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6826

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Google + Walled Village

« on: September 20, 2012, 09:26:43 am »

Walled Village is very, very, very, very, very non-essential.  If I had to go through Google to use Mountebank, then I would be pissy.

Yeah, um, I've gotta go with Frisk on this one.  Can you enumerate which cards are essential and which are not?  Envoy, for instance, is often used as a classic BM example, though it is a promo.  Black Market shows up in puzzles all the time.  Is Counting House non-essential because it usually sucks?  Or (dare I say it) Scout?  Does Spy get a pass because it's in the base set, or does it get tossed as non-essential because it sucks for most things?  Duchess?  Pearl Diver?

You see where I'm going with this.

6827

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Google + Walled Village

« on: September 20, 2012, 12:25:19 am »

My point: what turns up in uniform random matters.

I have tried to balance the expansions such that pure random works reasonably well with any mix of expansions a person might have. The promos are not factored into this.

Nor are the half-sets on Goko.  In Prosperity, all but one of the kingdom treasures and two of three attacks are in one set; all of the megaturn cards and VP cards are in the other set.  Both villages (City and WV) are in the same set.  If you really want to have the best chance of winning, just get the "Bigger and Better" half set.  Intrigue, meanwhile, is set up specifically for Scout!  One set has Scout and all the dual-type cards.  The other set has most of the attacks.

Pure random will work with the sets, therefore, but not with Goko.

6828

Goko Dominion Online / Re: The Goko Dominion Release Prediction Contest!

« on: September 19, 2012, 08:12:59 pm »

Looks like the predictions so far seem pretty bifurcated between October/Essen optimists and December+ pessimists. Maybe that means the few November people are the realists...

Um... my October date was highly pessimistic, not optimistic.

6829

General Discussion / Re: A joke thread

« on: September 19, 2012, 02:04:30 pm »

Goko.

6830

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Google + Walled Village

« on: September 19, 2012, 11:20:47 am »

6831

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Google + Walled Village

« on: September 19, 2012, 11:12:27 am »

But it was good enough to be programmed and added before 70 cards that did make it into expansions.

Obviously false.

In what way?  Walled Village is available.  The cards in Alchemy, Cornucopia, and Hinterlands, and 2/3 of the Dark Ages card, are unavailable.

The problem is limited access.  Some people just plain won't be able to get the card.  And that's wrong.

Everyone with internet access can have it. You say false things.

You're right, this is technically false.  Let me rephrase more properly:

Not everyone with a Goko account can get the card without having/creating an account at a different site that has absolutely nothing to do with Goko or Dominion.  This limits access.

6832

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Google + Walled Village

« on: September 19, 2012, 11:00:14 am »

I am almost willing to register some dummy accounts to provide further +1s.

No dummy accounts bro, against terms of service.

Don't worry, multiple accounts are endorsed by Donald X!

I'm opposed to being forced to log in with my google id.

Well you can make a new google account pretty quickly, and use that one. It will come in handy later when you want to be anonymous somewhere.

6833

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Google + Walled Village

« on: September 19, 2012, 10:35:48 am »

The worst case is that you don't get Walled Village and well it's one of the promos that wasn't good enough to make it into an expansion.

But it was good enough to be programmed and added before 70 cards that did make it into expansions.

The problem is limited access.  Some people just plain won't be able to get the card.  And that's wrong.

I'm so getting the feeling that by the time the Goko version actually comes out, we've all moved on to the next best thing.

And the people who will be playing are the ones who love cut-the-rope, angry birds and what not.

Mists of Pandaria hits next Tuesday.

Meanwhile, I can always go play Dominion with my own cards... or with someone else's if I want to play Dark Ages or Guilds.

Will the walled village have google logo present when it is played, as it is in the store? I hope Rio Grande get a bit of the advertising revenue if it does. Maybe the envoy will have a soft drink can in his hand in a future version.

"Google presents Walled Village"
"EBay presents Black Market"
"Governor, sponsored by Romney for America"

6834

Other Games / Re: Looking for lunchtime games (easy and mess-proof)

« on: September 18, 2012, 11:50:27 pm »

Zendo!

I love Zendo!

Perhaps Quirkle to add to the OP's list?

6835

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Google + Walled Village

« on: September 18, 2012, 10:59:07 pm »

The more I think about this, the less I like it.  I don't care if it's Goko or Google doing it; the point is that there will not be equal access to the cards--which is equivalent, in my opinion, to not having all cards available (for purchase) to all people.  People who don't have or don't want a Google account--which, as noted above, can't be anonymous any longer--cannot get the Walled Village card.  This breaks tournament play (even more).

And it's just plain silly.

And it saddens me to realize we're going to lose so many good players from the online community because of things like this, as well as the big issues.

6836

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Google + Walled Village

« on: September 18, 2012, 10:13:55 pm »

So assuming that people who have paid won't see ads, I'm fine with that.  Personally, I run Ad-Block Plus on both Firefox and Chrome, so I only see ads on sites I unblock anyway because I want to support them.

The Walled Village thing is silly though.  Using Google login auth, like isotropic does, is one thing; fetching G+ information and real names is something else entirely.

That and it using me real name from my google account as my public in game name.

If this is true, it's definitely an issue for a lot of players. Various games (and game forums) have tried 'real ID' systems (where your real name is your public name) over the years, and it is *always* met with severe outcry/cancellations. You can find a good example of this in World of Warcraft, where a significant percentage of the player-base threatened (and actually started) to quit over it.

*raises hand*

I actually cancelled my WoW subscription during that kerfuffle.  When the kerfuffle ended with Blizzard realizing it was a really bad idea, I resubscribed, though at first I dropped to the monthly rather than six-month subscription I'd previously had.  Just because I wanted to be sure.

If my real name is displayed to other users by Goko, that's another dealbreaker.

Wow, they're still publishing comments in their served code? Super professional.

It's a beta.  I can forgive them that part during a beta; who knows, maybe they want us to see it.

6837

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Google + Walled Village

« on: September 18, 2012, 03:50:11 pm »

Ridiculous.  Seriously ridiculous.  What's next, Black Market will require an eBay account?  (That would be amusing for other reasons, though.)

6838

Dominion Isotropic / Re: "Play faster newb"

« on: September 18, 2012, 11:12:07 am »

Huh, for some reason I thought you were a 40+.

Nope, my skills aren't as developed as I'd like, and I tend to make dumb errors enough to keep my rating down.

6839

Goko Dominion Online / Re: The Goko Dominion Release Prediction Contest!

« on: September 18, 2012, 11:10:40 am »

Do we already have 13.0.0.0.0 maya-date?

I believe most scholarly research suggests that's actually last year.

Oh, is the popular date of 13.0.0.0.0 = December 21, 2012 wrong?

Hrm, my apologies; I had read somewhere that things had been miscalculated (i.e. everything should have been 2011), but I can't find that reference now.

6840

GokoDom / Re: The Uncertain Future of IsoDom

« on: September 18, 2012, 09:20:27 am »

Yeah I'm still debating this decision as well.  The three wonders of Iso are:

1. The speed I can get through actions/games, the animations aren't doing anything for me.  It's just cute
2. The fact that it is free
3. The level of competition that is constantly there. 

As much as I'm down on Goko:

1.  The "Very Fast" animation speed is already basically "Off."  It's fast enough that it's silly to even have it; they need to just create an "Off" setting.
2.  Well, yeah.
3.  That's due to the lack of players and the fact that it's so hard to get a match because there are usually fewer than 4 people on.  When everyone migrates (or doesn't), that problem should go away.

Yeah even very fast doesn't do it for me.  The speed at which you can play turns (Ie. play cards) is really slow.  Maybe I just need to get used to it with the discarding and trashing... but I am not the biggest fan at the moment. 

But back to the general discussion.  Since any tournament lasting a month might not finish, I would be very interested in having day or weekend long tournaments.  They don't have to be large either, like 16 just to make sure it finishes. 

Alas, as a father of two under age four, I can't run a weekend tournament... and that wouldn't really be "IsoDom" would it?  I think it was... Rabid? running the one-day tourneys recently.

6841

Goko Dominion Online / Re: The Goko Dominion Release Prediction Contest!

« on: September 18, 2012, 08:50:32 am »

Do we already have 13.0.0.0.0 maya-date?

I believe most scholarly research suggests that's actually last year.

6842

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: The Dominion Number

« on: September 18, 2012, 08:47:55 am »

Interesting to note:  3 Golds is the absolute minimum that must be purchased during the game.  With 2G, 40S, 7C, 7E, 7P, the average card value is < 1.6, and you can't guarantee buying a Province on any turn.  We probably want at least 6-9 though before buying Provinces, in reality.

Why do you have 7E?

The 3 key is totally right next to the 7 key.

6843

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: The Dominion Number

« on: September 18, 2012, 12:24:29 am »

I really like this puzzle.
It seems quite complex, with two strategies trying to optimize against each other.
One of them playing, with the most interesting decision "when to buy a province over a gold" (My intuition says it's very late, surely after 10+ gold)
The other one trying to give as many $2, $5 or $max hands as possible. $7 only becomes the magic number very late.

The start I think I can solve by hand, but after this it's really time to write something:

1:  ccccc -> silver
2:  cceee -> -
(-)
3:  ccccc -> silver
4:  cceee -> -
(s)
5:  sccce -> silver
6:  sccce -> silver
(ce)
7:  cceee -> -
8:  ccccc -> silver
(ssss)
9:  sssss -> gold
10: cceee -> -
11: ccccc -> silver
(c)


The first gold can be postponed until turn 11, but then turns 9-10-11 bring silver/silver/gold so this is worse.

So taking from this, I'm seeing at least some rules taking shape for "worst-case scenario":

1:  Within one shuffle, it doesn't matter what order you buy things.
2:  Within one shuffle, cards should be arranged so as to minimize total useful buys that shuffle.
3:  Within each shuffle, one hand's value should be maximized (if we're still buying Golds)

Interesting to note:  3 Golds is the absolute minimum that must be purchased during the game.  With 2G, 40S, 7C, 7E, 7P, the average card value is < 1.6, and you can't guarantee buying a Province on any turn.  We probably want at least 6-9 though before buying Provinces, in reality.

6844

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: The Dominion Number

« on: September 17, 2012, 11:56:58 pm »

I'm willing to wager that simulators are not able to find the Dominion number. After turn twenty you have thirty cards in your deck, and 30! is more than the number of drops of water on earth. I don't think you will see the "worst possible shuffles" in 100000 simulations.

Yeah.  At best they're going to give us a lower bound, but they might find some ideas for how to do poorly that we hadn't thought of before.  It looks to me like our best lower bound is currently 38 (DStu's last run).  And of course DStu is running 500M simulations, not 100K, though that's obviously not close to 30!.

6845

GokoDom / Re: The Uncertain Future of IsoDom

« on: September 17, 2012, 06:41:47 pm »

(And a good example of how Goko is hurting Dominion.)

Yes.  The apparent inability to mix sets from two different people when they play together is a bit disheartening; it makes tournaments that aren't put together by Goko difficult.  And I frankly don't trust them to set up a useful tournament, because even after 18 months this community still has difficulty with it!

Well, I think there are quite few level 40+ players on Isotropic, who will not be buying all the sets at Goko (none of the good players in Norway are planning to as far as I know), so if hardcore players are defined as being among the top players in the world, then definitely not all hardcore players will have all sets.

I'm sorry to hear that, though I imagine it will depend on the final cost.  I hope that people would be willing to pay ~$50 at least for Goko once all the problems are smoothed out.  Obviously there are lots of concerns still though.

Yeah I'm still debating this decision as well.  The three wonders of Iso are:

1. The speed I can get through actions/games, the animations aren't doing anything for me.  It's just cute
2. The fact that it is free
3. The level of competition that is constantly there. 

As much as I'm down on Goko:

1.  The "Very Fast" animation speed is already basically "Off."  It's fast enough that it's silly to even have it; they need to just create an "Off" setting.
2.  Well, yeah.
3.  That's due to the lack of players and the fact that it's so hard to get a match because there are usually fewer than 4 people on.  When everyone migrates (or doesn't), that problem should go away.

6846

Other Games / Re: Looking for lunchtime games (easy and mess-proof)

« on: September 17, 2012, 04:41:35 pm »

If they are up for a game played with dice, I like Cosmic Wimpout.  Five dice (as I recall) weighs very little, as many people as you want can play, and it's easy to invest in how other people are rolling, because any lead can be overcome.  Even after someone crosses the finish line (numerically), everyone gets another turn, to see if you can best the "winner's" score.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Wimpout

It's available on Amazon, for less than 10 dollars.  All you need is a pencil and paper to keep score.

The rest of us call this Farkle, and it can be played with any six d6s.

6847

Dominion Isotropic / Re: "Play faster newb"

« on: September 17, 2012, 03:45:55 pm »

I'm sure that I won't reach my target audience with this comment, but here's trying:

If you want to play against faster players, set your preferences to a tighter window (if possible, one that doesn't include levels 1-15).  Also, don't reject everyone you come across that's ranked higher than you and still expect everyone to play fast.

I find it infuriating when players in the high 20s repeatedly reject automatches with me (I'm low 40s). +/- 20 is often the only way I can get matches. +/- 20 for you, unless you're willing to accept on the top end of the range, is just a cheesy way to beat up on novices.

I second this.  I also play +/- 20 (otherwise I'm waiting for a while), and I get angry when I get rejected multiple times.  If you aren't going to automatch, then get out of the queue.

I'll third that.  I usually play +/- 15 lately.  It's kinda cool either to beat or be schooled by a level 40+ (I seem to stay near 30-32); in the former case, awesome, in the latter case, you probably will learn something.

6848

Goko Dominion Online / Re: The Goko Dominion Release Prediction Contest!

« on: September 17, 2012, 03:13:11 pm »

18 October 2012

If they don't have a working site by Essen, their licensors are going to start talking about breach of contract.

6849

GokoDom / The Uncertain Future of IsoDom

« on: September 17, 2012, 12:19:30 pm »

So, despite the timing setbacks, I think this round of IsoDom was successful.  Next time around we'll do better with setting time limits, which I think will end up being longer than a week so that we don't end up backed up (or I will use something other than Challonge to determine pairings, instead of just dropping people).

However... all this assumes that IsoDom can continue.

I'm reluctant to start another IsoDom at this time.  Let's assume the next one will take about three months.  That means we run into the holidays, which is not a problem in itself, but I have a hard time believing Goko will not re-launch before the end of the year.  Early indications are suggesting launch near Essen, so mid-October.  Hopefully their second launch will go more smoothly, though I still consider what they have to be an early-beta product, not late-beta.

Dominion on Goko is only partially tournament-ready.  Random matches are available, which is great.  However, only about two-thirds of the cards are available--something which everyone knows I consider a gigantic flaw.  Of course, there is no timeline for when they will be added; I frankly don't expect them before the end of the year.  I am loath to run a tournament without Alchemy, Cornucopia, or Hinterlands available.  And even then there's no guarantee everyone will have all the expansions, though the hardcore tournament-style players likely will.

So it feels to me as though IsoDom will be going on hiatus until well after the Goko launch.  I hope that, once Goko is running, has all the cards, and is stable, I will go ahead and start a GokoDom tournament series, if people are still interested at that time.

6850

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Ensuring the same hand every turn

« on: September 17, 2012, 10:10:16 am »

Tribute, Council Room, Noble Brigand, and Duchess don't matter if you have only 5 cards in your deck and they're all in your hand.  The worst Governor and Embassy can do is give you a Silver in your discard; similarly, IGG can only give you Curses in your discard.  If you're holding:

KC-KC-Moat-Moat-Bishop

Then you can trash three cards given to you.  So this fails if people are giving you more than three cards per round, which is unlikely even in a 4P game.  And some Haven shenanigans may be able to mitigate this somewhat.

Everything you can do fails to Masquerade and Possession.  Which is why they should have been attacks, dammit!