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Topics - timchen

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26
Variants and Fan Cards / The Curser
« on: April 04, 2012, 05:49:40 pm »
The Curser
$4 Action-Attack/Reaction

Each other player gains a Curse.
---
When you gain a card, you may reveal and discard this card.
If you do, each other player gains a curse.

Since it does nothing but cursing, I have trouble thinking of a better name...

Will this card be more fun to play with compared to Sea Hag?

27
Puzzles and Challenges / The exponential card
« on: April 04, 2012, 05:45:11 pm »
There is only one card, in the entire Dominion universe, as I know, to be truly exponential. What is the card and what is the exponent under ideal circumstances?

28
Puzzles and Challenges / allfail's puzzle #4: how well do you draw?
« on: April 04, 2012, 05:41:01 pm »
Suppose you have a deck consisting of 12 coppers, 12 estates, 12 islands and 12 curses. They are all in the draw pile.

You have the freedom to choose what is in your hand and you start with 1 action. No Throne Room, King's court, or Tribute. No supply constraints. (Yes, you can have 12 council rooms in hand but that only draws 4.)

Now the question is:
(1) for the best possible luck you can have, how many cards do you need to draw the entire deck? My best answer is 3
(2) for the worst possible luck, how many cards do you need to guarantee you can draw the whole deck? My best answer is 11

For example, if we have a hand with Labs then both answer will be 24.

29
Puzzles and Challenges / allfail's puzzle #3: the Complete Dominance
« on: April 03, 2012, 08:13:08 am »
It has been quite a while after my first attempt at a puzzle. While the desired effect is much easier to achieve now with Scheme, it is still interesting to see Pearl Divers and Havens to have their day.

Ok, back to the main topic.

What is the complete dominance in Dominion? You and your friend were chatting after he beat you by more than a hundred points with massive Goons. (No worries, it is solely due to his early unbelievable lucky draws.)

"Just like what I did to you!", he said.

"Or when I kill your deck with multiple saboteurs? Or when I fatten your deck with coppers, estates, and curses and then cruise to victory?" While you are thinking, your friend just couldn't stop.

"what you are describing is massacre," you said, "sure it is a big win, but there is no intricacy, no elegance in it. And it can be pulled off by anyone, by better luck. Exactly like what you just have done."

"How about this", you contemplated for a while, "after you have set up your deck, you have no money to spend and only 1 buy per turn..."
"Ha. You must be thinking about the Horn of Plenty Mega turn aren't you", your friend interrupted.
"No, not at all. It's indeed a bit more intricate, but the win is usually not lopsided in those HoP games," you said.

"So after you have set up the deck, you have no money and no extra buy, yet after several turns, with all your opponent can do to stop you, you still end up with all the Colonies in your deck. How's that?"

"Highway to the end?" Your friend hesitated.
"Come on. even if you played all 10, the Colony still costs $1."

EDIT:

"Highway enough to Ironworks or Upgrade/remake/remodel?" Your friend then suggested.

"Oops. I didn't think of that. Apparently I didn't have enough sleep. Or maybe there is a good reason why I was beaten." You thought in your mind.

"Nah. That would be a stretch to be called as dominance. Your opponent literally has to sit there and wait for you to set that up."
You said so, but with uncomfortable feelings that once your friend knew what you were thinking he would complain for the same. Well, there is no clear cut distinction here, you always need some form of incompetency from the opponent to dominate him... 


"Alright, I give up. What is the scenario you have in mind?"

You shook your head and smiled. "That's what separates between us. If I were asked I certainly won't give up just after a minute or two. The loss is just pure bad luck." Of course you didn't say it out loud; this line is just what you were thinking.


The Challenge
1. 2-player game.
2. You end up with all 8 Colonies at the end of game.
3. In the engine-setup phase, your opponent is sufficiently incompetent. You can assume it is equivalent to he is passing every turn. In this phase you can have any numbers of coins and buys, but you are not allowed to buy any Colony.
4. After your deck setup is completed, that is, in your scoring phase, your opponent will do whatever he can to stop you from getting all the Colonies, even in the situation when he is clearly hopeless to win. In this phase you are not allowed to play any treasure, or any card that offers +buy or +coin. You can have them in your deck though.
5. In the setup phase, you may assume perfect luck or not, since your opponent is doing nothing it doesn't matter. In the scoring phase however, you should play with worst luck.
6. What is your idea of complete dominance?

EDIT: to clarify, the opponent won't magically have any card in their deck. However, they will try to acquire cards that will stop you with perfect luck in your scoring phase. I am sorry that I missed a big bunch of tricks there. They are all legitimate solutions to the original problem. For people who are still interested in my intended problem, here's a big constraint/hint:

7. You don't gain any cards (unless your opponent forces you to do so) in any of your turns in your scoring phase.

It's probably too big a hint; but you would get the idea why I think this is dominance.

30
Probably too easy, but I've never experienced this before. The usual solution to this problem is simply to buy more lighthouses. But today I got one from the BM deck and somehow found myself still completely protected from all the attacks.

31
Other Games / Modern Art
« on: March 14, 2012, 10:02:16 pm »
Anyone has played this famous auction game? I have some thoughts for the game...

http://timchen1017.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/modern-art-strategy-i-auction-price-for-a-fixed-value-painting/

32
Dominion General Discussion / How to play this weird kingdom?
« on: March 04, 2012, 02:43:30 pm »
It's probably have been discussed somewhere... not sure.

The kingdom is the following:

Chapel, Smugglers, Thief, Pirate Ship, Cache, Highway, Noble, Harem, King's Court, Peddler


33
Actually this is something quite easy yet I haven't thought about before.

We all know cursers are strong. In most of the games. But how strong?

Consider the following variant: instead of -1 VP, the curses now worth 1 VP. It is still treated as a curse otherwise. How strong are the cursers under this variant?

My instinct feeling is that it is still very strong. To be more precise though, an engine will still hate it, but a money deck can probably survive better. I guess this does not in general help the game though (as I feel the money strategies are already buffed a bit too much to my taste currently...)

34
Dominion General Discussion / How do you play this board?
« on: February 21, 2012, 12:43:15 am »
Crossroad, Duke, Goons, Hoard, HoP, Island, Remodel, Salvager, Talisman, Village

In the actual game I wasn't playing too competitively. Goons for a mega turn is my initial thought, but the lack of draw seriously hinders it. On the other hand, a VP strategy from Crossroad, Hoard, and Duke seems pretty strong, but probably not strong enough for ignoring Goons entirely. Goons can certainly be added to the deck though.

So I think the dominant strategy would be some VP strategy with a few Goons thrown in; somehow that is the way I ended up playing. The problem is, how does one start, and what order should one buy things?

35
Game Reports / Somebody please tell me what happened!
« on: February 15, 2012, 05:47:10 pm »
In this game, with Haggler, Highway, familiar, scrying pool, adventurer, peddler, Vineyard, Colony and no trashing, I suffered from early inability to buy the familiar. (2+P twice then P discarded by opponent's scrying pool.) This results in a lopsided 9-1 curse split.

Somehow, in the end I won. I don't understand why. He seems rather slow to the Colony, but still, did he has some astronomical bad luck/decision to overcome the curse split? I just don't see it...

36
Game Reports / A magic deck composition?
« on: February 10, 2012, 11:28:20 pm »
In this game, I basically just played masquerade +BM, with a library thrown in the mix. I think I am doing okay, hitting 4 Provinces in 13 turns with 2 duchies.

However, I was completely tromped by my opponent. I am not familiar with his strategy... maybe it is library+lighthouse? an upgrade is in his deck too. He got 4 Provinces... in 10 turns.

37
Game Reports / Luck is really something I don't understand...
« on: February 10, 2012, 05:14:14 am »
Sometimes luck is hard to understand. I just cannot seem to recall when is the last time I get an ideal draw for turn 3 and 4. For all I can remember, there is always a silver with 2 copper and two estates, or one of the two buys goes to turn 5.

But I am off topic. In this game, which lasted 20 turns, I only played my Vaults twice. There are two of them in the deck. I have no other terminals.

Ok, to be precise, I opened silver+silver, didn't get a $5 until turn 5. No biggie, I got 2 vaults at turn 5 and 6.

It started to annoy me when I didn't draw the Vault until turn 9, which is at the end of that shuffle. What even more bothering is that I only have one card in the remaining deck, and the two vaults are both in my hands. Ok, if someone can show me that here NOT playing the vault is actually the right play I will be very impressed, but I just played it. (Come on, if I don't, did I not just buy two curses?) So in the next shuffle I do not have any vaults. Fortunately I bought 2 Provinces in this shuffle without the Vaults... Good thing I drew both of my vaults again at turn 12. At least they are now on top of the shuffle...

After that, I've never seen my vaults again. Whenever I had the vaults (and they always appear together) I was possessed. Or to make it sound more drastic, whenever I was possessed I would have the vaults in hand.

What is the chance of colliding terminals 4 times in a row? I guess it is actually not that low...

38
Game Reports / Silver pile killed me...
« on: January 27, 2012, 12:21:17 am »
game log

Frankly speaking I should be more cautious... but I've never encountered this situation before. With border's village, talisman, trader, and garden, I thought it would be fun to go for a garden deck. And pretty fun it is!

The garden splitted 6-2 (I opted for BV+garden for a couple of times when I can get Province, not sure if it's the correct play) and I thought I am steadly heading toward victory. I have just traded my BV for 6 silvers, and buy another silver with talisman. But I didn't get the two silvers. The pile is depleted. And the game ended with BV, garden, and silver. I lost by 2 points, with 58 cards in deck.

39
Game Reports / Synergy day!
« on: December 31, 2011, 05:28:10 pm »
Somehow in the past 24 hours I have played a lot of boards with very nice synergies. The notable ones are:

(1) Ironworks, Crossroad, Island, Silk Road
This one works out very nicely! I manage to get 6 islands and 4 Silk Roads in two individual turns.

(2) NV, Lookout, Cartographer, Tactician
I have never used my NV mat so efficiently. Opponent's Sea Hag cannot do any harm.

(3) Border Village, Bridge, Talisman (with Smugglers, Warehouse, Governor, and Lab)
Quite interesting to play two bridges, two talismans and buy a BV, gain 2 BV's and 3 Labs.
Too bad Haggler is not on the board.

40
Dominion General Discussion / My love and hate relationship with Dominion
« on: December 28, 2011, 12:40:47 am »
After almost two years and more than 2000 games, I think it's time to complain...

This game is the most interesting board game I have ever played. The major appeal, after so many games, is... actually hard to quantify. The biggest part may be the near-infinite possibility of setups. Consider that you may not encounter a five-card combo once in your life time. Seeing how cards come to work together is really fun. Maybe some other satisfaction comes from proper management? As a experienced player with familiar cards (no, not the one you buy with potion) sometimes the fun comes from buying things at the right time, to out manage your opponent. Maybe, in a small portion of the game, the satisfaction comes from control. The way you mess up your opponent's deck and consolidate your own is just really enjoyable.

However, the more serious effort you put into the game, after some time, at least to me, makes the game more painful. There is only a single problem: luck. Somehow the luck in Dominion behaves in a very different way comparing to the only other board game I have played for a comparable time: bridge. In bridge, luck is certainly very important. But for reasons I don't understand, I never feel as disgusted when I lost a bridge game/tournament, due to my bad luck. In Dominion, watching your opponent use his turn 1 witch/tactician kill you with his good draw from turn 3 to 6, or when both of you did the same thing, but you didn't draw your cards until it's too late, is just unbearable for me. Probably it's due to the fact that in bridge, the luck factor at least will not spit directly at your face as sometimes how it just happens in a dominion game? For me, when I am not in a good mood, the bad draw is just mocking at me on how pointless you are to study the probabilities and expectations of different choices. Double jack is a good strategy? How can it be better than a single Jack if you draw them together in your first 3 shuffle?

41
Council Room Feedback / How can this happen? (my win rate of Explorer)
« on: December 18, 2011, 08:08:57 pm »
If you look at my council room stats, it shows that explorer is one of my worst cards, judging from the win rate given availability. My win rate with explorer is ~1.25, whereas my average win rate is around 1.4.

Now, this fact itself is already very strange. The explorer is a highly irrelevant card. Let's say in 85% of the board the correct way of play is just to ignore it; and in 80% of the boards, I will ignore it correctly. For those boards my win rate should be around 1.4, maybe increasing a little bit due to the misjudgement of my opponent.

Therefore, in order to have an average win rate of 1.25, in those games that matters, I must have a win rate of ~0.65. That is, I lost 2/3 of the game when the explorer is relevant and on the board. Does that mean I judge this particular card terribly wrong?

Maybe not... it is way more likely just a statistical anomaly.


42
Game Reports / Extravaganza without King's Court
« on: October 29, 2011, 01:22:52 pm »
There are all sorts of crazy things one can do with King's Court. How about without?

In  this game, http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111023-131909-8df20ad8.html
with outpost+tactician+FV+saboteur, it is possible to sabotage many times per single turn.

In another game (I cannot find the log yet), with highways+swindlers+scrying pool+hamlets, it becomes possible to swindle everything in your opponent's deck to curses. It must be meaner if you choose not to finish the game at the same time...

This fun aspect of the game can only occur with unsuspecting opponents though (my apologies). In competitive play, this kind of game often becomes a coin flip.

43
Dominion General Discussion / veto strategy
« on: October 06, 2011, 07:20:16 pm »
Yesterday I thought I had a shot at the top spot on isotropic. I tried for it, unfortunately Paralyzed reappeared and I have no way to surpass him (at least playing the way I'd like to.)

Meanwhile, I find that veto mode is actually good for boosting your rank if you are doing auto-match all the time. I don't think I've played significantly better, but the truth is I've never at such a high level before.

So how does veto mode help? (In my approach my games are almost entirely against lower ranked opponents)

(1) I'll veto away swingy cards at highest priority. This includes mountebank and witch, which can cost you the game at turn 1. Tactician is also a very swingy card. It is harder to play on the other hand, so you may keep it against very low rank players. King's Court and Goons, as strong as they are, are not actually as swingy and I like to play with them.

(2) In the same spirit, veto the cards that contribute to an obviously dominant strategy. Ironworks+Garden? Get rid of one of them. The concept is that if there is a strategy both sides know about and will play, it pretty much becomes a coin flip.

(3) Keep the cards that you know can form an attractive trap. Alchemists. Cities. Possessions. If you know these cards are not going to work in this setup, why not use it to your advantage?

(4) This one is of the lowest priority, but if one insists on winning: veto away the cards you are not sure of. Not sure about how to play this board with Native village? Get rid of it. Unfortunately your game will probably not grow if you do this too often.

44
Game Reports / frustrating lookout draws
« on: October 03, 2011, 03:19:27 pm »
What has been your worst lookout draw?

Here's one that occurred a week ago, probably the most interesting one I've had:

I still have like 7 estate+coppers in my deck. I draw 2 tournaments and 1 province. Those are the only tournaments I have in my deck; I think I have one more province.

45
Variants and Fan Cards / My personal opinion of interesting variants
« on: October 01, 2011, 09:48:42 pm »
In light of rinkworks's very nice piece of guide, let me add something which I think is also very important for the variant to be interesting, at least in my opinion:

1. do something different. Now that we have 100+ canal cards already, I don't think yet another smithy variant would raise a lot of interest. Nor will some combination of parts of some cards. For example, while it is intrinsically interesting to think about how a +4 cards discard 2 card will fare, in the end it will probably work mostly like smithy or envoy. Personally I am not that interested in a detailed comparison of the performance of similar cards, especially when they are not even official cards.

2. don't give out curse easily. In fact, I think Young Witch is the only cursing card that is properly balanced. All the previous cursing cards are overpowered (maybe except Torturer without +actions) and limit the strategic space of a game when they are present. I think my recent experience in veto mode confirms this: games are generally more interesting without those cursing cards, after the initial shiny period for new players.

3. Try to have interesting interactions with existing cards. If we think about the most recent expansion, menagerie is a very good example. It not only interacts with other cards in the same set, but also interacts very nicely with discarding attacks.

Here's an example I did a while ago that I still find interesting:

-----------------------------------------
Credit Card
Action-Duration
Cost 0?

When you buy this card, you may pay extra coins for it. For every coin you pay for it, put one credit token on the "Personal Credit History"(PCH) mat.

This turn:
+1 action,
choose any x between 0 and 5.
+x coins, and put x credit tokens on the card.

Next turn:

Put another credit token on the card. You may move any number of the credit tokens on the card to the PCH mat, if you remove three times the credit tokens from the PCH mat. If there is no more credit token on the card, discard it from play.

During the action phase of this turn, you may discard any number of treasures any time just before you play an action. Whenever you discard a treasure of value x, pick a Credit Card in play, and move x tokens on it to the PCH mat. If there are no more credit tokens on the card, discard the card from play.

If you did not play any Credit Card this turn, and there is any Credit Card in play, skip your buy phase this turn.

If this card is still in play in the clean up phase, do not move it to the discard pile. At the start of next turn, do everything listed under "Next turn".

At the end of the game, every six credit tokens on the PCH mat worth 1 VP.
----------------------------------------------------

46
To those who are familiar with the game, there are rules which are easy to follow but hard to explain. There is however, a very easy rule which are always followed and not explained.

There is one, very mysterious kingdom card, which is not allowed to appear in the Black Market deck. No rules have stated this explicitly but no one breaks this rule. What is the card?



--
I'm sorry if this "puzzle" is too easy, but to compensate for the previous not-so-simple puzzle...

47
Well, seeing Blooki's interesting puzzles I cannot help but trying to make one myself. Here it is:

One day, you introduce your friends to Dominion. Three newbies are eager to know the awesome game.

Knowing they are smart, you start directly from a random setup. The setup turned out to be pathetic however, as there are no +2 action cards, and no cards that draw two or more than it discards (also excluding Watch Tower and Library). Your friends cannot wait to start the game, so 4 of you nevertheless just sit and start.

"It's ok, without those +actions and +cards, the game shall be simpler and quicker." You think.

Alas, it is not the case. All of your friends, despite being noobs, notice immediately a very powerful card you somehow overlook. Goons. In no time, each of them has more than two copies of it, and practically every single turn everyone is hit by Goons.

"Not fun." Says one of your friends. "Really. We just sit here, not being able to afford much, and forces other to be the same."

This annoys you. As your favorite game ever, you cannot stand someone criticize it. At the same time, the deck you are planning is finally completed. And you just have the perfect draw.

"Really, let me show you why I like the game so much."

From this turn on, you score 20+ VPs every turn. With any kind of draw. (until the supply depleted of course...) Your friends are wowed.  They now become keen Dominion players as well!

What did you do?

Edit: I forgot to warn, that while the constraints are strictly obeyed, the other descriptions may not be so accurate. After all this is a puzzle, and the answer I have in mind is pretty unrealistic to build for in a real game.

Edit2: Sorry the original constraint is incorrect. I meant to say those cards that increases your hand size do not exist...

Edit3: it turns out that the problem is actually somewhat harder than I think. Let me, therefore, gives further hint below:

The first hint:
In my solution, in addition to the cards mentioned below by WanderingWinder, there are several other important cards. The most tricky ones I think, are
Haven and Pearl Diver.


Now If you looked at the hint above, and still have no clue, here is a further hint.
In my solution, You need five of them each.


48
Variants and Fan Cards / The negatives
« on: July 26, 2011, 07:43:57 pm »
This idea just came to me. I think it is a very nice card and has lots of uses! Some parameters can be further tuned though.

The negatives  Treasure/Victory

cost: -2
value: -1
VP: -2

When you buy this card, +1 buy. This card cannot be trashed in the buy phase.
When you trash this card, gain a curse.

49
Dominion General Discussion / Which order to play?
« on: July 03, 2011, 10:50:44 pm »
I encountered this situation today and I found it's nontrivial to me:

suppose you have apothecary, scrying pool, hunting party and coppersmith in play and you opt for a copper strategy. (There are +buy, +2 actions and light trashing available.) What would be the correct order to play the scrying pool, the apothecary, and the hunting party, if you have them all in hand? Suppose your deck contains coppers, potion, some VPs and some other actions.

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