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1

Introductions / Name’s Bruce!

« on: December 30, 2020, 01:35:52 pm »

Why trust a shark, right??

Crazy to still see dominion stuff still happening.... haven’t really played dominion in years and never really made the transition over to ShIT (is this the correct abbreviation?).  I’m sure I’ll get back into dominion someday when my 20 month son gets old enough. I’m eagerly anticipating his introduction to the world of board gaming.

I miss any excitement in the past years?  Seems crazy to not be playing dominion like I used to in the old days. Life just seems to have a way of taking away time and shifting priorities.

Anyways, hope all you f.ds peeps are doing well.

2

Help! / Re: 2 Bold Strategies to Choose From, Which One Would You Go For?

« on: January 19, 2018, 02:54:08 pm »

With a Port/Silver opening you're going into T3/4 with essentially having opened double Silver due to Lucky Coin.  Getting both a $4 and a $5 plus seems likely.  Obviously getting a Port with $4 is necessary.  I'm starting to agree with you about the Port as losing that 8/4 is ugly.  So in this scenario you'll likely just under buy for Port once.  The caveat though is the 1st player could gamble and get Butcher with their $5 and then follow up with Port and still even the split.

3

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2017 Edition: $6+ cards

« on: January 19, 2018, 01:46:20 pm »

Artisan should be higher.

My subscription ran out this year and I haven't renewed it yet.  As such I've played more base only games than I normally would.  My biggest surprise was Artisan.  It is superb.  You do can so much from being able to gain/play the action on your current turn or gain a specific action to top deck for next turn.  It combines both engine building and deck control in an extremely elegant way.  This card makes any engine much MUCH better and should not be ignored.

4

Help! / Re: 2 Bold Strategies to Choose From, Which One Would You Go For?

« on: January 18, 2018, 02:03:34 pm »

The real question is not which strategy to play but how to approach a mirror match.  The Groundskeeper deck will completely outmatch a Feodom strategy due to the Feodom upper limit of points and the ability to the Groundskeeper deck to control when the game ends.

Port and Groundskeeper are the two key cards with Butcher for support. Port is obviously the ideal Butcher target for gaining Groundskeeper.  Whoever wins the Groundskeeper split should be in prime position to win so that is the first objective.  Secondary is building an engine that reliably draws the deck.   Use Pathfinding on Groundskeeper as it packs all of your point scoring and card drawing on a single card.  This allows Ports to be Butchered into Islands midgame for points and slight thinning.  Thirdly is the Sprawling Castle.  With a 5/5 Groundskeeper split that single card is worth 27 points.  Whomever gains this likely wins the game.  As such, having the Small Castle and potentially 2 Butchers is the ideal composition. 

5

General Discussion / Re: Brag Board

« on: December 19, 2017, 09:37:41 am »

My wife just successfully defended her Ph.D. so now we have a Doctor and a Master in the house. 

6

Dominion World Masters / Re: Official Dominion Tournament at U-Con, Nov. 18 2017, Ypsilanti, MI, 1pm - 9pm

« on: November 17, 2017, 02:28:49 pm »

Good luck everyone.  Wish I could be there instead of hauling heavy furniture.  I'll be there next year!

7

General Discussion / Re: Fun Recipes

« on: October 27, 2017, 12:43:49 pm »

Just made the annual fall tradition of Butternut Squash Sweet Potato Chili  Every fall my wife and I make this chili recipe which is one of our favorite meals.  As a bonus, it is also both vegetarian and (for those of you eat chili without cheese) vegan.  We actually don't keep a recipe so every year it is a little bit different.  This years came out particularly nice so I'll try to summarize as best as I can remember.  Don't get to caught up in specific measurements, everything is my best estimate.

Ingredients
1 Large Sweet Potato
1 Medium Butternut Squash
1 Medium Red Onion
1 Red Bell Pepper
2 Cups Dry Black Beans
1 Jalapeno
3-4 Cloves Garlic
64 Oz Canned Tomatoes with Green Chilis
1-2 Cups Vegetable Stock
1/4 Cup Pure Maple Syrup
3-4 Dried Chipotle Peppers
1 Tablespoon Cumin
1 Tablespoon Chili Powder
1 Tablespoon Hot/Smoked Hungarian Paprika
1 Tablespoon Cocoa Powder
3-4 Bay Leaves
1 Teaspoon Salt
1 Good grind of black pepper

Instructions

1.)  Pressure cook dry beans on high for 19 minutes.  If pressure cooking is not an option, you can start soaking the beans the day before.  Please use dry beans here.  You might think it is "easier" to buy a couple of cans and put those in.  Dry beans are not difficult.  Throw them in a bowl of water the night before or throw them in a pressure cooker before chopping.  The time it takes to do that is just as little as it is to find your can opener and open the can/drain the liquid.  The only "hard" thing about dry beans would be finding them in a different grocery store isle.  You will not regret using dry beans when you experience the texture of the beans in your finished chili. 

2.)  Chop/dice all vegetables.  Go for a medium dice for the onion/peppers and approximately 1 cm cubes for the squash/sweet potato.

3.)  Mix your spices together.  If you can get dried chilis an old whirly blade coffee grinder is perfect for making them a powder.

4.)  Start cooking your onion in a large dutch oven with a few tablespoons of  olive oil.  After they turn translucent, add the peppers and continue cooking for another couple of minutes.  Make a small well in the middle of your onions/peppers and add a bit more oil.  Mince your garlic and cook it in this well.  It will brown and cook rapidly.  Stir it constantly and once it is nicely browned and aromatic stir it into the onion/peppers and add your butternut and sweet potato.  Cook this for a few minutes stirring frequently. 

5.)  Put all the remaining ingredients into dutch oven.  Save the vegetable stock for last and use it to get your liquid level to the desired level.  You want it to be just about up to the the top of the ingredients.

6.)  Cover the dutch oven and simmer over low heat for about 90 minutes.  Give the pot a good stir every 20-30 minutes.  Taste your chili as it simmers.  This is the time to add additional spices to mold the chili to your specific taste preference.

7.)  Serve the chili with avocado and a healthy portion of cheddar cheese.  If you accidentally made it too spicy for your taste buds put some sour cream or plain greek yogurt to tame it down a bit.

8

Dominion World Masters / Re: Official Dominion Tournament at U-Con, Nov. 18 2017, Ypsilanti, MI, 1pm - 9pm

« on: October 20, 2017, 08:52:00 am »

In a rapid series of events I won't be able to come this year as I'm buying a house.  Instead I will be packing/moving.  I'll actually be closer to the conference now than I was before, but I don't think people would be happy with me if I scooted away from the heavy lifting to play dominion.  Good luck everybody.

9

General Discussion / Re: Fun Recipes

« on: September 18, 2017, 03:09:53 pm »

now: what uses at least four solitary egg whites?

Whip them and gently incorporate into waffle batter for extra light and fluffy waffles.

10

Game Reports / Re: Horse Traders + Duke/Duchy

« on: September 08, 2017, 11:51:40 am »

Fun game to think about!  Open Moneylender/Wishing Well.  For $4, I'd alternate between Walled Village and Smithy (throw in a HT mid game when the buy will be useful). 

Royal Seal is actually quite useful here.  Midgame you can ensure that you at least start most turns with at least Village/Smithy combo.  That should help deck reliability and prevent dud hands.  Towards the end it gets even better when you're able to reliably get KC/KC/Smithy on top. 

Ghost Ship is also unique.  For a Duchy/Duke opponent, you ignore it as it competes with HoP and HT negates the attack.  Against a mirroring opponent, the attack can be quite deadly and potentially stall a hand or two of the opponent.  I'd get one with my first $5 before switching to HoP.

11

Game Reports / Re: Tricky engine board : how would you play it ?

« on: September 07, 2017, 09:27:58 am »

I would consider starting Apothecary over Familiar as the first Potion card buy. 

With a Masquerade also present you have a reasonable chance of spiking an early $7 for Expand which can replace Estates for Royal Carriage.  Your early tempo will be just so much faster with the Apothecary cycling.  Familiar provides no economic advantage and your chances of getting $4 or less are quite high.  The single Curse is also trivial early on with Masquerade present.

I would advocate to get your deck rolling and then throw in a couple of Familiars.  With Royal Carriage you can rapidly use those few Familiars dish out curses quickly.  You deal out 2 Curses the turn after buying your first Familiar and assuming you cycle your deck and get a 2nd on the next turn you should be able to put out 4  Curses the next turn.  That volume might be enough to stall your opponent for a few turns and let you build an advantage into the endgame.

12

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Dominion Strategy: Then, Now, and the Future

« on: September 07, 2017, 09:14:06 am »

The people in charge of the blog don't need to be the only people involved with curating and improving article content.  This conversation seems rather close to that of the academic research publication process.  Articles get sent to a journal who has an editor to decide whether an article might be worthy who then sends the article to multiple experts in the field for critical review.  These reviewers provide feedback and a decision on whether or not they think the article is ready for publication.

In the context of the forum this could be done in the article subforum.  What this would take is either the article's original author or someone else who is willing to rewrite the article on the basis of community feedback.  This revised article could then be presented as a more polished work for front page blog content.  Then people interested in the topic don't need to read multiple pages of forum posts but could get the information in one streamlined article.

13

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Dominion Strategy: Then, Now, and the Future

« on: September 06, 2017, 01:25:53 pm »

The thing is, the blog is very useful. You're an irl person, you're looking for a way to beat your friend, so you look up "Dominion board game strategy" and boom, Dominion Strategy has all the keywords already. It's always going to get hits. The best thing to do is to have it obviously link to f.ds and the wiki (as if it's not doing that already) and to have updated good articles. Take down all the silly combos like Pirate Ship/Ambassador which has become a running joke, etc. There could be a page for beginner Dominion players for Base set strategies, 1st and 2nd edition. Promote Dominion Online and increase the amount of users from irl. I know people who play Dominion irl and didn't even know there's an Online Version. There's all sorts of stuff that could be done with the blog and I am excited to help with that, or have anybody doing anything with it really. Anything is better than it sitting there doing nothing.

Yeah, the first google hit is the blog post for "New to Dominion".  A lot of that stuff is outdated (e.g. Goko and Council Room) and a fresh perspective on updated resources could be a good first start for reviving the blog.  I totally remember getting hooked on Dominion right as theory was publishing the blog and it became a daily habit of checking for new posts as I was learning the game.

Sigh... and now I'm nostalgic.  I guess I should play more Dominion.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

14

Dominion World Masters / Re: Save The Date: Official Dominion Tournament at U-Con, Nov 18 2017, Ypsilanti, MI

« on: September 04, 2017, 12:25:32 pm »

I'm rusty but I'm hopeful to make it again.  This is just too close to home to miss it.

15

General Discussion / Re: Fun Recipes

« on: June 02, 2017, 11:21:07 am »

anyone have any good baking recipes?

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015819-chocolate-chip-cookies

Get the right kind of flours, they truly make a difference.  Get a good quality dark chocolate.  Listen to all of the timing instructions.  Even the size of the dough for baking is essential.  You may be skeptical at first.  But after making them no chocolate chip cookie will be the same.  This recipe perfects everything from a light crisp edge giving way to a warm gooey center.

16

Dominion Articles / Re: Opening Probabilities: A Study

« on: January 26, 2017, 11:59:46 am »

Here are some of my suggestions.

Bonfire - Maybe something like average number of cards in deck at a given turn compared to the Chapel and Steward variations.

Baker - In the opening, how much does having a single coin token smooth the probability distribution regarding 5/2 and 4/3?  If you can save the token for turns 3-4, how does this impact the percentages for hitting certain price points or combinations? 

Borrow - Similar to Baker for how this impacts the opening.  What kind of trade off is expected regarding money for the Coin/Card trade?  Is there a quantifiable difference that can justify the loss in tempo?

17

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Player Ranking Poll

« on: January 25, 2017, 08:44:21 am »

Another is perhaps shark_bait as mentioned by Awaclus but who I believe is not often online these days.

I'm online but mostly lurking.  Haven't been playing online as much since the around the start of Goko/Making Fun.  I'm honored to be mentioned, and I do know that my Adventures/Empires skill is lower as to not playing nearly as many games with them.  However I do get to play Dominion IRL with my wife on a regular basis, which is pretty darn awesome.

Totally agree on Marin.  As one of the "legacy" players, playing him felt like attacking a grizzly bear with my bare hands.

@Awculus - It's the shared Masterpiece love, isn't it. 

Ah, nice to hear from you. I think I remember you saying you haven't been playing much recently so I kinda figured that would affect forum time (even though it doesn't stop me from lurking even when not actively playing).

I can lurk the forum at work easily.  Can't do an hour or two online dominion binge so easily at work. 

18

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Player Ranking Poll

« on: January 24, 2017, 03:52:31 pm »

Another is perhaps shark_bait as mentioned by Awaclus but who I believe is not often online these days.

I'm online but mostly lurking.  Haven't been playing online as much since the around the start of Goko/Making Fun.  I'm honored to be mentioned, and I do know that my Adventures/Empires skill is lower as to not playing nearly as many games with them.  However I do get to play Dominion IRL with my wife on a regular basis, which is pretty darn awesome.

Totally agree on Marin.  As one of the "legacy" players, playing him felt like attacking a grizzly bear with my bare hands.

@Awculus - It's the shared Masterpiece love, isn't it. 

19

Dominion World Masters / Re: Official Dominion Tournament at U-Con, Nov. 12 2016, Ypsilanti, MI, 1pm - 11pm

« on: November 21, 2016, 09:19:14 am »

Looks like some fun Kingdoms!  I probably would have needed to polish off my rust.  I haven't played much with Empires and have done nothing with the 2nd edition cards.  As usual, Elastan puts the emphasis on the new material which I think is fantastic.

20

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Semi-Interesting Dominion Moments of 2016 Thread

« on: November 02, 2016, 12:55:41 pm »

Your Swamp Hagging opponent could have resigned knowing you really won.  I guess that makes him a Scum Bag in the moment.

21

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

« on: October 31, 2016, 12:03:19 pm »

Just played one the other night with my wife that had Artificer, Storyteller, and Menagerie.  Made more some super fast cycling/gaining with the neat thing being that this is still supported both in the absence of a village and any sort of trashing.

22

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Greatest Card -- FIRST ROUND Voting Now Open

« on: October 25, 2016, 10:23:37 am »

1 Champion
32 Artificer

16 Trusty Steed
17 Ambassador

8 Mountebank
25 Prince

9 City Quarter
24 Salt The Earth

4 Teacher
29 Lost Arts

13 Mercenary
20 Inheritance

5 Cultist
28 Disciple

12 Rebuild
21 Madman

11 Wharf
22 Pathfinding

6 Goons
27 Black Market

14 Dominate
19 Tournament

3 Donate
30 Colony

10 Chapel
23 Scout

7 Fortune
26 Scrying Pool

15 Possession
18 Followers

2 King's Court
31 Princess

23

Dominion World Masters / Re: Official Dominion Tournament at U-Con, Nov. 12 2016, Ypsilanti, MI, 1pm - 11pm

« on: October 17, 2016, 10:10:03 am »

Unfortunately I won't be able to make it any more.  I've got a concert that I'm going to that evening (Berlin Philharmonic) and a bachelor party for my cousin earlier in the day.  Best of luck to everyone.

24

Dominion General Discussion / Re: A game where Relic was actually good.

« on: October 12, 2016, 09:28:06 am »

Perhaps relic should be thought of in the following manner.

I purchase a relic at $5 and my opponent purchases a Laboratory.  His $5 Laboratory is reduced to a measly +1 Card / +1 Action.  This is arguably worse than a $2 Pearl Diver.  Said card could really only be fairly priced at $1 given all of the cantrips with benefits at $2 and Ruins at $0.  In contrast, a Relic is equal in purchasing power to a $3 Silver. 

You don't want to mass Relic as the attack doesn't stack, but I think the above clearly illustrates the competitive advantage that a consistent Relic provides.

True, but how many do you need to buy for it to be a "consistent Relic"? Is it worth it over a good ?

Just a few.  It's the kind of card that you definitely want to get but will almost never be a kingdom supply pile that empties.

25

Dominion General Discussion / Re: A game where Relic was actually good.

« on: October 12, 2016, 09:20:01 am »

Perhaps relic should be thought of in the following manner.

I purchase a relic at $5 and my opponent purchases a Laboratory.  His $5 Laboratory is reduced to a measly +1 Card / +1 Action.  This is arguably worse than a $2 Pearl Diver.  Said card could really only be fairly priced at $1 given all of the cantrips with benefits at $2 and Ruins at $0.  In contrast, a Relic is equal in purchasing power to a $3 Silver. 

You don't want to mass Relic as the attack doesn't stack, but I think the above clearly illustrates the competitive advantage that a consistent Relic provides.