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26

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

« on: May 07, 2013, 05:38:51 pm »

my personal fix on the card would be to give it +1 card and change the special text to only look at 3.
So basically you draw the first card from the 4 even if it is not a victory card.

But anyway that wasn't really the point of the poll.

The poll is worded confusingly though.  Scout is purchased at 4$ on a "regular basis" in scrying pool games..

Sorry i will try to word things better next time. I must admit i wasn't thinking about the scrying pool engine at all when setting it up.

27

Tournaments and Events / Re: DC area tournys?

« on: May 07, 2013, 02:59:48 pm »

I currently live in Philly so it is a bit too far for regular game but for a tourney i may consider the trip.

28

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

« on: May 07, 2013, 01:57:13 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.

That's not exactly true at least it depends what you define as useful.

A usefulness of a card is the modification of either:
a) the mean buying/gaining power production of a random 5 card hands
b) the chance for a random 5 card hands to reach a certain buying/gaining power treshold

As thus defined scout usually does have an negative impact on point a and a positive one on point b but not enough to be considered useful.

But i am talking about condition were usefulness of scout is a given. Let's a Duke/Duchy deck using horse trader. In middle game having a scout in your deck is probably better than having the exact same deck without the scout but will you buy a scout anyway?

My guess is no.

Because even in those cases the usefulness of Scout is still low enough than the opportunity cost is way too high. I think even in those situation. Scout will fail the silver test (so for me it's cost should be lower than 2). But i was interesting about people thought about it.

maybe i should have written the poll question as if you were to design Scout as an home brew card (supposing it didn't exist in the game already) how would you have priced it?

29

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

« on: May 07, 2013, 01:45:53 pm »

Slight modification of the poll to add an "Not even at 0$" Option

30

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

« on: May 07, 2013, 01:37:25 pm »

Just because i am really curious "bad" cards in Dominion and Scout is the most clear example of one.

I know that sometime scout will not do anything for you and be even worse than a copper but there is some situation were it is useful:
- Dual victory/action or Victory/treasure cards where it is actually useful to draw them.
- Slug game with lot's of victory cards in the deck where scout can actually improve next hand enough to make a difference (eg: duke/duchy slug)

Problem is even in those cases where Scout is useful, the opportunity cost is hard on the poor card that nobody buy it anyway.

So what do you think would be the decent cost of scout so that you will actually buy some on regular basis in the cases were it is useful?

31

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Things that don't depend on the board.

« on: May 01, 2013, 05:23:37 pm »

32

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Things that don't depend on the board.

« on: May 01, 2013, 04:26:11 pm »

Things not depending on the board:
Take your time to look at the board.
Try to have an idea of your strategy before your opening move.
Follow what your opponent is doing to have an idea of the strategy he is following.
If your plan don't work as well as expected, adapt and change it.
Keep an eye out for the endof the game (always have an idea of how nany turns are needed to empty three piles if you focus on it and same for your opponent)
Keep a count as precise as possible to the victory points for each users.

That is all for now.

And of course:
Don't buy that scout ;-)

33

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Trinkets: Replacements for Starting Copper

« on: April 30, 2013, 05:08:48 pm »

What about at start of the game each player as its own pile of the 6 trinkets and pick two:
option A: First player draw 2 randomly, other player take the same ones.
option B: Everybody secretly choose 2 from its own pile.

I think having 3 estate, 5 coppers, 1 trinket A, 1 trinket B
should be a good enough amount of duplicate cards to avoid Cornucopia cards to go crazy stupid with the names. Of course there is the case were all 3 estates are also shelters and you still have only 5 duplicates in the deck so it remains to be seen if it'enough to avoid menagerie getting way overboard.

34

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What is your favorite village?

« on: April 30, 2013, 04:43:47 pm »

I feel like that was the goal of the discussion right design a village that cannot be draw dead.

Easiest solution is it is also a copper so if it's draw dead you can still play it as treasure to produce 1$

35

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What is your favorite village?

« on: April 30, 2013, 04:31:43 pm »

Dead Village 4$
+1 Card
+2 Actions
_________________
If you have no actions left in your action phase you may reveal an discard this from hand
if you do +1card
Action/Reaction

Change the bottom to 'if you would draw this and you have no actions' for fun interactions

I play golem and reveal a smithy and a village. I play the smithy first, and draw a dead village. Can it trigger or not?

Yes, if you have no actions. Not, if you do. Assuming Golem is your first action and you have no previous duration, you wouldn't have actions before playing the Village, and thus, you could use the reaction.

Wouldn't it be easier to design it as an Action/treasure then that avoid any need for a wording:

Dead Village 4$
+1 Card
+2 Actions
_________________
1$
Action/Treasure

36

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What is the best "third turn" hand you can think of?

« on: April 30, 2013, 02:12:05 pm »

Best third hand turn i can think of would be:

Chapel/Witch/Necropolis/Hovel/Overgrown Estate/

Give a curse/ Trash 2 bad shelters and 2 coppers/ provoke a Turn 4 reshuffle by drawing 3 cards

Unless something major happen you should be able to split the curses 7/3 giving you a great tempo timing to chapel down to whatever you want to do with this board probably 1 or 2 turns sooner that your opponent.

Thinking about it it may be even crazier with Wharf
Chapel/Wharf/Necropolis/Hovel/Overgrown Estate/

play necropolis for actions
play wharf drawing 2 coppers
play chapel trashing both other shelters and 2 copper (drawing one more copper from Overgrown Estate)

Your drawing deck is 4 coppers
Your discard is Chapel/Necropolis/Copper
and you are drawing your whole deck on turn 4. From there grow your buying power as the kingdom dictate.
You can also trash only one copper on turn 3 for a 50% chance of Turn 4 gold.

37

Dominion Articles / Re: Develop

« on: April 29, 2013, 06:06:55 pm »

i would also add a few things on develop (they actually concerns all TFB cards but worth the recall for develop)

It is also good when you have cards that are really good at first but whose value is either null or greatly decreased after a certain point in the game. Those type of cards means you will have trash folder with a decent cost in the middle game. in which cases a develop can work pretty good at recycling them into more useful cards at this point.

Some of these I agree on, others not so much. I almost never use Develop on $3s because not only is it rare that you can get both a good $2 and a good $4, but they're just so weak in general anyway that it's not worth the action spent. A lot of those cards that you listed can also perform well later in the game - some perform even better.

Agree for the 3$ cards i realized it while typing the post and should have rework the post to remove 3$ cards instead of just adding the good 2$ card commentary. 2$ cards are not good enough to want to use develop to gain those from 3$ cards and if they are there is probably better way to accumulate them quickly (like a simple +buy)

As for some of the cards i listed possibly performing better end game than at start it can be true yes, so i probably needed to be a little more clear on that point that it is cards that can be used to accelerate your start (or slow the start of your opponent) and will shall short afterward in which cases they will be good fodder to a TFB. But they can also be part of the ending strategy in which cases you want to keep them.

Of course a Sea Hag with no curses left or an IGG are near always good target for TFB.

I could also talk about rats but since it is the effect of rats to replace bad card by another bad card but that is better for TFB of course it combos well with a TFB but that may be more part of an article about rats than about Develop.

edit: oops i did it again! just said that 3$ cards are bad with develop anyway and still took swindler as an example >_> so removed the that bad example from the post.

38

Dominion Articles / Re: Develop

« on: April 29, 2013, 01:27:08 pm »

i would also add a few things on develop (they actually concerns all TFB cards but worth the recall for develop)

It is also good when you have cards that are really good at first but whose value is either null or greatly decreased after a certain point in the game. Those type of cards means you will have trash folder with a decent cost in the middle game. in which cases a develop can work pretty good at recycling them into more useful cards at this point.
Example of those kinds of effects are:

early game attackers: Seahag, Cutpurse, Swindler
early game trashers: Moneylender, Loan, Outlook
early game big buyer: Baron, Horsetrader, Coppersmith
cards mostly powerful when gained/buyed: main contender is IGG

You would still need good cards 1 less and 1 more than those cards (especially with the ones costing 3, you don't want to gain an unwanted estate) but knowing that you will have cards that will be dead or nearly so midgame can encourage you to grab 1 develop for the ramping up phase of an engine.

39

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What is your favorite village?

« on: April 26, 2013, 05:10:04 pm »

Mine is Native Village.

It is wonky and definitely relies a little on chance.
But i also feels like it is one of the cards were playing it well may have a huge impact on your game (instead of just knowing when to buy it).

Mine and Native Village are two very different cards - certainly it is too far to say that one IS the other.

...sorry, couldn't resist.

Oh yes sorry, i was thinking about Mint not Mine ;-)

40

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What is your favorite village?

« on: April 26, 2013, 04:57:24 pm »

Mine is Native Village.

It is wonky and definitely relies a little on chance.
But i also feels like it is one of the cards were playing it well may have a huge impact on your game (instead of just knowing when to buy it).

41

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Easy Puzzles

« on: April 26, 2013, 04:45:43 pm »

Assuming a large enough supply of coppers so that that pile has no chance of going empty, in what situation would it be correct play to embargo curses? I thought of two, but I might well have missed several.

You are in the wrong side of the curse giving for that game (maybe your sea hag got discarded, maybe your opponent buys a lot of IGG when you really don't want them) and you have a Watchtower.
You want to be able to buy/gain most of the curses with a watchtower in hand to empty the pile. Especially if Watchtower is the only trasher in the board.
Works with Trader instead of Watchtower too.

No it doesn't.  Trader won't trash the Curses.  You could do it if you just wanted a really easy way of getting multiple cheap Silvers, but you could do that with Coppers too so it doesn't really work.

Oh yes, forgot trader actually doesn't trash. The watchtower solution still is valid though ^^

Another one would be you are a chameleon trying to buy the whole kingdom on turn 4 on that strange kingdom and needs to play all those pesky embargoes for the money but can't really play them on any piles because gaining curses at this point will prevent your crazy combo for working and will just empty the curse pile last. But of course that may be a little far fetched ^^

42

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Easy Puzzles

« on: April 26, 2013, 10:54:16 am »

Assuming a large enough supply of coppers so that that pile has no chance of going empty, in what situation would it be correct play to embargo curses? I thought of two, but I might well have missed several.

You are in the wrong side of the curse giving for that game (maybe your sea hag got discarded, maybe your opponent buys a lot of IGG when you really don't want them) and you have a Watchtower.
You want to be able to buy/gain most of the curses with a watchtower in hand to empty the pile. Especially if Watchtower is the only trasher in the board.
Works with Trader instead of Watchtower too.

43

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Homage to the Best Card

« on: April 24, 2013, 04:42:07 pm »

I've never pulled it off, and I have asked beginners if they would mind those cards being in the kingdom...  They always tell that there would be something wrong with it and say no.  I did pull off KC-KC-B-B-B with one once.

You know i realized that after i posted those images but i am teaching to beginner who is a great players of other games and he asked me to play full strength against him always. We are something like 15 vs 0 but he is still continue coming again and again and actually progress very quickly by seeing me play.

So i guess for certain beginners the scumbag Steve academy is probably a better dominion school that the GGG University. I suppose in the end it all depends on the board... i mean on the player ^^

44

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Homage to the Best Card

« on: April 24, 2013, 10:41:43 am »

45

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Easy Puzzles

« on: April 10, 2013, 10:51:18 pm »

I got an easy one:

Hand contains scout,3 coppers and a card.
You play your scout and don't see any victory cards but playing still makes you buy the last province when you wouldn't have without scout.

What's the last card?

Harvest, after already having played a Highway.

But if you had just played Harvest without Scout you would have gotten the same outcome.

I was thinking adventurer with a gold Placed after the coppers but it's true that there was a lot of solutions.

46

GokoDom / Re: Announcing GokoDom I: From the Ashes (Sign-Ups Close 10 April at 23:59 EDT!)

« on: April 10, 2013, 12:50:02 pm »

In if it's not too late. (not always sure with those time zone thingy).

47

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Is Pillage a good opener?

« on: April 10, 2013, 09:59:44 am »

I have no idea if pillage is a good opener but i really would like a pillage article.

I always feel like i am missing the whole point of that card.

48

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Easy Puzzles

« on: April 10, 2013, 08:33:15 am »

I got an easy one:

Hand contains scout,3 coppers and a card.
You play your scout and don't see any victory cards but playing still makes you buy the last province when you wouldn't have without scout.

What's the last card?

49

Goko Dominion Online / Re: An unfamiliar bane

« on: April 09, 2013, 07:41:05 pm »

Ugh... this was apparently supposed to be fixed, but I guess not. I hope they didn't fix it by just manually listing the cards that couldn't be banes because they had P in their cost, and just forgot familiar.

That's gotta be it, which is hilarious. Listing the cards manually sounds harder than just checking the cost properly...

public class Cost
{
  private int Potions;
  private int Coins;

  bool operator < (Cost cost1, Cost cost2)
  {
    return cost1.Potions < cost2.Potions && cost1.Coins < cost2.Coins;
  }
}

Hey, look at that. I did their job for them.

Actually i would not recommend redefining the < method with a partial order operator that would probably screw your ordering algorithms. Much better to keep the lexicographical order (money first potion second) for the < operator and then do a Is_Cost_Inferior(cost a,cost b) function using the partial order.
So that you could separate kernel calls (like ordering cards by cost for GUI displays) and game calls (applying any game effect comparing cost like the YW setup effect).

And thinking about it they may have done exactly the same mistake since correcting a bug and then rolling back and forth the correction is usually the sign of regression caused by conflicting requirements.

50

Dominion Articles / Re: Don't Play Everything!

« on: March 13, 2013, 02:09:01 pm »

...

Your example is a little off - province is 6 VP, not 8; Colony is 10 VP, not 11, and you could reveal it but return 0 to the supply, thereby only costing you 10 points rather than twice that amount.

Sorry about that. Made the post too quick i guess ^^

Also i mostly play IRL so playing treasure one at a time is very feasible for me but i can see why it would a pain for your opponent in online gaming.