea! I generally do this with my 4/2 hands even. I just toss the 2 and don't show her.

Similarly, my 3/3 starts, I usually just buy double silver and say I don't like the 4's on the table - not showing her my whole hand.

She's actually in the habit of playing both two starting turns almost simultaneously (since there's really not much interaction anyways). Against some people, I'll buy based on their buy, but against my wife, we generally just play our first 2 turns simultaneously.

155

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

« on: June 23, 2011, 05:26:54 pm »

I'll make a new post, since this is a separate thought...

On the contrary, I'm actually not opposed to high-variance cards. I actually think that randomness is CRITICAL in a strategy game, because it leads to a larger player-base. If player A can beat Player B, even though player B is much stronger, then player A will not give up on the game.

Look at Chess for an example. No variance (aside from who is white/black) and perfect information. Amazing strategy game? Yes. Popular? Kinda, but not really... especially for the casual player.

I had a MUCH easier time getting my wife to play Dominion versus other less-variance games. In Dominion, she can just beat me because of stronger draws. There's powerful $5's and I'm constantly stuck on $4 while she isn't? She grabs 7 labs and rolls me. She then wants to play again (while she does her victory dance). This is good for the game.

Cards like Treasure Map are perfect for her. They may not work often, but when they connect, they have a POWERFUL effect that is remembered. She may have only a 25% win record when she buys it, but she REMEMBERS those games, and she has a ton of fun in that victory. Competitive players may hate high-variance cards, but they are actually very very good for growing a large casual player-base.

Now... if a treasure-map based card was balanced so poorly that it was a must-buy high variance card... THEN I'd have a problem with it.

156

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

« on: June 23, 2011, 05:16:50 pm »

I actually really dislike sea-hag. On non-trashing boards, it's basically a race to see who can mess over their opponents deck the fastest. Then, while doing so, you are actually getting messed up yourself. And once the curses are gone, you both have insanely weak decks since your sea-hags are a blank now as well.

It's then up to the shuffle to see who can dig themselves out of the hole the fastest. You opponent just happened to draw $3 several turns in a row while you sat at $2 forever? Good game.


I tend to dislike cards which force a certain play-style (i.e. buy me or lose), AND when that specific playstyle leads to games heavily dominated by randomness. Sea Hag is such a card, and I hate it for that reason and that reason alone (this doesn't mean I don't buy it though! I just don't like being forced to buy it).

157

Dominion Isotropic / Re: Decline of civility on isotropic?

« on: June 23, 2011, 05:04:47 pm »

I'll be completely blunt and to the point. i believe this community is kinder, simply because the average age of the player-base is higher.

This isn't a get-off-my-lawn statement coming from an old man. I've known tons of very polite, well-behaved young teenagers... but I think the internet age (faceless, anonymous social interactions) are breeding inpolite behaviour in the younger generation.

I grew up in an age where if you were in a social atmosphere with someone and called them a retard, you got your bell-rung. These days, with anonymous internet, and non face to face social interactions, there's no physical pain as a consequence of being a jerk to someone.

I've noticed a VERY strong correlation between age and civility in every game I've played, and MTG, LOL and WoW are probably all the worst communities. It's my opinion (and I'm very possibly completely out to lunch) that age has a huge factor to this.

158

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Popular Buys Analysis

« on: June 23, 2011, 04:43:23 pm »

The effect in play here is card-strength, and how that ADVERSELY (relative to weaker boards) affects top player win-rates.

Strong players have a BIGGER edge on non-obvious boards. When there are harder choices to make, the better players will make the correct call more often than weaker players. However, for boards with Montebank or Witch, it's almost always (baring something like masquerade or ambassador) correct to rush for the powerful $5 attack. This is obvious, even to a lesser skilled opponent. On boards like this, the better player just lost some of his "edge".

So this lesser skilled opponent is quite lucky when he opens a kingdom with some of these game-defining cards. Their tough decision on the intial buy is essentially made for them, and this is one less area that they might get outplayed this game. This is GOOD for the worse player of the two, and BAD for the better player.

The top players would get immensely more "edge" on non-obvious boards, where their higher knowledge/experience would lead them to buy correctly more often than a non-elite player.


TL:DR... this stat really only tells me that in games with powerful cards, the powerful cards dominate. In really whacky boards, the top players would outplay a slightly worse opponent more-often. I.e. if I play against theory, I should be happy if I open an obvious witch-dominated game.. because half my decisions are pre-made for me, and I have less room to make errors against such a strong opponent.

159

Dominion Isotropic / Re: Decline of civility on isotropic?

« on: June 23, 2011, 04:31:24 pm »

That's because he lost-out so early and didn't have anything else to do! haha

160

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Do you have non-competitive friends?

« on: June 23, 2011, 04:17:51 pm »

Whenever I play with my wife, I play with a 6 copper 4 estate deck and don't tell her. This works as long as you don't draw a 4-estate hand on turn 1 or 2 (which luckily hasn't happened yet). She doesnt' really notice that I start either 2/4 or 3/3, maybe one day she will.

I actually find that to be quite fun, because it forces you do odd things. I'm sure you wouldn't be surprised to know just how rough a handicap it is to have a 6/4 starting deck.


The other option I like to do is just go slighly higher terminal-heavy so that I collide more. She doesn't really notice, but the games are a lot closer. Also, if Chapel is out, I don't buy it. I bought it once just to show her how good it is, and absolutely crushed her. She said she doesn't like throwing her cards in the trash (pretty funny). She'll only get trashers like remodel (trash for benefit).

I also play with my 5-year old, who LOVES witch. We put witch in every game he plays, and I make sure I never buy one. It is actually extremely hard to win (even against my 5-year old!!) when he's the only one witching. So the other option is to just identify the best strategy, then choose something else. I.e. always take a whacky deck.

I did a Kingscourt/Pawn deck the other day. I thought it would be whacky, and it ended up just being really f'king solid. I was totally surprised how strong it was. You tend to learn new things by taking the road-less-traveled now and then.

161

Dominion Isotropic / Re: Decline of civility on isotropic?

« on: June 23, 2011, 04:01:37 pm »

I'm new to online dominion, and fairly new to dominion in general. I have a long history of extremely competitive Magic the Gathering, WOW TCG, WoW online, SC, SC2, and League of Legends.

While I cannot comment on the decline (since I'm new), I can absolutely say that the dominion community is hands-down, clear-cut, the best and most polite community of any of the above games.

In a north american championship for MTG, an opponent literally spat at me, because I beat him on turn 1 with a combo deck. Literally spat on me. I've had opponents shuffle my deck and purposefully drop one card from my deck on the floor, then call a judge to report my deck for being under 60 cards.

In WoW online, I had one of my kids fall down 2 flights of stairs during a raid fight. I even had the curtosy of typing "emergency afk" before I left the keyboard. I was kicked from the guild for afk'ing on a boss fight, and called various insulting names.

League of Legends takes the cake though. Play League of Legends for 1 week and you will be shocked at the behaviour of the people playing that game (LOL is at the opposite side of the spectrum of the community-civility chart). In league of legends, someone else will make a critical error, then absolutely FLAME you for not bailing them out (say, if they intiate a 1v5 fight), then literally quit a game at the 30 minute mark, and leave their entire team helpless and in a state where victory is impossible. I've never seen a worse community in my life, so to me, Dominion is an absolute haven of civility.

Someone will die ONCE and some moron on your team will literally berrate him for 45 minutes calling him a retard non-stop. It's truly unbelievable to see people treating eachother the way they do on that game.