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[SanChristo]

I see so much enthusiasm for engines on the boards. Does anybody else hate them? I just find that I get bored during the other person's turn if they end up going through their whole deck.

[loppo]

tell that to my wife. She'll be all ears. Not so sure about anyone else here on this forum.

[jsh357]

Yeah, the girls I play against IRL are not the biggest fans of engines (not trying to generalize them by gender, they just all happen to be female).  Unless they are playing them, and then they don't realize how slowly they're playing them sometimes, which is funny.

[eHalcyon]

Solution: build your own engine and have more fun in your own turn.

[SCSN]

Someone has been run over one too many times.

[Kirian]

Dominion cards were designed with engines and combos in mind.  Otherwise you would play with just one or two kingdom cards in each game.  It is a game about building engines; BM play is a last resort.

[pacovf]

Solution: build your own engine and have more fun in your own turn!!!!!:)

Preach it! (excitement mine)

I only have fun when I am trying to build an engine. The crazier it is, the more fun I get. Doesn't anyone hate when the other guy/gal goes BM and gets 5 provinces before your develop-poor house-city-king's court megaturn?

[terminalCopper]

Don't call it megaturn if five provs make you whine ...

[TrojH]

Solution: build your own engine and have more fun in your own turn.

Easier said than done... 

[soulnet]

Yeah, the girls I play against IRL are not the biggest fans of engines (not trying to generalize them by gender, they just all happen to be female).  Unless they are playing them, and then they don't realize how slowly they're playing them sometimes, which is funny.

If you don't want to generalize something to all girls (and I trust you when you say you don't), my suggestion is not call the group of people as "the girls", especially in a wide-audience forum. Saying "Some people I play with..." would work just as good, and avoids the parenthesis.

[blueblimp]

Dominion cards were designed with engines and combos in mind.  Otherwise you would play with just one or two kingdom cards in each game.  It is a game about building engines; BM play is a last resort.

There are plenty of combos that don't relate to engines. For example, any rush combo (such as Ironworks/Gardens), and special-case combos like Young Witch/Tunnel.

Although this is not directly relevant, in a game like Hearthstone, there are many combos but no engines at all. In my opinion, one of the key characteristics of an engine is using one combo to connect the pieces of another combo, so it's much more complex than any combo being an engine.

[silverspawn]

if you don't like engines, i suggest playing another game

[Awaclus]

Solution: build your own engine and have more fun in your own turn.

This, or start playing and winning with non-engine strategies until you can convince everyone that engines aren't usually the best strategy.

[LastFootnote]

I see so much enthusiasm for engines on the boards. Does anybody else hate them? I just find that I get bored during the other person's turn if they end up going through their whole deck.

I hear you. I can take sitting through an engine now and again, but most of the fun I have playing Dominion doesn't derive from engine play. I enjoy tactical decisions, interesting card combos, and Duchy dancing. I don't particularly enjoy drawing my deck each turn nor completely controlling the endgame.

[terminalCopper]

if you don't like engines, i suggest playing another game

You may also play casual without nonterminal actions.

[Asper]

Personally, i don't mind engines at all when playing on a device or online - i also build them myself and they are fun. IRL, they take much longer, though. Depending on how many player there are, how long the cards themselves take to resolve and how "attacky" the board is, it can be tedious to sit through a game of dominion, to the point where you just want it to end.

So nah, i don't hate engines. They somehow are centralized upon here though, as are 2-player games and online games. I even doubt that engines are as viable in multiplayer games as they are for 2 players, with 3 or 4 players fighting over a key pile and more junkers being played.

[Lekkit]

My impression of engines in 3p games is that they have to be slightly better than in 2p games. Which often means one of those that takes more time to play. And in a 3p game the downtime is already longer than in 2p. I actually remember one game in particular during one of our IRL-league games where I went for the engine and my opponents both went for double Jack. It was one of those games where you play multiple Jacks for the draw, and then trash the Silver. But reaching for that Silver pile, looking at the top card and then counting cards as you draw them takes time. Then it was time to sum the coins up and after that take the Outpost turn. My opponents were not happy.

[dondon151]

During a game at 2012 Worlds, I was playing catch-up with my engine, and Fabian (who had already finished his game) remarked that I should hurry up if I wanted the tournament to finish at all.

[GendoIkari]

Engines generally aren't fun for the person playing against an engine. There are several people in real life who won't play against me in Dominion. Now, that's partly because due to Isotropic and this website, I have a lot of experience and skill with the game, and those who only play casually have very little chance of beating me. However, I think it's likely that they wouldn't mind losing to me nearly as much if I were playing BM instead of Engine. What they don't like is me taking much longer turns than they are, and racking up huge amounts of points compared to them.

[Jdaki]

I do love a good engine once it gets going and can admire it, but I don't like pointless engines that don't do anything! We're all guilty of sometimes building (or trying to) an over convoluted "engine", and beginners can of course be culpable of "village idiot" syndrome; village, village, draw three villages, village, gain village! This happened to me today and was pretty infuriating when your turn is play a bunch of money, province- 2 seconds, wait an age, repeat.
But in general, a brilliant engine is a thing of beauty to behold- no matter whose it is! (though obviously aggravating if cashes in one turn before you!)

[brokoli]

I think the beauty of dominion is in the creativity. A lot of engines (but not only engines) requires to be creative, so I love engines.