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[Ichimaru Gin]

Yeah. The white text against the cards and background makes it difficult to see. I also noticed that I would hit enter and it would sometimes randomly give me a warning that all-chat was disabled. So then I had to re-click you in my friends list to chat with you again.

Edit: Also, the strategic action/reaction based on what your opponent is doing is amazing. I lost both games, but still had a ton of fun!

[jonts26]

You know what the game replay needs? Text-logs.

[pacovf]

Yeah. The white text against the cards and background makes it difficult to see. I also noticed that I would hit enter and it would sometimes randomly give me a warning that all-chat was disabled. So then I had to re-click you in my friends list to chat with you again.

Edit: Also, the strategic action/reaction based on what your opponent is doing is amazing. I lost both games, but still had a ton of fun!

To be fair, I ambushed you right after you finished the tutorial, and I had already played dozens of games against the bot

I've only played 4 ranked games yet, but I agree with the action/reaction part Ichi mentioned. Like, I was planning to go scorchillas in one game, and then my opponent played a conduit the turn right before I was going to. So I was thinking shiiiiiiiiiiiiit, and had to buy a blastforge instead to survive the inevitable onslaught. Still lost that game anyway cos my opponent was a pro, but I could have lost quite a bit faster

[mpsprs]

Well I just got me an alpha key, so I figure I'll toss my usename in:  mpsprs

[silverspawn]

just solved the puzzle from the tutorial.

it is interesting. maybe I'll get more invested in it.

[markusin]

So I just got my alpha key today, and tried out a few games against the bots. I like what I've seen so far.

It's strange because it's a game of perfect information, but with the randomly chosen add-on units and the turn timer it doesn't play out that way, and it ends up feeling like Starcraft where you see what you're opponent is doing and you go for a counterbuild.

The tricky thing is figuring out how best to take advantage of the add-on units. Say, You see that you're opponent is being a bit passive at the start, so you try to breach early, only to see your opponent throw down some crazy defender that will take you 4 turns just to destroy. For example, that 6 health frontline defender. Against such strong defenders, you need to find a fast way to build attack power in order to breach.

It's also like Starcraft in that the play that costs you the game might have been made very early on. You only have an intuitive sense of this. Even so, using a fast timer like 5 seconds per turn gives the game a blitz chess sort of feel where players are pressured to play fast that might see your opponent make a big mistake later on the cancel out a mistake you made earlier.

[phienn]

So I just got my alpha key today, and tried out a few games against the bots. I like what I've seen so far.

It's strange because it's a game of perfect information, but with the randomly chosen add-on units and the turn timer it doesn't play out that way, and it ends up feeling like Starcraft where you see what you're opponent is doing and you go for a counterbuild.

The tricky thing is figuring out how best to take advantage of the add-on units. Say, You see that you're opponent is being a bit passive at the start, so you try to breach early, only to see your opponent throw down some crazy defender that will take you 4 turns just to destroy. For example, that 6 health frontline defender. Against such strong defenders, you need to find a fast way to build attack power in order to breach.

It's also like Starcraft in that the play that costs you the game might have been made very early on. You only have an intuitive sense of this. Even so, using a fast timer like 5 seconds per turn gives the game a blitz chess sort of feel where players are pressured to play fast that might see your opponent make a big mistake later on the cancel out a mistake you made earlier.

Yes – I love blitz games. They also narrow the gap between players of very different ELO a little.

To your point about your opponent throwing down the crazy defender, I find that in a lot of games just the fact that a certain unit is in the set can completely change the outcome of the game. For example I just played a game where Apollo was in the set (expensive blue unit, can snipe any other unit with >=3 health). Neither of us got Apollos at all during the game, but the fact that it was there meant that both of us went a very heavy econ green-focused build, because those units have higher health. This kind of dynamic is what makes the game so fresh, since you'll never see the same set of units twice.

[markusin]

Oh don't me wrong, I thought it was awesome that such defenders existed that can enable players to get an early economy boost. It makes those 1-time use attackers valuable. There are other games where the attackers are nuts and you have to find the best way to sustain them.

[eHalcyon]

This kind of dynamic is what makes the game so fresh, since you'll never see the same set of units twice.

As people who frequent a Dominion forum, you don't have to tell us that.

Here's a serious question though (for everybody who's playing) -- I've never been big on RTS games.  Never got into Starcraft.  Right now, most comparisons suggest that Prismata is more like Starcraft than Dominion in terms of gameplay feel.  How big a deterrent should this be for me?  I know I should just try out the demo, but I haven't had/made time yet...

[silverspawn]

This kind of dynamic is what makes the game so fresh, since you'll never see the same set of units twice.

As people who frequent a Dominion forum, you don't have to tell us that.

Here's a serious question though (for everybody who's playing) -- I've never been big on RTS games.  Never got into Starcraft.  Right now, most comparisons suggest that Prismata is more like Starcraft than Dominion in terms of gameplay feel.  How big a deterrent should this be for me?  I know I should just try out the demo, but I haven't had/made time yet...

I don't get all of the talk about starcraft. I'd say prismata is 50% magic, 48% dominion, and 2% starcraft. it's a round based card game.

[theory]

I think the Starcraft analogy comes in the sense that you have the same dynamic between rush/boom/tech. 

[silverspawn]

it's so drastically different though, because you see everything your opponent does. in sc2, playing a rush basically comes down to your opponent making mistakes and an element of luck. the dynamic was supposed to be there, but I don't think it actually is.

though they never explicitly said that they mean sc2 when they say "starcraft". I'm sure it was not as bad in broodwar.

[markusin]

I thought the similarity to Starcraft was in the building and use of units to create an army or sorts, but without the micromanagement. In Prismata, buying a drone feels more like buying a Starcraft worker than buying a Dominion Silver.

[popsofctown]

I want to play Prismata but I want to play Hearthstone how do I do both simultaneously?

[qmech]

I can't be doing with RTSes—there are too many options and I don't know what's good.  I don't get the same feeling with Prismata.  The part of Dominion that's here is that you need to read a board.  There's then a lot more of reacting to what your opponent does that there is in Dominion.

Here's an example of what you might see reading when reading the board.  There's a unit called Scorchzilla which is an incredibly aggressive rusher that costs 7GR.  As second player you have the option of playing

DD (9 drones, 1 gold)
DDC(11 drones, 0 gold)
DA(12 drones, 2 gold)
2x Scorchzilla

That will give you an attack of 6 on your fifth turn, which is a huge amount to deal with.  So the question becomes whether there's anything else you (or your opponent) can do, or whether you end up playing the mirror and taking it from there.

That's a very special case, the analogue of something like a Cultist rush.  Normally, as in Dominion, you'll need to consider more complicated interactions between numerous units/cards.

Here's another particular opening for P1 that worries me quite a bit as P2.

DD (8 drones, 0 gold)
D Chrono Filter (9 Drones, 1 gold)
Hannibull

Hannibull is a front line unit with 6HP that attacks for 2.  Since it's front line, the first player to get an attack for 6 can stop their opponent from doing the same by killing a Hannibull every turn.

These examples happen to show something else too: the second player gets an extra drone as compensation, but whether that's much help strongly depends on what price points you want to hit early on.

[markusin]

I want to play Prismata but I want to play Hearthstone how do I do both simultaneously?

I, I just don't know. For now, I'm just playing against bots on Prismata, so it's a way to have quick fun.

[jonts26]

I want to play Prismata but I want to play Hearthstone how do I do both simultaneously?

Create a clone of yourself and then merge back with it later so you have both sets if memories. This is also a good way to practice but I often find that my play style too closely matches my own to be as useful as playing multiple games against multiple opponents.

[silverspawn]

well, forget about hearthstone and play prismata, obviously.

[popsofctown]

What's the standard kingdom size for vs.?  Base plus 5, plus 8, or grandmaster? I wanna practice vs. bots using the most relevant setting.

[silverspawn]

What's the standard kingdom size for vs.?  Base plus 5, plus 8, or grandmaster? I wanna practice vs. bots using the most relevant setting.

I was curious what grandmaster was and googled it. It's just one specific set, apparently they want to see what happens if they pick one set and let people play that a long. how long will they need to figure it out completely? at least I think that's the reason, it makes a lot of sense.

so, it can only be either +5 or +8. I'm strongly guessing it's +8. I only play that, because it's just more fun.

[blueblimp]

What's the standard kingdom size for vs.?  Base plus 5, plus 8, or grandmaster? I wanna practice vs. bots using the most relevant setting.

Seems like 8 is preferred once you are comfortable with all the units. I'm still playing 5-vs-bot at the moment because I don't know the units well yet.

[Kirian]

This kind of dynamic is what makes the game so fresh, since you'll never see the same set of units twice.

As people who frequent a Dominion forum, you don't have to tell us that.

Here's a serious question though (for everybody who's playing) -- I've never been big on RTS games.  Never got into Starcraft.  Right now, most comparisons suggest that Prismata is more like Starcraft than Dominion in terms of gameplay feel.  How big a deterrent should this be for me?  I know I should just try out the demo, but I haven't had/made time yet...

I don't get all of the talk about starcraft. I'd say prismata is 50% magic, 48% dominion, and 2% starcraft. it's a round based card game.

So I think the problem with any comparison is that we're talking about comparisons across five different games, and the important mechanics are spread across multiple axes.  It's not so much "Starcraft without X" or "Magic with Y," but a combination of a set of features.

Thankfully for everyone in the thread, I enjoy overanalyzing things!  Let's consider the five games we're examining--Magic, Chess, Dominion, Starcraft, and Prismata--along a number of game mechanic/design axes.  For the sake of "simplicity" I'm just going to look at the endpoints of the axes.  Then we can consider similarities more in the mode of genetic similarity between species.

Does the Game Have:	Yes	No
Strategy/Tactics	All
Luck	DM	CPS
Economic Buildup	DPS	MC
Time/Twitch	S	CDMP
Unit-Based Combat	CMPS	D
Multiple Setups	DMP	CS*
Discrete Attacks	CDM	PS
Tricky Math	DMP	CS
Symmetry	CDP	MS
Perfect Information	CP	DMS

I'm sure we can all argue for the inclusion of other axes, and that the axes shouldn't be equally weighted, but again for simplicity, let's consider them equally important.  This means that:

Games	Similarity
D - C	40%
D - M	70%
D - S	30%
D - P	60%
P - C	60%
P - M	50%
P - S	50%
C - M	50%
C - S	50%
M - S	40%

So based on these, Prismata is more like Chess or Dominion than it is like Magic or Starcraft, though only by a little bit.  Meanwhile, Dominion is a lot more like Prismata or Magic than it is like Chess or Starcraft.

(Yeah, yeah, I know, 5 slices of bacon are all similar to each other, doesn't mean any given one is 30/50/70% like the other, plus they're all delicious, but they all came from the same pork belly, or some other analogy?  I dunno, it's far too late.)

[silverspawn]

starcraft... has luck in it. a lot. trust me.

[silverspawn]

I was also coming more talking about "what is the game made of" and less "how does it play out."

The combat mechanics and the way monsters work is extremely similar to magic. You got hp and attack on each, you got the defender deciding how he wants to block. you even got the vigilante and tapping (?) mechanics. And you have different colors of monsters that are differently themed.

The variety theme is very similar to dominion, as explained in the OP.

The economy is kind of like starcraft, though not really because there you just buy workers non stop with 2 of 3 races, making it less of a decision and more of a question of mechanics.

that's why I said it it's basically half dominion half magic and a little bit of SC, in terms of what it's made of.

In terms of how it plays out, I'd argue that it's Chess > Dominion/Magic >> SC. Although that's not really reflected in your analysis.

[popsofctown]

Going beyond the standard numbers of drones is analogous to taking a fast expo in starcraft.  Drones:Command posts, not Drones:Drones