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Author Topic: I hate Mercenary  (Read 11953 times)

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blueblimp

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Re: I hate Mercenary
« Reply #25 on: September 09, 2014, 12:47:42 pm »
+1

Interesting means something else for every player, it's highly subjective
Yes, it's definitely an interesting problem to even define "interesting" in a way that doesn't exclude kingdoms that really are interesting.

My tentative attempt is: generate kingdoms where no card is trivially irrelevant to an experienced player. I think it's fair to say that kingdoms with few relevant cards are among the least interesting kingdoms. Kingdoms with many relevant cards also are less likely to admit boring 1-card or 2-card strategies.

[..]
Well, what I meant by "interesting is something different for everyone" also considers that some people like to tweak the heck out of simple strategies and find the optimal number of Courtyards for instance. So even when there is only a small number of interesting cards, it can be enjoyable for people to optimize such "simulator" strategies even if they buy only one or two kingdom cards.

Trying to make every card in the kingdom a possibly interesting card is probably not the best approach. There's nothing wrong with having some "traps" (like Scout) or for example some bad Swindler targets (like Scout).
The problem is that Scout isn't a trap for good players. If there's some legit reason to think Scout is good, then I'd actually say it's not "trivially irrelevant to an experienced player", although with closer analysis it may prove to be irrelevant. If Scout is serving as a Swindler target, then it's relevant in that sense.

The rule I gave is a bit of a cheat by relying on the judgment of experienced players, but I could imagine approximating it in a way a computer might be able to implement. For example, if we have access to conditioned-gain statistics (RIP councilroom.com), maybe we could deduce that Scout is almost never gained in games that lack Swindler, Vineyard, and hybrid VP. Then we could use that information to kick Scout from the kingdom and replace it with something else.
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JW

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Re: I hate Mercenary
« Reply #26 on: September 09, 2014, 09:04:09 pm »
+2

My tentative attempt is: generate kingdoms where no card is trivially irrelevant to an experienced player. I think it's fair to say that kingdoms with few relevant cards are among the least interesting kingdoms. Kingdoms with many relevant cards also are less likely to admit boring 1-card or 2-card strategies.

A few easy consequences of this rule:
  • Extremely weak cards tend to make kingdoms less interesting, because they are often irrelevant. For example, having Scout in a kingdom typically makes it less interesting, because in most kingdoms, it's both obvious and correct that Scout is irrelevant.
  • Extremely strong cards that combo poorly tend to make kingdoms less interesting, because they make other cards irrelevant. For example, Rebuild tends to make slow cards irrelevant.
  • Interesting kingdoms tend to permit strong strategies that buy/gain a wide variety of cards over the course of the game. This includes engines, obviously, but sometimes also slogs, simply because you have so many turns available to make buying decisions.

You've probably seen it, but Donald X said the same thing about why Rebuild leads to less interesting games: http://boardgamegeek.com/article/14094365#14094365

Quote
In retrospect the card is clearly too powerful for how interesting it is. Which is to say, the most powerful cards should make for lots of interesting gameplay and different situations; Chapel for example may be strong, but the games play out differently depending on the rest of the cards. With Rebuild the rest of the cards are too unlikely to get involved in your Rebuild deck.

For casual players it probably isn't a problem, unless one of them reads online about how to use Rebuild. For serious players you will probably have more fun just not playing with Rebuild after you've had the experience. I would rather that not be the case, but well at least there are 34 other kingdom cards in Dark Ages.

I consider the biggest offenders on this front to be Rebuild and Cultist. Donald has also said that very weak cards reduce strategic options: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5801.msg175284#msg175284

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I got better at making sets after Intrigue. I can believe that people playing the base set by itself might feel like it needs something. There are some duds, and those duds reduce strategic options. The base set has done great anyway, but you know, there's room for improvement. But I mean take out the duds and you're there, that's what I think. If someone plays a random ten from Dark Ages they are not going to see all these boards with nothing to do.
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Count Grishnakh

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Re: I hate Mercenary
« Reply #27 on: September 27, 2014, 02:23:19 pm »
0

I am so, so sick of Mercenary. It's the ultimate "I have to get this in order to fight it" attack, and whoever gets it first has a huge advantage. The problem is that you have to trash 2 cards from your hand to use it, which is a tall order when you only have a 3-card hand because of your opponent's Mercenary. If you keep two bad cards in your hand with Mercenary, you're probably drawing dead Actions. If you keep a Village and a Mercenary in your hand, you may not draw another bad card. But if you try to pursue a different strategy, your opponent can just steamroll you because he has the huge advantage of playing Mercenaries with a 5-card hand. I find it infuriating.

OK, now that that's off my chest, does anybody have any good Mercenary-fighting tips?

I share your disdain for Mercenary.

There is a particular type of player who loves mercenary and always eagerly pursues it

I love playing thief against people who over trash their deck with mercenary, although I suppose that strategy is obvious.

Or swindle the merc into a curse



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werothegreat

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Re: I hate Mercenary
« Reply #28 on: September 30, 2014, 12:21:53 am »
+1

It's very easy to green too early once you have a clean Merc deck because you feel way ahead. I would advocate being patient in Mercenary games, take your time and build. This is true of Goons/Militia/Ghost Ship games too.

Why are you greening in a Goons game?
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Re: I hate Mercenary
« Reply #29 on: September 30, 2014, 01:16:13 am »
+3

There is a particular type of player who loves mercenary and always eagerly pursues it

We call these players "winners."  Which is part of the trouble with Mercenary, of course.

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shark_bait

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Re: I hate Mercenary
« Reply #30 on: September 30, 2014, 12:46:06 pm »
+6

It's very easy to green too early once you have a clean Merc deck because you feel way ahead. I would advocate being patient in Mercenary games, take your time and build. This is true of Goons/Militia/Ghost Ship games too.

Why are you greening in a Goons game?

I'll wager I can win 95% of Goons games if only I am allowed to buy VP.....

Most Goons games do not enable large multi-goon turns.
Most Goons games do not have a plethora of cheap actions.

The point is, VP are points and points win games.  When end-game is approaching and a 3-pile is eminent are you going to buy the last goons and then let your opponent gain 6 points on you next turn with a Province.
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Gherald

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Re: I hate Mercenary
« Reply #31 on: September 30, 2014, 01:11:43 pm »
0

Some greening can make sense in Goons games.

You don't want a lot of it or you'll stall, but if you're discarding 2 cards every turn one of them may as well be a Province on occasion.  It's like a built in +0 cards, -2 cards "sifter"
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