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176

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.

« on: October 05, 2016, 10:47:16 am »

In your recent secret history, you talked about a treasure card stating "name a card, worth $1 per copy of it you have in play". You mentioned this as a possible Coppersmith replacement, but it also reminds me of a (flexible and stackable) card version of Training.

I can see this card not being great in a lot of slog type decks, but it seems like it would be amazing payload after setting up any sort of draw-your-deck engine. Depending on the action card splits, each of these would easily be worth $4-6.

Can you elaborate a bit on why this card "just wasn't worth it"?

177

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Why i love Dominion with all its Duds

« on: October 04, 2016, 12:34:31 pm »

Just to reiterate, ONLY USE 10 CURSES IN A 2 PLAYER GAME!

178

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Dominion and Intrigue second editions

« on: September 29, 2016, 03:37:28 pm »

Amazon now has pre-orders for the 2nd edition update packs and 2nd edition of Intrigue. They don't have Dominion 2nd Edition listed yet.

Ouch, full MSRP. $30 for 14 (140) cards isn't the best value. Is that just because it's new/preorder? All the other sets sell for a significant discount.

179

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Dominion and Intrigue second editions

« on: September 29, 2016, 02:38:17 pm »

Saying that Woodcutter and Great Hall had to go because they were boring, is the same as saying that Village and Smithy should go too, to be replaced be more snazzy alternatives.

"Boring and not good" is not the same thing as "boring".

180

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Dominion and Intrigue second editions

« on: September 27, 2016, 11:32:18 am »

I wish this were easier to find...

Stuff one can find on the wiki

This is all up on the wiki

It doesn't appear to be all listed in one place though. I was only able to find it under the main Dominion and Intrigue pages (and mixed in with all the other cards that weren't changed). It'd be nice to have a standalone "1st vs 2nd editions comparison" page.

These 2 images are really helpful:
https://cf.geekdo-images.com/images/pic3190535.jpg
https://cf.geekdo-images.com/images/pic3190536.jpg

181

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Dominion and Intrigue second editions

« on: September 25, 2016, 09:44:14 am »

Sentry Action $5
+1 Card
+1 Action
Look at the top 2 cards of your deck.
Trash and/or discard any number of them.
Put the rest back in any order.

On first glance, I love Sentry. I initially wanted to compare it to other cantrip trashers like Junk Dealer and Upgrade, but I don't think those comparisons work that well because of the differences between "trash from hand" vs "trash from deck".

So the obvious "trash from deck" comparison is Lookout. The thing that bothers me about Lookout is the forced aspect of the choices. Sentry solves that by making all of the choices optional. And it's a cantrip. And you can trash 2 cards with it. And after you're done trashing, it's a mini-Cartographer.

The one comparison I do really like with Junk Dealer and Upgrade is the worst-case scenario. The worst case for Sentry is that it's a cantrip. Worst case for the other 2 is they trash your Colony.

Overall, I think this card will be a power-trasher that retains its usefulness in the late game through its sifting ability. I think this will be ranked very high on the $5 card list.

182

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Aleimon Thimble's top 30 favorite cards

« on: September 13, 2016, 03:23:16 pm »

I do think lots of people here overstate the proportion of all games where an engine is actually possible. I think they just selectively don't remember the BM and Slog games.

Quite possibly true, but the simple presence of Ironmonger or Herald does push that balance toward an engine.

183

Dominion Online at Shuffle iT / Re: Black Market?

« on: September 13, 2016, 03:18:47 pm »

Here's what you do:

Remove utterly useless cards that depend on their own number of copies: Treasure Map, for instance; maybe Fool's Gold (although you could Crown it for $5)

Play by the rules otherwise.

The problem with this is that it implies his #1 point also. That's what the rules say ("every card not in this game"). And that means that every single game that includes Black Market would also include every single extra pile. I can't remember how many that is, but isn't it something ridiculous like 40 total piles at this point?

184

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Aleimon Thimble's top 30 favorite cards

« on: September 13, 2016, 11:22:45 am »

Ironmonger and Wandering Minstrel both have the advantage that they don't care as much about trashing. Both actually help out a lot when there isn't any good trashing, but they're still awesome when you've trashed down.

185

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

« on: September 13, 2016, 10:54:37 am »

I've always thought that Pathfinding and Lost Arts work even better on cheaper cards

Yeah, loading up on cheap cards is awesome, and it's definitely easier to get a bunch of them. One downside to this though is that it's also easier for your opponent to get them. If my opponent uses Pathfinding on Scheme, I might buy an extra one or two just to spite him.

Let's say Festivals are split 2-2, and I Pathfind them before my opponent can. I'm going to have a huge advantage in picking up the rest of the Festivals. He can still take a few away from me, but I'm going to be buying 2-3 at a time pretty soon. It's a bit similar (though not a perfect analogy) to how getting that first Grand Market makes buying the second one so much easier.

Edit: Okay, Scheme might not have been the best example here -- that would be amazing. A self-activating Alchemist for $3.

186

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

« on: September 13, 2016, 10:01:38 am »

I'm a big fan of Pathfinding + Festival.

This turns all your Festivals into "Grand Market Villages" that only cost 5 with no copper restriction!

187

Dominion Online at Shuffle iT / Re: Black Market?

« on: September 12, 2016, 05:38:14 pm »

On a completely different note, I would like it if Events popped up in the BM deck as well.

That's an entirely different promo. It's actually a promo event that's a black market with all the events not used in this game.

188

Dominion Online at Shuffle iT / Re: Black Market?

« on: September 12, 2016, 04:32:34 pm »

What about this as an option: Only perform "setup" for cards in the Black Market deck if someone purchases them.

So you don't show the Madman pile unless someone buys Hermit. Baker would be a little weird because everyone would get a coin token in the middle of the game. Young Witch would be the really weird one with having to add an entire normal supply pile in the middle of the game. Maybe just no bane in that case?

189

Dominion Online at Shuffle iT / Re: Black Market?

« on: September 12, 2016, 04:28:09 pm »

Maybe I'm not being pedantic enough, but I'd say if you need a mat, you get one. That's basically how I play IRL. We only pass out mats for a specific card when a person buys that card.

190

Let's Discuss ... / Re: Let's Discuss Landmarks: Fountain

« on: September 12, 2016, 12:34:56 pm »

Sure, you shouldn't ignore this, but that just makes it automatic.

The only fountain game I've played had some sort of cost reduction megaturn option available. We both immediately trashed down all of our coppers and never even considered buying them back. It would be interesting to see how that strategy would have compared to going for provinces + 3 copper though.

Other than a few cards (Stables?), I think it'll take a while before people figure out when they should or shouldn't go for the 15 points.

191

Dominion Online at Shuffle iT / Re: Black Market?

« on: September 12, 2016, 12:03:01 pm »

I would support having all cards in the Black Market deck and ignoring the setup text on the cards in the black market.

I like this idea, and it seems like it could easily fit within the current rules with a clarification from DXV. If the card wasn't visible during setup, you don't do the things it says to do during setup. It's a little similar to other cards like Knights or Ruins where you only actually interact with the one card you can see.

It might break a few cards (Marauder), but that seems okay for a promo. The Black Market already drastically changes some cards (Page, Rats, etc). And you probably won't even see most cards in the deck anyway. Is there anything that would be truly game-breaking?

192

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.

« on: July 03, 2016, 09:11:54 am »

And there was a Chancellor-style Event outtake in Adventures, as stated in the secret history. Chancellor existing sure isn't what killed it.

That just sounds terrible unless it gave another bonus along with it.

That sounds great for two and it gives you a buy. Trigger all the shuffles and don't care.

It cost $1 and (I think?) gave +1 Buy. But it didn't really add enough gameplay. It was mostly just: do you have a spare $1? If so, buy it.

Confirmed.

What are your thoughts about purposely doing something along this line just to make games with this event play out differently? Even if it was a completely mindless decision (which I don't think this example is), having your deck constantly cycling would make the rest of your decisions different than a standard game. Seems like it could be interesting.

I guess Delve sort of falls along these lines with pseudo-redefining the cost of Silver.

193

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Kingdom probabilities

« on: June 29, 2016, 02:00:22 pm »

He mixed up the explanation of the results. The ~11.1% is the chance that at least one of the cards in the set of 3 is in the Kingdom. My gut tells me that probability is close to reality in my total sample space of games.

That sounds completely believable for the probability of actually having any of the 3.

194

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Kingdom probabilities

« on: June 29, 2016, 01:19:44 pm »

For example, there are 3 Gathering cards, so the chance that none are included in a Kingdom is 1 - C(257, 10) / C(260, 10) = 11.1% or so.

Wait, that's not right...? The chance for none of a 3 card set to be in any given game has to be way higher than that. How often do you have games that don't include any of Kings Court, Goons, and Grand Market?

195

Dominion Articles / Re: How to play Lost Arts.

« on: June 29, 2016, 01:00:23 pm »

I think the most general-case way to think of this is a kingdom like Village, Smithy, Goons, Lost Arts. For simplicity's sake, say all the piles split 5-5 (and we ignore the end-game condition). Where do you want your Lost Arts?

Option 1: Village
No. Feast or famine. Super villages are just worse than the alternatives.

Option 2: Smithy
This allows you to draw your whole deck easily. Then you play 5 Villages and 5 Goons.

Option 3: Goons
This allows you to freely play your Goons as long as they weren't drawn dead.

Ignoring option 1, both other choices have a best-case scenario of drawing their whole deck and playing 5 goons. The difference really lies in the average-case scenario. The Smithy option relies on having a Smithy in your starting hand. The Goons option relies on having a Village PLUS a Smithy in your starting hand.

This is the point that "Chris is me" keeps making. Putting the +Action on your terminal draw allows you to draw your whole deck, THEN line up your village and payload. Putting the +Action on your payload means you have to line up your village + draw in your initial hand of 5 cards (or 3 in the case of Goons).

Edge case: sure if you win the Goons split 8-2, put the +Action there. But that's an edge case. In the general case of two fairly balanced decks, the terminal draw is the best place to put the token.

196

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Beginners' mistakes

« on: June 27, 2016, 12:50:44 pm »

You can do a tree layout that doesn't use so much vertical space if there are no cards giving more than 2 actions by doing the following:
+2 action cards can have one card to the right and one below, +1 action cards can have one to the right. Put only terminals in the "below" spots. This way, you only need 2 rows of cards.

That is exactly what I do. I find it very efficient with space.

I like this idea, but I often find that on big engine turns—the turns where it's most important to keep track of how many actions you have left, and hardest to do it in your head—I run out of left-to-right space just by playing my non-terminals.

Any card that gives exactly +1 action doesn't need to go in the tree -- they can just be played anywhere you have table space (assuming you still have an action available to play it). The big advantage of the tree setup is that it keeps track of cards that add or subtract actions for you. Since a +1 action card simultaneously adds and subtracts one from the total, there's no need to include it in the tree.

197

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Beginners' mistakes

« on: June 24, 2016, 12:49:42 pm »

But like, if you are playing a Village and "treeing" two villages off of it and then Smithy's off of the lower level bridges I don't think you are making your board state easier to interpret

Classic tree setup: So let's say you have 3 villages and 3 smithies you want to play. Each village can have one card on each of its lower 2 corners. So your first village has two villages played off of it. Then the next village has 2 smithies played off of it. Finally, your last village has one smithy and one free corner where you can play another action card if you wish. So without counting any actions at all, you know you can play one more terminal (or another village, which would continue the tree).

A visual would help a lot, but hopefully you get the idea from the description.

198

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Beginners' mistakes

« on: June 24, 2016, 09:33:28 am »

(super-beginners sometimes mix up +1 card and "gain a card".)

Some of my friends were making a horrendous (hilarious) mistake involving this distinction. They were talking about how brutal Possession was, and I figured out that every time they drew a card during a possession turn, they were stealing it for their own deck!

With new players in general, I try to let as much slide as is appropriate for the current set of cards. When they do something like buying something without playing money, I'll remind them that they have to actually play their money and say something like "It doesn't matter much for THIS set, but some other cards care about how many treasures you've played or even the order you play them in." Or "technically you shouldn't have shuffled there; it doesn't matter for THIS turn, but..."

I also want to echo the other comments about using a tree system for keeping track of actions. I consider this absolutely indispensable for playing IRL with any villages involved. Your action cards literally count your remaining actions for you. If there's an open space in the tree, you can play something there -- if not, you're done. Cantrips can optionally be played off to the side so they don't clutter up the tree area (as long as you have an open spot left, cantrips don't affect the tree at all). To remember if a variable card produced money (or if an action like nobles was terminal), I'll usually turn the card sideways in the tree. I've never tried that "2 row" tree system though -- sounds interesting. I'll have to see how I like it since vertical playing space is often restricted on smaller tables.

199

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Tom Vasel Empires Review

« on: June 16, 2016, 10:16:11 am »

The phrase "jumped the shark" simply makes no sense in this context.

It totally makes sense to ask the question in this context. Most of your post consists of examples of why Dominion HASN'T jumped the shark.

If Donald ever runs out of good ideas but continues to release sets, then people would agree that the game had jumped the shark. Luckily, he seems to be filled with good ideas and willing to stop publishing when he runs out.

200

Dominion: Empires Previews / Re: Question about Donate

« on: June 13, 2016, 10:52:25 am »

Possession is the reason that Donate's effect happens between turns.

I don't understand why this is important. If the card instead said "at the end of your turn", in a possession turn, wouldn't the trashed cards just go back to the player's deck? And the possessor would gain the debt.