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76

Other Games / how to use deckbuilding mechanics with copying dominion: Roborally

« on: March 12, 2018, 11:32:38 am »

I'm a veteran of the original roborally, it's many expansions, and of the reboot. 
If you haven't played, it is a fantastic game of pre-programming robots to run a race course full of traps and lasers and pitfalls...
You try to push and shoot the other racers while trying to avoid the same from them.

It is complicated, and has a barrier to entry due to requiring the players to be able to think 5 steps in advance, and be able to see in their mind what their robot is going to do after they've programmed it...and also anticipate the other player's robots in your planning!

One of the biggest changes from the original to the reboot was a very light deckbuilding theme.  instead of all the players drawing program cards from the same deck, each player has their own deck of 20 cards, and these decks can be junked by your opponents, or improved by buying specialty cards.  This was a huge improvement to the game, because:

1) the junking is roughly half as effective as in the base game, which is good because junking in the first game was VERY harsh, and increased the barrier to entry.
2) it opened design space for purchasing good cards to add to your deck
3) it ensured that everyone would get the best cards in their deck regularly, rather than possibly watching as other players got all the move 3s and you randomly got none.

The game is not a deckbuilder, but it's a phenomenal application of the technology. 

How you guys feel the deckbuilding works in roborally, and also, what other game do you like that have a deckbuilding element without feeling like someone tried to copy or "fix" dominion?

77

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Why Dominion Sucks!

« on: March 11, 2018, 06:21:32 pm »

being ACTUALLY serious, this game has a LOT of shuffling.
It's probably the biggest annoyance of the game to me, though not a big enough deal to actually want to play online.

78

Other Games / Re: In defense of Monopoly

« on: March 09, 2018, 02:07:13 pm »

...
I played ~100 games with the no trade rule (online, and in person), and I bet zero of them surpassed 20 min.
when my friends played settlers in person with no trading, we did 15 min including new board setups between games.
I've done a 15 min game from a closed and packed box.
...

I didn't realize you were taking about online games. I can see how those would be much faster to start with; an online game always is.

Both actually.
In my experience, the online nature was not terribly relevant to how much time was taken.
It's hard to know for sure, but I suspect that the in person no trading games were a touch slower...but they were close enough that I'd want to pull out a stopwatch and measure a bunch of them before I'd be comfortable that the game portion was slower.

Obviously the setup is slower in person, but the game itself didn't elongate perceptibly.

In person, people could shortcut things, place a settlement, then say "go", then when the next player is reaching for the dice, they'd return 4 wood, a brick and a sheep to the supply without specifically trading to the port first, like the online client requires.

Also, the jsettlers client left a bit to be desired.  It required a lot of unneeded clicks of tiny buttons.  perhaps a better coder combined with better graphic designer could have made it significantly faster to play than live matches.

Look at Dominion; you can play a game online in 5 minutes, but in person is going to be at least 20.

Is 20 the severe low end, or is that repeatable?!
I play with people that have logged 80+ games, and we regularly take 45 min (excluding setup).

79

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Surplus

« on: March 09, 2018, 12:26:27 pm »

Ghost with deck in hand -- Oops. Exorcise something into an Imp right now or be sad.

night comes after buy, so simply buying a card is sufficient to not waste your ghost....said the guy that trashed his ghost before he realized this.

in my playgroup, the biggest example of surplus is FLUFF.
if you draw your deck, but don't have payload, you are just creating fluff.  I see people that keep buying more villages and smithies because they neglected economy, and have trouble buying the cards they want.

80

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Fix the worst cards

« on: March 09, 2018, 12:07:33 pm »

I think the first time somebody has to trash a Gold—or maybe even a Silver—from their hand, that's it. Rage quit.

Do you guy gold when this is on the field?  I feel like you might not...

Kept as a handsize attack, but now discards instead of trashing...

Code: [Select]

Fixed Pirate Ship
Action - 4$
Each other player with at least (5) cards in hand reveals their hand.
Choose one:
* DISCARD up to one treasure of your choice from each player's revealed cards, then add a Coin token to your Pirate Ship mat.
* +$1 per Coin token on your Pirate Ship mat
Does this get it out of the bottom 10%?
lol, you just have to be better than stuff like silk road, death cart and nomad camp to be in the top 90%

81

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Fix the worst cards

« on: March 09, 2018, 11:57:05 am »

Pirate Ship: Shit dude, I don’t know if this is fixable. I’d consider it always both attacking and paying?

I like the idea of fixing this without intruding on miser.  But maybe give the choice AFTER getting information...

Code: [Select]

Fixed Pirate Ship
Action - 4$
Each other player with at least (5) cards in hand REVEALS THEIR HAND.
Choose one:
* Trash up to one treasure of your choice from each player's revealed cards, and (then if any treasure was trashed) add a Coin token to your Pirate Ship mat.
* +$1 per Coin token on your Pirate Ship mat
-
(When you gain this, put a coin token on your Pirate Ship mat.)
Stuff in parenthesis is flexible.

Now it's also a handsize attack that reduced their economy for the next turn, and can't even make them discard shitty cards to get to their other cards faster. Is that good enough to get it out of the bottom 10%?  Or did I overdo it? 

82

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Fix the worst cards

« on: March 08, 2018, 07:32:12 pm »

- Harvest: I'd try LF's fix.

Am I blind?  I can't see where lastFootnote addresses harvest.

83

Other Games / Re: In defense of Monopoly

« on: March 08, 2018, 07:20:16 pm »

What tournament is this?

The online tournaments and ladder hosted by java settlers.
My mistake for presuming that was the norm everywhere.

I find this very hard to believe. Yes, the average turn would be faster, but you would need far more turns per game, since reaching 10 points would be much harder without being able to trade with other players. Also, even though many turns would only be about 4 seconds; several turns would still easily take at least 30 seconds while players think about their options; or even just go through the physical motions of trading with the bank; playing development cards; dealing with moving the robber, etc.

Make no mistake, 15 min games only happen with players that have been around the block.  You need to have memorized the four items on the cheat sheet, know how to get to 10 points efficiently, and know the main strategies for getting to 10. 

I played ~100 games with the no trade rule (online, and in person), and I bet zero of them surpassed 20 min.
when my friends played settlers in person with no trading, we did 15 min including new board setups between games.
I've done a 15 min game from a closed and packed box.

Even when people had bank trading and card playing and construction in the same turn, they are typically done in 15-20 seconds per turn.
Turns where people were merely building road settlement were regularly done in 10 seconds or less.
One thing you are missing in your analysis is that a much higher percentage of turns are that you are unable to build.  when trading is allowed, you can have games where something is purchased almost every turn.  there are LOTS of 4 second turns when trading isn't allowed. 

That sounds like it would be a completely different game... maybe better, but probably worse. Trading is pretty fundamental to Catan.

I am in 100% agreement with you that it is a different game.  totally breaks the mold.
but not worse.  not better.  different.

ports are more important.  trading to the bank happens.  you can't trade away a victory.  you don't have the leader getting blacklisted while the other players try to catch up.

It's more technical, and less touchy-feely.  It's more skill, and less politics.

For some people, this is the clearly better game.  For some, it ruins the game.

84

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Fix the worst cards

« on: March 08, 2018, 06:04:53 pm »

B) Would bump it out of the bottom 10%

But then we would have a different bottom 10%. Wouldn't we have to fix that next?

If we keep doing it long enough, we eventually get to a place where all cards are exactly equally strong. Which then largely turns the game into almost pure luck; because it doesn't matter which strategy or cards you go for.

Since a flat power curve is impossible, striving for that isn't valuable.
What could be reasonable is figuring out a minimum power level, and buffing the cards below that so that they are more interesting to play with. 
That might be the bottom 5% (about 15 cards) or it might be the bottom 10% or whatever.  Whatever you define it at, there would be a place to stop without committing to an endless process.

---

The mobile game, clash royale, has one of the best power curves I've ever seen.  almost every single card in the game has a place where it is viable.  even the 8 starter cards are strong enough to be useful after you've played thousands of matches.
yeah, there are some stinkers, but mostly those are cards that would be unfun, or too luck based, if they were tier 1 cards. For instance, one card, the pump, was nerfed so that it would fall out of competitive play where it was messing things up, but casual players still get tons of value and fun out of it. 

They got to this point by knocking down the high spots, and filling in the low spots every few months over 2 years.  It might be an continuous process, but the game is better today than it has ever been, and they certainly do not commit to buffing the bottom 10% every patch.

85

Other Games / Re: In defense of Monopoly

« on: March 08, 2018, 05:32:30 pm »

I'm really a fan of the tournament rules of Catan; they prohibit trading to people.

Since you must trade 4:1 to the bank if you have no ports, port spaces are always taken in the initial placements.  One thing this does is increase the number of viable places on the board, helping the 3rd player feel less pinched.

It also RADICALLY increases the speed of the game.  A normal game with tournament rules takes about 15 min, and the fastest game I've ever played was 6 minutes.
The reason it is so fast is because if you are not allowed to trade, you often roll the dice, see you can do nothing, and pass the dice, turn done in 4 seconds.
When trading is allowed, turns can go on more than a minute as you try to finagle your way into the cards you need.

---

Monopoly lives and dies on it's rule set.  if you add lots of shitty house rules that balloon the game time, yeah, the experience will be worse. 
if you include the modern official rule variants that get game times down to 30 min, it's actually a bit fun to play.  monopoly is only fun for about 30 min, so if you finish the game in 20 min, you'll probably think "hey, that was good".

86

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Fix the worst cards

« on: March 08, 2018, 04:56:36 pm »

As you can see, I'm amused by the idea of combining two terrible cards to make something better.

Giving harvest the navigator option to leave them or put them back is another possible combo-fix.

87

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Fix the worst cards

« on: March 08, 2018, 12:30:38 pm »

Harvest
make it non-terminal. It can be better and cheaper than gold if in a well designed deck, and will suddenly be appealing in combination with draw-to-x.
"variety matters" is my fav theme in the game.  those cards need to be good.
where's my sharpie?

With Rebuild in mind, I'm very skeptical of making dud-5's non-terminal. It just makes them spammable and unfun. Wouldn't like this version much.

Fair...but it is a variety matters card...is that enough to encourage diversity and not spamming the harvests?

You could give it the conclave/imp "You may play an Action card from your hand that you don't have a copy of in play" clause.  That allows it to be effectively non-terminal, encourage even more diversity, and spamming them becomes a challenge.

88

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Fix the worst cards

« on: March 08, 2018, 12:17:22 pm »

Meh. I don't think they need any fixes really...

Still a fun challenge. 
Personally, I'm a big fan of harem, well out of proportion to it's power, because it has a lot of nice synergies that few other cards grant. It can lead to an interesting game in a designed kingdom...but i'm still anticipating the tweaks others have for it.

For all of these cards that tell you to «gain a silver»...

For bureaucrat, what if it set the silver aside, then put it into your next hand?

89

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Fix the worst cards

« on: March 08, 2018, 12:00:34 pm »

Harvest
make it non-terminal. It can be better and cheaper than gold if in a well designed deck, and will suddenly be appealing in combination with draw-to-x.
"variety matters" is my fav theme in the game.  those cards need to be good.
where's my sharpie?

Masterpiece
Make it worth 2$. You could make the overpay mandatory if you were sad about punking silver

90

Rules Questions / Re: Simple Rules Questions

« on: March 08, 2018, 10:26:01 am »

opponent plays a doom against me.
i've got diplomat in hand.

when do i choose to reveal?  before or after I know what the hex will be?
do i have the choice to draw before or after the hex applies (relevant for greed)?

91

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Semi-Interesting Dominion Moments Thread

« on: March 07, 2018, 07:10:07 pm »

maybe I'll think twice before passing Hovel with Masquerade.

Nah.
Continue to pass the hovel unless you have a curse or a ruined village in hand.  Before the passed hovel, the player had 1 dead card in his deck that he'd be able to remove eventually.
After the passed the hovel, he wasted a turn buying an estate and still ended up with 1 dead card that is more difficult to remove than a hovel. Seems to me that the pass was sufficiently annoying.

92

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What does "useful" mean? What is a "neat" card interaction? Why do I care?

« on: March 07, 2018, 05:23:30 pm »

Why do we need qualifiers? We should just start a thread called simply "Dominion card interactions".

Because we need a thread whose entire contents people can memorize to get better at the game. Posting your fun moments is fine and all, but can't we have just one thread whose goal is to actually make people improve at Dominion?

I really like that IDEA, but forums are not ideal for storing information. 
Sometimes you'll get an enthusiastic sir that will continuously edit their own first post with each update, but that rarely lasts long.

Seems like you would want a thread where people can discuss the interactions they've found, and a few warriors that will regularly update an "every 2-card synergy" page on the wiki. 
The wiki would allow multiple people and new people to join in on the maintenance, and for someone like me, would allow hovering to see what each card is.

93

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Really bad card ideas

« on: March 07, 2018, 12:30:03 pm »

Next in my series on making the game less fun for everyone...

Stick in the Mud
Action Duration
Cost - $3
+$2
Play an action from your hand. 
Until your next turn, when any other player plays a card with plus actions, it provides no additional actions instead.

The best part of this card, is that it ruins the game, just by being in the kingdom.  you can just leave it, there, DARING your opponents to buy some actions, and then you can leap in and punk them.

94

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Semi-Interesting Dominion Moments Thread

« on: March 06, 2018, 07:11:41 pm »

95

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions

« on: March 06, 2018, 06:23:30 pm »

There's already another different thread for this specific thing, actually:

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=16947.0

I've been on the forums since september, and I didn't realize these were not the same thread until just now.
Those names are very similar.

96

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Really bad card ideas

« on: March 06, 2018, 06:11:23 pm »

Boondoggle
$8 Action - Fate
Receive every Boon

Do I even receive the ones set aside for whatever the name of that card is? (Druid?)

EVERY Boon. Including any theoretical fan-made ones.

Lighning's Gift
Boon
gain and play a golem.  then the golem runs away.  you can't play villages this turn.

Rain's Gift
Boon
When you play a harvest this turn, +1$.

97

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Semi-Interesting Dominion Moments Thread

« on: March 06, 2018, 05:38:17 pm »

I unboxed Dominion: Adventures, sorted the cards, and then went to sleep.

That's actually pretty rare.  will probably only happen 0-1 time in most player's lifetimes.

I unboxed Dominion: Adventures twice! Bought the English version (I already owned Dutch Base), unboxed it, decided mixing languages was ugly, chose the Dutch version of Adventures as a prize after finishing third in the Dutch Championships in 2015, unboxed it, sold the English version.

did you take a nap after each?

98

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Semi-Interesting Dominion Moments Thread

« on: March 06, 2018, 03:12:58 pm »

I unboxed Dominion: Adventures, sorted the cards, and then went to sleep.

That's actually pretty rare.  will probably only happen 0-1 time in most player's lifetimes.

In the absence of other things that matter, getting the second Fortune for the +buy is very slightly better than just going straight for the Provinces if Provinces are untouched.

i might have achieved 6+ provinces in three turns...and that would have been a win, but the game would still be going.  my way the game had more modest points, but was over in the three turns including the second fortune purchase.

99

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Semi-Interesting Dominion Moments Thread

« on: March 06, 2018, 02:38:51 pm »

today I bought a second fortune....for the +buy.
it was the only +buy, but we had crowns, so it changed my buy from +2 to +4.

it allowed me to end the game on piles 1 turn earlier.

I kind of get the impression that a lot of people do this? I've never done it, but I think it was discussed before. How common is this?

for me, the frequency is like 1 out of 10.  I haven't played with fortune enough for it to have happened a second time yet. i would have bough literally any other +buy first.

100

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Semi-Interesting Dominion Moments Thread

« on: March 06, 2018, 02:21:22 pm »

today I bought a second fortune....for the +buy.
it was the only +buy, but we had crowns, so it changed my buy from +2 to +4.

it allowed me to end the game on piles 1 turn earlier.