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Messages - Kahryl

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51
Game Reports / Re: Why "playing around" is worth it
« on: December 14, 2012, 12:28:17 pm »
Didn't look.. I'm guessing Explorer Remodel Baron Venture Apprentice? Remodeling coppers boosts your Venture returns since they hit better cards, and feeds Baron. Explorer feeds Venture (sorta), Apprentice eats Estates (which really only replaces itself) to cycle to your Explorers and Barons?

52
Dominion General Discussion / Re: What helps you play?
« on: December 07, 2012, 01:47:59 pm »
I cheat. I start the game with a coin above the "5" on my keyboard. When I buy a card with +2 actions, I nudge it one key to the left. When I buy a terminal, I nudge it to the right.

53
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Card-specific beginner traps
« on: December 05, 2012, 09:44:18 am »
My rule of thumb with Hoard is if I would buy the "next tier" up of VP without Hoard, I'll buy this tier with Hoard. So, almost always Duchies, and only Estates if I'd buy naked Duchies.

54
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Card-specific beginner traps
« on: December 04, 2012, 07:18:13 pm »
I'm very guilty of the Tunnel trap. If I see Tunnel/Warehouse I'm not likely to buy anything but. Even with $6, sometimes!

55
Feedback / Re: Didn't know we were child friendly
« on: December 03, 2012, 06:46:18 pm »
Wow, I've heard people having their posts deleted, but never heard of a post having its writer deleted. Clearly theory is mad with power.

56
Dominion General Discussion / Re: When do you get curses out IRL?
« on: November 30, 2012, 11:57:47 pm »
Curses are the easiest pile to run out. Always have them.

57
Other Games / Re: Has anyone played Eclipse?
« on: November 21, 2012, 10:26:28 am »
I played a few rounds of Eclipse with several friends; we weren't impressed.

Issues:

1) Lack of content. You'll see pretty much every tile, every PvE encounter, and most every playable race there is to the game in a single playthrough. Compare to Talisman where you have a knee-high stack of adventure cards or Dominion where you only see 10 card types of a 25-200 card repository at a time.

2) Missiles are overwhelmingly strong. There's basically no drawback to stacking them.

3) Fun three-way combat is prohibited. Combat rules, in general, seem determined to be boring and static.

4) Politics is not well calibrated. Treachery only matters if you're the LAST person in the game to betray someone. This means early treaties are essentially meaningless.

58
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: A Press-Your-Luck Card
« on: November 15, 2012, 05:24:21 pm »
Gambler A seems very similar to Wishing Well, but swingier.

Assuming you have a perfect distribution of the three types (action, $, VP, no curses), have no deck knowledge, and play rationally, you'll get 1 and 1/3 card on average from Gambler A. Not horrible, but Spy has a similar effect (if it hits a curse or a VP card, Spy is essentially a Lab. Plus it has a weak attack).

Both Wishing Well and Gambler A need a knowledge of at least the top two cards of your deck to become stronger. Cartographer would be badass with either. Wishing Well has the drawback that it doesn't benefit from 3+ card knowledge, Gambler A has the drawback that you can't line up two cards of the same type (e.g. Gold, Gold) and draw them.

Overall balanced and correctly priced but I think a bit too redundant.

What I'd like to see is a terminal version for $5 where you can draw until you decide to stop and it breaks when you draw two cards with the same NAME. This would work great with Cornucopia and is what Harvest should have been.

59
Dominion Articles / Re: Combo: Ill-Gotten Gain/Develop
« on: November 02, 2012, 04:54:18 pm »
This combo can be expanded to:

"anything that gives on-buy benefit" combos with "any trash for benefit that scales with the price of the trashed card"

So:
Border Village
Ill-Gotten Gains
(and a bunch of lesser examples: Farmland, Nomad Camp, Inn, Mint etc)

combos with:

Apprentice
Salvager
Bishop
Develop
Remodel (and its 10 variants)

60
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Venting about my luck
« on: November 02, 2012, 01:39:24 pm »
I never hold rage-dialogue/rage-quits against my opponents any more, because of the rare but significant occasions I've been driven to same. Play enough kingdoms and the game will not only screw you, it will serially screw you.

61
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Trusty Steed for 4 Silvers
« on: October 26, 2012, 09:17:24 am »
I think one problem is that if you have Trusty Steed, you probably have Followers, and if you have Followers, your goal is probably to find and play it as much as you can. +4 silvers interferes with this. However, I've used +4 silvers a lot. It's especially great when you run out of prizes and both players are mired in duchies.

But yeah, a generic +2 cards, +2 actions is weaksauce for a prize.

62
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Experiments in formulaic card design
« on: October 24, 2012, 10:39:00 pm »
Kirian, I don't think your downgraded Festival is right.

It looks odd, but I think the logic is that Festival isn't a $5 cantrip, so to de-cantrip it, you need to discard a card and lose an action.  Then you double everything - the one action goes back to 2, the discard goes up to 2, and the other bonuses are doubled.

"discard a card" isn't equal-and-opposite to "+1 card" though. If it were, Warehouse would be useless!. I'd say discarding TWO cards negates the advantage of a +card. In which case his Crappy Festival should discard a total of FOUR. Ironically, I think that's balanced. A $4 that gives such crazy benefits should outright nuke your hand.

63
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Experiments in formulaic card design
« on: October 24, 2012, 03:53:51 pm »
Shouldn't Super Scout have +2 Actions?

Quote from: rinkworks
Top 2 cards only, right?

Super Scout takes revenge on the community that torments him by confusing Dominion veterans.

Original Scout is this:
+1 action
Inspect 4 cards

Halved Scout is this:
+0.5 action
Inspect 2 cards

Super Scout is this (add cantrip to his halved state):
+1 card
+1.5 action
Inspect 2 cards

You can't have 1.5 actions, so instead I gave Super Scout 1 action and 3-card inspection. Or another way of looking at it, as I put in my original post:

Quote
I didn't quite halve the effect as I normally do because Scout already has a +action, all he needed for a cantrip was +card.

If Super Scout only inspected 2 cards, you would need a 50% VP density in your deck for it to equal a Lab. This is the same density you need for the $4 Scout to equal a Lab. Since Super Scout costs more, it should be stronger!

64
Variants and Fan Cards / Experiments in formulaic card design
« on: October 24, 2012, 11:19:25 am »
Theory: Take a $5 cantrip, remove +1 card +1 action, double the rest of the effect, and you have a $4 card.

Conversely, take a $4 card, halve the effect, add +1 card +1 action, and you have a $5 card.

Example: Remodel is a terminal that upgrades a card by $2. Halve that and make it a cantrip, and you have Upgrade. Take away Upgrade's cantrip and double its effect, and you have Remake!

I did this with a bunch of existing $4 and $5 cards. Some of the results are interesting and most of them surprisingly seem balanced.


$4
Cruddy Inn
+2 cards
+2 actions
Discard 4 cards. When you buy this, shuffle any number of action cards from your discard into your deck.

An extremely punishing village-warehouse. Play this and you'll end up with a 2 card hand. Worth it only really rarely.


$4
Cruddy Market
+$2
+2 buy

Like Woodcutter, but with far too much +buy. Maybe crazy Highway strategies will want this.


$4
Cruddy Treasury
+$2
When you discard this from play, if you didn’t buy a Victory card this turn, you may put this on top of your deck.

I think this very card has been proposed, at this price, before, though without the no-Victory condition. I think it would be a lot of fun, and very strong if there are no other good early terminals, or an abundance of +actions.


$4
Cruddy Highway
While this is in play, cards cost $2 less, but not less than $0.

Too similar to Bridge really. Stronger in theory but with less self-comboing. Most of the time I'd prefer Bridge.


$4
Cruddy Cartographer
Look at the top 8 cards of your deck. Discard any number of them. Put the rest back on top in any order.

What Scout should have been. Not strictly better (no +action), but will make your next turn near-perfect on average.


$4
Cruddy Bazaar
+$2
+2 actions

Festival without the +buy. Or a silver-village. Really good - I'd be more likely to use this than Festival. You could quickly set up an erratic draw engine with Oracle or Smithy without needing to hit $5 or buy money.


Laboratory, Hunting Party, and Stables (all lab variants) become shockingly weak when converted to $4 terminals. Laboratory becomes a vanilla "+2 cards"! It goes to show how much stronger +card is when it's in a cantrip.

City just becomes weird when converted. The $4 version of two-pile City is better than the $5 version! Although the $4 no-pile City is just "+2 actions"


$5
Super Thief
+1 card
+1 action
Each other player reveals the top card of his deck. If they revealed a treasure card, they trash it. You may gain any or all of these trashed cards. They discard the other revealed cards.

Way better than Thief. It'll miss a LOT but you don't sacrifice your hand and action point just to put pressure on their economy.


$5
Super Scout
+1 card
+1 action
Reveal the top 3 cards of your deck. Put the revealed Victory cards into your hand. Put the other cards on top of your deck in any order.

Much better than Scout. This is a Lab variant. Better than Lab if more than 1/3 of your deck is victory cards. I didn't quite halve the effect as I normally do because Scout already has a +action, all he needed for a cantrip was +card.


$5
Super Navigator
+1 card
+1 action
+$1
Look at the top 2 cards of your deck. Either discard both of them, or put them back on top of your deck in any order.

One of many $5 peddler-with-a-bonus cards, and one of the best. Zoom through your deck AND filter it while making money and losing no handsize or actions, how can you go wrong? This is better than Cartographer imo.


$5
Super Silk Road
+1 card
+1 action
Worth 1 VP for every 8 victory cards in your deck, rounded down.

A Great Hall variant. Only worth it if you can get it to 2 VP, and that's hard. 8 of these, 4 provinces, 3 estates and you're still short!


$5
Super Trader
+1 card
+1 action
Trash a card from your hand. Gain a number of Silvers equal to half its cost in coins, rounded down.

When you would gain a card, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, instead, gain a silver.

Similar in purpose to Upgrade. The drawback is you can't get any fun $3 instead of silver for your estate. The upside is the useful reaction effect. Then again, lategame Upgrade is probably better. Trashing a witch will give you 1 gold with Upgrade, 2 silver with Super Trader. Overall a wash with Upgrade. Depends how well you can use silver really.


$5
Super Baron
+1 card
+1 action
You may discard an Estate card. If you do, +$2 and +1 Buy. Otherwise, gain an Estate card.

I made the +buy conditional to "halve" it. This guy is exactly a Grand Market if you discard an Estate. Otherwise he's horrible because you have to give up the cantrip effect if you don't want to gain an Estate.


$5
Super Gardens
+1 card
+1 action
Worth 1 VP for every 20 cards in your deck, rounded down.

Another Great Hall variant. Again very problematic to get to 2VP - you need 40 cards in your deck! Even then, it competes with Duchy. When exactly would you buy this?


$5
Super Horse Traders
+1 card
+1 action
+1 buy
+$1
Discard 1 card
When another player plays an Attack card, you may set this aside from your hand. If you do, then at the start of your next turn, +1 Card and return this to your hand.

Market with an extra advantage and drawback. Not worth it unless there are a LOT of attacks going around. Even if the reaction goes off, you're basically getting a 1-card filter total compared to market and that's it.

Combos with Tunnel and Library and other sicko cards that LIKE discarding effects.


$5
Super Envoy
+1 card
+1 action
Reveal the top 3 cards of your deck. The player to your left chooses one for you to discard. Draw the rest.

Seems insanely strong. +3 cards +1 action in total! We saw when trying to convert Lab to $4 how strong +card is with a cantrip. Now we see it the other way.


$5
Super Salvager
+1 card
+1 action
+1 Buy
Trash a card from your hand. +$ equal to half its cost, rounded down.

If you trash an estate this is a Market. Plus it gets rid of an estate! The problem comes when you start running out of junk in your deck. With Upgrade and Salvager this is (often) no problem because trashing even good cards continually improves your deck with these. But Super Salvager reduces the value of whatever it touches. And like Upgrade it has the conundrum that you have to play it if you want to see your next card, and maybe hope that it's junk. IMO too risky to buy unless it's the only trasher.


$5
Super Monument
+1 card
+1 action
+1 VP

A Great Hall that's worth 1VP for every cycle of your deck. Much stronger than it looks IMO. Crazy in draw-your-whole-deck decks. It'll be worth 1VP per turn in the game!! Alternatively..

$5
Super Menumont
+1 card
+1 action
+$2

Another crazy good card. Compared to Market you sacrifice +buy for +$. Who wouldn't do that?? This is the card Donald originally intended Grand Market to be, and he priced it at $6 (correction: $7!) without the no-copper condition. So this is clearly strong for $5. It seems that no matter how you halve Monument, it looks great as a cantrip. No wonder it's so strong in its terminal form.


$5
Super Moneylender
+1 card,
+1 action
Trash a copper from your hand. If you do, +$2.

Really strong early. Seems too strong for +$2 but too weak for +$1.


$5
Super Militia
+1 card
+1 action
+$1
Each other player discards down to 4 cards in his hand.

Yet another peddler-with-a-bonus. Normally a kind of weak bonus, but hey, so are most of them. Almost everyone is going to have a curse or VP card they don't mind tossing. But this would be great with Council Room and Governor, much moreso than normal Militia because it doesn't shut down your +action/+draw engine.

65
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Favorite Dominion Pastime
« on: October 22, 2012, 02:00:15 pm »
My favorite Dominion pasttime is seeing Scheme, Black Market, or Develop on the board and just gleefully spamming them while losing all perspective and almost certainly losing.

66
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Mad Scientist
« on: October 18, 2012, 04:13:57 pm »
Scientist
$2

You may trash a Scientist from your hand. If you do, gain a Mad Scientist and an action card costing up to $5.


Mad Scientist
$0* (this is not in the supply)

Trash this card.
You may trash a Scientist or Mad Scientist from your hand. if you do, gain three cards costing up to $6.



The more you know, the more you go crazy!

I expect this would work kind of like Fools Gold

67
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Grand Market vs Platinum
« on: October 18, 2012, 10:25:43 am »
Platinum > Grand Market, always, unless you desperately need +buy.

First platinum > Colony > Other platinum > Grand Market as a GENERAL rule but "depends on the kingdom"

2 grand markets vs Platinum? Good question. I'd still go for the plat if there's a decent $3 (NOT silver)

68
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Hoard in Colony games
« on: October 16, 2012, 01:49:32 pm »
Anything that says "gain a gold" or "gain a silver" is much weaker in Colony games than in Province games.

69
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Bishoping VP Cards
« on: October 11, 2012, 12:54:59 pm »
I no longer feel like I understand Bishop at all. In theory, you don't want it early, because you'll just be helping your opponent thin his deck. And you don't want it mid-game because it'll kill your economy. And you don't want it late because trashing Provinces costs you 2VP AND an action point AND a card slot in your immediate hand just to get rid of a dead card. And yet people who just buy Bishops and trash everything in sight often beat me. So what exactly is the proper use of this card? Assume no obvious enablers like Hoard or Chapel.
You buy it when you think you can accumulate a bunch of points with it, kind of like with Monument.
It's especially nice in games without +Buy in the endgame, so you can score points by chopping a card and by buying a VP card. Don't think of Bishop in terms of Chapel or Steward, think of it in terms of Develop. The better the card you chop, the better the benefit. Peddler is pretty nice fodder.

Monument is something you buy early and hit over and over. It's good early because it's a terminal silver in addition to a VP fountain. But Bishop is a terminal copper - your economy will stall if you buy it early and accumulate VP early.

70
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Bishoping VP Cards
« on: October 11, 2012, 09:19:37 am »
I no longer feel like I understand Bishop at all. In theory, you don't want it early, because you'll just be helping your opponent thin his deck. And you don't want it mid-game because it'll kill your economy. And you don't want it late because trashing Provinces costs you 2VP AND an action point AND a card slot in your immediate hand just to get rid of a dead card. And yet people who just buy Bishops and trash everything in sight often beat me. So what exactly is the proper use of this card? Assume no obvious enablers like Hoard or Chapel.

71
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Post "Bad Cards" mentality
« on: September 25, 2012, 01:09:55 pm »
Oracle has helped me in a lot of games so far. On some boards it is better than Smithy. I don't think I've ever lost a game where I've decided to go Oracle.

I still hesitate to get it even if it'd be good, though, because it is agony to play on Isotropic. Decide whether to discard -> pick the order -> decide opponent's -> opponent orders. What makes it worse is that most of the time I have Oracle as part of a DRAW ENGINE (it rocks for this because you are usually desperately hoping for the next +action or +draw card you need, and get four chances to find it).

72
Dominion Articles / Re: All-around cards
« on: September 19, 2012, 02:34:11 pm »
Jester, Smugglers

73
Goko Dominion Online / Re: Google + Walled Village
« on: September 19, 2012, 02:11:55 pm »
I'd join you guys, but Walled Village was just a big help for me in a Vault/Witch board.

74
Goko Dominion Online / Re: Google + Walled Village
« on: September 19, 2012, 01:14:13 pm »
I have a Google account and like Google as a company, but this bothers me. I'm tired of companies treating me like:

1. My brain is a sponge for advertising
2. I don't have two quarters to rub together.

Stop making me run around with Gokoins, credits, registrations, free service w/ ads blah blah blah! HAVE THE BALLS TO CHARGE ME DOLLAR MONIES FOR YOUR GAME.

75
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Dominion Reminders
« on: September 10, 2012, 02:59:43 pm »
If you're going for Duke/Gardens/Silk Road, REMEMBER TO BUY COPPERS WITH EXTRA BUYS.

I always always forget this.

Quote
When there's no engine to build, don't try it anyway.

Can't count the number of games I've lost when I've followed this rule and my opponent didn't.

Some people can just build engines in a cave! From a pile of trash!!

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