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1

Dominion: Nocturne Previews / Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions

« on: November 22, 2017, 03:37:06 pm »

I find it amusing to have people say that Den of Sin has a delayed effect compared to Lab. You get to play Den of Sin the very same turn you buy it, while you have to wait a full shuffle to play Lab.

Den of Sin is worse than Lab in the sense that you can't chain them, and that if you draw your deck you can only play them one turn out of two, but it's definitely "faster" than Lab.

It provides an early kick but is then a bit weaker whereas Lab is just an ordinary, linear "snowball" card.
One cool aspect of Nocturne are these changes to the early parts of the game. The Heirlooms, especially Goat and Cursed Gold are probably even more radical than these Night-Durations in terms of changing the opening.

2

Dominion: Nocturne Previews / Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions

« on: November 22, 2017, 03:31:34 pm »

You're acting like this is all obvious stuff that everyone agrees on when you recently participated in an argument where at least some people were disagreeing with you.  I may think Den of Sin's on-play effect is better than Caravan, but I'm not so condescending to act like this is obvious and everyone agrees with me.

Talking about nonsense, you wrote stuff like: "With Haunted Woods, you get +3 cards at the beginning of the turn, and then you later pay the cost of -1 card -1 action."

This isn't an argument I can agree with or not, it is merely factually false. So if you are confused about the order of play, what happens on the first and second turn, going over the basics of Durations might be helpful.

I'm not going to reply to this I'm just going to highlight it evidence that you are being condescending, and also believe you are correct to be condescending.

Pot calling the kettle back. If you think that calling obvious falsehoods nonsense is condescending you might not wanna use that very word yourself.

3

Dominion: Nocturne Previews / Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions

« on: November 22, 2017, 03:28:34 pm »

You're acting like this is all obvious stuff that everyone agrees on when you recently participated in an argument where at least some people were disagreeing with you.  I may think Den of Sin's on-play effect is better than Caravan, but I'm not so condescending to act like this is obvious and everyone agrees with me.

Talking about nonsense, you wrote stuff like: "With Haunted Woods, you get +3 cards at the beginning of the turn, and then you later pay the cost of -1 card -1 action."

This isn't an argument I can agree with or not, it is merely factually false. So if you are confused about the order of play, what happens on the first and second turn, going over the basics of Durations might be helpful.

4

Dominion: Nocturne Previews / Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions

« on: November 22, 2017, 02:49:41 pm »

We already had this argument about Caravan vs. Den of Sin.  It's here and here.

Oh wait, josh56 is actually the one who started the argument in the first place.  You seem to be repeating the exact same arguments despite knowing that people disagreed with them the first time.  Stop it, you're being tiresome.

What people? You mean guys like LFN? Oh no, looks like he disagreed with you. 

5

Dominion: Nocturne Previews / Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions

« on: November 22, 2017, 01:40:49 pm »

If that were the case Den of Sin would be better than Lab in 3 ways: great first play effect, cannot be drawn as it is a Night card and same/similiar beyond-first-play effect.
I think it is fair to say that DXV doesn't make such obvious blunders.

But not strictly better. There are situations where you want Lab over DoS and vice versa.

What's noteworthy is that DXV already made Hunting Party, which is sort of just better than Lab, and so far it doesn't look like it has ruined the game or anything.

You are right. A Treasure that says At the start of the turn after the next one: +$3 would not be technically strictly weaker than Gold as there could be weird situations in which it is better. But common sense suffices to realize that such a card would be a sucker compared to Gold.

If you open 5-2 you would definitely prefer a Lab over Hunting Party.
I don't see how you can compare a Lab variant like Stables or Hunting Party that are situationally stronger or weaker than Lab with a definitely weaker duration Lab variant like Caravan or the hypothetical Action version of Den of Sin.

I can: you're playing an engine and you already have (almost) enough draw to draw your deck but can't do so consistently.

If you nearly draw your deck you play those durations a little more frequently than every 2nd turn whereas a Lab could be played every turn.

6

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Payload first

« on: November 22, 2017, 10:50:49 am »

It all comes down to balancing draw with something worth drawing.

This. If it were as simple as engine pieces first, once you draw your deck add payload Dominion would be a solved game. You always gotta balance all kinds of considerations and while trashing, junking and drawing are extremely important in most Kingdoms it is rarely simple to tell what the best path is.

7

Dominion: Nocturne Previews / Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions

« on: November 22, 2017, 10:45:54 am »

Is Den of Sin really worse than Caravan once it's in your deck? That's a really close call.

It's worse than Laboratory once in your deck, sure.

I don't think it's weaker than Caravan and it's not even clear whether it's worse than Lab. The consistency is a big factor.

If that were the case Den of Sin would be better than Lab in 3 ways: great first play effect, cannot be drawn as it is a Night card and same/similiar beyond-first-play effect.
I think it is fair to say that DXV doesn't make such obvious blunders.

All of this just boils down to Durations 101: you want the good stuff now instead of later, you don't want cards to miss reshuffles and you don't wanna play a card just every second turn when you draw your entire deck. I cannot imagine any situation in which I would prefer Caravan over Lab or +1 Action | At the start of your next turn +2 Cards over Caravan.

8

Dominion: Nocturne Previews / Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions

« on: November 22, 2017, 04:36:52 am »

All the Night-Duration cards that are hand-gained have one thing in common, they are variants of familiar, often basic cards: Laboratory, Village and Lighthouse.

Their advantage is that they can be played immediately after they are gained. Guardian thus becomes a form of Coin token like coin transfer into the next turn and Den of Sin is like an Expedition for free.
Their disadvantage is that they all cost as much as their Action card brethrens but are weaker beyond the first play: unlike Lighthouse Guardian doesn't provide a coin on the turn it is played, Den of Sin is worse than Caravan which is again worse than Laboratory, Ghost Town is worse than a hypothetical 'cantrip on play' duration village (+1 Card +1 Action / At the start of your next turn: +1 Action) which is again worse than Village.
But this is partly compensated by the fact that unlike Action cards Night cards can never be drawn dead which makes them less risky / more reliable.

I think that it would be quite interesting to do what has probably happened during playtesting: set up a Kingdom in which the respective pairs, i.e. for example Den of Sin and Laboratory, are both present in order to see in which situations the Night card is better than the Action card and vice versa.

9

Dominion: Nocturne Previews / Re: I played Nocturne

« on: November 21, 2017, 11:23:47 am »

Ghost Town only increases the net hand size the first time you play it. Afterwards it only transfers a card into the next turn and provides an extra action.

10

Dominion Articles / Re: The Ten Lessons Of Villa

« on: November 21, 2017, 06:58:33 am »

Basically Villa is amazing when you buy it and then sucks once it's in your deck so you want to focus on the buy effect more.

I disagree. If you need a village even a degenerate village will do the job. And if you need some extra buy Villa is also OK.

11

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Split pile: Attendants/Old God

« on: November 20, 2017, 02:44:06 am »

Without other gainers or Potion cards on the board, you will probably not see many purchases of Attendants.

But in the presence of gainers (and decent, cheap engine pieces) the attack of Old God also becomes relatively weaker.

12

Dominion: Nocturne Previews / Re: Don't be fooled, nothing for you here

« on: November 17, 2017, 05:33:21 am »

Village+Smithy offer complementary effects that are useful independently on many other kingdoms with different villages and terminals, so they have no particular synergy according to my definition.

According to the Oxford dictionnary synergy is "he interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects"

Playing 6 Villages is pointless, playing 6 Smithies is impossible but playing 3 Villages and 3 Smithies leads to an 11 card hand.

If you wanna use some funky subjective definition of a word that is your prerogative. But it makes communication fairly pointless.

13

Dominion: Nocturne Previews / Re: Don't be fooled, nothing for you here

« on: November 16, 2017, 02:06:39 am »

Example: Tactician/treasure. There is some synergy, because Tac sets up large hands and a +buy, and treasure gives you lots of non-terminal cash to spend. There is some anti-synergy, because Tac makes you discard treasure on the turn you play it. The only possible debate is the degree to which those terms apply, not whether they apply.

I don't think that this is particularly helpful as it is like saying that a Conspirator deck has some synergy with Treasures as "treasure gives you lots of non-terminal cash to spend" which MIGHT be useful.
Tactician wants virtual coins. Of course the card is not totally useless in a deck which generates coins via Treasures but it is usually better if you generate coins via Action cards. And in some Coonspirator or Tactician decks extra Silvers or even Golds could hurt.

14

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Cultist City

« on: November 16, 2017, 01:47:33 am »

You could compare it with Familiar. Familiar costs more than $5, cannot easily buyed in multiples due to the potion cost and is a cantrip Curser.
This cost less, is more easily available in multiples and is on the one hand better than Familiar as it is a village and on the one hand worse as it "just" hands out Ruins. But the latter doesn't compensate the former so you need to make it weaker and just hitting every second time seems like a good nerf to me.

15

Dominion: Nocturne Previews / Re: Another awful thread about nothing

« on: November 15, 2017, 03:46:07 am »

It never occurred to me people would call things like Village+Smithy a synergy.

Of course it is synergy, you need two to tango and if they work smoothly together they are cheaper than a pair of Labs.
As Awaclus has pointed out, extra actions are worthless unless you use them to play terminals.

It is like having a deck that generated 16 each turn without any extra buys. You could argue that adding extra coin-generating cards like a Poacher to that deck is good but it isn't as you cannot do anything more with 17 coins and 1 buy than you could do with 16 coins and 1 buy.

16

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Dominion Nocturne: Night Cards PSA

« on: November 04, 2017, 04:56:50 am »

I'm not sure I would call Shanty Town a buff. If you draw no Action cards with it, it's a Moat.

If you play Shanty Town and draw no actions, it's like a Moat. Cost $2

If you wanna argue that Lab or Lost City are weak cards you failed.

I mean, it wasn't particularly wrong to begin with. You shouldn't buy Shanty Town in a kingdom where you wouldn't buy Necropolis (aside from edge cases).

If Shanty Town is the only splitter that is correct. But if there is another village good play can make Shanty Town a Lost City more than 50% of the time.

17

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Gamer's Cards

« on: November 02, 2017, 11:00:18 am »

In general you have some nice ideas but the vanilla stuff often seems quite arbitrary. There are also too few terminals for my taste.

If you have a Victory card and Bargaining Table in your hand this is a Oasis-like discarding cantrip that gets VPs which is quite dubious.
It could work as you cannot easily play multiples per turn but I really wouldn't venture into the territory of non-terminals that get you VPs. The only two official cards are either conditional on greening (Groundskeeper) or appear late in the game (Plunder).

Barnyard looks good.

I don't get Barren Desert, if you have one in your discard pile it is extremly good: a Lab that trashes, an extra Buy plus Urchin's handsize attack.
Tropical Oasis on the other hand looks pretty weak for a sifter and especially so with a trasher on top of it that makes sifting less important.

About the Travellers, a Lab that trashes at the end of a Traveller line makes no sense; you get it too late in the game for trashing to matter much.

I like the Attack idea of Armada but would consider to change the vanilla stuff to something else than Market Square.

Mage is a non-terminal Attack, something you should really think twice about wanting to do because normally it should not be done (Urchin is weak and Familiar requires a Potion).

Street Sweeper is simple and good. I like gainers that you don't want to open with as they become stronger over the course of the game.

I like Tempest but it should feature the Night type in the text.

Census looks good but I would limit the tokens on it to prevent situations in which nobody wants to green.

I don't like Botanical Springs, it is just two virtual Gardens.

Colosseum, Shrine and Well look good to me.

18

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Roots and Renewal

« on: November 02, 2017, 10:13:04 am »

Gem, $4, Action/ Treasure
If it’s your Action phase, +2 Cards. If it’s your Buy phase, +$2.While this is in play, if you played exactly 4 cards, return this to your hand.

Inspired by Asper’s Jeweller (which didn’t work out) and Road, this card is very weak when played once but if you put some work into it, can boost your turn multiple times. Alternatively, it could go back to your hand on different triggers depending on your current phase (e.g. 2 actions in your Action phase and 3 Coppers in your Buy phase).

You are right that Gem is a weak Action card which only works well if you have a decent village density. But if you view it as Silver+ for $4 it seems pretty good.

19

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: A traveller line based on discarding

« on: November 01, 2017, 04:06:22 am »

The cards in and of themselves are only there to support Hospital whereas in other Traveller lines you could use them individually, like Treasure Hunter in a Feudum game or Disciple as a brilliant engine piece.
So it all boils down to Hospital. Either this whole line is too weak and nobody will go for it or it is too strong so we will end up with what Asper pointed out: massive Copper-flooding with the end being very far away. Or it is perchance balanced such that many games will be a tight race between e.g. standard Province gaining vs. Hospital strategy.

Only if the line were very well balanced, which is very unlikely, would the cards lead to fun play (waiting until the Copper pile is empty and then some is not what I would call a fun Dominion match).

20

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Wilderness, our brand new obsolete fan set

« on: October 31, 2017, 03:44:48 am »

Why does Tulip field trash the Estate pile instead of the Tulip Pile?  There's so many cards with special mechanics that must mess with the Estate pile to make them work, like Baron, Official Shepherd, Inheritance, Salt the Earth.  If it's remotely reasonable to mess up your own pile instead of the Estate pile to reduce the damage from colliding with those other cards in kingdoms, it seems like a good call.

4 cards are not really a lot of Estate interaction so chances are slim that Tulip Field plus one of the 4 is in the Kingdom. The obvious reason for using the Estate pile is scaling: in a 2P and 3P game you can play a Tulip Field on average 4 times.

21

Dominion Articles / Re: Number of Unique Kingdoms Currently Playable?

« on: October 28, 2017, 09:46:11 am »

Only counting the variety via Kingdom cards (i.e. ignoring Young Witch, Events, Landmarks and all the new stuff from Nocturne) it is 289 choose 10 or 956 quadrillion (9.56 x 10^17) different Kingdoms.
In my opinion this is just a number games though that doesn't capture the variety of Dominion. The base game already had more than 3 million possible Kingdoms yet a lot of these Kingdoms would feel and play identically.

Thar's a good point.  It'd be interesting to know how long it'd take to play all those Kingdoms at 30 minutes per game. I tried to do the math, but I think I might've done it wrong (math has never been one of my strong points )

5.45 x 10^13 years, by my count

Immortality sounded kind of boring but then Dominion came along.

22

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What do you forget IRL?

« on: October 28, 2017, 08:56:43 am »

To trash/return one-shots.

23

Dominion Articles / Re: Number of Unique Kingdoms Currently Playable?

« on: October 28, 2017, 08:48:24 am »

Only counting the variety via Kingdom cards (i.e. ignoring Young Witch, Events, Landmarks and all the new stuff from Nocturne) it is 289 choose 10 or 956 quadrillion (9.56 x 10^17) different Kingdoms.
In my opinion this is just a number games though that doesn't capture the variety of Dominion. The base game already had more than 3 million possible Kingdoms yet a lot of these Kingdoms would feel and play identically.

24

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Wilderness, our brand new obsolete fan set

« on: October 28, 2017, 07:11:15 am »

About Tulip Field, while terminal Golds have become better / more available recently (Legionary, Courtier) +$3, +1 Buy is still pretty good. But you can play every Tullip Field on average only 4 times before it is a dead so I don't think that this is overpowered, only perhaps a bit too mandatory (even if you don't have the terminal space for the card, you want it in order to make the Tullip Fields of the other players stop earlier).
As you pointed out, it is also a very thematic card.

25

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: CPiGuy's Cards

« on: October 28, 2017, 06:45:25 am »

I don't like Spymasters as it has already been considered by DXV (Secret History of Empires: "I tried a giant Pawn briefly.").
It would probably be OK at 6 too (mostly used as Lab) and I don't think that some hyperflexible card leads to interesting play.

Demagogue should feature a non-Demagogue clause (to prevent infinite loops) is cool and is probably OK at 4 due to the strong alternative option.

I have no idea how to play well with the DarkAge-y Kurgan but I like it.

Commission is a Treasure version of a something a bit weaker than Caravan Guard aka delayed Peddler (as the card and not the coin is delaed). Nothing fancy but balanced.

Foothills isn't  bad but boring: it rewards what you want to do anyway.

Ancient City on the other hand creates a nice incentive to not go for mono-card strategies and, come on, who doesn't like Cornucopia-esque variety-rewarding cards.