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Messages - Erick648

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101
Here's the ones that I can think of offhand:

Feast: Added +1 Action.

Scout: Added +1 Card and reduced the deck inspection to 3 cards (so basically, the first card's free).

Masquerade & Throne Room: I was applying the 2e versions before 2e made them official.   8)

Tribute: Made it discard the bottom card of the player to your left and the player to your right (in 2p, your opponent is both to your left and your right and so discards the bottom two cards).  This wasn't really for balance purposes so much as to make it feel like less of a "single-target attack" (it's not, but tell that to someone who keeps getting good cards discarded; it was either make this change or have the card vetoed entirely).

Scrying Pool: Removed the attack (but kept the self-spying).  It speeds things up, and the card's plenty powerful without the attack.

Pearl Diver: Added the option of discarding the revealed card so you don't get stuck repeatedly revealing the same Province.

Smugglers: Let it copy any opponent, not just the player to your right.  This was because of a game where two experienced players both went for a strategy where winning the split of a certain 5-cost card was crucial, and the third, less-experienced player, messed around with cards that weren't that helpful.  Needless to say, the mirror player on the left won the split by a large margin due to Smuggling from the other mirror player, leading to the realization that the next time this situation happened, we'd know that whoever sat to the left of the newbie would be at a disadvantage, and no one would want to sit there.  Letting it copy everyone means that no one's stuck with an inferior Smuggling target.

Black Market: Replaced the Black Market deck with 5 Events; each Black Market gives you a Buy that can only be spent on one of those Events (and all of those Events are available for every Black Market play).  This was designed primarily to ease setup/cleanup (so I didn't have to keep fishing single cards out of my binders), but also serves to remove a lot of the weirdness associated with Black Market (i.e., random selections with potential unfairness where one player gets access to a vital card and the others don't; it also eliminates playing Treasures and buying stuff in the Action phase, which wasn't really a problem IMO, but it does simplify things to avoid it).

Walled Village: Changed the below-line text to "At the start of Clean-up, you may spend an Action to put this onto your deck."  Since it's a card I paid for specifically, I wanted it to actually be relevant.

Boons in general: I replaced the random deck with a semi-randomly generated "Boon map" that you maneuver around, removing the unpredictability and potential unfairness.  I also tweaked Sacred Grove (Boons that provide money are no longer excluded, since we use markers to track it anyway) and Druid (can now grant any Boon without moving around the map; we don't even use the map if Druid is the only Fate card) to fit the new system.

102
Lucky Coin–Changeling–Potion was a good combo.

Exchange Silvers for Changelings, then trade in the Changelings so you can gain more Alchemists than you have Potions to spend.
Edge case: Transmute is in the Kingdom instead of Alchemist.


It would be such a different interaction.
So I guess you could generalize it to "[Silver gainer]-Changeling-[good Potion-cost card]" (since it would still be useful with something like Amulet-Changeling-Scrying Pool).

103
S plays a Rogue.
S gains a Zombie Apprentice
.
.
.
S plays a Zombie Apprentice.
S trashes a Necromancer.


Beware.... They are coming for us...
I guess you could say that that Zombie...

 8)

...went Rogue.

104
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Playing the new Guilds & Cornucopia!
« on: March 20, 2018, 12:39:36 am »
I guess this means we won't get another expansion with Coin tokens, which I'd hoped was a possibility after they brought back Victory tokens in Empires.  There'd be no way to word the cards that would be intelligible to both people who had First Edition Guilds and didn't know about Second Edition and people who had Second Edition Guilds and didn't know about First Edition (they could include something in the rulebook explaining that Coin tokens are now Coffers, but it would still be awkward).

105
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Extending the game
« on: March 16, 2018, 05:56:09 pm »
Here are some things I do to let engines get bigger:
- Always use Platinum/Colonies
- Always use Dominate (ideally with Platinum/Colonies, since Platinum makes players more likely to reach Dominate, and Colony makes them less likely to buy Provinces directly)
- Include 12 of each Victory card in a 2-player game and 18 of each non-Kingdom Victory card in a 3-4 player game (you'll likely own extra basic cards due to them being included in both the base game and Intrigue)
- Play to 4 (or more!) empty piles instead of 3

106
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Dominion Confessions
« on: March 12, 2018, 03:52:35 am »
When talking about an avatar, there are 2 things that matter to me more than how viable a card is:

1) How much fun I've had with the card
2) How much I like the artwork

The artwork is my favorite in the game, and an On-Buy Remodel is a fun concept to me. Although I rarely buy Farmland, the games where I built decks around them when it was new were fun. I probably got my ass kicked, but I had fun, which is a primary goal of a game after all ;)
Of course, sometimes criteria #1 and #2 also align with a stronger card. ;D

107
Dominion General Discussion / Re: very short strategy article
« on: March 01, 2018, 08:40:23 pm »
"Categorically better"?

Proposed requirements for Card A to be categorically better than Card B:
1. Everything Card B does that is usually good is also done by Card A.
2. Everything Card A does that is usually bad is also done by Card B.
3. Card A does at least one usually good thing that Card B doesn't OR Card B does at least one usually bad thing that Card A doesn't.

Note that this would require determining which abilities are "usually good," which are "usually bad," and which are "situationally good or bad," which would also depend on the purpose of the card in question (e.g., mandatory trashing is more likely to be "usually good" on a trasher and "situationally good or bad" on a card that provides large non-trashing benefits).  For example, is Nomad Camp's topdecking "usually good" (making it categorically better than Woodcutter) or is it "situationally good or bad"?

Of course, optional abilities are always "usually good," since if they're bad you just don't use them (edge case that's basically irrelevant in practice: choosing not to use it lets your opponent know you didn't want to use it).  In fact, optionality can be a "usually good" ability in its own right: for example, 2nd Edition Throne Room is categorically better than 1st Edition Throne Room because it has the optional ability to do nothing instead of playing a card (though it's arguably not strictly better due to edge cases where you want to Throne an action but you don't want your opponent to know you wanted to Throne it and would rather your opponent assume you were Throning it against your will).

108
Game Reports / Re: Dear My Opponent: I am Sorry
« on: February 21, 2018, 05:46:06 pm »
And now for the annual PSA:
Dear opponent:

I'm sorry that you're a bad player and I crushed you,

Let me tell everyone about it.

To clarify, this thread is really for "I'm sorry I chose a strategy/tactic that's particularly unpleasant to play against" (painfully slow engines, pins, milling provinces, etc.) or "I'm sorry I got really lucky and/or you got really unlucky," not "I'm sorry you're bad at Dominion and/or I'm good at Dominion."

109
Dominion Articles / Re: Witch, revised for 2018
« on: February 17, 2018, 11:51:16 pm »
I now propose: nobody ever lost Dominion by playing King's Court on a Mountebank.
Edge case: There are 1-3 Curses left and two empty piles and you're too far behind to catch up this turn.

110
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Themed Kingdoms
« on: February 16, 2018, 04:57:19 pm »
The Fellowship of the Ring:





The Two Towers:





The Return of the King:



111
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Homage to the Best Card
« on: February 16, 2018, 12:25:06 pm »
Of course, it would be the right move if, even after trashing the Provience(s), you still have more than 50% of the possible available VP.
At the point where you have already achieved victory, nothing is "wrong" or "right" from a strategic perspective...short of throwing the game.
For a time when it would actually improve your chances of winning, what if your opponent was going for a Copper-gainer+Tower deck, so that he had no chance to compete on Province VP and it was down to a race to see if you could empty the Provinces before he could empty the Coppers and claim the Tower VP (especially if you don't have a strong enough deck to handle greening and there aren't cards to allow a fast three-pile)?

Really, trying to race against any strategy that heavily backloads its VP would probably qualify in at least some circumstances.

112
Dame Gains
Types: Action - Attack - Knight
Cost: $5
While this is in play, you may put it on top.
Reveal the top card of your deck; or gain a Duchy, putting it on top of your next turn: +1 Coin per differently named Treasure Map from your hand that is not a Treasure card from your hand.
Each other player reveals the top 2 cards of their deck, trashes one of them costing from $3 to $6, and discards the rest. If a Knight is trashed by this, trash this.
Funny that it came up with a slang term for an actual card (Dame Natalie).  And this one is a gainer, too.

113
Faithful Hound + City Quarter + discard-from-hand (+ top-decker, optionally)

I recently had a game with Faithful Hound, City Quarter, Storeroom, and Secret Passage (and Dominate, so there was plenty of time to build).  Draw your deck, topdeck a City Quarter for next turn with Secret Passage, discard your Faithful Hounds with Storeroom, and start your next turn with at least one City Quarter that's guaranteed to draw several cards (and all of your other City Quarters being supercharged).  Who knew that dogs were so good for urban development?

114
Rules Questions / Re: Introducing a new rules document
« on: December 09, 2017, 02:13:57 pm »
If you really want to parse it, "At the end of your turn" could imply that it's still part of your turn (and "At the start of your turn" abilities provide precedent for that), while "After your turn" is clearly after your turn is over.  It may not be obvious, but it's there if you're looking closely enough.

115
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Really bad card ideas
« on: November 01, 2017, 06:35:37 pm »
I really like the Action - Night dual type. There doesn't seem to be much of a trade-off here—mandatory edge case: action-phase deck inspection, especially Scrying Pool that you're not happy deferring—but perhaps something like this:

Moonlighting
Action – Night – $3
+$2
If you've gained a card this turn, gain a card costing up to $4.

The general kind of trade-off would be between some benefit that's not useful after the (last*) Buy phase if you play it in your Action phase, versus non-terminality if played in the Night phase and/or perhaps some special benefit. (* thanks, Villa).

Here's another one:

Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde
Action – Night – $5?
If it's your action phase, +3 cards.
If it's your night phase, each other player discards down to 3 cards.
These aren't really bad card ideas.  In fact, Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde is surprisingly similar to to an official card announced two days after your post (Werewolf), both thematically and mechanically.

So now we have an official card that was almost predicted in the RCBI thread.

116
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Semi-Interesting Dominion Moments Thread
« on: September 18, 2017, 04:34:11 pm »
My last two games with Obelisk, it actually made the cards more balanced rather than less.  We were at my brother's house so we were playing with Base (1st ed)-Prosperity-Adventures, but had all of the Events and Landmarks (which I'd brought from home).  The first time Obelisk showed up, it selected Chancellor.  Then it came up again a couple games later, and selected Adventurer.

Good work balancing the game, Obelisk.

117
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: card tokens and action tokens
« on: September 06, 2017, 02:45:36 am »
...so now I'm wondering what a fair price would be for an Action-Reserve: "+1 Action. Put this on your Tavern mat. / Directly after you finish playing a card, you may call this, for +1 Card." It's strictly better than a bare cantrip, awesome as a Tactician enabler and useful with topdecking, maybe useful stacked as a Native-Village-style megaturn enabler, but pretty insipid most of the time.
You might want to check out this thread, which actually contains some discussion of this.

118
In a 2-player game, respecting the 3-pile rule, I can get as high as 255 (51 Tactician plays):

Kingdom: Black Market (containing Masquerade, Throne Room; or those can just be in the Kingdom since there's room), Highway (or other cost reducer), Royal Carriage, Tactician, Hireling (or other duration draw), King's Court, Prince, Inheritance, Pathfinding

Empty Piles: Prince, Tactician

In play: Hireling x9
Set aside: Prince x10 with King's Court x9 (courtesy of Highway) and Throne Room x1; Royal Carriage with Inheritance
Tokens: +Card on Tactician, Inheritance with Royal Carriage
Tavern Mat: Royal Carriage x8, Estate x13 (7 from the Supply, 6 starting Estates courtesy of Masquerade)
Hand: Tactician

Start of Turn:
1. Resolve Prince A, playing King's Court A, playing Tactician A three times (drawing a card each time with Pathfinding to discard with Tactician). (Total plays: 3)
2. Resolve Hireling A, drawing Tactician B.
3. Repeat 1-2 eight more times. (Total plays: 27)
4. Resolve Prince J, playing Throne Room, playing Tactician J twice. (Total plays: 29)
5. Call all of the Royal Carriages and Estates, playing Tactician J twenty-two more times. (Total plays 51)


Next turn, you draw 255 cards from your 51 Tactician plays.

You can get even more with Procession and Lurker/Graverobber/Rogue (for example, replace Throne Room with Procession, use some Caravans or something to draw a Lurker and a cantrip, then during your Action phase use Lurker to get the trashed Tactician back, draw it with the cantrip, and play it), but I haven't optimized it.

Edit: Overlord could also help here.  Or instead of Kinging/Throning/Processioning the Tacticians directly, Throne a Vassal/Herald and have it hit King's Court (or Procession) for the Tacticians.  I bet you could get a really high number with an elaborate enough setup, using Prince-based chains to play most of the Tacticians at the start of your turn where you can use any number of Durations (or Guide) to get more cards after discarding with Tactician.

119
Game Reports / Re: Engines need +buy
« on: August 25, 2017, 05:12:53 pm »
Engines don't always need +Buy, but if you don't have it, you need to make sure you have some other plan to get a high amount of VP/turn, such as Gainers/Remodelers (e.g. Hero+Remodel) or VP tokens (though many VP token cards require +Buy to get significant VP from them).

120
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Best Dominion moments 2017
« on: August 25, 2017, 01:12:08 pm »
I just opened Travelling Fair/Chapel/Alms/Tournament.

Like, on two turns back to back, or in 1 turn?

TF/Chapel on turn 1, trash 4 cards and Alms for Tournament on turn 2. There isn't really a way to do all of that in just 1 turn as far as I can tell.
I think you can do that on Turn 2 of the opening if you get 5/2 and buy Travelling Fair/Poor House/non-Treasure on Turn 1, so you start Turn 2 with a hand of Poor House-non-Treasure-Estate-Estate-Estate.  I don't think you can do that Turn 1 (certainly not in a 2-player game), because you need $4 for Travelling Fair/Chapel, but can't buy Alms with Coppers in play, meaning you need $4 other than your starting Coppers.  Baker and Borrow can get you to $2, but I can't see how you get the other $2.  Maybe when Nocturne comes out, one of the Heirlooms will be a +$ Action card or a one-shot Treasure (like Spoils), and then it will be possible.

Edit: I found one.  6-player game, with Chapel, Horse Traders, Messenger, Noble Brigand, Baker, Lost City, Alms, Travelling Fair.
Player 1: Buys Messenger, gives out Horse Traders (you have 5 cards in deck, Horse Traders in discard).
Player 2: Buys Noble Brigand (you have 3 cards in deck, Horse Traders and others in discard).
Player 3: Buys Noble Brigand (you have 1 card in deck, Horse Traders and others in discard).
Player 4: Buys Lost City (you have no cards in deck, Horse Traders and others in discard).
Player 5: Buys Lost City (you reshuffle and draw Horse Traders).
You: Play Horse Traders, spend Baker coin, buy Travelling Fair/Chapel/Alms/Tournament.

121
Dominion General Discussion / Re: The bad luck thread
« on: August 25, 2017, 12:50:57 pm »
I recently had an IRL game in which not only did I get the Golden Sombrero, but after my Turn 3, an opponent's Rabble (the only opening Rabble in the game), discarded not only my Turn 1-2 buys but (after reshuffling) my Turn 3 buy as well, forcing me to play 5 turns with my starting cards. 

I calculate the odds of this happening at less than 1:950 (chance of Golden Sombrero=(2/12)*(1/11); chance of opponent who bought Rabble playing it Turn 4=5/12; chance of Rabble's third card being my Turn 3 purchase=1/6).

Ouch. OUCH.

Did your opponent have the presence of mind to offer sympathy?

Not sure if it's just me, but when I get unlucky in IRL games, most of the people I get unlucky against aren't even good enough to realize they've gotten lucky.
This was sort of the case here.  They knew I'd gotten unlucky, but they were less experienced than me and I'd beaten them pretty hard in previous games, so they didn't really pay attention to my bad luck, instead focusing on their own decks.  Which I don't really blame them for; it was probably only fair that I have a bit of a handicap anyway.

122
Dominion General Discussion / Re: The bad luck thread
« on: August 23, 2017, 03:24:47 pm »
I recently had an IRL game in which not only did I get the Golden Sombrero, but after my Turn 3, an opponent's Rabble (the only opening Rabble in the game), discarded not only my Turn 1-2 buys but (after reshuffling) my Turn 3 buy as well, forcing me to play 5 turns with my starting cards. 

I calculate the odds of this happening at less than 1:950 (chance of Golden Sombrero=(2/12)*(1/11); chance of opponent who bought Rabble playing it Turn 4=5/12; chance of Rabble's third card being my Turn 3 purchase=1/6).

123
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Least thematic card?
« on: July 02, 2017, 04:05:26 pm »
Harem doesn't fit with the theming for either victory or treasure cards.
It doesn't even have any reason for providing you with money, which is a big negative given that the card's whole gimmick was being a Treasure-Victory card.  Not to mention that at the time Intrigue was released, Dominion was still limited to medieval Europe, making a Middle Eastern harem out-of-place (although this changed with Seaside, and the game now spans roughly two millennia of world history, from the classical era to the colonial era).  I've often thought of remaking my copies into something more thematic like "Relic" (before that became an official card) or "Jewels" (which is admittedly bland, but in keeping with the vanilla treasures it resembles---like precious metals, only more showy and less practical for spending).

Now that I think of it, Relic is pretty bad, too.  The treasure part fits, but since when do relics zap your enemies outside of Indiana Jones movies (though in those they're more likely to zap the user for irreverence, now that I think about it)?  Even if you believe the stories of relics performing miracles, they're usually benevolent things like healing rather than anything aggressive.  Really, Amulet and Relic could use a name swap (and new art for Relic; it looks like an ordinary necklace---even a gilded box containing the relic would be better).  A valuable magic amulet that zaps people makes sense, as does a relic that can earn you money or provide trashing (which already has religious theming---donations? absolution?---with cards like Chapel and Bishop).

I would also nominate the entire category of terminal draw cards, which never settled around a coherent theme like cards that increase your Actions (population) or Buys (commerce).  Sure, there are plenty of exceptions in the other categories, but at least you can see a theme, whereas terminal draw cards have virtually nothing in common (Royal Blacksmith is a nice callback to Smithy---and to Grand Market, for that matter---but that's about it). 

There's also Woodcutter, as noted by Donald X, but at least it has the excuse of dating from a time when +Buy was called "+Build", which would have made it thematic.


124
Have two princes activated. One with harbinger, one with vassal.

Used the harbinger to topdeck teacher. Used the vassal to play the teacher.

Turns out you can call the teacher immediately because it's still the start of the turn.
This is even easier with a Princed Throne Room (or Procession, although Princing Procession is a risky move; Disciple also works if you have cost reduction, and is always available with Teacher), since you just need to have it in your hand instead of on top of your deck.

125
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Dominion song parodies
« on: June 30, 2017, 02:23:57 am »
"We are the Pirate Ships
who don't do anything.
We just sit here
and clog your deck
and if you play us
to do anything,
we'll just show you..."
"we don't do anything!

"Well I've never trashed a Silver,
and I've never trashed a Gold card,
and I can't trash kingdom treasures 'cause this board has none of that.
And I've never trashed a Platinum,
and I've never trashed a Potion,
and the thin Action-based engine stomped me flat."


"We are the Pirate Ships
who don't do anything.
We just sit here
and clog your deck
and if you play us
to do anything,
we'll just show you..."
"we don't do anything!

"And I never pay for Minion,
and I never pay for King's Court,
and I never pay for Province 'cause there's no coins on my mat.
And I've never paid for Highway,
and I've never paid for Chapel,
and the thin Action-based engine stomped me flat."


"We are the Pirate Ships
who don't do anything.
We just sit here
and clog your deck
and if you play us
to do anything,
we'll just show you..."
"we don't do anything!

"Well, I've never topdecked Tunnel,
and I can't react to Swindler,
and I've never moved my Ferry token onto Bureaucrat.
And I've never Princed a Swamp Hag,
and I've never been Embargoed,
and the thin Action-based engine stomped me flat."


"Huh? What are you talkin' about? What's a Tunnel and Ferry tokens have to do with playing a Pirate Ship?"
"Hey, that's right. We're supposed to sing about Pirate Ship things."
"Oh."
"And who's ever Princed a Swamp Hag? That's just nonsense! Why even bring it up? Am I right? What do you think?"
"I think you look like the Black Pearl."
"Huh? No I don't."
"Do too."
"Do not!"
"You've made your point, savvy?"
"That's it. You're walking the plank."
"Says who?"
"Says the Cap'n! That's who!"
"Oh yeah? Aye aye, Cap'n Sparrow! Hee hee hee hee!"
"Aaaargh!"
"Yikes!"


"And I've never gained a Beggar,
and I've never drawn a Ranger,
and I've never placed a Duchess on an empty Island mat.
And I've never triggered Merchant,
and I don't exchange for Venture..."

"You just don't get it."
"...and the thin Action-based engine stomped us flat!"

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