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1

Dominion General Discussion / Re: New online version of Dominion (with neural-network based AI) from Temple Gates

« on: May 19, 2021, 01:28:03 am »

So the AI cheats? It plays a few turns ahead and makes decisions based on that?

Not really? I mean, it doesn't know exactly what shuffle it's going to get. It just simulates a bunch of potential shuffles based on what happens if it makes certain moves and then picks ones that made it win more in those simulations.

OK, that's fine for shuffles. But say it plays Wishing Well, or decides whether it's going to play Wishing Well. What then?

I'll probably point us to previous discussions speculating about new Dom expansions where they say the next one will include "card shaped" components.  Here, we know that the game will include an AI that should be akin to what we've seen in Race/Roll For The Galaxy

Looks like it might be time to revisit my old thread!

And even if they're right and it's an amazing Dominion AI that can beat even seasoned players in most games, that sounds pretty bad for casual players! Who wants to play against a computer that beats you 90% of the time? Some people will, sure, but I bet that'll get old fast for a lot of players.

I think most neural networks have some depth setting you can turn down to make it perform worse, although it may not get worse in the same way a human would.

Race/Roll For The Galaxy have easier difficulty levels which make more suboptimal moves.  That proved suitable for less skilled players.

Ditto here, I don't mind losing against a computer.  Much less than vs. a real player.

2

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Epic Fails Thread

« on: December 15, 2019, 04:27:38 am »

Vs. AI... bought out all the Grand Markets!  But then noticed there were only 4 Provinces left... in a 6p game!

3

Dominion General Discussion / Re: nobody's talking about the hard things

« on: June 14, 2019, 04:49:57 pm »

I still miss coppersmith too. Its unexpected passing is the biggest tragedy in dominion history.

Bring it back and give it a +1 Buy to it

4

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Storage options?

« on: June 14, 2019, 04:46:17 pm »

old post I know, but I was kind of wondering about this myself, without trying to create a new post - tried to do a search, but couldn't find anything

I'm pretty new and considered trying to see if an old baseball card binder would work? (at least for everything except the treasurers and other large quantity cards)

Dominion is a great game but this topic of storage is a genuine concern.  I've seen one person do this and IIRC, he had 4 to 7 sets worth of large boxes (not to be confused with the Big Box).  10 cards per pocket, with some of them perhaps able to go beyond that (perhaps up to 15 or 20)?  Worked out pretty well.

5

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Are promos worth it?

« on: June 14, 2019, 04:43:33 pm »

I did a mini-review of the first 5 here....
https://boardgamegeek.com/article/10398721#10398721

FWIW, try to value them by how much you'll actually use them.  Sure, the regular sets come with many more cards, but it wouldn't be saying much if you didn't like say, half of them.

As far as the rest of them go, Summons isn't too shabby, nor Dismantle.

You lost all credibility to me when you rated Governor and Stash as 5/5, but Black Market only 3/5.

Looking back to this day, I can say, it's good thing I don't care what you think

6

Dominion General Discussion / Re: New promo revealed: Schwerin Cathedral

« on: June 14, 2019, 04:10:05 pm »

Whoever guesses the effect before Essen wins a prize.

I'll take Princess!

7

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Project - card parallels

« on: June 14, 2019, 04:08:51 pm »

interesting parallels with player tokens from Adventures as well....

A thought I had today (not very original I am sure)

Code: [Select]

Fair - Market Square :: $4 / $3    | Seaway $4
Barracks - Village :: $6 / $3       | Lost Arts $6
[s]Canal - Highway :: $7 / $5[/s]
NA - Lab :: NA / $5                 | Pathfinder $8

8

Dominion General Discussion / Scenarios where one could reasonably say they've already lost?

« on: March 28, 2019, 02:12:08 am »

In a 2p game, one player could forfeit, but that's trickier in a 3p+, unless all but one player concedes.  Situations where due to luck, or opening the wrong way.. there's a "99% chance" that you lost, and are going through the motions at that point.  Yes, miracles can happen, but I'm more concerned with situations where you're proverbially "backed into corner" (or backed yourself into one).

• Sea Hag "arms race"
  your opponent manages to force discard your own Sea Hag with theirs (although some say you can recover from 1.  However, NOT 2)
• Others get Chapel and you don't
  Where others opened Chapel and you didn't.  Much more pronounced when things were just base game 1E.  Games back then were roughly divided into "Chapel games" vs. "no Chapel games".  Expansions, and even just base game 2E provided more variety so at least there were more ways to combat this
• They buy out all or most of a pile that synergizes well with itself
  Examples include but not limited to Laboratory, and Minion
• You buy one or more Scouts :p

9

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2018 Edition: Hexes

« on: March 26, 2019, 01:38:00 am »

I hear by declare Bad Omens to be the cutest of all the Hexes!

10

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Can Patron ever be the bane card?

« on: March 26, 2019, 01:31:43 am »

With Poor House becoming the first $1 Action card, I had a thread asking if Bane was strictly intended for $2 or $3 cards, or if Poor House sort of "mucked with that".  TL;DR is to just keep it that way for official rulings, but you're free to make Poor House a Bane card if you'd like (without of course severely breaking anything).

11

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Playing IRL is way more fun than playing online.

« on: March 26, 2019, 01:21:35 am »

IRL takes longer, but I like the tactile sensation of playing with real cards.

When I talk about Dominion, I enjoy talking about it with people whose faces I can see, and hands I can shake.  However, that's rather difficult this day in age, so for everything else, there are places like DominionStrategy.com

On a related note, I'm glad we had a dictionary in the house when growing up, but I'd much rather look up definitions of words online 

12

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Dominion current Popularity?

« on: March 16, 2019, 08:34:28 pm »

I tried Discord one time.  I was quite confused at first.  I still am.  My initial impressions were that it was some sort of "glorified chat room/IM service".  I used it to ask questions for one of the Final Fantasy game remakes.  As mentioned by a few posts here, it didn't seem to be the appropriate utility/software for question based topics, so that did get me to write it off, and just stick with message forums.


However, I have been made aware, even back then, that Discord has gone up in popularity.  So for naysayers (including myself :\), it's here to stay, and worth considering as a viable means to discuss one's topics of interest).

To get back to the original question, I think an aspect of the change in Dominion's popularity has to be that it basically birthed a huge genre which is the deck-building game. Regardless of whether you consider other deck-builders to be Dominion's equal, the fact is that while people who like deck-building games used to have one place to go and it was Dominion, now they have 1,000 places to go and only some of them are Dominion.

But that probably goes both ways -- all those other deck-building games are entry points that will lead some percentage of people who discover them back to Dominion.

I've been going to board game conventions for the better part of the past decade.  I remember my first game Dominion in 2008...

I was at a con that focuses on eurogames (although other types/genres were welcome).  Trying out Dominion was on my "to do" list, but I was playing so many other games that by the time I got around to this, it was already 2am.  I looked around, there were still 10+ tables of gaming going on.  One game I couldn't get in.. they were full. Another one, I did get in.  1 guy could teach, and the other 2 players were new.  We ended up playing 2 games (The First Game and Big Money presets).  It was awesome 

Over the next few years, I'd see quite a few games of Dom. being played as a wandered the floors of such conventions.  They also got played at various, meet ups, get togethers of gaming groups.  Intrigue, Seaside, Alchemy, and Prosperity.. those were hot expansions!


In the past few years, Dominion either is nowhere to be seen, or perhaps you may see a game or 2 of it in play.  But that's out of "a sea of tables" (up to 40 tables in some cases).  Or, I see someone with a very large box, I look inside, and see he's got 10+ sets of Dominion cards in there, so even though that copy wasn't being played at the moment I walked by, it does show someone has it and brought it in. 

Dominion is still great, but there are just soo many other great games out there, let alone great DBG.  Kickstarter exploding in popularity helped get even more games out onto the market otherwise.

13

Empires Previews / Re: Mountain Pass Bidding Strategy

« on: March 16, 2019, 08:19:17 pm »

If it's the last Province, bid <40>

If it's the last Province, nobody gets to bid.

2nd to last Province then

14

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Dominion current Popularity?

« on: February 07, 2019, 01:59:38 am »

Any metrics in particular? 

# of sales would be one (subdivided by language and expansion)....
https://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/22976/item/1571298#item1571298
1 million copies, as of "the end of 2010"!

Number of plays?....
https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/36218/dominion/stats
594,598 total
490 this month

Doesn't seem possible to get info on other, specific months though

15

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Would you buy Dominion Collector's Edition?

« on: February 07, 2019, 12:04:06 am »

No.
I already own all the dominion cards, why would I buy them again?

It's such awesome game series that fans are willing to rebuy them again?

Otherwise, you need new cards anyways because you didn't sleeve.

16

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Setup Requirements for your Kingdom guidance

« on: February 06, 2019, 11:55:32 pm »

If you have an Android device, Jack Of All Dominion has a section that lists it all out for you, based on what Kingdom got randomized. However, not sure if it's possible to manually select your cards.

17

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Shitty Rules Questions

« on: February 06, 2019, 11:51:15 pm »

Sadly Dominion's rules are superseded by both local laws and laws of nature. Otherwise I would long ago have made "For the rest of this turn, there is no entropy" and then wandered off into the world of dreams.

You should pitch to Blizzard an idea for a "World Of Dominion" game.  Couldn't hurt :p   No more silly IRL rules if that were to be greenlit!

18

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Are promos worth it?

« on: February 06, 2019, 11:45:24 pm »

I feel like using the randomizer deck and then just grabbing actual copies of whatever cards get bought is a pretty good compromise.

This really is a good enough solution, folks, and well within the spirit of IRL board gaming.

Otherwise if you're going to have a BM-specific app, why not just go all out and have a Dominion Online LAN party with 5 laptops 'round the table?

That's quite a bit of a stretch don't you think?

For the former, all you need is one phone.  To implement it would be FAAR easier than making the entire Dominion series

For the latter, you'd need to lug around 5 laptops, be able to plug them in somewhere, and have internet access.  Dominion Online is already a thing, but some people prefer the physical cards.

.

A BM virtual deck app fulfills a need that can make things far more convenient.  Ditto with a randomizer app.  Reduces the need to carry hundreds of randomizer cards, and all that shuffling.

19

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Mistakes We're still making in 2019

« on: February 06, 2019, 11:04:35 pm »

Losing

And even then, losing is still relative.  Losing against a excellent players can mean you'll kick ass against a group of winners.  Each who were the winners of their groups

20

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Are promos worth it?

« on: February 02, 2019, 02:04:40 pm »

For people who think Black Market is one of the best: how do you do the setup IRL?  It sounds unusable.

Use an app with virtual Black Market deck support. It can simulate a Black Market deck for you. If someone buys the actual card you then dig it out, that way you only have to fish for the cards you need.

Can you suggest any?  People keep saying this, but I have yet to find one that does more than pick out the BM cards.

21

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Mistakes We're still making in 2019

« on: February 01, 2019, 03:24:02 am »

Some people are still playing with more than 2 players.

Heathens.

Heh... and to think, there are people who still play 5p and 6p games 

22

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Playing IRL is way more fun than playing online.

« on: January 31, 2019, 02:31:15 am »

What we need is for full colour e-ink displays to become cheap enough that we can afford 300-400 card-shaped ones for a game of Dominion.

Want a supply pile? Just stack at least as many cards as needed and let it morph the bottom n into the required cards, leaving the surplus with red faces so they're easy to drop back in the general stack.

Want your deck shuffled? Just pile up the cards and hit a button. The faces permute themselves without having to move the actual cards.

Give it another decade or two. (-8

Mission Impossible, eat your heart out 

23

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Themed Cards?

« on: January 31, 2019, 02:30:05 am »

Witch does actually curse you

Saboteur really does sabotage games.

24

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Mistakes We're still making in 2019

« on: January 31, 2019, 01:58:47 am »

Losing

So we have to tie every game?

The proper term is "rejoice in your shared victory."

while holding hands, skipping down the sidewalk.

25

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Who has all the expansions?

« on: January 11, 2019, 11:20:40 pm »

If you want extra credit.. print the fan expansions