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7951

2011 / Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Kingdom Design Challenge Rules

« on: December 15, 2011, 06:55:56 pm »

I doubt they're going to care that much about getting the results on the leaderboard. They did just win an entire tournament (or lost, in which case they still don't want them on the board).

7952

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Frustrating Hands

« on: December 14, 2011, 10:40:24 pm »

That hand is pretty depressing, although it's not actually really terrible, at least, you can go Menagerie - ST - Explorer - Explorer - Gold/Duchy(/Explorer, since getting two together must mean you really love them).

I think Salvager, Copper*3, Silver is another nasty one, and also quite likely. Also seeing some combination of 7 coppers, 3 estates over turns 3 and 4.

7953

Feedback / Re: Future DominionStrategy tournaments?

« on: December 14, 2011, 03:14:47 pm »

I was going to suggest near the start of the tournament having pool/mini-leagues for the first round, like Kirian is suggesting, but realised it would obviously be a 'next year' suggestion as it's pretty complex. So, uh... yeah. Suggestion is here now.

You could split people into leagues of, say, 8 people, with 1 month for games and the aim to play everyone four times, twice as first player and twice as second. Then have some tiebreakers in place and have the top two progress into a knockout tournament like our current one. There are a few obvious advantages and disadvantages of the system, which I'll summarise Advantages first:

• You can group players by timezone for the leagues. That way, people won't be pushed to play awkward times until 3/4s of the players have been knocked out, which makes things a little more pleasant. While it wasn't a huge concern, I wasn't exactly happy having both my rounds 1 and 2 being at -7 hours from me.
• Everyone gets to play 7 opponents, 4 times each, at minimum. That's 28 games in the tournament, no matter how well or badly you're doing.
• The results of the leagues can be a lot fairer as there are more games (and more opponents) to tier players on.

Of course, there are some disadvantages:

• You have to organise 7 different games with 7 different people. That can be a bit difficult, although having a lot more time available does mitigate it a bit
• There's potential for 'slingshotting' players through the system. By which I mean two people can conspire to get one extra wins (unlikely but possible), or once a player has guaranteed they're through, they might not worry about their other games and play suboptimally or even not turn up, knowing they can take the loss, which unfairly rewards players who play later in the sytem

Personally, I think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages but of course it's up to you guys to choose what's best.

I'd also prefer a single (main) league per year, but I'd also quite like some lower level leagues just for fun, e.g. a level <20 league.

7954

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Pricing Question: "Unfamiliar"

« on: December 12, 2011, 09:59:07 pm »

This card is weak as a single card, but slightly stronger if you can play two of them. A third and onwards is (usually) going to be of little value, essentially a no benefit cantrip.

$3 is the wrong price for this card. That low and multiplayer games will result in people often picking them up and knocking you down regularly to 3 card hands. $4 seems... reasonable enough. It's low enough that you can grab a few in 2 player and hope to get two together, but high enough you can't quickly grab them and impale your opponents with cantrip militias. In multiplayer, okay, you'll probably end up on 3 cards often enough still, but at least it won't happen all the time.

I think this is probably balanced at $4. I think Robz suggestion would make it too powerful - I'd almost always take it over market for example, and probably over Bazaar a lot of the time. Perhaps +1 buy and at $5 might be okay?

7955

Dominion General Discussion / Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $4 cards Part 2/3 posted

« on: December 09, 2011, 09:08:38 am »

Oh man. Rating 157 cards in order of how fun they are is no small task, you know... Perhaps it would be better to have a small rating system, say a rating of 1-5 (integer) for each card, so people can rate their cards somewhat accurately and much more quickly.

As for the best to worst lists, they're probably managable.

7956

Dominion Articles / Re: Combo: Salvager / Spice Merchant

« on: December 08, 2011, 11:24:58 am »

Doing a little testing in Geronimoo's simulator, it looks like the win rate is about 52/45 against BMU (opt), which is... well, it's a win, but it's hardly convincing. I think that the combo on it's own is lacking something, and yet I can't find anything that really helps it when compared to that something + big money (e.g. it loses about 65/30ish to all of single Wharf, single Merchant Ship, single Margrave, and a few other random things lead to either very small wins or losses e.g. Stables (in retrospect, unsurprisingly), Treasury). And as far as I can see, the simulator plays the pair pretty sensibly.

In short, this combo doesn't seem to be particularly impressive. A little better than straight BMU, but probably rarely if ever the dominant strategy on the board.

Edit: The average time to hit 4 provinces (with no Duchy buys) looks to be about ~15 turns.

7957

Rules Questions / Re: The difference between Forge and Remodel when trashing no cards

« on: December 06, 2011, 12:28:57 pm »

If you choose to trash no cards with Forge, then (mathematically) you have an empty sum. That's just 0. It's defined, since we know what the total cost of {} is (i.e. the sum of {} is 0)

On the other hand, Remodel asks us to gain a card costing 2 more than the trashed card. But we didn't trash a card. How can we add 2 to x when x isn't defined? We can't assume it's 0, since there's no real reason for it to be, except it being in some way 'nice'.

That's how I would think about it, at least.

7958

2011 / Re: Schedule and Results: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships

« on: November 29, 2011, 05:03:07 pm »

Darboux/[MAD] Max (21) vs. Tables/[UWSFFS] I Eat Tables (44) - Chapel Division

Result: Darboux 2 - 4 Tables

Game 1: Darboux 30 - 19 Tables
Both of us play a simple Workshop-Gardens deck with Great Halls as buffer. With Darboux having first turn advantage and my workshops colliding, he gets to a considerable early advantage and goes 5-3 on Gardens. I have virtually no chance of winning, but try and bolster my deck with some money to grab a duchy or province. Obviously, it's not very effective.

Game 2: DNF
A more interesting familars game. Darboux went for a Potion to start, I got a Chancellor and Silver, with the intent of grabbing a potion soon after. Well, I then proceeded to grab two golds and a Forge, which I hoped would save me against curses and help put more curses into his deck. As it turned out he easily hit 3+P twice early, and I didn't trash quite as many curses as I'd have liked. At the time of disconnect my deck was probably a little weaker in buying power, but would ramp up quickly if/when I trashed some of those curses.

Game 2(b): Darboux 27 - 32 Tables
In what will become something of a theme for our games, a relatively heavy cursing potions game. This also sported no trashing, and Platinum/Colony. Both of us spot Border Village-Wharf niceness and other combos, but that becomes a main one. Darboux's deck is very heavy on them, and also grabs some cities as piles look set to empty, which I follow. Meanwhile, I grab a potion and familiars, while Darboux tries to accelerate past them. This doesn't work in his favor, as the curses slow him down considerably, and importantly enough for me to sneak a win by buying out the last two curses.

Game 3: Darboux 24 - 45 Tables
This will sound strange, but I wish Max had won this one. I loved his deck. Unfortunately for him, it just wasn't quite quick enough for him to get the win. This game had two very different decks, as the above might suggest... Darboux went for Scrying Pools (see, more potions) and Pawn, with some remodels to help clear non-actions out of the way. My deck was more traditional with a Young Witch (which became somewhat worthless as Max cleared the Pawns... which of course were the bane. I wasn't to know at the time he would), and a Harvest, which backfired spectacularly (hitting 4 coppers at one point, and two of my ~3 golds at another), but otherwise was very useful. Anyway, his deck was just too slow, and I won.

Game 4: Darboux 31 - 33 Tables
(Council Room link inserted). Yet again, there was a curser (Swindler in particular) which both of us got lucky with - but me moreso, which really is what decided the game. Max used Quarry effectively to grab about 3 markets in a single turn - which I promptly turned into Mines and Duchies. I managed to win simply because I hit one of his Duchies near the endgame, and he couldn't catch up.

Game 5: Darboux 43 - 25
Both of us had diverse strategies on this one. I intended to build a reasonable draw deck, using Haggler to grab Golds with Embassys, Embassys with Worker's Villages and the like. It didn't work so well, but Haggler was still useful. Both of us JoaT'd our decks down - I got unlucky and it missed the shuffle twice, but that's no excuse for how much better Max played this game than me, with his simple Expand/JoaT/Mandarin deck.

Game 6: Darboux 17 - 36 Tables
I built a Worker's Village/Torturer engine. It worked. Darboux did the same, but slower, and used a Cutpurse to slow me down early and a Hoard to Gold his deck in the meantime. I think I ended this game on piles just like an earlier one (or two...).

Overall I got reasonably lucky - I didn't feel I was much better than Max, if at all, but well, the results say I won, so I won. Thanks, Max for the games!

7959

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Is border village a trap?

« on: November 29, 2011, 12:09:29 pm »

I think it does serve as a defence, but in general a very minor one. Certainly if your opponent plays Swindler and hits your Border Village, you're very likely to benefit from it, but what's the chance of that happening? Perhaps about 25% of it happening at all as a crude estimate over the course of a game (it depends a lot obviously on many factors)? I'd personally say that's deterrent enough to pick up a Swindler if BV looks good on the board.

As an aside, Hey Dondon. Didn't know you were on here.

7960

2011 / Re: Prize

« on: November 29, 2011, 07:59:44 am »

A choice of expansion would seem appropriate and sensible to me, especially if the prize hasn't been bought yet.

7961

Dominion Isotropic / Re: Karumah?

« on: November 24, 2011, 12:12:04 pm »

For those who care, under the new rankings, Kretin is... well, the leaderboard speaks for itself. Not only is he dead bottom, but he's about level -29 to the next closest player's level -15.

7962

Rules Questions / Re: Gaining a Tunnel with Ironworks

« on: November 22, 2011, 01:54:40 pm »

The simple way to think about it is as literally as possible.
One of the types of Moat is Action. Ironworks says you get +1 action it the card is an action, so you do.
The other type is Reaction. Ironworks doesn't say anything about reactions - so you don't do anything for it.

Similarly for Tunnel, you simply replace the word Moat with Tunnel and action with victory(/+1 card).

Essentially, Ironworks doesn't care if a card is a reaction, or attack, or prize, or curse. All it looks for is the three categories it lists, and for each hit with those it does something.

7963

2011 / Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships Registration

« on: November 21, 2011, 09:38:09 am »

[UWSFFS] I Eat Tables
GMT

7964

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Most VPs in 4 turns

« on: June 30, 2011, 10:31:34 am »

Ah, yes, this is supposed to be a Solitaire puzzle - that was how it was asked to us, at least. I'll edit that into the first post.

It looks like earning 11 VPs is the best solution so far.

7965

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Vanilla Cards

« on: June 29, 2011, 04:18:02 pm »

I remember a fan expansion I'm making (still want to get around to playtesting) has a $5 card: +2 cards, +$2. I think that's a card that could eventually see the light of day... perhaps.

I wonder just how many remaining basic cards we could see, though. It's interesting to think about... +3 cards costs $4. +2 cards +1 action costs $5. +1 card +2 actions costs... $3? And yet they're completely fair costs for such cards. I wonder what +3 actions would cost? Such a card will probably never exist, since it's often of little value yet occasionally of immense value. I could see it happening, perhaps.

+VPs, if you count that as a basic effect, could have many cards potentially, if Donald decided to reuse the VP chip mechanic. He already mentioned +1 card, +1 action, +1 VP being a balanced card idea, but it did nothing to move towards an endgame so you can theoretically end up in a standoff where both players can guarantee they draw their deck, earn say 5 VPs from such a card but then have no card they can buy without ruining their engine, and one player ruining their engine would cost them the game (say both players are roughly equal on VPs).

Given that, I think any basic +VP card should probably give some money or buys, to encourage buying more cards. That limits the options for them, but there's still a few possibilities I suppose.

7966

Puzzles and Challenges / Most VPs in 4 turns

« on: June 29, 2011, 04:06:02 pm »

Today, one of the questions at the Sci-Fi society Quiz was to get as many VPs as possible in 4 turns, assuming perfect shuffle luck. (edit: In a solitaire game). Naturally only having one or two minutes to do so, it's unlikely anybody got the optimal strategy.

My team's was to go Coppersmith/Silver, turn 3 Coppersmith a Province, turn 4, 3 Coppers + Silver for a Duchy, gaining 9 VPs. This beat out the second best teams cute answer of going Duchy/Estate/Duchy/Estate. But I think you can do better.

So the open challenge is, getting as many VPs by any means, in 4 turns.