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2301

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: How many niches for village-types are left? Can you think of any new ones?

« on: August 30, 2011, 05:07:29 pm »

I like it at a plain-vanilla +3 Actions, myself, but after more thought I'm entirely convinced it should cost more than $2.

I don't see why it would cost more than 2. I won't say it's strictly inferior to fishing village, but it does sort of the same thing but doesn't provide money.

2302

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: How many niches for village-types are left? Can you think of any new ones?

« on: August 30, 2011, 02:37:57 pm »

Logging Village
$2 - Action
+3 Actions

I've always thought that a +3 action card would be fun to have (Fishing village not withstanding). I think this would make an interesting card but the problem with a +3 action card, especially one that doesn't give +card, is that the reason to buy +3 actions would be to require fewer of them in your deck than a traditional village, but you would still need just as many or more to ensure you draw them with terminals.

2303

Simulation / Re: Dominion Simulator available for download!

« on: August 29, 2011, 09:29:59 pm »

I have a question. How does the simulator handle the play of wishing well? I was trying to test the benefits of wishing well/silver opening. I know picking a card to wish for isn't exactly non-trivial, but it could just be coded to wish for the highest probability card in the draw deck.

2304

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Compare the Villages

« on: August 29, 2011, 08:39:21 pm »

I think this graph says a lot.

http://councilroom.com/win_weighted_accum_turn.html?cards=shanty%20town%2C%20village%2C%20silver%2C%20mining%20village

Shanty town isn't so bad as an opening depending on the board but you are probably better off opening silver/silver most of the time.

Shanty town is an odd case as a village, because you don't want to have to use it's village powers as many have mentioned. The lack of +card hurts a draw engine considerably. You want shanty town to be a cheap lab, sort of like wishing well. In this case I'd agree that it's an underrated card, but it is not an underrated village.

2305

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Hoard/Scout

« on: August 29, 2011, 08:05:31 pm »

Since the scout takes up a card slot you need to draw on average one green card per play. This means that scout will be a net positive when your deck is >25% victory cards. There are other uses of scout, namely in draw engines to help protect against bad draws, but I don't think those are of interest here. The problem with scout in a hoard game is the opportunity cost. By the time you have sufficient victory density, the game is fairly far along. At that point with $5+ you'd want to buy duchy and with less than that you might want an estate anyway, especially with a hoard in hand.

To me it feels like scout works better in theory than in practice in this type of deck.

2306

Dominion General Discussion / What's your dominion pet peeve?

« on: August 29, 2011, 02:37:17 am »

I thought it might be fun to share these with each other.

My pet peeve, and this is more related to the isotropic implementation of the game, is when my opponent continues to reveal tournaments after I've revealed a province. I realize you've bought 8 of them because they are fun to spam early, but I don't need to know that you drew a hand of 4 dead tournaments. Let's just move on.

Note: If there is a reason to keep revealing them (i.e. conspirator or peddler) then by all means go ahead.

2307

Game Reports / Re: why i hate black market

« on: August 26, 2011, 04:36:15 pm »

Looking at the game log, on turn 11 you had both a bank and a tactician saboteured but gained nothing to replace them. It is almost always in your best interest in a sab heavy game to take lesser cards which still cost 3+ to reduce the likelihood of future cards getting hit.

2308

Game Reports / Re: Goons/KC/Masq-Hand Deletion/Infinite Pin

« on: August 26, 2011, 01:51:13 am »

I too got to do the 'Paralyzed Challenge.' Suffice it to say I did it better.

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201108/25/game-20110825-224230-1713f73a.html

2309

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What would make you go Village/Smithy?

« on: August 23, 2011, 05:46:37 pm »

The main problem is that village/smithy is going to start tanking hard once you start greening so the only way to make it work is with 1 mega turn which requires a huge amount of buys and money, but it still has to be fast. The smithy/BM player should expect 4 provinces by turn 14 or 15 with a 5th and 6th in the next few turns, or at least some duchies, and can probably secure half the VP's by turn 18 or so.

Would you go for Village/Smithy/Goons/Chapel?

I suspect Goons might be the best way to make village/smithy more viable that smithy/big money, since there is essentially an unlimited number of points to be had and the smithy/BM is going to take some time to run the game out on piles. The trasher might not even be necessary but then you will run into the same problem of the engine stalling hard once you start adding useless coppers. I think watchtower might be very helpful here.

The problem here is that this engine really has nothing to do with village/smithy. They are simply enablers for the real players: Goons and watchtower (or chapel) and this combo works with any sort of draw engine of which there are thousands (millions? billions?) of which village/smithy is one of the worst.

2310

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What would make you go Village/Smithy?

« on: August 23, 2011, 04:13:04 pm »

Banks and any source of +buy, especially non-terminal. Substituting worker's village for vanilla village helps a lot.

2311

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Any Gossip About Fall 2011 Expansion?

« on: August 19, 2011, 04:28:11 am »

Playing an antipeddler gives you a coin and raises the antipeddler cost by $1, so the net effect is zero. If you've played at least one action card (that doesn't make you richer) you couldn't buy this even with every copper in the game. In the early game any estate is going to make it almost impossible to buy it as you'd need a gold to make up for the extra card in your hand. Late game you usually have quite a couple of cards in play and the card won't be attractive anymore anyway.

When I first read this card I read it as +$1 per action card in play, but you are right; it does just say card. But your reasoning about the estate is flawed. Estates never make it in play and thus don't increase the cards cost.

2312

Game Reports / Re: Dear My Opponent: I am Sorry

« on: August 18, 2011, 02:49:42 am »

Here's another one I have a lot to be sorry for.

Double tactician? Check.
King's courting bridges? Check.
Swindling his bridge into a curse? Check
Remaking coppers into golds and golds into provinces? Check and check.

2313

Dominion Articles / Combo: Ghost Ship + Fortune Teller

« on: August 18, 2011, 02:44:12 am »

Ok, so this probably isn't the most practical combo in most circumstances, but here's a game I played recently where I used it to great effect.

Having gained most of the alchemists, I was able to pull this off nearly every turn from midgame on. Ghost ship on it's own, played every turn, is a devastating attack. What the fortune teller adds is the inability for the opponent to top deck useful things hoping for a better turn next time, making it that much nastier. I suppose one way to somewhat circumvent this would be to use a victory card as a shield for one other card.  Since they are both terminals, you need a village type card. This makes the combo practical only in large action chain engines.

2314

Game Reports / Re: Dear My Opponent: I am Sorry

« on: August 17, 2011, 05:47:41 pm »

I played a game the other day where I went 8 for 8 in mountebanks by turn 19.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110813-112933-5d9608ca.html

2315

Dominion Articles / Re: Beginner Strategy: Colonies, Provinces, and Piles: How the game ends

« on: August 15, 2011, 05:51:03 pm »

Popular, strong, spammable cards like Fishing Village and Caravan are also likely to deplete in the early game and can set up a three-pile ending.  Grand Market is an interesting special case -- usually, it is expensive enough that it can't be depleted in the early game, but if there is something that starts a GM run early, it is so good at setting up other-pile depletion that it can very easily create a three-pile ending.

Very nice primer on game endings. The above quote highlights a particularly interesting situation which should probably merit it's own article. I often find that the presence of strong engine cards or combos (minion/Grand market, fishing village/wharf etc) very often results in a three pile ending which, if you aren't paying attention can really sneak up on you. It's very tempting to want to continue to build your engine, but when those piles become in danger of depleting, you need to start greening, perhaps earlier than you'd think. I've been on the receiving end of a 1-0 loss where my opponent was able to deplete a third pile while nabbing just a single estate.

I've found that in higher level play, the winner of these types of matches tends to be the player who recognizes when to go green and is able to maneuver the three pile ending to his advantage.

2316

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Any Gossip About Fall 2011 Expansion?

« on: August 12, 2011, 09:47:37 pm »

Hinterlands has no tokens or mats or anything, just cards, and thus the MSRP is $5 less than for those other sets.

I guess that rules out all the 'when you gain this card, +n VP tokens' ideas.

2317

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Scrying Pool

« on: August 12, 2011, 02:17:26 am »

A good scrying pool engine depends on a high action density. You can achieve this through good (or even decent) trashing or cheap, spammable actions. It is much more viable if you have actions with provide a good source of +coin, so you dont need to buy treasures to slow you down and +buy so you can get even more cheap actions (including turns where you can get another scrying pool and other stuff). If there are terminal actions you will certainly need a village type card. Particularly good cards that I've found for this type of engine include Festival (+coin/buy/actions), Navigator (maximize scrying pool draw) and apothecary (similar to navigator but get those coppers into hand too). 

The inverse of this is yes, curses, especially in the absence of trashing, will really slow this engine down. It might not kill it, but it will probably prevent you from drawing your hand every turn.

How to defend against it? Well, if it's the dominant strategy? Play it better I guess. If there are non-curse attacks, you can count on the scrying pool engine to be the one to play them much more frequently.

2318

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Any Gossip About Fall 2011 Expansion?

« on: August 11, 2011, 03:41:13 pm »

I know it gets mixed reactions but I just have to say I love the game descriptions and this one is probably my favorite yet.

2319

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Custom Set Challenge #1

« on: August 10, 2011, 02:30:50 pm »

Kirian - I like your set a lot but i count 11 kingdom cards.

2320

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Threesies

« on: August 07, 2011, 09:02:41 pm »

Well there are a ton of other cards that would work here but

#3 These represent three different ways of giving you $2 to spend (action phase, buy phase, next turn).

2321

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Threesies

« on: August 07, 2011, 08:38:39 pm »

Not really something they have in common, but it makes them an interesting grouping of 3 cards:

8. This group of 3 cards represents 6 different card types with no duplicates (Curse, Treasure, Victory, Action, Attack, Prize). No other group of 3 cards matches or exceeds this feat.

8. Each card has a type or combination of types that no other card has.

This would be nice, but doesn't say Trusty Steed have the same types as followers? This would work if it were diadem though.

Trusty Steed is Action-Prize and shares that typing with princess and bag of gold. Followers is Action-Attack-Prize and is unique. Diadem is also unique, however.

2322

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: How many niches for village-types are left? Can you think of any new ones?

« on: August 07, 2011, 08:29:26 pm »

Idiot Village

+1 Card
+2 Actions

+1 Card for each card in play with Village in it's name.

Now you CAN spam villages for great effect!

2323

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: How many niches for village-types are left? Can you think of any new ones?

« on: August 07, 2011, 05:04:45 pm »

Actually, now that I think about it, the stronger variant might be under-costed at $5 since it is essentially village+warehouse+lab. Maybe it should be $6.

2324

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: How many niches for village-types are left? Can you think of any new ones?

« on: August 07, 2011, 04:59:31 pm »

Frontier Village
$3
+2 Actions, +2 Cards, discard 2 Cards

I was thinking of a similar village which is:

+2 Cards, +2 Actions
Discard 1 Card
$4

This maintains your hand size like a normal village would but gives a touch more flexibility. Alternatively, you could try a stronger variant like +3 cards and discard 2 and cost it at $5.

2325

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Expert Advice for Novices: What did I do wrong??

« on: August 07, 2011, 04:30:12 pm »

Oh I agree that Ghost Ship is a fantastic attack. I don't think there's anything more annoying than playing against a good engine that plays GS on almost every turn.

There are also other reasons Merchant Ship/nothing might be a better opening that Ghost Ship/nothing. Merchant's benefit to your own deck is vastly superior than Ghost Ship's. Your average card value is less than $1 during the first reshuffle so the +2 cards from GS is less beneficial than +$2 from MS, even if you don't consider the duration effect.

Additionally, the GS has a 6/11 chance of missing a reshuffle, since on turn 4 you only have 1 card in draw pile. And if you draw MS on turn 3, you will get benefits from it on turns 3,4 and still have a chance to draw it on turns 5 or 6.