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Topics - gman314

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26
Dominion General Discussion / Silly mistakes you always make
« on: January 25, 2013, 12:26:35 pm »
What are some silly mistakes you always make, always remind yourself not to make and then make again at the next opportunity?

I always have to remind myself that while Wharf is a good card and Menagerie is a good card, the two don't exactly go well together  :P

27
Game Reports / Fun with Cartographer
« on: January 14, 2013, 01:38:20 am »
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201301/13/game-20130113-223343-f9b31874.html

This was a really fun game to play. My opponent and I both open 5/2 and get Upgrade/-. Then, we each get a Masquerade and start passing stuff around as well. After this early trashing phase, we each have a few schemes and are looking at money now. I get a cartographer to even out draws, and then I pass him my Masq because I don't want it anymore. From then on I keep scheming the Cartographer so that I can keep looking at cards and setting up some good Hoard hands. All in all, a really fun game to play.

28
Game Reports / Why I like point counter
« on: December 16, 2012, 07:30:36 pm »
If I had had it here, I would have ended it a lot sooner.

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/16/game-20121216-162918-b2ae30f2.html

29
Variants and Fan Cards / Card idea - Choose order
« on: November 21, 2012, 09:56:39 pm »
Here is an idea my brother came up with. There's actually a lot of potential with this mechanism.

<Card Name>
Action - Attack - $??
Perform the following three tasks in any order:
Draw until you have 5 cards in hand, each other player draws a card;
Discard any number of cards, +1 coin per card discarded, each other player discards down to 3 cards in hand;
Trash a card from your hand, gaining a card costing exactly $2 more than the trashed card. Each other player may trash a card from their hand, gaining a card costing exactly $1 more than the trashed card.

It's quite wordy, but it's a cool mechanism. Any thoughts on price, or other similar card ideas?

30
Solo Challenges / Pools, Tools and Fools
« on: November 21, 2012, 07:03:57 pm »
The following set is the set Pools, Tools and Fools from the Alchemy rulebook.
Apothecary, Apprentice, Golem, Scrying Pool, Baron, Coppersmith, Ironworks, Nobles, Trading Post, Wishing Well

The challenge set here is a slight modification of that set.
Apothecary, Apprentice, Throne Room, Scrying Pool, Festival, Coppersmith, Library, Nobles, Moneylender, Wishing Well

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to run out the Province pile in as few turns as possible. Whoever takes the least turns wins. Score is a tie-breaker.

Please PM game logs to me by Monday the 26th at midnight EST.

31
Dominion General Discussion / Public Service Announcement
« on: November 20, 2012, 12:05:07 am »
Solo Challenges are fun. This forum has a board specifically for them. It is here: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?board=23.0

You should participate in them, even if you aren't good at them. If you aren't good, you may prefer the challenges where I select the kingdom and so you don't just have to build a KC engine. There hasn't been much participation in them, so you might win just by participating. And, you might learn something to.

The following closed kingdom challenge is open until Tuesday at midnight. You should participate
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5457.0

Now we return to our regularly scheduled programming.

32
Solo Challenges / Victory Dance!
« on: November 17, 2012, 12:06:55 am »
The following kingdom is the recommended set of ten "Victory Dance" from the Intrigue rulebook.
Bridge, Duke, Great Hall, Harem, Ironworks, Masquerade, Nobles, Pawn, Scout, Upgrade.

The challenge is not to play with that. The challenge is instead to play with the slightly modified version that I came up with.
Bridge, Crossroads, Duke, Great Hall, Harem, Horse Traders, Ironworks, Nobles, Tribute, Tunnel

Your mission, should you choose to accept it is to play a solo game with this kingdom and end the game in as few turns as possible. The game must end by three-piling. In fact, no Provinces may be purchased. The tiebreaker will be the number of points at game end. The winner gets 3 points, second place gets 2 and third place gets 1.

PM logs to me by Tuesday the 20th at midnight EST.

33
Solo Challenges / Embargo insanity
« on: November 16, 2012, 04:27:47 pm »
A source of great amusement for me is that Seaside comes with 30 Embargo tokens. Presumably, this was based on the knowledge that King's Court would come out. Still, before Prosperity, only 20 Embargo tokens would be necessary. So, the challenge here is to use all these tokens! You may choose the Kingdom (although you do need King's Court and Embargo!) and you need not end the game! Whoever can get 30 Embargo tokens on the board in as few turns as possible will win this challenge. Ties will be broken by the number of cards remaining in the supply, with more in the supply being better. Bonus points will be given for having all 10 Curses in your deck when you quit the game.

Logs PMed to me by Monday the 19th at midnight EST please.

3 points for first place, 2 for second, 1 for third and 1 for getting the bonus.

EDIT: The Curses are the only card in the supply which won't help your tie-breaking score. This way the bonus and the tie-breaking criteria aren't opposed to each other.

34
Solo Challenges / Run out the potions!
« on: November 13, 2012, 01:28:43 pm »
This challenge is inspired directly by this thread http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5364.0 except that I want to see it done.

So, the challenge is as follows. In a solo game, with a kingdom of your choice (must include at least one Alchemy card) end the game in as few turns as possible on Provinces with the Potion pile run out as well.

Ranking determined by number of turns taken with score as tiebreaker.

PM game logs to me by Thursday (the15th) at midnight (EST).

35
Dominion Strategy Wiki Feedback / Changes to Qvist Rankings and a bug
« on: November 10, 2012, 12:40:35 am »
http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/List_of_Cards_by_Qvist_Rankings

On the page of cards listed by Qvist Ranking, I went through and explained a bit about the methodology of the polls and then added the change in ranking between polls for each card. I did it for all of them, but then I had internet problems and lost the edits on the $5s and didn't want to do it again right away.

If more rankings happen, we can either eliminate the ranking change column or show the first - last change.

I also noticed a bug that I don't know how to fix. The page contents at the top says
Quote
2 Card Lists
2.1 cards
2.2 cards
2.3 cards
2.4 cards
2.5 or more cards

I think that missing the cost is because of the icons used to represent cost, but I don't know how to fix it.

36
Game Reports / My first Dark Ages experience!
« on: October 21, 2012, 10:30:22 pm »
So, I finally got to play a bit of Dark Ages! Got to play 3 games!

The first was 5-player with 10 random dark ages cards. There were some fun interactions between Ironmonger and Mystic. Also, Wandering Minstrel and Mystic. Pretty fun.

The second was also 5-player and was one of the Dark Ages/ Base recommended sets. I went for an approach with Rats and Remodel and was able to get quite a bit of Gold. My brother attempted the same but just got unlucky. However, the existence of Knights proved to be quite a nuisance as I tried to build a deck of nothing but Gold while all my cards were getting trashed. Not fun. However, it does seem that Rats + TfB is a viable strategy. Also, the benefits of the knights aren't really that important. The guy who won ignored the fancy tricks and bought Duchies starting super early.

The third had a bunch of different cards and was probably the most interesting. It was a 4 player game and had Lighthouse, Beggar, Warehouse, Bishop, Gardens, Cache, Contraband, Catacombs, King's Court and Expand. Three of us opened Bishop-Warehouse and of the three, two of us just wanted to shut down the fourth player who got a 5/2 and went with Cache/Beggar, obviously heading into Gardens. It really just came down to who transitioned best out of the Bishop start, with the Gardens player only getting 5 Gardens (the other 7 going to Bishops) worth 4 VP each.

37
Game Reports / What the heck just happened?
« on: October 17, 2012, 09:05:28 pm »
I have no idea how I managed to get so many Provinces!

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201210/17/game-20121017-180431-861d88e8.html

Turns 20-23 I somehow buy a Province each turn.

38
Dominion Articles / Explorer
« on: October 11, 2012, 11:12:40 pm »
This is my first attempt at an article; suggested by http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=4982.0 EDIT: There wasn't actually a suggestion for an Explorer article, but I thought there was. So, here is the article anyways!

Feedback encouraged!

Explorer

Explorer really has two different abilities: the first is that it can gain a Silver, the second is that it can gain a Gold. Of course, the second ability is strictly better than the first, which is why it’s a conditional benefit. But even when you get it with a Province, it’s basically just +$3, right? Wrong. A straight +$3 card would probably cost $5 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=4914.msg116206#msg116206). So, if Explorer is only +$3 at the best of times, it looks pretty silly at $5. The power of Explorer is that it gives you $2-3 every time you go through your deck. And, the money is in hand, which just makes it awesome! You get the benefit right away!

Comparing Explorer to other cards
There are two cards which seem quite obvious as comparisons for Explorer. The first is Mine. Mine is the only other card (I think) which gains you cards In Hand. Similarly, Mine adds $1 to your deck every time you go through it (without extra treasures, that is) while Explorer adds $2 or $3. The other difference being that while Explorer adds extra cards to your deck, Mine only replaces cards, which means that in a long enough game you'd see your Mine more than you'd see your Explorer. But, Mine runs out of useful things to do (when you run out of Copper or Silver in your deck) before Explorer which is good until the Gold and Silver both run out.Another reason that Mine really is an apt comparison for Explorer is because neither of them are particularly great $5s. What makes these cards weaker? The simple fact that getting a whole pile of money won’t be competitive most of the time. On most boards, some sort of engine should be able to dance all over Big Money and that’s exactly what all your treasure leads to. You generally don’t want much treasure in an engine if you can avoid it, and while Mine just refines what you have, Explorer adds cards to your deck.

The other comparison for Explorer is Tournament. This is because both want you to match them with a Province. However, they play very differently because of the difference between Gold and Prizes. That being said, ideas from Tournament do carry over to Explorer, particularly deck drawing and the value of trashing, as will be discussed below.

Types of Explorer Decks

However, Explorer’s role, and the type of deck you stick it in, really depends on which of its abilities you use it for most of the time. The most basic ability of Explorer is to gain Silver. This ability is generally looked down upon simply because Silver isn’t really that great (http://dominionstrategy.com/2011/01/17/beyond-silver/). Silver gets you to $5/$6 and then your $5s and Golds get you to Provinces. And in a Colony game, Silver doesn’t get you very far at all. Unless...

The Alt-VP approach

In most alt-VP strategies, money is good. Even Silver! Even if you never get a Province, you need some money to keep your strategy going. You’re filling your deck with green and so you need to add some money to actually keep buying your Green.  But you want to use your buys on your alt-VP and the Silver is unlikely to run out. So, use Explorer to gain Silver instead of buying it! Since you get in your hand, there's not a downside to having the Explorer this turn, because the Explorer means you get to both gain and play the Silver. With the extra Silver from a few Explorers, you can keep your Gardens/Silk Road/Duke/Feodum strategy going strong.

The Big Money approach

Another case where boatloads of money is a good thing is Big Money. Just play your Explorers for Silver and when you get lucky, get a Gold. Just as with alt-VP, the power of gaining Silver outside the buy phase helps you green. Worth mentioning here is the opening of Explorer/Chapel. Get rid of your deck, get some Silver, get a Province and get a whole pile of Gold. But, this is just a special case of the next case which is....

The Engine Approach

Finally, we have the very strange case of Explorer in an engine of some sort. Just like Tournament, Explorer is at its best when you can get it with a Province. So, you want to set up some good drawing or trashing. But won’t the Gold just clog up the engine? Yes, but without virtual coin, you might need Gold in your engine. However, Explorer is a little too slow to set that up. But there are other reasons you might want some Gold in your engine. You may have a fragile engine which needs Gold to help it green, as it sputters and turns into a weak deck. The Gold can help you transition to a sort of BM deck as you finish. As a specific example, consider a TfB engine. These decks rely on having good cards to trash, but if the game goes on long enough you may run out of appealing targets, or your deck may only have $8. In particular, Apprentice says hi. Not only does it love to trash Gold, but it also helps you pair the Gold with an Explorer.A little Explorer can get you a Gold every turn which your TfB can use to keep you in the game.

The other case of an Explorer engine is the general case of Explorer-Chapel. In many Chapel openings, it's possible for your engine to accelerate ahead of your cash flow. You find yourself drawing your deck with 3 Buys, 5 extra Actions and hardly any money. Solution: Buy an Explorer! It builds the money into your engine! You gain money on your action phase so you can keep buying Engine parts or Provinces, and it's in hand, so you added +$2 or +$3 to your current turn! And if you keep drawing your deck, you're gaining nothing but Gold! It's spectacular!

And a final note on that automatic engine-creation card: King's Court. Setting up KC-Explorer is not a great move on its own, because playing it decreases the chance that future KCs will hit useful stuff. That being said, if you're drawing your deck, the 3 Golds probably won't totally knock out your engine and will help you to deal with the green you're adding. Or, if you have TfBs, adding 18 in value to your deck is just spectacular.

Attacks

As always, something needs to be said about what attacks do to the card. The damage of Cursers depends on what you're trying to do. If you're relying on matching with a Province, you're going to have a bad time if there's Curses in the game. But if it's a slog where your deck is full of Curses and you can't seem to hit $6 no matter what you do, you may want the Silver from Explorer. This really applies to any case where the pace of the game is just knocked down, which can also happen if there's too many Militias or Minions flying around. Hand size decreasers only hurt as much as they hurt the type of deck you're building, because Explorer probably isn't really the key card, but rather a helper. If you're trying for some sort of Explorer/Warehouse combo, a Militia hurts because it hurts Warehouse. Alternatively, a Library engine can easily withstand Militia. Probably the most damaging attacks for Explorer are Thief, Pirate Ship and Noble Brigand because of all that money you have. With them you definitely have to think carefully about buying Explorer.

A fun note about Possession: If a player possesses an Explorer, the Possessing player gains the treasure, but not in hand. So, the primary value of Explorer (gaining in hand) is lost.

Works with:
Most Alt-VP (Gardens, Silk Road, Feodum, Duke)
Big Money
TfB engines
Big draw engines which need treasure
Trashing
Non-terminal draw
Sifters

Conflicts with:
Opponents' cursers (sometimes)
Faster strategies
Colonies
Most engines
Cards which provide +$
Menagerie/Harvest/Fairgrounds
Handsize attacks (Sometimes)

39
Dominion General Discussion / Islam
« on: September 26, 2012, 11:54:18 pm »
Writing a paper on early Islam and I can't help but think of Caravan, Harem, Oasis and to a certain extent Hermit/Madman.

40
Game Reports / Fun Hunting Party twist and questions
« on: August 28, 2012, 12:47:51 pm »
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201208/28/game-20120828-093244-c1458c9f.html

The card that jumped out to me on this board was Hunting Party so I immediately started looking for terminal silvers. The available choices were Steward, Bridge, Venture (not an action, but still works!) and Coppersmith (Not guaranteed +$2 and outclassed by Bridge). Thinking that I might not actually play the HP strategy, I decided to go for Steward since it could fit into an HP stack or into a KC game. (Although, I very often ignore KC on Province boards). While trashing isn't hugely beneficial for the HP stack, if you can quickly eliminate the estates (which I didn't) you can speed it up significantly by having one less name in your deck. So, I opened Steward/Silver and started trashing a bit. Being stuck with $2 after trashing turns, I opted to buy Havens, rationalizing that they could set aside excess HPs and money. Or, if I set aside an Estate, it could find a Steward and if I set aside a Province, that could be an extra name in my hand so that HPs find good stuff.

With my deck hitting $8 with only one HP I thought "well, may as well buy a province" and it seems to have worked! Getting 3 in a row was definitely awesome. And then having 4 after 11 turns pretty much sealed the win.

But, my opponent wasn't exactly playing well. (See what he draws after turn 8 and compare with what he plays on turn 9). So, I'm wondering, was my strategy actually good or not? Should I have waited for Provinces? Would it have been a better strategy to go for KC-KC-B-B-B with support from Steward's trashing and Lab's drawing? (EDIT: And Havens)

41
Puzzles and Challenges / Empty the spoils pile - Permanently!!!
« on: August 17, 2012, 01:05:19 pm »
Your mission, should you choose to accept it is to figure out how to gain and then trash all the Spoils in as few turns as possible (Turns taken with Possession/Outpost count towards this total). I don't have a solution yet, but I'll think about one.

EDIT: If you want, you may use the Spoils, but then you have to get them again and trash them. And, it's a solitaire game.

42
Council Room Feedback / Goals question
« on: August 03, 2012, 12:23:21 pm »
There are certain goals which are subsets of other goals. For instance Peer<Regent<Royal Heir<Monarch<Imperial<Archon. So, if you score more than 110 points, do you get all 6 goals or just the best one that you're eligible for?

43
Game Reports / Three-way tie!
« on: August 02, 2012, 04:32:12 pm »
Never seen this before! And with diverging strategies too!
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201208/02/game-20120802-132859-225c563a.html

44
Game Reports / I do KC-KC-Bridge-Bridge-Bridge!
« on: July 24, 2012, 12:37:10 pm »
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/24/game-20120724-093407-911fb978.html

Wasn't even trying for it but on the last turn suddenly saw that I had drawn the exact components!

45
Game Reports / Vineyard makes me feel like a village idiot!
« on: July 20, 2012, 05:27:13 pm »
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/20/game-20120720-142407-f604b7f0.html

Doesn't it feel great when having 8 villages is helping you win? :D

46
Variants and Fan Cards / Card idea - Self-countering Sea Hag
« on: July 16, 2012, 04:48:26 pm »
There are some cards which indirectly counter the effects of their own attack. For instance, if you play a Ghost Ship after an opponent's Ghost Ship, you draw the cards you put on top. It would be interesting to have a Sea Hag variant to this effect:

Sea Hag +
Action - Attack $5
Every player (including you) discards the top of their deck. Each other player gains a Curse on top of their deck.

Thoughts?

47
Other Games / Race for the Galaxy
« on: July 10, 2012, 05:41:49 pm »
I really like RftG, and I gather that some players here play it as well. Is there anywhere I can find RftG online or find online resources discussing it? Does something like dominionstrategy.com exist for RftG?

48
Council Room Feedback / Resignations
« on: July 03, 2012, 05:08:23 pm »
I think that this is the best place to put this, although it might fit in a couple. (Would isotropic discussion be a better place?)

Is there a minimum number of turns that need to be played in order for a resign to count as a loss rather than as if nothing happened? I ask this because in 3-player games it's not uncommon for one player to resign before even hitting 2 turns. In those games, I will generally resign on my next turn and explain to my remaining opponent that I don't like 2-player games with the big piles of 3 player games. So, am I getting more losses than I should otherwise be getting or does the system take into account the number of turns played and get rid of those that don't reach a threshold?

49
Dominion General Discussion / Bishop Treasury combo?
« on: June 27, 2012, 04:50:57 pm »
I have no idea if this has been discussed before, but it seems like a good combo. The main problem with Treasury is that getting points disrupts your Treasury chain. And if you go Bishop crazy without a plan, you'll find yourself unable to buy anything. It seems to me that Bishop would be useful to give a Treasury deck points while keeping the Treasuries on top. And, the Treasuries would keep buying things for the Bishop to trash. In the best-case scenario, a deck could consist of N Treasuries, a Bishop and an (N+1)-cost card which could get trashed and replaced every turn.

Has anyone actually tried this or thought about it before? Is it a good idea or not?

50
Rules Questions / Inn and Masquerade
« on: June 24, 2012, 07:32:00 pm »
This question just came up in a RL game with some friends who value Inn's on-gain ability over what it does when played. If you receive an Inn as the result of a Masquerade, do you get to shuffle cards into your deck?

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