Dominion Strategy Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Pages: [1]

Author Topic: New to dominion, how much potential for competition?  (Read 5212 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

maniteesquad

  • Pawn
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2
  • Respect: 0
    • View Profile
New to dominion, how much potential for competition?
« on: January 11, 2014, 05:32:38 pm »
0

Hi, I'm maniteesquad, new to the forums and to dominion in general.

I play a LOT of games and have recently found dominion to be extremely fun. However, I realize that learning the entire game with all of the expansions etc will take considerable investment.

I was wondering how competitive dominion gets, mostly in respect to online play? I am very interested in Leagues or tournaments, but if there isn't enough of a competitive community I can't see myself shelling out the money for all of the expansions and possibly the physical sets.

Thanks in advance for any and all replies!
Logged

jsh357

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2577
  • Shuffle iT Username: jsh357
  • Respect: +4340
    • View Profile
    • JSH Gaming: Original games
Re: New to dominion, how much potential for competition?
« Reply #1 on: January 11, 2014, 05:43:52 pm »
0

If you check the Tournaments subforum, you will see several threads related to past tournaments held here.  Another one, GokoDom III, is supposed to be starting within a few months.  There is also a trueskill leaderboard for Goko: http://gokologs.drunkensailor.org/leaderboard/ (It isn't loading for me right now, which is a bit odd)  In general, this community is competitive but helpful toward one another.  Dominion can be played either 'seriously' or 'for fun,' which is one of the reasons it's maintained popularity. 

One of the things holding us back right now, unfortunately, is that Goko's uptime has been sporadic lately and also many good players quit playing because they don't like Goko's interface/practices/hair/etc. 

« Last Edit: January 11, 2014, 05:47:13 pm by jsh357 »
Logged
Join the Dominion community Discord channel! Chat in text and voice; enter dumb tournaments; spy on top players!

https://discord.gg/2rDpJ4N

maniteesquad

  • Pawn
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2
  • Respect: 0
    • View Profile
Re: New to dominion, how much potential for competition?
« Reply #2 on: January 11, 2014, 06:26:44 pm »
0

Thanks for the quick reply!

Good to hear it has an active competitive side, it looks like a pretty close community.

So branching from that, is there a certain format or certain expansions I should be playing to prepare? Should I just be playing ranked games on Goko?
Logged

jsh357

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2577
  • Shuffle iT Username: jsh357
  • Respect: +4340
    • View Profile
    • JSH Gaming: Original games
Re: New to dominion, how much potential for competition?
« Reply #3 on: January 11, 2014, 06:35:50 pm »
0

"Pro" mode on Goko (all expansions owned by the hoster, 10 random cards selected) is the format used pretty much always unless someone designs kingdoms for a tournament, which happened for the last round of the dominionstrategy championships.  If you want to compete with everyone, obviously you'll need to be exposed to all of the cards.  I recommend this wiki page for general strategy advice, but there's a lot of creativity and tactical know-how that goes in to it too.

http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Strategy

If you want to play with all cards without buying, you have no choice but to wait for someone to host a game that says 'all cards' in the title.  Good luck with that.
Logged
Join the Dominion community Discord channel! Chat in text and voice; enter dumb tournaments; spy on top players!

https://discord.gg/2rDpJ4N

qmech

  • Torturer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1918
  • Shuffle iT Username: qmech
  • What year is it?
  • Respect: +2320
    • View Profile
Re: New to dominion, how much potential for competition?
« Reply #4 on: January 11, 2014, 07:12:47 pm »
0

If you want to play with all cards without buying, you have no choice but to wait for someone to host a game that says 'all cards' in the title.  Good luck with that.

Not everybody with all the cards mentions it in game titles: I certainly don't.  Normally I assume that a high-rated player hosting a game is going to have at least some of the expansions.

If you've not seen them yet, some great browser extensions have been developed by the community to make the Goko experience much more pleasant.  The main advantage is that they make the log permanently visible, which means you don't have to be watching hawk-eyed during your opponent's turns.  They also allow you to set a custom avatar, which sounds useless at first, but is actually quite handy as it advertises that you're at least clued-up enough to know about the extension.

To answer your original question, Dominion can be a very competitive game.  Some tournaments do get organised, but most of the competition centres around jostling for position on the leaderboard.
Logged

Smartie

  • Coppersmith
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 48
  • Respect: +12
    • View Profile
Re: New to dominion, how much potential for competition?
« Reply #5 on: January 12, 2014, 07:28:07 pm »
0

To me, I think if u really like the game and want to play it competitively, I recommend buying the cards. At least it is a one time off payment, and saves u much time searching for games =) Nonetheless, did take me a while before I decided to buy it though  :P
Logged

Jimmmmm

  • Torturer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1762
  • Shuffle iT Username: Jimmmmm
  • Respect: +2017
    • View Profile
Re: New to dominion, how much potential for competition?
« Reply #6 on: January 12, 2014, 08:09:20 pm »
0

I haven't bought any cards, and I find it relatively easy to get a game, either by waiting for one to pop up or by using the automatch that comes with the extension. Obviously if everyone did this it wouldn't work, but it's a good thing to do to help you decide whether or not buying the cards is what you want to do. For me, I'll buy the cards when I'm confident that Goko is here to stay.
Logged

yed

  • Minion
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 620
  • Shuffle iT Username: yed
  • Respect: +571
    • View Profile
Re: New to dominion, how much potential for competition?
« Reply #7 on: January 13, 2014, 05:49:00 am »
+3

For me, I'll buy the cards when I'm confident that Goko is here to stay.
So never...
Logged

thespaceinvader

  • Minion
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 641
  • Respect: +120
    • View Profile
Re: New to dominion, how much potential for competition?
« Reply #8 on: January 13, 2014, 08:33:57 am »
0

However, I realize that learning the entire game with all of the expansions etc will take considerable investment.
You shouldn't need to learn all the expansions by heart to play well.  It's far more useful to understand the principles of how bonus draw, actions and money etc interact, and learn how to read boards.

There are a few key tricks it can help to know (NV/Bridge, KC/Goons/Masq pin etc) but overall, knowing the theoretical basis of the game is far more important than encyclopaedic knowledge of all the cards and combos.

Encyclopaedic knowledge doesn't hurt, though.
Logged

SirPeebles

  • Cartographer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3249
  • Respect: +5459
    • View Profile
Re: New to dominion, how much potential for competition?
« Reply #9 on: January 13, 2014, 08:56:03 am »
+1

In terms of competitive online play, it is almost exclusively two player Dominion.  If you happen to be looking for competitive three player or four player, I don't believe you'll find all that much.  There are still some IRL tournaments though.
Logged
Well you *do* need a signature...

shark_bait

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1103
  • Shuffle iT Username: shark_bait
  • Luckyfin and Land of Hinter for iso aliases
  • Respect: +1868
    • View Profile
Re: New to dominion, how much potential for competition?
« Reply #10 on: January 13, 2014, 10:04:21 am »
0


Good to hear it has an active competitive side, it looks like a pretty close community.


Apart from tournaments there is a good leaderboard maintained at this site.  Just trying to improve your rank makes for each game having a nice competitive edge to it.

And yes, this is quite a close community.  Things like discussions on ethics and morality of shuffling to rants about Goko have served to bring us quite close.  And then there's also this fact that we all love Dominion.
Logged
Hello.  Name's Bruce.  It's all right.  I understand.  Why trust a shark, right?

Is quite curious - Who is the mystical "Celestial Chameleon"?

Tables

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2816
  • Build more Bridges in the King's Court!
  • Respect: +3347
    • View Profile
Re: New to dominion, how much potential for competition?
« Reply #11 on: January 13, 2014, 12:09:39 pm »
+4


Good to hear it has an active competitive side, it looks like a pretty close community.


Apart from tournaments there is a good leaderboard maintained at this site.  Just trying to improve your rank makes for each game having a nice competitive edge to it.

And yes, this is quite a close community.  Things like discussions on ethics and morality of shuffling to rants about Goko have served to bring us quite close.  And then there's also this fact that we all love Dominion.

There's one thing that's even more significant, of course.

Have you checked out the Forum Ga *shot*
Logged
...spin-offs are still better for all of the previously cited reasons.
But not strictly better, because the spinoff can have a different cost than the expansion.

Ozle

  • Cartographer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3625
  • Sorry, this text is personal.
  • Respect: +3360
    • View Profile
Re: New to dominion, how much potential for competition?
« Reply #12 on: January 13, 2014, 03:03:22 pm »
0

For me, I'll buy the cards when I'm confident that Goko is here to stay.

What is the cost for the cards these days? £40?
Thats the price of one PC/Xbox game.
If you had bought them all at the beginning you would have had at least 2 months+ worth of play out of them.
Now obviously you may not be the Console gamer type, but thats still a pretty good return on investment in my book.
Logged
Try the Ozle Google Map Challenge!
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=7466.0

Sullying players Enjoyment of Innovation since 2013 Apparently!

popsofctown

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5477
  • Respect: +2860
    • View Profile
Re: New to dominion, how much potential for competition?
« Reply #13 on: January 13, 2014, 04:26:02 pm »
0

For me, I'll buy the cards when I'm confident that Goko is here to stay.

What is the cost for the cards these days? £40?
Thats the price of one PC/Xbox game.
If you had bought them all at the beginning you would have had at least 2 months+ worth of play out of them.
Now obviously you may not be the Console gamer type, but thats still a pretty good return on investment in my book.
40 euros is around the cost of entire year of XBox live, if I'm not mistaken.  Will Goko make it a year?  Or a year and a half when you have to adjust for getting much more stability on Xbox live.
If Goko just flies by night you won't even be able to play the bots.  If Bungie employees embezzle their own money and fly to Switzerland you still get to play your campaigns offline.

The "Xbox console gamer" is really not the group you want to compare to if you want to demonstrate that people will pay lots of money for a nonphysical product.  That's the group that created massive uproar over the Xbox One's previously announced, and now cancelled, discless design.
« Last Edit: January 13, 2014, 04:27:44 pm by popsofctown »
Logged

Ozle

  • Cartographer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3625
  • Sorry, this text is personal.
  • Respect: +3360
    • View Profile
Re: New to dominion, how much potential for competition?
« Reply #14 on: January 13, 2014, 06:05:27 pm »
0

XBox live is on top of the games though? I dunno, I only have 4 games on mine (One day I'll finish Raving Rabbids 4 and ill buy myself the next one int he series)

Although thats beside the point, its a cost per usage example.
I could have used a football match, or 10 cinema tickets

If Jimmmm had signed up at the beginning instead of waiting to see if GOKO was still around for ever, then he would more than likely had more than his monies worth by now.
Logged
Try the Ozle Google Map Challenge!
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=7466.0

Sullying players Enjoyment of Innovation since 2013 Apparently!

popsofctown

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5477
  • Respect: +2860
    • View Profile
Re: New to dominion, how much potential for competition?
« Reply #15 on: January 13, 2014, 08:43:59 pm »
0

XBox live is on top of the games though? I dunno, I only have 4 games on mine (One day I'll finish Raving Rabbids 4 and ill buy myself the next one int he series)

Although thats beside the point, its a cost per usage example.
I could have used a football match, or 10 cinema tickets

If Jimmmm had signed up at the beginning instead of waiting to see if GOKO was still around for ever, then he would more than likely had more than his monies worth by now.

Xbox live is on top of the games.  If you buy Halo for 50$ and Xbox Live for 50$/year that's 10$ a month for online gaming, plus infinite play afterwards.  If Goko lasts 2 more months after you buy in, it's 20$ a month, and you'll never get any offline play.

Also, it has gone on for a good while, but at the outset there was no way of knowing it would last this long.  That's like saying, "Clearly you're a fool for not betting 500$ on the Red Sox to win that game" after the game.  You have to use the information known at the time of the decision.
Logged

Warfreak2

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1149
  • KC->KC->[Scavenger, Scavenger, Lookout]
  • Respect: +1324
    • View Profile
    • Music what I do
Re: New to dominion, how much potential for competition?
« Reply #16 on: January 14, 2014, 05:50:48 am »
0

The other thing is that online Dominion should be a lot cheaper to create than Halo, and in a competitive marketplace (online Dominion does compete with other online board games) prices are driven down towards the marginal cost of production. Even if online Dominion turns out to cost exactly the same as online Halo, that still isn't a good deal because you can more readily compare it to other online board games which are expected to be cheaper.
Logged
If the only engine on the board is Procession->Conspirator, I will play it.

Ozle

  • Cartographer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3625
  • Sorry, this text is personal.
  • Respect: +3360
    • View Profile
Re: New to dominion, how much potential for competition?
« Reply #17 on: January 14, 2014, 02:06:16 pm »
0

XBox live is on top of the games though? I dunno, I only have 4 games on mine (One day I'll finish Raving Rabbids 4 and ill buy myself the next one int he series)

Although thats beside the point, its a cost per usage example.
I could have used a football match, or 10 cinema tickets

If Jimmmm had signed up at the beginning instead of waiting to see if GOKO was still around for ever, then he would more than likely had more than his monies worth by now.

Xbox live is on top of the games.  If you buy Halo for 50$ and Xbox Live for 50$/year that's 10$ a month for online gaming, plus infinite play afterwards.  If Goko lasts 2 more months after you buy in, it's 20$ a month, and you'll never get any offline play.

But people dont play most Xbox games infinitely, they could, but they don't. The majority are all done and dusted within a few months.

Also, it has gone on for a good while, but at the outset there was no way of knowing it would last this long.  That's like saying, "Clearly you're a fool for not betting 500$ on the Red Sox to win that game" after the game.  You have to use the information known at the time of the decision.

Yes, pretty sure that is my point here.....if he had taken the leap at the beginning it would have been worth it by now, but the longer you leave it the lower those prospects become. Im not saying he should have had hindsight and done it, just that the waiting to to  see if it became permament is not such a great idea (because likely it wont be)

In your analogy there it would be like waiting to see if the Red Sox won every series before deciding whether to bet on them.
Logged
Try the Ozle Google Map Challenge!
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=7466.0

Sullying players Enjoyment of Innovation since 2013 Apparently!

Ozle

  • Cartographer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3625
  • Sorry, this text is personal.
  • Respect: +3360
    • View Profile
Re: New to dominion, how much potential for competition?
« Reply #18 on: January 14, 2014, 02:08:02 pm »
0

The other thing is that online Dominion should be a lot cheaper to create than Halo, and in a competitive marketplace (online Dominion does compete with other online board games) prices are driven down towards the marginal cost of production. Even if online Dominion turns out to cost exactly the same as online Halo, that still isn't a good deal because you can more readily compare it to other online board games which are expected to be cheaper.

ok, firstly, Goko have blown millions and this is what they have. So while it 'should' be a lot cheaper. its not.

But that is largely irrelevant, when I look at buying games and other entertainment my thought process is 'This costs X amount, will I get X amount of fun out of it'  (and then I usually get suckered by the shiny wrapping and hype and buy it anyway...)
Logged
Try the Ozle Google Map Challenge!
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=7466.0

Sullying players Enjoyment of Innovation since 2013 Apparently!
Pages: [1]
 

Page created in 0.479 seconds with 21 queries.