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Messages - crj

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776
Hmm. Gear helps if you draw Estates but not Exorcist (save an Estate), Exorcist but not Estates (save Exorcist) or even when you draw an Exorcist dead with Gear (save Exorcist and an Estate). That's significantly better than alternatives such as Haven or Save. Nice!

777
There is a (large) middle ground between a big money strategy and a no-Treasures strategy.

Once upon a time, basic treasures were a common engine payload. And, to me, at least, basic treasures never being a good payload would be almost as boring as them always being a good payload.

778
I have literally never heard anyone argue that treasures as a class are worse.
Well, Awaclus did it again ^up there. And isn't the only person doing so on f.ds .

779
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Fix the worst cards
« on: June 19, 2018, 01:27:00 pm »
the rewards are not super impressive [...] but neither is the amount of effort that it takes — just play like 20 games every day and you'll become a top player within a year.
Uh... at 10 minutes a game, that's 200 minutes a day, three hours, 20% of your waking life, half your leisure time.

So no.

780
Making something a Treasure doesn’t automatically make it worse.
Personally, I agree with you. But I'm sensing some people don't.

The argument seems to be that cantrip money makes your engine run more smoothly by reducing the risk of drawing a dud hand. But then people seem to gush over non-cantrip virtual coin as well, so... *shrug*

781
Drat; miscounted.

OK, the second most different Treasures after the set called "Prosperity".

And Empires (a set apparently targeted at expert players) had seven different Treasures that can appear in the Supply, rather than starting hands.

My point was (and remains) that, if there is indeed a sentiment that Treasures shouldn't be bought by strong players, Donald X. doesn't seem to agree.

782
A trend I've noticed recently is for people on f.ds to look at, for example, Skulk and say things along the lines of "but you don't want Gold anyway in modern Dominion". The impression I get is that some people have decided Treasure-less engines are now the only game in town and you want virtual coin, VP tokens, gainers, etc. instead.

Once upon a time, Gold was just fine as an engine payload. Once upon a time, a key skill in the game - on a par with choosing when to start greening - was to balance your purchases of Treasure against Actions.

Is Treasure genuinely now playing second fiddle, or is this just groupthink, or hyperbole by a vocal minority?

I can't help noticing that Nocturne contains more kinds of Treasure than any previous set, as well as plenty of Treasure gainers. That suggests to me that Donald X., at least, thinks Treasures are still relevant.

783
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Fix the worst cards
« on: June 19, 2018, 10:17:34 am »
Consider this as a signal of "your point is noted but I disagree that f.ds should only be for people who are trying to get better at Dominion."
Even amongst people who do want to get better at Dominion, for most of us the game is a light-hearted hobby.

I started logging plays a couple of years back, and disregard online plays. I've played 247 different games. On the one hand, Dominion is my most-played game; on the other, that's still less than 5% of all my game playing.

Yes, I'd like to get better at Dominion. No, I don't want to devote a huge amount of time to that, let alone devote any non-fun time. No, I don't care about rankings, or winning tournaments, or any of that guff.

I suspect that in this respect I'm a more normal person than Awaclus.

784
Dominion Articles / Re: Contraband
« on: June 17, 2018, 09:11:17 am »
Relatively expensive cards that diminish in value over time isn’t really that special.
Contraband is still unusual: it's a cliff-edge, not merely a steep decline. If you bought an early Contraband because there were two expensive payload cards you wanted to buy in bulk and it didn't matter which you picked up on Contraband turns, when you start greening Contraband doesn't just diminish in usefulness, you can never play it again. Suddenly, you'd rather have Ruined Market!

785
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Fix the worst cards
« on: June 17, 2018, 09:07:15 am »
This board doesn't chase new players away, it causes them to improve at the game to the point where they can no longer be considered new players.
I liked it more back when theory et al. were posting enthusiastic commentary on interesting combos I was excited to try.

Nowadays, it's just you explaining over and over again that being good at Dominion is the opposite of having fun.

786
Dominion Articles / Re: Contraband
« on: June 15, 2018, 07:39:56 pm »
almost everything synergizes with TfB in the way Contraband does.
I'd say Contraband is special in that it's not cheap, and its usefulness drops off dramatically. Being able to recover your investment is particularly important.

787
Haunted Castle, Embassy, Governor, Messenger...

Even Council Room or Lost City, at an inconvenient moment!

788
Dominion Articles / Re: Contraband
« on: June 15, 2018, 12:47:13 pm »
Other points which occur to me:

Contraband interacts especially badly with virtual coin, because you have to reveal this turn's spending level before something is banned. If your spend comes from treasures it's harder for opponent to guess.

Contraband is better when there's trash-for-benefit. I've found it can be fine as an affordable early accelerator for picking up engine components, if it can be turned into something with fewer limitations before the endgame.

789
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Fix the worst cards
« on: June 14, 2018, 01:31:04 pm »
I  (largely deliberately) don't have Alchemy.

From the other sets, the cards I leave out as making the game less fun in one way or another are Saboteur, Fool's Gold, Rebuild and Fool.

The occasional sucky card is fine - people don't have to buy them!

790
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Fix the worst cards
« on: June 13, 2018, 11:28:52 am »
As long as we're on the subject of Transmute, a change that might be fun would be to let the card trash other Transmutes for a strong benefit
If - if - the card was fixed enough in other respects for something like that to be worthwhile, I feel it would be more interesting to make it a benefit for trashing any potion-cost card.

791
Dominion Articles / Re: Settlers/Bustling Village
« on: June 13, 2018, 05:05:23 am »
Interesting article, if only for putting into coherent words why I've always found that pile a little lacklustre.

A couple of minor points: I'm not sure it's realistic to compare BV drawing Settlers so favourably cost-wise with Lost City. BV-drawing-Settlers doesn't cost $5; it costs $7, two buys and an extra card in your deck. Also, in considering the value for money of a BV that's not drawing Settlers, it may be worth comparing with Port, which achieves the same effect for $4 plus an extra card in deck (which may actually be a good thing, since either copy could suffice to get your engine started).

792
Dominion Articles / Re: Ghost Town
« on: June 09, 2018, 09:35:25 pm »
As a stylistic point, it's probably better to avoid using the first person in this kind of article. "In my experience", "I usually prefer", etc. don't read well.


As a more substantive point, I'd say one killer use for a Ghost Town is as a turn 3 purchase when you bought terminals on your first two turns and drew neither of them on T3. Even if neither of the terminals gives you any draw, buying a Ghost Town gives you a 6/7 chance of getting to play both on T4.

Although there's still a risk (15%) of drawing both on T3, having the Ghost Town option available if needed is enough of a help that it could tip the balance in favour of buying two terminals when you would otherwise open something like terminal/Silver.

793
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Favorite/least favorite Landmarks?
« on: June 08, 2018, 11:59:11 am »
I have a soft spot for Tomb.

Although superficially it is indeed rewarding you for something you want to do anyway, in a kingdom with strong trashing what it really rewards is accumulating junk to trash, and cycling things through trash for benefit as hard as possible, even when there's no actual benefit. That can lead to memorably silly and unusual games.

794
To state the obvious: when going for the tree layout, you can overlap the cards so that only the names are showing. That's about as space-efficient as anything else I've seen.

795
Dominion FAQ / Re: Counterfeit Clarification
« on: June 04, 2018, 09:50:22 pm »
Spoils will not ever go to the trash in this case.
Just for the sake of clarity, Spoils can end up in the trash. Just not like that. (-8

For example, you might end up trashing one if attacked with Bandit.

796
Dominion FAQ / Re: Counterfeit Clarification
« on: June 04, 2018, 09:42:13 pm »
Yes, this actually matters if you Prince or Summon a Crown (using cost reduction).
I think Crown is currently the only card that cares? But there are more ways than that to get one played at start-of-turn. (Ghost, playing it indirectly via a throne, Vassal, Herald, one of the above, etc.)

797
I'll give you most of those, but I'm not sure how Possession comes into it.
(Note that I'm not saying I don't know the answers, just that these seem to be the questions that either do come up, or seem likely to.)

  • Whose Inheritance applies to Estates while A possesses B?
  • Can the possessing player make the possessed buy Inheritance? ("Isn't that unfair?")
  • When the possessed player would gain an Estate, which Inherited on-gain effects apply, and to whom?
  • Are cards still yours while set aside because of the special trashing rules? e.g. does Transmuting an Estate-with-Inheritance behave differently during a possessed turn?
(OK, I've no idea what the answer is to that last one!)

798
Agreed. However, the cards that have confusing interactions with it tend to be:
  • the most powerful cards
  • the most interesting cards
  • the cards you're keenest to combine with Inheritance
...all of which mean, in my experience, questions arise more often than that would suggest.
Could you give some examples?
Ambassador, Fortress, Ironworks, Treasure Map, Crown, Possession, Band of Misfits, Courtier (esp. with inherited Werewolf), Page/Peasant, Outpost, Grand Market, Crossroads, Cultist, Squire, overpay, Port ("another"), Ferry/Plan/Lost Arts/Pathfinding, Seaway, Encampment, Sacrifice, Advance

799
I'm a little surprised at this. I feel like the number of cards that have confusing interactions with this is small.
Agreed. However, the cards that have confusing interactions with it tend to be:
  • the most powerful cards
  • the most interesting cards
  • the cards you're keenest to combine with Inheritance
...all of which mean, in my experience, questions arise more often than that would suggest.

800
Dominion FAQ / Re: Counterfeit Clarification
« on: June 04, 2018, 10:05:03 am »
To be clear, the standard turn sequence, often abbreviated to (A)ction, (B)uy, (C)lean-up is actually:
  • Action phase: while you still have actions, play as many Action cards as you like, one by one
  • Buy phase:
    • First: play as many Treasures as you like, one by one
    • Then: while you still have buys, buy as many cards as you like from the Supply
  • Clean-up phase:
    • Discard the cards you have in play, and the cards remaining in your hand (in any order)
    • Draw a new hand of 5 cards

For completeness, the expansions complicate this a little:
  • Action phase:
    • Start-of-turn effects (e.g. those caused by having played a Duration last turn)
    • While you still have actions, play as many Action cards as you like, one by one
  • Buy phase:
    • Start-of-buy-phase effects
    • Play as many Treasures and coin tokens as you like, one by one
    • As many times as you like:
      • Pay off debt, or
      • (providing you still have buys and are not in debt) buy a card from the Supply, or an Event
    • End-of-buy-phase effects
  • Night phase: play as many Night cards as you like, one by one
  • Clean-up phase:
    • Start-of-cleanup-phase effects
    • Discard the cards you have in play - except Durations that are still in force - and the cards remaining in your hand (in any order)
    • Draw a new hand of 5 cards
    • End-of-turn effects
  • Check to see if the game has ended
  • After-your-turn effects

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