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51

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Another Incredibly stupid play on words challenge!

« on: December 11, 2012, 12:46:55 pm »

Ah, I figured that's what 4 was. I think I read the book but it was years and years ago.

My explanation for 14 and why I'm a little surprised it's not right: pamplona = running of the bulls = animals going after humans, hunting party = humans going after animals

My explanation for 10 and why I'm not surprised at all it isn't right pits = tar pits, tars is an anagram of rats, and I thought maybe composition wasn't meant literally and just meant had all the letters.

52

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Another Incredibly stupid play on words challenge!

« on: December 11, 2012, 11:29:27 am »

#4 has me pretty well stumped.

53

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Another Incredibly stupid play on words challenge!

« on: December 11, 2012, 04:32:58 am »

2: Madman   

3: Outpost   

7: Vagrant   

11: City?     

14: Hunting party?   

I'm also guessing #10 is rats    but I'm not sure

I'm a big fan of #12. Actually, a lot of these are pretty dumb, and I'm very much in favor of that. I shook my head and laughed quite a few times.

54

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Incredibly stupid play on words challenge!

« on: December 10, 2012, 10:08:35 pm »

Terribly sorry, but could you not post any answers (even in spoilers) on here? I'm trying to have it be a PM challenge.

55

Puzzles and Challenges / Incredibly stupid play on words challenge!

« on: December 10, 2012, 07:02:24 pm »

People seemed to like the dumb Margrave thing, so I made some more (obviously I spent a ton of time on them, eh?). I'm going to give everyone till the end of this Wednesday, Midnight CST (-6 GMT) to figure them out and PM the answers to me (no answers, spoiled or unspoiled, on here please). Whoever gets the most right wins! There are 15 of them, in what I think are increasing levels of difficulty.

All answers will be the name of a kingdom card. If you are looking for an example, look back at the Margrave topic. If an answer isn't the answer I originally decided on but is clearly a correct answer, you will get the point anyways. Good luck!

1) Strange

2) Can be anagrammed to make 4 other english words

3) the area around your eyes

4) Wears suspenders and a bra

5) Kate Upton, again

6) Definitely not yours

7) Similar to "Fore!"

8: Works in the Department of Furniture

9) Put a check next to this one

10) Burt Reynolds had a famous one

11) What Rod Stewart would play if he was asian

12) No one is angry here

--------- be warned all ye who enter here

13) 888

14) Saying hello to one of the cast from the Jersey shore who you happen to be good friends with

15) It's a type of baked good, rite?


And, because you'll need it at some point: http://dominionstrategy.com/all-cards/

56

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Incredibly stupid play on words

« on: December 10, 2012, 04:53:43 pm »

In the play Hamlet, tons of people die. I haven't actually read it so I don't really know if any of the deaths have to do with water, but hey, in the Simpsons version, Lisa dies by jumping into the water. So, good enough.

57

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Incredibly stupid play on words

« on: December 10, 2012, 04:41:18 pm »

I actually considered Margrave for the grave, but didn't know how to fit the 'mar' in. I even googled 'mar', which was no help.

The stockprice for Marriott Hotels wasn't helpful for you? That was the main clue!

58

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Incredibly stupid play on words

« on: December 10, 2012, 04:30:50 pm »

It's Margrave

"Mar" meaning sea, at least in Spanish, and "Grave" representing Death

Don't worry, I love terrible puns.

You're right! Glad someone got it, and I'm glad you like terrible wordplay as well. Bonus points to Watchtower, Pearl Diver and Hamlet as well.

59

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Incredibly stupid play on words

« on: December 10, 2012, 03:30:48 pm »

Man, I like Hamlet too. You guys are coming up with some good answers. Don't get too upset when you find out the real answer, I did warn everyone it was incredibly stupid.

I clearly need to give a couple hints to make this less vague.

1) The card name in the way I'm using it is a compound word.

2) I think the word represents was poor word choice, think more linguistically as opposed to what the card does.

60

Help! / Re: Help Forge!!! get better at this game

« on: December 10, 2012, 03:20:26 pm »

Thanks Dondon, that's very insightful.


This is a game that I don't need help on so much as I just think it's strange...Moat as the power card? I just sort of skipped over it on turn 1 before I realized wait, +2 cards might be the best action you can do on this board. I did like my opponent's play of Mining Villages to get up to Platinum and I thought I had lost until they kept buying Menageries for some weird reason.

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/10/game-20121210-121706-ef77354a.html

61

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Incredibly stupid play on words

« on: December 10, 2012, 01:16:38 pm »

Nope on any of those, although I really like the Pearl Diver explanation

62

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Incredibly stupid play on words

« on: December 10, 2012, 12:23:00 pm »

nope!

Nope!

63

Puzzles and Challenges / Incredibly stupid play on words

« on: December 10, 2012, 10:34:57 am »

I just thought of this so forgive me.

What card's name can in a way mean a watery end?

64

Dominion General Discussion / Re: request: Expand Understanding

« on: December 09, 2012, 05:16:33 pm »

First thing to do is to make sure they want that information. A lot of people either want to figure that out for themselves or simply don't really care if they ever figure it out.

If it turns out they do,

http://dominionstrategy.com/new-to-dominion/

has a lot of good articles about stuff like engine building.

So does

http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Strategy


Something like the importance of trashing can be explained clearly as explaining that every time that estate comes up in your hand, it could be a silver, or an important action card, or something you really need. If you have 6 money and an estate, and the estate could have been a silver instead, you would be able to get a province instead of a duchy. The estate is worth only one point and if getting rid of it allows you to buy even one more duchy or province, trashing it has already paid off. This is how I have explained it to my friends and it seems to have worked well.


Also, if they show a high level of interest at all the deeper strategy stuff, be sure to show them iso/this forum =)

65

Help! / Re: Help Forge!!! get better at this game

« on: December 09, 2012, 04:44:37 pm »

The idea behind the Cities was that the Tunnels were going to run out so they were going to be upgraded. It was a stupid plan, and Margraves would have been much better. I'm not entirely sure how much better I could have province rushed, I did buy one Colony, but other than that I think every time I had 8+ I bought a province.

66

Help! / Re: Help Forge!!! get better at this game

« on: December 09, 2012, 04:28:34 pm »

I assumed the two of them combined would be enough. It certainly seemed to work out well enough, I had two turns in a row where I discarded 3 tunnels for golds.

67

Help! / Help Forge!!! get better at this game

« on: December 09, 2012, 04:17:07 pm »

Tombolo stopped doing his daily thing, so I figured I would pick up the slack. There's a clear skill gap between myself and a large amount of the posters here and I'd love to be able to close it at least a little.

Let's start with: Is Margrave/BM really better than Oracle/Tunnel simply because it's a Colony game?

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/09/game-20121209-122616-ec69b30c.html

I know the Cities were a bad choice (though I'm not entirely sure what I would replace them with), and I know I should have picked up some Platinums at some point because the Golds simply weren't cutting it for getting Colonies. I still feel like my strategy should have won out though. I solitaired a couple Margrave/BM games and got similar results to what he got (ignoring my Oracle, though), so maybe he wasn't as lucky as I thought. Though I definitely didn't get any double Colony turns.

68

Other Games / Re: Christmas wishlist help

« on: December 09, 2012, 02:13:49 pm »

Why not both? Forbidden Island is like 10 bucks.

69

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What helps you play?

« on: December 09, 2012, 05:46:10 am »

Similar to solitairing, I always wonder how much playing the same game multiple times would help. I feel like when I play a game once, I look it over again and I think "I probably should have bought more crossroads" or "I needed to build up my economy more before buying all the engine pieces", and I learn a little bit that I try to apply to the next game, however far down the road that is. But it never really gets hammered into my brain, and especially if it's an engine, you can't really learn HOW to build it just by looking over a log. You need to play it a couple times to figure out what's best and for it to really get stuck in your memory. But on iso you always play different games, and IRL the idea of playing with the same cards again seems to be everyone's idea of the opposite of fun. I guess I should solitaire more...

70

Game Reports / An interesting game

« on: December 08, 2012, 07:19:48 pm »

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/08/game-20121208-161213-7cc5af41.html

This game was an awful slog that we both played rather poorly. Despite this I feel it has huge potential for a crazy Goons megaturn with Crossroads/Villages/Great Hall. How would you go about trying to create one, keeping in mind Young Witch? Should we just have focused on hitting 6 to get lots of goons early, and then used the +buys to fill in the rest?

Also, as a bonus, check out the end for a weird comeback.

71

2012 / Re: Chapel Division: Brackets and Results

« on: December 08, 2012, 06:00:11 pm »

I just played my round 2 match against Trusty Mead.


We played this evening (CET), but we already met each other this afternoon. We played two games, and he won both. Both required some sort of engine, but I didn't get the pieces in the right order at all. And as a result I kept dreaming of buying $5 cards in stead of actually being able to do it. I just played it badly and he played them nicely and wasn't unlucky. That must at least have gotten his hopes up.

Our first match certainly didn't change that. On a colony board with Sea Hag, just getting money into your deck was very important. Not my strongest act I should say. He had 3 platinums before I even had one, and this was a clear victory on his side.

Game 2 actually featured the infamous combo of Kings Court, Masquerade and some discarding (both Ghost Ship and Margrave). Governor did somewhat complicate things, and also combo's nicely with the two fore mentioned cards. We both opened 5/2 (identical starting hands) where 3/4 certainly would have been better. We both grabbed Ghost ship and on my turn 3 I had $5 again. I decided to go for margrave, but now I think that's not good (not sure though). We both picked up masq, but he was a bit lucky stealing two of my coppers in exchange for estates. Even when drawing the deck I now lacked KC money.
Anyway, it was real close for a while and he was the first one to KC his masq on turn 13 and then again on turn 14. Things looked grim, but he still had cards to get rid of, and then I managed to draw the deck and play 3 masqs for trashing, make him discard, and then play another 3 masqs for the lock. Whew

Our third game saw him opening swindler/swindler, where I went for the slightly safer silver/swindler. Even though his swindlers collided he managed to get to $5, but unfortunately for him I turned that into a Duchy right away. My luck continued with a 5-copper mint, and basicly that was it. Black Market-Fairgrounds was on the board, and my original plan was to go for it, but now my lead was big I expected to be able to finish on provinces.
The last turn was somewhat funny, because I had to trash 2 (!) provinces to buy the last one. One with my upgrade to keep the other cards, and one with the Trade Route for +$4.

The fourth game was the first one I really felt like playing better. It featured Goons, Minions and Mining Villages. He just went for the Goons too early, even sacrificing his villages to get there. On the scoreboard I was behind almost all game, and then... well, you know, Goons.

Our final match was a rather interesting one even though tournament was in there. We both opened 5/2, and some different angles were possible here. Either go up for money right away with Merchant Ship, or go for a great drawing engine with Hunting Party, or start improving the deck with an Upgrade? My opponent went for Merchant Ship/Herbalist, which I consider by now a classic mistake. Never buy herbalists for less then $11. I opened Upgrade/-. He did not get to $8 fast enough, and then my deck got so small that I got two prices of my first province right away. This must have frustrated him somewhat, because all of a sudden he was gone.

pief paf poef 4-1

skipped to the end, thought your opponent was named pief paf poef and you had lost.

72

Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: Wandering minstrel - A trap ?

« on: December 07, 2012, 12:17:43 pm »

It works awfully well with poor house. I've now played 2 games where I have had Poor House/Minstrel/Hunting Grounds/Junk Dealer/Market Square (I know, an awful lot of cards to have twice, but the general engine idea is there) and it has been very formidable both times. You grab 4 poor houses and get rid of all your money and it's very easy to grab 2 provinces each turn rather quickly, and that's with weak trashing.

73

2012 / Re: Gardens Division: Bracket and Results

« on: December 06, 2012, 06:07:41 pm »

Yeah, Gman, I was a bit sad all of our games were such slogs. However, for all the people who say player interaction doesn't really exist in Dominion, you can just point them towards our games. Every single one was decided/heavily influenced by player interaction. The cursers, the embargoes, going for Gardens/Duchies, all of the Ghost Ship/Torturer game, having to go for Treasure maps, etc. I was definitely glued to the screen during all of your turns.

74

2012 / Re: Gardens Division: Bracket and Results

« on: December 06, 2012, 01:33:16 pm »

gman314 4 - 3 Forge!!!


http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/05/game-20121205-173550-f2ae33a6.html gman314

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/05/game-20121205-175510-7b797001.html gman314

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/05/game-20121205-181307-f9aa40d5.html Forge!!!

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/05/game-20121205-182128-360ee7a2.html gman314

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/05/game-20121205-182650-659b6e1e.html Forge!!!

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/05/game-20121205-183124-7f08a9dc.html Forge!!!

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/05/game-20121205-183608-bd796f09.html gman314

I have to go right now, but I'll post some comments on the games later.

First game: Pretty simple mountebank/village/monument stuff going on, the two main differences here are clearly the amount of gardens and monuments. He started buying Gardens and I realized that yeah, that might be important, but only ended up picking up 2, which I was a bit surprised about when the game ended. I opted for monuments instead and that just didn't work out.

Second game: Oof. Worst game ever. Ignoring that my strategy was inferior and all of that, my luck was absolutely terrible. I played loan 4 times and hit silver instead of copper every time. I was completely unable to match up my Hamlets with my Ghost Ships early on, which usually means I didn't buy enough, but in this case I bought plenty of both. Strategy wise, I always try and avoid torturer/village whenever I can because it's my least favorite combo in the game, and I figured there might be enough trashing to avoid it. We both went Ghost ships early, and then when I hadn't bought enough trashing and my deck was big enough, he went torturers and there wasn't much I could do. I tried to pin him with Ghost Ships, but, as previously mentioned, one hand I would get 2 ghost ships and the next 3 hamlets and no ships. Just a bad game all around.

Third game: What a weird game. We embargoed a bunch of stuff at the beginning and set about to win tournaments. None of the cards were really any good for tournaments at all. It took a while but he got followers first and then eventually I got the steed. It looked like he was going to win but then both our decks came to a halt with 1 province left and we bought out all the duchies/estates. I got lucky and was able to buy the last province and we were both surprised to see that I had won.

Fourth game: Similar to the first game, with village/curser/monument. We were pretty even when he started buying Duchies and I should have bought more of them (like the first game!). I was dumb and didn't even realize he was three piling the duchies, otherwise I probably would have not helped him three pile as much as he did....oh well.

Fifth game: More cursing! IGG this time. I'm not sure I've read a game report yet that hasn't included an IGG game. Watch as IGG destroys any idea of other incredibly strong strategies, such as KC/Bridge and Gardens/Silk Road/Tunnel. What a fun card. I can't remember a game where Baron was better than in this game. If you had an estate, you pretty much always got 5, and if you didn't, you got a free estate for Silk Road and a free 2 extra cards for Gardens. I got lucky and snuck a province in, which helped immensely, as did being able to go first. I also think he should have kept going for IGGs, but hey, I thought that in the 7th game too, and look what happened. (spoiler: he won)

Sixth game: Gman really got screwed in this game. That being said, I think he should have recognized this board had nothin goin on and started in with Treasure Map immediately. I did and trashed with my Steward and hit my maps right away while he languished with his. My next 3 turns were provinces. That's all there was to it.

Seventh game: More IGG! Similar to last time except with no Barons and no gardens/tunnels to help Silk Road. I really should have thought about that as I went and decided to buy 5 of them, but didn't. His Horse Traders/Estates made the difference. Gman had 3 money his last turn, so if I had bought a Duchy instead of Silk Road at the end, and gotten 4 money my next turn, I would have won. Ah well.


Overall, was a lot of fun and some great games against an I think very evenly matched opponent =)

75

Loser's Bracket / Re: Losers Bracket Sign-Ups

« on: December 06, 2012, 01:06:00 pm »

interested!