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Messages - Davio

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5726
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Trade Route Question
« on: July 22, 2011, 10:48:32 am »
I see Trade Routes often bought late in the game, when both players are scrambling for Duchies and Estates and they're worth at least $2 or $3.

In the beginning, they're horrible.

5727
Game Reports / Re: Gambling with Masquerade
« on: July 22, 2011, 10:39:19 am »
I see some examples of trying to preserve your own hand/deck.

Have you ever gambled on what you would receive from your opponent? A Copper to get $8? A Curse as food for your Ambassador?

5728
Game Reports / Gambling with Masquerade
« on: July 22, 2011, 08:45:22 am »
I'm looking for game turns in which gambling with an opponent's Masquerade proved decisive, if you have some, please post and brag. :)

I played a game today where both I and my opponent had a Masquerade. I was in front (by some comfortable margin) and there was 1 Province left. We were down to scramble time, clogging our decks with all the greens. He was trying to catch up, I was trying to end it, but could not get enough money together for the last Province.

There were some turns in which I had 2 Golds, 1 Copper (so $7 total), 1 Province and 1 Duchy. I often planned if my opponent would play Masquerade, I would give him my Duchy, hoping to get a Copper from him, so I could buy the last Province and end it.

Other funky Masquerade turns can be posted here too.

5729
Simulation / Re: Simulating Challenge #3: Quarry/Chapel
« on: July 22, 2011, 05:53:21 am »
Don't you need at least $22 to buy 2 Colonies?

5730
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Must-Buy Cards?
« on: July 22, 2011, 05:36:02 am »
Disclaimer: I am only Level 28 at Isotropic, so obviously past the beginner stage, but not yet up there with the great ones, so take this for what it's worth.

My Top 10:

1. Tournament - 95,6%
Who doesn't like an early Peddler? It's sad to see that most setups with Tournament are generally races for Trusty Steed and the others. It loses some value in Colony, but I've seen many a game skip Colonies and go for Provinces instead, just because of Tournament.

2. Laboratory - 95,2%
What can I say? It's a well known gem. It helps almost every deck.

3. Mountebank - 94,3%
My view on Curses: I'd rather give them than get them. Mountebank stays useful when Curses are gone, dealing Coppers.

4. Chapel - 93,9%
The best $2 in the game, if it would have cost $3, it might even have been the best $3.

5. Mining Village - 93,7%
A personal favorite, I see it as an early attempt at using a Gold (trashing it and drawing a Copper with it). I trash this quite aggressively as is advised.

6 Menagerie - 91,8%
I'm surprised that this percentage is so high, but then again I'm not. I generally buy this if I strike out with just $3 and I feel I have enough Silvers already. It also effectively counters some attacks like Ghost Ship and Militia (Goons).

7. Fishing Village - 90,0%
I wonder if I maybe like this card too much, but as with all duration cards, the fact that it isn't in your hand the second time helps a lot.

8. Caravan - 88,6%
Right up there with Laboratory.

9. Farming Village - 87,2%
Hey, another Village, what do you know!

10. Silver - 86,4%
Okay, this one doesn't really count.

Honorable mention: King's Court - 84,4%
Obviously only as good as the other actions


Of these 10, I think only Tournament, Mountebank, Laboratory and Chapel are must buys for me. The other cards are more like, "Okay, I have $X and I want a card that doesn't hurt my deck."

I have Ambassador at only 76,1%, I wonder why it's so low. Maybe I have disregarded this too much in the earlier levels, this has become a must buy now though; being on the wrong end of the seesaw is no fun.


Worst 5:

5. Library - 5,3%
I probably undervalue this too much.

4. Adventurer - 5,1%
I'd buy it more if it cost $5 or $4, maybe.. with $6 I generally rather buy a Gold.

3. Cutpurse - 4,1%
What? I actually bought this?

2. Explorer - 3,8%
When you have enough Provinces to show, it's likely time to buy Duchies instead of Explorers.

1. Bureaucrat - 3,2%
Must have come up in the phase when I wanted to try every card.

5731
Simulation / Re: Simulating Challenge #3: Quarry/Chapel
« on: July 22, 2011, 05:08:14 am »
I don't have any experience with the simulator, but when I play a GM strategy, I sometimes try to get enough buys and $ to clear the Estates as the 3rd pile in one fell swoop. This would require 2 empty piles, 8 buys and 16$. 5 GMs gets you to 6 buys and 10$, so with the 2 Quarries you need 4 Markets to pull this off.

This is a sort of advanced scenario and I don't know how to put this in the simulator. It's also a conditional scenario, you obviously won't do this if your opponent is in the lead and you won't do this if you can only buy 4 Estates or something. You have to specifically look for a spot that may or may not occur during a game. It follows the general consensus of trying to end the game safely on piles when you have such a sweet engine and don't want to clog it.

5732
Puzzles and Challenges / Re: [Math] How many games and years?
« on: July 22, 2011, 04:53:27 am »
Well, the way I see it, "time" becomes more complex, the better we try to understand it, so it's best to steer clear of it. :)

Even though, if you are playing 50 games of Dominion a day without eating or sleeping (or peeing!), you might start to wonder if you're not wasting your time...

Still, it is best played in real life, I found out yesterday.
I played 3 games with my mom and dad and even though I have played hundreds of games more than they have (was my mom's first time), my dad beat me the 3rd time!

I actually felt happy for him and it was a deserved win, but it goes to show that even after so many games, some setups can still surprise you.

The last setup was Intrigue only: Masquerade, Wishing Well, Saboteur, Ironworks, Scout, Tribute, Courtyard, Bridge, Shanty Town and Conspirator.

I tried some Ironworks shenanigans with Wishing Well and Conspirator, but after my Masquerade got Sabotaged, I couldn't trash more cards for Conspirator. It also showed I'm not that used to 3p anymore, because getting Sabotaged twice as much as with 2p proved it was hard to get anything decent going and it was basically a scramble for everyone.

5733
Dominion General Discussion / Enlighten me about Gardens
« on: July 19, 2011, 01:37:17 pm »
Dear Forum-visitors,

As the title says: Enlighten me about Gardens.

In a couple of months, I am going to play a big enough sized Dominion tournament (64 players). The first few rounds only deal with the Base games with Intrigue mixed in for later rounds.
The games are all 1 vs. 1 and have a time limit of 50 minutes, which in practice would only be achieved when both players play really slow, so it's not that big of a deal.

I have already read the article about the Base game on this blog: http://dominionstrategy.com/2011/06/20/guide-to-the-dominion-base-game/

This article covers many of the strategies found within the Base set and most are fairly obious to me after having played a lot of games and I feel I have them under control well enough.
There is one strategy however, whose appeal still eludes me and it is the Gardens strategy. Since we are only playing the Base game the first rounds, a setup with Gardens and Workshop isn't at all unlikely, so I would really like to grasp this "strategy".

I have read the Gardens article found here: http://dominionstrategy.com/2010/12/16/dominion-gardens/
This article in turn refers to a BGG thread found here: http://boardgamegeek.com/article/5417155#5417155

While playtesting this vs a standard computer player on kingdom.servegame.org and doing some solitaire analysis on Isotropic, it still seems way too slow for me.
So I was wondering what it is that I'm not getting about this strategy.

Basically, I try to get 4 Workshops, empty the Gardens pile with those Workshops and buy some other cheap cards with the money: Village, Cellar, Estates. "Rushing" for those piles still takes a long time and this basically isn't good for a Gardens player.

Is this strategy something to try with more opponents? Is it even viable in 2p games?

Please, enlighten me...

5734
Puzzles and Challenges / Re: [Math] How many games and years?
« on: July 19, 2011, 05:01:14 am »
This is what keeps me coming back to this game, there are essentially 2 parts to Dominion's success:

- The sheer number of different setups (although somewhat reduced by dominant cards and strategies)
- The short length  of a game, usually around 30mins in real life and 15mins on Isotropic.

Even though we can't try all setups in our lives, games are short enough for us to try a lot of different setups and setups are unique enough to offer something slightly new every game!

Thanks all for joining in this topic and doing the hard work.  ;D

Just a silly note: A year in my book is 365.24 days, not 365.25, but this may change as we go into the millions of years and Earth's speed is changed.

It's a mind boggling number nonetheless.

Fun fact: If you pair up every Chinese with another, it would take them only 225 years to play every setup. Since Chinese people tend to age very well, this is not impossible. ;)

5735
Puzzles and Challenges / Re: [Math] How many games and years?
« on: July 18, 2011, 01:35:42 pm »
Wow, ghostofmars, you have done some great work.

I had originally posted this as a sort of wondering myself, without even having tried it, but wanting to try it eventually.

I think you can calculate it better than we can, ghostofmars, you just need the numbers.

There are:
- 12 Alchemy cards
- 25 Prosperity cards
- 44 Possible bane cards


5736
Puzzles and Challenges / Re: [Math] How many games and years?
« on: July 18, 2011, 10:52:46 am »
Well, I wanted to make it challenging, so Black Market and Bane has to be taken into consideration, otherwise it's just a simple X Choose Y.

Also, I am going for completeness.

With regards to Black Market: Assume every possible kingdom card which is not in the regular supply will be in the BM deck.
This has serious consequences, I know, because for every BM-supply (easily calculated), there needs to be an extra Bane Pile, unless Young Witch is in the regular supply, then the Bane Pile wouldn't be "extra".

In retrospect, I think this would be better as a team effort than an actual puzzle.

Consider the Prosperity rule too: With only Prosperity cards, Colony and Platinum are included. With a mixed set, if there is at least 1 Prosperity card, there are 2 setups: 1 with and 1 without Col/Plat.

All in all I counted 134 different kingdom cards from Adventurer to Wharf.
There are 44 Cost $2 or $3 (bane piles)

I can start with:

There are 3.268.760 Prosperity only setups, these are the simplest.

5737
Puzzles and Challenges / [Math] How many games and years?
« on: July 18, 2011, 07:50:54 am »
This is more of a math question than a Dominion puzzle.

With regard to every Dominion card in current existence* (not your own custom ones obviously) and complying as much as possible with the rules for choosing cards for the setup (as mentioned in the original rulebooks or addenda), how many different setups for Dominion are there?

And, given these facts:
 - You and your nemesis are both immortal
 - Every game of Dominion lasts exactly 30 minutes
 - You both need no breaks for sleeping or eating

How many years does it take to have played each different setup? (Rounding to the nearest year is fine)

*Cards in existence means cards from: Dominion Base, Intrigue, Alchemy, Seaside, Prosperity, Cornucopia and the Promo Cards.


To get you started: With just the Base set, there are 25 different cards, offering 3,268,760 different setups, or 186 years of uninterrupted Dominion madness!

5738
Puzzles and Challenges / Re: A fatal action puzzle
« on: July 18, 2011, 05:43:33 am »
Everybody keeps mentioning Forge, but couldn't you just get a Copper instead of a Curse?

Smugglers I get.


5739
Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Grand Market
« on: July 18, 2011, 05:32:52 am »
Opening Quarry/Secret Chamber and drawing them with whatever works.

5740
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Reducing the luck factor?
« on: July 16, 2011, 02:03:29 pm »
I can't help but add that in games between equally skilled opponents, the winner is determined by luck 100% of the time. So, the smaller the skill gap between you and your opponent, the more luck-based it gets.

This gets boosted by some very dominant cards, like the High End Cantrips (Grand Market, Market, Bazaar, Peddler) or Curse Dealers.

Yes, it happens all too often my Sea Hag gets discarded by my opponent's and then it becomes a really hard fight.
With GMs it's even worse, because GMs enable the buying of even more GMs and soon it'll be a waterfall of GMs and it's 6/4 or 7/3 to your opponent's advantage and it's basically game over.

These are the games I least enjoy, those Curse races with Familiars and such ($2 + Potion on turn 3, gg) and those obvious dominant card races.

I like the games more where you can be subtle or change it up in a way your opponent doesn't suspect. I love to catch my opponent off guard by pushing some piles to depletion and snagging 1 Estate or Duchy along.

I played a Colony game today which I enjoyed that featured the following key cards: Ghost Ship, Venture, Treasure Map, Warehouse, Menagerie.
I spotted the very nice Warehouse/TM combo and was able to get my 4 Golds on turn 5 or 6, emptying out the Provinces as quickly as I could, buying Menageries or Golds with less than $8. Menagerie works well as a counter to Ghost Ship, you can just place the doubles on top of your deck and draw them + 1 extra.

My point is that it's often easy to get tempted to go for Colonies just as your opponent does and in that case, it's just a luck race for the first Platinums. Often, there are other ways to win and it's in the finesse of these games that we get our enjoyment out of it.

Dominion can be really exciting when you're trying to maintain an early lead and hold off an opponent, your deck getting greener with every buy, fending for Duchies and Estates untill your opponent can't catch up any more.

I think we have to realize that with ~150 available cards, there will always be dominant ones and sucky ones and the games with either won't be very interesting. If we leave out the best 50 and the worst 50, there are still 10 billion potentially interesting setups.

The bad part is however, that there will never be retrospective adjustments for cards that are either too powerful or too sucky. The text on the cards is set in stone and we have to live with it for as long as we play. You have Throne Room, Throne Room, Great Hall and 2 Colonies in your hand, play TR-TR-GH, draw an Ambassador with a Colony and have to let your opponent pick up 2 Colonies? Oof! Do the same with King's Court and you're fine, just don't play the Ambassador.

All in all, Dominion is and always will be a game and in the first place it was meant to be played in real life with friends and you can play 3 or 4 games on one night and have a different experience every time. Now that we have BSW and Isotropic, the game has a tendency to become overanalyzed too quickly and we think too much about it.

No, indeed it's not chess and it doesn't even close to pretend that it is. It's a deck-building game with shuffling, aka luck, deal with it.

The fun part is, you can start a new game in mere seconds (on Isotropic) or minutes (real life)! Pick yourself up and try again.

5741
Dominion Articles / Re: Combo: Sea Hag / Jester
« on: July 13, 2011, 04:56:02 am »
Well, I based the Combo around Jester, because Jester has some more lasting effect than Sea Hag.

If Curses are gone, your Sea Hags are dead cards, but Jester, like Mountebank, still gives $2.

Jester is especially nice if there are a lot of good non-terminals. Grand Market is especially nice to copy since it's hard to get it regularly.
This (besides the +$2) makes it better than Smugglers, because you can somewhat control what's on your opponent's deck, but you can't control what he buys.

However, I would still like to see a good article about Jester which takes these effects in consideration.

5742
Game Reports / Re: Sabotuer is a terrible card
« on: July 12, 2011, 10:31:24 am »
Saboteur proved to be quite a nasty card in this setup:

Quote
cards in supply: Chancellor, Hamlet, Horn of Plenty, Market, Minion, Potion, Rabble, Saboteur, Secret Chamber, Steward, and University

We both went for Minion chains through Universities which were also used to empty the Markets and gain some Rabbles and Saboteurs.
Saboteur is really nasty when it messes with your Minion chain.

He trashed one of my Provinces early, so I took a Duchy. Not long after, I returned the favor.

The best part was my ending turn:

Quote
  — Davio's turn 16 —
   Davio plays a Hamlet.
   ... drawing 1 card and getting +1 action.
   ... discarding 1 card and getting +1 action.
   Davio plays a Rabble.
   ... drawing 3 cards.
   ... MattMicKing draws and reveals 2 Silvers and a University.
   ... MattMicKing discards 2 Silvers and a University.
   Davio plays a Market.
   ... drawing 1 card and getting +1 action, +1 buy, and +$1.
   Davio plays a Hamlet.
   ... drawing 1 card and getting +1 action.
   ... discarding 1 card and getting +1 action.
   Davio plays a University.
   ... getting +2 actions.
   ... gaining a Rabble.
   Davio plays a Saboteur.
   ... MattMicKing reveals a Market and trashes it.
   ... MattMicKing gains a Hamlet to replace it.
   Davio plays a Minion.
   ... getting +1 action.
   ... getting +$2.
   Davio plays a Minion.
   ... getting +1 action.
   ... discarding the hand.
   ... drawing 4 cards.
   ... MattMicKing discards the hand.
   ... MattMicKing draws 4 cards.
   Davio plays a Steward.
   ... getting +$2.
   Davio plays a University.
   ... getting +2 actions.
   ... gaining a Rabble.
   Davio plays a Minion.
   ... getting +1 action.
   ... discarding the hand.
   ... drawing 4 cards.
   ... MattMicKing has 4 cards in hand.
   Davio plays a Market.
   ... drawing 1 card and getting +1 action, +1 buy, and +$1.
   Davio plays a Saboteur.
   ... MattMicKing reveals a Province and trashes it.
   ... MattMicKing gains a Duchy to replace it.
   Davio plays a Minion.
   ... getting +1 action.
   ... discarding the hand.
   ... drawing 4 cards.
   ... MattMicKing has 4 cards in hand.
   Davio plays a Market.
   ... (Davio reshuffles.)
   ... drawing 1 card and getting +1 action, +1 buy, and +$1.
   Davio plays a Minion.
   ... getting +1 action.
   ... getting +$2.
   Davio plays a Steward.
   ... getting +$2.
   Davio plays a Silver and a Copper.
   Davio buys a Province.
   Davio buys a Hamlet.
   Davio buys a Hamlet.
   Davio buys a Hamlet.
   (Davio draws: a Rabble, a University, a Hamlet, a Copper, and an Estate.)

Minions, Hamlets, and Markets are all gone.
Davio wins!

I vaguely remembered him trashing an Estate more than I did, so when I noticed there were only 3 Hamlets left, I decided halfway through my turn to have a go at it. I was behind at the moment, but I knew if all went right I could end it in fine style. After a lucky Saboteur, some looking through my deck and of course some shuffle luck I finally land on $14 with enough buys and end the game 1 point ahead.

It's a great feeling when these super turns really go your way, but you have to get lucky like I did. If the Saboteur would have trashed something else, I could only have bought a Province and maybe a Duchy and hoped he wouldn't get the same idea or hope I would be able to do the same the next turn. You can also see that with my first University, I choose a Rabble. I did that because I didn't yet have the plan to try to end it, this only came to me after the lucky Saboteur hit.

Entire game is here: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201107/12/game-20110712-071948-1b279c3c.html

5743
Dominion Articles / Combo: Sea Hag / Jester
« on: July 12, 2011, 07:40:32 am »
I ran into this pretty nifty combo today.

It's not really rocket science and you can derive it from the title, but I'll give a short explanation anyway.

With both Sea Hag and Jester in play, play (with 2 actions) Sea Hag first and then Jester.
Your opponent puts a Curse on top and immediately gains another one, because you obviously choose your opponent as the receiver of Jester's action.

Double Cursing, yay! The only drawback is that your opponent gets to discard both Curses and leaves nothing on top of his deck, but this is a minor detail.

Jester has this interaction with which you control your opponent's top card with Spy too, which is kind of like the obvious one.

Ghost Ship and Secret Chamber are less obvious, it depends if your opponent is more likely to put good cards on top of his deck or bad cards. Either is fine for you, because you get to choose who gets it. If an opponent immediately plays Secret Chamber to your Jester, your opponent will likely put an average card on top, like Silver, which is still decent.

I am mentioning all these other Jester possibilities, because I couldn't find a Strategy article about it.

Here is another combo with Jester: Fortune Teller / Jester

5744
If after an Isotropic game against a 20+ level player, you just ask what you did wrong, I guess most of them will be helpful, I know I will, most of the time.

5745
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Transmute
« on: July 05, 2011, 08:55:05 am »
I often find myself going for Transmute if there aren't any other trashers, although I doubt this is a good strategy.

Maybe Transmutes are more viable with other Potion costing cards / combinations, like University, Alchemist, Familiar et al.

5746
Dominion Articles / Re: Request: Avoiding end-game deck stalls
« on: July 04, 2011, 10:40:55 am »
I have seen many a 2p game suffer from the "Double Penultimate Province Rule" stall.

Let's assume the score is 30-31, there is only 1 Buy, 2 Provinces left, couple of Duchies and Estates and it's P1's turn:
He buys a Duchy with $8 out of fear of P2 buying a Province.
P2, also with $8 realizes P1 is now in front and buys a Duchy out of fear of P1 ending the game ahead with the last Province.

This causes both players to essentially rush Duchies and Estates emptying both piles after a third one has already been emptied and ending the game that way, instead of buying the last Provinces.

The Duchies and Estates really hurt and after a couple of reshuffles, both players struggle to get to $5, never mind $8.

I often find myself wondering what to do in these situations, certainly if I have a more reliable deck, I should force the Duchy rush, but if my deck is worse, should I just gamble?

I guess I should pay more attention to my opponent's deck, looking for a good spot to gamble and buy that poisoned penultimate Province.
I don't have an eidetic memory however and find it hard enough to track my own deck.

Maybe it's easier in a live game, because the game moves slower and you have more feel with the cards; they make a more lasting impression than the text you read online.

5747
If there are +Actions available like Villages, you have to be very concerned about multiple Torturers.

If you have a crappy hand and get Tortured 3 times in a row, you may choose to discard them, but you run the risk of being completely overrun by your opponent and may have to swallow some Curses to be able to return the favor.

5748
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Which order to play?
« on: July 04, 2011, 09:02:36 am »
Why are you playing Hunting Party with a Copper strategy?
Playing HP with a Copper in your hand just skips them.

I generally play draw manipulators before blind drawing cards.

Cards I generally play first:
Spy, Pearl Diver, Scout, etc.

Not that Scrying Pool is an entirely blind card, but if you play Apothecary first, you can manipulate the remaining Action Cards for SP.

If you do it the other way around and reveal a Copper with your SP, you are conflicting with your Apo.

5749
Dominion Articles / Re: The Reliable Engine Part 1
« on: July 02, 2011, 09:44:29 am »
The Minion part needs a disclaimer that it doesn't work half as well in Platinum / Colony games as it does in Province games.

I rarely bother with them in Colony games.

5750
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Really bad card ideas
« on: July 01, 2011, 04:20:30 am »
I can't help myself: Possession, how is this not an Attack? Especially coupled with Masquerade or Ambassador in your opponent's hand.
A card that needs an entire page in the rulebook can't possibly be good...

And Black Market, I'm glad this is a Promo card, we don't all have every expansion so the Black Market deck in live games may not always be really representable. I also don't like the luck factor.
With no trashers in the normal kingdom, you find a Witch in there and I find a Bureaucrat, gg.

Philosopher's Stone? Slows the game down way too much.

Ok, so much for the existing cards, notice how 2 are from Alchemy? The worst set, no surprise there.


Now some examples of awful imaginary cards. To be truly awful, a card has to do at least one and maybe more than one of these things:
- Increase variance/luck (and frustration levels)
- Be too dominant (a must buy regardless of setup)
- Be utterly useless
- Need a page long FAQ
- Be subtle, there's no fun making a card that instantly wins or loses the game for you


Vial of Poison
Cost: 2
Treasure - Duration

+ 5$
Once played, this card will not be cleaned up for the entire game.
Every following turn the $ value decreases by one.

Why? Because you will likely need this early in the game, because you don't have much money then, but when played in turn 3, by turn 10, its value is already -$2.


Medusa
Cost: 4
Action - Attack

+1 Action
Pick a player, this player loses his turn, but may set aside 3 cards from his hand and take them in hand the next turn.

Why? Donald hates targeting a singe player. Most attacks / actions target every player or the player to your left. Spam this every turn and your opponent will be paralyzed.


Leech
Cost: 5
Action - Attack

The player to your left reveals and discards the top two cards from his deck. Gain a card costing exactly the same as the other two cards together.

Why? Extremely luck dependent. Have your opponent turn over 2 Coppers and gain a Copper, have him turn over a Province and a Copper and gain a Province.
Have him turn over a Province and an Estate and gain nothing.

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