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 - Loschmidt

Filter to certain boards:

Pages: 1 [2] 3 4 ... 8
26
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Now I feel like a hipster...
« on: September 07, 2012, 02:34:04 am »
There are better games than Dominion?

I think Agricola comes pretty close. It does have immense replayvalue, even if the games feels less varied than Dominion.

(The play-agricola website has about 10 players with 2000+ games. Considering a game of Agricola takes 90 mins and a Dominion game takes 10 min, this corresponds to 18000 Dominion-games in time-usage. And still they haven't quit playing.)

I love Agricola too :D I've played a few dozen games and it still feels like I haven't scratched the surface of strategy. And there is so much variety built into the game with the occupations/improvements that it feels like it'll be years before I've even seen all that the base game has to offer.

27
Dominion General Discussion / Re: The sublte effects of Shelters
« on: September 07, 2012, 02:23:14 am »
Previously I’d been trashing it for an early estate if I was going to pass on a $2 anyway. Silly me.
Wait, why is this silly?

Read the thread I linked to. They go into it in depth. Basically going an early Hovel --> Estate, does your deck no harm and adds 1VP, but then your first Province dilutes your deck and makes it harder to get your 2nd, 3rd, etc. If you wait and then go Hovel --> Province, your deck is still in the same shape it was except you have +6VP. You should have no trouble getting your 2nd Province. You're sacrificing 1VP for deck quality in the late game. Its quite subtle and if you think it is going to be a really close low-scoring game (due to cursing etc), or that the game will end on piles then the early Estate might be worth it.

28
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Cards You Horribly Misjudged
« on: September 07, 2012, 02:06:25 am »
I don't think I've ever underestimated a card. That's not meant to be a brag, it's just part of my nature. I look at every card and if it's use isn't immediately obiously I think, "it must be here for a reaon, I'll buy it anyway".

I remember the first time I tried chapelling. It was great. None of us knew what we were doing at all, and I just started trashing everything with no real plan. My friends thought I was mad, and then to our collective surprise I started buying golds (I was trashing silvers at this point silvers!) and then Provinces and won by miles. It is a testament to how bad we all were that I went BM + Chapel (while trashing silvers) and won. Ah good times.

Anyway this means however that I have overestimated heaps of cards.

Transmute: try as I might this card just never gets anywhere. Although Dark Ages has really helped it out.
Thief: sometimes when there's no virtual money I still try to destroy peoples economies though. Its just so hard to do it quickly enough, and it doesn't gain you friends.
Stash: I just thought there'd be more use for a silver that you put where you like.
Duchess: This'll let me Duchy rush all the time! No, no it won't. I remember when I was trying to rush a 3-pile by buying out the Border Villages/+free Duchy/+free Duchess. I'm so sad that that just doesn't work.


29
Dominion General Discussion / Re: The sublte effects of Shelters
« on: September 07, 2012, 01:11:01 am »
You missed some obvious effects:
- Remake, Upgrade and Develop are worse

Develop isn't strictly worse actually. It just becomes more situational.

I was playing a Gardens game with Develop and Beggar on the board. Develop got me started really quickly turning those shelters into Coppers and Beggars.

30
Dominion General Discussion / Re: The sublte effects of Shelters
« on: September 07, 2012, 01:07:17 am »
You missed some obvious effects:

- Ambassador is worse
- Remake, Upgrade and Develop are worse
- Hunting Party is worse
- Fairgrounds is better
- Menagerie is better
- HoP is a smidgen better, because Necropolis is one more card already in your deck that you can play to boost it

Of course, silly me. I got distracted. thinking about the 3 point trashing difference. Here's some more:

-Baron is worse
-Crossroad isn't exactly worse, but maybe you shouldn't buy it as early as you normally do
-Scout (poor scout, he cops a beating on these forums) is, dare I say it, worse

31
Dominion General Discussion / The sublte effects of Shelters
« on: September 07, 2012, 12:11:42 am »
Now we've had a bit of a chance to play with them, lets list the effects that Shelters have on play and stategy. I think we can all agree they're subtle, but important nonetheless.

I'll start off with some of the more obvious ones.

You can have slightly more terminals than you otherwise would.

Thanks to necropolis of course. This is less important than I first thought it would be, but I've still seen it have a significant effect on people decks. A friend of mine built a cantrip engine that was able to play two terminals to cap it off using necropolis. Never needing to stop to buy a village is helpful. One way to think about necropolis is as a shanty town with the opportunity cost removed.

You get one free green buy.

From a deck quality perspective of course. This thread has convinced me that the optimal play is to wait to trash your hovel until you were greening anyway.

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=4508.0

Previously I’d been trashing it for an early estate if I was going to pass on a $2 anyway. Silly me.

Heavy trashing doesn’t put you at a 3 point disadvantage.

Classically if Alberto chapels into an engine and Britt goes for a BM+ strategy with no trashing and it’s a close game, Britt has the edge. If the provinces are split Alberto needs a Duchy to break even. This means Britt can take the penultimate province without worry. However with shelters early heavy trashing has no effect on your score, just on your deck quality.

This is something I only just realised, and I think is more interesting than the first two.

Thoughts?

32
Dominion Articles / Re: All-around cards
« on: September 06, 2012, 03:28:11 am »
Iron Monger

Its a cantrip. Tick. Its a mild sifter. Tick. It gives you more of what you've already got, and presumably you have it for a reason.

Engine: Its a village if you hit actions (which you will in an engine deck). Helps you draw when you start greening.
BM: It makes your treasure work double time. Helps you draw when you start greening.

33
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Province Theft
« on: September 05, 2012, 02:24:52 am »
Yeah, but I guess he's right to mention Possession + Ambassador

I'll conceed that point. Try as I might I can never quite cover all of the edge cases to the satisfaction of the DSF crowd :D Not that I'm complaining :P

34
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Province Theft
« on: September 05, 2012, 01:07:22 am »
--Province Theft--

Stealing Provinces directly from another player’s deck is the ultimate insult in Dominion (in the absence of Colonies obviously). Dark Ages has finally given us a way to pull this off (aside from Masquerade shenanigans of course).TLDR: Highway/Saboteur/Grave Robber can steal Provinces from your opponent!

Just to be pedantic (since this community seems to love to do that), Possession + Masquerade (or Ambassador) does this, too.

35
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Province Theft
« on: September 05, 2012, 12:09:34 am »
Rogue is not a great card to rely on as the trashing attack.  It's easy enough to stop simply by filling the trash with other cards.  Also making it difficult is the fact that the trashing attack would need price reduction to work as well.  Of course, if you have reliable reduction to do the trash gaining, then maybe it's not a huge obstacle. 

Probably the bigger obstacle is that your opponent chooses a card to do the trashing, so he can often choose to trash the other card.  Same goes for Knight.  This can also be mitigated by price reduction, except it also means that, if you don't find a Province, you may miss out on trashing their power $5.

You need the price reduction for it to work at all. But with 4xHighways + Rogue if they turn over a Province they have to trash it. The only thing is either spamming it enough to hit a Province, or Spying enough to make sure one is there.

36
Dominion General Discussion / Province Theft
« on: September 04, 2012, 11:30:00 pm »
--Province Theft--

Stealing Provinces directly from another player’s deck is the ultimate insult in Dominion (in the absence of Colonies obviously). Dark Ages has finally given us a way to pull this off (aside from Masquerade shenanigans of course).

Highway/Sabotuer/Grave Robber is the most effective way to pull this off, but it isn't your only option. Lets go through all of the components of this attack/combo too see all of the options; it turns out there is a reasonable degree of flexibility in the required kingdoms.

--Components--

Trash Retrieval:

This is the key card. Trashing enemy provinces has been possible since Intrigue, but getting them out of the trash is a more recent possibility.
-Rogue: Rogue’s are ideal as they play double duty as a Trashing Attack also.
-Grave Robber: Grave Robber is a fine substitute and the remodel ability may help you set up your engine.

Price Reduction:

This is also a required component. None of the Trash Retrieval cards are capable of getting Provinces from the trash without help.
-Highway: We want at least a $2 reduction but ideally a $5 reduction. Highways being cantrips will make this easier to pull off.
-Bridge: Technically possible but harder to pull off in multiples than Highways. For Masochists.
-Princess: Again strictly possible but the difficulties are numerous with this, even just in getting one. For extreme masochists.

Trashing Attack:

Now we just need to get your opponent’s Provinces into the Trash. We have a few options here.
-Saboteur: This is easily the best option. In the absence of $7 kingdom cards a $4 price reduction makes your Saboteurs into Province-selective missiles. $5 reduction means that only pesky Peddlers will get in the way. The only downside is that your opponent can get a Duchy in recompense.
For all of the remaining attack to be at all reliable as Province hunters they will need to be either spammed, or have Deck Inspection assistance (see later)
-Rogue: A good option because it doubles as a Trash Retrieval card.
-Knight: A fine option. Remember that the danger of your opponent’s Knights neutralising your Knights can be removed with enough Price Reduction.
-Swindler:  A more difficult option. If you Swindle your opponent’s Provinces they receive another copy. Your time building this super complex engine would have been better spent just buying that Province. The way to neutralise this is to play at least $8 of Price Reduction. This allows you to Swindle your opponents Provinces into Curses. However at this level of Price Reduction Provinces will be too cheap to retrieve from the Trash. You either need to Trash and Retrieve on alternating turns, or Retrieve a Province early in your Turn (when the price reduction is between $2 and $5, i.e. 2 to 5 highways in play) and then continue to reduce the price to -$8 before playing your Swindlers.

Deck Inspection Attack:

This is not a strict requirement (and completely unnecessary if you have a Saboteur) but will help you reliably hit your opponents Provinces, which you need to do to make this engine worthwhile.
-Spy: As a cantrip it is easy to play in multiples. Certainly wont hurt your deck.
-Oracle: Hits more cards, but as terminal it's harder to spam. It does draw card however so if you have the actions spare it would be a good idea.
-Scrying Pool: The extreme action drawing ability makes this rather helpful.

Village:

Straightforward and common requirement. Throne Room and Kings Court are technical substitutes if you’re one of the aforementioned masochists.

Further Thoughts:

I could have just said Highway/Sab/GR seems like a nice combo, as that is my far the most functional way to attempt this. But the more I thought about it the more I realised that there were multiple ways to pull of this attack. That is the beauty of Dominion I suppose, so much potential and flexibility.

This will take a long time to setup of course, but that’s okay because want your opponents to already have Provinces when you finally set it up, so you have time. And each successful Sabotuered and Grave Robbed Province is a 9 point swing in your favour. 12 points if you can pull it off with one of the other trashing attacks.

If they have more of the Highways/other good cards than you’d like you can of course steal or just trash those to slow them down.

Squire seems like an ideal support card for this setup as it is a Village that GR can turn into a Saboteur and a Highway.

This works with Colonies of course too. You need at least $5 of price reduction to get them out of the Trash.  Also this combo may be more of a worthwhile pursuit in longer higher scoring Colony games; nabbing a Colony is a 14 point swing to you.

I suppose I should mention that I haven’t even tried to pull this off yet. It hasn’t come up on any board I’ve played yet. I’m tempted to spike the required cards into a game with my housemates tonight. But i don’t want to be that guy :P

Let me know if you guys succeed or even attempt this on any board where it seems possible!

TLDR: Highway/Saboteur/Grave Robber can steal Provinces from your opponent!

37
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Discard & Trash Piles + Dark Ages
« on: September 04, 2012, 11:14:29 pm »
Yeah, and another small pile that just had 1 of each of the treasures trashed for Forager.

38
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Card Sleeves
« on: September 04, 2012, 11:12:49 pm »
So now that I've gotten my Mayday Sleeves a quick review.

I sleeved Dominion, Intrigue and Hinterlands with them so about 1200 cards all up. I found 13 sleeves that either broke or were too small. For me a 1% failure rate is more than acceptable. The thing that I was most worried about was the feel of the sleeves and whether they would be weird to shuffle. But you get used to the feel of them pretty quickly and in fact I think they're easier to shuffle. My original estates and coppers were getting a bit sticky from overuse and it was getting a pain to shuffle (especially in the early game) but now with the sleeves if anything they're too slippery and they shuffle quite nicely.

So for the peace of mind (especially around drinks and people who've had a few :P), increased lifespan of the cards and ease of shuffling I would definitely recommend them.

Given this thread has had some recent activity, i'll update my review 6 months on.

I have completely gotten used to the feel of the sleeves. Any worries I had about it feeling unnatural or ruining playing the game are gone. So if that was holding you back from sleeving your cards then you can stop worrying. I really see it as an investment. I want to keep playing Dominion untill I can't shuffle anymore, and the sleeves have added to the lifespan of the cards enormously.

The fail rate after 6 months has easily doubled (so that makes it like 2.5%). Some of the sleeves tear at the edges. This is mostly on the cards with the greatest stress on them; the coppers/estates. This is still a very acceptable to me, I had the spares lying around anyway.

I would still highly recommend sleeves in general and Mayday sleeves in specific to a friend :)

39
This is a difficult idea to get work. But I like your ideas. Except for the fact that if you have it raise the price of cards everywhere it doesn't have any effect on Remodel/Mine/Expand ect.

Troll: Having it give you more money than it costs you brings you out ahead, but wouldn't it be simpler to have it only dffect your hand.

$3 - Troll

+1 Action
+$1
----------
While this is in play cards in your hand are worth $1 more

This way it also combos with Remodel in the way you would like.

Similarly you could have the duration only affect the price of cards in the supply to mess with your opponents without giving them the potential Trash for Benefit boost.

40
Dominion General Discussion / Alchemy and Dark Ages
« on: September 03, 2012, 11:41:20 pm »
Alchemy has always been my least favourite expansion, which is not to say that I don't actually like it. Dominion expansions are just of very high quality and Alchemy merely grabbed me the least. But there are a number of Alchemy/DA combos that are really making enjoy Alchemy games more.

Vineyards/Ruins

Vineyards is such a nice passive counter to Ruins. Playing a ruined-vineyards deck is much closer to playing Gardens deck than your average Vineyards deck and I love playing bloated decks. The only problem with having such a ruined deck is actually finding your Potions and Armory provided the solution. I used my Armories to top-deck Potions, each one guaranteeing a Vineyards next turn.

Counterfeit/Potion

This combo fixes two of the common Alchemy deck problems; 1) getting those powerful Potion-cost cards quickly enough, and 2) having a dead Potion in your deck after you've stopped ramping.

Apprentice/Feodum

I've always love Apprentice, I mean it is just such a hands down fantastic card. But anyway this combo is a like the love child of Apprentice and Trader. So much fun.


41
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Let's talk about Count
« on: September 03, 2012, 03:32:35 am »
Definitely going to be good with alt. VP strategies. The copper for gardens, the duchy for dukes and silk roads. Also the +$3 almost guarantees enough to buy gardens and silk roads.  Furthermore, the discard doesn't hurt nearly as much when half your hand is green ;)

True, but the huge problem is that it cost 5$. Too expensive for gardens and silk road games, and same price as duke and duchies... (though Cache-Duke is a decent strategy)

I think it's definitely worth taking the time to get $5 for your first Count. The Count-supported alt-VP strategy isn't a rush, its a slog. Count's copper-gaining and top-decking abilites really help you long term in consistently hit that $5/$4 mark. Furthermore by being able to gain Duchies while you're still buying your primary alt-VP you are creating a relatively high scoring alt-VP deck. Your opponent can't necessarily rely on just provinces to beat you.

42
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Paradigm shifts
« on: August 29, 2012, 01:44:14 am »
Nice and thoughtful post :) One question though:

Intrigue:
The content of everyone's deck is in principle public information (you can remember what they've gained and trashed).

How does Intrigue violate this?
Masquerade in multiplayer.

Ahhhh! Very interesting. I'd never thought about that before.

Now I want to see some Masquerade based Uncertainty Principle based puzzles :P

43
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Paradigm shifts
« on: August 29, 2012, 01:36:22 am »
Nice and thoughtful post :) One question though:

Intrigue:
The content of everyone's deck is in principle public information (you can remember what they've gained and trashed).

How does Intrigue violate this?

44
Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: Dark Ages combo ideas
« on: August 27, 2012, 10:11:48 pm »
Pure Speculation

Procession/Hunting Grounds

The problem with Procession is you don't want to play it on your valuable $5 actions and get nothing in return, so having a $6 action help that. Then you don't mind processing your Hunting Grounds late game to draw 8 (8!) cards and also gain a duchy.

45
Dominion General Discussion / The Red Tape Pin
« on: August 27, 2012, 09:46:54 pm »
So I've got a challenge. Sustain the Red Tape Pin (RTP) for as long as possible. I define this as playing 5 Beaurocrats every turn.

Now I realise that this isn't really a pin unless your opponent is playing BM with actions that don't draw at all (even Cantrips will ruin it), and even then is only a hard pin once they've started greening. There are also a boatload of counters, (Scheme being a very effective one as I discovered) but that's not the point, its about the challenge :)

This idea always appealed to me because I like engines that mutate and have to deal with inputs and outputs. If you want to engine to specifically deal with throwing 5 silvers into it every turn it's gonna need to have a way of burning them up.

Banned Cards: Watchtower

It occurs to me that the easiest way would be to make a fairly compact draw deck, TR/KC your Beaurocrats and just Watchtower the incoming silver. But I don't have Prosperity at home and so you also have to come up with another way :P

I tried it in a match against my housemates last night and had a lot more trouble than imagined. I thought a nice Spice Merchant/Stables combo would burn through the Silver nicely and it was going fine, but I had no where near enough Stables and burnt through my silver too quickly. I then completely emptied the Silver pile and my deck just stopped, it needed that fuel pretty badly. I think this combo would work better if I tried it again, but i don't think my housemates would take too kindly to that :P While I never successfully pinned any of them, it slowed the game down a lot. I, of course, lost.

Now i'm far from the most sophisticated engine builder around so I want to see what you guys think of this. How would you successfully play 5 beaurocrats every turn reliably. Bonus points for then also winning the game :P

46
It'd be something that would be easy enough to Kickstart for say the 10th anniversary of Dominion. Kickstarter allows you to have people pre-purchase and to not bother with a print run unless it's popular enought to afford.
I don't imagine that would actually be relevant. The way to look at it isn't to consider Treasure Chest vs. nothing, but Treasure Chest vs. other stuff. If I could be talked into doing a 9th expansion in order to make a Treasure Chest, couldn't I also be talked into doing a 9th expansion that was just a new expansion? And given a choice, which is better? It's plausible that there would be a certain audience for a Treasure Chest, but I bet a new set would have a larger audience.

When I had to make a small 8th expansion, to go in between Hinterlands and Dark Ages, I considered doing a Seaside sequel. I pitched the idea to Jay. He didn't exactly rule it out, but he did think that something completely new would be better. I did a new thing instead. And I mean, when its time comes, I do not imagine too many people will say, what is this Guilds nonsense, I would have rather had more duration cards.

Treasure Chest would probably be easier to do than a new expansion, so it has that charm for me personally. I'm just one guy though.

Speaking as the audience for a Treasure Box style expansion, my point was if the neat idea of a Treasure Box was nixed because of the needing Alchemy/Prosperity for a few cards then you could use Kickstarter to basically guarantee that there were enough people with both or that just thought it was a neat idea.

The fans all have their favourite sub-mechanics; there are so many people on these forums that would love more durations or potion cards. Normally I'd be all over another expansion vs something so specific as an expansion-expansion, but after 8 expansions I think something that caters only to the super dedicated fans would be a nice thing.

47
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Dominion Card Categories
« on: August 27, 2012, 02:29:08 am »
Also, see:

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3996.msg84361#msg84361

I was pleasantly surprised to follow that link and discover my own post! It seems someone other than me is interested in my ideas :D I'll continue to work on them.

Despite my extensive knowledge of the game, I'm not a great star at the lingo associated with the game. One of the things that even Donald does is says things like "we needed another Village...". I now know what that means, but similar statements suggest that many, if not most, of the cards released for Dominion fall into specific card categories or types. Below is a list of all the cards thus far produced for Dominion, including Dark Ages. If anyone is bored or feels like getting their name recognized in version 2.6 of my Dominion Annotated Rules, please try your hand at organizing the cards by formalized (or semi-formalized type). A group effort will work as well. Thanks!

I'll be happy to support such an effort. I don't think it'll be possible without some bad-ass Venn diagrams though. For example:

The first big class split would be terminal/non-terminal. Everyone will hopefully agree with that. Villages are a sub-class of non-terminal and are completely contained. But then there are things like card-drawers. Compare Smithy to Lab to see that card drawers can be either Terminal or Non-terminal. Then things like card-drawers will have a sub-class 'variable drawers', these don't always draw the same number of cards. Etc. etc. Its a big task.

Who likes drawing Venn diagrams?

48
I also find this post to be quite helpful.

When scanning a set of Kingdom cards, your mind goes through many calculations. One of the things that needs to be spelt out is the number and quality of trashers on board. Sometimes your perspective is just to improve your deck quality, but sometimes your perspective is to achieve a target deck size (usually small, for crazy engine shenanigans). Having a quick and easy classification system in your mind for deck size manipulation cards can let you be a little more clear-headed when figuring out your strategy.

For example, in my mind, I think of Jack of All Trades as a trasher among other things. But clearly, it's never a net negative in number of cards in your deck, and some engines would not really benefit from having that Estate replaced with a Silver. Having it explicitly live in a different category in my mind may make it less likely that I mistakenly count Jack as an actual honest-to-God trasher for an engine.

Glad to see someone thinks it's helpful! This means I'll definitely do some more work on it.

What you say about Jack is exactly the kind of insight I was hoping to discover. Despite first appearances Jack really won't help you thin your deck enough for an engine. On the other hand Trading Post, something I would have never considered as an engine enabler may not be such a bad choice.

Having a turn that goes: Trading Post, trash estate/copper, silver in hand, buy an engine piece; means that you have the same size deck before and after your turn! Only you turned a copper into a silver and an estate into an engine piece.

49
I think your count is off, based on what Donald said at one point I think its going to be the following.
He was saying what he wanted to see, not what he expected to see.

My bad.

The big thing would be, that you need Alchemy (or Big Box or Base Cards) and Prosperity to have Potions and VP tokens. Whereas Duration cards, when-gain, when-trashed, and Intrigue-like cards don't require anything extra. Actually requiring other expansions, even for two cards, would be a significant factor towards the product not happening.


Presumably the thing will only happen for a special occasion and if the dedicated fanbase stays rabidly enthused.

It'd be something that would be easy enough to Kickstart for say the 10th anniversary of Dominion. Kickstarter allows you to have people pre-purchase and to not bother with a print run unless it's popular enought to afford.

50
Base Set: 2
Intrigue: 2
Seaside: 1
Alchemy: 2
Prosperity: 2
Cornucopia: 1
Hinterlands: 1
Dark Ages: 1
Guilds: 1

I think your count is off, based on what Donald said at one point I think its going to be the following.

Base Set: 2 0
Intrigue: 2
Seaside: 1 2
Alchemy:2 1
Prosperity: 2
Cornucopia: 1
Hinterlands:1 2
Dark Ages: 1 2
Guilds: 1

Pages: 1 [2] 3 4 ... 8

Page created in 1.07 seconds with 18 queries.