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Messages - amalloy

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26
Dominion League / Re: Unrated games?
« on: February 06, 2015, 04:32:00 pm »
I don't think this is an issue. There are no rewards for doing well in the League, so there's no reason why anyone would cheat.

I mean, I don't think anyone is doing this in the league, but you think that there's no reason to cheat? For some people winning is really important, and they'd seek unfair advantages even in unrated non-league games (see, for instance, the Pirate Ship / King's Court setup board that someone or other plays over and over in Casual games). And in the league there are rewards for doing well: your name in lights on the leaderboard, the respect and admiration of other players...those can be more compelling than some smal monetary reward. So while, again, I don't think this is a serious issue that needs addressing, I don't agree at all that there's no reason anyone would cheat.

AKA: The Pertinax Board.

I think there will always be a reason for people to cheat. But whether or not people actually do is another question altogether. And if they do, whether or not it's worth going through a bunch of hoops to stop it is also a different question entirely.

I don't quite understand Pertinax's chosen board. Leck's has a strong drawing engine available, and an unprepared player might go for that and then get clobbered by the massive Pirate Ship hits, so I can see why it's a good trick board. But Pertinax's just looks like...he's doing the obvious thing in those games. He opens Swindler, gets the sweet potion-cost cards, thins with Upgrade, and drops the hammer by Kinging his Jester/Swindler payload. What is it about this board that his opponents don't see coming?

27
Dominion League / Re: Unrated games?
« on: February 06, 2015, 03:09:44 pm »
I don't think this is an issue. There are no rewards for doing well in the League, so there's no reason why anyone would cheat.

I mean, I don't think anyone is doing this in the league, but you think that there's no reason to cheat? For some people winning is really important, and they'd seek unfair advantages even in unrated non-league games (see, for instance, the Pirate Ship / King's Court setup board that someone or other plays over and over in Casual games). And in the league there are rewards for doing well: your name in lights on the leaderboard, the respect and admiration of other players...those can be more compelling than some smal monetary reward. So while, again, I don't think this is a serious issue that needs addressing, I don't agree at all that there's no reason anyone would cheat.

28
Other Games / Re: Prismata
« on: January 24, 2015, 09:41:24 pm »
I just played a neat game starring a couple of my favorite units: IT9sm-86Mfv. I was quite unsure how to open: I didn't want too many Wild Drones since they don't work well with Defense Grid, but I really wanted an early Conduit to get a Xeno Guardian and eventually a Gauss Fabricator, so I ponied up for two Wild Drones. Then my opponent's extremely passive opening (he also missed a free Engineer kill) meant I didn't really need the Xeno in a hurry after all, so I got Tarsiers instead.

But okay, once the opening had sorta played itself out, my opponent committed very heavily to freeze, spending all his red on Frostbites. I had just started ossifying, and had actually already bought a second Xeno Guardian, thinking "well the first one is about to die, so this is like a Steelsplitter with a Gauss Charge and a Barrier". But once he started getting Frostbites, my plan just got even better: I'll mass Xeno Guardians and Ossified Drones! As long as I only use Doomed Wall for defense, never Wall, his Frostbites can only freeze for 2, which decreases their value a lot; and Xeno/Ossified are both very freeze-resistant, because they can still do their stuff while defending.

In the end I actually piled out Xeno Guardians, which may be a first for me; my Ossified Drones made a mockery of his freeze; I hit what may be a personal record of 51 health in blockers after committing my attackers (ie, none); and I built a Gauss Fabricator without instantly losing, which is what usually happens when I build one.

29
Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Infinite stalemate game
« on: January 24, 2015, 04:36:31 pm »
well sometimes bishop fortress is the optimal play. i had that once where me and my oponent had a golden deck that trashed 5 or 4 fortresses a turn and at the end of his turn each player was leading in points. It would have never ended if he wasnt deciding to try to win another way (remodeling to provinces) but that was not the correct move as i continued trashin for points and won.

http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20140304/log.513bdc80e4b0da6e3de056bb.1393955690770.txt

I know no log = didn't happen, but I had something very similar to this happen to me once.  The game got to a point where I had 5 Fortresses and 4 Bishops, while opponent had 5 Fortresses and 5 Bishops (I can't remember if we had anything else, maybe a couple other villages or something, not sure).  I was several points ahead, but knew I was donezo (unless he drew all 5 Bishops in his hand a couple times, or something), so I went Remodel to turn Fortresses into Duchies for the 3 pile, but it was too late.

4 Bishops is much better than 5 in a Bishop+Fortress deck. His 5th Bishop will, on most turns, be playable on nothing, netting him one extra point. But eventually something terrible will happen to him, making up for all those extra points. The most drastic scenario is of course drawing a starting hand of 5 Bishops, as you said, which costs him 12 points, but lesser versions of this will crop up quite often. Perhaps he draws Fortress and four Bishops, into a fifth Bishop: that's just as bad. Or he draws a second Fortress, trashes it, and then draws the fifth Bishop: that costs him 9 points. Basically he needs to rely on his fifth Bishop being drawn after his fourth Fortress (or anyway his fourth village, if he has other villages). That's far from guaranteed, and he will gradually fall behind despite his better best-case turn.

30
Goko Dominion Online / Re: Dominion replay system alpha is live
« on: January 23, 2015, 02:29:17 pm »
itshappening.jpg

Since I'm too lazy to do all the web hosting properly, for now it's running through Heroku. URL is http://goko-replay.herokuapp.com/, enter the plain text log url, not the prettifier log url. I'm using the free plan of one dyno - this translates into "please don't make tons of requests and kill the server".

Very minimalist, it's very much still proof of concept, but I think it's sharable.

Click the line in the text log to display game state on that line.

If you run into a bug, first check it's none of the below:
  • It involves Throne Room, King's Court, Procession, or Counterfeit. They're currently not supported. Golem is kind of supported but I'm sure that's buggy too.
  • A card isn't removed from play when it should be.
  • The player bought nothing, then topdecked Alchemist, Scheme, Treasury, etc. during cleanup.

If it's none of those, then please give the log url, turn/line that shows the bug, and describe what's going on. Generally, a player having extra cards is a lower priority bug than a player not having the right card.

The biggest feature to add is showing how many cards you have left in your draw pile and how many actions/buys/money you have. With school starting I can't guarantee I'll be able to implement those promptly, but I do mean to get that working.

Comments/suggestions?

Pillage is shown as in-play even after it's trashed itself. Feast, I imagine, does the same thing. See http://goko-replay.herokuapp.com/replay/?log_url=http%3A%2F%2Fdominionlogs.goko.com%2F20141215%2Flog.516d31dbe4b082c74d7b3391.1418715862074.txt for an example: I play my first Pillage on turn 6, and it's still "in play" until the cleanup phase. This could matter eventually for things like Horn of Plenty.

In Chrome, I also don't see any action cards in the supply. The reason is not hard to see, though. The javascript console shows the error
Code: [Select]
Uncaught TypeError: Constructor Set requires 'new' on line 643, which reads
Code: [Select]
var done = Set(kingdomVictory.concat(kingdomTreasure)); So you want to change that to
Code: [Select]
new Set(...)

31
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Tournament-Province Reveal
« on: January 23, 2015, 01:58:35 pm »
I was playing a game of Dominion (as usual), and I was wondering. Is there EVER a time where you would choose to not reveal a Province when someone plays a Tournament?
The classic reason is, it's a multiplayer game, and someone else already revealed a Province, hooray. You'd just as soon not give more information to in-between players.
Goko still gives it away with the slight delay.

Basically, there should always be a button you have to click which says "either I don't have a Province or I don't wish to reveal one".
Likewise, there should always be buttons for Reactions, Stables, Spice Merchant, etc..

Sure, in theory this is nice, but in practice if they did this players would complain even more, about goko wasting our time. I probably would too: it's just such a hassle for such a minor benefit. I play my coppers one at a time on t1/t2 every game to avoid letting my opponent know whether I have a 5/2 or whatever, and even I don't think it's really worthwhile to make players press the "I don't want to show you a Province" button when they don't have one, just to avoid leaking information in the infinitesimally small number of cases where you do have one but strategically choose not to reveal it and knowing that you have one affects your opponent's future play.

32
Rules Questions / Re: HoP + Counterfeit
« on: January 19, 2015, 03:36:43 am »
I don't think there is a real edge case.

I feel like any time this is said, the thread should automatically be moved to the Puzzles board.

If I were allowed to use on-trash benefits for the second victory card gain, I might choose whether to do so based on whether my opponent uses his Fool's Gold reaction. He can't necessarily afford to wait till the second Province, since I might gain Province+Duchy for whatever tactical reasons. So maybe I want to gain a Gold from my Market Square iff my opponent trades his FG in for a Gold; in that case, I put off the decision until after gaining my second Province.

But because that's not the way the cards actually work, I have to decide before he does, so it does matter a little bit that the HoP is only trashed once.

Edit: Alternatively, another edge case. I want to gain Province/Province/Gold, and topdeck them all with Watchtower, and for some reason (schemed Vagrant?) it's important that the Gold is topmost among them. Then I can't afford to reveal Market Square to the first Province gain, or else the second Province would end up on top of it. Again, with the real rules I have no choice, and the Province has to go on top; if I could wait to reveal my Market Square until I gained the second Province, I could reach this hypothetical goal.

33
Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Easy Puzzles
« on: January 17, 2015, 09:46:30 pm »
Here's one:

At the start of my turn, there are 10 Ill-Gotten Gains and 10 Curses in the supply.  At the end of my turn, both piles are empty.  I used only one buy (EDIT: and trashed nothing).  How did I do it?

Nine Feasts and a Platinum.

34
Other Games / Re: Prismata
« on: January 17, 2015, 05:48:36 am »
I just made it to tier 8!

And you beat at least one tier X player: Eiko was in the top 100 earlier tonight. Congratulations on both achievements.

35
Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Gaining Coppers with IGG
« on: January 14, 2015, 11:16:23 pm »
One. The card says "...you may gain a Copper...". Gaining more than one would be against the rules.

36
Feedback / Re: kingdom design subforum
« on: January 14, 2015, 02:04:48 pm »
Are you sure a subforum would produce more attention? I kinda agree with what Donald said re: the board games forum:

Posting begets posting. I think it's better to have forums broad enough to fill up a screen with active threads; when it exceeds that, split it up into two forums. The exception is when you want to be able to hide/ignore a forum.

So, I wouldn't split off video games; it just means forums with fewer active threads. Combining video games and board games is the correct direction, except it's moot at the moment since general discussion doesn't get that much activity either.

If you make a subforum, you'll get less "incidental" traffic from folks who might see it in the forums they already frequent. I think there's plenty of room in the general Dominion forum for kingdom-design threads, and if you guys ever get so noisy nobody else can put up with you, then it's time for a subforum. I guess my point is, if you think there should be more discussion of kingdom design...start discussing some kingdom design! You don't need theory's permission via a new child board, and I don't think getting that permission would create any particularly long-lasting motivation to keep discussing them anyway.

37
Game Reports / Re: And THAT's how you Black Market........right?
« on: January 13, 2015, 04:53:00 pm »
My guess is that you won because you got the Stonemason-->2x Scrying Pool early and ended up winning the split 8-2. Black Market makes the deck fun, but Scrying Pool is the main card here.

Yeah, that's a pretty cool play. I love seeing Stonemason + Pool on board, but I have to say I might not have remembered to overpay for it if I drew it from the black market. Good alertness, ela.

38
Other Games / Re: Prismata
« on: January 07, 2015, 08:10:44 pm »
Changes and two new units!

I like the changes on the special drones, and don't mind the change on cryo ray (a huge nerf, but then again it is super cheap).

Don't know what to think of the two new units yet, other than the new wall variant keeping hex:health = 1.

The new wall looks very strong: it seems like it would be great even costing 6B. I love the change to Vivid Drones: should lead to much more interesting Vivid games instead of it being near-mandatory to build all four Vivids. The change to Doomed Drones is interesting - it doesn't sound right to me now, since Doomed is already so good, but I imagine they've thought about this and it won't totally ruin the game's balance.

As for freeze: I find freeze still gives me a headache, so I'm in favor of the Cryo nerf, and not looking forward to the Endotherm Kit, but that's just a selfish preference thing rather than a balanced analysis.

39
Other Games / Re: Prismata
« on: January 06, 2015, 06:16:15 pm »
And barrier, plexo cell, and fission turret :P

Ha, I never noticed plexo isn't fragile. That's cute.

40
Other Games / Re: Prismata
« on: January 06, 2015, 05:37:43 pm »
Just some patterns I've noticed with the colors:

-Green things are almost always fragile, often high-health (breach resistant). They also are the only ones that sacrifice Drones.
-Blue things are expensive, not fragile, high health blockers. Weak attackers generally. Favors big econ/long games.
-Red things are animals. Not fragile, low health, strong attackers, favor rushes/low econ

There's more to it than this, really. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lunarchstudios/prismata-a-new-hybrid-game-of-pure-strategy/posts/1077818 is a kickstarter post about the flavor bits that go into the three different colors. For example, you missed that only red units have stamina (because only biological things get tired).

41
Other Games / Re: Prismata
« on: January 06, 2015, 05:33:32 pm »
But not all green stuff is fragile.

Everything pure-green is, though. Unless you count Gauss Charge, with one non-fragile health.

42
Other Games / Re: Prismata
« on: January 04, 2015, 05:32:28 am »
Yeah, but how many of those scenarios result from perfect play on both sides?

Well, nobody can say about perfect play, of course: we aren't close to that level. In practice draws are quite rare, perhaps in the neighborhood of 1% of games.

I think the most common draw hinges around Blastforge, actually, not Wall: you've breached me and killed off most of my Tarsiers, but I get one last attack with them to reduce you to 2 or fewer damage yourself; eventually, you can kill everything but my Blastforge.

As an example of how a game can end in a draw, see Rrkgn-aQJpa. This one was actually a win (I don't recall ever getting an actual draw, and it's impossible to search for one to see if I'm wrong), but if I'd made one more health worth of mistakes, my opponent's last Grimbotch would have killed my Cynestra and then timed out, leaving neither of us any attackers or income at all.

43
Other Games / Re: Prismata
« on: January 02, 2015, 06:44:16 pm »
Is it just me or is there some pretty serious first player advantage going on?  Seems worse than chess.

It's just you. As mentioned earlier in this thread, the extra Drone p2 gets is a pretty strong compensation for going second. Currently p2 wins 52% of all games, according to the developers.

44
Dominion Articles / Re: Prince
« on: December 29, 2014, 07:56:59 pm »
I've finally arrived... my laughs are being talked about on the internet.

Will you please sign my copy of How to Become Internet Famous?

45
Dominion Articles / Re: Prince
« on: December 29, 2014, 06:55:07 pm »
In a way, Prince acts like a level 2 City and a restricted double Scheme.

??? This is so confusing.

Maybe Mic Qsenoch can explain what this means: you should have heard how he reacted on stream when I explained to him that Prince is really just a Lab plus a Village plus a Scheme you don't really control, which you get to play at the beginning of every turn.

Is the stream still up somewhere? Mic always comes across as so ridiculously composed that I'd love to hear him lose his cool!

It was on Adam's stream, but I don't remember what game. Maybe when Adam was commentating games between Mic and Stef after the championship match with DG ended?

Found it: 17:30 of http://www.twitch.tv/adamhorton/c/5642648. It's not really as dramatic as I made it sound, but we get a pretty solid laugh out of Mic.

46
Dominion Articles / Re: Prince
« on: December 29, 2014, 04:17:19 pm »
In a way, Prince acts like a level 2 City and a restricted double Scheme.

??? This is so confusing.

Maybe Mic Qsenoch can explain what this means: you should have heard how he reacted on stream when I explained to him that Prince is really just a Lab plus a Village plus a Scheme you don't really control, which you get to play at the beginning of every turn.

Is the stream still up somewhere? Mic always comes across as so ridiculously composed that I'd love to hear him lose his cool!

It was on Adam's stream, but I don't remember what game. Maybe when Adam was commentating games between Mic and Stef after the championship match with DG ended?

47
Dominion Articles / Re: Prince
« on: December 29, 2014, 02:36:33 pm »
In a way, Prince acts like a level 2 City and a restricted double Scheme.

??? This is so confusing.

Maybe Mic Qsenoch can explain what this means: you should have heard how he reacted on stream when I explained to him that Prince is really just a Lab plus a Village plus a Scheme you don't really control, which you get to play at the beginning of every turn. But I've realized that this is an oversimplification: it's actually a Treasure Map that you have to collide with a different non-Treasure-Map card first, which Pillages yourself for one turn but then transforms into the Lab+Village+Scheme. I never really understood how to play Prince properly until I recognized that it's five unrelated cards all at once.

48
Other Games / Re: Prismata
« on: December 22, 2014, 07:53:03 pm »
Cauterizers are a lot easier to defend with, because they're not a single 7-health unit. If your opponent attacks for 3, you can lose one Engineer into your Wall, while still attacking with your Cauterizer. But a Chieftain you have to hold back in order to defend with, and then you have to either lose it or not get any absorb at all. Plus if you buy a Chieftain you lose that green you've been storing up, whereas the resources for Cauterizer were disappearing anyway.

Yeah, I kinda got that, I think we are mostly agreeing. Basically, Cauterizers are defensive units disguised as offensive ones (sorta). Still, the problem remains that they are very hard to place in your build queue... I guess I'll have to think about this one harder.

Quote
I dunno, red+blue is a pretty reasonable tech choice anyway a lot of the time. Tarsiers behind Walls is like the most standard thing there is.

Sorry, I didn't explain myself properly. Say you are going red+blue, then you need to spend all your blue on defensive units (read: walls), because red units tend to be mmm "fragile". Hellhound doesn't help with that. Sure, if your opponent randomly gives you a turn where you don't need to build defenses, then go ahead and buy yourself a Hellhound and be happy, but how often does that happen?

As an aside, from personal experience, building more than one blastforge with the plan to buy more than one wall per turn is a recipe for disaster. It's expensive, and you better win right there somehow despite spending $10 on defense per turn, or else you'll have a very bad surprise when you run out of walls (which will happen in 5 turns tops).

PS: in case my somewhat argumentative tone would hide it, I really appreciate your pieces of wisdom!

I have a lot of trouble using Cauterizers effectively myself too; I'm describing mostly how I see better players use them. re: Hellhounds being tough because you can't afford to spend the tech on them, I feel like you often get a turn to breathe after building the first Wall, and don't need a second right away. Hellhound can make this effect snowball, by giving you an Engineer and increasing your own attack quickly. Then you'll need to defend a little bit less next turn, because of the Engineer, and can maybe sneak out another Hellhound, et cetera. And I think being able to build two Walls per turn is pretty valuable, as long as you don't have to actually do it right away, because in the endgame you'll actually want to do so. Maybe I'm wrong, though: the $5 for a second Blastforge just to get more efficient Tarsiers might not be worth it early on in most games.

49
Other Games / Re: Prismata
« on: December 22, 2014, 07:15:29 pm »
$11 for 7 health is a pretty decent defensive deal already, and you get to deal 2 damage for a turn or two as well.

You realize that you are describing chieftains, right? And that chieftains cost $7? Sure, cauterizers are more flexible (don't have lifespan, etc.), but still...

Cauterizers are a lot easier to defend with, because they're not a single 7-health unit. If your opponent attacks for 3, you can lose one Engineer into your Wall, while still attacking with your Cauterizer. But a Chieftain you have to hold back in order to defend with, and then you have to either lose it or not get any absorb at all. Plus if you buy a Chieftain you lose that green you've been storing up, whereas the resources for Cauterizer were disappearing anyway.

Quote
Quote
Hellhounds are amazing. They only cost a tiny bit more than Tarsiers, and don't have to wait a turn to attack. The extra Engineer is also a huge help in defending these breach-vulnerable units. Really, $5 is the cheapest you can get a unit that attacks for 1 every turn without some disadvantage (eg, Tarsiers don't attack next turn, Rhinos only attack twice, Shredders are frontline...). Hellhounds even come with an advantage! As long as R/B isn't a bad tech choice in the set, Hellhound is a great way to make use of your tech investment when there's nothing else urgent to do. In 9gmQa-sHeFl, for example, I get a second Blastforge early so I can double-Hellhound instead of double-Tarsier; the initial investment of $5 is a bit steep, but pays for itself with the attack efficiency, and helps out later when I need to start getting a lot of Walls.

I am not arguing about the coin cost, which is awesome. I am arguing about the tech cost. Early in the game, if you are buying both an animus and a blastforge, it better be for a very good reason, and hellhounds just don't cut it IMHO. Later in the game, no way you are spending your blue resources into non-prompt two health units. That doesn't leave that many occasions to buy hellhounds.

I dunno, red+blue is a pretty reasonable tech choice anyway a lot of the time. Tarsiers behind Walls is like the most standard thing there is.

50
Other Games / Re: Prismata
« on: December 21, 2014, 07:57:09 pm »
-Odin: what are you supposed to do with this guy? I used to click on it all the time, but after some games that slowly turned sour for me, I am starting to think that it might be better to defend with it, especially if it is the highest health unit in the set. Thoughts?

Clicking Odin is something you should generally do only if you're desperate, or you get a great opportunity. It gains you 4 attack this turn, and costs you 1 attack every turn for the rest of the game; it's kinda the inverse of Blood Pact, in a weird way. Odin is usually best treated as a 3/5 with extra breach pressure, where you never click on him but do click his Steelsplitters. In 9avQ6-Yds9Q I had probably won the game already after my Antima Comet hit, but Odin was able to lock things down by soaking 4 damage per turn, with his extra 4-damage breach threat forcing Awaclus to defend for more than I could sustainably attack for.

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-Cauterizer: he's freakishly expensive for two attack (the similarly priced Cynestra has three attack). When is it good? I am "translating" the cumbersome way it works as "At the beginning of your turn, gain 2 attack. You can sacrifice this for 7 health. While this is in play, engineers gain prompt.", which basically makes this a very defensive attacker. It seems kind of awkward to place in your build queue.
$11 for 7 health is a pretty decent defensive deal already, and you get to deal 2 damage for a turn or two as well. In 8wCZu-d9ews, my opponent manages his Engineers very carefully to keep his Cauterizers firing as long as possible, and uses the giant HP buffer to get up a ton of Tarsiers that I can't really threaten to breach even with a Frost Brooder.

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-Hannibull: cheaper than Cauterizers but more expensive than Iceblade Golems. There's only 4 of them, and has the huge disadvantage of being frontline. I have absolutely no idea what to do with them. They are very strong on paper, but when my opponent knows what she's doing, they always fizzle for me.
I have trouble playing with Hannibulls too. They are a decent rusher, if you can put enough pressure on to stop your opponent ever getting 6 attack, but if you can't manage that you are in a lot of trouble. As a frontline unit, it combos well with other frontline units, for example Wild Drone. If you can rely on your beefy frontline units to be hard to kill, you can completely ignore building defense. Hannibull can also be decent in the mid- to late-game where your opponent is getting close to breaching you: he either lets you get away with 2 attack fairly cheaply, or he spends 6 precious damage killing just $9 worth of stuff, which can give your defense a break. In c9aId-zELyn, I get the dream combo of Wild Drone + Hannibull, and just let him chew through my regular Drones, ignoring his Wild Drones to bull-rush (har har) his defenders, preventing him getting any attack up.

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-Hellhound: anyone ever bought one?

Hellhounds are amazing. They only cost a tiny bit more than Tarsiers, and don't have to wait a turn to attack. The extra Engineer is also a huge help in defending these breach-vulnerable units. Really, $5 is the cheapest you can get a unit that attacks for 1 every turn without some disadvantage (eg, Tarsiers don't attack next turn, Rhinos only attack twice, Shredders are frontline...). Hellhounds even come with an advantage! As long as R/B isn't a bad tech choice in the set, Hellhound is a great way to make use of your tech investment when there's nothing else urgent to do. In 9gmQa-sHeFl, for example, I get a second Blastforge early so I can double-Hellhound instead of double-Tarsier; the initial investment of $5 is a bit steep, but pays for itself with the attack efficiency, and helps out later when I need to start getting a lot of Walls.

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