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1

Puzzles and Challenges / Villa: To Infinity and Beyond

« on: May 09, 2016, 10:10:22 pm »

We can all agree that Villa, the new card, is kinda broken. But how broken can it be? Buckle your seatbelts and let's push this as far as possible.

Credit to 2 of the original playtesters for coming up with this idea (I just refined it a bit).

The Challenge: Using Villa as a key card, have a turn that can generate infinite coins and buys. And when I say infinite, I mean literally infinite. You must follow all the rules of Dominion, including using a legal kingdom (10/11 cards, max 2 events).

Hard modes:

• Do not rely on shuffle luck to start or play your turn.
• Do not have any durations in play.
• Do not use Teacher or any of the tokens it grants you.
• Be able to scale this challenge from zero to ten (reasonably compliant) opponents.
• Use as few kingdom cards as possible.

Expert mode: All of the above at once.

2

Rules Questions / Vanilla tokens on the Ruins pile

« on: April 16, 2016, 12:12:09 am »

Is that legal? If so, it sounds like an interesting way to recover from losing the Ruins split...

3

Dominion General Discussion / Dear my IRL opponent who does not know about f.ds: I am sorry

« on: April 14, 2016, 11:39:54 pm »

For all the stories of when you find someone out there who plays Dominion but doesn't, well, know the game.



Like when I went to a party the other night. The guy hosting had the base set so I suggested we play together. The randomizers gave us a terrific engine board with Festival, Library, Witch, and the ever-popular Chapel. And it turned out my friend wasn't familiar with how to build engines (or that double-Provincing was even possible), so I kind of crushed him. I felt pretty bad afterwards, but hey, at least it proves that I'm not one of those fake geek girls amirite? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Then of course we played a four-player game with Witch and no trashing and every single person opened 2/5. No one was happy with this.

4

Dominion General Discussion / Last turn strategy

« on: February 21, 2016, 06:52:00 pm »

I feel like there should be an article about this - probably not citing specific cards that much, but mechanics and such.

There's something to be said about doing things on your last turn that you would almost never do any other time - trashing your last key card, passing your opponent something good, buying 30 coppers, etc. And it's because you know it won't hurt if you mess up your deck, since you won't need to use it again.

Thoughts?

5

Rules Questions / Possession and Outpost

« on: January 25, 2016, 10:40:37 am »

I played a game with those two cards a few weeks ago and EEEEVERYTHING WAS CONFUSING. So I want to ask about every interaction between them that I can think of.

What happens if...

• I play someone's Outpost while Possessing them once?
• I've Possessed them multiple times and play their Outpost during the first Possession turn?
• ...the last Possession turn?
• ...a/the middle Possession turn?
• ...two Possession turns in a row?
• I play Possession and my own Outpost in the same turn?
• I'm Possessing someone and I play their Possession and their Outpost?
• The above happens on the first Possession turn of a multi-Possession?
• ...the last Possession turn?
• ...a/the middle Possession turn?
• ...two Possession turns in a row?

And finally, can I replace "play Outpost" with "buy Mission" and get similar answers (as in, replace starting with a 3-card hand with not being able to buy cards) or would there be a difference?

6

Dominion General Discussion / Key card or gainer first?

« on: January 23, 2016, 02:50:56 am »

I've tried answering this question for every board it applies to that I've played, and I always seem to be wrong. So here goes.

You're playing a kingdom, and there is a key card on the board for which the split is important. There is also a gainer that can gain said key card. You can open with either. Which do you choose - buy the key card right away, or buy the gainer to facilitate getting the card faster later on?

Now it would be ludicrous to expect a definitive answer for every scenario ever, so here are a few narrowers. What would your decision be if the key card were a village (just about any village works), a draw card (like Smithy or Envoy), or a payload card (like Bridge or Fool's Gold)? What if one or both cost $3 - would you double either? What if both cards were more expensive and you just hit $6 on turn 3?

Specific examples are good too, especially if you'd favor opposite choices in different games.

7

Game Reports / Cultist vs. Scrying Poop

« on: January 22, 2016, 12:48:52 pm »

Code: [Select]

Stonemason, Scrying Pool, Develop, Watchtower, Bishop, Cultist, Mandarin, Rabble, Nobles, Peddler
Log

So my first thought here was "Hey, ruins count as actions - Scrying Pool can defend against Cultist!" But while that might be true, things didn't quite go according to plan. First of all, Jeebus had a 5/2 split, which meant that ruins were being pelted into my deck from the second shuffle. Then on top of that, he grabbed three more over the next few turns and chained all four immediately after. I, meanwhile, only managed to get a single Cultist, and by the time it finally appeared in my hand, it was too late to even try to even out the ruins so it got fed directly to my Develop. And it just went downhill from there - the Scrying Pools hid from me and hardly ever worked as expected, my terminals (including trashers) collided way too much for comfort, and it's a wonder I didn't rage quit.

But fortunately, this is one of the games that I'm actually willing to analyze. I know for a fact I fell victim to bad decision making in the later half of the game, which mostly involved trashing ruins instead of coppers (either I had no choice or I didn't want to lose my economy... it seemed like a good idea at the time). What I'm concerned with is the early game. Should I have kept the Silver opening, increasing my chance of getting Stonemason/double Pool, or should I have gone with Develop, for an early start on the trashing, or Watchtower, to further defend against Cultists? Should I have bothered with buying that Cultist in turn 5, and if so, should I have played it in turn 9 or not? Was it even worth it to go for Scrying Pools in the first place, or should I just have opened double Silver and competed for Cultists even with Jeebus's 2/5 opening?

8

Dominion General Discussion / Throwing games

« on: December 13, 2015, 01:22:13 am »

I'm sure all of us have had at least one game where you're in the middle of your winning turn, you have your plays set up and ready to go, and then... misclick. Out of seemingly nowhere, your treasures are flashing, or your hand is a few cards larger than it should be, or cards are flashing red to be trashed, or whatever. And suddenly this game that you had in the bag is lost forever.

There have been times for me when games like that have ruined my day. Sometimes, when it's bad enough, I ask my opponent to resign and throw the game. I feel like it's not an unreasonable request - if I explain exactly what the problem was and that I was indisputably about to win, they could sympathize and let me have the win that I would have already had anyway. Nobody's taken me up on that so far, and I guess I don't blame them, but... ya know? If someone was about to beat me and botched their turn that badly, I'd kinda have to take pity on them.

So what do you think? Are there any situations where you'd ask for your opponent to throw the game, or where you'd throw a game for them? Is knowing that you had the win before enough or do you want it on record?

9

Variants and Fan Cards / Scaling curses???

« on: October 18, 2015, 01:47:53 pm »

Last night I was thinking about scaling Victory cards and about how there's only one card in the "Curse" category... and this idea came up.

Basically my thought is that there could be a non-kingdom supply pile of purple cards, sort of like the Ruins pile in Dark Ages, that give negative scaling effects. Each would have a different effect and a different way that players would have to offset them based on their strategies. In some decks they might not be an issue, but in other decks they might be a serious risk that would need to be trashed ASAP or offset as a priority.

Plague
$0 - Curse
-1VP for every (?) cards in your deck, rounded down.

Schism
$0 - Curse
-1VP for every (?) Action cards in your deck, rounded down.

Defecit
$0 - Curse
-1VP for every (?) Treasure cards in your deck, rounded down.

Scourge
$0 - Curse
-1VP for every (?) Victory cards in your deck, rounded down.

These would mostly just be in the Curse category so that they could be picked up by cards like Fortune Teller and Vagrant. Of course there would have to be another qualifier on them so regular cursers wouldn't distribute them... unless that would make them better.

And there's the question of how these scaling curses would be distributed in the first place. The options I can come up with are:
- Exactly like the Ruins pile - all mixed together and distributed in turn order (target "gains a scaling curse")
- Mixed together with the regular Curses and distributed in turn order (target "gains a Curse")
- One pile of a specific kind, chosen at random before the game if there's a scaling-curser in the kingdom (target "gains a Curse from the scaling curse pile")
- Multiple piles, with different cards distributing each different kind (target "gains a Plague/Schism/Defecit/Scourge")
- Multiple piles, with the attacker choosing which to give out (attacker should "choose a scaling curse for each player to gain")
- Multiple piles, with the receiver choosing which to gain (target "chooses a scaling curse to gain")
There's gotta be a better way to say "scaling curse" but I can't think of one right now so let's just leave it there. This is also why I haven't been capitalizing it either because it's not a good official name for these things.

This is where I would list possible Action-Attack cards that would distribute scaling curses but um... I can't be bothered to do that right now. Although it might be interesting to have some type of Event that actually replaces the Curse pile with scaling curses.

Thoughts? Ideas?

10

Goko Dominion Online / Upswing, downswing

« on: September 25, 2015, 01:10:18 am »

Does Goko's RNG cause good and bad luck streaks? I've experienced this one too many times when I win a ton of games in a row (with or without help) and get fooled into thinking I'm playing better, and then I lose a ton of games in a row in situations that can't possibly be skill-based. And I've seen other people complain about this too.

I just find it really odd that something that's supposed to be randomized can cause such un-random-seeming results. I've even gotten to the point when I expect a swing to happen at a certain time, and today I was pretty pleased when the downswing started right after I launched into my post-5k unrated binge. So there's that.

11

Game Reports / What would you have done?

« on: September 22, 2015, 12:16:51 am »

Code: [Select]

Lighthouse, Lookout, Wishing Well, Conspirator, Feodum, JackOfAllTrades, Remake, Minion, Royal Seal, Bank
Log
Stream highlight

Let me preface this by saying that I wouldn't have had a chance in this game if I hadn't been streaming. It took Adam's and singletee's advice and the high pressure of not making the wrong move with people watching to lead me to the right strategies and choices.

When Pinguin and I both decided on the same strategy, it looked like a clear "win the Minion split, win the game". Through some combination of bad calls and bad luck, I ended up on the losing end of the split and quite a bit more clogged. BUT I managed to compensate with Conspirators and matched him (him?) on Provinces until the inevitable Penultimate Province Showdown.

It was then that I noticed my hidden ace: Conspirators could be Remade into Duchies for a last-minute tiebreaker, and I would have a much easier time lining them up than my opponent would. Turns were in my favor as well. The only thing that wasn't was deck reliability.

And so began the string of tough choices. He bought a Duchy turn 14, and so when I managed to draw my Remake with two Conspirators and a Copper (and $5 from previous actions), I had to take a long time to decide how many Duchies to get and whether or not I should break PPR. This gave me the upper hand in terms of second player advantage, but my deck was still less reliable and I took a leap of faith on turn 15 when I got the penultimate Province, holding my breath that this wouldn't be The One Turn (TM) he'd line up the Remake/Conspirator combo.

Buuuut then he timed out. I didn't see any reconnect messages so either he left the computer or he deliberated too long. I was happy that I got the rating points, but I didn't get to see what move he would have made. His hand was Duchy/Province/Minion/Minion/Wishing Well and mine was Duchy/Minion/Wishing Well/Province/Conspirator and we both had one Lighthouse in play each so anything was possible.

So this thread is to open it up and ask what you guys think. Would you have done anything differently in turns 14 and 15 for either person? What would you have done with his hand on turn 16? And what would you have done on my turn 16 if I got to play it?

12

Help! / Any way to save this one?

« on: September 20, 2015, 11:31:36 am »

Code: [Select]

Beggar, Crossroads, Vagrant, University, Lookout, Philosopher's Stone, Cutpurse, Envoy, Nomad Camp, Graverobber
Log.

This was the game that killed my 5k rating last night. It started out okay - the board had """"decent"""" trashing, great draw, Graverobber for payload, and University to tie the whole thing together. My opponent and I opened the same way too, so I was doing something right. But then it all went to crap. After drawing only $1P on turn 5, being forced to skip my University on turn 8, and missing $5 a ton of times, I lost the Graverobber split HARD. That was then followed by a few terrible no-draw hands and terminal collisions while I desperately tried to catch up on Duchies with my opponent (who didn't get an Envoy until turn 14???). My one good turn, turn 20, happened when it was too late to matter.

Was there anything I could have done to save myself? Apart from a few Lookout choices, it seemed like my opponent made more mistakes than I did and that I lost because of bad shuffle luck, but I know I can't just blame it on that.

13

Dominion: Adventures Previews / FINALLY

« on: August 26, 2015, 10:38:18 pm »

Special thanks to liopoil for actually bringing the cards.

I can't really say THAT much about the expansion since we only played three games (and they were all three-player), but this is what happened:

1. "Level Up" - I got off to a really slow start after foolishly spending my +$1 token on Market when I didn't have a plan for getting a lot of them. I also was the only person to get Miser, which collided with my other terminals a few too many times for comfort. But about halfway through I decided to switch my +$1 token to the Spy pile, which nobody bothered to deny me. I also got to the point where I had four Coppers in my Miser pile, which meant that a throned Miser guaranteed me a Province. My engine came together just as liopoil's fell apart, and I have a feeling I would have won if I had been counting the points... instead of snatching the last Spy and giving him an easy three-pile.

2. "Son of Size Distortion" - liopoil and I both went for Gardens with Amulet as one of our key cards. He got a Bureaucrat and Messengers early on while I got a Duplicate and a Treasure Trove... although none of that stuff showed up in our decks that much. I ended up winning the Gardens split and the game, probably because of a careless Messenger buy/Gardens passout by him and a well-timed Duplicate by me.

3. "Prince of Orange" - Ah, Champion. How I love thee. I was going to build a sort of Merchant Ship-based Double-Tac deck with Champion for unlimited MS plays, but then I saw liopoil doing an even smarter thing with Tactician and Mission (Tacmission?) and I wanted to switch to that but I couldn't do it cleanly and so I ended up stuck in the middle of two strategies with no way of catching up to him. Definitely should have gotten a Tac earlier on so I could have more buys, but ehh. My heart goes out to that poor woman who played with us - it can't have been fun to get pumped that full of curses.

Anyway, I WANT MOAR! I'm gonna keep looking for game nights and stuff where someone might have Adventures and I can't WAIT until it hits the online server.

14

Dominion General Discussion / Density gage/"thinning"

« on: August 12, 2015, 02:56:40 pm »

Thinning = w(h)inning.

More specifically, though, when we talk about deck thinning, what we really mean is getting a high density of cards we want to be playing relative to cards we don't: action density for engines, high-treasure density for big money, etc. But of course, on boards without trashing (or even some boards with it), we go about getting that density in other ways, like trying to mass-buy desirable cards or avoid being on the wrong side of a junking battle.

I wanted to generate some discussion about card-type density, but I don't really know where to start, so here are some possible questions you guys can answer:
- Do you ever refer to decks without trashing as "thin" if they have a really good density of cards to be played, or do you just use that word for trashing?
- When would you use trashing to get better high-treasure density in a big money game?
- What kinds of boards make you confident enough that you could get an action-dense enough engine without trashing?
- Are there any kinds of engines that can consistently do well without good action density?

15

Game Reports / Whose deck will fall apart first? (vs Seprix)

« on: August 10, 2015, 01:25:00 pm »

Code: [Select]

Transmute, Candlestick Maker, Stonemason, Loan, Feodum, Herald, Ghost Ship, Highway, Laboratory, Harem
Log.

Last night I played this game with Seprix. It had Highway, Stonemason, AND cheap +Buy, so watching the piles was critical. During turn 11, the piles were so low that I thought I might lose if I did any more significant building (also since Seprix had more +Buys than I did) so I went green and thus began our low-green-off and unintentional race to destroy our decks. It was pretty tense for a while, each of us trying to pull ahead while trying not to touch the vulnerable action piles too early, but he ended up getting tired and essentially forfeiting by running out two of the piles.

Thing is though, I'm pretty sure he had a fighting chance at the win had he not given up. Even though he had less action density than I did (and PLEASE don't ask why we didn't buy Labs), he did have more treasure and +Buys, while I was slowly running out of actual buying power.

I don't know for sure though, so can I get some opinions?

16

Dominion General Discussion / Scaling alt-VP vs. Colonies

« on: July 04, 2015, 02:32:37 am »

It keeps coming to my attention that alt-VP card-based strategies are much harder to pull off when there are Colonies on the board. Rushes can be beaten if the Colony player gets to green point in good time, slogs can't hang onto the lead as easily, and slushes... well, they're normally half-forced anyway.

What factors do you guys consider in Colony games when there are other green cards around? How much bloating or extra gaining capability is enough to make you want to grab Gardens instead? How strong does the engine need to be to make you go for Vineyards? What kind of Black Market enablers would make you consider Fairgrounds? Etcetera, etcetera. Discuss.

17

Dominion Videos and Streams / I'm sorry

« on: July 02, 2015, 05:47:37 pm »

I really want to apologize to anyone who watched my stream on Tuesday, especially Seprix and Awaclus. I did some pretty rude stuff and I feel awful about it.

But I also want to say that I'm going to keep streaming because I genuinely enjoy it and it's still the best way for me to get better at the game. So I don't want this to stop people from watching and especially not from giving me advice. Please forgive me and please keep helping.

18

Dominion General Discussion / Dominion TVTropes page

« on: June 12, 2015, 09:35:47 am »

I'm just wondering if anybody else has read it yet. Link here.

19

Dominion General Discussion / The Replayability Factor

« on: June 03, 2015, 06:13:17 pm »

I know one of the things people love about Dominion is its replayability, but how much is that exactly? How many games can you actually play without playing the same kingdom twice?

(People have probably done this before but Adventures just came out so it's worth another shot.)

Here are all the factors I can come up with:

10-card kingdom: (number of possible kingdom cards)!/(10!x(number of possible kingdom cards-10)!)
Young Witch bane: multiply result by number of possible $2/$3 kingdom cards, somehow factor in probability of card already being in kingdom???
Colony/Platinum and Shelters: multiply result by 4
Events: multiply result by... um... whatever combination formula can include different size groups?

Possible things to consider: Black Market contents (on Goko at least) and order, Knights order, Ruins order

20

Dominion: Adventures Previews / Traveller backstories

« on: May 12, 2015, 02:19:01 pm »

This is not really about gameplay and a bit off-the-wall, but here we go...

I kinda want to make up backstories of the two Traveller lines in Adventures, since DXV said in the original Hero preview that he liked putting the storyline behind the cards. For Page/Champion I'm sort of picturing a Joan of Arc or Mulan thing where she joins the army but keeps her gender secret until achieving a high enough status, and for Peasant/Teacher I'm thinking maybe that there are charges of treason going around the soldiers and he runs away before joining the church or something.

I don't want to turn this into a book or anything, but maybe a series of one-shots, each revolving around one card/stage. Thoughts? Ideas? Bonus points if you factor the card effects into the details.

21

Game Reports / WTFool's Gold and the Stef Rule holds true AGAIN!

« on: May 10, 2015, 10:19:48 pm »

I played Svenisntb today, whose rating was a bit out of my comfort zone but I thought I was up for the challenge. These two games happened.

Game 1 (log)

Code: [Select]

Candlestick Maker, Fool's Gold, Apothecary, Procession, Spy, Trader, Baker, Margrave, Rabble, Forge
I don't understand how I did so badly in this game. We both opened Margrave/Fool's Gold, and even got a 5/2 so I could save my Baker token. The Fool's Gold split was even. I got a Trader (which is the only possible mistake I can see - it seemed like a good idea at the time because fewer Coppers meant more FG plays) and a couple of Spies (which are nonterminal, cantrips, AND directed draw) while he got more Margraves than me (because I wanted to err on the cautious side of the terminal count) and Silvers (which is just what??? I don't see how Silver is useful in a FG game and they only made a difference twice). And yet I seemed to never see my Fool's Golds while he looked like he was playing his every turn. So... cycling? Trashing addiction? I really just want to say I got screwed by bad shuffle luck but f.ds might have more to add.


Game 2 (log)

Code: [Select]

Moat, Urchin, Gardens, Horse Traders, Militia, Scavenger, Silk Road, Wandering Minstrel, Mint, Prince
I'm proud to say I pulled it back in this game. With no reliable draw and two sources of slog-friendly alt-VP on the board I decided to forego any thought of an engine and start by rushing Gardens. Svenisntb didn't seem to get that memo. Not only did I successfully apply the Stef Rule (make your opponent struggle to empty the entire Province pile) but I finally got to see how discard attacks aren't that effective against slogs and even block them with Horse Traders. Patience won out and I ended with 4-point Gardens, 6-point Silk Roads, and a smile. Would there have been a way for him to beat my slog?

22

Dominion: Adventures Previews / American edition low quality???

« on: May 07, 2015, 10:12:34 am »

I just went to a game night at a store that recently got Adventures in. Since I don't own the physical sets I was itching to dig in and play it, but then someone warned me that "it's the American edition". Apparently the first printing released in the US is substandard quality and it can't be combined with other sets because you'd be able to tell from the back which cards are Adventures cards???

The guy told me he knew this from a post online - I thought he was talking about f.ds but I couldn't find the post he was talking about. Has anyone come across this problem for real?

(I didn't get to play it either. )

23

Game Reports / You may now return to your regularly scheduled breathing.

« on: May 02, 2015, 09:51:53 pm »

Code: [Select]

Vineyard, Pawn, Chancellor, Fortune Teller, Shanty Town, Steward, Warehouse, Wishing Well, Outpost, Border Village
Log.

Joined HarryPeteur's table today. The board was an obvious Vineyard rush, with strong trashing, cycling, cheap +Buy, etc. I thought I was off to a good start with a Warehouse/Steward opening and trashing down pretty fast, but HP proved me wrong by grabbing a ton more action cards to get more valuable Vineyards. Thankfully the split was even. But then came the real pressure. I don't think either of us expected the game to take 27 turns, especially since the last Vineyard disappeared turn 15. We self-junked up so much that it turned into a slogfest, both of us probably holding our breath waiting for that one good turn, which I ended up getting. It turned out that my seemingly-foolish Silver buys early on proved useful, since they allowed me to get a few extra action cards, spike a Province, and pull two BV-Duchy turns, one of which ended the game on a narrow win for me.

So yeah, I did some pretty stupid things. I underestimated the use of Shanty Town by a long shot (too many action cards in my hand? I guess I could, well, play them) and I made a horrendous mistake turn 14 when I discarded my Pawn with two Potions in hand and two Vineyards left in the supply. It was definitely luck that won this for me.

I'm mostly looking for speculation here. Would you have bought Silvers (or Golds) early on? Or ever? What do you think the game would have looked like if I hadn't and just used virtual money for economy? Did trashing one of my Potions turn 17 make as big a difference as I thought it would?

HarryPeteur, if you have anything to say, I'd love to hear it.

24

Game Reports / Transmute payload?????

« on: April 20, 2015, 02:43:25 pm »

Code: [Select]

Transmute, Bureaucrat, Horse Traders, Plaza, Rats, Wandering Minstrel, Cartographer, Cultist, Duke, Bank
Log

Okay so my opponent wasn't that high-skilled and I know for a fact I could have played MUCH better, but I still feel like I achieved something.

Junked up with Cultist, then bought Transmutes to trash the ruins into Duchies which enabled Dukes. I was trying to buy out the Dukes but piling Transmutes was just easier.

Is this a thing that happens a lot? Without Cultist, Transmute, AND Duke on the board it seems like it would be useless any other time. Has anyone else here pulled off a payload of almost exclusively Transmutes?

25

Solo Challenges / Max out Fairgrounds

« on: April 20, 2015, 02:22:22 am »

It's been pretty much confirmed that the highest point value you can get for Fairgrounds (without Adventures) is 28 points.

The challenge: Find the fastest way to get at least one 28-point Fairgrounds in a solo game. Assume perfect shuffle luck.

The board must include:
Shelters
Colony/Platinum
Knights
Black Market (25 cards)

Either the board or the Black Market deck must include:
Fairgrounds
Tournament
Hermit
Urchin
Young Witch
At least one Potion-cost card
At least one Spoils-gaining card
At least one looter

If Hermit and/or Urchin is in the Black Market deck, Graverobber and/or Rogue must also be included.

Have at it! And no, I don't have my own solution... yet.