Dominion Strategy Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length

Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

Messages - trivialknot

Filter to certain boards:

Pages: 1 ... 21 22 [23] 24 25 ... 31
551
Fool's gold is actually mainly a payload card. In engines where you can draw deck it is 4$ for 2$ 1buy. If you want some examples wanderingwinder has exemplified this in at least on of his videos.
True, but then it doesn't really deserve to be that much better than Poor House.

Let's make a pros and cons list of going for Fool's Gold over Poor House.  Let's start with cons:
* Poor House is ever so slightly cheaper in a way that is almost never meaningful
* Poor House can be Throned/King's Courted
Now pros:
* Doesn't take an Action to play
* Doesn't mind you having other Treasures in hand
* Plays nicely with Stables
* Doesn't take an Action to play
* Has a nifty opener with Nomad Camp
* Is great with Treasure gainers, like Mint and Mine
* Doesn't take an Action to play
You missed a con:  You can't put Lost Arts on Fool's Gold.  Lost Arts on Poor House is really good!

552
I'd love to hear why other people think Encampment is good, since I figure most people here are better players than me.  My feeling is that if you buy an Encampment only to lose it the next shuffle, it's like a delayed mini-Expedition.  That sounds pretty bad, and it feels bad in practice too.  It's amazing when you get to keep it, but people seem to be claiming that it's good even before then.

I ranked Advance pretty close to where it sits now.  The thing about Advance is that you can get a $5-cost on your second shuffle by trashing an action.  But generally, you'd rather just play the action to hit $5 naturally.  Of course, with the right cards, Advance can be amazing.  I once got a Rats/Squire/Advance thing going.

553
Finally, Ratcatcher has been placed below Raze, correcting one of the most glaring errors in 2015.  My rankings do have many differences with official rankings, but I feel like we should at least agree on the relative strength of cards that fulfill similar functions.

I feel like Encampment is overrated, but it's also a very difficult card.  Once Empires goes online I look forward to seeing better players show us what it can do.

554
Let's Discuss ... / Re: Let's Discuss Second Edition Cards: Patrol
« on: December 06, 2016, 02:35:49 pm »
Does it miss shuffles? Yeah it does. But when it does it gives you very high odds of hitting $5 regardless and in the early game - who cares then?
The problem is that it makes the thing you buy skip the shuffle too.  And then it topdecks up to 4 cards, making it a fairly long shuffle.  By the time you get through that it's no longer the early game.

555
Based on its absence from #21-30, it looks like Save went up.  Very deserving!

Among the Adventures cards, I think the one that most deserves to go down is Ratcatcher (at 10/33).  Hope to see that in the next part!

556
Let's Discuss ... / Re: Let's Discuss Second Edition Cards: Patrol
« on: December 05, 2016, 03:10:34 pm »
Proposition: In a junking game without trashing, it is possible, and competitive, to build a draw engine using Patrol.

557
I'm disappointed to see that Quest didn't go up after last year.  It's primary use, IMO is that you can overbuy terminal attacks.  I initially thought the option to discard 6 cards was also good, but games have led me to conclude that it is not.

At the very least, I think Quest should be above Tax.  So far, I have only bought Tax when there was nothing else decent, and have found it to be even more marginal than Pearl Diver.  Granted, I can imagine some scenarios where Tax might be important, whereas it is difficult to think of such situations with Pearl Diver (Mystic?).

I see that Scouting Party and Poor House have gone up, based on their absence in ranks #39-31.  That seems warranted.  Look forward to seeing how much/little they changed.

558
Let's Discuss ... / Re: Let's Discuss Second Edition Cards: Replace
« on: December 02, 2016, 01:55:37 pm »
If topdecking is so great, why isn't Develop great?

559
Let's Discuss ... / Re: Let's Discuss Second Edition Cards: Replace
« on: December 01, 2016, 06:28:05 pm »
I want to bring up Replacing Coppers into Estates again - what are all your thoughts on this?  I was playing with a friend who bought 3 Replaces, while I bought 3 Counterfeits on a Banquet board, and he ended up winning, I just couldn't really do anything with all the Curses.  I think it comes down to Replace, well, replaces a card, and adds a card to the opponent's deck, so they get more junk.  We did also have more Coppers than usual due to Banquet.
Note that this is just theorycrafting...

When I replace a copper with an estate, there are two ways of thinking about it:
1. We both get junked.  I thin a copper.
2. You get junked.  I lose $1 economy.

If we think about it under #1, it sounds worse than Miser, and Counterfeit too.  If we think about it under #2, it sounds way worse than Witch.  So at first it just sounds bad.

What might make it better is the difference between a curse and an estate.  Was your opponent doing something with those estates, or was the VP margin from estates significant?

560
Let's Discuss ... / Re: Let's Discuss Second Edition Cards: Replace
« on: December 01, 2016, 03:16:23 pm »
I've only played a few games with this so far.  My impression so far is that the cursing is far more significant than I had initially guessed.  It left me seriously wondering if Replace offers some sort of Duchy rush strategy, similar to an IGG rush.  If it does, I suspect there's a lot more strategic depth to it, and it will take us a while to figure out.

The cost increase over Remodel seems fairly significant.  You can Remodel Estates into Remodels, but you can't Replace Estates with Replaces.

561
Let's Discuss ... / Re: Let's Discuss Second Edition Cards: Bandit
« on: November 30, 2016, 12:57:50 am »
Why does the Bandit do her life of crime? For the good old American life: For the money, for the glory, and for the fun... mostly for the money.
The Bandit doesn't steal for money.  She just steals for the heck of it, and dumps the loot in the river.  The gold she makes from her day job.

562
Let's Discuss ... / Re: Let's Discuss Second Edition Cards: Bandit
« on: November 29, 2016, 08:41:46 pm »
I never got to play one of those degenerate 4P Thief games, because I imagine it only ever happens when multiple people are playing poorly.  But now I've seen a couple 4P Bandit games!  To be honest, I'm not sure what the correct strategy is here.  I suppose you just want to play as many Bandits as possible?

563
Stonemason/Advance - Open Stonemason x3, and you're likely to get two $5s next shuffle.

Talisman/Keep - Use talismans to buy talismans, win the talisman split.  Now you're up 5 VP, in a good position to win the other treasure splits, and you have a lot of pile control.  I've tried this twice, and somehow it is better than it sounds.

Harbinger/Cartographer - You can use Cartographer to discard a card, and Harbinger to topdeck it again.  :P

564
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.
« on: November 12, 2016, 10:19:03 pm »
Earlier you said Temporum: Alternate Realities might be released in November.  Is that still on schedule?

565
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Dominion and Intrigue second editions
« on: November 07, 2016, 06:38:07 pm »
After playing some games with 2nd edition cards, the one I most underrated was Patrol.

For example, we were playing a 3-player Mountebank game without trashing, and I thought, gotta be a slog, right?  Patrol seemed like it could defend against curses, but it was also awkward that it reduced the chance that you'd have a curse in hand next turn to discard.  Anyways, one player skipped Mountebank and built a passable engine out of Patrol.  I've seen this a few times, Patrol is great for making engines resistant to junk.

I'm also impressed by Bandit.  I had never really played one of those games where Thief dominates (my group knows better than to think Thief is good), but now I've played a couple with Bandit.  After losing the Bandit war badly in 4P, I had to go for a Poor House / Royal Carriage strategy, which was hilarious but not very good.

566
Re: Cavalry-Goons.  Yes, I was about to correct myself.  This does not work.

Re: Junkyard
Aside from the +2 Actions, I think Junkyard is much stronger than City Quarter, and at a lower price point too.  Sometimes there are useful actions in your hand that you'd like to keep instead of discarding.  But aren't those action cards just as likely to be on top of your deck, perhaps where Junkyard would draw them but City Quarter would not?  City Quarter is so dependent on the luck of your starting hand, whereas Junkyard can just cycle through, caring only about the overall action density in your deck.

Re: Iron Maiden
I agree that this card has a problem in that the junk supply is too deep (ruins, curses, AND copper).  However, I would argue that this problem only arises from coppers, not curses.  In general, Jester does not hand out very many curses, therefore I would not expect Iron Maiden to hand out many either.

567
Quote
Sutler
Types: Action - Looter
Cost: $5
+1 Card
+1 Action
You may gain a Ruins; put it into your hand.
You may play an Action card from your hand.
You may trash a card you have in play.

In games using this: When a Ruins is trashed, put it on the bottom of the Ruins pile.
It's a village that gives you the option of a random benefit instead of the +1 action.  It's probably strong for $4, weak for $5.  It looks neat, although my issue with random effects is that they don't really encourage any particular kind of strategy.

Quote
Profiteer
Types: Action - Attack - Looter
Cost: $5
Each other player gains a Ruins.
Reveal your hand. +$1 for every Ruins in your hand.
The beneficial effect is usually weaker than Secret Chamber.  I'd rather have a Marauder in my deck rather than a Profiteer.

Quote
Witchfinder
Types: Action - Attack
Cost: $5
Each other player with at least five cards in their hand chooses and reveals three cards.  They each trash one of the cards they revealed of your choice.
I suspect that trashing the median card from your hand doesn't hurt your deck that much, but it does hurt your hand.  I think this suffers from problems similar to Saboteur: It feels bad to get hit by it, it sucks that it has no beneficial effect, and is overall rather weak.

Quote
Vandal
Types: Action - Attack - Looter
Cost: $5
+2 cards.
Each player (including you) may reveal a Victory card from his hand and put it on top of his deck. If you do, +$2. Each other player who doesn't gains a Ruins.
This is really neat.  It's a bureaucrat which encourages rather than discourages your opponent from having green?  The junking strongest in the mid-game, when estates have been diluted or trashed, and no greening has started.  It's almost strictly weaker than Witch, aside from the ability to get +$2.  Witch is strong though, and I'm fine with a card that is weaker than Witch.

Quote
Ceremonial Sword
Types: Treasure
Cost: $5
Choose one: +3 cards, +1 buy OR for each Action you have in play, you may trash a Treasure from your hand and gain a Spoils per Treasure trashed this way.
Do the option you did not choose.
This seems really powerful, and complicated too.  I'd like to see some of these abilities separated out.  +3 cards on a treasure seems really strong in a big money deck.  It's like BM+Smithy only the Smithies can chain like Cultist.  +1 buy only makes it more ridiculous.  Ceremonial Sword is also great in action-dense decks, because you can trash multiple treasures in one go.  And the spoils could really help with building.

Quote
Counterpart
Types: Action
Cost: $4 
Choose 2 of the following options: Gain a Spoils from the Spoils pile; gain a Silver to your deck; trash a card from your hand
Each other player may perform the option you didn't choose.

When you trash this, perform one of the above options
Agree with others that this is on the weak side.  It's interesting to me that it trashes cards, and when you're done trashing it lets your opponent trash cards.  But it's such a slow trasher you may not ever get to that point.

Quote
Tenant
Types: Action
Cost: $5
Draw up to four cards. Gain a Copper per card drawn.

If you gained four Coppers, you may trash this card and gain a Landlord.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Landlord
Types: Action
Cost: $0*
+ 1 Card
+ 1 Action
+ 1 Buy
You may play up to four treasures from your hand as if they were Gold. If you do, return this card to the Supply.
(This card is not in the Supply).
I can't tell how powerful this is by looking at it, but I'm not sure I want games where this is powerful.  For example, suppose Dominate is on the board, then then each player just floods their deck with copper, and hopes that the landlords collide with silver.

Quote
Iron Maiden
Types: Action - Attack - Looter
Cost: $3
Each player discards the top card of their deck. If yours is...
...an Action: +2 Actions;
...a Treasure: +$2;
...a Victory card: +2 Cards
Each other player gains, if theirs is...
...an Action: A Ruins;
...a Treasure: A Copper;
...a Victory card: A Curse
A $3-cost junker, that's a big deal!  However, it might just junk your opponents with copper, which is not very strong.  Because it uses both curses and ruins, there's a lot more junk to hand out, although I think the ruins are a much bigger deal while the curses are negligible.

Quote
Barbarian
Types: Action - Looter
Cost: $3
+2 Actions
Trash a card from your hand.

When you trash this, +2 Cards and each other player gains a Ruins putting it on top of his deck.
This reminds me of Catapult, being a weak trasher that also attacks sometimes.  But hey, it's non-terminal trashing, that's good in itself. Could be great for building an engine, although seems really awkward if it's the only splitter.  Awkwardness is one of the things I like most in a card.

Quote
Calvary
Types: Action - Attack
Cost: $6*
+1 Card
+1 Action
Follow the instructions on the top card of the Troops pile.
(This is not in the Supply.)



On the randomizer card: Add an extra Attack Kingdom card pile to the Supply. That pile is the Troops pile. In games using this, when you gain a Victory card, you may exchange a Troops pile card from your hand for a Calvary.

Clarification: Calvary is not in the Supply, so there will be 10 Kingdom cards as usual (or 11 with Young Witch). The "instructions" are the same thing that Enchantress blocks, so (for example) the "while in play" part of Goons would not be emulated by Calvary. Treat the coin values of Treasures (e.g. Relic or Rocks) as instructions as well. "Exchange" is the same keyword used for Travellers.
This is just begging us to look for a case where it's completely abusive.  Hey, how about those cantrip Goons?  Or cantrip Torturer?  I note that you only get one Cavalry per Victory card, so I suppose the net extra cards drawn is zero.

Quote
Barbarians
Types: Action - Attack - Looter
Cost: $3
+1 Action
Choose one:
You may return any number of Ruins from your hand to the Supply; or each other player gains a Ruins to their hand.
---
While this is in play, when you play an Action card, gain and play a Ruins.
I don't particularly like junkers that replenish the junk (yes, Sutler did that, but it wasn't a junker).  And since this is cheap, provides no economy, and allows stacking, it seems like it could really stall games.  Wait, no, stacking a bunch of Barbarians is probably bad for you.

Quote
Arsonist
Types: Action - Attack
Cost: $3
+$2
Each other player reveals their hand.  If they revealed 3 or more Treasures, they gain a Ruins.

While this is in play, when you trash a card, you may gain a card costing less than it.
Another $3-cost junker!  This one is good early on, but probably becomes a terminal silver fast.  Seems like the card that discourages BM even if it never gets bought.

Quote
Junkyard
Types: Action - Looter
Cost: $5
+1 Card
+1 Action
You may gain a Ruins, putting it into your hand.
Discard any number of cards. +2 cards per Action card discarded, +1 card per every other card discarded.
You may trash this.

When you trash this, +2 cards.
Okay, ignore the ruins, and ignore the on-trash effect.  This is on the level of City Quarter.  In fact, it draws an extra card compared to City quarter, and you get a free Cellar on top of that.  Totally OP.

Quote
Contessa
Types: Action
Cost: $6
Choose one: Gain a card costing up to $4 and a Copper, putting them into your hand; or +1 action, +1 buy; or trash this to trash a Victory card from the supply.

while this is in play, victory cards cost $1 less but not less than 0.
I... can't really see the pattern in these abilities.  I guess you could get a bunch of these, and play 4 to gain a province and copper?  Seems pretty bad.  But maybe I'm missing something?

Quote
Renovate
Types: Action
Cost: $4
Trash a card from your hand. You may gain a card costing up to $1 more than the trashed card, putting it into your hand. If it is an Action card, play it.
So this is like a transmogrify that works now.  Only it can trash copper, and sometimes it's terminal.  Well Transmogrify is a cool card, I don't mind seeing a variant on the idea.  I would guess this is much stronger than Transmogrify.

568
The only one I'm not sure I understand is Ceremonial Sword.  Is it saying that you get to do both things, but you choose which order to do them?  I think that's what it's saying so that's how I'm going to judge it.

Also I'm pretty sure that Barbarian's below-the-line effect should only trigger on playing a non-ruins action card.

569
Other Games / Re: Nintendo Switch
« on: October 21, 2016, 01:53:42 pm »
Nintendo confirmed that it is not backwards compatible with the Wii U or 3DS.

It's interesting to me how un-gimmicky the gimmick is.  On the 3DS, there are a lot of game mechanics which seem to be there only to highlight the value of 2 screens, or the value of depth perception.  On the Wii U there are game mechanics involving looking down at the gamepad.  But what sort of game mechanic could make use of the fact that you can play at home or on the go?

Hard to imagine a Nintendo console without gimmicks.  Clearly the true gimmicks are yet to be revealed.

570
Dominion Articles / Re: MDMA: deck types
« on: October 20, 2016, 01:14:20 pm »
Hypothetically, you could also build a deck with short build time, high greening power, high sustainability, and excellent end control, but we don't have a name for it because Dominion is balanced and usually no such strategy is possible.
I just realized that the "best of all worlds" deck is basically what we call a combo deck.  That's why it's hard to categorize combo decks, because they're good at everything that all the other deck types are trying to do.

I also like Seprix's categorization of BM as a rush strategy.

571
Dominion Articles / Re: MDMA: deck types
« on: October 20, 2016, 12:46:24 pm »
Attacks also kind of break your model; they don't really fit into any of your qualities but they have a huge impact on strategy and performance
Yeah!  Also, if it takes a long time to build because of Militia, does that make your deck into an engine?  Clearly not.

572
Dominion Articles / Re: MDMA: deck types
« on: October 20, 2016, 12:02:35 pm »
The way I see it, there are three types of paradigms in this topic.

Awaclus has a qualitative paradigm, where he says that any deck/strategy can be categorized in the basic types: BM, Engine, Rush, Slog and Combo/Other, and that there is a theoretical sixth deck type involving coin tokens that never works.

Chris and I have a more quantitative paradigm, where we suspect that there are underlying variables that distinguish these deck types from each other, opening the doors for hybrid decks to exist because they might fall somewhere on the borderline regarding one or more of these variables.

Finally, Traces Around has a nihilistic paradigm when it comes to deck types; they say that these graphs are useless in practice and we should only use terms like engine and BM to give strategy advise.

The nihilistic paradigm can be understood from a pragmatic point of view; if it doesn't actually help you win games, why bother discussing it? My answer to that would be: because I find it interesting. Another reason: by investigating this, we might get new insights into Dominion strategy that we otherwise wouldn't have gotten.
I like the quantitative paradigm not because the other paradigms are bad, but because I find it fun to build models (and to subsequently destroy them).

If I were to pick out the quantities of note, I would say:
  • Build time - time before greening
  • Greening power - rate of vp gain upon greening
  • Sustainability - ability to sustain vp gain after greening
  • End control - ability to control length of game
The standard deck types identify common points within these axes.
  • Engine: long build time, high greening power, low sustainability, decent end control
  • Big money/good stuff: short build time, low greening power, moderate sustainability, bad end control
  • Slog: high sustainability, good end control (e.g. extending game by avoiding provinces)
  • Rush: very short build time, low greening power, good end control (e.g. by 3-piling)
Hypothetically, you could also build a deck with short build time, high greening power, high sustainability, and excellent end control, but we don't have a name for it because Dominion is balanced and usually no such strategy is possible.  The model also suggests distinctions between different kinds of engines, like the engine that buys 2 provinces per turn, the engine that just tries to get 1 province consistently, and the engine that eventually 3-piles while buying a single estate.

So now to break the model.  What about Nobles?  Distant Lands?  Or landmarks with VP that disappear early?  Some strategies involve "greening before you green", and this is going to become more common and important with Empires.  We may have to come up with whole new ways of classifying strategies.

573
Dominion Articles / Re: MDMA: deck types
« on: October 19, 2016, 12:14:57 am »
The thing about "money" is that treasures are basically just actions that you play during a different phase of your turn.  As it turns out, drawing more during your buy phase doesn't mechanically make much sense, so there's only one treasure that draws: Venture.

But when it comes down to it, I don't think there is a significant difference between a deck that plays lots of Ventures and a deck that plays lots of Markets.  And there isn't much difference between a silver flood and a lighthouse flood.  Or suppose you make some poor choices and Lost Arts your Harvests, it's basically money.  Okay, so all these decks really suck, but are we trying to classify all decks or just the good ones?

There exists a hypothetical deck type, which sucks in practice and doesn't have a name, where you play a crap ton of Bakers or other coin token cards, and hoard an enormous pile of coin tokens to guarantee continuous single Province turns even if your hand is full of green cards.
That's kind of what Merchant Guild does.  Say there's no draw so you can only play about three merchant guilds in a turn.  Well 12 coin tokens is probably enough to sustain a single province for a few extra turns.

574
Dominion Articles / Re: MDMA: deck types
« on: October 18, 2016, 03:07:13 pm »
I like how our views of a bishop golden deck span the gamut.  WW considered it a combo, Aleimon Thimble considers it a good stuff deck, Chris is me says it's an engine, and I said it was a slog.

I consider golden decks slogs because they have the property of sustainability.  Usually a slog deck involves a very large deck, which isn't slowed down much by greening.  As a result, the slog wins the long game.  Another way to achieve sustainability is with VP chips.

But perhaps golden decks based on a single bishop are too fast, and should be considered rushes rather than slogs.  I think that's something missing from the OP: the way rushes and slogs bleed into each other.

575
Dominion Articles / Re: MDMA: deck types
« on: October 18, 2016, 01:28:55 pm »
Good stuff decks, in general:

- play more than 1 Action card per turn on average

- do not draw the entire deck with any sort of regularity

- payload is evaluated in terms of average production per turn instead of total deck production

Sound good? What's a good stuff deck that doesn't meet this, or an engine that does?
-A golden deck that plays only one Bishop per turn.  Is it big money because it's only one action per turn?  (Actually I consider this a slog.)

-A deck with a bunch of Ventures and money.  No actions played, but it's nearly the same as a good stuff deck with Markets and money.

-A deck with a bunch of Markets, plus some Warehouses or Forums.  Does the addition of sifting turn it into an engine?

-Native Village/Bridge or Hermit/Market Square.  Doesn't work with regularity, but I would call it an engine because it only needs to work once.

Pages: 1 ... 21 22 [23] 24 25 ... 31

Page created in 0.107 seconds with 18 queries.