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26

Game Reports / "luck"

« on: January 08, 2014, 11:16:52 am »

Code: [Select]

Duchess, Masterpiece, Farming Village, JackOfAllTrades, Tournament, Wandering Minstrel, Inn, Merchant Ship, Stables, Vault
Ok.  I need something settled for me.  I just won this game and the following took place in the chat:

I copied the log to a google doc and removed his name from the log because I don't want to make this a personal attack at all, I just really want some confirmation that I was not any luckier than what can be expected for a normal game of Dominion and that he is just a sore loser. 

(after I had played a tournament to gain followers turn 10)

him: pure luck
me: no it isn't, I bought two inns
him: that was a mistake
me: no it wasn't.  not with the jack on the board
him: (over the next several messages) no. it needs too much luck to meet.  and you trash money.  estates gone.  normally I would be faster.  but on turn 6, 7, and 8 I didn't have stables.  (or 8 money).  guy gets lucky and thinks like a hero. gg.  "gg"

and then he resigns.  I really really dislike when people blame luck for a poor result (especially good players- and he is in the top 50 in the isotropish rankings).  The "guy gets lucky and thinks like a hero" and the "'gg'" are really what irked me and made me want to post about this game.  So maybe he was slightly unlucky to not draw a stables on turn 6, 7, or 8, but it wouldn't matter.  He just chose to go stables+BM (after Jack) which is not a strategy that (by itself) will win this game.  Please correct me if I am wrong about this, but I don't think I am.

27

Goko Dominion Online / Goko....working?

« on: January 08, 2014, 09:16:53 am »

Be still my heart. 

After the total crash yesterday I was able to play some last night.  Things went well.  No lag.

Then again this morning.  Games are playing well.  No lag.

Now we need to establish a line as to how long we think this will last

28

Game Reports / scheme+scavenger

« on: January 03, 2014, 04:40:55 pm »

Code: [Select]

Lighthouse, Scheme, Cutpurse, Monument, Scavenger, Cache, Catacombs, Vault, Venture, Harem
How to never have a bad hand:  2 schemes+scavenger.  Play scheme.  Play scavenger.  Put scheme on top of deck.  Buy gold.  Put scavenger on top of deck. (or play 2 schemes, the scavenger and put a gold on top of the deck)  After turn 6 I didn't have less than 6 coin in my hand.  (except for once at the end after being silly and using a venture which messed up my "engine")

game log

29

Game Reports / Dark Ages + Alchemy recommended set

« on: December 24, 2013, 03:07:00 pm »

I just played an IRL 2 player game with a family member using a recommended set from DA that uses DA+Alchemy.  Here is the set.

Code: [Select]

Transmute, Vineyard, Scrying Pool, Market Square, Armory, Feodum, Rats, Wandering Minstrel, Apprentice, Cultist
We discussed strategy before the game started, and I focused on how great this board is for vineyards.  Armory, WM, Rats, MS, and scrying pool can really work well together for vineyards.  In fact, I was so engrossed in discussing that strategy that I failed to notice Apprentice/market square.  I only noticed apprentice/market square after my "unfortunate" 5/2 opening.  I ended up winning with all 8 provinces, but the vineyards player did not play optimally.

My question: Which strategy actually wins more?  Apprentice is obviously a fast, easy strategy, but I am not convinced the vineyard player wouldn't be able to get 7-8 point vineyards and have 6-7 of them before the apprentice combo really takes off.

30

Game Reports / games that keep you coming back

« on: December 23, 2013, 12:43:25 am »

I was playing a bunch of games with SCSN, and he was winning most of them.  I was feeling unlucky and down, then this game comes around.  A very interesting game.

log: http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20131222/log.515f2508e4b09ee2d2aa5c19.1387773315707.txt

Code: [Select]

Herbalist, Pawn, Stonemason, Hermit, Village, Ironmonger, Thief, Festival, Horn of Plenty, Border Village
We both trash all estates through hermit, and SCSN noticed the opportunity to use madman to have a mega-HoP turn and win while I failed to notice it until after he was well ahead of me on that engine.  An ironmonger rush has drained that pile, and hermits are low.  T11, SCSN is able to play 3 hermits and a HoP to gain a village, pawn, another hermit, and another HoP while trashing the three hermits for madmen.  There are now 0 ironworks, 4 HoPs, and 1 hermit remaining.  I know the end is near.  All he has to do is play a madman or two and he wins.  I only have 2 HoPs, 2 pawns, and a single hermit in my deck so I don't have very much power to empty the piles quickly.  I get the perfect draw.  Ironmongers, then my only madman.  I use it and end up with my 2 HoPs, 1 pawn already played for +buy, my hermit in hand, and 11 coin to spend. 

I gain the last hermit with my hermit, gain two HoPs with my HoPs, then purchase stonemason, overpaying by 6 to gain two Border Villages which gain the final two HoPs emptying the third pile.  I then have $3 to buy an estate for a 1 VP win.

As I said in the title, it is games like this that make me love Dominion and keep coming back.  SCSN is always fun to play with, and because he always wins most of our games, any time I can steal one like this is awesome.

31

General Discussion / The Hobbit and LOTR

« on: December 04, 2013, 12:17:54 pm »

As I am sure you all are aware of, the next installment of the Hobbit trilogy is about to come out.  (sooner for some of us than others)  I am just interested in what the people on this forum think about the Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit, and all things J.R.R Tolkien. 

I love the books.  I had read the Hobbit, LOTR trilogy, and the Silmarillion before The Fellowship of the Ring came out in 2001.   No movie (or series of movies) will ever be able to equal the masterpiece that Tolkien wrote.  However, when it comes to accuracy and telling the story as Tolkien told it, I found that I enjoyed the first installment of the Hobbit much more than any of the LOTR movies.  Now, it is true that there was some amount of content added to the story over what is written in the book, but I find that to be value added.  The content added helps build the story and make it suitable for the big screen.  Granted, the written style of The Hobbit definitely has a lighter feel to it (Tolkien wrote it in a tone suitable for children) than the movie, but the actual content of the book is not as light as the writing style would imply.  A lot of criticism I hear from people is that they were expecting a nice story, but when you actually look at the content of the book (dragon destroys dwarves' home, trolls, goblins, Mirkwood, Spiders, battles) it is difficult to see how you can (or would want to) make it into a nice cozy little story.  The other complaint I hear is that it is too long.  Why the trilogy.  My response: maybe this trilogy is not meant for your average movie-goer, but for your Tolkien fan.  As a Tolkien fan there are several things that I don't like about the LOTR trilogy, even though I see why they are necessary for the movie.  (Elves in Helms Deep, no scouring of the Shire, no Tom Bombadil, I could go on but those just popped up on the top of my head)  As a Tolkien fan, I found An Unexpected Journey to be quite satisfying. As a Tolkien fan, I think that The Hobbit Trilogy will be better than the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

32

Introductions / better late than never

« on: October 23, 2013, 10:05:22 pm »

After 2 days, 8 hours and 51 minutes spent perusing and (sometimes) posting (a mere 0.242 posts per day) I have decided to write my nice little introduction to the forum community.  My board game history begins at a young age playing classics such as monopoly and risk with my family.  These games then developed into more sophisticated games such as hearts and spades as time went on.  (you can argue about those games being more sophisticated later if you would like).  Then came that fateful day when I spent the night with my sister and her husband and they brought out Dominion.  Now, they only had Intrigue and Base, but it was enough for me to realize how great a game Dominion is.  Still, I had not yet been exposed to the wonderful world that was isotropic dominion (RIP).  That experience, however, was enough to convince me to purchase my own cards, and soon I had Seaside and Intrigue.  Continuing on, I brought those sets with me to school, and found that one of my friends happened to know (and love) the game of Dominion.  It was he who introduced me to Isotropic dominion (RIP).  It was in those glory days of Iso (RIP) that I came to truly love the game.  I loved the perfect combination of skill and luck.  I came to appreciate the simple elegance of that isotropic (RIP) interface.  Yet still I had not discovered this forum.  The casual game every now and then turned into several games, which turned into 1708 games on Iso (RIP) retiring with a respectable rating of 28.  I then took a break from Dominion and spent some time mourning our loss.  I spent the rest of that summer without too much Dominion, as I had not yet bought the sets.  I caved in the late summer, bought the sets, and have been playing consistently since then.  I thought I played a lot back in the Iso (RIP) days, but little did I know that I would get to #18 (not counting bots) on the Isotropish leaderboard in the games played category.  While I have been slowing down on how many games I play recently (I peaked probably early-mid September) I have picked in my forum activity.  With that in mind, mail-mi and sudgy, ask away if I have checked the forum games. 

(and I also studied math for my undergraduate degree.  One reason for my name.  I used to be 3.1415.... on iso (RIP) but changed to 2.71828..... because e is not as well known in popular culture as pi.)

33

Game Reports / Ambassador....then what?

« on: October 19, 2013, 05:16:58 pm »

Code: [Select]

Hamlet, Ambassador, Chancellor, Talisman, Bandit Camp, Counterfeit, Counting House, Festival, Stables, Grand Market
I just played a great game with Microman that featured your standard ambassador shuffle where we both got perfect draws early (double ambassador-->two estates/two coppers on t3/t4 for both of us) and continued with pretty good luck early with ambassador. 
Given that, what cards do you transition into?  Grand markets stand out as an ultimate target, but what intermediary steps would you take? 

Microman went for bandit camp, hoping to counterfeit spoils, while i stayed away wanting to keep as small a deck as possible in order to attempt to win the grand market split.  We both mostly ignored stables, but microman did misclick on t14 purchasing festival not stables.  I ended up winning by a narrow margin, but am not convinced my strategy was necessarily the best one especially since microman was only one coin away from winning his previous turn.

34

Game Reports / apothecary fun

« on: September 22, 2013, 11:12:31 pm »

I win the apothecary split 6-4.  Since there are no +buys, extra money is not really useful and I go for provinces with my 8 coppers (he gave me one with ambassador) and my potion.  He had the extra estate after the ambassador shuffle, but resigned when he could not match my province on his T15.  Always a fun game when you win buying a province every turn with 8 coppers

the log: http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130922/log.515f2508e4b09ee2d2aa5c19.1379905478491.txt

35

Goko Dominion Online / finish your turn

« on: September 21, 2013, 02:19:31 pm »

I don't know how this could really be addressed, but I just played a game where I won, but my opponent forgot to finish his last turn, leaving me having to wait for the timeout win as opposed to just winning outright.  I am certain that this was unintentional by my opponent, seeing as how he offered the traditional "gg" just before he bought the province that effectively was him offering his resignation, except he forgot to finish out his buys leaving me to wait for the game to time out.  Except it didn't.  For about 30-45 minutes.  Then I finally gave up and closed the window.

I was able to just sit around and wait since I was watching Chelsea defeat Fulham while playing, but it was still pretty frustrating

Maybe I am just reminiscing, but the "force opponent to resign" after a shortish period that showed up on iso was a much better system.

36

Feedback / Theory taking control

« on: September 21, 2013, 01:29:02 pm »

Who else is really happy to see Theory move several posts into more appropriate categories?  Cleaning up the forum to make it better for everyone.  I just hope I put this post in the right place.....

37

Game Reports / Beware the 3-pile

« on: September 06, 2013, 05:49:21 pm »

Lots of early trashing with remake using market squares to gain golds, then transition to a Grand Market race.  I fall behind in the race, possibly due to a slightly less fortunate T3/T4 draw.  Needless to say, my only thought after falling behind is to 3-pile before my opponent greens too much and I am unable to catch up. 

It worked:

http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130906/log.515f2508e4b09ee2d2aa5c19.1378502698028.txt

38

Game Reports / remake

« on: September 01, 2013, 01:54:00 am »

With shelters:

Without shelters, I think remake would have still worked well stepping estates up to wishing well, oasis or silver, then on to more remakes or caravans, continuing to bandit camps and rogues, before finishing with golds.

However, with shelters remake simply dominates this board.  By turning shelters into squires, we are now able to trash squires for both a 3-cost card and a rogue, which is able to quickly transform into gold as needed.  Going heavy on wishing wells as my 3-cost of preference, I was able to remake my way to 6 provinces in 15 turns

http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130831/log.515f2508e4b09ee2d2aa5c19.1377978149799.txt

39

Game Reports / market square/apprentice

« on: August 25, 2013, 03:37:12 pm »

Here is the kingdom:

To finish this game I used a combo of apprentice and market square to get hands with 11 golds to buy 4 provinces and 17 golds to finish off the provinces with as many duchies as I could buy. 

My question is how does this combo stack up against hermit/madman with market square? Especially on a board that makes you play with 3 card hands almost every turn.  If you replaced develop with hermit/madman on this set, what would be the most dominant strategy?

40

Game Reports / chapel/feodum

« on: August 17, 2013, 08:06:03 pm »

This has probably been discussed somewhere, but chapel with feodum is very powerful.  My chapel fell in such a way that on turn 6 I trashed everything I had, gaining 3 silvers from feodum.  From there I was able to purchase 5 provinces by turn 15 which won the game

The cards:

the log:
http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130817/log.515f2508e4b09ee2d2aa5c19.1376781480886.txt

41

Game Reports / Knights vs Prizes

« on: July 30, 2013, 10:57:42 am »

My opponent saw knights.  I saw a quick province with bridge/highway with a little trashing from Steward.  My "quick" province didn't quite work out due to trashing from knights, but eventually I had my prize cards, and my opponent could not get enough economy to buy victory cards before I finished off three piles.  Looking back I think we both missed a dominant strategy with armory being used to gain 4/(5 after highway) cost cards, but this game serves as a caution that winning a race to get the knights is not always a good thing.

42

Game Reports / Unfinished game: who wins?

« on: July 23, 2013, 12:34:24 pm »

With colonies and platinums:

Fun game here that was almost finished when my opponent experienced some connection issues and lost because of that.  At the time we were tied at 47 VP each, 2 colonies remaining, with curses and cartographers gone.  I think I had the advantage with a smaller deck due to forge and also with more cartographers, but can't be certain I would have won. 

Here is the log:
http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130723/log.515f2508e4b09ee2d2aa5c19.1374596181298.txt

43

Game Reports / My first golden deck

« on: July 14, 2013, 06:55:18 pm »

I have never posted to the forum before, but where better to start than with the game log for my first ever golden deck.  It was an interesting game, not the least since it was a colony game.  Getting into victory lap mode with the golden deck was interesting with witch, pirate ship, native village, and salvager all coming into play through the course of the game.

comments are welcome

http://dominionlogs.goko.com//20130714/log.50ef27c4e4b01a13905ce40e.1373842114601.txt