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Author Topic: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?  (Read 13920 times)

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theory

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How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« on: December 02, 2011, 01:05:08 pm »
0

There are things that you can do when designing a computer game that you simply cannot in a real-life game.  How could you imagine changes to Dominion, if you didn't have to worry about messy real-life decks of cards?

For instance: you can have cards like Philosopher's Stone, but much more in-depth.  A Treasure whose value depends on Victory cards: like Silk Roads or Gardens, but dynamically changing on each turn. 

Alternatively: many, many more kingdoms, with a greatly prolonged game time.  Make it a war, not a battle.
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werothegreat

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #1 on: December 02, 2011, 03:20:49 pm »
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I've thought about this before - have a persistent kingdom that you add to every turn - there's a little map of your kingdom that grows as you buy Woodcutters, Border Villages, Highways, Bazaars...  and then you would be able to use your entire kingdom each turn, provided you had the Actions for it.  Of course, you'd have to buy Estates, Duchies and Provinces to put all your stuff on...
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Kirian

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #2 on: December 03, 2011, 04:22:34 pm »
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I think it would be called "Starcraft."
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plasticbrain

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #3 on: December 05, 2011, 04:10:42 pm »
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i guess you could do it like a simplified RTS like Plants vs. Zombies. instead of Sunflowers, you'd buy Villages/Kingdoms  to put on a map that would then churn out Gold, Actions and Card abilities at random intervals. but to buy Estates/Duchy/Province you have to convert your Kingdoms, thus losing some of your ability spawning. and maybe these converted-into-VP-Towers could be attacked, like in a Tower defense.
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theory

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #4 on: December 05, 2011, 05:03:56 pm »
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Maybe I didn't explain clearly.  I meant, what if Dominion was designed to be played on Isotropic from the get-go?  The game is still essentially the same, but we are no longer restricted by the disadvantages of physical cards.  Philosopher's Stone variants would be feasible since they would no longer unbelievably delay games.
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AJD

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #5 on: December 05, 2011, 05:09:50 pm »
+2

There would, in fact, be unlimited Copper, Silver, and Gold. (This would substantially change four-player Mountebank games.)
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guided

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #6 on: December 05, 2011, 05:16:46 pm »
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And Trader games. And Governor games. :D
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Deadlock39

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #7 on: December 05, 2011, 05:19:46 pm »
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And Golem/Tunnel.

plasticbrain

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #8 on: December 05, 2011, 05:24:02 pm »
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Maybe I didn't explain clearly.  I meant, what if Dominion was designed to be played on Isotropic from the get-go?  The game is still essentially the same, but we are no longer restricted by the disadvantages of physical cards.  Philosopher's Stone variants would be feasible since they would no longer unbelievably delay games.
if it's just going to be a card game, except digital, then i wouldn't change anything.
that's why i suggested more radical changes for a videogame conversion.
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popsofctown

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #9 on: December 05, 2011, 05:43:32 pm »
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most cards could have built in logic that autoplays the card
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ftl

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #10 on: December 05, 2011, 05:57:23 pm »
+2

Here's some thoughts. Don't know whether they're necessarily correct, of course.

I suspect there would be more options for trading between coins, buys, and actions. As it is, keeping in your head how many actions, coins, buys you have isn't that hard, but I can understand why there aren't any plans for cards that mess with that - Diadem gives you coins for your spare actions, but that's it. If it were designed from the start as a computer game, it would be a lot easier to deal with tradeoffs - if there's big public counters for [coins, actions, buys] then it's no big deal to have cards that have minuses as well as pluses. It's a design space which is easier to deal with when there's an automated counter.

Card complexity would have an additional factor - number of clicks. I suspect cards would be made to minimize tedious clicks. As it is, Hamlet-Library is SO ANNOYING to play with or play against online, in a way that IRL games don't have. I  bet that Hamlet would work differently. Going along with that, I would GUESS that for attacks with choices, you'd make the choice before seeing a reaction, at the same time as you play a card. (Again, to minimize clicks for obvious choices. Your Pirate Ship card would have a nice graphical interface - you play it by clicking 'Attack!' or 'Coins!', single click to play the card, without reactions. In a long Minion chain, it would take one click per Minion instead of two. But if there ARE reactions, you obviously can't change the interface for just those. In person, there's no need - without reactions, you just say 'Pirate Ship, Coins' immediately, but online that involves an extra click.) Obviously, there may be rebalancing that goes along with that. It's not necessarily better, just more suited to online play IMO. 

Durations that last longer than one turn, or variable numbers of turns. IRL - you're not going to expect people to remember exactly what they played two turns ago.

More actions that give plusses based on what the opponent did on the previous turn. '+1 action for every 5 action cards your opponent played last turn, rounded up. +1 card for every attack card your opponent played last turn.' Or stuff like that. Obviously you can do things with treasures, vp, actions, etc. Not so feasible IRL because cards get discarded and you don't remember exactly what happened - Smugglers is about as much as you can do with that IRL, you can't get too complex.

You would probably only be able to reveal each reaction once per attack. As it is, the reason you can reveal more is I think(if I remember Donald's comments correctly) partially due to accountability - you can't know whether the other person has one Secret Chamber in hand or two, or if they drew another one from the top of their deck, or so on. Same with the others, you don't know whether it's one reaction multiple times or different ones. Electronic accountability makes that easy.

In general, any design decisions that were made for the accountability reasons would no longer need that.

Oh, and there would be awesome animations for everything.

Quote
most cards could have built in logic that autoplays the card


Disagree. The game is complex enough so that card plays are very rarely automatic - controlling reshuffles and all that, I don't *always* want to play that Smithy or Village if I know what's left in my deck.
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popsofctown

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #11 on: December 05, 2011, 06:05:36 pm »
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Sure, sometimes you don't play village because you might trigger a reshuffle.  But that depth is only tapped about 2% of all the times you ever play a village.  In a software implementation, you're better off making village a forced-play card.  The time saved by forcing the village to be played will be used making other decisions in a best out of 9 instead of a best out of seven.
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Kirian

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #12 on: December 05, 2011, 07:14:19 pm »
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Sure, sometimes you don't play village because you might trigger a reshuffle.  But that depth is only tapped about 2% of all the times you ever play a village.  In a software implementation, you're better off making village a forced-play card.  The time saved by forcing the village to be played will be used making other decisions in a best out of 9 instead of a best out of seven.

Except sometimes it's nice to play Village later rather than earlier.  If your hand is 3xVillage, Envoy, Gold, you want to play Village, then Envoy, so your opponent doesn't know how many actions you have left.

Or you might want to play Hunting Party before Village if (for whatever reason) you didn't want to draw another Village.

If you have a Menagerie and 4 different cards, one of which is Village, you want to play Menagerie first or Village might draw a duplicate.

If you just drew Village rearranged your top two cards with Apothecary, and you have Wishing Well in hand, you want to play WW first.

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Bulb

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #13 on: December 05, 2011, 07:46:13 pm »
+1

Wondering how nobody has mentioned this... I know I'm not the only programmer to read these boards...

Cards with random results/powers.  Imagine...

...a $3 Remodel that chose your target randomly.  You could even pro-rate the odds for cards that cost more - e.g. if you Random-Remodel a Gold, you will get a Province most of the time... but sometimes you'll just get a Gold back.

...or a $2 random Steward.  (Don't play it when you're only holding Provinces...)

...or a $5 Gold that, 25% of the time, prohibits you from buying Victory cards.

Shuffling is the only random aspect of card-based Dominion - but if we're designing the game to be a video game, why not add some more random elements?
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rod-

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #14 on: December 05, 2011, 07:48:06 pm »
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Back ON topic, you could get rid of the "shuffle" altogether, getting rid of some of the most luck-driven frustrating aspects of the game.  As long as the gameplay logic dictates that the next card drawn is randomly selected from all cards which:
A) Have been drawn (N-1) times thus far, where N = the maximum number of times any card has been drawn (the N for newly-gained cards would have to be set to whatever N currently is)
B) Are not currently in play.

And while instinctively, this does not seem qualitatively different from the way dominion currently works, it is.  If a card "misses a shuffle" in the above system, it does not get played 1/2 as often as other cards during that 2-shuffle window.
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mischiefmaker

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #15 on: December 05, 2011, 08:22:33 pm »
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Alternatively: many, many more kingdoms, with a greatly prolonged game time. Make it a war, not a battle.

Perhaps something like this?

http://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/72853/error/expired/dominion-campaign-rules-v01

Haven't tried it out yet -- one of the things I like about Dominion is how quickly each game plays -- but it sounds neat, and a computer implementation does away with the need for that complicated tracking sheet.
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Tydude

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #16 on: December 05, 2011, 09:01:13 pm »
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You could bypass many of the problems with not being able to trust players. You could, for example, have a card that says "Each other player reveals their highest costing card from their hand" without having to make them reveal their whole hand. This also works for cards like Menagerie, which could no longer have you reveal your hand to the other players. You could also pull cards out of the deck without searching the deck. For example, "Put the highest costing card from your deck into your hand". Or, perhaps, "Put all your action cards from your deck on top of your deck".

And, perhaps most importantly, it could give you all the possible trashing combinations for when you play Forge! No longer will you have to add up every possible combination of cards from your hand, and then check the board to see what you get. Think of how much time will be saved!  :P
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DG

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #17 on: December 05, 2011, 09:17:26 pm »
+1

If it was originally a computer game then
- you need not have a draw or discard deck at all. You could just have 'items' in your 'empire' and when you draw you get a random 'item' from your 'empire'. Any 'item' gained is immediately in your empire. Instead of re-arranging a draw deck you could perhaps plan a series of draws, draw an item of choice, or restrict a draw to a type of 'item'.
- if you keep draw decks you have actions that shuffle, reorder, and search through them constantly.
- each card in your empire could vary uniquely even if it is gained from a uniform supply. For example, each witch might dispense only three curses throughout the game and that could be tallied for each individual witch when it was played.
- victory cards could uniquely named and located on a map so that you could only gain that victory card if you owned a neighbouring area. The locations could be uniquely costed with unique vp scores and other potential benefits as well (such as when you gain Champagne you gain a vineyard).
- you could associate cards together so that they are always drawn at the same time, or perhaps one new card could represent both effects so once combined you could draw a bureaucrat+saboteur for one card and play it for one action.
- the game could run in real time so if your opponent gives you a curse you could draw it a second later, or perhaps you could wait until your opponent had 10 cards in hand to play your militia.
- you could make secret purchases and you would never need to reveal your hand
- you could remove a lot of 'may' clauses and put complex interactions onto the cards that will resolve automatically but instantly.
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popsofctown

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #18 on: December 05, 2011, 09:58:44 pm »
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Kirian I'm thinking of if dominion were designed to be a computer game from the very start.  The solution to your problem would possibly be "Don't print Menagerie".  Envoy also is less interesting design space when you could be building single click engines and fighting eachother through automatic Moats.  Things get fast.
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Tydude

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #19 on: December 05, 2011, 10:21:59 pm »
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Kirian I'm thinking of if dominion were designed to be a computer game from the very start.  The solution to your problem would possibly be "Don't print Menagerie".  Envoy also is less interesting design space when you could be building single click engines and fighting eachother through automatic Moats.  Things get fast.

I would never want to play this game. All you do on your turn is a single click? That sounds insanely boring and dull. No thanks.
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popsofctown

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #20 on: December 05, 2011, 10:29:02 pm »
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That was hyperbole.  There would still be lots of choosing.  Just not on things like village.  More Steward decisions, less village decisions.
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guided

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #21 on: December 05, 2011, 10:49:02 pm »
+2

Auto-playing Village is an absolute non-starter. There are meaningful decisions about when to play Village all the time.
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DStu

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #22 on: December 06, 2011, 06:33:06 am »
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And, perhaps most importantly, it could give you all the possible trashing combinations for when you play Forge! No longer will you have to add up every possible combination of cards from your hand, and then check the board to see what you get. Think of how much time will be saved!  :P

You don't want a list with the 2^(#cards in hand) possibility what to trash, each entry dublicated for (#how many cards you can gain for that price) times. What you perhaps could do is hover over a "target" and get a list of cards that could be forged to this target, excluding dublicates, likely excluding 0-cost cards. Which you must add by hand.

Also +1 for no autoplay on Village. There are so many situations where you don't want it, to add some to the list:
KC,TR
Trash for benefit
reshuffle
good cards left in your deck, but already enough value in the hand
Menangerie/HP
Bad cards on your deck (Spy et al) and Native Village/Lookout
Pearl Diver/Apothecary/Scout usually wants to be played before the first Village the first time, for the second one it depends on what you see
empty deck + Vault/SC


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yuma

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #23 on: December 06, 2011, 09:01:57 am »
+1

In response to ideas about what you could do for a Philosopher's Stone card... I think a card that gives money based of the number of actions that have been bought by the group as a whole would be interesting. "Maybe for every 2 actions bought or worth one coin." It would be a pain in real life to have to keep track of that or count every pile each time the card is played but computerized it is a snap.

Or a victory card that is dependent on bought actions--I know there is already one like that... But--oh and another idea just came to me--a victory card that has variable worth like Gardens and such, but is worth the amount of cards that you have at the time that you bought it.  Let's call it, "Greenhouse." "Worth 1 victory point for every 5 cards in your hand, deck, play and draw pile at the time you bought this card." Again in real life you can't expect to keep track of how many cards you have each time you bought one of these cards, but computerized again it is super easy.

Maybe I am thinking on a small scale compared to others, but dominion is already such a great game I have a hard time thinking bigger changes will improve it much.
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Fangz

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #24 on: December 06, 2011, 09:34:42 am »
0

There are things that you can do when designing a computer game that you simply cannot in a real-life game.  How could you imagine changes to Dominion, if you didn't have to worry about messy real-life decks of cards?

For instance: you can have cards like Philosopher's Stone, but much more in-depth.  A Treasure whose value depends on Victory cards: like Silk Roads or Gardens, but dynamically changing on each turn. 

Alternatively: many, many more kingdoms, with a greatly prolonged game time.  Make it a war, not a battle.

I don't think the possibility of complexity is equivalent to it being desirable. For example, even with Isotropic, I loathe the philosopher's stone and silk roads cards. The issue is that though the software might be able to calculate their values, the player generally cannot. Which means that if the player has to make strategic decisions on whether to buy or play a card, it's too hard for the player to know in advance how much a silk roads is worth, or how much cash a philosopher's stone is going to generate. With sufficient complication, the results of cards becomes effectively random, or worse the game becomes a race of who is best at card counting or crunching sums in their head, decreasing the fun of the game. It's pretty lame if one player beats another because one bought silk roads and the other duchies, when, unbeknownst to both players, the silk roads were worth more.
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theory

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #25 on: December 06, 2011, 09:57:11 am »
+1

I don't think the possibility of complexity is equivalent to it being desirable. For example, even with Isotropic, I loathe the philosopher's stone and silk roads cards. The issue is that though the software might be able to calculate their values, the player generally cannot. Which means that if the player has to make strategic decisions on whether to buy or play a card, it's too hard for the player to know in advance how much a silk roads is worth, or how much cash a philosopher's stone is going to generate. With sufficient complication, the results of cards becomes effectively random, or worse the game becomes a race of who is best at card counting or crunching sums in their head, decreasing the fun of the game. It's pretty lame if one player beats another because one bought silk roads and the other duchies, when, unbeknownst to both players, the silk roads were worth more.
This is a bit of a moot point, since if the software can calculate the value, the software can also display its value to you.

Any electronic implementation would almost certainly have a full point counter and deck tracker.
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WanderingWinder

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #26 on: December 06, 2011, 11:48:08 am »
0

There are things that you can do when designing a computer game that you simply cannot in a real-life game.  How could you imagine changes to Dominion, if you didn't have to worry about messy real-life decks of cards?

For instance: you can have cards like Philosopher's Stone, but much more in-depth.  A Treasure whose value depends on Victory cards: like Silk Roads or Gardens, but dynamically changing on each turn. 

Alternatively: many, many more kingdoms, with a greatly prolonged game time.  Make it a war, not a battle.

I don't think the possibility of complexity is equivalent to it being desirable. For example, even with Isotropic, I loathe the philosopher's stone and silk roads cards. The issue is that though the software might be able to calculate their values, the player generally cannot. Which means that if the player has to make strategic decisions on whether to buy or play a card, it's too hard for the player to know in advance how much a silk roads is worth, or how much cash a philosopher's stone is going to generate. With sufficient complication, the results of cards becomes effectively random, or worse the game becomes a race of who is best at card counting or crunching sums in their head, decreasing the fun of the game. It's pretty lame if one player beats another because one bought silk roads and the other duchies, when, unbeknownst to both players, the silk roads were worth more.
I wholeheartedly disagree, and I don't like you denigrating the skill to remember what's in people's decks, which I think is a pretty important part of the game, not some kind of 'random luck' thing.

rinkworks

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #27 on: December 06, 2011, 12:47:28 pm »
0

I don't think the possibility of complexity is equivalent to it being desirable. For example, even with Isotropic, I loathe the philosopher's stone and silk roads cards. The issue is that though the software might be able to calculate their values, the player generally cannot. Which means that if the player has to make strategic decisions on whether to buy or play a card, it's too hard for the player to know in advance how much a silk roads is worth, or how much cash a philosopher's stone is going to generate. With sufficient complication, the results of cards becomes effectively random, or worse the game becomes a race of who is best at card counting or crunching sums in their head, decreasing the fun of the game. It's pretty lame if one player beats another because one bought silk roads and the other duchies, when, unbeknownst to both players, the silk roads were worth more.

As a computer game, though, a UI element would probably tell you outright how much a Silk Road is to you with your current deck.   Basically anything to do with calculations would be done for you in advance, such as a Bank in your hand having a number which says what it'll be worth in coins if you play it next.

That said, I don't necessarily disagree.  It would be nice if the player could do the calculations in his head as well, so that prospective plays can be thought out more than one turn in advance.   On the other other other hand, RPGs do just fine with more complex math than one can manage off the top of one's head.  In WoW, if I pick up a piece of armor that provides me with 5 more agility than I currently have, I have this vague sense that that improves my long-ranged attack hit probability and/or the damage I do with long-ranged attacks and/or my critical hit chance and/or something to do with whether enemies can hit me?  But I don't know the specifics.

Different kind of game, I know, and in Dominion, anticipating the exact numbers is more important.  Still, I think the computer ought to be able to tell you the numbers you most need to know.

Anyway, that brings me to a kind of card that ought to be doable in a computer game that would be impractical as a card game.  How about a Treasure whose $ value is derived from the total number of cards left in all the supply piles?   Or a Victory card worth a point count derived from this number?  Tedious to count by hand.  Easy for a computer to calculate and report to you.  And then you have some interesting cards that care about the pace of a game and combo or anti-combo in interesting ways with +Buy cards and Goons/Gardens and stuff like that.
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Fangz

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #28 on: December 06, 2011, 01:32:33 pm »
0


I wholeheartedly disagree, and I don't like you denigrating the skill to remember what's in people's decks, which I think is a pretty important part of the game, not some kind of 'random luck' thing.

It can be a factor, sure, but if it becomes too dominant, then I'd argue that it detracts from the fun of the game. Dominion isn't, and shouldn't become just a variant of blackjack.

Also, personally, I'd consider things like the WoW +5 agility thing as actually a bad gameplay design, albeit one necessitated by wanting to make games massively scalable. But that's a separate topic.

IMHO, the chunkiness and simplicity of dominion is to its advantage as a game generally, not just as a board game. The game would be awful if (as an extreme case) each card, for example, RPG style gave you a +0.12 wealth stat which you add and multiply by a level modifier then roll to generate your money this turn and discount percentage. With that sort of obtuseness, you'd be reduced to either gut feeling 'oh this card feels a bit better', or looking up the optimal formula on the internet.

That said, I can think of one mechanic which might be neat:

'Blessings'. Which would be modifers you tag on to individual cards. For example, you might tag on a spectral laboratory blessing to a copper, so that you can play that copper as an action for +2 cards +1 actions. Or a blessing to draw an extra card whenever it's drawn.
« Last Edit: December 06, 2011, 01:44:31 pm by Fangz »
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play2draw

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #29 on: December 06, 2011, 01:40:15 pm »
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Wondering how nobody has mentioned this... I know I'm not the only programmer to read these boards...

Cards with random results/powers.  Imagine...

...a $3 Remodel that chose your target randomly.  You could even pro-rate the odds for cards that cost more - e.g. if you Random-Remodel a Gold, you will get a Province most of the time... but sometimes you'll just get a Gold back.

...or a $2 random Steward.  (Don't play it when you're only holding Provinces...)

...or a $5 Gold that, 25% of the time, prohibits you from buying Victory cards.

Shuffling is the only random aspect of card-based Dominion - but if we're designing the game to be a video game, why not add some more random elements?

*cough* :D
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ftl

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #30 on: December 06, 2011, 04:06:05 pm »
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'Blessings'. Which would be modifers you tag on to individual cards. For example, you might tag on a spectral laboratory blessing to a copper, so that you can play that copper as an action for +2 cards +1 actions. Or a blessing to draw an extra card whenever it's drawn.

Similarly, you could have variable-cost cards. Something like "Cost: 3+X", where what the card does depends somehow on X. Or something like "Cost: 4 or 6. [stuff] If this card was bought for 6, [other stuff]. "
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popsofctown

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #31 on: December 06, 2011, 10:07:14 pm »
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And, perhaps most importantly, it could give you all the possible trashing combinations for when you play Forge! No longer will you have to add up every possible combination of cards from your hand, and then check the board to see what you get. Think of how much time will be saved!  :P

You don't want a list with the 2^(#cards in hand) possibility what to trash, each entry dublicated for (#how many cards you can gain for that price) times. What you perhaps could do is hover over a "target" and get a list of cards that could be forged to this target, excluding dublicates, likely excluding 0-cost cards. Which you must add by hand.

Also +1 for no autoplay on Village. There are so many situations where you don't want it, to add some to the list:
KC,TR
Trash for benefit
reshuffle
good cards left in your deck, but already enough value in the hand
Menangerie/HP
Bad cards on your deck (Spy et al) and Native Village/Lookout
Pearl Diver/Apothecary/Scout usually wants to be played before the first Village the first time, for the second one it depends on what you see
empty deck + Vault/SC

I think you're looking at this the wrong way.  Several of those situations are thoughtful, interesting decisions, yes.  Added together maybe they even add up to a tenth of the times you draw a village.  Maybe I'm off, maybe it's even 20%. But if the decision of whether to play a Village or not is removed, the time you would have spent deciding whether to play Villages vanishes.  You throw out the baby and the bathwater and you chunk out 100 decisions per hour, 20 of which were interesting.  That leftover time gets used somehow, and it's not going to get used for a slow animation where you watch the computer play your villages for you.  (they wouldn't even really be cards probably, instead they'd be randomly occuring +action "events" or +actions you've enchanted your coppers with or something I can't think of)

Instead of that time you would have been quickly making sure "yes, I ought to play the village", you'll be choosing between Remakes and Tournaments, Markets and Outposts, Silvers and Chancellors.  Those decisions are interesting at least half the time.  So overall you spend more of your time doing more interesting things.

I guess it would decrease the overall breadth of all possibilities, but Dominion already has enough that it'd take a lifetime to see it all so I don't think that's an issue..
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olneyce

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #32 on: December 06, 2011, 11:55:47 pm »
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My impression from this thread is that Dominion would be a lot worse if it had been designed for the computer.  But I'm a bit of a traditionalist about games.  I find most computer games to be complex for the sake of being complex, without most of the interesting gameplay you get in physical games.

In my experience, creativity is given the best chance to flourish when it's structured by reasonably severe limitations.
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popsofctown

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #33 on: December 07, 2011, 01:20:31 am »
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olneyce I definitely understand where you're coming from.  Most "improvements" you come up with that would result from electronic conveniences would take dominion in a different overall direction.  If you look at the game as it is, pretty much every card is designed with physical limitations in mind, random stewards and maximum deck control and whatnot would feel foreign and make the game into a different animal.

But if the answer to the OP's question was "yeah.  A couple Philosopher's Stones and a point tracker." it's less interesting than pondering more radical changes that wouldn't necessarily be everyone's cup of tea.


I don't think the question really matters because making a game like Dominion as a pure electronic game isn't a great business model.  If the game is easily represented physically, the cost/benefits ratios dictate that you'll want to have a cardboard version of the game to make its own profits and garner interest, whether or not you have a computer game as well. 

Computers do get scary fast.  The closest way something along these lines would come to reality is a widespread Ipad app that people could lay down at a card shop to go toe to toe.  That'd be dependent on pretty saturated ownership of Ipad/Ipad style products but it would work pretty well.  I think there's miles of difference between that and sitting in front of eachother with laptops, as someone who has played games like MtG both online and in person I feel like eye contact and body gestures and such is large part of the appeal (though I do appreciate a piece of paper with nice art on it too)

Once Ipads get cheaper in ten years or so this question doubles in relevancy imo.  But in 2011 I think this discussion show that there is too little to be gained from fully electronic card-based games in terms of design flexibility to justify it.


This is probably ranty because I think about such things and have been designing a board game in my closet.  so.
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dondon151

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #34 on: December 07, 2011, 01:32:19 am »
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I don't think that a decision being trivial 95% of the time is a justification for removing that decision completely. Sometimes the other 5% of the time is kind of important.
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jotheonah

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #35 on: December 07, 2011, 01:34:08 am »
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Am I the only one who hates the point tracker? Gardens, Silk Roads, Vineyards, Fairgrounds - all cool because they screw up the easy math of "Does he have more Provinces than I do?" Suddenly no one knows who's winning, it's a gamble whether to 3-pile. I find zero fun in a Gardens game with the point counter on.  It's not about making Dominion blackjack, it's just the opposite. When you choose to pursue a strategy based on math too big to fit in your head, it's like taking a gamble.  And then doing everything you can to make your deck as big/action-ful,diverse, etc. as you can.  Buying those cards re-routes your objective and throws your opponents' pre-conceptions about the state of the game out the window. If you know exactly how many cards are in your deck, the choice between buying a Gardens and a Duchy with that late 5 is just a choice between 4VP and 3VP. If you don't, it's a choice between a guaranteed 3VP and a what you think is 3 or even 4VP, but might actually end up only being 2.
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popsofctown

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #36 on: December 07, 2011, 02:20:15 am »
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@dondon - But I'm saying you're taking a 95% trivial decision and replacing it with a half trivial decision.  Is there something particularly fascinating about village play that makes you went to spend time clicking it instead of clicking Stewards?

@jothenoah - you're not alone, lots of people feel the way you do.  Turn the point tracker off on iso, play with others like you.
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DStu

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #37 on: December 07, 2011, 02:36:01 am »
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@dondon - But I'm saying you're taking a 95% trivial decision and replacing it with a half trivial decision.  Is there something particularly fascinating about village play that makes you went to spend time clicking it instead of clicking Stewards?

I don't really see that. What is "better" at playing a (Grand) Market, Spy, Lab,  Worker's Village, Scheme, Familiar, Peddler........." than playing a Village? So if you autoplay Village, you should autoplay these. What you propose is to introduce a different "type" of "card", replacing some Cantrips+ by a event that randomly occurs at the start of your turn (or better each time you draw something) and gives you the +. Which would really be a possibility for a computer game, but I don't see them being the same cards, and I would see them more as a addition to the game than a replacement.
Because, these "exceptions" might occur at a relatively small part of the times I draw a Village, but they occur at a relatively large part of the games at least once. Trash for Benefit alone is given in many games, and you take away some of the potential of Village if you are not allowed to trash the Village on your (then) last turn to get the last Province.
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Thisisnotasmile

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #38 on: December 07, 2011, 05:46:10 am »
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I think what popsofctown is suggesting, in a rather long-winded way, is:

"If Dominion had been designed from the start as a computer-based game, it would include a lot more 'decision' based cards and a lot less 'vanilla' cards."

I think. And if that is the case, I agree.
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yuma

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Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?
« Reply #39 on: December 07, 2011, 08:36:40 am »
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In addition to my first post, another interesting Philosopher's Stone type card could be a kingdom/treasure card that provides a victory point for every reshuffle that you perform--or, if you wanted to make things even more interesting, for every time your opponent performs a reshuffle. Either for the whole game or for after buying the card would work. The first way could be a great addition to a deck that has minion, chancellor or other heavy discard cards or the second way a possible defense against such.  I know I would think twice about cycling minions over and over again if my opponent was getting 5 victory points every time I did so.
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