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151

Solo Challenges / Re: Solo Challenge 10 - A uadbaoS telleB Tribute

« on: April 01, 2012, 08:06:57 pm »

I read it as "(Empty the Province Pile OR 3 Pile) but the Dutchy Pile and the Estate Pile must be empty".  So I assumed it was a requirement that both the Duchies and Estates be consumed.  I hope so because I'm pretty sure I could have done it faster if I just needed Provinces...  And, honestly, that's what I assumed made it especially interesting.

That could be interpretted but considering that the bonus is empty all 3 piles (what you thought it meant), it seems redundant

Well, the bonus says for all three piles points "ONLY" (like, you can't deplete any other piles and still get bonus points).

EDIT: This also made sense to me because it forced you to use Haggler judiciously if you wanted a bonus.   I must have been way over-thinking all of this.

152

Solo Challenges / Re: Solo Challenge 10 - A uadbaoS telleB Tribute

« on: April 01, 2012, 07:05:25 pm »

I read it as "(Empty the Province Pile OR 3 Pile) but the Dutchy Pile and the Estate Pile must be empty".  So I assumed it was a requirement that both the Duchies and Estates be consumed.  I hope so because I'm pretty sure I could have done it faster if I just needed Provinces...  And, honestly, that's what I assumed made it especially interesting.

153

Solo Challenges / Re: Solo Challenge 9 - Build Your Own Kingdom

« on: March 30, 2012, 09:49:34 pm »

I do believe that I've gotten down to 10 turns on paper, however I don't feel like retrying a million times to come up with the log, so, I'll post it here, and try to keep it as clear as I can. Please feel MORE than free to point out anything that I've missed:

...

Cheers,
Galzria

Looked good to me with quick glance.  Given that the theoretical max appears to be 10, I'm glad I didn't spend more time than I did chasing 11... it just felt so close that I was sure somebody would get it.

154

Solo Challenges / Re: Solo Challenge 9 - Build Your Own Kingdom

« on: March 30, 2012, 09:40:31 pm »

I thought the challenge was that we needed to have exactly 6 provinces in our deck at the end of the game.  This was strategic in that you couldn't do everything in one big turn as you needed to be able to chapel some provinces the following turn.

Heh, that's what I thought, too.  But, in retrospect, "at least" does make a bit more sense...

155

Solo Challenges / Re: Solo Challenge 9 - Build Your Own Kingdom

« on: March 30, 2012, 05:29:52 pm »

Ozle, what time zone are the deadlines in?  I'm assuming US east since your profile says that's your local time, but just want to be sure.

156

Solo Challenges / Re: Solo Challenge 8 - A Spandau Ballet Tribute

« on: March 27, 2012, 10:27:50 pm »

Awesome!  I've been waiting for the results on this because, while I did get incredibly lucky, I also had to work pretty hard for it and I wanted to point out some things I learned.

1) It quickly dawned on me that Trade Routes cannibalize themselves, so I needed just enough to trash the junk and then I needed a fodder card for the final round (when I couldn't afford to trash a Hoard).  Notice that I play the Great Hall for nothing on 14 so I'll be able to trash it on turn 15 for exactly 10 buys.
2) I was initially determined to buy a Great Hall on turn 3 for a $2 Trade Route into a Festival on Turn 4 but was playing it out anyway.  In retrospect, I think another Trade Route to start is way better than the Festival as long as they don't collide.  And with some shuffle luck I get to play one trade route on turn 6 and then 2 Trade Routes on turn 7.
3) I decided that buying a Tunnel to make Trade Routes worth $3 was a trap.  The extra turn was too expensive for the extra $1 or $2 per round from playing them (plus you really, really want to trash that Tunnel early on and Trade Route trashing is already so slow).  But the fact that second place bought a Tunnel and finished at 16 turns may mean I was wrong here.
4) Speaking of traps, any time I bought a Hoard before the penultimate turn, I regretted it because it either disrupted this delicate engine or it prevented me from playing Trade Routes.  Learned that one pretty quickly.
5) But seriously, OMG the shuffle luck.  Look at how many times the Oracles drew Festival + Oracle on the final turn.  Also notice how I blindly throw away double Festival because I need more card draw and I get it.  Exactly the right cards with exactly the right number of buys; my previous best before this run was 18 turns.  I'd be really impressed if this can be done faster and I fully acknowledge the luck involved!

I'm learning so much from attempting these puzzles.  Thanks again for doing this Ozle; I look forward to the next one!

157

Dominion Isotropic / Re: People to avoid on isotropic

« on: March 26, 2012, 01:38:23 am »

I'm both relatively new and way late to this thread, but a public blacklist is tricky for a number of reasons (relativity, witch hunts, etc...).  A better Isotropic feature is a personal blacklist, v1 of which could be implemented simply as remembering the players you've muted.  Storing this server-side is a non-trivial amount of backend work and has performance implications, though; the poor man's version of this is storing the mute list in your client-side cookies (which some cap on the number of entries in your list).  Given how infrequently this is actually a problem, being able to mute, say, 100 people is probably more than you'll need anytime soon.

158

Solo Challenges / Re: Solo Challenge 7 - Brewing up a Storm

« on: March 26, 2012, 01:03:55 am »

So many entries and so little time! Obviously people like the challenge of this one! A lot of similar strategies, obviously Vinyards was a key component in most.

Also, I had a look through some of the players that didnt make it and they looked a trifle unlucky some of them!

Anyways, here are the results from the Jury:

In joint third, gaining a whole point, including a newbie entrant no less. In 17 turns we have...
philosophyguy    17   http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201203/22/game-20120322-161039-360023bf.html
Magnetar   17   http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201203/24/game-20120324-044419-79263225.html
Fate   17   http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201203/23/game-20120323-194234-82c066ce.html


And then, tieing for second place, and those important 2 points each...
rabid   16   http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201203/22/game-20120322-142613-3a20d989.html
chwhite   16   http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201203/22/game-20120322-134351-d209beeb.html
RisingJaguar   16   http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201203/24/game-20120324-125631-86787162.html
Razzishi   16   http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201203/22/game-20120322-183617-a258049f.html


And then the big 3 pointers for first place...shared by two regulars...
DG   15   http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201203/22/game-20120322-083623-5da75f86.html
jonts26   15   http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201203/22/game-20120322-123217-22de88f4.html


And now, the bonus points. This was for ending the game on provinces, which I felt was probably a bit suboptimal, but I do love people who don't always do the expected.
Stompy
Rabid
and
Razzishi!


Fate: 14
Jonts26: 13
CHWhite: 11
DG: 11
Magnetar: 8
RisingJaguar:   7
Thisisnotasmile: 6
Wandering Winder 3
Rabid: 5
Razzishi 4
jtotheonah  2
TitanDrake  2
Voltaire: 1
Lespute: 1
kn1tt3r  1
Tossk  1
philosophyguy 1
Stompy 1

Lots of movement there, but Fate is clinging onto his lead just about!

So, I'm gonna get pedantic here.  If this annoys you, please forgive me.

First question, are bonus points just honorable mention or do they actually go on the leaderboard?

Either way, do you have to finish in the top three places for the round to get bonus points or do you get them simply for buying all the Provinces (no matter how many turns)?  Because I notice that Stompy doesn't show up in the top 3 tiers you listed, but he got bonus points.  Just to keep the accounting sane, it seems like one should have to finish in a point-able tier to get bonus points.  Otherwise, somebody could get bonus points for a middling 18-turn Province entry (*cough* me *cough*).

EDIT: Missed that rabid was actually in the 16 turns tier.

159

Solo Challenges / Re: Solo Challenge 7 - Brewing up a Storm

« on: March 26, 2012, 12:43:24 am »

For this one I opened potion/herbalist and just restarted until I was able to pull two alchemists on turns 3/4. Which is turns out to be pretty low percentage chance but it has wonderful benefits in speeding up the game.

Hehehe, I did the same but then I wasn't quite sure what to do after that; I ended up floundering with Alchemist and Golem and finished at a mediocre 18 turns.

It's interesting that both you and DG used this trick, but he went Apothecary first and you went Alchemist.  It's also interesting that you both used Transmute; I just assumed it would be too slow but shows what I know.

160

Rules Questions / Re: Tacticians, Golem, +Action Drawer

« on: February 25, 2012, 03:49:04 pm »

I figured someone had to have done this! But very clever setting it up with Royal Seal and Haggler. It's impressive.

Yes, very clever!  It didn't occur to me that Haggler would interact with Bridge and Potion-cost cards like that, but it makes sense!  Even the order in which the gaining resolves is important to making this work.  Very clever, indeed.

Now, I'm curious if anybody can get something like this to work in a reasonable amount of time without Bridge or Highway, since in a real game you'd just buy all the Provinces long before you need the Tactician.

161

Dominion Articles / Re: Combo: Double Tactician + Black Market + [Treasure]

« on: February 11, 2012, 09:42:54 pm »

Thanks and dang!  I searched the forum and didn't see anything about it; I should have searched the site, too.

162

Dominion Articles / Combo: Double Tactician + Black Market + [Treasure]

« on: February 11, 2012, 08:38:51 pm »

From the moment combo-hungry players lay eyes on Tactician, they dream of playing with 10 cards every turn.  Then they realize they have to discard their existing hand to keep the combo going, making the hard choice between another combo turn and actually spending the money in their hand.  So they're left needing the right +$ actions in the supply to make Double Tactician work consistently.  Often, this also requires the right amount of trashing to filter enough money out of the deck so the combo can work reliably, since the Treasure cards become dead in a typical Double Tactician strategy.  But with Black Market, your Treasures get new life.

Black Market has the unique property of allowing players to play Treasures during their action phase.  Here are some quotes from Dominion creator Donald X. about Black Market, taken from this Board Game Geek post: http://boardgamegeek.com/article/3138507#3138507

Black Market allows you to Buy a card during the Action phase. You can use coins provided by other Action cards played earlier in the Action phase and you can also play Treasure cards from your hand to pay the cost of the bought card. The Treasure cards are played to the table in your play area, just as you would during the Buy phase. If a Treasure card provides more coins than required for the purchase, the extra coins are available to use during your Buy phase.

I expect it to eventually be a general rule that, if you get a chance to spend money in the Action phase, you get to play treasures to do so and so on. That wasn't needed for the main set though.

Some quick experimentation on Isotropic confirms that any and all Treasures in your hand can be played immediately after you play a Black Market.  So what does this mean for Double Tactician?  There are at least three significant impacts:

First, Black Market can accelerate your Double Tactician strategy.  You generally want a sufficient source of action-based money before you risk Tactician collisions and Black Market turns your Treasure into action-based money.  You can feel more comfortable buying extra Tacticians earlier; as long as you draw a Black Market, you don't have to choose between the combo and spending.

Second, your Double Tactician engine can work with a focus on +Cards and +Actions; it no longer requires a critical mass of +$ actions, as well.  This broadens the number of kingdom sets in which Double Tactician is viable (assuming there's a Black Market, of course).

Third, in general, Black Market allows you to combine the benefits of Double Tactician with the benefits of almost any Treasure-based strategy.  Double Tactician + Black Market + Big Money becomes a reality because you can spend your Silver, Gold, and Platinum.  Horn of Plenty also gets a big boost from Double Tactician + Black Market (and since you should always have a Tactician in play, it always adds +1 to your HoP).

I'd love to get feedback about this and other interactions that I may have missed.  Any thoughts?