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51

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Pro Games with Base Only

« on: April 25, 2013, 02:51:56 pm »

Although listing all sets is helpful on the hoster side, it doesn't solve the hosters/joiners divide problem. I think the best short-term solution there is for the community to make a concerted effort to play games in a specific lobby. If we all hang out in Outpost, there's a much higher chance of people who own the sets also being able to join tables hosted by someone with all the sets.

52

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Pro Games with Base Only

« on: April 25, 2013, 01:11:05 pm »

Not that you necessarily should, like you said you have all the cards, so good on you. But for anyone attempting to use that excuse is just ridiculous.

Viewed in isolation, maybe. But it becomes far less ridiculous when you look at the whole experience. To set up a table, you need to create game, choose professional, choose the number of seats, change the name, and click setup. Then, click on whoever joins your table to see if they have a decent pro rating, then either accept or boot. And you have to do this EVERY. TIME. you host a game.

I remember when Canonical started their 100 Paper Cuts project. The idea was to fix issues that weren't even bugs, but were UI annoyances. Viewed in isolation, none of them were significant. But if you keep getting small injuries, like papercuts, while trying to do something, there's a cumulative effect.

Goko's interface is a huge series of papercuts. The lobby layout, setting up a game, matching yourself with someone—and god forbid if you actually want to build a custom kingdom—the entire experience is set up with almost zero thought for how to accomplish common tasks efficiently. That adds up.

I've given up on being able to play Goko in the background like I could with Iso—that's not what they're aiming for, and I've reconciled myself to that. But I do miss how amazingly efficient Iso was, and I don't think it's too much to ask to make STARTING A GAME a one- or two-click process.

53

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

« on: April 25, 2013, 09:17:49 am »

Worker's Village. FV is too easy to rush, and +Buy in a Village should never be overlooked.

Someone earlier said Festival doesn't get enough love. The problem with Festival is that it usually competes with the $5s you need to make your engine work. And, because Festival is your Village, your engine can't come together at all until you get enough Festivals in the deck, which really slows your tempo.

54

Dominion General Discussion / Combo: Forager/Draw-to-X

« on: April 24, 2013, 11:51:37 pm »

Forager/draw-to-X seems like a strong tempo-building combo. The premise is simple: use Forager to clean out your hand, and draw back up. Forager serves the same purpose as any virtual coin, but it cleans out two hand slots instead of one. Plus, it gives a buy and thins your deck.

The weakness of Forager is the same as any of the discard-for-coin cards (Horse Traders, Secret Chamber [but not Vault because Vault draws too])—you're paying for the cash with both the discarded/trashed card slots in your hand and the card itself. By default, Horse Traders has a per-card value of $1 (use 3 cards to get $3); Secret Chamber is a max of $0.8 without draw; Forager is $0.5 if there's a Copper already in the trash, which makes it worse than Copper. But, because the draw-to-X cards love handsize reduction, Forager's drawback of shrinking your hand ends up as a benefit.

It's especially potent with Jack because Jack can't trash your starting Coppers, while Forager prefers to eat at least one Copper before starting in on the Estates. And, since Jack is flooding your deck with Silver, it's not a huge loss to chop a Silver in the mid-game to power up all your Foragers. Use Forager, and Jack becomes +3 cards (with filtering), +1 coin, gain a Silver.

The drawback is that your opponent can benefit from you powering up the Forager, especially if you trash a Silver or more valuable coin. But, the tempo lead from the increased cycling (copper trashing as well as the extra draw-to-X benefit) probably makes it worthwhile in most circumstances.

55

Dominion: Guilds Previews / Re: Box Image and Description

« on: April 24, 2013, 11:27:11 pm »

...possibly an overpay-coin version of woodcutter will be in this set?

If the card replicates an existing functionality, it will be really hard to price correctly. You can't make Overpay-Woodcutter $3 because it would be strictly superior. At $4, you need to be willing to trade a $5 card right now for the potential to use a saved coin later—that's a rough tradeoff. Maybe you make Overpay-Woodcutter +1 Buy, +1 coin so that it's not strictly superior at $3…I don't know. At any rate, making Overpay cards balanced is tricky.

56

Goko Dominion Online / Re: The Rating System

« on: April 24, 2013, 09:56:10 pm »

I entered an open seat in Ooksoo's game a couple days ago but he or she never started the game. After waiting for several minutes, I just left on my own.

57

GokoDom / Re: GOKODOM I: Round 2 Results and Discussion

« on: April 24, 2013, 08:50:28 pm »

philosophyguy wins 3-0 over gman314:

http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130424/log.50ad02dae4b0fb8e18c1ae6b.1366848384502.txt
Haven, Lighthouse, Cutpurse, Remodel, Contraband, Ghost Ship, Horn of Plenty, Junk Dealer, Fairgrounds, Forge
philosophyguy 1-0, 42-21

We both open Lighthouse/Cutpurse, but gman does for Junk Dealer and Remodel, while I just go into money/Ghost Ship. Not much to say here.

http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130424/log.50ad02dae4b0fb8e18c1ae6b.1366848865747.txt
Develop, Forager, Hermit, Tunnel, JackOfAllTrades, Monument, Cache, Catacombs, Hunting Party, Saboteur
philosophyguy 2-0, 41-27

He gets a bad 5/2 split here. I do some Forager/Jack stuff, which seems to go ok. His Monument worries me, but I'm able to buy Provinces pretty consistently with Forager clearing out the Coppers.

http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130424/log.50ad02dae4b0fb8e18c1ae6b.1366849359606.txt
Hermit, Tunnel, JackOfAllTrades, Sea Hag, Ill-Gotten Gains, Upgrade, Vault, Venture, Witch, Hunting Grounds
philosophyguy 3-0, 36-19

He goes for Sea Hag, while I opt for Jack and Hermit. I get a couple of collisions but am able to keep my deck reasonably curse free. He has an interesting Upgrade/Venture deal going that is able to Province consistently, but without +Buy he gets caught unable to break PPR several turns and I get the win.

Thanks for the games! Although they weren't the most interesting of boards, I enjoyed playing you and hope we can do some more games in the future.

Posted

58

Dominion General Discussion / Combo: Fortress/Farmland

« on: April 24, 2013, 07:51:16 pm »

This isn't a full-on combo but is a nice interaction: Farmland lets you "trash" a Fortress into a Farmland, while retaining your Fortress. This makes it easier to run the Farmland pile or get Farmlands->Province going.

59

Dominion Articles / Re: Altar

« on: April 24, 2013, 05:09:37 pm »

Why would Gold be useful faster than Altar? You use Gold to buy a Witch; you get that Witch next shuffle. You use Altar to gain a Witch, you get that Witch next shuffle.

I'm assuming you're talking about my top bullet (leaving aside that Witch is a power $5 and that it has a snowball effect, so you'd just buy the Witch over the Gold as in bullet 2). If there aren't strong $5s, then Gold is really important. Gold helps you get to more Gold more than Altar helps you get to Gold.

60

Dominion Articles / Re: Altar

« on: April 24, 2013, 02:42:19 pm »

I assume one $5 you won multiple of counts as well?

That tips in favor of Altar, but it depends on how many you want. If you want 2 or 3, Altar is less helpful than if you're trying to run the pile. If the $5 has a snowball effect (getting a lead means it's harder for your opponent to catch up), then Altar is less helpful. If you can cycle quickly, Altar is more helpful. If the deck thinning is helpful, then Altar is better.

61

Dominion Articles / Re: Altar

« on: April 24, 2013, 02:11:35 pm »

After playing a bunch of Altar games, one of the few issues I noticed is whether there are multiple strong, mutually compatible $5s on the board.

* If there are not strong $5s, Gold is usually superior. Gold will pay off in the next shuffle; you don't benefit from Altar's gain until the shuffle after. That's a long time to wait for a mediocre $5, and the Gold is more useful for gaining $4s.
* If there's only one strong $5, and you would prefer it to Gold, you'll acquire it a shuffle faster by just buying the $5 rather than Altar.
* If there are multiple strong $5s, but they don't synergize (e.g., Mountebank and Witch), then you're still better off buying the $5 you want.
* If there are multiple strong $5s and they go together, then Altar becomes more appealing.

62

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Victory point tracker [done]

« on: April 24, 2013, 12:18:11 pm »

Question: is anyone else having Goko freeze a lot during games? I had this happen several times today after installing the point counter script, but I'm not sure if it's a Goko issue or a script issue.

One thing that makes me suspicious of a script problem is that I had a frozen game and visual artifacts (my hand disappeared, except for the leftmost card) when scrolling the log up during an adventure game.

63

Help! / How did I lose this Minion game?

« on: April 23, 2013, 02:41:25 pm »

http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130423/log.50ad02dae4b0fb8e18c1ae6b.1366742328447.txt

I'm not sure how I lost this game—my opponent went for mostly alt-VP cards while I raced Minions. Despite a 7-0 Minion and giving my opponent 4 card hands for the whole game, I still lost.

The only move that I wasn't sure about was the Potion, but when I hit $4 and didn't want to activate my opponent's cities by buying the last Island, it seemed like a decent move since it would virtually guarantee a double Minion hit.

64

Rules Questions / Re: Potions and Talisman

« on: April 18, 2013, 12:31:05 pm »

Both "dimensions" Coins and Potions are compared individually, so if you have "costs at most C coins and P Potions", that means that both the coins are at most C AND the Potions are at most P.

If it's "less than", it's like "at most", only that at least one of the dimension has to be smaller.

If Potions (or Coins) are not mentioned, they are meant as 0.

Talisman cannot be used to gain a second copy of a card with Potion in its cost. A bunch of people will post after this saying the same thing, but with a lengthy confusing explanation.

(Not picking on Dstu, but MQ definitely called this one)

65

GokoDom / Re: GOKODOM I: Round 1 Results and Discussion

« on: April 14, 2013, 02:51:30 pm »

philosophyguy defeats werothegreat 3-2:

Game 1: Cellar, Pearl Diver, Trade Route, Woodcutter (bane), Ironmonger, Young Witch, Haggler, Margrave, Merchant Ship, Rabble, Nobles
wero 1-0, 46-23

We both open Young Witch, then were makes the key move for Ironmongers. I try going more money, with Merchant Ships, but cannot get up to $6. wero soon amasses a huge Nobles advantage and I get steamrolled by his engine.

Game 2: Moat, Native Village, Fishing Village, Warehouse, Marauder, Militia, Procession, Scavenger, Smithy, Harvest
wero 2-0, 39-24

wero starts with Fishing Village/Militia. I try Silver/Militia, thinking that the Necropolis makes FV slightly less important compared to early buying power. He gets a +Buy off the Ruins and commences building quite a nice engine.

Game 3: Chapel, Coppersmith, Rats, Treasure Map, Council Room, Haggler, Margrave, Mine, Venture, Hunting Grounds
philosophyguy 1-2, 34-26

With my back against the wall, I get a 5/2 start. I go Venture/Chapel while wero goes Treasure Map/Chapel. I follow him with Treasure Maps and actually connect mine before he goes—and even before I get to play my Chapel! This win is all shuffle luck.

Game 4: Urchin, Feodum, Moneylender, Navigator, Rats, Golem, Horn of Plenty, Torturer, Treasury, Bank
philosophyguy 2-2, 30-27

By far the most interesting game of the match. wero opens Potion, which I think is a mistake, while I go Navigator. He gets a Golem right away (which is kind of lucky), but doesn't have any actions at first. I next go for a Treasury with my Torturer, while he gets a Moneylender (another probably suboptimal play—even the Urchin would be better).

He makes a really interesting choice to go for HoP and start building up Feodums and Silvers, and I thought I had lost the game at that point. I make a quick detour for a HoP of my own and manage to get a quick double Province turn, which was enough to pull out the win. I almost lost at the very end because I took two curses with a Mercenary in hand, but forgot that I don't get to trash them if wero ends the game. But, I think he miscounted his Silvers or something, because he buys the last Province for the loss.

Fun interaction of the set: Urchin/Torturer/Mercenary. Urchin makes Torturer's attack slightly more painful if you play it first, and it obviously combos with Torturer to turn into a Mercenary. But, Mercenary's trashing is also useful against Torturer's curse-in-hand option.

Game 5: Bureaucrat, Cutpurse, Salvager, Spy, Tournament, Ill-Gotten Gains, Library, Margrave, Altar, Bank
philosophyguy 3-2, 17-14

Since I'm second seat, I win the match if I win this one. It's an IGG match with a couple of fun enablers: Tournament, Cutpurse, Salvager, and Bureaucrat. wero goes Cutpurse, I gamble with Salvager. I don't think I played this optimally because I should have always been taking Coppers with my extra buys if I'm going to go that route. I lose the IGG split badly but start on Duchies earlier, and spike a Province for the win. I credit my loss of the split to wero's Tournament, which I thought about at the start of the game but for some reason didn't get after the opening.

These were some great games. I actually think wero outplayed me through the series and I got the win with some luck.

66

Power Grid General Discussion / Re: Power Grid Strategy: the blog. Now accepting feedback on the forums

« on: April 11, 2013, 04:06:40 pm »

For what it's worth, I (as someone who hasn't played Power Grid yet) have read through all the articles you've posted so far, and they seem to make sense. I obviously can't comment on the specifics of the strategies, but the general approach seems fine, and you write clearly.

67

Goko Dominion Online / Goko regrets

« on: April 09, 2013, 11:44:16 am »

As someone who watched Goko trying to fix their issues and hoped that the current status of the software was good enough, I wanted to share that I am now seriously regretting purchasing their product. Besides the UI issues like bane cards and the lobby (oh my god, the lobby), I regularly and unpredictably have to deal with issues like getting a solid black page instead of a login screen, or having the gear spin indefinitely while attempting to login.

I'm sharing this here not to complain, per se, nor to file a bug report (I've been quite busy on getsatisfaction), but simply to strongly discourage anyone who is undecided about Goko from buying their product. At this point, it's a pain, and not only has it felt like wasted dollars but it's actually dulled my love for the game Dominion.

68

Other Games / Race for the Galaxy - help!

« on: April 08, 2013, 04:57:28 pm »

I've recently been introduced to RftG. Although I understand the mechanics of the game, I am awful at playing it.

I've been playing a number of games against the AI recently and putting them on YouTube. I am hoping that there are folks here who can provide feedback to help me improve my play.

The video playlist starts here. Please feel free to comment with any suggestions.

(I hope that I'll be able to continue recording for a while and eventually have a RftG channel much like the YouTube Dominion players. To that end, any thoughts on screencasting in general are welcome. I already know that I need to get a microphone that won't pick up the mouse click sound.)

69

Power Grid General Discussion / Re: Who all is interested in this?

« on: April 08, 2013, 04:19:06 pm »

I'm reading and interested. I've wanted to try Power Grid for a while, and I'm hoping that your intro video etc. will help my gaming group agree that it's worth playing.

70

Goko Dominion Online / Re: The Rating System

« on: April 07, 2013, 02:25:19 pm »

So, it should be possible to write an extension that extends the click-on-player behavior to get the rating from [whoever is hosting WW's algorithm] in addition to the ratings already there. I wasn't able to dig through the JS enough to determine if you could change so that the WW-rating is displayed by default in the player list, but I would imagine so.

71

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Young Witch on the second page

« on: April 03, 2013, 10:19:43 pm »

It is your duty to overcome autoplay syndrome. Dont blame it on goko.

I find this attitude really unfortunate. I've talked about this before, but part of good UI design is making it so that users are actively discouraged (whether consciously or unconsciously) from making mistakes. This is why the community pushed hard for an undo button with playing treasures on iso. It's why we clamored to not autoplay coppers when you can buy a GM. It's why we pushed Goko to visually distinguish between trashing, discarding, and playing, and why we requested more descriptive buttons than "Done."

In this case, there's several mistakes that occur relatively often because of the way the UI is structured. It could be fixed by putting all the supply piles (so not Madmen, Spoils, Prizes, etc.) on one page. Since part of Goko's pitch was to play anywhere, on any size screen, resizing the icons to fit an extra two piles (the bane and ruins) should be extremely easy for their system.

Saying that Goko should fix their interface doesn't absolve players from autoplay syndrome—you can't claim autoplay as an excuse to replay the game in a tournament, and for good reason—but it does show that Goko is providing a subpar product that they should have the capacity to fix. And I for one will keep pushing Goko to do so, because I think this is enough of a play issue to be worth spending coding time on.

72

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Goko adventures help

« on: April 02, 2013, 03:59:58 pm »

That is a crapton of zaps. Even if I'm playing multiplayer games constantly, it's gonna take a while.

73

Goko Dominion Online / Goko adventures help

« on: April 02, 2013, 01:46:54 pm »

I desperately need help with the Goko adventures. I was a mid-20s level player on iso, but I cannot win Goko's adventures to save my life. On the sets that I did well on iso (e.g., I was +3.43 on Alchemy), I can win a Goko adventure on the second or third try, usually. On sets where I didn't do as well, I can play the same set five or more times and still not figure out how to beat the bot.

So, what gives? These bots can't be that good, right? I know that my win rate drops precariously as soon as the starting conditions change (and yes, I'm using zaps to either take away Silvers from my opponent or give myself Silvers, rather than playing with the victory cards), but even on the adventures that start with identical decks I'm barely scraping by with a win.

Without getting into strategy for specific sets: how do you need to change your playing strategy in order to succeed at adventure mode?

74

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Guilds leaked on BGG

« on: April 01, 2013, 11:25:46 am »

I think the Turnpike mechanic is interesting, though the card itself isn't balanced. It might work as a 2VP card for $3, or pay $4 to not have it on top of your deck.

75

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Goko log parser - now for Chrome!

« on: April 01, 2013, 10:30:10 am »

I get slightly nervous about a brand new poster and brand new add-on author suddenly posting a plugin and preemptively declaring "no viruses!". So, if you want to play it safe and you're in Firefox:

1) Download and then activate the Greasemonkey extension. This is an extension that's been in existence for a long time and has been reviewed by the Firefox folks, AFAIK. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/greasemonkey/

2) Go to the .js file in nutki's post:
https://github.com/nutki/Goko-Live-Log-Viewer/raw/master/Goko_Live_Log_Viewer.user.js

You should receive a message that this is a Greasemonkey script and a prompt to install it. Go for it. The .js file will be installed in your Firefox profile/extensions, if you want to double-check the actual contents.