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26

Dominion General Discussion / Re: A board made for Gardens. What did I do wrong?

« on: April 18, 2012, 07:13:52 pm »

I suspect you're underestimating how well Bishop counters gardens (see this article if you haven't). A little luck on your opponent's side and he's already gotten as much VP as your gardens will be worth, but with better long-term prospects.

And while IGG is a pretty good Gardens enabler, I'm not sure the Trader is necessary: it probably gets in the way of your Gardens buys. I mean, it's really good in some cases, but you probably want to pick just one of the two and stick with that.

Edit: P.S. One thing to keep in mind with Trader is that if you're trashing your Estates with it, you're gaining about 1/10 of a point per Gardens in your deck (on average) while losing 1 point. You need to have most of the Gardens to just *break even* on trashing an Estate. If the game goes long, you can get another 2/10 points per Gardens by Tradering the Silver, but I'm not convinced it's worth it to trash all your opening Estates if you're doing a Gardens rush.

27

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Potion/Warehouse -> Familiar (vs. Potion/Silver)

« on: April 18, 2012, 07:09:15 pm »

Related question: how good is Courtyard/Potion as an opener? The draw & cycling help buy familiars, and overall it is a better card when you have no terminals, but on the other hand it is vulnerable to cursing and has a small chance of drawing dead familiars (mitigated by the ability to put one back).

What do you mean by "vulnerable to cursing"? I would think drawing more cards makes curses hurt less, since each curse makes up a smaller fraction of your hand.

I mean in that Courtyard has this slight Ghost Ship effect on you, which although usually a good thing, means that you might end up with CCCCECuCu in hand and need to put one of the E's or the Cu back on the deck (if you want a $4), whereas Warehouse could discard all the dead cards.

Maybe it's not significant overall.

Maybe it's a "Ghost Ship-like" effect compared to Warehouse, but compared to any card that doesn't draw you 3 cards, you're still cycling your deck faster. It's strictly better than drawing 2 cards; you can just put that third card right back where you found it, after all. I wouldn't worry about it. On subsequent turns, if you pick up, say, a Silver, the Courtyard could be better than the Warehouse because it allows you to smooth out your money if it clumps and you draw it all together.

28

Game Reports / Re: How lower level players view Possession

« on: April 17, 2012, 09:13:40 pm »

There's actually a relevant New Yorker article to this concept in which a girl's basketball team wins by playing the full court press and everyone else in the league gets really pissed off.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/11/090511fa_fact_gladwell

In the context of the above article the winning team succeeds by playing to win by the actual rules of the game even though everyone complains that they're being cheap/unsportsmanlike etc. I haven't read it in awhile, but I remember it being a good read, and it provides many more examples of the above outside of the realm of Street Fighter.

That's an excellent article and a great supplement to "Play to Win". It makes me wonder... at what point is too much really too much? I mean, Dominion, especially on Isotropic, is pretty safe -- there's hardly any player interaction. No disheartening or incapacitating your opponent (unless maybe you're hacking somehow). The worst you can do is probably play a bajillion King's-Courted Possessions and take over all your opponents' turns.

Overall, I think that this community is fairly competitive, and open-minded about what's considered "legitimate" competition. Most players I've seen don't get mad when you IGG/Duchy-rush or Double-Jack them. If they don't have a counter prepared, well, they'd better do the same thing or they're gonna lose. They don't complain that you're not playing a "straight-up" game. They don't whine that you're "cheesing" them as Starcraft players are wont to do. I haven't heard of anyone going to Donald X. and complaining that he should rebalance Dominion so that Provinces are the only way to win.

I think a major reason for that is that the appeal of Dominion, for many of us, is the versatility. We like alternative strategies. We don't have a fixed concept of what a Dominion game "should" play like, because every Kingdom setup is different. The strategy you used to win on one board is probably literally impossible on another random board. Some boards have rock-paper-scissors strategy interactions; some others just have one strategy that wins almost every time. Sometimes a particular combination of cards makes a single strategy nigh-unbeatable; but an adequate counter may make it inferior on other boards. And this is normal: the cards and the game itself are open-ended, and you never know what new possible interactions may pop up. That's what Dominion's about, so the community is self-selecting towards people who appreciate these qualities.

Obviously there are players like Phule who think that using Possession is bad sportsmanship. I myself am not a fan of some cards that tend to reward runaway leaders and overly lengthy turns, like King's Court. That's normal. But I'm glad that vetoing every seemingly "imbalanced" or unpalatable card isn't the norm here. In this community, we shun the people who complain about losing, not the players who win with "unfun" strategies. I think that speaks well for both the game itself and this website.

29

Dominion Isotropic / Re: Slowrolling

« on: April 17, 2012, 07:37:40 pm »

Since I normally play without the point counter, I try to gain as many VP as possible before ending it -- just in case I miscounted along the way. And if I'm having a KC/Bridge/Goons megaturn, then yes I'm going to buy everything I can, in excess of what's necessary to beat my opponent, because I can be proud of it (and I'll get achievements on Councilroom, haha).

As for taking extra turns, if I see an opportunity to end the game and win, I do. If I'm not confident (like 60% sure) that I'll win by ending the game immediately, I might prolong it in the hopes of setting up a more certain win, depending on whether my opponent's deck has a better chance of coming back and beating me.

Especially when I'm playing normal games on Iso, I try to play as quickly as I reasonably can, only pausing to count VP or cards in deck when it's critical. If it's a tournament or something, then obviously I'm going to take longer and expect my opponent to do the same.

I basically only get annoyed when people hold out to the point of timing out. Actually, if it gets to the point where I can make them resign, I just figure they disconnected and click it right away, unless they gave me some warning in advance.

I think that's pretty fair overall.

30

Dominion Isotropic / Re: I've hit a plateau, can't figure out what I'm doing wrong.

« on: April 17, 2012, 07:21:24 pm »

To update on my progress: yesterday wasn't especially good (I dropped from lv. 22 back to lv. 21) but today has been a day of success with a nice variety of alternate VP strategies:
* IGG Duchy rush (strengthened by Envoy)
* Horse Traders / Duke
* Vineyards (supported by Festival/Workshop)
* probably a few others that I forgot.

Of course, I'm currently sitting around getting triple-possessed by my opponent, but them's the breaks. I'm looking forward to watching some of WW's videos.

31

Dominion Isotropic / Re: Attention-whoring thread.... I did it!!

« on: April 17, 2012, 05:37:44 pm »

Well, I'm only at around 1300 games played, but with my recent slump, it'll be a stretch to make lv. 30 by 1500 games. Maybe if I really improve a lot soon!

32

Dominion Isotropic / Re: Who is your nemesis?

« on: April 17, 2012, 04:28:34 pm »

I have worse records against some other people, but I've felt really outclassed against Rabid several times. He just approaches the set with such confidence and pulls off things that hadn't even occurred to me...

33

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: A better Golden Deck

« on: April 16, 2012, 02:39:22 am »

Surprised no one mentioned the easiest Easy Mode solution. Sure, it only gets 9VP, but it's soooo straightforward:
KCx2, Monumentx3 - KC->KC, play each Monument 3 times. Continue ad infinitum (not limited on piles!).

The real trick is getting your deck down to that point since you don't have a Bishop to help. You can use your opponent's Bishop or perhaps Islands to get you there.

34

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Not a misclick

« on: April 16, 2012, 02:25:27 am »

You're in a Gardens/Vineyard/Fairgrounds game and you have a lot of Hagglers in play. You've played sufficient Highways/Princesses/Bridges such that a Colony is worth $1 or $2 and everything else is worth $0. You're heavily laden with the aforementioned green cards. Your opponent has a lighthouse in play. You can maximize the size and diversity of your deck by maximizing the number of Colonies you buy this turn, since you'll be able to Haggle for more cards only from buying the Colonies.

You might be able to come up with a variant of this that involves the Provinces being almost gone and your only chance of victory this turn being Haggler->Border Village->Duchy multiple times in the turn.

35

Dominion Isotropic / Re: Decline of civility on isotropic?

« on: April 16, 2012, 02:15:05 am »

I try to offer "gl hf" and "gg" as traditional sportsmanship messages, but I don't always get them in. Not that I mind if someone omits them; sometimes you're in a hurry or preoccupied, after all. Or you might just be a jerk; but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

The only thing that bothers me is when people complain that I didn't greet them or chat. I play a lot at work; I don't always have time for a conversation in every game. If they're just whining about how I beat them with a "jerk" strategy (e.g. King's Court megaturns), I mostly just dismiss it.

On a particularly good game, or one in which my opponent crushed me handily (and not just due to my mistakes), I'll offer a "gg wp" (good game, well played) instead. Other times I might use the chat to gripe about exceptionally bad luck (like the world's worst Loan) Sometimes this leads to a friendly conversation about the game, which is very satisfying. I also was quite impressed recently with the manners of a player who apologized after breaking out and running away with a Tournament game after a mirrored opening. That's going above and beyond common courtesy, and I was glad to tell him I bore him no hard feelings (runaway leader is the face of Tournament games, after all).

tl;dr I don't think there's been a decline in civility; feels like there's about the same mix as there has been for a while. A little bit of everything.

36

Dominion Isotropic / Re: I've hit a plateau, can't figure out what I'm doing wrong.

« on: April 16, 2012, 01:45:11 am »

One thing I've noticed about my playstyle before is that I tend to "go with the flow" more than most people advise, buying whatever is available or adding things to my deck as is convenient rather than forcing a specific strategy. In some cases, it sounds like that really haunted me. I will make an effort to be more diligent on that front as well.

Just thought I'd chime in and mention I've noticed this about my own play. It doesn't always affect me, especially with cards I know very well, but often when I play an opponent ranked in the 30s or 40s I start to feel that they know what they're doing in some essential way that I don't. And I get crushed in that situation. The other situation where I have recently been ridiculously, just ridiculously slaughtered is when the game has cards I love and I go for them without really looking at the others for context. Both situations seem to share some kind of complacency on my part.

Yeah, I tried to focus on this a bit tonight and there was one case where it really felt like it made a difference. I was playing a game with a bunch of Highways, needed a Workers Village really badly but kept not buying it because I had more than enough money and figured I'd buy something more expensive now when I could and buy the WV later -- well, after a couple tries I realized that the WV was worth more to my deck than more expensive stuff like Gold in this situation and that getting one now would help with getting more later as well... so I just sucked up and bought it and was very glad for that decision -- even though I wasted something like $5 in doing so, I think it was worth it.

37

Dominion Isotropic / Re: I've hit a plateau, can't figure out what I'm doing wrong.

« on: April 16, 2012, 12:33:43 am »

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. I'm glad I made this thread because there are definitely good points here that I wouldn't have seen on my own.

A lot of the advice here includes things that I "thought" I've been doing -- stuff like keeping track of how many terminals vs. non-terminals I have in my deck, opening with things that advance the money of my deck. It sounds like somehow recently I've lapsed on those. (I think I may have been getting a little too carried away overestimating the power of certain cards, like Tunnel.)

One thing I've noticed about my playstyle before is that I tend to "go with the flow" more than most people advise, buying whatever is available or adding things to my deck as is convenient rather than forcing a specific strategy. In some cases, it sounds like that really haunted me. I will make an effort to be more diligent on that front as well.

To clarify a couple things -- I don't prefer Veto mode, but I'll play it as a way to get faster matchmaking. When it does come up, I always click "Veto Random Card" without even thinking. I guess this puts me at a slight disadvantage versus my opponent, who gets to influence the board to his liking, but I'd rather just learn to play on any board that comes my way (for now). And two, I don't actually think that I'm losing mostly to bad luck. If I had played better, I'm sure I could've won most (if not all) of the games in the OP by taking the lead more decisively so that a tiny bit of bad luck wouldn't throw me off. My comment about bad luck was more about how it feels -- my current inability to identify the flaws in my play, and thus why I opened the thread. Finally, three, I don't like point tracker. I prefer the game if players are forced to keep track of points in their heads (which I try to do, but not always successfully). That said, if the point tracker is available, I will use it (and only end the game if I win by doing so).

I learned a couple things just in this thread: one, Masquerade is a better BM enabler than Chapel (should've kinda figured that out, myself, but whatever). Two, opening Walled Village STILL isn't a good idea when you're trying to get multiple Goons out. Three, Familiar (and cursers in general) get MORE powerful in Colony games. I had thought that with the added time that a Colony game takes, I'd get more chances to trash the Curses out with a slower trasher like Salvager. My mistake -- what it means is that my opponent has even more time to get farther ahead while I'm trying to deal with the curses.

Once again, thanks for the advice.

38

Dominion Isotropic / I've hit a plateau, can't figure out what I'm doing wrong.

« on: April 12, 2012, 06:34:31 pm »

I was chugging along, steadily working my way up the leaderboard, refining my builds and timings, expanding my card knowledge, you know the drill, up until level 27, where I peaked after a particularly good day.

Then an unlucky day later I dropped to rank 23 and I've been piddling around ranks 21-23 ever since. Mostly of the time I play, it feels like I lose close games due to bad luck. There are some exceptions where either my opponent or I made a crucial mistake, or Tournament games that spiral out of control, but overall I can't figure out why I'm losing so much more often lately.

http://councilroom.com/player?player=mDuo13

here's are a few example games -- if you guys can look through and point out anything I could've done to play it better, I'd love the advice. I'm sure there are more optimal ways to play some of these.

Game 1. http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120411-135816-79f70173.html
(Tunnel game, I probably should've bought Secret Chamber earlier?)

Game 2. http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120411-145750-173f7d58.html
(Goons, I probably shouldn't have opened Walled Village, I guess?)

Game 3. http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120409-141859-e7ebf3be.html
(Familiar with both players opening 5/2. I tried to play defense with Wharf+Crossroads+Salvager but it didn't work.)

Game 4. http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120409-142407-4c3af287.html
(I go Chapel/Remodel, he goes Masq/Masq)

Game 5. http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120409-133033-65d6b479.html
(Basically a BM game, I lost the tie on turns.)


Especially if you guys can see some trend to my mistakes/weaknesses that I can work on for all future games, that would be ideal.

39

Game Reports / Re: Fun with Counting House

« on: April 12, 2012, 06:18:18 pm »

My experience with IGG / Counting House is that I tend to draw the CH immediately after a reshuffle (i.e. 0 copper in discard) all the time. These days I gave up and just go for Duchies like you're "supposed" to.

40

Game Reports / Re: How lower level players view Possession

« on: April 12, 2012, 06:15:51 pm »

I tend to look at Possession as a really expensive +buy / comeback card unless there's Masquerade or Ambassador on the table, in which case it's a threat that makes me want to avoid those (otherwise excellent) cards.

The other day I had an interesting example where it seems my opponent didn't realize this, got way ahead, and then I used Possession a couple times to turn a 5/3 Province split against me into a 6/2 in my favor using his Ambassador. Luckily he was pretty sporting, and we both agreed that Possession is an unsavory card for these and other reasons.

full game (action on turns 26 and 29)

41

Game Reports / I hate Loan...

« on: April 12, 2012, 06:07:16 pm »

I think this is a nice summary:

(This is with only 2 Golds and like 5-6 other treasures in the deck)

I'm pretty sure my Loans hit Gold more often than they hit Copper this game. On the plus side, I was able to discard to Mountebank pretty often, but it wasn't much consolation when I couldn't draw money to save my life.

-> full game

42

Game Reports / Re: Whine about IRL Game - KC-pawn is the worst thing EVER

« on: April 09, 2012, 05:50:07 pm »

It's true. I have a lot of problems with King's Court as a card. Granted, analysis paralysis usually isn't a big part of the problem, but its ability to 3x the AP on the already problematic Pawn is bad. The bigger problem is that KC trees take forever to resolve anyway...

I feel your pain, though. I don't want to play KC in IRL games if at all possible. It's enough challenge to track people's floating actions and money IRL with simple village chains. When you add Pawn? Dang, I'd be just as happy to resign.

43

Game Reports / Re: golden deck not so golden?

« on: April 09, 2012, 05:44:39 pm »

Vineyards are so good. <3

44

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Really bad card ideas

« on: March 21, 2012, 07:10:48 pm »

Inflation ($1)
Action - Duration
While this card is in play, all numbers on all other cards are increased by 1.
Remains in play.

Lava Flow ($4)
Action - Duration
Place this card next to the supply or an existing Lava Flow. When Lava Flow touches a card with Village in the title, trash that card unless it is a Walled Village.
Remains in play.

Sea Haggler ($6)
Action - Attack
$2
Each other player discards the top card of his deck, then gains a Curse card, putting it on top of his deck.
----------
While this is in play, when you buy a card, gain a card costing less than it that is not a Victory card.

Feldon's Cane ($1)
Action
Return all trashed cards to the supply, then trash this.

Mining Village [Alt.] ($5)
Action
+1 Card, +2 Actions
Trash a Treasure from your hand. If you do, gain a Treasure costing up to $3 more than the trashed card.

45

Game Reports / "Noooooooooooooooooo!"

« on: March 14, 2012, 08:17:15 pm »

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120305-134005-e341aeb4.html

A pretty even game. At the very end, his Jester curses me, and I end up with $12 and 3 buys -- enough to buy the last Province, but with the Estates having run out, just short of taking the lead.

I should've bought two Duchies rather than the Province, and hoped he would not buy the last Duchy or Province on his turn (either would end the game), although I think I'd lost count of the exact VP totals at that point...

It's not often I come within $1 and 1 point of winning based on some freak accident, though.

46

Dominion General Discussion / Re: 4/4 opening

« on: March 14, 2012, 07:54:14 pm »

Dismissing talk of Throne Room for now...

obv. most combinations of the top $4 cards (maybe not especially Jack?) makes for a pretty broken opening. Tournament/Monument, Monument/Sea Hag, etc. 2x Remake is peculiar. If we're talking an actual $4/$4 opening, it's great because if they collide you can turn one into a $5. If we're talking Remake costs $3, then who knows.

Sea Hag/Sea Hag is probably brutal, although if they collide, you almost certainly have no real buying power that turn. Given how good double Ambassador openings are, I sorta doubt it matters much in the long run.

I agree that Talisman definitely gets a lot crazier at $3, although not necessarily that much BETTER.

I wonder if maybe Pirate Ship and Thief would be less terrible at $3 since both benefit from being used over and over again. Maybe if also in the presence of villages.

Trader/Trader is also a fascinating opening concept. Although if they're $3, you get one less silver when you Trader your Trader.

47

Dominion Articles / Re: Everyday I'm Shuffling

« on: February 06, 2012, 09:07:51 pm »

I've been thinking about this subject, and attacks.

Take Sea Hag for example. Assume that the curses have already run out and both players are left with Sea Hags they can't trash from their decks. When you have a Sea Hag and a spare action, is it a good idea to play it out? (Same goes for Thief or Pirate Ship attacks vs. a moneyless deck, although that's a little different since you'd probably rather use the Pirate Ship for money if you had the chance.)

My impression has been that it's a crapshoot, but generally it's not worthwhile. If you hit a Curse or Estate (very likely in these scenarios) then you've just helped their next hand. If you hit a nice action or a Gold, well, sucks for your opponent.

I suppose if the game is late (as is likely if the Curses have run out) and they're greening, then it might be more beneficial to force their deck to cycle faster. But if they're still buying Golds and struggling to make points before the game ends on piles or something, it might be a good call.

48

2011 / Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships Registration

« on: November 21, 2011, 05:51:24 pm »

1) mDuo13
2) GMT-8 (PST)

49

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

« on: November 10, 2011, 06:57:37 pm »

Tribute is the only card that can affect another player's deck without attacking (thought I guess you could argue that possession does too...).

I think you'd definitely have to count Possession, but even more so, Ill-Gotten-Gains.

Well, IGG doesn't actually affect the other players' decks - it affects their discard pile by making them gain something. Speaking of which, Masquerade isn't a "real" attack either, but it also affects the other players "overall" decks. In fact, I think Masquerade is the only non-attack that affects other players' hands. Well, and Possession.

Secret Chamber is the only card you can reveal multiple times with different effects.

Well, you could reveal a Watchtower twice with different effects against a Mountebank (trash the Curse, put the Copper on deck)... which is pretty similar.

Outpost is the only card that cares about consecutive turns.

I guess Fool's Gold and Tunnel would have been unique before the other was revealed (The only reactions that aren't also actions) but now they're a pair. Go figure.

I was going to say that Trader is the only card that can replace a gain action with another gain action, but technically Possession does something very similar.

Mining Village is the only card that gives you the option of trashing itself when you play it.

I guess Horn of Plenty doesn't explicitly give you that option, but as long as you can choose a Victory card, it effectively does.

How about this one: as far as I can think of, there is currently no card that makes you choose / single out another player. Everything affects either all players or a single player based on turn order. (Seems like an explicit omission so far. We'll see if any cards come along that break that rule.)

50

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Ill-Gotten Gains + Counting House

« on: November 10, 2011, 06:31:48 pm »

I had a pretty infuriating game recently where I attempted an IGG rush buying Provinces whenever possible, adding a couple Counting Houses late in the game when I had a massive deck of Coppers, but I drew the CH's at the top of a reshuffle more often than not (and my opponent's attacks discarded them at least twice as well) so that even with 40+ cards in deck I was only able to CH into Province once or twice. (I did one time get to pick up 20 Coppers, but it didn't matter without +buy on the board.) Ultimately despite my buying 6 or so Provinces, my opponent was able to Develop away his curses and beat me with a much slowed-down Ironworks + Vineyard deck.

So long story short, the strategy is viable, but Counting House is still very vulnerable to shuffle luck.