Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

26

Game Reports / Smithy-BM or Chapel-Adventurer?

« on: October 16, 2012, 10:20:45 am »

Adventurer doesn't get much love around here. It's not great, especially for a $6 card. But it can be ok in the right circumstance, and I think one of those right circumstances is being one of the only cards that enables a chapel-based big money strategy.

http://dominionlogs.goko.com/20121016/log.505cac240cf21ba04cfa2f39.1350396213788.txt

I just played this game against Defender Bot. It was a pretty vanilla board (it would have been cool if a +actions card or militia was there!) so I decided to go the slightly more interesting route with Adventurer-Chapel over Smithy.

I went very low-treasure (which I think is usually correct with adventurer) and relied on adventurer to put my cards together. I believe I got near-optimal shuffle luck, hitting province and cycling my whole deck 5 turns in a row, 10-14. Turn 15 I got duchy and would have gotten another turn 16 if defender bot hadn't ended it while behind.

I won, but even with great shuffle luck I'm not sure it would have bested Smithy-BM or been able to hang around for as long. Thoughts on which strategy will usually win out?

27

Game Reports / A cool, base-game engine on Goko

« on: September 26, 2012, 11:06:47 pm »

I played a great game against the village idiot bot earlier. It's not too often that you can build a draw-your-deck engine with just base dominion, especially against an opponent who opens Witch/Chapel. But it can be done! My deck was not the most efficient nor did I do a perfect job building it, but it was a ton of fun!

Key cards: Witch, Chapel, Throne Room, Village, Militia, Market

http://dominionlogs.goko.com/20120927/log.505cac240cf21ba04cfa2f39.1348706685059.txt

28

Puzzles and Challenges / Giving ruins over curses

« on: August 31, 2012, 12:09:35 am »

You are playing in a kingdom with a looter (so ruins are out) and swindler. Your swindler hits an opponent's copper. In what situations is it in your best interest to give your opponent a ruin over a curse?

There are a couple obvious solutions such as when there is one curse left in the supply and giving it to your opponent would give them the win. Same deal if there are two and they can buy one on the next turn for the win and so on. But I'm betting there are more creative, edge scenarios. I've thought of a couple that are probably on the more obvious side of things but I'll wait to post them.

This is my first puzzle/challenge!

29

Variants and Fan Cards / Multitype Card: Action-Duration-Reaction-Victory

« on: August 20, 2012, 03:55:18 pm »

I came up with a pretty crazy card for Contest #11, but since it wasn't on the short list of approved types, rink couldn't accept it. I think it's fairly interesting so I figured I'd make a topic to hear what people think.

Fertile Lands - $4
Action-Duration-Reaction-Victory
1VP
Now and at the start of your next turn: +$1
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal a victory card. Set it aside and return it to your hand at the start of your next turn. Discard the other revealed cards.
-----
Whenever you reveal this from your deck, you may reveal this card to play it immediately.


First of all, the coloration on this thing would be a mess. But I couldn't really think of a way to simplify much while keeping the function of the card. I liken it somewhat to a terminal venture, though the original intent was something like a pseudo-island, a way to remove VP from the reshuffles. It has some other minor combos with some cards like Scout and Venture while acting as a counter to Spy and Scrying Pool.

Rules clarifications:

Upon revealing the card as a reaction, it goes into play immediately, but it doesn't begin resolving until whatever caused it to be revealed finishes resolving. So if it's revealed as a reaction after playing Scout, you put cards in your hand and reorder your deck first before resolving Fertile Land.

This card is revealed from the deck before it can be revealed as a reaction. So if it's revealed with Farming Village, Farming Village found an action card and does not keep digging, even if you put FL directly into play and not into your hand.

This is a tricky one, but when an opponent plays Spy, you can reveal this card and put it into play on their turn. It won't have any effect until your turn but otherwise acts the same as if you'd revealed it as a reaction on your own turn. It doesn't take your turn's action.

30

Feedback / Most Users Online

« on: August 16, 2012, 12:12:59 am »

With the DA previews this week, we've been breaking all the "most users online" records, but I think right now there are 328 guests and members online, which is by far the most ever! Way to be awesome, f.ds!!

31

Dominion General Discussion / Dominion uh...misconceptions

« on: August 10, 2012, 02:40:10 am »

Sometimes I like to read old BGG threads or Amazon reviews about Dominion and its expansions. It's fun to see how people outside this community perceive the game and sometimes, well...misperceive it. I love coming across gems like this from a comment on an Amazon review of Alchemy:

Take, for instance, the Alchemist card, which is perhaps the most powerful card in all of Dominion.

Then, the very next comment:

With that potion in your hand, you'll damn near always have enough money to buy yourself a Philosopher's Stone.

Mmmm mmmm. What a great card.

This stuff is all over the place, but this time I just had to post something.

32

Mini-Set Design Contest / Observatory Village (Challenge 7 card)

« on: August 06, 2012, 05:37:53 pm »

Observatory Village
$5 - Action
+4 Cards
+2 Actions
Put 4 cards on top of your deck in any order.

A version of this card was actually in two challenges: a 5-card version was in the deck improver challenge and this one was in the village challenge. I realized that the original version was probably too strong, but then this version was criticized for being too weak! *sigh*

But I really think this card has a lot of potential as a combo-maker. It's designed to anti-stack, but if it's well-timed, it can put 2 or 3-card combos together like few other cards can. It'll help treasure map, tournament, baron, fool's gold, trash-for-benefit cards and KC+pretty much anything. It combos brilliantly with tactician, which can take advantage of good cards on top of your deck, and it has cool interactions with weak cards that can take advantage or mitigate the damage of bad cards on top of your deck, i.e. harvest, scout, adventurer, even chancellor!

Some people said this could be cheaper and others said putting the cards back on the deck hampered the card too much. I disagree! Well maybe it could be cheaper, it originally looked at 5 cards! But I think that it's such a great helper for engines and IMO it's interesting strategic design space. Even when you're not running an amazing engine, you can give yourself a good and a bad turn, which is usually going to be better than 2 mediocre turns.

Anyway I'd love to hear more thoughts on this card! I think especially in the second challenge, a lot of people may have just looked at it as a recycled idea that's redundant with the winner of the deck-improver challenge. But maybe I'm wrong about it. In that case, tell me how you think it can be improved!

33

Other Games / Dominant Species

« on: July 27, 2012, 02:46:46 am »

I stumbled upon this game recently and have been highly impressed that TONS of its positive reviews on Amazon and BGG say it is basically the best board game ever made, that years of playtesting really shows in the balance and interconnectivity of this game. So I am thinking I will probably order it, but I am curious if anyone else here has tried it and what your thoughts are on it? Is it actually the transcendent board game experience it's cracked up to be?

As a side question if you have a lot of experience with it, is the 3rd edition of the game with new art and components worth the extra money or should I just buy a used 2nd edition?

34

Dominion General Discussion / A second kingdom to impress gamers

« on: July 17, 2012, 09:56:16 pm »

I have some friends who are really into gaming and I want to get them hooked on dominion because I know they'll love it. However, they played a game of base dominion (presuming "first game" setup but not sure) in a store and weren't terribly impressed. Since they have played a lot of great games, I'm not that surprised the very basics didn't thrill them. I've been singing dominion's praises for a while now though so when we do first play I want to really, really impress them with the very first kingdom we play.

It'll be a three-player game and I have Base Dominion, Intrigue, and Prosperity. They've played once before and they're quick so I don't need to withhold any concepts like trashing, I just want to come up with a set that will maximize options and excitement. I'd probably rather keep the set attack-light because no one likes losing a long slog. We will probably end up playing a few games though and I'm sure we'll whip out mountebank for at least one of them.

So...give me your ideas! Think of this as the antithesis of the "Worst First Kingdom" thread but in the sense of exciting strategy, not necessarily simplicity.

35

Mini-Set Design Contest / Lucky Coin

« on: July 10, 2012, 03:42:00 am »

I submitted this as a peddler variant in rinkworks' card design contest. It did ok, snagging 10th place, but I am curious to hear more feedback because I'm pretty proud of this card.

Lucky Coin
$6 - Treasure
Worth $1
+1 Buy
--
Immediately begin a new action phase.
+1 Card
+1 Action
--
Rules clarifications:  This card interrupts your buy phase; you begin a new action phase before purchasing anything. This new action phase does not have an inherent action, nor do any remaining actions from the previous action phase carry over to the new action phase. After completing this action phase, the player re-enters their buy phase.

It's a market that can't be drawn dead so essentially gives an extra action, it's a bazaar with a buy. It even has similarities to venture with more flexibility. I wanted a card that could promote engines, and I think this really does. It is pretty ineffective in a draw-your-deck engine unless you really need the buy, obviously, but I think it can really be the glue that holds more fragile engines together and give a kick-start when needed. It could even be decent in big money, allowing you to over-invest in terminals.

I considered a version that limits the number of turns, but nah. It's a $6 card, it can have crazy effects! I still doubt turns will be as long as scrying pool.

I'd love to hear feedback on this card because I put a lot of time and thought into it.

36

Dominion General Discussion / My opinion on the unofficial point tracker/Decline of civility on f.ds

« on: July 03, 2012, 06:39:33 pm »

37

General Discussion / Running

« on: June 26, 2012, 01:53:10 am »

Ok so this isn't meant to be just about running, but I wanted to tip the hat to Ozle's topic about walking.

I'm a track athlete (or was until this past year) who specializes in sprinting and hurdles. I'm super in love with the sport even though I'm not really that great. I'm still in college so I may pick it up again, we'll see.

Any other current/past athletes out there?

38

Game Reports / Won by the skin of my teeth...King's Court is (maybe barely) ignorable.

« on: June 25, 2012, 09:56:45 pm »

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201206/25/game-20120625-183149-0b68c6cd.html

I'm pretty bad with ghost ship, and since there's not much going on with this board, I thought it would be as good a time as any to hone my skills with Ghost Ship-BM. I didn't think king's court would factor in that much since the attack doesn't stack and multiplying +2 cards is just ok. My opponent went for fewer ghost ships and loan/trader stuff but included king's court. I was surprised when he got out to a big lead and had basically resigned myself to yet another loss due to ghost ship.

But there's always a ray of hope, and amazingly I managed to get both of the last two provinces and just enough to make a comeback. I think this was more due to my opponent's endgame weirdness and, well...having fewer ghost ships. If he had gone ghost ship+king's court, I'm sure I would have been dead.

What I've learned about GS-BM is to be relentless if your opponent is not mirroring, and to plow through with your strategy no matter what. Yet I still feel like I'm missing a lot because I think I probably should have lost this. Is ghost ship just that slow that it has to catch up in the endgame? Or did I misplay this/misidentify the best strategy?

And is king's court really too dangerous to ignore even on a boring board like this?

39

Game Reports / Tricky Engine Board

« on: June 25, 2012, 11:54:38 am »

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120624-223337-2c35ee9e.html

Bishop, Bridge, Embassy, Expand, Golem, Governor, Mountebank, Spice Merchant, Walled Village, and Watchtower

Oh boy, and I thought at first that Mountebank-BM might be dominant.
Aside from not-opening-watchtower, which I did, how would you guys play this board?

I have been really intrigued by watchtower recently and have been trying to play more with it, building engines around it. Of course opening with it was probably a mistake because it's really just a moat...yeah bad move. Anyway, I picked up spice merchant thinking some copper trashing might be nice, then quickly had buyer's remorse. But the trashing ended up being really important to keep the engine running. I bought expand with more of a plan and it worked nicely. Mountebank was a strong attack to build an engine around, and governor is just awesome in games like this (I actually had forgotten about it for a while with all the other important cards around). Bridge always is fun when you have lots of actions laying around.

Actually, bridge+watchtower+actions is one of my favorite combos at the moment. Such a fun synergy when you can play lots of villages, play your bridges to reduce your handsize, then play watchtower to bring it back. THEN, when you have lots of awesome buying power from your bridges, you can topdeck your new engine components. Fun all around!

40

Game Reports / Coppersmith doesn't *always* suck

« on: May 24, 2012, 04:49:13 am »

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201205/24/game-20120524-004016-2eeccd36.html

It's no secret that coppersmith loves big hands. Here, it loves throne room too! I thought it would give me a great chance of hitting wharf and would not be too bad with a wharf in play either. Throne room only helps matters! I have to wonder if BM+Wharf beats me here but I would tend to think not since that coppersmith directly resulted in me getting three provinces that I otherwise wouldn't have. Oh and that second coppersmith was a misclick. It was supposed to be throne room.

To quote a friend: When coppersmith works...it's AWESOME.

41

Game Reports / Any way to win this?

« on: May 23, 2012, 02:08:27 am »

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201205/22/game-20120522-224920-733e9778.html

I got pretty behind pretty early in this game, and I figured cities would be my best chance of a comeback. I got 9 level 3 cities for a big final turn. I knew I had to go for it my last turn win or lose, and I was able to tie (it was a surprise to me because I'd lost track of points during that turn). I'm pretty bad with farmland, so I don't know if I used it well during my last couple turns. So my question is, do you guys see any way for me to eke out just one more point somewhere in the last few turns and win? I don't, but I'm not great with my endgame.

For clarity, I'm pretty sure that besides the money and actions, I only had estates in my hand.

Also my opponent would have won if he had not upgraded duchy into farmland his penultimate turn. On gain vs. buy.

42

Game Reports / The unlikely engine

« on: May 22, 2012, 03:39:36 pm »

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201205/22/game-20120522-111815-9a89745b.html

It's always fun to put together a bridge engine, right? Well, it was sure stressful trying to put one together when my only reliable trashing was lookout and the only village was walled. I'm sure it was a very bad idea in the first place. But with throne rooms and watchtowers there were just enough enablers that it could work. But it would take a LOT of luck...

I don't think I played that well early. I think I should have picked up more throne rooms and perhaps more watchtowers early. I ALSO didn't realize it was a colony game for quite a while, which is just dumb. There was quite a bit of terminal collision early as well, so I really thought that this game was locked up for my opponent and I was just spinning my wheels. It didn't help that the game was three throne rooms away from being piled out. But then...the last turn may have been the luckiest I've ever been in Dominion. I had JUST enough actions to play everything and JUST enough money to buy three colonies and the last throne rooms.

My opponent and I were both in disbelief.

43

Variants and Fan Cards / The anti-Governor/Fool's Gold counterpart

« on: May 18, 2012, 09:01:13 pm »

Loot
Treasure-Reaction
Cost: $5
If this is the first time you played Loot this turn, it's worth $3, otherwise it's worth $0.

-------------

When another player gains a Gold, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, they gain a Loot instead.


This is sort of an anti-Fool's Gold, indeed borrowing the type and language directly from it. It was inspired by a comment made by Axxle on another thread about changing the wording on gold. It has an interesting (hopefully not bad!) reaction that lets you sabotage your opponents...maybe. There's really no reason NOT to pick one of these up, it's a cheap gold if you just have one, and it may give you a chance to wreck your opponent. But if your opponent gets one and you start racking these up, it can cause real issues when they collide. Not only is it a dead card, but it's a worthless treasure, which hurts. Interesting interactions with gold gainers like tunnel, explorer, and especially governor.

I've done absolutely zero playtesting since the idea only came to me a half hour ago. Criticize away!

Btw, not a big fan of the name on this one, so if you have any better suggestions...

44

Game Reports / Multiplayer ghost ship really, really suc...oh hey vineyards!!

« on: May 08, 2012, 01:21:30 am »

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201205/07/game-20120507-112217-857c7974.html

So. If any game can feel absolutely futile, this was it. My opponents (two of my irl dominion friends) both opened 5/2 on a ghost ship board. I didn't hit $5 until turn thirteen. Fortunately for me, my opponents only had one ghost ship apiece, and so while I was way behind, I started hitting them with ghost ship pretty often and slowing them down. I had tons of shanty towns because I was buying them liberally early as a GS counter (which wasn't the best, silver may have let me hit $5 earlier, but it worked out so hey). Around turn 8 I decided there was no chance that I could compete for colonies, so I started picking up potions hoping for vineyards eventually.

No +buy meant that picking up actions and especially vineyards was slow. Having shanty town, masquerade (which became a real liability for me later) and apothecary as the only actions under $5 made it even slower, though the virtual +buy from jester was nice a couple of times.

I made a couple mistakes too, like picking up province over vineyard in turn 34 (I had no idea they'd be worth so much, no point counter), trashing a curse instead of passing it turn 35, and I'm sure others.

Anyway, I thought this was a really cool example of how vineyards could still work on a board that was really not the best for vineyards (colony, expensive actions, no +buys) if you just slow the game down enough.

45

Introductions / 4 days, 0 minutes

« on: May 04, 2012, 01:31:17 am »

Hi, I'm Dsell and I've spent 4 days and 0 minutes looking at this forum (well, a tad more now). Wow. I started playing Dominion a whole bunch in real life back in January, and started reading f.ds and playing on isotropic about the same time in early march. This is a pretty awesome community here and I've learned SO much from the contributions of the members and from playing (well, mostly losing to...) you guys as well.

I love board games of all types (shout out to Cosmic Encounter!) and I really want to try to become a top Dominion player someday. Also, I think it's WAY cool that the master himself, Donald X. frequents the forums. I still pause in reverential awe every time I see one of his posts.

Overall, 4 days well spent!

46

Game Reports / Ridiculous endgame dancing

« on: April 24, 2012, 06:13:38 pm »

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201204/24/game-20120424-150717-b2ad16ab.html

I played this game with my experimental account, so I was totally fine with going for a strategy that seemed crazy. Contraband on the 5/2 into alchemists was actually pretty fun! (On my normal account I probably would have opened jack/pawn or jack/nothing) My opponent was going for spies and big money mostly, I think, and I'm sure doublejack would have beaten me quicker. But the notable thing about this game was the ridiculous amount of endgame dancing I did with contrabanding into doubleduchy and fairgrounds/estate or great hall. The last several turns especially were super tense, and at one point I could have tied the score by buying the last province but would have lost on turns. I ended up losing anyway, but it was pretty crazy that the game came down to a pawn draw (gah if only I'd gotten silver!) and contraband plays.

47

Game Reports / Why I love Wharf

« on: April 18, 2012, 03:46:19 am »

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120417-131549-403cbf18.html

Because 6 provinces in 13 turns, that's why. Double province turns feel good. But 3 double province turns in a row feels amazing!

48

Help! / What happened?

« on: April 16, 2012, 06:23:31 pm »

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201204/16/game-20120416-151255-fe632ef2.html

I don't even....

This game looked great from the start for me. 5/2 split with governor and pearl diver. I thought about going vault but thought that with tournament, governor would be better. (I also entertained the idea of cache, thinking I would be likely enough to be able to mint away coppers later.) So it all looked great. And then...I don't know. I got lots of governors, lots of gold, things were looking good. Apprentice was nice for my opponent because I was feeding them silvers, but they only had one. They picked up tournament but I figured I would get to province first anyway. Boy was I wrong. All of a sudden they got four provinces, which started making my tournaments really suck. Anyway, they got 6 provinces in 15 turns with what looked to me like a bit of a rag-tag bunch of cards. Monument is a great enabler for BM, so was that what did it? Did I over-invest in governors or completely misplay them? (I realize that I should not have gone for the penultimate province by trashing gold but honestly it wouldn't have mattered.) Should I have seen that this game would be too quick for governors?

My opponent played well so I have no problem accepting a loss...but I really did not expect to get so completely trounced here.

49

Dominion Isotropic / Slowrolling

« on: April 14, 2012, 01:41:32 pm »

My opponent (who I'm still technically in a game with) was slowrolling me and has now completely stopped playing. It's been quite a while (way more than three minutes) and I haven't been prompted to make him resign. He claimed he was going to take a nap but is there something he can do in the background that won't give me the prompt but also won't show up as something in his turn?

50

Game Reports / Pretty proud...but pretty lucky

« on: April 13, 2012, 03:33:24 am »

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120412-232649-71f38a28.html

This win against Robz888 was huge for me. As a level 26 player, it was my first win against anyone level 35+ and one of my first games against anyone over level 40. It was an honor to even play him so I was really stunned to beat him. But, I gotta say looking at the logs that I think I got fairly lucky. Aside from a couple shenanigans with remake and feast in the middle, we pursue a near identical strategy, which is really just a derivative of BM (which is probably the only reason I had a shot in this game). But my first reshuffle looks a lot nicer than his. I get my remake with two estates but he hits two coppers. As a result, at the end of turn five, my deck had an extra silver and a venture (I guess at the "cost" of two more coppers).

So I'd like to ask: does it look pretty much like luck to you guys too? Our strategies weren't complex, so the only place I can say that I might have done anything different than he did was the province on turn seven with a weaker deck.

Even if a bit of luck did carry the day for me, I'm extremely proud of this win!