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101

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Asper's Cards

« on: January 25, 2019, 11:43:18 am »

A couple more thoughts.

What if Contract were an heirloom?  It would guarantee a fair distribution.

And I suggested the Institute should discard a card.  What if it required that you discard a non-victory card, or maybe just a non-duchy?  A tiny bit of antisynergy could make it a little less common for the Institute and Duchy piles to deplete.

102

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Asper's Cards

« on: January 25, 2019, 11:30:08 am »

Contract/Bookkeeper - I made a fan card way back that had the "play a treasure, draw to X" mechanic, and I liked it a lot, so I like this card too.  I think the part I don't like about this, is that there are only 5 copies of Contract, and sometimes winning that split may be really important.  And because it gives +Buy, sometimes you lose the split just because your opponent happened to draw a Contract on the right turn.

Impostor - It looks fine, although a bit transparent that this your attempt at Leprechaun without hexes.  The +Buy is a great addition here, I love that part.

Institute - I'd lean towards "broken", even in absence of TFB.  If you compare to Distant Lands, this is worth 1 less VP, but you don't have to spend time to get it out of your deck.  Also, if they deplete, that's two piles gone.  A nerf I would try is, make it a fugitive instead of a lab.  But I think it needs a bigger nerf than that.

Convert - I think this is on the weak side, because you can't trash estates, which is usually the most important remodel target.  Would it be crazy at $4?

Promenade - This reins in some of the problems with King's court (i.e. crazy with certain actions, swingy because hitting $7 is hard), but fundamentally I just don't like King's Court, so I'm not really a fan.

103

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Thunderdominion Card List Results

« on: January 15, 2019, 02:02:27 pm »

One way to use that data, is to imagine a hypothetical judgment match.  Both players agree on Rebuild 30% of the time, and disagree 33% of the time.  Among the games where people disagree, Rebuild wins 42% of the time.  So that means Rebuild wins about 30%+33%*42% = 44% of judgment matches.

By that same metric, Catacombs is at 47% and Graverobber is at 33%.

But in general, I'm in agreement with faust.  I think I put a lot more weight into a card's centralizing factor.  For example, I would put Bridge Troll above Dungeon in a heartbeat.  Bridge Troll completely changes how you play, and Dungeon mostly just changes how many Dungeons you play; I don't care if you get Dungeon 100% of the time if it doesn't change the game.

104

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Playing IRL is way more fun than playing online.

« on: January 13, 2019, 11:58:45 am »

I've played only a few games online, not since the goko days.  And, it's fine.  But I like table chatter and people online would probably find that annoying.  I also like the tactile sensation of handling cards--shuffling cards is a great feeling even if it takes too long.

But the main reason I don't play online, isn't that I think it would be less fun, but because Dominion is an activity between me and my husband, and I'm trying not to completely outpace him.  I kinda already do, because I watch competitive games sometimes.

105

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Who has all the expansions?

« on: January 13, 2019, 11:52:49 am »

I have all the cards, except for Black Market, and a couple of the newest promos (Saunavanto and Dismantle).  I suppose we're missing some of the 2nd edition stuff like the fancy trash mat, the bane indicator, etc.

106

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Are promos worth it?

« on: January 06, 2019, 03:03:57 am »

For people who think Black Market is one of the best: how do you do the setup IRL?  It sounds unusable.

Just grab one copy each of 20-30 cards that aren't in the current kingdom. What's so hard about that?

What's hard about it, is that it already takes a long time to setup and put away Dominion, with only 10 kingdom cards, and now this is tripling-quadrupling that time.

Sounds like you need a better storage solution to keep it from taking so long.
(Sorry, I don't have one I can recommend. The one I use involves a suitcase-like carrying case which was originally made for cassette tapes. I'm pretty sure they don't make them anymore.)

It's literally the time it takes to find the correct divider and take/return the appropriate card, but times 30.  I think you're just a lot more patient than me.

My partner said that when he used to play with Black Market, they would use the randomizers, and only take out the cards when they were bought.  This sounds less irritating, although the issue is we don't keep the randomizers on hand.  I think if we were to ever buy a copy of Black Market, I'd just pack it some randomizers and just use the same ones every time.

107

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Are promos worth it?

« on: January 06, 2019, 12:20:08 am »

For people who think Black Market is one of the best: how do you do the setup IRL?  It sounds unusable.

Just grab one copy each of 20-30 cards that aren't in the current kingdom. What's so hard about that?

What's hard about it, is that it already takes a long time to setup and put away Dominion, with only 10 kingdom cards, and now this is tripling-quadrupling that time.

108

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Are promos worth it?

« on: January 05, 2019, 11:53:07 pm »

For people who think Black Market is one of the best: how do you do the setup IRL?  It sounds unusable.

The promo I most recommend is Governor.  It's a very centralizing card, and difficult to figure out too.  If you like centralizing cards, then second and third place would be Black Market, and Sauna/Avanto.  If you prefer cards of more middling strength, try Prince, Summon, Dismantle, and Envoy.  Stash is widely regarded as very weak, and Walled Village is basically never better than village.

109

Dominion General Discussion / Re: How do you organize your cards, especially card pairs

« on: December 18, 2018, 12:19:23 pm »

I also put 6 wishes with the Leprechauns, and 6 with Secret Cave.  It's rare that you need more than that in 2P.

110

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Which one card would you like to include over 20 games?

« on: December 14, 2018, 09:36:27 pm »

Bandit Fort.

111

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Card ideas from Jeebus

« on: December 13, 2018, 10:23:30 am »

Shaft seems fine, if a bit weak.  I like it.

Panniers has me a bit confused.  If you use the reaction effect, do you get +1 card?  I'm also not sure why it returns a card rather than simply trashing it.  That's a valid choice, I'm just not sure what it adds really.  I think the on-play effect could be buffed.

Weaver seems rather strong.  I'm sure Weaver/BM could be beaten sometimes, especially with that sifting effect, but I worry that Weaver/BM might too often be the dominating strategy, and not interactive enough with the rest of the kingdom.  You should try it of course.  But I think it should be made less extreme.

Law, by contrast seems too weak.  For comparison, consider Catapult.  Catapult not only gives $1, but also provides a benefit upon trashing copper.

Midway seems pretty interesting, although not strong.  The reordering ability seems like a fairly important part of what makes it good.

Privateer, well here's a card that I think would clearly be more interesting without +Buy.  For one thing, you could make it cheaper.  And you'd find yourself in a variety of situations depending on the rest of the kingdom.  If the +Buy is on treasure, then you have that nice bit of synergy.  On the other hand, if the +Buy is on an action, you have to play the action before your buy phase.  So maybe you have a mix of Privateer and traditional draw, or else you hope to have the +Buy in your starting hand, or maybe you just do without +Buy.

I have issues with Alderman.  It seems kind of slow to play with, and without good reason.  Most often, you reveal at least one action, and now Alderman is an expensive village, hooray.  Maybe you reveal a victory card and can play your Mill, making Alderman a double village.  But so what?  I'm not sure what Alderman is really for, but honestly it sounds weaker and less interesting than a vanilla card that just says "+1 card, +3 actions".

I also have issues with Prowler.  Mainly it's a glorified woodcutter.  Or if you're buying treasure, and have extra buys, it's a glorified treasure.  I think you could do more with a simpler card, e.g. an action/treasure that only gives +Buy if you play it in your action phase.

112

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2018 Edition

« on: December 11, 2018, 11:47:18 am »

The Youtube preview page displays additional difficulties of the objects of rating. While the Castles are to be rated as a whole pile, is Plunder to be rated as a single card or as part of the split pile? (In my paired ratings I encountered both Settlers and Bustling Village.) Should I rate Avanto as part of the split pile or its use as a glorified Smithy on the Black Market? Rocks or Bustling Villages are of limited use on their own, while Patricians can be quite good even on their own with a good amount of desirable $5 cards in the Kingdom, even if Emporium didn't exist.

It seems reasonable to rate cards based on their average context.  For example, if you think Native Village is fine in a vacuum, but usually overshadowed by other villages in the kingdom, that seems like a good reason to downrate Native Village.  Well on average, Avanto only comes into play when there are already 5 Saunas floating around.

I used to rate Fortune lower because I felt it would often appear too late in the game to matter.  Now I think it's powerful enough that even late in the game it matters.  I also rate Gladiator a bit higher because sometimes it's correct to get Gladiator because revealing Fortune on your turn is just that good, even when your opponent gets their own Fortune immediately afterward.

113

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Cursed Bottle / Bottle Imp

« on: December 10, 2018, 11:12:21 pm »

I agree with Heron, at least in 2P.  Paying more than $0 for Bottle Imp gives your opponent strictly more options than they would otherwise have.  You can always hope that by offering your opponent too many choices, they will end up choosing the wrong thing, but that's not a good strategy against a good opponent.

For an analogy, suppose there's an artifact that says, "At the beginning of each other player's turn, they may get +$1.  If they do, you draw a card."  In 2P, you don't want this artifact.  Even if it helps both players, a good opponent will only choose the +$1 when they believe it will help them more than you.

With 3 or more players it's different.  You could have two players "cooperate" against a third by swapping ownership of the Bottle Imp.

114

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2018 Edition

« on: December 10, 2018, 12:51:29 pm »

I'm worried that these rankings are slowly becoming unsustainable.  It's just so much work to rank cards, and the number of people willing to do it has gone down each year.

My method is to first make a bunch of overlapping lists of card types (e.g. terminal draw, trashers, VP cards), sort each list, and then merge the lists with the help of the overlap between lists.  The idea is that it's usually easier to compare two cards that fulfill a similar function.  I did the work in excel.  Once I was done, I assigned each card a unique integer between 1 and 366 (I don't rate all the cards).  Then I sorted the list again to match the order that appears on Qvist's site, typed all the integers in rate mode, and then copied it to order mode.

It's pretty slow, and requires a bit of excel wizardry.  I do wish there were a way of just copy/pasting all these excel values directly into the form.

115

Variants and Fan Cards / Bottom-decking

« on: December 10, 2018, 12:10:25 pm »

So, here's a bit of unexplored mechanic space: cards that mandatorily bottom-deck themselves.  We see a little bit of this kind of thing with Stash, Star Chart, Secret Passage, or Neirai's Shipwreck, but I think it could be explored more.

Cavalry - Action, $5
+3 Cards
+1 Action
-------------------------------------
When you shuffle this into your deck, put it at the bottom.

A strong engine card, but by the time you get to the bottom of your deck, do you even need it anymore?  You can either accept that your draw is unreliable and spiky, or you can find a trick to get it in hand.  Pearl Diver OP.  Not sure if it should cost $5 or $6.

Spelunker - Action, Attack $4
Trash a card.  Per $ it costs, draw a card.
Each other player with 5 or more cards in hand puts one on the bottom of their deck.
-------------------------------------
When you shuffle this into your deck, put it at the bottom.

A terminal variant of Research/Apprentice.  The attack is mean, but if your opponent also has a Spelunker, they can bottom-deck a card they want to trash, or perhaps a village.

116

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Why is Possession hated so much?

« on: December 10, 2018, 10:34:44 am »

I wish I could find the video, but there was a Dominion League finals game way back that had Possession, Mining Village, and Storyteller.  Neither player could do anything except play Possessions, because Storyteller would use up all their money.  And with Mining Village as the only village, you could sprinkle a few in to play multiple Possessions, but if you had too many then your opponent would get more out of them than you.  The game was stuck in quasi-stalemate for over an hour.

Sure, the game was memorable in its own way, but that's only because it was the very worst.  There were lots of other unmemorable competitive games where Possession just dragged the game down, resulting in a long and tedious slog.  And I say this as someone who typically likes slogs.

Banning Possession was great as someone who spectates competitive games.  And if you wish to play with Possession in your own casual games, well you can still do that.

117

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Is One Card Enough To Buy an Expansion Over Another?

« on: December 03, 2018, 09:47:26 pm »

It should also be mentioned that Noble Brigand is not a well-liked card.  It's not that people hate it, it just rarely makes a difference.  So there's the danger in choosing a set just because of one or two cards--you might be disappointed.

Hinterlands is good though, especially if you like playing larger decks.  If you like wackier effects though, I'd probably go with Intrigue.

118

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Renaissance First Impnressions

« on: December 01, 2018, 11:38:13 am »

Villagers are great for gain & play megaturns.  In one game, I used villagers to pile Sculptors (with cost reduction).  In another game, where Lackeys was the only source of draw and actions, I managed to get two triple province turns with Inventor.  Villagers are my favorite mechanic in the set.

My partner complains that there seem to be a lot of broken combos in the set.  Some combos are fun (e.g. Scepter+draw-to-X), but others are just too obvious.  Capitalism is the best example of this.  Sometimes it doesn't matter, but sometimes you just pile those terminal payoff cards, and that's your deck.  I think Patron is the second-worst offender, with cards like Menagerie or Hunting Party.  There are other little things, like the several Guildhall combos, or when one person gets a lucky early Citadel.

Surprisingly, Recruiter and Hideout are not among the broken cards.  Cantrip trashers are very powerful, but what are you going to do, build your deck out of Recruiters?

I think the biggest "duds" of the set were Fleet and Acting Troupe.  Fleet is interesting in concept, but not that impactful.  Acting Troupe, maybe it's okay, but there are often better sources of actions.  Villain is alright, people are underrating it.

119

Simulation / Re: Geronimoo's Dominion Simulator: the ultimate simulation tool

« on: November 27, 2018, 10:25:09 am »

How far along is Renaissance implementation?  Would be interesting to try Flagbearer.

I found a bug with Knights.  You can't buy Knights.

120

Let's Discuss ... / Re: Let's Discuss Cornucopia Prize: Trusty Steed

« on: November 18, 2018, 10:04:56 pm »

I've taken silvers many times.  It doesn't need a combo to be good.  It's just okay.  You do it when you're playing a money thing.  It keeps your deck viable for a longer period of time, especially if someone's playing Followers and there's no trashing.

121

Dominion: Renaissance Previews / Re: Renaissance Initial Impressions

« on: November 15, 2018, 02:40:31 pm »

We got our physical copy of Dominion.

We played a game where the only "village" was Patron.  We couldn't build an engine out of it, but it seemed really effective for BM+terminal draw.  We realized that Patron eliminated the biggest drawback of terminal draw (drawing actions dead) since you could just spend a villager, play some cantrips, and get the villager back by ending with Patron.

I know I should have seen that coming, but this nonetheless surprised me.  Terminal draw plus cantrips!  A whole new type of deck!

122

Dominion: Renaissance Previews / Re: Pssst.... (Eager anticipation) When's it shipping?

« on: November 10, 2018, 10:34:41 am »

As long as the backs don't look different.  The Adventures cards are a bit lighter on the back, and mostly I try not to notice it.

Someone show us what the coffers/villagers mat looks like!

123

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Why Peasant Will Be On My Ban List

« on: November 09, 2018, 06:09:41 pm »

I felt like I understood Seprix's argument better and felt more sympathy towards it, when Peasant was replaced with King's Court.

124

Dominion: Renaissance Previews / Re: Pssst.... (Eager anticipation) When's it shipping?

« on: November 09, 2018, 06:00:52 pm »

Does it affect the card backs, or only the front?

125

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Reaction cards

« on: November 09, 2018, 11:19:50 am »

Split piles were my favorite mechanic from Empires...

I don't really mind complexity, and I loved Nocturne.  But I feel it's quite different in the context of fan cards vs official cards.  When it comes to fan cards, there are just so many of them, mostly bad, so there's a sense of fatigue.  "Oh, it's another card with 8 lines of small-type font."  Even when I understand the card, it's hard enough to imagine what would happen in games that included it.  I don't want to work so hard just to understand a card that in all likelihood is terribroken anyway.

And like, I don't even play with any of these cards.  I look at fan cards for the entertainment value.  If a card is making itself difficult to understand, I don't need to understand it.

Fan cards often tend towards complexity, because they're more for the designer than for the players.  Obviously the designer already understands the whole concept of the card; they designed it, it seems pretty simple to them.  Many fan cards are also trying to draw a lot of attention to themselves, or they're trying to do all the things, or they're trying to do "theme".

The relative simplicity of Asper's cards compared to other fan cards is well appreciated.  But I would have difficulty comparing the complexity of Asper's cards to the official cards, because the context is so different.  I don't have the same expectations.