Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

26

Game Reports / Just made a buy phase engine...

« on: April 10, 2020, 03:32:02 am »

So I'm just getting back in to this game and was playing a free game online against the bot, and I made a buy phase megaturn engine...

Man, things have changed since I last played this game.

Anyway, the board had chapel (to get rid of everything), inventor (for the megaturn), scepter (for the buy-phase engine), market (for +buy), smithy (for draw). But no other source of +actions besides scepter and acting troupe. The megaturn ended up being one where I play scepter (on my one inventor) to gain another scepter, do this three times, play scepter (to play smithy) and draw up the scepters I just gained, repeat for more scepters/inventors... It ended up being a 5-province turn.

Perhaps there was a more conventional engine here, it was my first time playing with acting troupe and scepter so I wasn't quite sure how to put those things together. But I figured I only needed to 'village' enough to get one copy of a few different actions in play, and from then on scepter could be every other card in the engine, and all during the buy phase.

27

Dominion General Discussion / Re: RIP IRL

« on: April 10, 2020, 02:25:57 am »

This quarantine - and not being able to play tennis - has made me rediscover old hobbies. According to this board, I haven't logged on here since 2014.

I see there's this new dominion.games thing. Goko's gone.

I wonder if any old forum names I still remember are around. I see -Stef- is a moderator on some board here.

There's so many new expansions.

Stef is the guy who makes dominion.games.

No wonder it's good! I just started playing there, just played some bot games to remember the cards. It's pretty neat. Looking at their boards, it's by Stef and werothegreat? Awesome stuff. I remember those guys were really cool people and really good at dominion, probably both still true.

28

Dominion General Discussion / Re: RIP IRL

« on: April 07, 2020, 02:52:26 am »

This quarantine - and not being able to play tennis - has made me rediscover old hobbies. According to this board, I haven't logged on here since 2014.

I see there's this new dominion.games thing. Goko's gone.

I wonder if any old forum names I still remember are around. I see -Stef- is a moderator on some board here.

There's so many new expansions.

29

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Opinions on the VP counter?

« on: April 13, 2014, 02:37:05 pm »

I used to prefer #vpoff, because I liked the extra thought involved in keeping track of what's where. But then I stopped playing so much and played more vs the computer, and didn't really feel like paying as much attention to each game, so now I like #vpon.

30

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.

« on: April 03, 2014, 02:09:43 am »

Diplomacy also has the advantage that it has the theme right there in the title. If you sit down to play a game of Diplomacy, you're going to be doing a lot of, well, diplomacy. The mechanics are all in support of that.

Other games where politics is a side effect rather than a deliberate inclusion have the politics take over their mechanics, which turns out to be problematic.

31

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The disappearance of Big Money

« on: March 28, 2014, 12:54:19 am »

Something with university and embassy perhaps?

University+Embassy doesn't *actually* increase your handsize. But it does let you sift, so if there's anything worth sifting for then BM+Embassy might still lose.

32

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition: $3 cards

« on: March 12, 2014, 10:41:20 pm »

As I said, Oasis is no star.  but Workshop very, very rarely dominates a board.

How do you like it on this board: Cellar, Market, Militia, Mine, Moat, Remodel, Smithy, Village, Woodcutter, Workshop.

I like it on that board.

Particularly in 2-player.

i recently played on this board when we had a couple of relatives here for visit. i opened double workshop, they collided on turn 5. great card.

It could have happened with Ambassador or Swindler too and you'd have to come to the same conclusion. Any of your openings finding themselves on turn 5 makes the card suck, including Chapel.

I've played this board a bunch with the bots, and I've found Remodel/Workshop to be an effective opening I think. What are people's thoughts here? Or should I just check the winning bot of the simulation challenge?

Remodel/Workshop is pretty solid.

http://dominionstrategy.com/2012/07/30/building-the-first-game-engine/ for those who don't get the reference.

33

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Goko bot strategy?

« on: March 11, 2014, 01:55:13 am »

Lord Bottington is the default, programmed as best as they can.

Villager bot prefers actions. Banker bot prefers treasures. Defender bot prefers reaction. Warlord bot prefers attacks. I think conqueror bot prefers victory cards. Serf bot just plays randomly with no strategy.

34

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Other types of attack?

« on: January 21, 2014, 10:55:36 pm »

It's pretty easy to build an engine to draw your whole deck and play one particular card each turn. The pin would not be not a rare case at all, it would be fairly common if that card existed.

Engines *already* are pretty powerful; even if the attack you're playing every turn is Militia, it's often worthwhile to build an engine that will play it every turn. This would be oodles worse.

35

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Other types of attack?

« on: January 21, 2014, 11:26:35 am »

Anyway, "cards cost $1 more until your next turn" seems like a good effect if the wording can be figured out correctly.

If I remember my Secret Histories correctly, that was the original wording of Cutpurse.

Similarly, you could have "no more than 1 card can be bought per turn until your next turn" or "VP cards cannot be gained until your next turn."

A key point would be rephrasing these so that instead of saying "You can't do X", it says "if you do X, something happens".

 Since many cards in Dominion say "gain a card", something that says "VP cards cannot be gained" could result in a contradiction - one card says you cannot do something, the other one says you must do that thing. Dominion does not have a resolution mechanism for that.

"VP cards cannot be gained until your next turn" doesn't seem like a good idea anyway because it could result in an infinite game, if both players have engines that draw their whole deck and play one of those each turn.

36

Goko Dominion Online / Re: An attempt to determine what kind of behavior is badmanner and what isn't

« on: January 19, 2014, 09:59:03 pm »

Did anyone else playing little-league baseball (or similar sports) in which after the game the two teams lined up and then walked by each player saying "good game" to each as you sort of hand slapped or hand shake each player on the other team?  To me, that is what saying "gg" is.  A sort of ritualistic hand shake after the game is over.

They also do that in Soccer/Football. And Hockey. Not sure about American Football.

And tennis. And not just little league tennis.

37

Hearthstone / Re: Has anyone learned Hearthstone yet?

« on: January 16, 2014, 03:31:35 pm »

I'm in now too! Won my first ranked game.Still haven't played anything except mage.

Also got that bs about "missing the email" which never happened.

I'll probably buy one pack so I get in on the special golden legendary thing.

38

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Weird "Adventure" Mode

« on: January 15, 2014, 11:52:08 am »

The AI have a huge groupthink thing going. Since they all use the same algorithm to determine whether the game is almost over, they all switch to buying duchies at the same time and end the game with a random rush.

39

Dominion General Discussion / Re: A sad noob case. (Re: effective trashing)

« on: January 14, 2014, 12:09:40 am »

Honestly, if somebody doesn't want to treat a game competitively, then there's not much use for advice. Step one is to actually *want* to put in effort to improve, and that's a step most people don't take for most games, myself included. And there's nothing wrong with that.

40

Other Games / Re: Recommended board games?

« on: January 12, 2014, 11:07:15 pm »

Ill second the recommendation of M44

41

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Petition for the return of Isotropic

« on: January 05, 2014, 06:40:38 pm »

Huh. I'm surprised by how much I'm in the minority, given those poll options.

42

Rules Questions / Re: Can Poor House cost you money?

« on: December 30, 2013, 08:19:49 pm »

Obvious edge cases:
1) to decrease your handsize (for watchtower, library)
2) to remove a duplicate from your hand (for menagerie)
3) to activate peddlers, Horn of plenty, conspirators
4) to prevent yourself from being forced to do something with it by a later card play? (throne room)

It's pretty rare though - usually in the case where you'd want to play an action just for the heck of it, you either
(a) have four or fewer treasures in hand, or
(b) haven't played any +$ cards yet, so poor house can't bring you below 0.

I'd guess there's no need to house rule it just because it's a situation which will probably never come up unless you specifically try to make it happen.

43

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Diggers: Some of the Worst Designed Cards?

« on: December 30, 2013, 12:29:47 pm »

It's not as bad IRL, but only because you can bend the rules to make it work. Like, you can say things like "OK, you have an estate on top, keep that on top for the rest of my scrying pools this turn". Or, if the person has to shuffle or something, you can just play out your turn and when they're done shuffling you can say "ok you get scrying-pooled three times now". Or even if they don't need to shuffle, you can just let scrying pool counts accumulate and do the scrying in a batch at the end. All of which are not actually correct, and have edge cases where it matters, but IRL they're good enough.

But online, it really does have to ask you every single damn time if you want to keep or discard a card, even if it's the same damn estate over and over.

44

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Diggers: Some of the Worst Designed Cards?

« on: December 29, 2013, 07:46:11 pm »

That one seemed as much bad play by your opponent than adventurer strength. After opening with Count, he did not buy his first colony until turn 20! A reasonable engine with Bazaar, Rabble, Count, Market, and Platinum should definitely be doing better than that. His final score was 50 points in 22 turns.

I just ran some sample games in Geronimoo's simulator of pure big money +colony (no actions), and on the very first one, the BMU player got 55 points in 22 turns (though that was a little better than average). So while your Adventurer did counter his rabbles, you were still facing an opponent that did barely better than big money plus nothing, even after a Count opening.

Adventurer is okay when you get rid of your coppers, but often times there are just so many *better* things to do if you can easily get rid of all your coppers. I think this board was an example of that situation, but your opponent just wasn't able to do it.

45

Hearthstone / Re: Has anyone learned Hearthstone yet?

« on: December 28, 2013, 08:23:45 pm »

Heh, with all this hearthstone buzz, and since I don't really even play dominion anymore, I finally signed up for the beta. Hope I get an invite soon.

I'm not planning to be any good at it, I don't really want to get deep into the strategy like I did with dominion, I hope their matchmaking is good enough to match me up against other people who don't know what they're doing and don't have any fancy cards or whatever.

46

Goko Dominion Online / Re: It Gets Worse

« on: December 26, 2013, 08:07:25 pm »

Common myth.

http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/suicide.asp

I have a direct relative Psychologist and another one Psychiatrist and both claim knowledge of scientific study supporting the "higher suicide during Christmas" hypothesis. They say (I am talking with them as I write) that is not a huge difference, but statistically significant. I asked for the articles, but no-one is willing to interrupt their activities to go find it.

Maybe there are not enough Dominion players in Minnesota to impact the statistics.

Is it specifically at christmas, or during winter in general?

47

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Grinch Goko?

« on: December 20, 2013, 11:13:19 am »

Is it just me or Goko started failing again? It has been working horribly until I could not even get to the login page anymore.

It's not just you, at least one more person on getsatisfaction posted with the same problem.

48

General Discussion / Re: DominionStrategy Forum Members Map!

« on: December 13, 2013, 07:36:59 pm »

No, there's no hellmouth here. Though there's probably a tech startup trying to make one.

49

General Discussion / Re: DominionStrategy Forum Members Map!

« on: December 13, 2013, 07:30:11 pm »

Locations appear to still be immutable. I'm now in Sunnyvale instead of San Diego or LA.

50

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Is there a "good" and "bad" way to Win in Dominion?

« on: December 07, 2013, 09:08:21 pm »

I'd say it's the other way around. It's dishonorable to drag the game on when you could end it with a win.

If  I'm playing against someone and they deliberately let a win pass by them - knowing they could end it - the rest of the game is sort of unsatisfying. We could go on for a bunch more turns before my opponent wins, and then I feel like they just dragged it on for no good reason. And if I win, I feel like I was "gifted" the game - I mean, I'll take the win I guess, but it doesn't feel right at all. (If the other person didn't *see* the three-pile, that's different, then I feel like I took advantage of their mistake and that's all well and good. But if they saw it and just deliberately decided to deliberately not win? That's just weird.)