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101

Dominion World Masters / Dutch Championships September 2nd 2012 - NK Dominion 2 September 2012

« on: June 28, 2012, 06:08:42 am »

As I suspect only Dutch speaking players will read this topic, I will continue in Dutch.
Zondag 2 september 2012 zal voor de tweede maal het Nederlands Kampioenschap Dominion georganiseerd worden tijdens de Spellen aan Zee beurs in Den Haag.

Meer info vind je hier.

Dit jaar zullen, in tegenstelling tot vorig jaar, Belgische spelers niet mogen deelnemen aan het NK. In plaats daarvan komt er een speciaal Belgisch Kampioenschap, maar waar en wanneer deze gehouden wordt, is mij nog niet bekend.

Info in het kort
Wanneer: Zondag 2 september 2012
Waar: Octogoon van het Hofstad Lyceum Den Haag
Hoeveel: Inschrijven kost €1,50
Sets: Er zal alleen met de Basis, Intrige en Hijs de Zeilen worden gespeeld, dit verschilt per ronde

102

Dominion General Discussion / I Can't Believe I'm Still Playing This Game

« on: June 28, 2012, 04:13:54 am »

Can you?

That's not just testament to a good game, it's testament to a great game!

There are very few things in life that can keep my attention for more than a few days. Dominion has passed my very strict attention test with flying colors. The endless depth is an enormous hit with me and every day I learn something new. And just when I think I know how the game works, I get my ass kicked by someone 20 ranks below me.

I would like to tip my hat to Donald X. for bringing us this game. I love how it's like Magic without the need to keep buying cards (even though the expansions keep coming) and with equal opportunities for first both players.

Furthermore I would like to salute this community. For me the fun is not only in the game itself, but also in sharing observations with a very knowledgeable crowd from all over the world.

I think I started playing when Alchemy and Sea Side were out, but before Prosperity. Like many of you, I started out on Brettspielwelt, but went looking for more. That's when I found the Oasis that is the Tropic of Iso and the Dominionstrategy.com site. I ate up all the articles and started lurking the forums. I gathered some courage and started posting. It all seems so long ago.

Anyway, I just wanted to share the love for the game and its people, so here's to everyone involved with this great game: Cheers!



Do you have any funny stories about the road you've traveled with Dominion and are you surprised you're still playing it? Did you just start out and found your way to the forums like I did once? Please post your stories for our entertainment. 

103

Game Reports / Three Live 2P Games

« on: June 27, 2012, 03:39:52 am »

Yesterday I went over to a friend's house to play three live games.
Live games are rare for me, as I'm so used to playing on Iso, so I always have to make an adjusment.

My opponent only has the base set, so I brought over Seaside, Prosperity and Intrigue. He does know the English names of the cards though and some of their workings, because he has played on Iso.

All of the games were Province games and my opponent was first player in each.

Game #1: Village, Wharf, King's Court, Trading Post, Workshop, Salvager, Harem, City, Expand, Lookout

Well, if this board doesn't scream engine I don't know what does. We both opened 5/2 and kicked off with a Trading Post. Good idea or should we have taken Wharf?

The thing is, you want (almost) all of these cards, but you don't have the time. I went for a simple Village-Wharf-KC to build up to $16 and double Province. My KC-Wharf went off first, but I still only won by 1pt due to a final Province-Estate grab.

What would you have done? Timing is key here, I think.


Game #2: Goons, Bishop, Trade Route, Fishing Village, Lighthouse, Vault, Grand Market, Wishing Well, Navigator, Island

Time to break out the VP chips which I had forgotten (probably in another box), so we tracked it with pen & paper which worked great. Goons is a dominant card on any board, but now we have Vault and GM too. I was lucky enough to open 5/2 again and went with Vault/Lighthouse.

However, after hitting my Vault I decided on Goons rather than GM. In the end I only had 2 GMs and the other sixes were Goons or double Fishing Village/Wishing Well/Lighthouses if I had Goons in play.

After I had built up a decent lead with my Goons, I helped my opponent drain the Provinces and won by quite a margin. My opponent tried for some kind of Wishing Well/Navigator thingy coupled with Golds, but it didn't really work. Thoughts?


Game #3: Caravan, Coppersmith, Smugglers, Monument, Embargo, Hoard, Woodcutter, Upgrade, Cutpurse, Watchtower

My opponent tried for some Coppersmiths with Caravans, but it stalled as his deck got fatter. I went with Smugglers to grab some extra Caravans, Embargoed Gold on the turn I bought Hoard and had a couple of Upgrades to deal with a Duchy and some Estates I nabbed with Hoard. I had 6 Provinces to his 2.

I also grabbed a late Monument which I got to play exactly once.

Embargoing the Golds was a nice move, do you see anything else on this board?


So we had 3 games in 2 of which we had diverging strategies, but his inexperience led to skipping some crucial cards (Goons!), but it was fun nonetheless.

104

Dominion General Discussion / The Best Designed Card

« on: June 25, 2012, 05:01:46 am »

Some Dominion cards are better than others, there's no doubt about that, but that's not what I'm interested in.

Where one card may excel in its mechanics or price to action ratio, another may have beautiful art and a third may be the best thematic fit. Surely, there must be a card that does all three exceptionally well.

I would like to find out what our users think is the best designed Dominion card. Qvist has asked you what the best card at each price was, but I'm more interested in other aspects of the card.

Which card scores the highest average on these criteria:
- Mechanics (they're important, but not the be all end all)
- Art (no love for Harem, I'm afraid)
- Thematic fit (does the card do what you would expect a card with such a name to do)
- Expansion fit (does the card symbolize the thought behind its expansion well)
- Simplicity (not that a card needs to have only vanilla effects, just that you can understand it quickly enough)

These are highly subjective questions and what I would like from you is to nominate a bunch of cards.

To nominate a card, you must mention it here (possibly with your reasoning for picking it) and it must be supported by at least one two users.

Once 5 nominees are in, I will add them to the poll (if it allows me to do so) and you can vote for it.
As more expansions come out, I will possibly edit the poll continuously and you are able to change your vote anytime.


I will kick things off by nominating Horn of Plenty. It's the title card of the set and symbolizes it well. The more you diversify, the more you will get out of it. I like the still life art on the card. It may be slightly more difficult than your run of the mill vanilla cards, but I'm willing to let it go. As far as actual gameplay I think it can often make for very fun games because you can always play it (except for Loan) as you don't need actions for it. I like how it encourages you to make use of the entire kingdom to get good use out of it. No longer those Pearl Divers and Spies are useless!

So if you think Horn of Plenty is a top notch designed card, support my vote by saying "+1 for Horn of Plenty" or something similar. If you think Horn of Plenty is awfully designed, just propose another card. It's not possible to "downvote" a card once it's on the list.

You are restricted to three nominations and this includes supports.

The current nominees are:


I don't have an image of the new Silver from the base cards set. If anyone has it, please post.

105

Variants and Fan Cards / A +3 Actions Village

« on: June 25, 2012, 04:18:49 am »

I've been thinking about Villages and specificallly about the $4's. These Villages just add a little spice to the vanilla +1 Card / +2 Actions.

Worker's Village adds a +Buy, Farmer's Village lets you skip bad cards, Mining Village lets you trash once and Walled Village can get topdecked.

Then I started thinking about the names: Why would Worker's Village add a +Buy? Villages already provide more people, thus more workers and thus more actions. Hence the +2 Actions on the regular Village. Wouldn't it be more logical for a Worker's Village to just add one more action?

This led me to thinking about another $4 pure upgrade of Village for which I had to choose another name than Worker's Village. Don't mind the current name, I can't think of anything else.

Booming Village
Action - $4
-------------------------
+1 Card
+3 Actions


An extra Action over its vanilla counterpart may seem like a very big upgrade, but I think the actual effect on gameplay is limited enough to warrant the $4 cost. This is because with Villages and terminal drawers you will often either:
a) Draw your Village and drawer the other way around
b) Start with a Village and draw most of your deck

In case (a) it doesn't matter which Village it is as you will draw it dead anyway.
In case (b) a vanilla Village will often suffice anyway, but with an extra action you can maybe do with 3 instead of 4 Villages.

But case (b) can be deceiving, because Village density is much more important than the actual actions a single Village gives. You want to maintain an X:Y ratio of Villages and terminals, not because you need the actions, but because you don't want to draw dead.

So I really think a $4 cost is pretty good for a strictly better Village.
Village is $1 more expensive than Pearl Diver which has one less action and a so-so effect.
Smithy is $4 but Governor is $5 with help for your opponent and options for yourself.

What do you guys think?

Too cheap? Too expensive?


And why doesn't this card already exist? I think Donald or his playtesters may have found it too bland and realized all too quickly that in practice it was just the same as the regular Village, but just $1 more expensive.
Still, the name Worker's Village bothers me. 

On the other hand, having such an extra Village increases the chance for a random kingdom to contain at least one type of Village and Villages make engines fun! 

106

Dominion General Discussion / Double Terminal Opening on 4/3

« on: June 22, 2012, 09:54:54 am »

After reading the thread about Marin, the crazy scientist I wondered: Which terminals warrant a double terminal opening with 4/3?

Obviously, a lot of $5's are so good that you're happy to buy a Chapel alongside (Mountebank, Witch, Ghost Ship), but for 4/3 it's a different story.

- Swindler/Swindler is already mentioned in the topic
- Ambassador/Ambassador can be useful, especially with a cheap Village in the kingdom
- Workshop/Workshop for Gardens (counting Ironworks as a non-terminal for this case)

Any more?

Have we become too afraid of terminal collision? I almost never open double terminal unless I think it's really good. More often than not, I go with Silver/terminal.

I could just grab all the openings off of Councilroom, but I'd like to start a more general discussion.

107

Dominion Articles / Bank

« on: June 19, 2012, 06:26:36 am »

Bank

Bank is a lovely card, but it can also be a trap for many new players. While it's true that in practice it's often better than Gold in that it needs only 2 other Treasures to give you the same $3 it's also a bit random. If you ever end up drawing your Bank dead it gives you just $1 where Gold would still have given $3. But a hand with just 1 Treasure is often a dead hand anyway so the Bank vs. Gold wouldn't have that much of a difference.

The thing with Bank is that it's often overkill on its own, it needs its biggest friend: +Buy
If you have a hand with 5 Banks you have 1+2+3+4+5 = $15 yet you can still only buy 1 Colony or Province.
And remember that Bank only gives you more than Gold if it's the 4th or higher Treasure played. This means Bank needs hands with lots of Treasures.

So what cards can Bank look to as a partner in crime?

Wharf, Council Room and Margrave
Wharf is awesome and Council Room and Margrave are quite good as they give you not only the needed +Buy, but also a good draw. Drawing cards equals more Treasure cards equals higher worth Banks. Wharf is the best there is. Council Room gives you 4 cards and your opponent 1, while Margrave gives you 1 less card, but your opponent has to drop 2 cards. All in all Margrave may be slightly better because of the attack.

Using rspeer's Dominiate simulator (Geronimoo's doesn't work on my PC with Java 7) it seems Margrave wins about 60% vs. Council Room if we let the sim just buy that card on every $5. Wharf beats both, it beats Council Room with about 65% and Margrave with about 60%.

Other terminal drawers can be good, but then you have to get the +Buy from somewhere else.
You could use cantrips for your +Buy like Market and Worker's Village coupled with non-terminal drawers like Lab and Stables.
Coupling a +Buy with other terminal drawers is risky business and you need quite a bit of luck to really be able to make use of it.
Tactician may work as well.


Trash for Benefit and Cost Advantages
Bank is a $7 card. That means most Trash-for-Benefit cards get a little extra out of it over Gold.
You can Upgrade Bank into a Province or Remake two Banks into two Provinces! Or Develop it into a Province and a Gold.
You can Remodel (or Expand/Farmland) it into a Platinum or Apprentice it for 7 cards.
Salvage it and you get +$7.
When it gets Saboteured you could grab a Duchy and when it gets Swindled there are often no other $7 cards around so you get it back.
Bank is even funnier with Governor, because you could grab a Province on your opponent's turn.

And to boot it even can't be Smuggled!
With Haggler you could buy Bank and a $6 card like Goons or Grand Market.
It can't be stolen with Noble Brigand since that chooses only Silver or Gold.


When Not to Choose Bank over Gold
If your hands are going to be cluttered with terminals and you will hardly ever reach the "4th Treasure" mark, stick with Gold. This can happen very easily. If every hand has exactly one terminal (like BM-Monument), your other cards need to be Treasures for Bank to make it worth your while over Gold and even then it's hardly more effective than Gold.

For example: A hand of Monument ($2) + 3x Copper can buy a Province with both a Gold ($3) and a Bank ($4), so there's really no difference here. Often you will see a hand of Monument + 2x Copper and in this case both Gold and Bank get you to $7 so again there's no real difference.

Using Bank instead of Gold in decks without +Buy is an effort in futility.

In strategies where your deck will green very early (Duchy-Duke), a lucky early Gold may be better than a lucky early Bank.


When Not to Choose Bank
This is pretty easy: Engines that depend on action cards for their money have no business with Bank as they have no business with Treasure cards in general. A long KC-Grand Market chain doesn't want it and double Tactician decks also don't need it. Just like any Treasure can throw a wrench in money from actions based engines, so can Bank.

And obviously your classic rushes don't need Bank and you'll probably never even be able to afford it anyway.


Works with:
- +Buy terminal drawers (and possibly Tactician)
- +Buy form a Market-esque card (possibly even Worker's Village) with non-terminal hand size increasers (Lab, Stables)
- Cost-based Trash for Benefit

Doesn't work with:
- BM+X style decks (no real advantage over Gold)
- Rush strategies
- Engines that rely on money from actions
- No +Buy

108

Simulation / Simulation Challenge: Fishing Village + Bad Terminal

« on: June 19, 2012, 05:16:37 am »

Based on this thread: I wonder if there is a terminal so bad it doesn't benefit from FV.

It's a vague challenge, but can you find a terminal which you have to buy more than one of that doesn't benefit from FV?
For instance FV-Monument benefits from FV I believe because you want to play a lot of Monuments.

Do 2 or 3 Chancellors still benefit from FV?

109

Game Reports / No Need to Gain Any VP

« on: June 11, 2012, 10:59:44 am »

This was a funny game: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201206/11/game-20120611-075551-c6949d48.html

The partners in crime were Wharf, City and Mining Village.
While I doubt I played this very well as I'm always confused when both Wharf and City are available, I liked the end result.

My opponent had trashed his 3 Estates with Develop and I did a quick calculation and noticed that if I got lucky with my draws I could get the necessary $19 by trashing my Mining Villages and buying out the Cities, Wharves and Mining Villages.

Sure enough, that's what happened.

So I ended up winning by NOT gaining any extra Victory Points apart from the 3 Estates I started with.

Too bad there's no achievement for that.

110

Rules Questions / Inn + Stash

« on: May 25, 2012, 08:28:19 am »

This 'combo' has me confused.

Inn's text says:

When you gain this, look through your discard pile (including this), reveal any number of Action cards from it, and shuffle them into your deck.

Stash's text says:

When you shuffle, you may put this anywhere in your deck.

But the Stashes don't activate on Inn shuffles on Isotropic.

I've looked in the Hinterlands rules, but there's nothing about Inn with different cards. Isotropic's ruling is probably right, but why? The Stashes don't specify what kind of 'shuffle' it has to be, just that you can do it when you shuffle.

111

Puzzles and Challenges / Noble Brigand Grabbing Silver instead of Gold

« on: May 24, 2012, 02:12:05 am »

This is not really a puzzle, nor a challenge, but a genuine question.

When Noble Brigand hits both Silver and Gold, would you ever take the Silver over the Gold?
I can think of an obvious scenarios like Fairgrounds but not much others.
I do have another funny one, but I'll save it for now.

112

Game Reports / Alternate VPs, Jack and Workshop

« on: May 23, 2012, 05:18:55 am »

Given your choice of the following kingdom cards: Jack, Duke, Gardens, Vineyard, Workshop, (Mining Village, Grand Market, Adventurer, Warehouse, Chancellor), which strategy would you pursue and why?

Some choices:
- Jack (Jack) Duke
- Jack (Jack) Province
- Workshop/Gardens
- Something something something darkside, uh, no, I meant Vineyard
- Race to Grand Market into megaturn or Provinces
- All of the above
- A blue dog

113

Game Reports / Two Off-Line 3P Games

« on: May 15, 2012, 04:30:13 pm »

Man, I'm out of touch with both real life games and 3p games, got 2nd on both accounts.

First game was: Chapel, Sea Hag, Witch, Lab, Merchant Ship, Remodel, Throne Room, Pearl Diver, Cutpurse, Smithy (in order of remembrance).
I opened first Chapel/Sea Hag and bombarded my opponent with Curses. Even got a couple of Throne Rooms to really hammer them.
Opponent behind me went with Chapel/Remodel and nr. 3 opened Chapel/Cutpurse.

I still don't get why I lost, but basically the game went on for so long that my opponent to my left had plenty of time to trash his Curses and his Remodel somehow found his Gold every time so he inched a Province ahead of me. I had a gazillion Pearl Divers, because they were often the only thing I could buy and they were decent TR targets. I ended with 33 points and my nemesis had 36.

I probably misjudged the length of the game. With two opponents not actively helping to drain the Provinces all too quickly and with me taking a long time to build up my economy, my opponent just got the better of me.


Second game was: Ambassador, Festival, Bazaar, Council Room, Chancellor, Island, Gardens, Embargo, Bureaucrat, Smugglers

I opened Ambassador/Silver with a second Ambassador on my first reshuffle. I saw the Gardens/Bureaucrat/Festival sort of combo, but thought it would be just better to Ambassador stuff away. My opponents both had one Ambassador so I felt pretty good. My nemesis double Embargod Gold, but I took one thinking I could return them with Ambassador anyway. After my right opponent (the noob) grabbed an early Gardens I thought they would just contest for them and this would give me a better shot with just the Provinces. I was wrong; he embargoed them and never took a Garden again, leaving my opponent to get 10 with a 69 card deck in the end. With all his Curses he still ended up with 56 points to my 53.

So two losses with 3 points behind due to a couple of miscalculations on my part and probably some awkward shuffling.
We love blaming the Isotropic RNG, but my simple overhand shuffle isn't any better. My Ambassadors always ended up together.
Need to learn to adjust my shuffling not for speed, but for randomness.

Anyway, playing real life Dominion is still much more fun than online and I don't mind losing. It just shows me that both real life and 3p are a different beast than what I'm used to.

114

Game Reports / Silk Road/Gardens without support vs. Provinces

« on: May 11, 2012, 06:57:11 am »

Just played this game.

So Silk Roads and Gardens were on the board, but I looked around for support (Ironworks, Workshop, anything with +Buy) and there was little, only Pawn. Still I decided to go for them and used Courtyard as a support card to line up some buys with the little money I had.

Was I right to go with Silk Roads with so little support?

My opponent quickly got to 4 Provinces and started whittling down the Gardens which I needed.
I scrambled a win by buying out the Estates and my 7 Silk Roads were 4 VP each while my 3 Gardens were 3 VP.

Considering a board of Courtyard, Gardens, Mining Village, Pawn, Peddler, Potion, Silk Road, Steward, Trading Post, Transmute, and Watchtower what's your choice here? How would you go about Silk Roads and Gardens or would you focus on Provinces?

115

Dominion General Discussion / $5's That Make You Open Feast

« on: May 11, 2012, 04:04:33 am »

I'm wondering... are there any power cards that make you open Feast/(Silver) over Silver/Silver?

A case can be made for Mountebank and Witch obviously, but are there any more?
Or do you prefer to open Silver/Silver and take a chance that you can't get to $5 during the next reshuffle?

I like to open Feast with Mountebank and Witch out there, but maybe I'm too paranoid?

116

Game Reports / Gardens/Talisman Explosion vs. an Intelligent BMU-Envoy

« on: April 25, 2012, 04:23:01 am »

Just played this game against a similarly ranked opponent: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201204/25/game-20120425-011423-0b8d878b.html.

Key cards: Envoy, Talisman, Worker's Village, Gardens

I saw the Gardens, but the Talisman/Gardens explosion isn't something I have a lot of experience with and I was a bit doubtful of its usefulness, so I went for the boring BMU-Envoy. In the topic title it says: Intelligent BMU-Envoy. That's because my opponent clearly went for Gardens and I had to do something about it.

I couldn't let him get away with getting 4 Gardens, so I opened the bloodfest after my first Province and we splitted the Gardens 4-4.
My opponent had been hammering the piles with his Talismans, so it wouldn't surprise me if his Gardens would become 5 or even 6 VP each. His 4 Gardens were a pretty good offset against my 4 Provinces, but I felt I was ahead, so I started rushing the piles and grabbing VPs for security.

Finally I dared to end it with the purchase of the last Wishing Well.

Provinces vs Gardens strategies are always interesting, but I wanted to present this game to you because I wondered if my opponent played it wrong or if I played it right.

Should he have switched to Gardens sooner? Somehow these Garden games are always a case of seeing who blinks first. But his deck definitely had more staying power for the long haul and with all his Talismans, he could have controlled the ending better I feel.

Any comments or suggestions?

117

Dominion General Discussion / Underpowered -> Overpowered -> Just Right

« on: April 18, 2012, 10:23:43 am »

It still amazes me how balanced a lot of the Dominion cards are. Sure, there are nasty exceptions, but try designing 150-200 cards that generally go well together at the price levels you've picked.

During my Dominion career, I've gone through the same motion dozens of times.
I would see a new card and think it would be massively underpowered.
After playing with it and the simulators amazing all of us I would generally come to think it's overpowered.
Playing some more with it I would try to transition out of it and use it as a valuable weapon only when the situation is right.

The last part is the most fun. This is where I really start to appreciate Donald's hard work. Generally I go from hating him because the card is bad to hating him because the card is too good, to finally loving him because the card is just right.

My earliest example is Chapel, the most powerful $2 to ever see the light of day. Many new players will have thought: "Why do I even need it when Witch is not on the board?" Then I started to trash everything in sight. When Chapel was on the board, I wouldn't even see the other cards. Just buy it and go from there. Nowadays I don't nearly buy it as often as I used to and I find trying to do it without Chapel an awarding experience.

Lately, it's mostly been Jack and IGG. Okay, these cards didn't impress me much in the Hinterlands preview thread, but we now know how looks can be deceiving. Doing a bit of everything apparently isn't the same as doing a whole lot of nothing. And hammering IGGs like a zombie when your opponent already has one or two Provinces isn't the best idea.

I'm having a lot of fun going through this cycle over and over. Sometimes it's also the other way around. I used to love Merchant Ship, but have somehow forgotten how useful it can be. After watching WW's videos I remembered that they can be very good and are having fun with them again.

I tip my hat to you, Donald, thanks for doing such a great job on all the cards and I'm very curious to see what's still in store for us! I forgive you for introducing Saboteur and Possession, although my family didn't mind destroying my deck with Saboteur.

Do you guys have this cycle too? With which cards? Do you enjoy it as much as I do? Tell us!

118

Dominion Isotropic / Slowrolling

« on: April 17, 2012, 01:09:57 pm »

What are your views on slowrolling? To which degree can you handle it and what's the tipping point?

I'm not talking about someone playing his 2 Golds and his 2 Coppers and waiting the maximum time before buying the last Province before he times out.

I'm talking about games with point counters since it's the easiest in those.
The score is tied, you have enough for a Province already, do you still choose to play a Goons and annoy your opponent even more?

I used to automatically play everything when it was my last turn during my early days, but I've come back from that.
I figured I shouldn't waste my or my opponent's time since the ranking doesn't care about point differences anyway.

So I find myself stopping halfway during my turn when I've acquired the needed means to end and win the game.
I think it's just more courteous this way. Your opponent also sees what you are playing and is just waiting for the axe to fall. So why wait?

On the other hand, you may have set up an elaborate engine of which you are very proud and you won't let an opportunity go by to play another screenfilling turn.

Which side do you stand on?

119

Game Reports / Holding off the Tournaments with IGG?

« on: April 17, 2012, 09:58:44 am »

Played a setup with these cards today:

$2 Cellar
$4 Tournament, Gardens, Feast
$5 IGG, Lab

(other cards are not so important).

I opened 5/2 and took an IGG (why not get the Curse into his first reshuffle?) and a Cellar.


Basically my opponent and I had diverging strategies. I hammered IGGs and he went for BM-Tournament. He was able to buy 1 Province, activate his Tournament and get a Followers. The Followers only gave me a Curse once though and he got an Estate twice. My opponent wasn't oblivious to my strategy, so he bought 2 of the 10 IGGs (I got 7 and finished the game by buying the 10th). I bought Cellar/Estate at $2, Silver at $3, Feast/Gardens at $4 and IGG/Duchy at $5+.

Everytime I played IGG I gained a Copper and started rushing Gardens. I got 5 of the 8 Gardens and my opponent got 3.
At the end of the game, my Gardens were worth 4 each and his were worth 3. I beat him 22-18 (or was it 13?).


I wondered if Tournamenting can be a good counter to an IGG rush, especially if you're grabbing Duchies...
My opponent went for the default Followers, was this a good idea? Without trashing, is an IGG-rush really counterable here?

120

Other Games / Video Games

« on: April 16, 2012, 07:22:30 am »

My history with video games is quite long. At least, as long as it can be for a 26 year old.

It started with a very early PC which could play Test Drive, Paperboy and a sports game on a monitor which could display only orange and black. The system used those 5 1/2 inch megafloppies.

Over the years, the gaming systems and corresponding games have evolved significally. But in good games that are made with a lot of fun, I can still find the same sense of enjoyment I did as a kid. And if a game is bad, even the best graphics can't help it.

Which video games are you playing right now? Why are they good/bad?


I am currently playing The Book of Unwritten Tales.
It is a very funny Point 'n Click adventure with a lot of references to geek culture: Lord of the Rings, WoW, Magic: The Gathering, Diablo (II), the PnC genre itself, breaking the 4th dimension etc... You can really see that the designers had a lot of fun with the game. It reminds me of those old Lucasarts game like the Monkey Island series and Day of the Tentacle. I won't go as far as putting the game side by side with the legends of yesteryear, but if you enjoyed those, you will enjoy this. The game occasionally twists just enough to break the "collect-combine-use" routine often found in PnC games. I would give this game an 8 out of 10.

121

Game Reports / 5/2 Opening: Witch or Trading Post?

« on: April 13, 2012, 08:03:18 am »

My opponend and I both opened 5/2 in this game.

After restraining myself from immediately grabbing Witch and following suit, I thought it over and decided to get a Trading Post first.
Trading Post is a very good opener and I thought I could easily grab a Witch later and join the Cursing fun, but Trading Post would give my deck some much needed longevity. So I delayed my Witch buy for a moment.

Cities were also pretty critical as they can be in any Curse game and I hammered them as well as the very lovely King's Courts.

Afterwards my opponent complained about my luck - a bad habit which I'm prone to do from time to time - but I really think Trading Post was an important opening here...

What do you think?

122

Dominion General Discussion / Overshooting

« on: March 08, 2012, 12:14:32 pm »

A "problem" I sometimes run into in certain games is that I tend to get "too lucky" in a couple of early and mid game turns when there is a good $5.

For example, in Lab games I might get an early $6 and think "Well, I want at least one Gold, so I might as well grab it now" and then I hit $8 and think "a Province is nothing to sneeze at" so I grab it and a couple of turns later my opponent, who has hit exactly $5 for a couple of turns, steamrolls to victory with his Lab train.

Those $6 and $8 turns of mine of course mean I also have some mediocre $3 and $4 turns in which I buy the obligatory Silver.

I just find it hard to deal with those games. Should I "sacrifice" those $8 turns for Labs? I don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth of course!
And when I'm finally getting around to grabbing a couple of Labs, it's already time for the end game so I need to grab Duchies. At this point my opponent, whose deck is better with his Labs can grab an easy win.

I'm sure a lot of you have similar games in which you think: "If I ever hit $X I'm grabbing that card" and then never hitting $X. Do you still grab those cards with higher $'s or do you gladly skip them? It's just hard to pass up Gold or a Province, especially when you know your next turns are going to be bad...

123

Variants and Fan Cards / Card Idea: Pioneer

« on: March 05, 2012, 10:57:52 am »

This card is inspired by those cute little Pioneer guys from the Settlers (III) PC game.

Pioneer - $3
Action - Victory

1 VP
------
Choose one: place a token on your Pioneer mat; or, gain a Victory card worth as much $ as the number of tokens on your Pioneer mat


Wording may need some adjustment, but you get the idea: it's a bit Pirate shippy in the way its usefulness progresses and may help some rush strategies. This way you can get a Workshop that can grab $5+ cards without the need for Highway/Bridge. It can also be combined with mega-turn strategies.

Don't know if it's in any way balanced, but I like to just launch some ideas and let you guys fiddle with it.

What do you think? Feel free to make any changes you'd like to see.

124

Variants and Fan Cards / Dominion meets Puerto Rico

« on: March 02, 2012, 06:30:26 am »

Inspired by this thread: Dominion Heroes

I thought it might be fun to make a variant inspired by Puerto Rico and its shared characters.
This will work better in multiplayer (more fun), but I'll kick it off and see what improvements you come up with.

The idea is that every turn every player chooses one character and gets a bonus while other characters get a lesser bonus (like the Governor promo card which is taken from Puerto Rico). After every complete turn the player marker moves to the next player and he gets to choose first. Every player has to pick a character first and then everyone can play their turn (otherwise it doesn't work). The first player will always start the turn, but he doesn't get to choose first every turn. To make it interesting you can choose to accumulate VP tokens on characters that don't get picked (1 per turn, who chooses the character gets all the tokens on it). After the complete turn, chosen characters are returned to the pool. Players choose the characters after they've looked at their hand.

Possible characters:

Blacksmith
You get +2 Cards for this turn.
Every other player gets +1 Card for this turn.

Investor
You get +$2 for this turn.
Every other player gets +$1 for this turn.

Village Idiot
You get +1 Actions for this turn.
(no bonus for other players)

Church
During your turn, you may trash up to 5 cards.
Every other player may trash 1 card during his turn.


Cards may need some modification, but I just wanted to put the idea out there, so I just scribbled these down quickly.

125

Other Games / The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game

« on: February 29, 2012, 10:42:00 am »

I enjoy a game of The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game with a friend every now and then.

After we've casually strolled through the first two scenarios from the base game - Passage Through Mirkwood (Difficulty level = 1) and Journey Down the Anduin (DL= 4) - we got wiped three times in a row at Dol Guldur.

The first game Aragorn was inprisoned and with him being the key character of his deck it was basically game over from that point.
The second game we came a long way before an undefended shadow card killed my three heroes in one fell swoop, ouch! We played a Leadership/Lore combo.
The third game we failed pretty soon too with a Spirit/Tactics combo.

I wonder if anyone has played this game and enjoyed or hated it and maybe give us some tips on how to beat DG.