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476

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What are some of the biggest misconceptions people have about this game?

« on: May 24, 2017, 01:29:25 pm »

Listen to Awaclus.  He regularly plays with the top 50 players, which uniquely qualifies him to identify the most common misconceptions.

Rules-wise, the most common misconception is people playing to the discard.  Obvs this is based on IRL experience and it's not an issue online.

Strategy-wise, the most common misconception is that buying Province is good when you spike $8 early.

477

Other Games / Re: Temporum: Alternate Realities speculation

« on: May 24, 2017, 01:08:41 pm »

Zombie Apocalypse seems like a really cool card.  But if you bring a zombie with you, do you move the zombie first and pay $2, or do you move first, and not pay $2?  Seems like it would play completely differently depending on your interpretation.

478

Other Games / Re: Temporum: Alternate Realities speculation

« on: May 23, 2017, 06:57:10 pm »

#2 is definitely not strong. Among many other factors, you have 2 cards in your hand to start, and if you never play or score those cards, you've wasted 2 really important resources. Then there's the fact that you'll never rule a time (until maybe eventually time 1).

Well now, I said that you'd play your starting cards first.  But that's only your first 2 turns.

The thing is, in the context of pursuing Alien Egypt, most cards give less than $12, either because they provide flexibility you don't need, or advance crowns you don't need.  If the ruling bonuses are weak, $8 per turn seems competitive.

I mean, that's only my initial reaction.  I'm sure it was playtested and stuff.

479

Other Games / Re: Temporum: Alternate Realities speculation

« on: May 23, 2017, 01:58:19 pm »

How good is Alien Egypt?  To win normally, you need 30 crowns = $120.  To win by Alien Egypt, you need $100 + 1 turn = $108.  So Alien Egypt saves you $12, or 1.5 turns.

So, a few options:
1. Play an ordinary strategy, taking advantage of the bonuses for ruling times, and win by crowns.
2. Play your 2 cards, then sit on Alien Egypt for the rest of the game, taking money until you win.
3. Cleverly draw and play cards, earning more than $8 a turn, and winning by Alien Egypt.
4. Cleverly advance a few crowns to rule some times, earning more than $8 a turn, and winning by Alien Egypt.

I'm kind of surprised that strategy #2 is even allowed, since it doesn't seem like the kind of game DXV would want to encourage.  But maybe the reason it's allowed is that it's not very strong.

480

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Convert coin into coin tokens, but...

« on: May 19, 2017, 01:47:07 pm »

IIRC, they also tried a terminal action that gave coin tokens and debt (or maybe that was someone else), and it turned out to be broken.

I found it.  It was a $4 treasure called Investment that gave 3 coin tokens and 3 debt.  Asper tested it and found that it discourages buying anything, and then you just get provinces and win.

481

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Convert coin into coin tokens, but...

« on: May 19, 2017, 01:35:17 pm »

I think unlimited coin-to-coin-token conversion is likely broken, and having to buy a copper is not sufficient penalty.

Consider, Plaza lets you convert coin to coin tokens.  But to get as many coin tokens as Rainy-Day Fund would get you, you would need to buy a lot of Plazas.  Opportunity cost of lots of plazas >> cost of buying a copper.

Or, consider Merchant Guild.  Playing three Merchant Guilds in a turn and buying 4 copper for 12 coin tokens is pretty good.  Buy why do that, when you can have a Rainy-Day Fund, and buy the copper directly instead of buying Merchant Guild.

Also, for reference, Asper tried a $2 event that gave a coin token, and apparently it was autobuy.  IIRC, they also tried a terminal action that gave coin tokens and debt (or maybe that was someone else), and it turned out to be broken.

482

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What will the next Dominion expansion be???

« on: May 16, 2017, 11:12:10 am »

I think simplicity will come in the form of new mechanics.  For instance, the debt mechanic allowed for new ideas, where most of the complexity was hidden in the rules of debt.

I don't think -buy or -action are likely.  That space has been available for exploration since the very beginning.  So the fact that it hasn't been done yet probably means it isn't very good.

I expect some mechanics to return from previous sets, but only the kind of mechanics that don't use additional components.  So, landmarks may reappear, but not the kind that hand out vp chips.  There won't be more looters or reserve cards, but I expect more split piles.

I haven't seen anyone speculate on whether it will be a. "large" set (like dark ages and adventures).  That's what I'm hoping for, because more dominion.

483

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2016 Edition: $5 Cards

« on: May 14, 2017, 08:31:56 pm »

Edit: Playing a Distant Lands cage match with Rabid on Sunday 18:00 UTC.

Is there a recording of this?

484

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What will the next Dominion expansion be???

« on: May 13, 2017, 09:53:15 pm »

The best way to make predictions is through extrapolation!  Since there was a big pause before Adventures, I'm just going to draw a line through Adventures and Empires.

The next expansion will...
...come out in August 2017
...will have 42 Landmarks
...will have 6 events
...will have 10 split piles
...will have 200 cards
...will have -2 traveler lines

Sounds exciting!

485

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Busy Beaver amount of Coin

« on: May 11, 2017, 06:15:03 pm »

This isn't quite a solution, but does better than exponential:

Use n cards to generate O(n^2) coins.  Play Storyteller, draw O(n^2) new cards.  Now you use those cards to generate O(n^4) coins.  So on and so forth.  The idea is that you're limited by the number of storytellers in your starting hand, so you can only generate O(n^(2^n)) coins.

Generating O(n^2) coins is easy.  Say Beggar + Miser.  And Throne Room for actions.

The problem is you need unlimited gains, but somehow be blocked from gaining Storytellers.  There's gotta be a way, right?

BTW, is the idea that it's impossible to generate infinite money given the kingdom, or impossible to generate infinite money given the game-state at the start of the turn?

486

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2016 Edition: $5 Cards

« on: May 10, 2017, 06:56:26 pm »

Speaking about something other than Baker,

I feel like Emporium is underrated, but I'm not sure I can justify that feeling.  It sounds really bad on paper, just an expensive peddler with 2 VP attached.  I wouldn't get Great Halls, so why would I get Emporium?  But when it's actually decision time, it looks so good.  I can green, but instead of my deck getting junked, it gets slightly more powerful?  Sign me up.

There are also a couple things that make Emporium "strictly worse" but really make it stronger.  First, the fact that there are only 5 in the supply means you want to get them earlier, before they disappear.  Second, the 5-action restriction means that sometimes the VP is accessible to only one of the players.  You really want to be that player who gets the 10 VP lead.

487

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2016 Edition: $5 Cards

« on: May 10, 2017, 02:59:09 pm »

The thing about coin token cards, is that they anti-self-synergize.  You only really want a few for flexibility, after which point more flexibility doesn't help and you'd rather get stronger cards.

The thing about peddlers is that they self-synergize.  Buy buying peddlers instead of stop cards, you keep your deck thin.  Peddlers like thin decks because you draw them more often.  I wouldn't be surprised if, without Poacher's drawback, sometimes the correct strategy is to buy all the Poachers.

So, Baker has both of those things.  That makes it always mediocre.  It works best when you have a way to pick them up easily, or when having a lot of flexibility is really good.

488

Dominion Articles / Re: Refreshing the Dominion Paradigms

« on: May 04, 2017, 05:21:03 pm »

Rather than responding to more weety4 nonsense, here's an interesting case study:



This is a game between Qvist and Burning Skull.  Qvist tries a golden deck, but it transitions to a money deck under an onslaught of Embassies.  Burning Skull has a deck where the only real draw is Procession/Embassy.  What kind of deck is it?

489

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Neat card interactions that were useful in the game you found them in.

« on: May 01, 2017, 02:11:58 am »

Treasure Map / Triumph is a known synergy.  Play treasure maps, buy Triumph, get 5 points while easily paying off debt the next turn.

Well, I played a game with Treasure Map, Triumph, and Traveling Fair.  I spent several turns alternating between playing Treasure Maps and buying Triumph, and buying Traveling Fair/double T-map.  To cap it all off, Baker let me open double T-map.  Of course, I still lost.

490

Dominion Articles / Re: Refreshing the Dominion Paradigms

« on: April 28, 2017, 01:02:45 pm »

My feeling about these unusual strategies is that it's not necessary for our dominion paradigm to account for them.  Similarly, as Awaclus said, it's not necessary to talk about strategies that are just bad.  It's fine if our strategy types neither include Counting House/Travelling Fair nor the Estate/Duchy opening.

On the other hand, if our dominion paradigm can incidentally talk about edge cases and bad decks, why not go along with it?  We have this idea of "Big Money" because sometimes that is a good strategy, but it also incidentally allows us to talk about Big Money even when it loses handily to the engine.  Likewise, the hybrid BM/Engine is an easily accessible concept and I don't see why we should throw it out just because it seems like a bad deck in most cases.

491

Dominion Articles / Re: Refreshing the Dominion Paradigms

« on: April 28, 2017, 12:29:35 pm »

This is just begging for some edge-case discussion, though.

Hermit/Market Square draws itself for one turn, followed by big money.
Native Village/Bridge doesn't draw itself, until the last turn.
Oh, and there was that one in the Game Reports forum where someone alternated between drawing deck, playing 3 goons and buying lots of copper, and the next turn buying Donate to trash all the copper.

Awaclus, I'm curious what your take is.  Am I wrong to think of these as "hybrid" strategies?  Are they actually either BM or Engine?  Or maybe rushes or slogs or whatever?  Or are they another category that we don't need to talk about because they're rarely any good?

492

Simulation / Re: Dominion Evolutionary Algorithm - Finding the optimum strategy on a given board

« on: April 24, 2017, 03:35:48 pm »

Good luck with the evolutionary algorithm!  Even if it isn't the best AI ever, it could be a fun project, and I hope to hear more about it.

A few comments on the strategy representation:

I don't understand k_17.  For the simple Big Money strategy, it seems like k_17 doesn't matter, since either "follow your strategy" or "treasure" both lead to buying treasure.  For the Engine strategy, it doesn't usually make sense for the Engine strategy to suddenly veer into treasure during the greening phase.

One problem with your strategy parameters is that it doesn't handle card priorities well. A strategy that wants to buy Chapel may never get around to buying it because it's given lowest priority.  I'm also not sure how multiple buys are handled.  Provincial offers some ideas on how to handle card priorities, but Provincial's method is imperfect too.  You could probably go a bit crazier with the number of parameters.

493

Dominion Articles / Re: Refreshing the Dominion Paradigms

« on: April 22, 2017, 01:18:49 pm »

Nope.
Always entertaining to see how the dream of a smoothly running engine influences the opinion of so many Dominion players. Many games are precisely as messy as JThorne described.

What's influencing my opinion is the experience I've accumulated in the thousands of games that I've played against other players in the top 50 range. If your game is as messy as JThorne described, you are misplaying it.

The main problem with this argument, is that I'd prefer our Dominion paradigms to describe games that aren't just between players in the top 50 range.

494

Other Games / Re: Temporum: Alternate Realities speculation

« on: April 20, 2017, 11:14:45 pm »

Prediction: There will be a new zone called the Age of Disappointment.  In that timeline, Temporum: AR is never released.

495

Other Games / Re: Breath of the Wild

« on: April 20, 2017, 11:12:07 pm »

After you defeat Ganon, talk to Kilton, who asks you to kill every single miniboss in the world.  You probably won't get anything for doing it, but it's a thing you can do.

496

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Is There an Eventful New Scout in Our Midst?

« on: April 20, 2017, 12:28:33 pm »

I still haven't bought Ritual yet.  Anybody ever use that one to good effect?

Ritual seems terrible when you consider the costs for trashing common cards.  Trash Duchy or Province to get 1 VP for $4--worse than great hall.  Trash a gold to get 5 VP for $7--doesn't seem exciting.  However, there's often a way to trash the curse, and then you can think of it like Distant Lands, in that it only temporarily junks your deck.  Even if you can't trash curses, it is often useful to have a large source of VP that doesn't empty the province pile.

497

Other Games / Re: Breath of the Wild

« on: April 20, 2017, 12:01:52 pm »

I don't think chests respawn.  There are just a lot of chests.  I like to have my radar set to chests and then I just wander around opening them all.

If you look through the Wii U Home menu (the one that comes up when you press the home button), I think there's an option to turn the gamepad screen off.  I haven't tried it myself.

498

Other Games / Re: Game recommendations for a Dominion fan

« on: April 13, 2017, 08:21:16 pm »

My second favorite deck-building game is Eminent Domain.  (Star Realms is third.)  Most deck-builders I've tried are more or less imitating Dominion, but Eminent Domain is the only one I've felt does something truly different.

In the game you discover planets, settle/conquer planets, produce and sell goods, and research new technologies.  There are different cards in your deck to perform each of the actions, and the more you perform an action the more of those cards you put in your deck. You do build up your deck a bit, but it's more about balancing your deck and smoothly pivoting between strategies.

Unlike Dominion or Star Realms, the tech is always fixed, although which ones are available depends on what planets you get.


I also recommend Temporum.  It's like Dominion in that it has a variable setup.  But it's more tactical and less strategic.  I find it relatively easy to teach.

499

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions

« on: April 11, 2017, 06:15:20 pm »

Engineer / Travelling Fair
Turn 1: Buy Travelling Fair, buy and topdeck Engineer.
Turn 2: Play Engineer.  Pay off debt, and you can even buy a second Engineer.

You can do this regardless of your initial shuffle.

500

Dominion Articles / Re: Golden Decks

« on: April 07, 2017, 03:07:56 pm »

Another absurd example that calls the definition into question: With a Champion out, buy a Haunted Woods and Province every turn, such that you continue to draw deck at the beginning of each turn.