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176

Dominion: Empires Previews / Re: Release date

« on: May 23, 2016, 04:23:01 pm »

The "funny" thing is that DXV himself has suggested a maximum limit of two events/landmarks in total per game, and he has also said elsewhere that he in fact recommends playing with two events in every game (pre-Empires).

I don't remember him making any such recommendation. I think he said something along the lines of, if you want to put two Events in every game, go for it; you can shuffle the Events separately from the other randomizers.

Would there be a problem if one included three events/landmarks in some games? I mean when it comes to balance? I'm sure there's a reason a maximum of two is recommended.

Just to keep the game from getting crazy complex. But if your group can handle complex, do whatever you like. When playing with my main group, we almost always put out three: either 2 Events and 1 Landmark or 1 Event and 2 Landmarks. It's a holdover from Empires playtesting.

You're right about the recommendation thing. I mean, he said it, but it wasn't in a public forum. I listed somewhere (I think it was on BGG) that I wondered if someone could recommend 50 kingdom cards that would be best to use to showcase as many interesting game mechanics as possible while keeping each element visible enough.

I was going to sing in an opera, and for stage performers, it's generally a lot of waiting in between different scenes, especially during rehearsals, so I collected some of my colleagues and put in Dominion games anywhere we got the time for them. Going to an island for these rehearsals and performances meant that I had somewhat limited space for game accessories in my bag, so I figured I wanted to use about 50 kingdom cards, and then some events.

Donald X. replied to me in a private e-mail message, saying that he recommended bringing all 20 (at the time) events, using two in every game. So we did, and it seemed like a perfect number, even though some of the players had never played Dominion before. I think I'll go for two combined events/landmarks per game in the Empires era, at least initially. Thanks for your feedback! It's greatly appreciated! 

177

Dominion: Empires Previews / Re: Release date

« on: May 23, 2016, 04:03:32 pm »

Now that we'll have 34 events and 21 landmarks, we have a total of 55 landscape-oriented non-card cards. Using the suggested maximum of two such cards in every game means that each one will be used in every 27.5 games on average, and we still don't have a total of 275 kingdom cards, so each non-card won't come up exactly as frequently as each kingdom card, at least not yet, although it's really close (we have 236 kingdom piles pre-Empires).

Assuming 260 and 55, the expected number of Events/Landmarks per game if you don't limit them is about 2.11 (exact value: 55*10/(260+1)). It happens that the suggested maximum is lower than this (but this wouldn't be the case if there were more Kingdom cards).

(Note that even without limiting the number you play with, a given Event or Landmark will show up slightly less often than a given Kingdom card - every 26.1 games vs. every 26; I'm sure there is an elegant way to show where the +1 comes from in the above formula, but my hand-wavy explanation is that the last card you draw will always be a Kingdom card.

And of course Young Witch throws things off a little bit for the 2-3 cost cards, and Black Market further skews things if you want to account for that somehow. Worrying about playing with every card exactly the same number of times seems pointless.)

I'm a statistician, so I know what you mean.  Actually, I'm thinking that the Young Witch game "should" include a bane that should be taken out from the randomizer deck, so that a total of 260 kingdom cards should be used in 25.9 games, if you catch my drift.

IMHO the cards used in a Black Market deck shouldn't count towards any of them being used as a kingdom card, but I have a houserule in which only 113 cards (exactly half of the 226 cards not being used in the current kingdom, even though YW once again complicates things a bit) are being used at a time (it's rather difficult shuffling 200+ cards, even with sleeves). It seems like I need to up that number to 125 now, which is perfectly fine with me (split piles should probably be shuffled "internally" in advance). These cards are determined randomly in all Black Market games.

I also agree that it's pointless to find a way to play with all cards the exact same number of times, but being a statistician, it's fun to dream about it. 

178

Dominion: Empires Previews / Re: Release date

« on: May 23, 2016, 09:50:31 am »

The "funny" thing is that DXV himself has suggested a maximum limit of two events/landmarks in total per game, and he has also said elsewhere that he in fact recommends playing with two events in every game (pre-Empires).

Now that we'll have 34 events and 21 landmarks, we have a total of 55 landscape-oriented non-card cards. Using the suggested maximum of two such cards in every game means that each one will be used in every 27.5 games on average, and we still don't have a total of 275 kingdom cards, so each non-card won't come up exactly as frequently as each kingdom card, at least not yet, although it's really close (we have 236 kingdom piles pre-Empires).

Would there be a problem if one included three events/landmarks in some games? I mean when it comes to balance? I'm sure there's a reason a maximum of two is recommended.