Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

4951

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Turn 3

« on: February 25, 2013, 05:57:55 pm »

I think we should assume solitaire, because otherwise there's crazy masq./noblebrigand/ambassador/embassy stuff. Of course, that makes envoy and contraband a bit better...

The question is, can you empty the supply on turn 3 in multiplayer. Six players, you go last, they all open Masq / something and draw both on turn 3, passing down the somethings to you. Your buys are of course still in your deck. So they pass you Procession Procession Procession Fortress Watchtower or some such and well, I'm not figuring that out.

4952

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.

« on: February 25, 2013, 02:24:27 pm »

How did you decide which abilities could be stackable with TR/KC (e.g., Bridge) and which ones couldn't (Highway, Princess, and Goons being the obvious examples)?

Every action should be Throne-able unless there's a good reason for an exception. There are two main exceptions.

First there are cards where the ideal phrasing makes the card not Throne-able. This is the case for cards with below-the-line text like Highway, and also Treasure Map. It's just fallout from caring more about good wordings. Scheme went back and forth, but the wording I went with happens to allow Throne.

Second there are cards where being Throne-able was such an issue that they specifically have anti-Throne clauses. The cards in this category are Tactician, Madman, and Outpost. Princess might have had an anti-Throne clause if the ideal phrasing didn't already make it non-Throne-able, although it might not have. Possession at one point had an anti-Throne clause, but it didn't fit, and it would have been more about fun than power level.

There are of course also cards where you naturally get no meaningful advantage from Throning them, like Counting House. Tournament has a "you need another Province" clause (which is to say you discard the Province) but that was more because of the potential to play multiple Tournaments rather than Throne specifically.

It is cool that you can Throne Bridge and Coppersmith. It's nice that that's in the game even though I have no regrets on making Highway with my preferred wording.

4953

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.

« on: February 25, 2013, 12:07:11 pm »

Are there any planned Promo cards to follow Guilds?

How averse are publishers to publishing promos that reference games they do not publish? I know it happens occasionally (7 Wonders has a Catan promo board). If they were ok with it, would you be interested? Maybe between two of your own games?

Jay would like another promo, and Goko wants an online-only one (which again would only happen if it were the kind of thing that couldn't be done with cardboard). I've got something to try on Goko but have put off offering it up until more of the things that aren't done get done. I don't have anything picked out for a real-life promo.

If publishers didn't specifically ask for promos I would never do them. The promo is either good enough to be in an expansion or the main game, in which case it should be there so everyone can have it, or else it isn't, in which case why does this thing exist. To try to resolve this you can do something too wacky for the normal game, but then those things have too many rules issues to want to be promos.

So uh a cross-promotional promo would only exist if a publisher wanted it, which was the case with Walled Village. I don't mind, I like Carcassonne, although Hunters & Gatherers is the superior fixed version. I don't know if publishers wouldn't want to do a cross-promotional promo for a game that wasn't theirs; man, ask a publisher. I wouldn't be asking, I don't like promos.

4954

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.

« on: February 25, 2013, 11:57:44 am »

What are your thoughts/feelings when you see Celestial Chameleon emptying the supply in 4 turns? Are you as shocked and amazed as we are, or did you know/suspect that such a thing was possible?

It's cool. I wouldn't have guessed you could empty the supply on turn four. You knew Procession / Fortress, was good, but not that it could do that. I've never tried to work out such things. The game intentionally avoids having infinite combos, but it has crazy things like King's Court and Procession. I have seen people gain a pile of cards and then play them all the same turn, generally with broken cards, although you get a little of that action with just regular card-gainers.

4955

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.

« on: February 25, 2013, 11:52:28 am »

I have modding powers in the Bible forum. I have flirted with asking for them in the Rules forum.

Done.

Fear my wrath, question askers!

4956

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Empty the Supply in 4 Turns

« on: February 25, 2013, 10:09:30 am »

You are amazing, and I +1-ed your posts, but...

Turn 4, line 5. After playing Pr1->Pr2, you play Pr2 again. I don't think it's an error in the numbers, since I don't see how you get another Procession in hand.

I apologize for questioning you.

"- Pr2-->Ct3, reveal Wt, trash Ct3, gain Pr4 on deck" is Pr2 being trashed (the last thing Pr1 does with it).

4957

Dominion: Guilds Previews / Re: So. Guilds.

« on: February 25, 2013, 08:44:20 am »

guilds just can't get here soon enough....or even a whiff of when we can partake of Donald's previews!

Since it isn't coming out at a particular show AFAIK, I won't know a precise release date until very close to it.

I have proofread the rulebook and card images for the last time, that is the extent of release date information that I have.

4958

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.

« on: February 25, 2013, 08:37:27 am »

Has theory given you any kind of modding power (like to pin your own threads)?

I have modding powers in the Bible forum. I have flirted with asking for them in the Rules forum.

4959

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.

« on: February 25, 2013, 08:36:07 am »

A lot of numbers in Dominion are 10 (starting deck size, number of kingdom piles, number of cards in action/treasure kingdom piles, number of curses in two player games, numbers like that). How much did you prefer the number 10 in these cases just because it happens to be 10?

I like round numbers when they work out; it's just for aesthetics but I think some people do think "what's this nonsense" when you have an 11 somewhere.

- Starting deck size isn't intentionally ten; it's just twice the hand size. The hand size matters in various ways and I did not experiment with different sizes, but five cards wasn't chosen for roundness and that ten wasn't either.

- The number of kingdom cards is intentionally round. I totally would have used 8 or 12 if they had been better, but did not consider 9 or 11. I played a bunch with 8 to try it out, and it might have been 8 if we needed to cut back on the total number of cards, but we didn't so it's 10. The number wants to be small since it determines how much you need to read at the start and how often you see each card, so 12 was never really in contention.

- Piles were originally 12 cards. This was based on wanting everyone to be able to get at least 2 copies of a card. The end condition was an empty pile, so really the piles were 10 cards - no-one would get to use the last copy since it ended the game, and the second-to-last copy had to sit in the pile preventing players from just buying the last copy to end the game. To cut down on cards, I changed the end condition and lowered the piles to 10 (except for VP piles which were part of the new end condition - any empty VP pile ended the game), which was thus functionally very similar to having 12 under the previous end condition. So, this particular 10 is really 12 minus 2.

- Initially I printed more Curses each time we ran out, intending Witch to stay functional for a long time; I stopped at 45 because you have to stop somewhere and it's a multiple of 9 - I print cards 9 to a page. The size of the pile had to scale to balance Witch properly, and again the total number of cards in the game was a concern. That 10 is round and again is certainly specifically not 9 or 11, but I didn't just start with 10.

Gardens was always 10. If it had been necessary for balancing, it could have been 9 or 11, though I wouldn't have done that unless I had to. Vineyards / Feodum / Silk Road are 3-4, and then Fairgrounds is 2.5 because that's what it took.

Colony was 8 VP originally, when Province was 5 VP. When Province went to 6 VP, Colony could have been 9 or 10, and I made it 9. Valerie and Dale really wanted the round number, and I eventually tested it and it was fine, so it's 10 VP.

4960

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.

« on: February 25, 2013, 08:12:34 am »

1) According to the BGG ratings, Prosperity is the most universally loved expansion. Have you got any thoughts on why that is so? Do you think it is fair or do you think the set is overrated?

I don't have any real data but can think of some things.

- The BGG ratings will be skewed towards earlier sets, because as time goes by fewer people stay on the every-expansion plan.
- Platinum/Colony are crowd-pleasers.
- The set is low attack, high non-attack interaction. It is my experience in general that, people who uh don't play Magic tend to be more uppity about losing their stuff, their precious stuff. Like, I will make a game, and it will have a card that makes other people lose stuff, and it seems fine and normal to me, nice as a thing to have that's different from other things in the game, but some people will specifically dislike it, perhaps being used to games where nothing remotely like that is possible. I am used to losing my stuff; in Magic you lose stuff constantly, it is a pillar of the game. But like I will tone down a game to having just a few ways to make people lose stuff, completely balanced as far as I am concerned, and then a publisher will say, we didn't like that one card. Anyway so. I think Dominion players in general, there are a lot of Magic players yes, but there are a lot of people who do not play Magic, and among those people I think losing stuff is less popular, and uh let's reset this sentence. I think Dominion players in general like attacks less than I do. So, Prosperity got fewer attacks specifically to make going for Colonies easier, and then it turns out people liked that. Later Dominion sets tone down attacks a little as a result. Now this may all seem silly when two of the three attacks in Prosperity are Mountebank and Goons, but still.
- The set has three themes: "spendy," treasures, and VP tokens. Spendy turns out to be pretty popular, including stuff like King's Court (yes a card some people hate), where you get these huge turns. Treasures, I dunno, I thought they would be popular but it's hard to say. They don't hurt. The VP tokens again are popular.
- The set has a secret sub-theme of, go ahead and buy everything. This falls out of the treasure theme. There are a lot of treasures and a fair number of +1 card +1 action things, plus some trash/discard-for-benefit. Add it all up and an all-Prosperity game may see you able to buy most of what's out without worrying about terminal collisions. I haven't heard people comment on this, but they do like the encouragement to buy everything in Cornucopia, so possibly this helps here.

I personally basically like the sets in inverse order of release - Dark Ages best, then Hinterlands, etc. However I think that Seaside, Prosperity, Hinterlands, Dark Ages, and Cornucopia are all so good that whatever, you can't go wrong. Alchemy is too slow and not everyone appreciates Potions, and then I was not as good at balancing the cards with the main set and Intrigue.

2) Is there any expansion you feel is underrated - not getting properly recognized for its qualities?

I most often see people recommend Seaside and Prosperity, but that's usually for people who don't have any expansions, so that's sensible, the later sets are more complex. It's kind of a hard question to answer without some hard data for me to critique. If Dark Ages isn't the most popular then it's underrated.

3) How did you feel about Kingdom Builder winning Spiel Des Jahres? (sorry for the blatant attempt at sports ”journalism” here).

It was good times. As I have said, after Dominion won there was a small amount of interest in specifically publishing Donald X. games, but man, not so much as I would have liked. It went up noticeably with Kingdom Builder. Some companies immediately contacted me as of the Kingdom Builder nomination/win, and those contacts have resulted in at least one game getting published (I don't have a date for it yet but am optimistic for this year). It's great overall to uh get this particular level of respect in your field.

4) Which of your games would you most recommend that one tried to introduce non-gaming friends to?

These kinds of questions are really better aimed at players. Make a thread in the "other board games" forum, see what you get.

5) Do you watch the video reviews of your games (or other games for that matter) posted on BGG? If so, do you have any favourite video reviewers?

I have seen some tiny number of video reviews. For the most part it's too much trouble to watch them; it takes too long and I can't listen to music at the same time. I do not have the data to rate reviewers.

6) Idea: On the 10 year anniversary of Dominion, Rio Grande Games puts out an anniversary edition ”complete Dominion” with the base set and every expansion in one nice looking box at an affordable price. Good idea or bad idea?

It sounds bad to me. It's really only a product for people who play Dominion with other people's sets and then know they like it so much they want everything. It's an unwieldy product, hard to carry, no room on a game store shelf for it. I could see doing a second "big box" product, the same size as the first one (the existing one is Dominion, Prosperity, Alchemy).

7) Idea #2: On the 10 year anniversary of Dominion, Rio Grande Games wants you to compile a ”definitive Dominion” set comprising a number of ”essential” kingdom cards (could be 25, could be 50, could be 100). Do you agree to this? (don’t worry, I won’t ask you which cards you’d pick). Do you think it is a good idea or a bad idea?

You really have to consider who your audience is for this. People who own all of the Dominion sets don't want it because they have all the cards. People who own multiple Dominion sets don't want it because it's partially redundant, and they can just buy a regular set they don't have and get no redundancy. So it's just an introductory product, and then an introductory product really wants to be introductory, it wants to have a bunch of simple stuff rather than be a best-of.

An introductory product isn't out of the question but isn't really what you were talking about. There are also rethemes, like the Japanese ones. I am not sure how well those work out, if enough people want a retheme for a particular theme, but they aren't out of the question. A retheme could be a best-of.

4961

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Provincial: Cool looking Dominion AI

« on: February 24, 2013, 01:38:11 pm »

The real complication is when deciding what to buy -- this could work, but it's equally likely to result in some really weird (and probably bad) purchases; there isn't a clear "heuristic choice" for buys.  For that (I'd argue) you need to use a much more sophisticated engine (which is the part I was focusing on, for this reason).

Yes, I would do the thing I said for short-term "tactics," more specifically decisions on how to play out turns, other than what to buy/gain; but it doesn't work for long-term "strategy," more specifically buys/gains, again because for strategy you need to consider combinations of decisions, which this doesn't.

4962

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Provincial: Cool looking Dominion AI

« on: February 24, 2013, 09:43:38 am »

Ah, I see. The thing is, this doesn't gain you much (or anything) over just using the ad hoc logic, since the future-looking part of it assumes that the ad hoc logic will be used, but when that point in the actual game happens, the look-forward search will happen. I could see it gaining a little, but using the ad hoc logic for the forward-looking search makes the process highly dependent on the quality of the ad hoc logic - and if your ad hoc logic is that good, you might as well use that instead!

I don't agree with your argument at all. This could turn into one of those things I regret pouring time into, so so much for that.

4963

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Provincial: Cool looking Dominion AI

« on: February 24, 2013, 08:49:54 am »

It has always seemed to me, and this seems obvious but why not say it, that the best approach to tactics is to have two algorithms. One is full of ad hoc logic and just makes each decision as best it can, like what Goko has. The other algorithm considers each possible move, and for each move it plays out the rest of the game however many times you can do quickly enough, with each player using the ad hoc logic, and then it picks the move that did the best. This will let you do clever things that would normally be wrong, but won't find a combination of two normally wrong things.

You are essentially describing a version of the minimax algorithm adjusted for nondeterministic games. The main problem here is that the branching grows exponentially for each decision, as well as exponentially for each random event (like what cards you draw). So, you can only look so far into the future in a short period of time.

No, not what I am describing. We consider each possible move, and for each possible move we play out the rest of the game. However! When playing the rest of the game we *do not* consider each possible move - we use the ad hoc logic there to make decisions. It's not recursive.

4964

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.

« on: February 24, 2013, 08:47:45 am »

Of the games you've published so far, how would you rate them? (Categorization of rating is up to you)

Instead, I'll rate the publishers by how much I want them to continue liking me.

Fine. Do it your way, this is your thread we are talking in and these are your games we are talking about.

I'm not sure I understand you, so I'm going to guess you don't understand me.

The number of times a publisher has complained to me about me comparing one of my games to another in public, in terms of how much I like them, is nonzero. I would like to minimize that number.

Try not to be the guy that makes someone say "this is why we can't have nice things," that's my advice.

4965

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.

« on: February 24, 2013, 08:43:21 am »

What is your favorite type of megaturn?

I'm not sure I have a concrete-enough set of things to rank here. I like the stuff you do with Cornucopia - getting Menagerie to pay off multiple times in a turn, getting big Horns, winning multiple Tournaments with one Province. I like trashing Colony or Dark Ages cards to Apprentice; I like Apothecary and Golem a lot. I like playing Madman multiple times, or doing crazy things with Procession. I like emptying a pile for City in mid-turn, and did not get tired of building multiple-Goons decks when playing that campaign.

4966

Dominion Isotropic / Re: Isotropic ignore list?

« on: February 24, 2013, 08:01:50 am »

Do you find such a feature reasonable?

Ignore/friend lists are a planned feature for Goko; dunno when they will happen. They are certainly a good idea. For isotropic it's moot.

4967

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Greatest Dominion moments 2013

« on: February 24, 2013, 06:56:01 am »

I think we have a winner on this front now.

Play Counting House, draw 53 Coppers

Obv. he could have put Mandarin in the Black Market deck and gotten all 60.

4968

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Provincial: Cool looking Dominion AI

« on: February 24, 2013, 06:55:00 am »

These are good reasons, although it's unfortunate (but understandable) that Isotropic is going down as writing an "API interceptor" for that would be simpler than integrating with Goko.  Of course Goko already has an AI; the main point would be making playing the AI actually challenging.  Provincial isn't as good as it could be yet, but integrating its "pre-game buy analysis" with Goko's "mid-game card play awareness" is likely to be fairly effective.  Although a few of the AIs advantages are a bit brutal (wishing well, for example, it can just pick the most likely card left in its deck, which it can always know precisely).

Of course sometimes you want to make sure you don't draw the card, and sometimes you only want to draw the card if it's dead, and sometimes you want to gamble on something more helpful than the most common card.

Goko has said that they will let people write bots for them. Dunno when that will happen.

It has always seemed to me, and this seems obvious but why not say it, that the best approach to tactics is to have two algorithms. One is full of ad hoc logic and just makes each decision as best it can, like what Goko has. The other algorithm considers each possible move, and for each move it plays out the rest of the game however many times you can do quickly enough, with each player using the ad hoc logic, and then it picks the move that did the best. This will let you do clever things that would normally be wrong, but won't find a combination of two normally wrong things.

Strategy seems much harder, since it necessarily involves combinations, and you only have so much time between turns. Pick-order seems good for the early game; obv. the endgame has important factors missing there, and sometimes the game can end any moment on a huge turn that runs out piles. You might just want an unrelated endgame algorithm. And then it seems great to re-evaluate your strategy as of turn 4, with where your initial buys ended up being the major factor but obv. endless other things about the specific state contributing.

@Toskk: They know about the Scout/Wishing Well thing; obv. they simply don't track their knowledge of the top cards.

4969

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.

« on: February 24, 2013, 05:28:58 am »

Of the games you've published so far, how would you rate them? (Categorization of rating is up to you)

Instead, I'll rate the publishers by how much I want them to continue liking me.

4970

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.

« on: February 23, 2013, 05:04:03 pm »

Not sure if this been discussed further back in the thread, but are you thinking of doing anything else for Dominion after Guilds is released? This game is enjoyed so much by my family and friends that it will be a sad day when new expansions are no longer being released. Also, how do you find Dominion plays differently when playing with 2, 3, 4, and 5+ players? Do you prefer 2 player games or multiplayer games and why? Thanks!

I would like to do a Dominion spin-off - a similar game that's different in whatever ways. It's possible I will get talked into doing another expansion someday, but I will try not to be, and it wouldn't be any time soon. The expansions, I have given this speech many times, the expansions go down in value as you do more of them; they are doing less to give you variety, they get more complex, you can only carry so much. Making expansions means not working on other projects, or expansions for those projects. OTOH it's nice to have a project you know people want.

The number of provinces per player shifts down when you go from 3 to 4, which makes games faster (in terms of number of turns), which shifts strategies. You have less ability to buy cards you want with 4-5 players; if everyone wants Fishing Villages you may find yourself opening Fishing Village / Fishing Village to get yours. Some cards change functionally with more players; Thief gains more cards, multiple Ambassador-ing opponents flood you with junk faster, etc.

I prefer 3 and then 4 and then 2 and then 5. I like the increased player interaction of 3-4 player games, and like the longer turn-wise 3-player game and reduced downtime vs. 4 players. I only play with 5 to be nice; I'm not nice enough to play with 6.

4971

Non-Mafia Game Threads / Re: GoF VII: Game (Set and Match) (Game 2 Starting) - Gold Leader: Galz

« on: February 23, 2013, 05:25:40 am »

Warlord
Defence: 12
Class Tokens: 2
Ability: +1 dice
Ability: After rolling Spend a token to roll an extra die
Spiked Shield
Dice: 4
Weapon Tokens: 2
Ability: +1 Defence. Spend a token after rolling to kill a monster that damaged you

The 4 dice you list for Spiked Shield includes the Warlord's ability, but the 12 defense you show for Warlord does not include Spiked Shield's ability.

4972

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.

« on: February 23, 2013, 05:22:07 am »

Have you read much of Arthur Conan Doyle's works?  He seems to use a lot of the more interesting vocabulary in Dominion such as Counting House and Ill Gotten Gains.  If not, what do you enjoy reading?

I read some of the stories and maybe one of the novels in my youth; I don't really remember them.

Counting House is from a nursery rhyme, Sing a Song of Sixpence. When your first language is English, you get some English culture. Ill-Gotten Gains is an idiom; it's old-timey so maybe it's also specifically English. Anyway the game is set in Europe in the middle ages, so it specifically has some old stuff. And it's fun to give a card a name like Margrave.

I haven't read much non-online stuff in the last few years; I enjoy reading wikipedia. Pre-Dominion I read more sci-fi/fantasy than uh not those things. I will recommend some stuff.

Short stories:
- In the Penal Colony by Franz Kafka
- The Death of Dr. Island by Gene Wolfe
- Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut by J.D. Salinger
- Repent, Harlequin, Said the Ticktockman by Harlan Ellison
- The Secret Miracle by Jorge Luis Borges
- The Wind-up Bird And Tuesday's Women by Haruki Murakami

Novels:
- Little, Big by John Crowley
- Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe (starts with Shadow of the Torturer)
- Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
- The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers
- Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
- Permutation City by Greg Egan

Nonfiction:
- Guns, Germs & Steel by Jared Diamond
- Labyrinths of Reason by William Poundstone
- Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter
- Trouser Press Record Guide 4th edition by Ira Robbins

Humor:
- Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams
- Without Feathers by Woody Allen
- Deeper Thoughts by Jack Handey

The Anubis Gates is my go-to recommendation; it's just a crowd-pleaser, the Raiders of the Lost Ark of sci-fi/fantasy.

4973

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.

« on: February 22, 2013, 10:16:54 am »

I just looked through the art, and saw that the ruined versions were each made by the original artist.  Library/Ruined Library, Walled Village/Ruined Village, Grand Market/Ruined Market, Mine/Abandoned Mine, and even Estate (Base Cards)/Overgrown Estate and Village/Pillage.  Are there any other pairs like that?

Native Village / Pirate Ship / Island are all Vohwinkel and connect up to make one big image. Scrying Pool shows Village but is a different artist. Hermit/Madman are the same artist, Urchin/Mercenary are the same artist, and of course those relate. The Sirs have male artists and the Dames have female artists.

4974

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.

« on: February 22, 2013, 09:17:41 am »

Does the tree growing out of the roof (and nothing below it where it'd be if you follow the trunk down) on that card bother you?

Feel free to talk about any such things you can find; it's not so awesome for me to badmouth my games, when you think about it, especially the parts that I didn't do.

4975

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.

« on: February 22, 2013, 04:04:24 am »

I think Harem is the worst, unsurprisingly also by Kalusky. Those are some ugly women and the red haired one is so out of tone. Is she the patroness or does she live there as well?

She's Valerie! And Navigator is Dale. And Pearl Diver is Wei-Hwa, who won a tournament at the Gathering of Friends for that privilege.