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951
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Revolution
« on: May 26, 2020, 01:40:36 am »
While Throning a cantrip is a village, Throning a cantrip with Steam Engine (after the first one) is a Lost City . Even taking into account the expensive costs, that seems nutty, like a univeral Pathfinding & Lost Arts for all cards in your deck.
I guess the way to fix it is restrict it to x times.

952
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread
« on: May 25, 2020, 12:26:59 pm »
Is a Harem (hard to achieve more than 2 VPs with this) that Exiles worth giving up a Fugitive and perhaps even a Buy?
Perhaps, but it is weak and sifting and Exiling and partial substitutes. I like the Cornucopia flavor though.

953
Dominion General Discussion / Re: DeepMind for Dominion
« on: May 24, 2020, 09:15:01 am »
Chess's AI friendly task is checkmate puzzle solving.  But the way chess works, the really hard part happens before that even comes up, one player generates strong advantage before mating puzzles start to really be presented. So mostly chess was a matter of making the AI smart enough to win, with no calculator based advantages at all.  I don't know go well but I expect it's a pretty similar story.  I think it's possibly kind of true that the amount of time the AI had to not lose before it could start checkmate-puzzling off of information advantages is more generous in chess than in go, that is possibly the meaningful way of looking at it.  It could just be that Go midgames are flat out harder, though.
I don't think that this is how chess engines works. They have mainly become better due to the increase of speed of calculation and only partially due to the better design of the evaluation function. That's where humans are still far better.

The impressive thing about AlphaZero is that the machine tought itself how to play chess well without any human guidance and the resulting play is more human (e.g. less materialistic, sacrificing material for long-terman positionala advantages that are hard to evaluate and impossible to calculate to the end) than that of an ordinary chess engine.

Dominion seems far more tricky than a deterministic abstract like chess to me. It has stochastic elements, there are far more "pieces" and every game is different. I guess that DeepMind would have to play one Kingdom a zillion times over before it could move to the next one. Then it would have to learn to evaluate how the strength of a card changes during a game, partly depending on what the opponents do, and the "metagame", i.e. how the strength of a card varies among Kingdoms.
I guess it is possible but this seems like something a human mind can learn much faster, albeit less perfectly.

954
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread
« on: May 23, 2020, 05:35:57 pm »
The previous version was fine, you pay $6 to get a $6 onto your deck and a Silver. Might favour BM but it might also be situationally OK for engines.
The new version is crazy, you pay $6 and get a $6 onto your deck plus a card which is worth $5. Although you don’t want too any copies of it, +2 Coffers is pretty strong on a Treasure and you definitely want it far more often than a Silver.

What I said about previous version is that there's no need to it be a card with overpay in cost, since there would be no demand for a buy without overpay. It could simply cost $6 with the same results.
That is not correct. Without the overpay mechanism the card is much stronger with TfB cards, especially Remodel variants which can directly transform it into a Province. This is why I think that the overpay variant is superior.

955
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread
« on: May 23, 2020, 01:52:02 am »
The previous version was fine, you pay $6 to get a $6 onto your deck and a Silver. Might favour BM but it might also be situationally OK for engines.
The new version is crazy, you pay $6 and get a $6 onto your deck plus a card which is worth $5. Although you don’t want too any copies of it, +2 Coffers is pretty strong on a Treasure and you definitely want it far more often than a Silver.

956
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread
« on: May 22, 2020, 01:31:01 pm »
Not that it matters except for Villa and Calalry but technically it is a Lost City.

957
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread
« on: May 22, 2020, 12:25:05 pm »
Quote
Divine Favor (Treasure, cost $6)
$2
Gain a Wish from its pile. You may trash this, to put the gained Wish on your deck.
Okay. This card needs a little explaining. I’m assuming Dominion is in a fantasy, D&D-esque world where the gods give favors in exchange for temple service. Favors are probably the currency of gods to mortals.
Looks far too strong compared to other >$4 gainers. It might even be overpowered if it did not yield any Coins.

958
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread
« on: May 21, 2020, 06:16:05 pm »
I don’t know what decks you play but mine rarely feature a high chance that one of 2 cards is a Treasure unless I play money. Which happens pretty rarely.
So make up you mind. Either the card draws a Treasure in a money deck (hey, I drew a Silver, that Card is just so better than Silver!) or you drew your village and topdecked it in an engine. Like Haven does. For $2.

Yeah, still don’t see how this is better than Patron (which, while we talk about topdecking villages, sometimes does a better job, produce a villager) or even a $5.

959
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread
« on: May 21, 2020, 05:52:10 pm »
The point is that DXV broke his own rule when he designed Patron so it makes absolutely no sense to continue to apply a non–existing design guideline to fan cards.
Also, you undervalue Patron and overvalue Cowrie which unlike Cowrie is not even virtually always superior to Silver as it is out of your deck for at least one turn.


About the usefulness of Cowrie in an engine, buy Haven for $2 instead of Cowrie for the supposed appropriate price of $5. Would you mind to point out again why Cowrie should cost $5?

960
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread
« on: May 21, 2020, 04:31:07 pm »
Why do people in a world in which Patron exists, a card that is better than Silver in 3 ways (Action, Villagers, Coffers), pretend that the „no Silver+ for $4“ rule still exists?
Cowrie is fine, it’s is only a Silver every second play and the call effect is significantly weaker than Secret Passage  (depending on how you count, you can also view it as Lab plus topdecking Secret Passage). Drawing stuff in your Buy phase is rarely very good. It sucks in an engine so we get a card which slightly favors money. Buffing money rarely leads to broken stuff.

961
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread
« on: May 19, 2020, 09:35:59 am »
I still find it hard to see how it can actually be that strong. In terms of vanilla bonuses it is basically +(X+1) Actions, where X is the number of action cards you delayed. Necropolis is a bad card, and that's X=1; Crossroads without the draw part is one copy of X=2 and isn't considered a very good $2 either. Delaying cards a turn is a very big downside; for example the delayed options of barge and village green are not very good. In the catacombs example, if you replace the 2 Turtles with e.g. 3 squires, your engine draws 2 more cards each turn at the cost of some reliability.

Tactician is also not a very good card unless you have good virtual coin so the downside is minimal. +5 cards +1 action +1 buy, discard say 3 cards is also a lot better than say +3 actions.

I agree that when there aren't any other +Actions it can be very strong as an engine enabler, but I think that is fine as that is true of any good village.

I suppose I would be willing to make it $3 if people still think it's too good, but I think it does compare quite unfavorably to villa at $3.
I disagree that the delayed option on Barge is weak; there is a reason that Haunted Woods costs $5 while Smithy costs $4, and it's only party due to the attack - delayed draw is pretty strong. Engines often have surplus draw or actions lying around; saving that for later is a big boost towards reliability.
Sure, delaying stuff is good for consistency. But playing stuff only half of the time is bad for efficiency. Mastermind is just a half KC and without the Horse combos not that crazy.

The downside of Turtle is  that it sets itself as well as the Actions aside and does not draw (which decreases consistency as we know from Village vs Festival).
That is a biggie and justifies the cheap price tag.

962
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Logic behind "special things"
« on: May 15, 2020, 01:16:57 pm »
The general idea is that the stuff below the line is not directly related to playing a card. That is e.g. why you can Throne an entire Bridge but only the cantrip part of Highway, the below the line stuff is conditional on the card being in play and not executed when you play Highway.

It is a neat concept that prevents an abundance of blue.

963
It is basically impossible to construct a realistic example in which somebody would be down to 1 card in hand while having the -1 Card token on their deck.
You would need a discard for benefit that does not draw to start. They are terminal so you also need Villagers or a splitter like Festival that does not draw instead  plus Relic.

964
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Is Harvest the New Scout?
« on: May 14, 2020, 03:53:42 pm »
If your strategy needs Fortune more than your opponent does it can absolutely make sense to buy Gladiator. If he is going for a big money one province per turn strategy and you are building an engine to grab the whole pile, a fortune is far more valuable to you than it is to him.

Ed
Yeah, plus there is a typical misevaluation arising that is due to lots of folks here only playing 2P games online. In 3P, that Fortune will arrive earlier and you can easily miss getting a Gladiator (which, partly to the Gold, is nearly alway essential payload that has to accompany Fortune to make it work well).

965
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Is Harvest the New Scout?
« on: May 14, 2020, 03:50:49 pm »
You're unlocking Fortune for the opponent too, without him needing to buy Gladiator. At best you're getting Fortune half a turn earlier than him (plus a free Gold), after having "wasted" a buy on a card (that you don't need itself) at least four shuffles before.
In the majority of cases, whether or not fortune is good should have zero influence on your decision of whether or not to buy gladiator.
On the contrary. Whether you want that Gold and that Fortune or not (and the related tempo issue, i.e. you getting a Gladiator will speed up the availability) is one of the most important strategic decision in the respective Kingdom. If you do not think hard about it before T1 you will likely screw up. If you myopically only see the conditional terminal Gold you will definitely screw up.

966
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread
« on: May 14, 2020, 03:45:34 pm »
 
Quote
Ledger
$3 - Action
+1 Buy
+$1 per card type in play.
-
When you gain this, if you don't have any Ledgers in play, you may play this immediately.

Favorite
$5 - Action - Attack - Doom - Fate
+1 Card
+1 Action
Discard the top Boon and the top Hex. Choose one: receive the Boon or each other player receives the Hex.

Update: Increased the price of Favorite to $5

A card that loves card types and a companion cantrip with a ridiculous number of types.
Non-terminal boon givers don't play well, they tend to slow down games, especially as cantrips.
Why did you not shred all your copies of Scrying Pool then which takes far longer to execute?

Just because DXV did not like the cantrip that yielded Boons during playtesting Nocturne does not mean that all Dominion players in the world feel the same about it. I certainly don’t, as long as a design is sound (cannot be said about the aforementioned Scrying Pool) and interesting I don’t care whether it prolongs games.

967
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread
« on: May 14, 2020, 12:15:25 pm »
 

Quote
Ledger
$3 - Action
+1 Buy
+$1 per card type in play.
-
When you gain this, if you don't have any Ledgers in play, you may play this immediately.

Favorite
$4 - Action - Attack - Doom - Fate
+1 Card
+1 Action
Discard the top Boon and the top Hex. Choose one: receive the Boon or each other player receives the Hex.

A card that loves card types and a companion cantrip with a ridiculous number of types.
Favorite is a $5. If you take a look at the Boons, you realize that they are all of $5 level power: Field is Bazaar, Sea is Lab, Forest is Market.
Now on a pure cantrip that gets a Boon, you would have to discount the randomness. It would either be balanced at $4 or unbalanaced as $4.5.

But Favorite does 3 things more: interact with Ledger, potentiall cantrip Attack (which isn't something you should do at Coin costs yet might be OK because Hexes are weak) and above all offer you the choice between Boon and Hex.

968
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Is Harvest the New Scout?
« on: May 14, 2020, 09:22:53 am »
I think this raises the question, would Harvest be balanced at a 4 cost? There are stronger payload options, such as Bridge and cards that give equal or greater coin amounts, like Baron and Death Cart, both of which you can actually control the activation of semi-consistently.

It would be weak at a 4 cost.
A little. But people buy Gladiator for $3 all the time, and this would be a slightly better Gladiator most of the time.
They buy it to get to Fortune, mostly, not because it's particularly good, and there's something to be said for consistency. You can control what's in your hand much better than the top of your deck.

If you buy gladiator to get fortune, you're usually doing something wrong.
Hard to get Fortune if nobody bought Gladiator.
Usually the Gold and the unlocking of Fortune is the main reason to get Gladiator whereas being a terminal Silver that is sometimes a terminal Gold is of minor relevance.

You're unlocking Fortune for the opponent too, without him needing to buy Gladiator. At best you're getting Fortune half a turn earlier than him (plus a free Gold), after having "wasted" a buy on a card (that you don't need itself) at least four shuffles before.
If that analysis of Gladiator/Fortune would be correct, if the dominant strategy in most Kingdoms would be to never buy Gladiator, it would never happen. And yet it does.

969
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread
« on: May 14, 2020, 08:52:42 am »
Could you elaborate here? Without other +Buys, Comptroller + Gamble would let you flip the top 3 cards of your deck and play the Treasures and Actions before you run out of Buys, as you ignore Gamble's +Buys.
Sorry, that was dumb, I totally forgot that your card makes Gamble a "terminal" Event.

970
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Is Harvest the New Scout?
« on: May 14, 2020, 07:54:55 am »
I think this raises the question, would Harvest be balanced at a 4 cost? There are stronger payload options, such as Bridge and cards that give equal or greater coin amounts, like Baron and Death Cart, both of which you can actually control the activation of semi-consistently.

It would be weak at a 4 cost.
A little. But people buy Gladiator for $3 all the time, and this would be a slightly better Gladiator most of the time.
They buy it to get to Fortune, mostly, not because it's particularly good, and there's something to be said for consistency. You can control what's in your hand much better than the top of your deck.

If you buy gladiator to get fortune, you're usually doing something wrong.
Hard to get Fortune if nobody bought Gladiator.
Usually the Gold and the unlocking of Fortune is the main reason to get Gladiator whereas being a terminal Silver that is sometimes a terminal Gold is of minor relevance.

971
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread
« on: May 14, 2020, 07:52:45 am »
I don't see the brokenness, you gotta work quite a bit (terminal space to play a bunch of terminal Coppers, further extra Buys in the Kingdom) to pull this off. Gamble on the other hand requires no splitters or further extra Buys in the Kingdom to be broken with this.

A simple way to get around horrible broken combos is to either check once you revealed the second Event whether such a combo exists or to simple choose a non-Event as second landscape card.

972
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread
« on: May 14, 2020, 01:37:25 am »
 
Quote
Comptroller
Types: Action, Reserve
Cost: $2
+$1. Put this on your Tavern mat.
At the start of your Buy phase, you may call this. If you do, +2 Buys, Ignore any further +Buys you get this turn, and Events cost $1 less this turn.
Quote
Market Day
Types: Event
Cost: $9
+$11
Comptroller: A Reserve that gives +Buys when you need it and Event cost-reduction.  Comptroller also causes you to ignore further +Buys so you can't go infinite with any +Buy Events like Delve, Gamble, and Travelling Fair.
Market Day: An Event that turns each extra +1 Buy into +$2 provided you meet the $9 threshold.  Most spammable +Buy doesn't build your economy much compared to competing cards, so there's a push and pull to that.
Combo: Comptroller + Market Day nets you +$6 from Comptroller's buys. You could get more coins by calling more Comptrollers, but the growth is only +$2 per Comptroller called as only the first Comptroller gives you +Buys.

Maybe some events would be too powerful with cost reduction. For instance, if you play a single Squire for +2 Buys and call three Comptrollers, you can buy Expedition five times at $0 each and will start your next turn with 15 cards in hand.
Read the card: „ignore any further Buys you get this turn“

973
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread
« on: May 12, 2020, 04:45:35 am »
Eyy thank you! I personally feel Valley Town is a little too powerful after thinking about it, but it's probably in reasonable range and it would be fun to play with.
It is strong but unlikely to be Village Green or Port level crazy. Precisely because it is strong, the Valley Town pile will soon run out and you might not want to Exile a Valley Town if you are unsure about whether you gain one this turn.

On a Smithy+ for $5 the idea is probably fairly balanced (if not a bit weakish).

974
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread
« on: May 11, 2020, 10:31:03 am »
This is potentially quite powerful. A 3 cost card that does more than an Overlord. However it is slowed down by the fact that you have to put the card it copies onto your Exile mat. Is that enough to weaken it? I hope so.


Some Watchtower vibes in terms of the versatility of the Reaction. You can use it to build up the emulator power or you can use it to Exile green or purple.
There is funky stuff like Exiling several cards per copy of Portal in a Garden game (Sanctuary or Bounty Hunter can only Exile one) imaginable, e.g. Beggar-Gardens-Portal.

I agree. I would make it so that you have discard it, when you react with it. If that seems too weak you could make it draw a card afterwards. Or one could limit that effect to the first time you gain a card.
However it might be a matter of taste, the cases where you could abuse it are narrow (I guess). If you put several Action cards there for flexibility, you don't get them into your deck. And Beggar-Gardens-Portal are already 3 specific cards, I would rarely blame a card for being in a 3-card combo.
I don't think that it is overpowered. As you pointed out, building this up what is a an Overlord in Kingdom without funky Action card costs (Debt, Potion, >5) is very costly so its main source of power is likely Exiling green and purple.

Sure, in an engine a card that Exiles the very 2 Provinces you just gained sounds brilliant, but you still had to gain a terminal which did nothing during build-up.

975
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread
« on: May 11, 2020, 10:24:34 am »
i think i'm gonna do a last minute change to my entry. (sorry Xtra if you've typed up a response on it already)



Quote
Agitator • $5 • Action - Attack - Reaction
Exile up to 2 cards from your hand.
Choose up to 2 cards on each other player's Exile mat; they discard them.
-
When you gain, trash, or reveal this (using the word "reveal"), you may Exile a card from your hand.

Instead of the usual exile-attack route of 'good card denial', this attacks the usual exile strategy of 'de-junking', putting bad cards back in opponent decks. It has the reaction/on gain/on trash to keep the flow of cards going towards your exile mat in a mirror situation.
You are basically forced to mirror this in a 2P game, implying a stalemate like situation in which both players have a terminal in their deck which net-achieves nothing. This is OK, it only leads to a forced "resource wastage" situation but does not impact gameplayer negatively.

Not so in 3P games. I fear that there is a first-to-get advantage:
Consider the "freerider" equilibrium: Alice and Bob buy Agitator while Charlie does not. Can this arise? Probably not. If Alice gets Agitator, Bob realizes that him getting Agitator will hurt Alice and help Charlie while it will do nothing for him (Attacks cancel each other out). So why should he waste a precious $5 Buy?

If my analysis is correct, only one player will have Agitators in multiplayer games. That's a serious issue and it will make the game highly swingy.

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