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26

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Scout is bad, not horrible?

« on: May 31, 2015, 10:22:47 am »

I don't think it's useful to discuss Thief/BM vs. BMU, it's not far from being 100% guaranteed that there's always something better than either strategy.

Fair enough.

27

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Scout is bad, not horrible?

« on: May 31, 2015, 09:52:10 am »

I can't hardly think of boards where Thief is dominant as a strategy in 2P (maybe some crazy TR/KC board), except for when your opponent plays in such a way that Thief will be a good card. But it at least has some impact on the board. (for example when someone has a Chapel strategy with treasures as main payload and such. Does Thief-BM beat BM Ultimate usually? (I'm inclined to say no, but I don't know for sure)

Coppersmith is no contest for Scout in being bad. It can be a terminal 7. Obviously there are situations where it is much worse than Scout and it has the problem that it is usually either a bad opening or there's no use for it past the opening (maybe the odd exception is some Hunting Grounds-board)

Nomad Camp is mainly used for it's on-buy ability or because it is the only +Buy in the kingdom. But, as we all know, even Woodcutter can be vital if it is the only card providing +Buy, and in almost every situation it's not (and no alt-VP is in the game) it's terrible. The on-buy ability is a little bit gimmicky though, I never really liked it for that card.

Talisman and Spy deserve some mention maybe, and Spy is really just worse than Scout when there's some Alt-VP in the kingdom, but yeah.. Talisman at least shines with cheap strong cantrips (Caravan) or with Vineyard and Spy is better for a deck without too much green.

The main problem with Scout is that there are many situations it's terrible, a lot of situations it's bad. And when it's somewhat decent many times over there are just many better cards at the price point. And it doesn't even change the card choices of players. And yeah, in a really bad kingdom with many green cards, maybe even Ghost Ship or Wishing Well or Mystic, it can be decent. At best.

I tried Scout/Wishing Well/Great Hall once. It was awful.

28

Dominion General Discussion / Re: About kingmaking

« on: May 28, 2015, 04:49:09 am »

My experience of chess is that kingmaking is not usually a big thing in all-play-alls or Swisses. Mind you, chess does have well-established rating systems that everybody takes seriously, which helps.

The only thing that happens sometimes is what we call in dutch a "salon draw", basically a draw that benefits either both players or benefits the player with the better rating in terms of championship chances. But this happens in many sports with league tables, even in football (although a couple of years ago we had a match in the final round of the Dutch domestic league where a team would play in the Europa League if they would win or lose, but not if they would draw, that team lost in the end, but that was because of reasons aside from the league itself, namely the way they dealt with the cup winner.)

I don't think in normal situations kingmaking is possible in a round robin hth tournament, without any externalities. In racing it's quite possible though, especially marathon (swimming) and the most obvious example of road cycling.

29

Dominion General Discussion / Re: About kingmaking

« on: May 21, 2015, 05:42:56 pm »

My second example is about ranking only.  Guaranteed second place, or risky attempt at first?

Totally depends on the situation. How big is the chance to lose out (does Alice have 50%, 70% or 90% chance of buying the province?)? How important is it to finish second? (if that guarantees a championship, go and take the second place)

30

Dominion General Discussion / Re: About kingmaking

« on: May 21, 2015, 04:02:46 am »

The big question in the situation proposed by eHalycon is if the points are a scale of how well you've played. As with dominion, you can win with a +/- 20 point Garden rush, a well played Colony game with some 60 points or a curse game with, say, minus 2 points.

So, does it matter if you score 55 points but still come in third, when in other games, you can win with far less points. Victory points are just the method for ranking: they don't give an interpretation of how well your play was, whereas with munchkin or settlers the scale is always the same. If you score 9 points in a base game you were always one point short of victory, whilst with six points, you are clearly lagging behind even when you finish second. The board obviously does matter for your winning opportunities, but it at least gives an indication.

So, yeah, I don't think it matters how big the point differential is. At least not when the differential is 10 or 20 points.

For the kingmaking as a whole, it totally depends on your game approach.

31

Game Reports / Re: Where 5/2 is meaningless..

« on: January 23, 2015, 03:07:46 pm »

Feast is so much awesome here.

32

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Goko Is Games That No One Can Play

« on: January 08, 2015, 10:08:53 am »

Hey, it doesn't work.

Once more.

33

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Themed "challenge" boards

« on: December 27, 2014, 04:52:38 am »

Apothecary, Coppersmith, Counting House, Beggar, Moneylender, Ill-Gotten Gains, Cache, Cutpurse, Count... and... something?

Mountebank?

Apothecary, Coppersmith, Counting House, Beggar, Moneylender, Ill-Gotten Gains, Cache, Cutpurse, Count... and... something?

Grand Market.

These were the ones I thought of, but Mountebank at least gains copper, instead of giving copper a penalty. Although Cutpurse penalizes having copper as well.

Mountebank fits in better, still.

34

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Themed "challenge" boards

« on: December 26, 2014, 06:52:02 pm »

Apothecary, Coppersmith, Counting House, Beggar, Moneylender, Ill-Gotten Gains, Cache, Cutpurse, Count... and... something?

35

Help! / Re: A phenomenally weak board?

« on: December 12, 2014, 06:39:00 pm »

Chancellor/BM or Explorer/BM

Or both.

36

Game Reports / Re: Advice on this mountebank board

« on: December 09, 2014, 04:12:03 pm »

Trader is at least deent here, although I don't know if it's really unskippable.

it's unskippable.

It's at least very powerful against Mountebank in a Prov game, especially when you're not looking for an engine. The Cache explanation looks less interesting though, But I would still do it for the Mountebank defense and Estate-for-two-silver I guess. It's definitely pretty strong.

37

Game Reports / Re: Advice on this mountebank board

« on: December 09, 2014, 03:27:09 pm »

Trader is at least deent here, although I don't know if it's really unskippable.

38

General Discussion / Re: Dominion Cards that put songs in your mind

« on: November 28, 2014, 06:58:05 am »

Tribute: Tribute - Tenacious D
Masquerade: The Day Before You Came - Placebo
Bridge: Bridge over Troubled Water - Simon and Garfunkel
Highway: Life is a Highway - Tom Cochrane

The most obvious ones for me.

39

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Vault to early Grand Market???

« on: November 28, 2014, 05:37:20 am »

It almost guarantees you winning the GM split 6/4 or 7/3, at least on boards without sufficient thrashing.

40

General Discussion / Re: Song of the day

« on: November 26, 2014, 06:58:24 pm »

This is beautiful.

41

Dominion Articles / Re: Combo: Sage \ Talisman \ Gardens

« on: November 26, 2014, 06:50:20 pm »

I don't see this. Sage/Talisman is pretty good to get a load of decent cards while skipping over junk I guess, but I don't see gardens being good enough in such a slog... most of the times.

I'll just stick with Squire, Beggar... or even Workshop.

42

Help! / Re: Pillage/Chapel/Tournament

« on: November 21, 2014, 01:34:36 am »

I absolutely would not open pillage there, or pretty much ever. pillage is one of the most overbought cards in the game.

I will admit that it's less terrible here, because your opponent relies so heavily on one key card; and yes, if you do get his chapel, then it's worth it. but if you don't, it's really bad. Don't open pillage.

I don't like Pillage normally, but I thought it was pretty much key to win the race for the prizes. Scrying pool with Mystic, Tournament, whatnot, seems nice too, but too slow in getting the prizes first I guess?

Or am I too focused on prizes and overrating them?

43

Help! / Re: Pillage/Chapel/Tournament

« on: November 20, 2014, 06:37:03 pm »

I was too fixated on getting my economy up and running in different ways while still searching for the fast Province, I guess. But yeah, just two silvers in my deck and buying silver, gold, province, tournament or something should be pretty neat as well, so my T6 was just something like motion blindness, couldn't change my plan. Something I'm very good in at chess as well...

In T7, my Chapel was discarded. But maybe Spoils->Gold was better. Not sure if it was that much better though.

44

Help! / Pillage/Chapel/Tournament

« on: November 20, 2014, 05:58:32 pm »

Code: [Select]

Chapel, Scrying Pool, Storeroom, Bureaucrat, Moneylender, Navigator, Tournament, Catacombs, Mystic, Pillage
http://dominionlogs.goko.com/20141120/log.51375572e4b02905fc7288f1.1416523057631.txt

Okay, so this combo was on the board and I opened 5/2, which looks to me as basically being gg. I also discarded opps Chapel T3, so that was pretty neat. But I think I overchapeled somewhat, as I ended up using spoils for getting silver. Should I get a Tournament with CCCC asap, even if it means no chapeling? I had Pillage/Hovel/Necropolis/C/C T3, so I could have gone for trashing only my Overgrown Estate in T4, getting Tournament with the drawn copper, but I'm slow on trashing in this scenario. I think in retrospect it is still worth it, as I really felt I had a shelter/copper ratio which was too equal to get a Tournament reliably, so I had to use my Spoils on T5 anyway.

Could I have done this any better, in the aforementioned way or another way?

The rest isn't really interesting as I still easily won the province rush, and opp. resigned T10

45

Game Reports / Re: Dominion Juniors play KC/Bridge/engine

« on: November 20, 2014, 05:56:05 am »

My thoughts:

Smithy is obviously key as much as FV for getting it going. There's no thrashing, so Smithy is the only way to cycle through your deck with those ten late-game malicious opening cards. I don't think bothering for any other cards than these four is worth it, except for a single IW to pick up the important pieces.

Treasures, Mines, Festivals are unnecessary cloggers. I think. Mine is probably the best of those cards still, as it clogs up your deck not so much for the buying power it gives for the KC, but I doubt it's actually worth it if you have two Smithies and a couple of Bridges maybe.

FV - IW looks the best opening to me, IW is obvious over Bridge and more engine components is more important than a lucky KC. Smithy has priority over Bridge as your second 4. Then it's just picking up Bridges, Smithies and FV in the right order (I think 2 Bridges slows you down a little bit, but maybe it can pick up that extra Smithy you need), and KC when you have the chance. The draw is the most important though, without draw you'll never get to KC-KC-Bridge-Bridge-X.

46

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Homage to the Best Card

« on: November 19, 2014, 06:01:35 pm »

Man remember back in the with Red and Blue when the strategy for Pokemon was "use psychic"

Wasn't it "use Psychic and Normal type Pokemon"?

Use Normal, and use Psychic if opponent type equals "Rock" OR "Ghost"

Basically.

47

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Gardens gets thrashed

« on: November 19, 2014, 03:18:22 pm »

There's no such thing as an uninteresting card in Dominion as a whole.

Some cards can be uninteresting in certain kingdoms, and some of them have more chance of being uninteresting. But I actually like a good Gardens slog. (Much more than a Gardens rush, actually) Especially in Gardens vs Province

48

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Gardens gets thrashed

« on: November 18, 2014, 04:32:05 pm »

OK, I guess part of my problem was putting the gardens rush up on a pedestal. So that game, and the advice in this thread, help me see that it's not necessarily a dominant strategy. Whew! That also means I can sometimes go for more interesting strategies, if I think they'll do better faster.

In 2P Base there are only a handful situations BM or an engine will beat the rush. Woodcutter/Gardens is less obvious, it's sometimes right but sometimes pretty poor. But Workshop/Gardens is "almost" always good in 2P Base.

In 3+P it's different because of player interactions. If two players go for the rush, it's better than if only one goes for the rush.

Actually my intuition is that for base set Gardens games, Bureaucrat/Gardens > Woodcutter/Gardens > Workshop/Gardens, with the difference between the last 2 being small. Could be wrong on this, too lazy to simulate, but I think Woodcutter gives you more economy after Gardens run out, so in particular you can buy Duchies more often. This is also why Bureaucrat/Gardens is surprisingly solid.

Woodcutter is probably somewhat better mirroring a Workshop player as it provides more economy after the gardens run out, but makes the Gardener somewhat more sloggy, as you're slower to pick up 2's and 3's. Rushing is easier against Province-players to score, especially if they manage to snipe some Gardens, as getting to 8 is still pretty far away. I never tried Bureaucrat/Gardens actually, but I think it should be solid as well, especially for the economy. But in mirroring, I think it gains less Gardens than Woodcutter or Workshop, although the silvers can maybe offset this. Bureaucrat also should need support in the form of Cellar or Village.

49

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Gardens gets thrashed

« on: November 18, 2014, 01:47:14 pm »

OK, I guess part of my problem was putting the gardens rush up on a pedestal. So that game, and the advice in this thread, help me see that it's not necessarily a dominant strategy. Whew! That also means I can sometimes go for more interesting strategies, if I think they'll do better faster.

In 2P Base there are only a handful situations BM or an engine will beat the rush. Woodcutter/Gardens is less obvious, it's sometimes right but sometimes pretty poor. But Workshop/Gardens is "almost" always good in 2P Base.

In 3+P it's different because of player interactions. If two players go for the rush, it's better than if only one goes for the rush.

50

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Gardens gets thrashed

« on: November 18, 2014, 05:03:16 am »

A Garden rush in 3P is already slow if you're the only one doing it, especially with the powerful Village/CR+Militia - which gives you a hand like Village/Workshop/Militia at best every turn, and Militia is not really needed anyway in a gardening deck.

Militia isn't a power card against Gardening decks obviously, but it's still decent enough to hold you back when you've got 'good' hand cards