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Mafia Game Threads / Drunk Mafia IV--well, the Moon's disappeared
« on: August 01, 2013, 10:31:06 pm »
Right now, this is all in preparation. HuzzahQ. but, you know...tag to keep up with events.
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Mafia Game Threads / Mafia XXVI: Back to Basics (Day 3)
« on: June 03, 2013, 05:45:14 pm »
neato, it's Mafia XXVI: Back to Basics
Signup process:
This game will be using the 2of4 setup (because it's simple, duh), and will support 9 players. It's possible that more want to signup and all will be able to; after some amount of time (I'm aiming for 7 days), signups will close, and I will randomly choose the 9 players from the set of players that have signed up (there will also be at least one spot for an "auto-sub" who will not be invited to the Speccy QT, assuming somebody is interested in filling that role). This will help keep a short, simple, fun game going smoothly.
Because there will likely be players who wanted to play but were not able to it would be rather rude to signup, nab a spot, and then proceed to not post. So if you are granted a spot, you are expected to at least pretend to play. Any player who doesn't post for a 48-hr period without announcing some sort of V/LA will be replaced by an auto-sub (or first PM to me from a non-player, if no auto-sub is available).
Player List
1. spiritbears/Eevee
2. chairs
3. liopoil
4. yuma
5. mcmcsalot
6. Robz888 (Mafia Goon)--Lynched Day2
7. Voltaire
8. nkirbit (Vanilla Townie)--Lynched Day1
9. mail-mi
Handy navigation!
Day1 start
Day2 start
Day3 start
Basic Mafia Ruleset (shameless thievery, don't report me).
Some text bolded for emphasis, or to highlight minor changes from what one might consider 'standard'.
The Golden Rule:
Please remember that this is a game and your main objective is to have fun! Be considerate of each other, don’t get personal, and enjoy the game.
Game Rules:
General Gameplay and Etiquette:
1. You may not quote private Moderator-supplied information (either real or fabricated) of any kind. Paraphrasing (for role claims, etc.) is acceptable.
2. There is to be NO personal communication outside of the forum postings unless your role PM specifically allows it. Mafia members may communicate at night and during the confirmation stage.
3. If you have a role with a Night action your choices are due to the mod by the posted deadline. If I do not receive your PM by the posted deadline you will forfeit your actions. In case of multiple submissions, the last valid one before the deadline will be used.
4. Roles with Night actions will not be able to submit an action on Night 0 (i.e. during the confirmation stage).
5. Any player with a Night action may instead submit a “No Action” PM to let the Mod know that you do not want to perform your expected action that Night phase.
6. As a general rule you should aim for one post every 30 hours, minimum, to keep the game moving.
Voting, Deadlines, and Player Death:
1. A simple majority (rounded up) of all living members must agree on one person for a lynch to occur prior to deadline.
2. Once you have reached a simple majority no further unvoting will change someone’s fate. Further votes will also be ignored.
3. Once a player is lynched the game enters twilight until I post a death scene; all players including the one who was lynched may continue to post during twilight.
4. Please submit votes as: Vote: PlayerName. Votes will NOT be counted if they are not bold or do not follow this syntax! Obvious abbreviations or nicknames will be counted so long as they are unambiguous.
5. Please submit vote revocations as either Unvote: PlayerName or Unvote. Unvotes are not necessary before changing votes.
6. You may Vote: No Lynch - a simple majority (rounded up) of these vote types are required to send the game to Night phase without a lynch.
7. Once you are killed (either via lynch or night kill) you may no longer post. This means that you do not even get a “Bah” post. The dead in this game are silent.
8. Do not edit or delete posts. We don't want some players having more information than others. If you want to clarify posts, feel free to double post.
9. Each game 'day' will last about 2 weeks, and each game 'night' will last 2 days.
Miscellaneous/Mechanics:
1. Blue text is reserved for the Mod. No invisible/small text is allowed, nor is cryptography.
2. If you have an issue/problem with the game, please PM the Mod privately. Do not post issues/complaints in the game thread.
3. The Mod may make mistakes - please point out any mistakes gently. Mistakes will be corrected where possible, but sometimes mistakes are made that cannot be reversed. These will stand as final to be commiserated over after the game.
4. Please bold all requests to the Mods so that they don’t get missed.
5. Prods of missing players will be issued automatically after 36 hours of no activity or upon request if the mod deems the absence 'long enough'. A prodded player has 12 hours to respond or risks replacement. A player who has been prodded 3 times is subject to replacement without further notice.
6. Rule violations will be dealt with according to their severity, up to and including a Modkill.
7. If you anticipate being unavailable for more than a 48-hour period please post a notice to that effect in the thread. Treat this game as a commitment. Be considerate – don’t leave us hanging.
Helpful Links:
TO CLARIFY, I AM NOT A MODERATOR OF F.DS IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM. IN THE CONTEXT OF THIS GAME, I AM MODERATING THAT THE RULES ARE FOLLOWED AND HIDDEN ACTIONS ARE COMPLETED PROPERLY.
Signup process:
This game will be using the 2of4 setup (because it's simple, duh), and will support 9 players. It's possible that more want to signup and all will be able to; after some amount of time (I'm aiming for 7 days), signups will close, and I will randomly choose the 9 players from the set of players that have signed up (there will also be at least one spot for an "auto-sub" who will not be invited to the Speccy QT, assuming somebody is interested in filling that role). This will help keep a short, simple, fun game going smoothly.
Because there will likely be players who wanted to play but were not able to it would be rather rude to signup, nab a spot, and then proceed to not post. So if you are granted a spot, you are expected to at least pretend to play. Any player who doesn't post for a 48-hr period without announcing some sort of V/LA will be replaced by an auto-sub (or first PM to me from a non-player, if no auto-sub is available).
Player List
1. spiritbears/Eevee
2. chairs
3. liopoil
4. yuma
5. mcmcsalot
7. Voltaire
9. mail-mi
Handy navigation!
Day1 start
Day2 start
Day3 start
Basic Mafia Ruleset (shameless thievery, don't report me).
Some text bolded for emphasis, or to highlight minor changes from what one might consider 'standard'.
The Golden Rule:
Please remember that this is a game and your main objective is to have fun! Be considerate of each other, don’t get personal, and enjoy the game.
Game Rules:
General Gameplay and Etiquette:
1. You may not quote private Moderator-supplied information (either real or fabricated) of any kind. Paraphrasing (for role claims, etc.) is acceptable.
2. There is to be NO personal communication outside of the forum postings unless your role PM specifically allows it. Mafia members may communicate at night and during the confirmation stage.
3. If you have a role with a Night action your choices are due to the mod by the posted deadline. If I do not receive your PM by the posted deadline you will forfeit your actions. In case of multiple submissions, the last valid one before the deadline will be used.
4. Roles with Night actions will not be able to submit an action on Night 0 (i.e. during the confirmation stage).
5. Any player with a Night action may instead submit a “No Action” PM to let the Mod know that you do not want to perform your expected action that Night phase.
6. As a general rule you should aim for one post every 30 hours, minimum, to keep the game moving.
Voting, Deadlines, and Player Death:
1. A simple majority (rounded up) of all living members must agree on one person for a lynch to occur prior to deadline.
2. Once you have reached a simple majority no further unvoting will change someone’s fate. Further votes will also be ignored.
3. Once a player is lynched the game enters twilight until I post a death scene; all players including the one who was lynched may continue to post during twilight.
4. Please submit votes as: Vote: PlayerName. Votes will NOT be counted if they are not bold or do not follow this syntax! Obvious abbreviations or nicknames will be counted so long as they are unambiguous.
5. Please submit vote revocations as either Unvote: PlayerName or Unvote. Unvotes are not necessary before changing votes.
6. You may Vote: No Lynch - a simple majority (rounded up) of these vote types are required to send the game to Night phase without a lynch.
7. Once you are killed (either via lynch or night kill) you may no longer post. This means that you do not even get a “Bah” post. The dead in this game are silent.
8. Do not edit or delete posts. We don't want some players having more information than others. If you want to clarify posts, feel free to double post.
9. Each game 'day' will last about 2 weeks, and each game 'night' will last 2 days.
Miscellaneous/Mechanics:
1. Blue text is reserved for the Mod. No invisible/small text is allowed, nor is cryptography.
2. If you have an issue/problem with the game, please PM the Mod privately. Do not post issues/complaints in the game thread.
3. The Mod may make mistakes - please point out any mistakes gently. Mistakes will be corrected where possible, but sometimes mistakes are made that cannot be reversed. These will stand as final to be commiserated over after the game.
4. Please bold all requests to the Mods so that they don’t get missed.
5. Prods of missing players will be issued automatically after 36 hours of no activity or upon request if the mod deems the absence 'long enough'. A prodded player has 12 hours to respond or risks replacement. A player who has been prodded 3 times is subject to replacement without further notice.
6. Rule violations will be dealt with according to their severity, up to and including a Modkill.
7. If you anticipate being unavailable for more than a 48-hour period please post a notice to that effect in the thread. Treat this game as a commitment. Be considerate – don’t leave us hanging.
Helpful Links:
TO CLARIFY, I AM NOT A MODERATOR OF F.DS IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM. IN THE CONTEXT OF THIS GAME, I AM MODERATING THAT THE RULES ARE FOLLOWED AND HIDDEN ACTIONS ARE COMPLETED PROPERLY.
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Non-Mafia Game Threads / Vanilla Resistance.
« on: May 04, 2013, 12:54:55 am »
I have interest for running a basic/vanilla Resistance game with no Plot Cards, on a blitz timer. Sometime this weekend. Who's in?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Resistance_(game)
Basic rules can be found in the link above. Here is my crappy explanation: there are two teams, the good saviors of humanity who are overthrowing an EEEEEVIL government. And there are spies amongst The Resistance, who are evil government agents hoping to undermine the set of 5 missions that The Resistance is carrying out.
Each round, a team leader will propose a team to complete the next mission. Players will vote on if this mission is carried out or not. If the mission proposal fails, the position of team leader is passed to the next player. If the mission proposal succeeds, then the players who are on the mission PM to me whether they help the mission "succeed" or if they "sabotage" the mission. The first team (resistance/spies) to collect 3 of the 5 missions will win.
I don't have any fancy images, so I'll just be posting text-announcements of game-state-stuff.
Here are the players, in the order used for Team Leader choosing"
1. mail-mi
2. liopoil
3. Jimmmmm
4. Archetype
5. TheMunch
6. Twistedarcher
Missions thus far:
Mission 1: 2 players--Pass
Mission 2: 3 players--Pass
Mission 3: 4 players--Fail
Mission 4: 3 players--Fail
Mission 5: 4 players--Pass
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Resistance_(game)
Basic rules can be found in the link above. Here is my crappy explanation: there are two teams, the good saviors of humanity who are overthrowing an EEEEEVIL government. And there are spies amongst The Resistance, who are evil government agents hoping to undermine the set of 5 missions that The Resistance is carrying out.
Each round, a team leader will propose a team to complete the next mission. Players will vote on if this mission is carried out or not. If the mission proposal fails, the position of team leader is passed to the next player. If the mission proposal succeeds, then the players who are on the mission PM to me whether they help the mission "succeed" or if they "sabotage" the mission. The first team (resistance/spies) to collect 3 of the 5 missions will win.
I don't have any fancy images, so I'll just be posting text-announcements of game-state-stuff.
Here are the players, in the order used for Team Leader choosing"
1. mail-mi
2. liopoil
3. Jimmmmm
4. Archetype
5. TheMunch
6. Twistedarcher
Missions thus far:
Mission 1: 2 players--Pass
Mission 2: 3 players--Pass
Mission 3: 4 players--Fail
Mission 4: 3 players--Fail
Mission 5: 4 players--Pass
4
Mafia Game Threads / DMII--battle for the saucepan
« on: March 03, 2013, 02:14:11 am »
Yeah, this got a title and everything. As with other drunk-mafia games, each player signing up has received a #. These numbers aren't given randomly.
The setup will be posted, and any players with unique roles will be identified via their number. Players whose numbers are not identified will be vanilla townies.
Players:
1. raerae
2. Galzria
3. TheMunch
4. Archetype
5. Axxle
6. Morgrim
The setup will be posted, and any players with unique roles will be identified via their number. Players whose numbers are not identified will be vanilla townies.
Players:
1. raerae
2. Galzria
3. TheMunch
4. Archetype
5. Axxle
6. Morgrim
5
Mafia Game Threads / Drunk Mafia
« on: March 01, 2013, 10:51:45 pm »
Let's do this. Signups now. I'll start it when I feel like, or put it off to a future weekend. I'll be the mod; players encouracged to drink. I'll post some rules maybe.
Basically, you got some people who are mafia and some people who are town. there are days and nights. lynch people in daytime, but just one per daytime. mafia make secret kills at night. Whatever, it'll be great.
Basically, you got some people who are mafia and some people who are town. there are days and nights. lynch people in daytime, but just one per daytime. mafia make secret kills at night. Whatever, it'll be great.
6
Non-Mafia Game Threads / Diplomacy 2: Fool Me Twice (this thread will have current game-states)
« on: December 30, 2012, 12:07:40 pm »
The powers are:
Austria: Robz
England: Grujah
France: liopoil
Germany: Jimmmmm
Italy: Qvist Person#2 Person#3
Russia: Davio hyramgraff
Turkey: Galzria--WINNER
The starting board is below, see the opening post for some cool Diplomacy resources and tools.
Please send me the moves by PM before the deadline (I will try to be strict yet kind, a difficult and narrow path to walk).
First deadline is Tuesday, January 8th at 2pm forum time (Early submissions allowed and encouraged; if you change your mind at any time, new moves will be accepted up until I have posted the updated map)
Links
Current state: (Fall 1915)
Total Centers:
Austria: Robz 0 centers
England: Grujah 12 centers
France: liopoil 3 centers
Germany: Jimmmmm 1 center
Italy: Person#3 0 centers
Russia: hyramgraff 0 centers
Turkey: Galzria 18 centers--WINNER
England: Grujah
France: liopoil
Germany: Jimmmmm
Turkey: Galzria--WINNER
The starting board is below, see the opening post for some cool Diplomacy resources and tools.
Please send me the moves by PM before the deadline (I will try to be strict yet kind, a difficult and narrow path to walk).
First deadline is Tuesday, January 8th at 2pm forum time (Early submissions allowed and encouraged; if you change your mind at any time, new moves will be accepted up until I have posted the updated map)
Links
- Diplomacy Official Rulebook
- Quick Teaching Guide
- jDip, a great tool for testing move ideas and making sure they're legal.
- Map for Printing
Current state: (Fall 1915)
Total Centers:
England: Grujah 12 centers
France: liopoil 3 centers
Germany: Jimmmmm 1 center
Turkey: Galzria 18 centers--WINNER
7
Forum Games / Slow-mo Tens10n (a x5 submission game--forming)
« on: December 05, 2012, 06:46:54 pm »
There are 10 boxes. Box 1 is worth 1 point, Box 2 is worth 2 points, and so on up to Box 10, worth 10 points.
There are 10 players. Each player has 10 chits, and places one per round in a Box.
To join the game, post here and then send me a PM assigning your102 chits for the current round to the 10 boxes. At the end of the game, if you have put the most chits in a box, you win that box and its points! If there is a tie for the highest number of chits, no one gets the box. (Note: If you don't post here and send a PM, you will not be signed up - I will take the first 10 who do both and submit a valid round 1 assignment.)
Whoever gets the most total points wins. New tiebreaker rule: whoever wins the most boxes wins ties between players finishing with the same number of points. If players are still tied, they rejoice in their shared victory!
Players:
1. Archetype
2. cayvie
3. bozzball
4. Grujah
5. Schneau
6. jotheonah
(If you think you've /in'ed and you aren't on this list, let me know)
There are 10 players. Each player has 10 chits, and places one per round in a Box.
To join the game, post here and then send me a PM assigning your
Whoever gets the most total points wins. New tiebreaker rule: whoever wins the most boxes wins ties between players finishing with the same number of points. If players are still tied, they rejoice in their shared victory!
Players:
1. Archetype
2. cayvie
3. bozzball
4. Grujah
5. Schneau
6. jotheonah
(If you think you've /in'ed and you aren't on this list, let me know)
8
Help! / Huge debate needs help.
« on: November 16, 2012, 11:30:56 pm »
Baron, Chancellor, Grand Market, Haggler, Horn of Plenty, Mandarin, Mining Village, Mountebank, Silk Road, Tournament
Here is the board. TheMunch is convinced that every time Baron is on the board (including this time) it is the proper opening. It's his favorite card (tied with goons and hoard). I opened Mining Village/Silver. My girlfriend opened Tournament/Silver. TheMunch opened Baron/Silver.
What is correct?
TheMunch eventually won, because he had many GrandMarkets and played a SilkRoads/Estates heavy strategy (got some provinces too), which beat out the Province strategy that me/girlfriend went for.
Let's say (because y'all are best at this) that we're playing two player instead of three player. What is best here?
ACTUALLY, if anyone can speak to three-player strategies, that is more impressive.
Here is the board. TheMunch is convinced that every time Baron is on the board (including this time) it is the proper opening. It's his favorite card (tied with goons and hoard). I opened Mining Village/Silver. My girlfriend opened Tournament/Silver. TheMunch opened Baron/Silver.
What is correct?
TheMunch eventually won, because he had many GrandMarkets and played a SilkRoads/Estates heavy strategy (got some provinces too), which beat out the Province strategy that me/girlfriend went for.
Let's say (because y'all are best at this) that we're playing two player instead of three player. What is best here?
ACTUALLY, if anyone can speak to three-player strategies, that is more impressive.
9
Help! / Shraeye tries to get better
« on: November 12, 2012, 09:58:25 pm »
Hey, I'm shraeye. I'm much more present on the games forum than in the actual Dominion-related area, but mostly because I'm not experienced enough to comment on different articles/strategies/gamelogs/etc. I'm trying to change that. Currently, I'm level 10 or so on Isotropic, and probably only have 70 games (I can't actually check, because until today I hadn't played a game in a while).
So here's a thread where I post terrible games, close matches, and awesome wins (hah, that'll take a while) and kindly ask those better than me to take a look at those logs and give me one major lesson per game (ok, maybe two if you have some really good ideas; but laundry lists of everything I need to do to improve would be toooo long and overwhelming).
I was going to start off with an unfortunate loss to MrEevee where he steamrolled me with a University/Stables type engine. But I don't have that log, so instead I'll start with a win, which by a margin that surprised me by its smallness at the end (I also play with point counter off most the time, so often don't know how well i'm doing).
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/12/game-20121112-184359-e62202f0.html
My summary:
So here's a thread where I post terrible games, close matches, and awesome wins (hah, that'll take a while) and kindly ask those better than me to take a look at those logs and give me one major lesson per game (ok, maybe two if you have some really good ideas; but laundry lists of everything I need to do to improve would be toooo long and overwhelming).
I was going to start off with an unfortunate loss to MrEevee where he steamrolled me with a University/Stables type engine. But I don't have that log, so instead I'll start with a win, which by a margin that surprised me by its smallness at the end (I also play with point counter off most the time, so often don't know how well i'm doing).
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/12/game-20121112-184359-e62202f0.html
My summary:
- My initial plan is to get a few actions going with Upgrade (turn Estates into Silvers/Wishing wells) and Mining Village, then start buying Border Villages and gaining Conspirators, eventually buying double Provinces. It mostly works.
- I get distracted by a Trade Route, which frustrates me as I have to trash cards that I'm not sure if I can afford or not because I'm not tracking my deck's worth (this is the reason I bought a random copper with 2 Provinces once).
- I become afraid to use Upgrade for much the same reason.
- Twice Wishing Well finds my Conspirators, yay!
10
Forum Games / Diplomacy 2: Fool Me Twice
« on: October 12, 2012, 12:48:53 pm »
If you fool me once, shame on you; if you fool me twice, it's Diplomacy!
I'm taking over leadership of GMing this game. It didn't look like anyone else was willing to do it, so I assume there are no complaints. This will be a standard game of Diplomacy, no variants (barring overwhelming support for a particular variant from the players). I liked the way Davio handled it, so in homage to his prowess, I'm basically going to steal his intro-post and method of running the game.
General details:
- 2 seasons (= 1 year) per week (actual deadlines will be determined later)
- It will be a standard game with positions drawn from my imaginary bag (online randomizer)
- I will be using an offline Judge program called jDip to enter and resolve all the moves
- Experience with Diplomacy will be useful, but it's not required, just make sure you know the rules
What I need is basically 7 people willing to play. Signups will be closed next weekend (the 20th of October sometime). If we don't reach 7 players, I may consider some variant for less people, but will push for more people to signup. If we get more than 7 players, the winners will be drawn from my magical bag.
So if this seems like fun to you, just post that you're willing to play and you're (almost) in!
Links
- Diplomacy Official Rulebook
- Quick Teaching Guide
- jDip, a great tool for testing move ideas and making sure they're legal.
- Map for Printing
There are most definitely other resources for strategy around the internet. Here are two site where you can research to your heart's content. But let me emphasize that knowing good strategy and doing well are two totally different beasts. Diplomacy with fellow players is infinitely more important than knowing 5 different opening variations. Lots of strategy tips have self-confirmation bias. Maybe people say that Turkey-Austria is a super tough alliance to pull off and maybe it's true. But I bet that it would be easier to do if both players hadn't read an article saying that it was tough.
Players signed up for random draw:
- Galzria
- Robz
- Grujah
- Qvist
- Davio
- Jimmmmm
- liopoil
11
General Discussion / Baseball playoffs, 2012!!
« on: October 05, 2012, 11:20:08 am »
I'm super jazzed up to see the Giants win it all again! No but seriously, we will win. I'm excited to watch some postseason games, and post things up in here while things are going on.
First question, what do you think about the 1-game wildcard playoff system? I'm a fan, it's gonna be super exciting. A friend of mine still swears this is the worst thing that has happened to baseball. Thoughts?
First question, what do you think about the 1-game wildcard playoff system? I'm a fan, it's gonna be super exciting. A friend of mine still swears this is the worst thing that has happened to baseball. Thoughts?
12
Dominion General Discussion / I'm playing dark ages! "peasants" recommended set
« on: September 29, 2012, 12:09:10 am »
So I recently got my copy of dark ages, and did something I felt was fantastic. I just love Dark Ages thus far. I was playing the "Peasants" recommended setup using Seaside and Dark Ages: Death Cart, Feodum, Poor House, Urchin, Vagrant / Fishing Village, Haven, Island, Lookout, Warehouse.
Opened Warehouse/Fishing village, then bought two urchins on turns 3 and 4. I got another urchin and fishing village quickly. Pretty quickly, I was playing Mercenaries, and trashing all my money, so I could chain poor houses together using Fishing Villages for the win. One problem, I didn't have any +Buy. Buuuuut, Death Cart was out, so the Ruins pile was there. Guess who spent $10 on a Ruined Market??? [[this is the play I thought was just fantastic, how often do you spend $10 on a 0 cost card, and even begin to think it was a good choice?]] It turns out it was a crucial buy, and that helped me keep things running while pickup up provinces almost every turn. I won easily and joy abounded.
I trashed some cards out with my mercenary, but I roughly had a deck that looked like this, 4 Poor Houses, 2 Mercenaries (was 3), 3 fishing villages, 1 vagrant, 3 islands, and I trashed my 1 warehouse since I was getting hit by mercenaries so often that I couldn't afford to start with a 2 card hand, even if they were nice cards. I never touched Death Cart, Lookout, Feodum, or Havens.
Has anyone else played this board? What happened? How did you play it?
Opened Warehouse/Fishing village, then bought two urchins on turns 3 and 4. I got another urchin and fishing village quickly. Pretty quickly, I was playing Mercenaries, and trashing all my money, so I could chain poor houses together using Fishing Villages for the win. One problem, I didn't have any +Buy. Buuuuut, Death Cart was out, so the Ruins pile was there. Guess who spent $10 on a Ruined Market??? [[this is the play I thought was just fantastic, how often do you spend $10 on a 0 cost card, and even begin to think it was a good choice?]] It turns out it was a crucial buy, and that helped me keep things running while pickup up provinces almost every turn. I won easily and joy abounded.
I trashed some cards out with my mercenary, but I roughly had a deck that looked like this, 4 Poor Houses, 2 Mercenaries (was 3), 3 fishing villages, 1 vagrant, 3 islands, and I trashed my 1 warehouse since I was getting hit by mercenaries so often that I couldn't afford to start with a 2 card hand, even if they were nice cards. I never touched Death Cart, Lookout, Feodum, or Havens.
Has anyone else played this board? What happened? How did you play it?
13
Goko Dominion Online / Is it really that bad?
« on: August 09, 2012, 02:52:53 am »
Here's a possibly controversial viewpoint. I don't like Isotropic and am excited to see what FunSockets can do. I hear some bad points now, and hope a portion of them are cleared up before launch. But another portion of these issues people are having sound ridiculous to me. Please hear out an opinion from someone who is really into Dominion and yet has only played 70 games on iso.
Iso layout is confusing, and very difficult to learn. There are no tutorials so you learn by making your first opponent furious at really stupid questions (this happened to me). It is really hard to figure out what cards do, and I only play isotropic on a PC with mouse and full range of keyboard shortcuts for zooming pages, controlling new tabs, etc. I feel really sorry for the person who has to learn Isotropic Dominion on any sort of tablet/phone. The mouseover delay is really hard for people who aren't encyclopedically familiar with the cards. I've heard my share of zzzzzzz's in chat while the opponent waits for me to read all of the cards. The popout page is not a good solution to this problem because there are no pictures there, and the card delineation boxes actually make it harder to figure out what's going on instead of breaking the cards up into easily read chunks, and there is absolutely no reasonable sorting of those popout cards.
The fact that the cards don't have the official artwork is a shame (an understandable shame, but that makes it no less of a shame). I've played IRL games of Dominion where I realized part-way through that a "new card" was actually one I'd played before on Isotropic. It's really hard to follow an opponent's mega-turn in Iso until you've seen a lot of them. The game log is very text-heavy and there are most definitely times when I have no idea what's going on. Think about how you play a first game (or should play one) with newbies. You play super slowly, you say "ok, now is the part where I can play one action, but I don't have any in my hand. So I skip to my buy phase and play these 4 coppers. 4 coppers lets me by a smithy, which goes into my discard pile. Now I clean up all cards played and those still in my hand and draw 5 new cards." I can teach dominion in 5 minutes tops if the first game is played at this explanatory pace, I can even speed up to regular turns after about 5-6 turns from the newbie. But if I throw down all starting cards as I sometimes do with my experienced friends on obvious boards and say "I open Smithy/Silver" this will make any newer player say "hold up and stop using words, because you are making negative amounts of sense."
Isotropic is not friendly in the least to players who aren't ready for it; I have many dominion playing friends who will always say "one more game?" in real life, even if we just played 10 games, but do not in any way at all like or appreciate Isotropic.
It really frustrates me when people post reasons for disliking/boycotting FunSockets Dominion that sound like "this sucks because it's not Isotropic", or only marginally better is when people say "this sucks because it doesn't do things like Isotropic does." That, I hope, is their goal. To do things better than Isotropic. Allow me to venture that the reason the new implementation is "not as good as Isotropic" is because you are too used to Isotropic. I want, I really want this to be not as good as Isotropic, I want it to be better than Isotropic. No insult meant to Dougz in the slightest, Isotropic is insanely good at what it does, and it has led me to a great community of pro-Dominion people. It is a 100% functional implementation of Dominion. But it is a maximum 40% good implementation of the game I love to play against real-life opponents. I would not pay for isotropic, and just this night two friends unconditionally agreed with me on this without hearing any explanation from me, they already felt the exact same way (and these are fiendishly dominion-crazy friends of mine; also one has played 60 games on Iso and the other has played 94—these aren’t uninformed opinions).
I'm not supporting Goko over Isotropic, but also not supporting Isotropic over FunSockets; in fact, I have no first-hand experience with FunSockets. I just really want people to try their best to compare FunSockets with real-life dominion, rewrite the whole book on online dominion, and end up with an even better implementation. It would make me quite sad if strong voices from this community make FunSockets into as close as an Isotropic knockoff as possible.
Iso layout is confusing, and very difficult to learn. There are no tutorials so you learn by making your first opponent furious at really stupid questions (this happened to me). It is really hard to figure out what cards do, and I only play isotropic on a PC with mouse and full range of keyboard shortcuts for zooming pages, controlling new tabs, etc. I feel really sorry for the person who has to learn Isotropic Dominion on any sort of tablet/phone. The mouseover delay is really hard for people who aren't encyclopedically familiar with the cards. I've heard my share of zzzzzzz's in chat while the opponent waits for me to read all of the cards. The popout page is not a good solution to this problem because there are no pictures there, and the card delineation boxes actually make it harder to figure out what's going on instead of breaking the cards up into easily read chunks, and there is absolutely no reasonable sorting of those popout cards.
The fact that the cards don't have the official artwork is a shame (an understandable shame, but that makes it no less of a shame). I've played IRL games of Dominion where I realized part-way through that a "new card" was actually one I'd played before on Isotropic. It's really hard to follow an opponent's mega-turn in Iso until you've seen a lot of them. The game log is very text-heavy and there are most definitely times when I have no idea what's going on. Think about how you play a first game (or should play one) with newbies. You play super slowly, you say "ok, now is the part where I can play one action, but I don't have any in my hand. So I skip to my buy phase and play these 4 coppers. 4 coppers lets me by a smithy, which goes into my discard pile. Now I clean up all cards played and those still in my hand and draw 5 new cards." I can teach dominion in 5 minutes tops if the first game is played at this explanatory pace, I can even speed up to regular turns after about 5-6 turns from the newbie. But if I throw down all starting cards as I sometimes do with my experienced friends on obvious boards and say "I open Smithy/Silver" this will make any newer player say "hold up and stop using words, because you are making negative amounts of sense."
Isotropic is not friendly in the least to players who aren't ready for it; I have many dominion playing friends who will always say "one more game?" in real life, even if we just played 10 games, but do not in any way at all like or appreciate Isotropic.
It really frustrates me when people post reasons for disliking/boycotting FunSockets Dominion that sound like "this sucks because it's not Isotropic", or only marginally better is when people say "this sucks because it doesn't do things like Isotropic does." That, I hope, is their goal. To do things better than Isotropic. Allow me to venture that the reason the new implementation is "not as good as Isotropic" is because you are too used to Isotropic. I want, I really want this to be not as good as Isotropic, I want it to be better than Isotropic. No insult meant to Dougz in the slightest, Isotropic is insanely good at what it does, and it has led me to a great community of pro-Dominion people. It is a 100% functional implementation of Dominion. But it is a maximum 40% good implementation of the game I love to play against real-life opponents. I would not pay for isotropic, and just this night two friends unconditionally agreed with me on this without hearing any explanation from me, they already felt the exact same way (and these are fiendishly dominion-crazy friends of mine; also one has played 60 games on Iso and the other has played 94—these aren’t uninformed opinions).
I'm not supporting Goko over Isotropic, but also not supporting Isotropic over FunSockets; in fact, I have no first-hand experience with FunSockets. I just really want people to try their best to compare FunSockets with real-life dominion, rewrite the whole book on online dominion, and end up with an even better implementation. It would make me quite sad if strong voices from this community make FunSockets into as close as an Isotropic knockoff as possible.
14
Dominion General Discussion / Game I lost with Hunting Party/Alchemist/Mountebank--what did I miss?
« on: August 08, 2012, 04:39:36 pm »
Here is a game I lost that I felt like I was doing better in than I apparently was. I had what felt like plenty of good cards, but couldn't seem to hit the really long turns like my opponent did 5 times. I noticed that my opponent bought no golds and always bought Hunting Parties over Gold with $6 and $7. Is this a mistake on my part to buy the golds instead of Hunting Parties?
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120806-133823-0b0624d7.html
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120806-133823-0b0624d7.html
15
Dominion General Discussion / New players' first encounter with complex expansions; fun and confusion ensue
« on: July 23, 2012, 02:21:14 pm »
This is secrety a "how-do-I-play-this-board" question, but I enjoy giving the background as well.
I recently had an idea to spice up my face-to-face dominion playing. I only have Intrigue and Base for now, but I really like playing with the other sets on isotropic and wanted to introduce my friends to them. So I printed out the mechanics of a kingdom only using expansions that I do not have, and tucked them into the sleeves of my current cards. Huzzah, new cards!
So we played with transmute, duchess, fool's gold, native village, warehouse, spice merchant, mountebank, highway, counting house, apprentice.
With 3 players, we played 3 rounds, and each won one apiece. The fun thing is that every round each player was trying a new strategy, and we even had very little overlap between players. The first round a strategy with fool's gold, warehouse, native village, and highway, using spice merchant for +buy won out (can't remember what he was playing against, but it's probably significant that nobody played mountebank this round). The second round was won by a player that went for double mountebank (but no village), apprentice, and warehouse. (this beat a similar strategy that used mountebank, warehouse, NV, and highway). The third round was won by a player who relied on warehouse, apprentice, spice merchant, and a small amount of mountebanking.
So the questions are, what strategy do you prefer here? What would you do if an opponent was trying to 3-pile with duchies, and duchesses (3rd pile being transmute or NV probably)? No strategy using counting house or transmute ever won; I know these are considered weak cards, but is there a viable strategy using them?
I recently had an idea to spice up my face-to-face dominion playing. I only have Intrigue and Base for now, but I really like playing with the other sets on isotropic and wanted to introduce my friends to them. So I printed out the mechanics of a kingdom only using expansions that I do not have, and tucked them into the sleeves of my current cards. Huzzah, new cards!
So we played with transmute, duchess, fool's gold, native village, warehouse, spice merchant, mountebank, highway, counting house, apprentice.
With 3 players, we played 3 rounds, and each won one apiece. The fun thing is that every round each player was trying a new strategy, and we even had very little overlap between players. The first round a strategy with fool's gold, warehouse, native village, and highway, using spice merchant for +buy won out (can't remember what he was playing against, but it's probably significant that nobody played mountebank this round). The second round was won by a player that went for double mountebank (but no village), apprentice, and warehouse. (this beat a similar strategy that used mountebank, warehouse, NV, and highway). The third round was won by a player who relied on warehouse, apprentice, spice merchant, and a small amount of mountebanking.
So the questions are, what strategy do you prefer here? What would you do if an opponent was trying to 3-pile with duchies, and duchesses (3rd pile being transmute or NV probably)? No strategy using counting house or transmute ever won; I know these are considered weak cards, but is there a viable strategy using them?
16
Dominion General Discussion / Why's it called a cantrip?
« on: October 01, 2011, 04:02:52 pm »
So this has frustrated me as I read through strategy articles and posts by others. What the heck is a cantrip? And no, not the dominion-definition, I got that. I'm trying to figure out why a card which gives extra action(s) and card(s) [[I frankly don't care about the minutiae of which cards are slightly more/less than an official cantrip]] would be given a name like cantrip. Am I missing something obvious?
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