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626

Dominion General Discussion / Re: WW's Power Rankings

« on: February 26, 2014, 11:18:58 am »

Rebuild being low some people will talk about - it is VERY good. But it's really not unbeatable - if you get a strong engine OR good BM, you can definitely overtake it.

I wonder to what extent this is actually true, and to what extent it's just that people have forgotten how to play Rebuild in the non-mirror.  I feel like I've seen a lot of players who continue to play the "grab as many Duchies as quickly as possible, then Rebuild into Provinces" plan even when their opponent is not going for Rebuild, and that's just terrible.  The whole point of Rebuild is that it quickly cuts down the total number of VP on the board and gives you a lead, so that it becomes impossible for the opponent to catch up.  If you go with the "normal" engine plan of delaying greening so that you can grab multiple green cards per turn later, there's a good chance there won't be enough green cards left for you to grab.  So I think there's a rock-paper-scissors thing going on: Rebuild beats (most) engines, engines beat good big money, good big money beats Rebuild.  Of course some great engines and possibly some power-combo decks will still beat everything, but I think a board where an engine is the optimal plan rather than Rebuild is rare.

Also, I've been wondering if Rebuild could actually be a good addition to some decks that aren't centered on it.  I actually don't think I've ever tried it, because it sounds bad (and I can imagine that it is bad in engines), but maybe the kind of strong BM deck that normally beats Rebuild would be better off picking up a Rebuild of its own?  Non-terminal +2 or 3 VP with some end-game control is not bad in a BM deck.

I actually doubt that "good" BM can beat Rebuild reasonably often, at least when playing without Colonies and Shelters - AFAIK the only halfway common BM-X strategy that beats pure Rebuild-BM (and is not beaten by Rebuild-X-BM) is Bank-Wharf, unless you count the combos Beggar-Gardens and Feodum-Masterpiece as BM.
(I don't know if there's simulation data on whether Cultist-BM beats Rebuild-BM, but I doubt it.)

Rebuild is a good addition e.g. to Witch-BM, which beats Rebuild-BM, but is beaten by "Witch-into-Rebuild"-BM. (However, this strategy is arguably still "centered" on Rebuild, since you buy more Rebuilds than Witches.)

Rebuild+X+BM being better than X+BM doesn't count, in my mind, as a win for Rebuild, per se. I'm looking at the "either-or" question (plus some allowances for three-piling). So if Rebuild+Witch>Rebuild>Witch, this shows Rebuild on top, but if Smithy+Rebuild>Smithy>Rebuild, that's a win for smithy (not that I'm actually claiming that that one is true - but I don't think it's as lopsided as you might think).

I would call this a "win" for both cards in both cases - i.e. I wouldn't put one card above the other if both are an integral part of the optimal strategy. (FWIW, Rebuild wins against Smithy in 75% of Province-Estate games, according to Dominiate.)

I'm also not sure how you're coming up with what "beats" what here - I am going off experience-driven-intuitions. I assume that Cultist-BM should win against rebuild, Wharf-FG certainly ought to, and even something as simple as Courtyard/Vault/Embassy/Jack are competitive, to the extent that they don't need much help to overcome (and whilst things can help rebuild, they tend to help these things more). FG with basically any +buy/gain card (eh, maybe not altar) probably gets there. Venture, Masterpiece, and especially Counterfeit are really going to help a lot of these strategies. And yes, you are often going to take Rebuilds as well, but you'll play it significantly differently than a straight Rebuild-BM.

It's also worth noting that you're only playing without colonies and without shelters in about 2/3 of your Rebuild games, assuming the full-random propotional-distribution of rules that I stipulate in the OP.

My comment was based on my own (limited) experience and the simulation results from Dominiate (http://gokologs.drunkensailor.org/static/dominiate/play.html). It hasn't implemented Cultist or Fool's Gold, unfortunately, but my experience implies at best a tie between Cultist and Rebuild. Wharf-Fool's Gold might indeed win against Rebuild, I haven't played such a board yet. But Rebuild beats e.g. Courtyard-BM or DoubleJack in two out of three games on Province-Estate boards according to Dominiate, I wouldn't call that competitive for the latter. And unlike all the other cards you mention (except Fool's Gold), Rebuild is nonterminal, so almost every cheap terminal action (that doesn't draw cards) helps Rebuild, but not the other cards (unless you go for an engine). Even Chancellor is a good support card for Rebuild-BM...

Of course Shelters and Colonies weaken Rebuild; but I think Rebuild is still dominant in most Shelter games. I have no experience on Rebuild+Colony, so I can't comment there.

627

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Fun Fact: 2 official cards have the same name

« on: February 25, 2014, 01:47:12 pm »

I think in the newest version, Soothsayer is male (Wahrsager):

Which is ridiculous, as that is quite clearly a female.

The German version uses male versions for almost all names that are gender-neutral in English, unfortunately. E.g. Peddler and Explorer are also translated as male ("Hausierer", "Entdecker"), in spite of the female illustrations.

628

Dominion General Discussion / Re: WW's Power Rankings

« on: February 24, 2014, 04:47:58 pm »

I think I'd also prefer Chapel and Ambassador over Masquerade on most boards...

Do you mean you'd rather that one of those cards be in the Supply instead of Masquerade, or that you'd rather buy one of them than Masquerade if both are out? 'Cause I gotta tell you, if you play a Chapel deck against Masquerade, you should be prepared to pass a lot of nice cards to your opponent.

I meant the second, but I suppose you're right that it's not such a good idea. I forgot that the card-passing does matter sometimes...

629

Dominion General Discussion / Re: WW's Power Rankings

« on: February 24, 2014, 12:35:36 pm »

Is there a board that has Masquerade on it where you wouldn't open Masquerade?

E.g. a board where Rebuild is dominant (i.e. no strong engine potential) . And any 5-2 start with a very strong $5 card, of course.
I think I'd also prefer Chapel and Ambassador over Masquerade on most boards...

630

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition

« on: February 22, 2014, 03:58:24 pm »

Is it possible to only rank cards of some price categories, but not all prices? E.g. I've only ranked $5 and $6+ cards.

631

Dominion General Discussion / Re: WW's Power Rankings

« on: February 22, 2014, 02:37:40 pm »

Rebuild being low some people will talk about - it is VERY good. But it's really not unbeatable - if you get a strong engine OR good BM, you can definitely overtake it.

I wonder to what extent this is actually true, and to what extent it's just that people have forgotten how to play Rebuild in the non-mirror.  I feel like I've seen a lot of players who continue to play the "grab as many Duchies as quickly as possible, then Rebuild into Provinces" plan even when their opponent is not going for Rebuild, and that's just terrible.  The whole point of Rebuild is that it quickly cuts down the total number of VP on the board and gives you a lead, so that it becomes impossible for the opponent to catch up.  If you go with the "normal" engine plan of delaying greening so that you can grab multiple green cards per turn later, there's a good chance there won't be enough green cards left for you to grab.  So I think there's a rock-paper-scissors thing going on: Rebuild beats (most) engines, engines beat good big money, good big money beats Rebuild.  Of course some great engines and possibly some power-combo decks will still beat everything, but I think a board where an engine is the optimal plan rather than Rebuild is rare.

Also, I've been wondering if Rebuild could actually be a good addition to some decks that aren't centered on it.  I actually don't think I've ever tried it, because it sounds bad (and I can imagine that it is bad in engines), but maybe the kind of strong BM deck that normally beats Rebuild would be better off picking up a Rebuild of its own?  Non-terminal +2 or 3 VP with some end-game control is not bad in a BM deck.

I actually doubt that "good" BM can beat Rebuild reasonably often, at least when playing without Colonies and Shelters - AFAIK the only halfway common BM-X strategy that beats pure Rebuild-BM (and is not beaten by Rebuild-X-BM) is Bank-Wharf, unless you count the combos Beggar-Gardens and Feodum-Masterpiece as BM.
(I don't know if there's simulation data on whether Cultist-BM beats Rebuild-BM, but I doubt it.)

Rebuild is a good addition e.g. to Witch-BM, which beats Rebuild-BM, but is beaten by "Witch-into-Rebuild"-BM. (However, this strategy is arguably still "centered" on Rebuild, since you buy more Rebuilds than Witches.)

632

Dominion General Discussion / Re: DIY Dominion Storage

« on: February 20, 2014, 06:21:13 pm »

Sure. It's made by Cocraft, and the model is "raaco carry. lite".

Thanks! Unfortunately, it seems to only be sold at clas ohlson...

633

Dominion Articles / Re: Scout Strategy Article, or, It's Not a Bad Card

« on: February 19, 2014, 04:22:51 pm »

Transmute is fine. People just need to play games with more than one Alchemy card at a time.

Scout would also be more viable if you always required at least 3-5 Intrigue cards in a kingdom containing Scout. Or require at least one hybrid VP card ...

Perhaps.  But there's a difference between "more viable" and "fine".

Of course. I don't actually consider Transmute "fine" even in Alchemy-heavy sets, though - I usually only buy it when I have a potion and can't afford another potion-cost card, which is not so common...

634

Dominion Articles / Re: Scout Strategy Article, or, It's Not a Bad Card

« on: February 19, 2014, 04:09:59 pm »

Transmute is fine. People just need to play games with more than one Alchemy card at a time.

Scout would also be more viable if you always required at least 3-5 Intrigue cards in a kingdom containing Scout. Or require at least one hybrid VP card ...

635

Dominion Articles / Re: Scout Strategy Article, or, It's Not a Bad Card

« on: February 19, 2014, 04:00:53 pm »

I think we can agree that designing cards is just very, very hard.

There are also many different tastes.

Some players might like bland helper cards which are useful on 90% on boards, while others might feel cheated that those cards provide nothing special.
And some players might like cards which are useless often, but shine on 10% of the boards.

I think I'm somewhere in between. It's fun to find uses for "useless" cards and it's fun to have some go-to cards.

Speaking of designing cards, actually there seems to be a good way to improve scout by enlarging its variance:

Super Scout
$4 Action

Reveal the top card on your deck. If it is a VP card, put it into your hand, then +3 cards.


Looks like a fine card to me!

I'm not sure it's even better than the actual Scout. Unless you have 50% green cards in your deck (or played deck sifters before), this is worse than Moat on average; I don't think the larger variance helps it that much (you can never draw more than three non-green cards with it). And it has little in common with the printed Scout...

636

Game Reports / Re: Smashing Rebuild - With Engines

« on: February 19, 2014, 09:38:55 am »

http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20140216/log.514b5511e4b0b79c883b5e3b.1392557220373.txt

Here, that alt-VP source is Goons, and scrying pool draws me up. It's important to note that I think I might still lose this one if my opponent plays better - if you're not mirroring, you don't want to stop at 2 rebuilds and start buying duchies - you want more rebuilds to end the game faster!

Yes, I can't imagine that an optimal Rebuild-Horse Traders strategy (with Graverobber to boot) needs 24 turns to gain 6 Provinces, even with Sea Hag around. OTOH, I'm amazed that you can make scrying Pool work with Sea Hag and no junk trashers. Congratulations!

637

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Uses for untrashable Rats!

« on: February 16, 2014, 06:25:22 pm »

Yes, if you can use a Rats (plus its "descendants") to trash a Curse only three times, it's already better than a Duchy three estates and an overgrown estate (because of the triple card draw).

Huh? Playing Rats on Curse doesn't increase the number of dead cards in your deck, only the one bought Rats does. So it corresponds to having 1 additional dead card (and +3 VP, just like buying a Duchy). Buying three or four Estates would be much worse...

638

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Uses for untrashable Rats!

« on: February 16, 2014, 05:50:00 pm »

Yes, if you can use a Rats (plus its "descendants") to trash a Curse only three times, it's already better than a Duchy (because of the triple card draw).

639

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Infinite throne room

« on: February 16, 2014, 05:44:54 pm »

Chapel is a "no use", as the kingdom still has no drawer, which means you will never have more than 4 cards in hand after playing Chapel.

Tactician, Library and Watchtower draw cards.

640

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Infinite throne room

« on: February 16, 2014, 03:26:13 pm »

3) Any combination of the following that has at least one of the "limited use" cards in it.

Limited use
Action cards that trash cards from your hand to work: Moneylender, Remodel, Graverobber, Expand, Remake, Treasure Map, Develop, Stonemason, Transmute, Trader, Taxman, Mine and Procession
Action cards that remove cards from you hand other ways: Island

No use
Actions that ITR has no effect on: Secret Chamber, Tactician, Outpost, Library, Watchtower
Non-Actions: All


Depends
Multipliers limited by your hand: Throne Room, King's Court
(Allow playing more than one different card in a turn, which is only relevant if there is a that card does something when played from an empty hand. Those cards include "no use cards" that still don't get additional benefit from being played by ITR)

Thanks for fixing this. Personally, I would just put TR and KC in the "Limited use" category: ITR-TR also does something with cards that don't do anything when played from an empty hand - e.g ITR-TR-Mine-Develop can gain you two Duchies if you have two Silvers in hand (by turning the Silvers into 2 Gold), but ITR-Develop can't. But it's your list, of course...

Also, I noticed that Graverobber is not really "limited to your hand" since you can gain the whole trash pile (in the $3-$6 price range) with it.
Trading Post and Chapel are missing from the "limited use" category (each "successful" play reduces your hand size at least by 1); and Counting House is another "No use" card.

641

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Infinite throne room

« on: February 16, 2014, 02:38:28 pm »

Thanks for noting, I missed Count's treasure option; I've replaced it by Altar to give an unambiguous example.

Altar's gain doesn't depend on you trashing a card, so it also lets you gain all the Duchies. In fact, you must gain all the cards in the supply costing 5 or less.

But it doesn't let you gain a Province unlike Count.

Yes, that's the point. ITR-TR gives 12 VP in the example, ITR-Altar only gives all remaining Duchies, Estates and Curses, which can easily be <12 VP (possibly even <0 VP). If you're trailing by 7-11 VP and there's only 2 Duchies and no Estates left and another pile is empty, ITR-Altar would lose the game, while ITR-TR lets you win due to 3-piling.

642

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Does rating affect the card draw in multiplayer games?

« on: February 15, 2014, 08:33:03 pm »

It's completely random and the bots aren't becoming any more difficult either (you can see the bots' ratings, some bots are better than others and you can obviously choose to play against a more "skilled" bot when you're more skilled yourself). But in a game with three people, it's worth noting that you're supposed to win only about 1/3 of the time, so most of the time you will lose.

I think when you start a "Play Bots" game from the start page, Goko automatically chooses the bot whose rating is closest to yours. So bots would seem to become stronger until you surpass the best one (rating ~4000).

643

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Infinite throne room

« on: February 15, 2014, 08:27:31 pm »

2) Woodcutter, Pawn, Bridge, Market etc. (Anything that gives you at least 1 buy and $1)

(Ninjaed)
That doesn't work, the opponent may already have more than half the available VPs . See http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=10422.msg344475#msg344475 .

NoMoreFun, which card were you thinking about?

644

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Infinite throne room

« on: February 15, 2014, 07:12:16 pm »

The multipliers are of no use, because when you can play an action as many times as you want with ITR, why would you use TR itself to play it two more times? I see that they might be useful to get to the 10$ that ITR costs, but the categories are about what a card does when played with ITR (nothing for multipliers).

Playing ITR-TR allows you to play arbitrarily many action cards twice; ITR itself only allows to play a single action card (even if infinitely often). It may be rare that you'd rather play e.g. 3 Action cards twice than one of them infinitely often, but it can happen: E.g. ITR-TR-Duchess+Militia+Count can gain you a Province and two Duchies, but ITR played on either of Duchess, Militia, or Count gives you less than 12 VP if there are <4 Duchies left in the supply.

ITR-Count gains you as many Duchies as there are in the supply plus a Province. Though you might still want the discard attack from Militia rather than the extra Duchies in some cases.

Thanks for noting, I missed Count's treasure option; I've replaced it by Altar to give an unambiguous example.

That's not unlimited. You can not play Procession unlimited times during one turn.

I do not understand. Why is it not unlimited? I can repeat the instructions I gave over and over, as much as I want. How is that not unlimited?

If your card X is fixed, playing Procession infinitely often like this doesn't do anything useful; you could just play ITR-X instead, giving the same end result of playing X infinitely often. But if there's e.g. one card of each kingdom pile in the trash, you can use this to recursively play all Rogue target infinitely often, which indeed makes ITR-Procession unlimited by your hand.

That's not unlimited. You can not play Procession unlimited times during one turn.

You can if you ITR it...

More to the point, you can't gain scrying pool with Rogue

Right; but you can just replace it by Smithy in the example (if the Rogue pile and your deck are empty otherwise)...

645

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Infinite throne room

« on: February 15, 2014, 06:43:38 pm »

The multipliers are of no use, because when you can play an action as many times as you want with ITR, why would you use TR itself to play it two more times? I see that they might be useful to get to the 10$ that ITR costs, but the categories are about what a card does when played with ITR (nothing for multipliers).

Playing ITR-TR allows you to play arbitrarily many action cards twice; ITR itself only allows to play a single action card (even if infinitely often). It may be rare that you'd rather play e.g. 3 Action cards twice than one of them infinitely often, but it can happen: E.g. ITR-TR-Duchess+Militia+CountAltar can gain you a Province and two Duchies, but ITR played on either of Duchess, Militia, or CountAltar gives you less than 12 VP if there are <4 Duchies (and no other VP cards costing <=$5) left in the supply.

Edit: Fixed example.

646

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Infinite throne room

« on: February 15, 2014, 03:05:17 pm »

3) Any combination of the following that has at least one of the "limited use" cards in it.

Limited use
Action cards that trash cards from your hand to work: Moneylender, Remodel, Graverobber, Expand, Forge, Remake, Treasure Map, Develop, Stonemason, Transmute, Salvager, Trader, Taxman, Mine and Altar
Action cards that remove cards from you hand other ways: Island

No use
Actions that ITR has no effect on: Secret Chamber, Tactician, Outpost, Library, Watchtower
Multipliers limited by your hand: Procession, Throne Room, King's Court
Non-Actions: All


Honorable mention:
Rats (which gives actions and cards but doesn't make the card "broken" for obvious reasons)

Altar, Forge and Salvager (+1 buy) are unlimited by your hand size: Altar still gains a $5 card and Forge a Copper if you trash nothing. The multipliers are "limited use" instead of "no use", obviously.

Infinite money may not necessarily be broken as long as there aren't easy +buys, and vice versa.

Infinite actions may not be a big deal, [...]

Agreed; I think infinite draw might also be acceptable (though very strong; probably ITR should cost $15 or so then). Whether you draw all cards or all but one (with Advisor or Envoy) is usually no big difference.

With no cantrips, no Golem/Herald/BoM, no +$ and +buy on a single card, no unconditional gainers (Workshop etc.), no trashing attacks and no token-giving cards, ITR might be reasonable (if strong) at $10; you'd need multiple ITR's to do really crazy things...

647

Dominion General Discussion / Re: DIY Dominion Storage

« on: February 15, 2014, 02:04:03 pm »

...

This looks great. Could you post the company/model of the boxes? I'd like to get one, but we don't have "Clas Ohlson" in Germany...

648

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Infinite throne room

« on: February 14, 2014, 05:23:12 pm »

Yeah, the only way to win is if your opponent does not yet have the mathematical win (on his Island mat).
But if your opponent doesn't, it's trivial, you can just buy the remaining points.

It's not quite trivial: the opponent may have more than half the VPs in his deck where the VP cards could still be trashed. In this case, you still have a chance to win, but can't guarantee a win by playing "Infinite Throne Room-X".

But even when you ignore the trivial case of an already decided game, and ban Island (and Native Village, Haven...), no card (other than Monument and Bishop) fulfills the "guaranteed win" condition, by my above post. (Unless I missed something...)

649

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Infinite throne room

« on: February 14, 2014, 04:09:00 pm »

2) Without VP chip cards in the Kingdom, are there any cards that guarantee 1st place (shared or otherwise) when played with this card? There is at least one (I think).

I don't think so, if you make no other assumptions on the kingdom or the game state. You'd need a trashing attack that can reliably trash almost all the opponents' green cards, and (if any remain) gain you enough points to equalize. But Swindler can't trash hand cards, Masq. can only trash hand cards, Saboteur can't trash Estates and can't gain you a VP card, Knights and Rogue can't trash Provinces without cost reducers. Rogue can always gain all Duchies and one Province, but that's not enough against an opponent having all the remaining Provinces (e.g. in 2p, you only get 30 points, out of 80 available points).

Actually, if your opponent (in 2p) has more than half the available VPs +10VP (to account for potential incoming curses) safe on his Island mat, he is unbeatable by any means, even infinite extra turns for you.

650

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Infinite throne room

« on: February 14, 2014, 12:45:37 pm »

Also, Courtyard and putting a different card on top each time is pointless, but if you do that, then you'll end up playing it forever. Something changes between the decisions!

Nothing changes after Courtyard has drawn your entire deck for the first time. I think this is accounted for by the "Chapel rule".