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26

Dominion: Empires Previews / Re: Favourite Card/Event/Landmark?

« on: June 08, 2016, 05:49:22 am »

Kingdom Card: I'm tempted to give it to the quiet achiever, Chariot Race, because I enjoy that kind of interaction. Not a direct attack, but a bonus/penalty for whatever you've both got on show at the time. While it will eventually be broken down and an optimal strategy found, I feel like it's going to greatly enhance Empires + anything for a good long while. During the period in which we're all still working out what goes where, this is going to result in a lot of surprising turns. And that's a very, very good thing. It's simple, elegant, and what I was most looking forward to until the Castles pile came and completely smoked it.

Event: Baby's First Deck-Thinner Donate is an obvious choice for most surprising, certainly, but Salt the Earth will lead to over the top spite and dickery. Not sure about you lot, but that's how I like my Dominion.

Landmark: Because it's a new mechanic, there's a lot to love with Landmarks. The constantly evolving shell game of Defiled Shrine and the potential gamble of the Obelisk are front-runners; and the more subtle but potentially seismic shifts of Triumphal Arc and Keep are definite winners. But Wall is going to make most games with trashing interesting, and those without trashing a frantic race.

Most eagerly anticipated combo: Nuclear option - Donate + Tomb.

Card: Encampment/Plunder.  I look forward to buying a plunder and then hiding further plunder by covering it with encampment.  Even if that's not very good.

I like your style. There are a couple of "Treasure Map moments" that have stood out for me already while just glancing at the cards. My group's going to get some pretty easy wins in once I do get my hands on the expansion...

27

Rules Questions / Re: throne room rules

« on: June 07, 2016, 08:54:13 am »

sadly, throne room does not rock. only catapult rocks.

Stonemason rocks.

Duplicate also rocks.

Don't Rocks Duplicate?

28

Dominion: Empires Previews / Re: Empires Rulebook

« on: June 07, 2016, 05:56:00 am »

I'm having a hard time taking all this in, so I think I'll treat it like the previews and just analyze a couple a day until I get my hands on a copy.

Genuinely laughed out loud when I read Salt the Earth, though. My playgroup loves dick moves more than anything, and I can see this becoming a mainstay.

Why do I have the feeling that most of this post is going to wind up in the "out of context thread"?

Bandit Fort or how to play Dominion: highly professional tip for mediocre Dominion players in only one sentence!

Between Bandit Fort and Donate, I think that's this expansion's theme: git gud.

EDIT: Also, wero (and anyone else assisting at the time): you're a goddamn champ and made my lunch hour more than bearable.

29

Other Games / Re: Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective

« on: June 07, 2016, 05:38:43 am »

It sounds pretty engrossing without being needlessly complex.

Thanks for the overview, chaps.

30

Other Games / Re: Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective

« on: June 06, 2016, 08:50:20 am »

So that's 20 hours of a enjoyable experience for a low price

That's a pretty good way of thinking about it. I'll take a closer look, then.

31

Other Games / Re: Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective

« on: June 06, 2016, 05:47:11 am »

This came up in a search I ran for Solitaire Games (because I'm a sad bastard), and I must admit I kind of skipped over it. It seems to me that once you've done a particular case, it wouldn't have a lot of replayability.

Is that one attempt worthwhile?

Or did I completely miss the point and it's more of a one-off "experience" than a traditional game?

32

Dominion: Empires Previews / Re: Release date

« on: June 03, 2016, 03:56:41 am »

I made an account much later after the order. I wish I made it beforehand, oh well. I'll wait a bit until people start reporting they get Empires I think.

It can't hurt to just shoot them a cursory email, right?

33

Other Games / Re: Village

« on: June 03, 2016, 03:54:17 am »

I haven't played it, but if I played it once, I'd get to play two more games, right?

This right here is the reason we need an alternative up-voting mechanism, a small icon in the shape of a rolled up newspaper to smack a user on the nose and say, "No! Bad user!"

34

Other Games / Re: CIVILIZATION VI

« on: May 31, 2016, 05:14:12 am »

Builders work differently now, that's interesting.

I've never viewed workers as single units, but rather a representation of manpower, your empire's labor force. Giving them "charges" before they're used up and have to be replaced seems way less abstract and like it might make things pretty fiddly...

I am a bit wary about what we know on how armies work...

The conglomeration aspect is a work-around for 1UPT. While combining units will give you less pieces on the board that have to be moved, you're still going to be "specializing" every time you make a customized corps, and that means gambling on the opponent not finding a decent counter.

There are now Just and Unjust wars and as time goes on the diplomatic penalty for unjust wars increases significantly

This has been a thing for quite a while: civs individually and collectively whining about you taking someone else's clay. All the more incentive to axe rush your continent: take out rivals before anybody has a chance to see it and complain about it.

3-minute day-and-night cycle

I know the late-game moves at a glacial pace, but is this necessary in a game spanning thousands of years? EDIT: Okay, it looks like it might be just a graphical thing. Maybe it adds a bit of variety to the scenery or something.

35

Other Games / Re: Village

« on: May 28, 2016, 07:35:57 pm »

Let us know how it goes for you.

I'm leaning towards it myself.

36

Other Games / Re: Village

« on: May 27, 2016, 07:17:34 am »

I've passed over it many a time due to the generic title, but your thread actually made me stop and take a proper look at it.

It looks like a pretty solid Euro, but not too scary. I like the look of the different paths to achieving renown and the cycle of life and death.

37

Rules Questions / Re: Storyteller...?

« on: May 26, 2016, 05:03:58 am »

Storyteller - Crown - Storyteller - Venture - Counterfeit - Venture - Bank - Venture 2 - Crown - Storyteller - ? ? ? - Profit?

f.ds: where making your own head explode is considered a viable strategy.

38

Other Games / Re: A bunch of games I played this weekend (multiple session reports)

« on: May 26, 2016, 04:59:47 am »

You don't need any Japanese for the English version of Tragedy Looper. I like it a lot, but it requires a lot of concentration.

It caught my eye upon release in Japan, and I'd remained unaware that there was even going to be a translated version until this very thread. That last bit you mention, though, is what stuck with me in my initial impression and made me wary. I'm still a little torn as to which version to pick up, but it's looking more likely that I'll do it one way or another.

39

Other Games / Re: A bunch of games I played this weekend (multiple session reports)

« on: May 25, 2016, 12:02:48 am »

I initially avoided picking up Tragedy Looper because I was worried my Japanese wasn't good enough, but even as my interest in it grew, I was still skeptical as to how much replayability it had. Your posts have made me question that skepticism, though - thanks.

40

Other Games / Re: CIVILIZATION VI

« on: May 22, 2016, 11:37:59 pm »

All the one unit per tile stuff really failed when allies put their units into your territory

I can appreciate what they were trying to do with 1UPT, but not giving us some way to manage this was pretty frustrating.

I hated the archers that fired over seas to hit their targets.

But archers have been firing at planes for years, man.

I just wanted to add that this thread has made me fall off the Civ wagon and I think you're all thorough bastards.

41

Dominion General Discussion / Re: JSH's True Art Rankings

« on: May 22, 2016, 11:32:30 pm »

Serious Question: What is the Mona Lisa of f.ds? Is it Bomb? Is it "everyone is WW"? Is it schadd? (favorite user besides Donald X. himself) Man, so many great options.

The Articles

Aren't the articles more like a wing of the Louvre?

42

Other Games / Re: King of Tokyo

« on: May 21, 2016, 05:26:46 am »

Now... Why do people hate on Yahtzee? That's a great game.

I haven't been back to it since when I was a wee lad, and while I remember having fun with it, there really was only a couple of choices you could make, and the rest was left up to the roll.

43

Other Games / Re: CIVILIZATION VI

« on: May 21, 2016, 05:13:09 am »

Policies rather than civics are completely different from each other. I didn't think Policies were that good, it just feels like a second Tech tree, which is kind of boring.

Yeah, like Teproc added, it made them feel far less dynamic - something you gamed pretty heavily to get ahead; rather than something that would suit your Civ and the current situation.

1UpT is probably the biggest change 5 introduces, so you just have to get used to it. Wars are WAY more interesting, at the cost of a lot of extra micromanagement. The AI doesn't know how to 1UpT to save its life though, which leads to massive player advantage in warfare.

It feels like they made this massive tactical change for the player, and then simply forgot to do the same for the AI (it's pretty bad at defending, but completely inept at attacking).

Regardless, this thread has made me remember that I've still yet to give FreeCiv a spin...

44

Dominion: Empires Previews / Re: Empires Bonus Preview #2: Crown

« on: May 21, 2016, 05:00:27 am »

I suspect Dominion somewhat lacks Timmy-appeal.

That's because our game is actually balanced

45

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Some Cards Based on Enterprise

« on: May 20, 2016, 05:53:11 am »

Barter:
$1
+1 Buy
When you play this, spend any number of Trade tokens. All cards cost $1 less per Trade token spent.
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. Take a Trade token for every $1 you overpaid.
Cost: $4+
Treasure

The concept (overpaying for Trade tokens that can then be used when you play the card) has been suggested before. I think it's a fine concept. I honestly have no idea how this specific version of that concept would play out, though obviously the question to ask is, "How easy and common are the megaturns?" Really the limiting factor is +Buy, but once you have enough of that, I bet you can buy a few of these and then pretty easily run out the Provinces. Heck this itself gives +1 Buy! So I'm not optimistic, but it's really hard to know how it works in practice.

I'm guessing it does what it says on the tin, and becomes "Trade token Masterpiece". Given that Masterpiece itself is throttled by loading your deck with Silvers, rather than granting coin tokens, this might be too beastly...

46

Goko Dominion Online / Re: What I've learnt from Adventures online...

« on: May 20, 2016, 05:48:57 am »

I didn't get Storyteller at first, either, Kirian. But...

In fact, just having one or two Storytellers can be enough to draw the deck. That said, you want that deck to have something better to do than just drawing money with it.

That's it - it allows you to selectively accelerate your cycling to reach your good stuff. That, at least on the surface, gives it an advantage over other cycling cards: you can burn what you need to get draw, but you can also throttle it back when you've already got cards in hand (to spend on other good stuff).

47

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: How to balance a reverse Merchants' Guild in multiplayer

« on: May 20, 2016, 05:36:06 am »

Would a cheap reaction work?

(Some action text)
--------
When another player gains a card, you may reveal this. If you do, discard it and, +1 Card and take a Coin Token.

It's not as strong, but doesn't snowball.

I can't speak for spiralstaircase, but he did name this "a reverse Merchant's Guild", so presumably he wanted it to have just as much punch as that card. Even if you price your proposed Reaction low enough and discard them regularly by flooding your deck with them, it doesn't feel like it's getting same kind of value that Merchant Guild offers. The problem is the wording on a "discard for effect" Reaction - it can only pop once, after a single buy or gain...

48

Other Games / Re: CIVILIZATION VI

« on: May 20, 2016, 05:17:49 am »

I'm imagining myself in a retirement home at age 80, spending all of my time playing Civ 14.

Technician's log, March 15th, 20XX:
Going to have to decommission DosageBot794-X1.
That's the fifth time this month Mr. Kirian has been found, clearly unmedicated, raving about "that treacherous, bald, Indian bastard and his nuclear holocausts".

49

Other Games / Re: Imperial Settlers

« on: May 19, 2016, 08:36:13 am »

I found the variety in the cards lackluster,

I guess that's a drawback of their inter-connectedness: so often, you can sub one kind of resource for the other, so they all feel a little samey. Unless you're playing as the Japanese with their food-juggling shenanigans.

also the game is over too quick to enjoy the little economy you built.

Definitely agree with this. As soon as you feel like you've assembled something of worth, it's all over.

50

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Enterprise (Beta)

« on: May 19, 2016, 05:17:42 am »

I'm really looking forward to printing these up and giving them a spin.

• Wheelwright and Auction are both interesting cards individually, but seem like they could be devastating when paired.
• Conclave looks like something I want to build a very particular deck around. I don't know what that deck is yet, but I want to try it.
• Charlatan just looks plain fun.

At first glance, Floodgate appears exceptionally powerful - is that the case? I guess it depends on the hand, on what you're setting aside and what it aligns with next turn, but it seems like Gear on steriods...