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26

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion Fan Card Contest

« on: October 27, 2011, 07:22:39 pm »

Secret history of Fortuna

Early play is obvious.  You can hurt & gain early, but you know payback will come.  Preventing a province buy can be a game changer, but a 4-vp score swing to do it?  If they can still buy a Duchy they have +5vp while you have gotten -2.  That's a 7 point swing which is more than a province.  But preventing them from winning on that turn gives you that coin in your hand to buy what you need to win.

I knew I would not win the contest simply because it is an attack.  I know too many players who dislike attacks to expect to win.  And a targeted attack too?  Whoa, the anti-meta players will flood us with their tears if they actually have to choose who to use it on.

I've longed for actual player interaction, for a counter-spell.  No, not an "ew, don't touch me you big meanie" Moat.  A real, targeted, direct, personal interaction.  Like a real counter-spell.  A real "Hell no you are not going do that!" interaction card.

But alas, the "Care Bears" will not have it.  So we need to work our way up to it.  How about a steal treasure from play?  They put up with Thief, this one only gains you one card in multi-player.

But oh the humanity!  We have to play our cards one at a time?  Yes, and you did before this card.  Carefully choosing only few treasures from your hand to play before Contraband can be lots of fun for bluffing.  And no, you can't just play your Loan and Venture at the same time and decide what your doing after you see the first treasure in your deck.  No that HoP gained card does not count for your Philosopher's Stone if you played Horn after the Stone, and no you can't count that Philosopher's Stone as a differently named card for the Horn if you play Horn before the Stone.  Actions are no different.  No, I'm not going to continue my play until after you've decided on the cards to put back for my Ghost Ship.  No I'm not telling you if I'm holding a Possession, although I probably would not Ghost Ship you if I did have a Possession.  But then again, maybe the only reason I told you that is to trick you because I do have a Possession?  (anti-meta gamer opponent then proceeds to break into tears.)

27

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What cards are still unique?

« on: October 27, 2011, 05:06:22 pm »

lol!  I love you guys.  Where's that eating popcorn smiley...   

Sorry for the interruption, please continue.

28

Dominion Articles / Re: Crossroads

« on: October 24, 2011, 01:53:33 pm »

Crossroads is one heck of a trap.  It looks like such a strong core engine could be built on it, but drawn in separate hands the Victory cards and Crossroads are all dead cards.  Getting enough Crossroads & Victory cards to support a strong drawing engine usually ends up without any buying power.

I have seen that Crossroads is a good support card after you have the big hand.  After the Council Room, Tactician, or Lab-chain, the Crossroads can shine.  But at that point any card can shine.  And as noted, a Cellar is often just as good or better.

29

Game Reports / Re: Ambassador Hell

« on: October 21, 2011, 06:41:31 pm »

47 turns???  That may be the longest game of Dominion ever.

  47turns on a resign.  Should have been even longer.

I think I'd have switched to Bishop at some point and just tried to win on vp tokens.

I was in a game once where I was the only one to buy Ambassador and I still managed to empty the copper supply pile.  Yea, Kings Court was involved, but it was still a fun achievement.

30

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Create a card inspired by another game

« on: October 21, 2011, 06:30:11 pm »

ROBBER
---
+1 Buy
Each other player with more than 3 cards in his hand must discard half of the cards in his hand (rounded down). The player to your left discards the top card of his deck. If it's an...
-Action card, +2 Actions
-Treasure card, +$2
-Victory card, +2 Cards
The player to your right names a card. You cannot buy that card this turn.
--
Action/Attack - $3

I'm unoriginal and am stealing your idea.

Promo-Card.  Comes with a little robber figure, same as from Settlers.

ROBBER
---

Gain a kingdom card from the supply.

Move the Robber Token to that pile

--
While the Robber Token is on a card, no card of that name can be bought, gained, played, or trashed.  If another card requires it to be played, trashed, or gained, it goes to the the card owners discard pile instead.

Setup:  Place the Robber token on the Curse pile. 

Action - $4

Rule Note (I'm sure I'm wrong and this would need re-wording, but this explains my intent):  "Kingdom" supply piles are the randomized supply piles including bane.  Other supply piles used every game (copper to province), and special non-randomized piles (prize to colony) are not kingdom supply piles.  Curse is not a kingdom card even though the Robber starts there.  The Robber can not be placed back onto the Curse pile once moved off.

I love it!  Using it always gives you a dead card.  You can not gain from an empty supply pile, so empty pile cards become immune.  And Curses can not be given out until the Robber is moved.

You could use a Robber to gain a Robber.  You then have at least two dead cards in your deck for the rest of the game, but if your opponent have more Robbers than you it may be a smart move.

31

Simulation / Re: Hinterlands now available in Geronimoo's Dominion Simulator

« on: October 21, 2011, 05:09:01 pm »

You sure plowed through implementing those cards!

I think the next Simulation Challenge should be to come up with something -- anything -- that beats double Jack of All Trades in a Province game. (And double-Jack should be one of the prepackaged strategies, too, seeing as how it's nearly unstoppable.)

You'd need a bit of restrictions, non-province buys can win like Duchess/Duke, Workshop/Gardens, or Ill-got/Gardens.  Fool's gold/Council Room crushes it.  For single cards Witch, Young Witch, Wharf, & Masquerade still win.

32

Simulation / Re: Hinterlands now available in Geronimoo's Dominion Simulator

« on: October 21, 2011, 11:23:49 am »

First, thanks for the simulator.  It's very helpful.

I saw the the question on your site for suggestions on how to optimize play rules.  I say don't optimize them, let us choose them.

I don't see much choice if you want to keep going further with the simulator.  I'm guessing you've already thought of it.  Break it into the three game phases; Action Rules, Buy Rules, and Cleanup Rules.  But obviously that's where it gets tough.  There are so many choices that could come up.

Action rules could be just like the buy rules.
Play XXXXX
  Play condition if XXXXXX
  Play choices XXXXXX

Buy phase could also use play rules for things like Loan, HoP, Ill-Gotten.

Cleanup play rules would be pretty limited, mostly for cards with top-decking options.

Then the simulator would be a full strategy simulator where we can tweak with the best way to play cards.  I don't know if that's where you want to go with it, or if you have the time to do it.  I know I certainly don't have the spare time to create something like that.  So I thank you the work you have done.  Even as is, the simulator is an amazing tool.

33

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Dominion Card Picker (forked from veto thread)

« on: October 21, 2011, 10:33:47 am »

Hi Karrow,

*laugh* I don't mean to discriminate against the veto meta-gamers. I enjoy meta-gaming too, and I think veto is great when everyone is on the same page about how vetos are going to be used (e.g. you aren't playing with others who simply set it to randomly veto).

I think I can add that as an option, too.. Ideally, how would it look? Some of the functional and cost restrictions may get a bit messy, but I can fudge those when needed. You'd need up to 17 cards? So 18 with Young Witch (or Black Market)?

It would just be a drop down of "# of cards to randomize."  10 cards as default, and most people will never touch it.  A 6-player game would need to randomize up to 17 cards and be able to display up to 18 for the bane.

I wouldn't worry about much else.  Keep the focus on the 10-card smart randomizer.  If it's not too difficult, just allowing the option to randomize more than 10 would be helpful for those who want it.  I've heard of groups that run with more than 10 in the kingdom as a default house rule.  I don't like that myself, but then the randomizer would cover them as well as anyone else who would want more than 10 for whatever reason.

34

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Dominion Card Picker (forked from veto thread)

« on: October 20, 2011, 02:49:09 pm »

Hey!  Don't be discriminating against us meta-gamers!  I love meta-gaming and veto mode.  We still need love too. 

Could you add the option to randomize 10-17 cards?  The max on all the drop downs would need to go up to 17 too.  Then us horrific meta-gamers could use this amazing tool too.

I know, it will mess up your intent on some items.  Obviously the entire intent of the randomizer can be broken by a wisely placed veto, but some of that could be accounted for by us veto-mode folks by using higher minimums than non-veto folks would. 

35

Dominion General Discussion / Re: How does/will Hinterlands affect the overall Dominion game environment?

« on: October 19, 2011, 07:14:19 pm »

Some straight Hinterlands kingdoms are going to be pretty intense.  Face-to-face games are going to be great, tracking what is being done and discussing buy vs gain vs discard card effects.  I'm all for the complexity creep.

In the full mix randomizer kingdom, that base set starting to look a little lame now in comparison.  I'm sure some kingdoms will come up now that will be pretty boring face-to-face.  But I know for "new players" I will no longer just run the full randomizer.  Everyone I've trained so far has been former Magic players, so it's pretty straight forward to explain even with a full radomizer mix.  But now I think I'll be staging a first game a bit.  Not the beginner-basic recommended, but just try to keep it to base-intrigue-seaside sets.

And for Isotropic, I do see the complete opposite reactions.  All of the cards take so many clicks to play.  For automatches and 3+ player games I expect hinterlands to be way up on the veto list once the new factor wears off.  Isotropic people can be insanely impatient.  Even I suffer the same effects.  Scrying Pool is tops on my veto list simply because of the time to play it as it usually gets lots of them along with other annoying cards just as spy/wishing well, and so on.  The last Scrying Pool game in real life I played 4-player.  I gave directions to everyone, "if it's a copper put it back forever, you don't have to keep revealing it, otherwise discard it."  (had a cutpurse as a terminal).  So everyone took care of the attack effects themselves.  I had pearl divers, and half the time I didn't even look at the bottom card, I just said leave the bottom card where it is.  And it still took forever.  The thought of doing the same on isotropic gives me carpal tunnel just thinking about it.  Thinking about a straight 4-player Hinterlands on Isotropic with a Scrying Pool gives me a headache already.

36

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Purpose of Thief

« on: October 19, 2011, 01:19:05 pm »

Oh man, Talisman??? I'd better load up on Thieves so I can steal those! God, I just can't wait to steal some Ill-Gotten Gains too!

A big list of cards that Thief can steal is a lot of mostly-meaningless sound and fury. Noble Brigand is going to be much stronger than Thief on average at winning games. If you don't think so, hey, let's you and I play a bunch of Thief boards so I can pump up my rating.

There's room for both cards, sure, but one is much better than the other on average.

Ooh, lets pick on the worst treasures.  If you don't want the Talisman, trash it.  You can just trash it with the Thief unlike the Noble Brigand.  Assuming you're playing against semi-competent players, they would not have a Talisman unless they had some strategy for it in which case trashing it on them early serves a purpose and you do not have to gain it.

Stealing an Ill-Gotten Gains with a Thief a bad idea?  I'll happily gain the Ill-Gotten Gains from the trash pile so I can hand out the curses.  As noted above, I'm assuming competent opponents so there's likely a Upgrade variant of sorts in the kingdom and not any better curse dealers available.

I won't forget the Harem/Fools Gold game I played.  You should have seen their faces when I pulled a Thief out of the Black Market deck.  If it was Noble Brigand I would not have have bought it.

Oh, and I'm sure you will be able to point to isotropic and show that Noble Brigand has a higher win rate than Thief (in games that are 90% only 2-players).  I'm also sure that in general, playing blind without considering any strategy of either player, Noble Brigand will play better.  But actually playing with strategy is different.  You NEVER buy a Thief without a reason, so it will always have lower stats from players who have not learned this.

But step away from the screen and play in a real game.  If you want to play with stacked Thief/Noble Brigand kingdoms, come over to my house and play some 4-6player dominion with the group I play with.  Here's how it goes;  Thief.  Thief.  Thief.  Thief.  Thief.  Your turn!  Buy that Noble Brigand and you'll see every Silver/Gold get trashed instead of gained.

Donald X is no fool.  Cards have been play tested for a long, long time.

37

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Purpose of Thief

« on: October 18, 2011, 03:08:50 pm »

Oh No's!  A Noble Brigand?  My Venture/Harem/Bank, Tactician/Coppersmith, Counting House/Coppersmith, Fools Gold, Workshop/Gardens, Chancellor/Stash, and Potion/Vineyard/Cheap-action strategies will all be destroyed!  (not really)

If you only want to steal Silver & Gold with the chance of giving coppers while gaining $1 then buy Noble Brigand.

If you'd like the option to trash without gaining Silver & Gold, or have any interest in trashing or gaining a:
Harem
Stash
Philosopher Stone
Loan
Quarry
Talisman
Contraband
Royal Seal
Venture
Hoard
Bank
Horn of Plenty
Diadem
Cache
Fools Gold
Ill-Gotten Gains
Potion
Copper
or Platinum,
or if you do not want to feed your opponents Counting House/Coppersmith,
or if you simply want to trash every treasure of your opponent without giving him any coppers...

then Thief is the card to buy


There's plenty of room for both.  I see a lot more reasons to still buy Thief over Noble Brigand than I see to buy Lab over Hunting Party.

38

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Apprentice is simply broken

« on: October 18, 2011, 02:33:08 pm »

Sorry for the rant, but think before wild claims are made.

Everyone needs to remember, If you don't beat straight big money you're playing bad.  (don't feel bad about it, I play bad all the time)

Big Money baseline without attacks = 20 turn game average.  Now I haven't run the actual distribution, but a sampling of big money games show games regularly run 19-21 turns, rarely they run 17-25 turns.

Yes, a lucky big money can win in 17 turns.

Big money + 1 good card = 19turn average.



Now we have two cards costing 5+, trashing a card that took 5-6 to buy, to draw 5-6 cards.

Broken because it works with so many cards?  I'd like to introduce you to a card called Kings Court.  KC+Lab draws 6 giving three actions without trashing a $6 card!  KC+Smithy draws 9 without trashing.  KC+Envoy draws 15 without trashing,  opponent discards 3 of them, keep 12, don't worry too much about the first two your opponent discarded because they are probably shuffled back in to the last 5.  Ever felt a KC+Torturer?

5 province on 19 turns broken?  ROFL!  Please meet Workshop/Gardens.  Workshop/Gardens will 3-pile all by itself on turn 19 and beat a 7 Province opponent.  5-Prov on turn 19 won't stand a chance.  Two players going workshop/gardens will end the game on 10 turns flat, try picking up an apprentice in those 10 turns and see if it helps.

39

Dominion General Discussion / Re: So the new Hinterlands cards are coming out... thoughts?

« on: October 17, 2011, 11:29:53 am »

From what I see so far, playing a straight Hinterlands kingdom is going to be crazy fun. 

There will be so many creative and complex interactions between the cards that some crazy scenarios will play out.  But just as with Dominion before Hinterlands, actually pulling the crazy hinterlands combos together for a win against an opponent who simply plays big money + 1 of the best kingdom card may prove difficult for many players.

Things are getting strange enough though that I worry a little bit that another KC/Masq type lock-down will be found. 

And for Mandarin:  Play treasure, use a Horn of Plenty to gain the Mandarin or gain Border Village to a Mandarin (Quarry can help a lot), buy victory card, repeat every turn.  Yea, it's too many cards.  But I think people will find several other ways to pull something similar to this off.

40

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What the heck just happened ---- How did I lose to Courtyard/Silver?

« on: October 14, 2011, 05:54:30 pm »

From the simulator:  Big money + courtyard against straight big money ultimate gives a 19 turn average  75% win / 19% loose / 6% draw.

I can't see the log at work, so I can't say if you just had bad luck.  But a courtyard win on turn 19 is no surprise.

41

Dominion General Discussion / Re: So the new Hinterlands cards are coming out... thoughts?

« on: October 14, 2011, 04:33:18 pm »

I have a feeling I'll be buying Nomad Camps at times.  I can think of a lot of games where I did not get a +buy early, mid game I didn't want to buy down to get the +buy,  then late game as I look at a $25 hand I realize that it's too late to pick up a +buy because I'll never get around to drawing it.  Top-decking changes that.

And for the fools gold, it sets up a few possibilities.  But it seems they need an all in strategy buying as many fools golds as possible.  There will be a few fast combos with it, but I don't see it in any 2-card combo that will beat the standard workshop/gardens.

42

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Blooki's Puzzle #7 - Savvy Shopper

« on: October 14, 2011, 01:49:04 pm »

Loophole

vineyards/gardens/fairgrounds rules are not very clear.  Some may say they are worth 0 until the end of the game.  But if we just go by what the card says, it says "cards in deck."  The rules state that the discard pile is not your deck.  The base set rules state that at the end of the game you put all of your cards into your deck.  But the question was "gained during buy phase alone."  Gaining cards that do not get shuffled into your deck does not add to gardens/vineyards/fairgrounds in your buy phase.

So

    1179 points without hinterlands.

I start my turn with 0 cards in deck, so I start with gardens/fairgrounds/vineyards=0.  I play no actions, and move to buy phase.  I play platinum/platinum/loan and keep 2-curses in my hand.  Before this turn I managed to buy all but 1 card of every pile except for fairgrounds & vineyards which I bought 8 of each, and I black marketed buying every card in the black market deck (through cornucopia).  Loan makes me shuffle, hits a copper first which i trash, I buy a colony.

My loan shuffled into my deck 7 gardens, 8 fairgrounds, 8 vineyards 8 loans, 9 bane, 9 young witch, 9 black market, 9X4 other action kingdom cards, 59 copper (then -1 to 58 from the loan), 29 silver, 29 gold, 9 platinum, 15 potion, 10 estate, 7 duchy, 7 province, 7 colony, 7 curse, and one of every other card in the game gained from black market (119 cards).  That's 391 cards shuffled in for a gain of 273 garden points, and 140 differently named cards for a fairgrounds gain of 448, 63 kingdom actions and 107 black market bought actions give 448 vineyard points, and one colony buy for 10.  1179 points gained during buy phase.

(easily would be more with hinterlands, but I don't know how many action cards are in hinterlands.)

(And I see I also forgot the prize cards.) 

43

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Blooki's Puzzle #7 - Savvy Shopper

« on: October 14, 2011, 12:12:46 pm »

Do I have 1 buy and $11 at the *start* of the buy phase, or merely at this point in my buying? Is horn of plenty allowed?

For the sake of simplicity, let's say your coin total doesn't go past $11. I don't see how this would help you anyways other than by using Hoard which I don't think helps you enough as an alternative to my solution.

Your spoiler card is indeed allowed.

OK then, so no 10 Hordes

And for simplicity I hope we have to begin at the start of the buy phase?  Because the loophole that gets crazy is if we join mid-buy phase, but you ask how many vp's are gained this buy phase, we have to consider all the buys made that led us up to the 1buy $11 state.  And that could have been buying every card in the game.

44

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: A Noob's Expansion - Come Rip it Apart...

« on: October 13, 2011, 05:41:02 pm »

Your point is to make sure the card is worded such that, even if the curses are out, you still must discard a silver if you have at least one in your hand? Do I understand that right?

Not at all.  Just pointing out the additional factors that could sway the wording to be one way or the other.  Neither is wrong.  It just gives an additional thing to think about.  I'm probably just over-complicating it, and not being helpful.  And that's why I said I was just rambling.  Your last version seems pretty balanced to me.  After the curses are out, it's just +1 card +$2, but with the silver option the curse pile will empty slower and last longer.  It's probably best the way it is now, as the other versions could be deemed too much like a witch, or too much like a cutpurse.


For Church Bell, one thing I always think about with 5's is the 5-2 start.  If someone opens 5-2 against 4-3, can the 4-3 win?

A 5-2 opening is church bell/nothing.  That's 91% to hit on turn 3 or 4.  Turn 3 would hit 100% copper/estate.  Turn 4 would have a 1 in 3 chance to hit the card bought on turn 3, but if it hits it, it's likely a silver that would go into your hand.

I don't see any 4-3 standing a chance against a 5-2 church bell opening short of a workshop/gardens.

BUT... I also find that a 5-2 opening with witches/mountebank against a 4-3 already breaks the game.  Practically nothing short of workshop/gardens stands a chance there either.  So in that aspect, it's no worse than what already exists.

Pushing it out to a $6 or more pushes it out to mid-late game where it's going to loose all of it's power and not be anywhere near worth the price.

So again, I'm not so helpful.  Balancing out a deck thinning cards is tough.  And if it's not thinning what's in your hand it's even tougher.  For most of the other ones loosing the card in hand is an additional cost to play it.  With this one the only cost is the purchase price, and the action to play.  Overpowered early, weak late.  Not sure what would work.

45

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: A Noob's Expansion - Come Rip it Apart...

« on: October 13, 2011, 04:16:47 pm »

Just my rambling.

For Lycanthrope, don't forgot about when the curse pile runs out which seems to happen more often in 3-4p.

"Discard a silver, or reveal a hand containing no silvers and gain a curse" causes it to remain a useful attack after the curse pile is gone, but also makes it slower to empty the curse pile.  All of the other curse givers become weaker after the curse pile is gone to some extent with witches being one of the hardest hit 5-cost becoming a $5 moat without the reaction ability.  Where as torturer usually will not empty the curse pile, but stays stronger than a witch as a $5 smithy after the curses are gone.

I wonder how a bigger cutpurse play tests with exact same wording of cutpurse except replace copper with silver, and costing $5. 

Anyhow, I'm just rambling about thoughts I didn't see yet.  Your card, your choice how to make it.  Just keep in mind what happens when the curse pile runs out.

46

Simulation / Re: Simulating challenge: beat Smithy

« on: October 12, 2011, 02:48:54 pm »

I hit the lab/cellar idea and come back to see you have it with mine/lab/cellar.  It surprised me how well lab/cellar fared against the Smithy.  I put in Militia and Spy to try to slow the Smithy down just a little.  I tried Bureaucrats without any good results.  I had a Moneylender in that was giving good results at first, but I tweaked enough that pulling the Moneylender out improved the odds.  I got a descent win advantage I think with this one.

Probably not optimized, but beats two smithy opponents by a good margin and the two-path by DG as well:
Karrow-Lab=39.3% - Smithy=26.5% - Smithy=26.5%
Karrow-Lab=33.3% - Two path=30.2% - Two path=30.2%

Lets see if I can get this right

Code: [Select]

<player name="Karrow-Lab" author="Karrow" description="Lab Cellar Militia Spy to beat Smithy">
 <type name="UserCreated"/>
 <type name="Province"/>
 <type name="ThreePlayer"/>
   <buy name="Province">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Gold"/>
         <operator type="greaterThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="0.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Duchy">
      <condition>
         <left type="gainsNeededToEndGame"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="6.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Estate">
      <condition>
         <left type="gainsNeededToEndGame"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="3.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Gold">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Gold"/>
         <operator type="smallerThan" />
         <right type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Laboratory"/>
         <extra_operation type="plus" attribute="3.0" />
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Laboratory"/>
   <buy name="Cellar">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Laboratory"/>
         <operator type="greaterThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="2.0"/>
      </condition>
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Cellar"/>
         <operator type="smallerThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="2.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Militia">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Militia"/>
         <operator type="equalTo" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="0.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Silver">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Silver"/>
         <operator type="smallerThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="1.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Cellar">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Cellar"/>
         <operator type="equalTo" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="0.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Spy">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Spy"/>
         <operator type="equalTo" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="0.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Silver">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Silver"/>
         <operator type="smallerThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="6.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Cellar">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Cellar"/>
         <operator type="smallerThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="6.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Silver"/>
   <buy name="Cellar"/>
</player>


47

Simulation / Re: Simulating challenge: beat Smithy

« on: October 11, 2011, 07:04:10 pm »

Find a strategy that beats this in a 3 player game using only cards from the base set:

You are not allowed to use Chapel, Witch or Gardens.

What is the third player?  Changing it to buy Smithy when <2 wins a 3 player against <1 when the third player is a single Militia, Bureaucrat, Thief, Spy, or the preset Spy/Thief attack.

48

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: My personal opinion of interesting variants

« on: October 03, 2011, 11:30:01 am »

Ah, the variant/custom card paradox.

Don't do anything new, and the new card is boring.  Do something new, and friends will say "that's not Dominion.  Lets just play the real Dominion."

Me.  I hate mats, counters, and tokens.  If someone tries to add even more custom mats, counters, tokens, or dice, I'm not going to want to play.  Dominion is a card game.  I love simple variations.  I'd love a +4card discard 2.  Boring?  Nonsense.  Smithy only gets you 3, this gets you 33% more.  Envoy only looses 1 of the 4, but you don't get to choose.  If you're looking for one specific card it's better than envoy, but would a warehouse do you better?  Is it just a bigger courtyard?  No, courtyard makes you put a card back on your library.  This lets you discard for a sooner shuffle.  So do you play it like a smithy, envoy, warehouse, or courtyard?  Can you modify the strategy to find a better one?  That's what I love about Dominion.

49

Game Reports / Re: Horn of Plenty

« on: September 30, 2011, 12:24:57 pm »

I thought I had a good Horn opportunity here with an alchemist/colony setup.
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110929-162811-a37c6b33.html
I figured an alchemist drawing engine with the bonus of potions & platinums would be perfect to get the varety of cards to fuel the horn.  Early horn pickups of more farming villages and shanty towns should just help fuel the completely non-terminal engine.

Sadpanda and I split the alchemists 5/5, so far so good. (3rd player was unranked I think and didn't do much to mention.)

I get a descent mix to feed the horn, and end up with copper, silver, gold, platinum, potion, royal seal, alchemist, farming village, fishing village, shanty town, and the horn itself for a possible 11-cost horn pickup.  And I pull an easy lead.

But Sadpanda goes heavy upgrades.  He thins his deck down enough with Upgrades alone to draw all of his cards.  He then proceeds to pummel me with a Colony buy every single turn for 7 straight turns in a row without one dead draw.

I was close.  Had I played better, or one lucky shuffle by me for an extra colony and I would have won.

But did the Horns actually help me?  Two upgrades to thin the coppers and move the estates up to useful items would have probably gotten me the win over the two Horns.

I think this shows the problem with Horn.  It a good card, and comes real close.  But it's just not better most other 5's.  The Horn is also not very flexible.  There are just so many other good 5's that are better and more flexible to be good in more situations.  So it's going to be very rare for Horn of Plenty to be a good buy.

50

Dominion Isotropic / Re: veto mode stats

« on: September 30, 2011, 11:27:20 am »

It would be nice to see an update on the stats.

I think i see more people using random lately.  My veto order is Scrying Pool, any card I've seen in the last 3+ games in a row (even if I'm winning using it), then random. 

Scrying pool is one that just takes sooooo long since it seems a good engine with them takes a lot of them.  It's the spy effect that makes it so slow.  Individually, many cards take more time on there own.  But when someone's playing 5 scrying pools every turn, usually just to buy another scrying pool/spy/pawn/pearl diver/wishing well... Then I get tired of it.