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1076

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Nocturne: a minor ergonomic gripe

« on: December 17, 2017, 10:53:41 pm »

(although I would research which ones to uses to leave minimal smudging).

I've done that research: fine-point Sharpie.

However, I did that research for Pandemic Legacy. Nocturne is not a legacy game...

1077

Dominion Articles / Re: Would like a settlers/bustling village article.

« on: December 17, 2017, 05:48:54 pm »

To state an obvious synergy, Settlers is good when you either want, or struggle to avoid having, Copper in your deck. I've used Settlers to advantage both in Palace and in Mountebank games.

1078

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Dutch second edition Dominion is in stores.

« on: December 16, 2017, 09:17:50 pm »

Hah. And that means Dora the Explorer is "Dora la Exploradora" in Spanish. (-8

1079

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

« on: December 15, 2017, 11:23:36 pm »

...with a Trader in hand in a Changeling game? (-8<

1080

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Dutch second edition Dominion is in stores.

« on: December 15, 2017, 11:19:34 pm »

I don't have that experience, it looks weird but that's really the only thing. If i mix my english cards with the dutch cards of my friends, some people say "Hey, half of these cards are in english, why is that", and then we have to give a short explanation, but that's that. I really don't mind. Maybe i even like the weirdness.

If you ever ended up mixing Dutch and English base cards, you could get some interesting interactions with things that care about a card's name!

1081

Dominion: Nocturne Previews / Re: Previews #1: Devil's Workshop, Raider, Ghost Town

« on: December 15, 2017, 11:13:23 pm »

$4 or $5 is my instinct, too.

Costing an extra $1 or $2 and incorporating an attack that will usually be vexatious and situationally pretty nasty seems fair enough to me.

1082

Dominion General Discussion / Nocturne: a minor ergonomic gripe

« on: December 15, 2017, 07:55:06 pm »

If a pile comes with an Heirloom, it says this on the cards.

But wouldn't it have been nice if things were symmetric and the Heirloom also said which pile it came with?

Peering around the box trying to remember where, say, Cursed Gold goes is a bit of a pain. Especially when another well-meaning player has already put away (visits the Wiki to look it up) Pooka.

1083

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Cost Increasers

« on: December 15, 2017, 07:48:08 pm »

I'd argue that Tax comes really close to increasing the cost of a card by an amount of debt.

Something that surprises me is that we've not yet seen anything which increases the cost of a specific card. Say, an anti-Ferry, anti-Quarry or anti-Peddler that gave you some benefit worth the penalty. There, the closest equivalent I can think of is Castles, where in some sense the cost increases according to how many people have already bought Castles this game.

1084

Dominion: Nocturne Previews / Re: Previews #1: Devil's Workshop, Raider, Ghost Town

« on: December 15, 2017, 07:28:15 pm »

Raider sucks lol
[...]
At least it’s competitive with Gold once an engine is consistently set up.

So what would a fair price be for a Night-Duration card that was just "At the start of your next turn, +$3"?

1085

Rules Questions / Re: Why isn't Champion triggering on itself being played?

« on: December 13, 2017, 11:32:37 pm »

Hmm. So if you Throne a Champion, from then on you get +1 Action per time you played Champion, each time you play an Action?

I'm now contemplating a Procession-Champion-Lurker-Diadem hack. (-8

1086

Dominion Online at Shuffle iT / Re: Does a resign count as a win/loss

« on: December 13, 2017, 09:42:31 pm »

My game theory is a bit rusty—is there some widely-used definition of 'optimal play' which gets at least the minimax utility (in expectation) against a perfect opponent and also wins more against sub-perfect opponents?

I'm not aware of one.

Then again, I wouldn't expect there to be such a term; it would have very narrow applicability. Normally, to take advantage of anticipated poor play by an opponent you have to do something that isn't optimal against a perfect opponent. It's quite rare to be in a position where several lines of play are exactly tied for optimal.

1087

Rules Questions / Re: Start of turn question

« on: December 11, 2017, 10:51:40 pm »

As an aside, Imp is a lovely target for Prince, isn't it? If Imp is the first card you play each turn, the restriction fades into irrelevance and it becomes (almost exactly) a Laboratory that costs "up to $4".

1088

Dominion General Discussion / Re: How to Win Less...

« on: December 11, 2017, 10:38:53 pm »

There's another way to play which I've used in the past, and I think it might be the best way to teach, but I just hate doing it, and it rubs me the wrong way and goes against the spirit of Dominion:

Play the same kingdom twice.

I don't see why playing a kingdom twice is against the spirit of Dominion. We agree to do that a few times a year, if something especially fascinating happens.

Or someone wanders over, sees how I won, complains that all the other players shouldn't have let me get away with it and had they been playing against me they'd have... Result: rematch against a different opponent. (-8

1089

Dominion Online at Shuffle iT / Re: Does a resign count as a win/loss

« on: December 11, 2017, 10:32:31 pm »

The simple AI that plays perfectly in all games is this:

• Consider all the moves you could make
• Consider all your opponent's responses to each of your moves
• Consider all your responses to each of your opponent's responses to each of your moves

... and so on, until you've explored the entire space of game states.

Minimax doesn't play Dominion perfectly; it only plays Dominion perfectly against another similarly "perfect" player.

To play a genuinely perfect game, you must also completely comprehend the state of mind of the other player(s). To pick a random example, suppose you know they have a fetish for Pirate Ships, the correct line of play may be to assume your Copper is going to magically vanish without your having to lift a finger, even though one couldn't "perfectly" determine that a "perfect" adversary was going to play Pirate Ship early and often.

1090

Rules Questions / Re: Introducing a new rules document

« on: December 09, 2017, 12:15:52 pm »

I've never seen this stated, but my inference from all the rulings I've seen for Outpost, Possession. Mission, Mountain Pass, Donate, etc. is that the way things go is:

• ...End of Night phase
• Cleanup
• "At end of turn"
• Determine if the game has ended
• "After" the turn
• Determine who will be taking the next turn
• Start of turn

Things people do during turns, or after turns, can affect who takes the next turn, but all after-turn effects must be concluded before the next turn (for whomever) begins, there' can't be an after-turn effect that is deferred until an entire other turn has taken place.

1091

Dominion General Discussion / Re: "I couldn't help myself"

« on: December 09, 2017, 12:04:28 pm »

I buy normally-vicious discard attacks, even when Tunnel is in the Kingdom.

I've also managed to get the stars aligned so I could Prince King's Court... only for the game to end before my next turn.

1092

Dominion: Nocturne Previews / Re: Has Nocturne Shipped?

« on: December 09, 2017, 12:19:02 am »

GamesLore in the UK has shifted from pre-order to normal, which presumably means they have stock. I missed shipping today, but hopefully my copy will go out on Monday and be with me middle of next week. (-8

1093

Dominion Online at Shuffle iT / Re: Does a resign count as a win/loss

« on: December 08, 2017, 10:24:38 am »

Thanks for the explanation - all is clear.

That behaviour does surprise me, though. If one player in a multi-player game resigned, I think what I'd have expected would be for the game to continue with them replaced by a bot, then for them to be treated as having come last in the final scoring whatever happened subsequently.

Then again, I'm also a bit surprised by the ranking model. By my understanding of your explanation, you break even if you come second in a three-player game, and coming last is significantly worse than coming second? In RL games, we find it much more interesting to seek the death-or-glory lines of play if we're lagging, which that scoring system would seem to discourage.

(I may be unusual in having 3 rather than 2 as my preferred player count for Dominion.)

1094

Dominion General Discussion / Re: How good is Fishing Village really?

« on: December 07, 2017, 08:31:58 pm »

But once you draw your deck, isn't it just worse than plain Village? Since you can only play it every other turn, it actually nets you an Action only once at this point, same as Village.

It's already been pointed out that things aren't that simple.

However, even if they were, and not being able to play a specific Fishing Village every turn was a problem for you, playing Fishing Village nets you 2/3 the price of an extra Fishing Village, so you could afford to buy more of them.

1095

Dominion General Discussion / Re: How good is Fishing Village really?

« on: December 07, 2017, 08:29:14 pm »

I don't think I would ever open Chapel/Village. I can imagine cases where I would open Chapel/FV.

I love the Chapel+FV opening when it crops up.

I've not actually sat down and worked it out, but my gut feel is that Chapel+FV hits $3 during second shuffle much more dependably than Chapel+Silver. With a Chapel+Silver opening, drawing the Chapel and Silver together is a major pain.

1096

Dominion Online at Shuffle iT / Re: Does a resign count as a win/loss

« on: December 07, 2017, 08:21:58 pm »

Maybe it's obvious what you mean to someone who's actually played the current incarnation of online Dominion, but to me it's quite unclear.

Are you saying that resigning a game with multiple human opponents is equivalent to coming last, or are you saying it's somehow even worse than that?

1097

Dominion General Discussion / Re: farmer's market is pretty good

« on: December 07, 2017, 08:17:21 pm »

Personally, the reason I'm lukewarm about Farmer's Market is that it seems to be neither strong nor fun, hence more trouble than it's worth.

It reminds me a lot of Agricola - which is a game many people seem to adore but I dislike intensely. It's fine if a game lets your opponent(s) thwart your strategy by strategically throwing spanners in the works, but it annoys me if you can be seriously messed up by what your opponent does without them intending it.

Sod's Law dictates that if you want coin, Farmer's Market will trash itself and give you 4VP; if you want VP, Farmer's Market will give you coin. )-8

1098

Dominion: Nocturne Previews / Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions

« on: December 06, 2017, 08:03:28 pm »

Now, I said the same thing about Empires when Empires came out, the reason being trashing was weak (relative to Adventures and Dark Ages)

I'm not sure the set that includes Donate can fairly be accused of having weak trashing!

1099

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.

« on: December 05, 2017, 01:08:37 pm »

Sure, various cards depict statues (Monument, Duplicate, ...) but it seems such a simple concept not to have a card of its own.

1100

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.

« on: December 05, 2017, 12:57:28 pm »

How come many apparently simple potential card names haven't been used yet, when so many more obscure words and phrases have seen the light of day?

Looking back at the outtakes there are a bunch of names like Cavalry, Servant, Battlements, Barbarian, Butler, Poison, Academy, etc. which you were once considering.

Also, statues have been mentioned in the intro text for two expansions now, but we still don't have a Statue, let alone one that comes to life. (-8