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[A7A]

Has anyone or any group tried to rebalance Dominon and the official cards somehow? I mean for the purpose of making a more deep and good game. I've been thinking of doing so myself with some of the really big offenders (like Chapel, which wasn't even included in a local tournament due to its high variance) but I thought I'd try to find if perhaps people who have played the game much more than me have done so already. I mean we all want a better game right? And sure, we want to play the same game, but hey, if there's a community and they can come to agreement on what needs tweaking, then there's always that option. Dominion just seems to important to leave the way it is! ;P

[eHalcyon]

Your local tournament organizers have a flawed understanding of Chapel if they think it has high variance.  It is priced at $2 specifically so that everybody can open with it if they want to.  There is some variance in whether people line it up with Estates early, or if it misses the reshuffle, etc. but this is really no worse than with other powerful cards.  Cards like Swindler and Tournament are much swingier.

Generally speaking, this topic does come up once in a while but it is pretty much with respect to the very weakest cards, e.g. Scout, Counting House, Thief, Transmute.  But even then, most of these cards are fine as they are.  They don't get purchased often, but they can't all be the best card^TM.  Hopefully somebody else will find one of the threads about this and link it.  I am too lazy to go look for them right now, but I will upvote the people who do.

[liopoil]

Yeah, this is a common topic. Chapel is costed correctly and does not have nearly as high variance as you think. I think you will find here that the community thinks that Dominion is an extremely well balanced game. If I had it my way I'd play dominion without urchin, knights, and adventurer at least, but there's no way you can get a consensus on that.

[LastFootnote]

I would say that Chapel has very high variance, depending on what you draw it with early. That said, I wouldn't change or ban it.

Right now I'm working on replacing some of the duds in my own Dominion set. So far I've replaced Feast, Spy, and Thief.

[Polk5440]

One thing to keep in mind is that a lot of Dominion is high variance, so exceptionally high variance is often talked about on the forum as something people dislike about certain cards/kingdoms rather than something that is actually broken with the game and needs fixing. There are a few of these threads discussing "fixes" around the forum, though.

The Dominion Time Machine thread is probably the most entertaining. Donald's response gives you a sense on where the designer is coming from, too.

Fixing Dominion. eHalcyon's response is very helpful here.

LastFootnote's proposed tweaks. (This is about the level of fixing I think Dominion needs, btw -- very minimal.) Links to images are broken, now, though! LastFootnote, can you fix?

Wasn't there a separate thread about Rebuild, Black Market, and Tournament? Can't find it....

[Awaclus]

I think Chapel has more variance than Swindler or Tournament though. Losing one $5 Action and having to gain a Duchy might be bad, but it's nowhere near how horrible it is when your Chapel misses the reshuffle. And in a game with both Chapel and Tournament, you'd need a ton of good luck with Tournament later to make up for having some bad luck with Chapel early. But it's a fun card and I don't think it needs changing.

[Chris is me]

A lot of attempts to "balance" Dominion are really misguided, and done by players with an incomplete understanding of the game. Banning Chapel from a tournament is just ridiculous.

Chapel's price makes sense, when you realize price is not entirely a function of power - it's a function of when the card should be available for use. Making Chapel cost $3 doesn't make the card any worse at what it does, it just makes it so you can't get it when you open 5/2, which adds a ton of variance. Chapel should be available at the start of the game for everybody, so it's a $2.

I don't really think I'm good enough at the game to suggest balancing changes, but if I had to, I would probably see if there is some way to tweak Rebuild slightly.

[eHalcyon]

I think Chapel has more variance than Swindler or Tournament though. Losing one $5 Action and having to gain a Duchy might be bad, but it's nowhere near how horrible it is when your Chapel misses the reshuffle. And in a game with both Chapel and Tournament, you'd need a ton of good luck with Tournament later to make up for having some bad luck with Chapel early. But it's a fun card and I don't think it needs changing.

Eh, I think the same reshuffle luck happens with any good card.  I suppose with Chapel you lose momentum, but it's similar with junkers and other attacks too.  A lucky Swindler attack really hurts, I don't know if it's clear-cut that Chapel missing the shuffle is far worse.  What if Swindler hits your Chapel? 

I know you said that it doesn't need changing, but what kind of change could fix variance due to missing the reshuffle?  All you could really do is nerf it (e.g. to trash only 3 cards) but having it miss the reshuffle will still hurt.  It will just hurt slightly less.

[Awaclus]

Chapel's price makes sense, when you realize price is not entirely a function of power - it's a function of when the card should be available for use. Making Chapel cost $3 doesn't make the card any worse at what it does, it just makes it so you can't get it when you open 5/2, which adds a ton of variance. Chapel should be available at the start of the game for everybody, so it's a $2.

If Chapel was $3, you would still get it when you open 5/2. You would just get nothing (or a $2 card) on your $2 hand then, which would be a lot worse than whatever the other player got for $4.

Eh, I think the same reshuffle luck happens with any good card.  I suppose with Chapel you lose momentum, but it's similar with junkers and other attacks too.  A lucky Swindler attack really hurts, I don't know if it's clear-cut that Chapel missing the shuffle is far worse.  What if Swindler hits your Chapel? 

I know you said that it doesn't need changing, but what kind of change could fix variance due to missing the reshuffle?  All you could really do is nerf it (e.g. to trash only 3 cards) but having it miss the reshuffle will still hurt.  It will just hurt slightly less.

You could make it weaker so that opening Chapel/Chapel would be pretty good. Then if one of them misses the reshuffle, it's not as bad. Maybe, like only 1/2 of Chapel's strength, you know, so that the two of them are as good as one normal Chapel, so trash 2 cards from your hand. And maybe, to make up for the nerf, and to further make a double Chapel opening desirable, you could add some utility that makes the card useful when you've trashed down and are low on economy, and hey, it'd be pretty cool if it was still useful when you're getting your engine going. Since it trashes 2 cards, it would make sense if you could choose between that, and getting +$2, or +2 cards. But now it's pretty powerful already so the price should probably be increased to $3.

[JW]

Very weak cards and some of the strongest cards do make the game less interesting. Chapel is strong but it doesn't make the game less interesting. Scout (weak) and Rebuild (strong) are examples of cards that do make the game less interesting.

Which isn't to say that no Rebuild kingdom is interesting, just that Rebuild on average makes for less interesting kingdoms. Relevant past discussion:

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

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

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.

[popsofctown]

Chapel seems pretty high variance to me.  When most good cards miss the shuffle, you have a long game to try to come back.  Chapel always enables a fast game so it's difficult to come back.

Pointing out that Donald had to make it 2$ really just proves the point.  That guarantees everyone has access to it, and it's there instead of 5$ because the 28% (can't remember that statistic) chance of failing 5$ with Silver/Silver is worse than the ~17% Chapel misses the reshuffle. But that 17% chance is still there.  In friendly games you only have to put up with that a small % of the time, in a tournament game, yeah, maybe that's not as tolerable.  Especially face to face tournaments where you have to work through all that physical shuffling to get to the parts where you compare skill against the other player.  It's easy to get spoiled by online play and forget that.

It's gotta be in the top 2 most variance cards from the base set.

[Titandrake]

Chapel is high variance and especially annoying if it misses a reshuffle. However, the solution isn't to ban Chapel, the solution is to play more games. If you have time constraints and can't do that, I still don't think I would ban Chapel since it removes too many strategies, especially if you're playing Base only. It's generally not the end of the world if you can only play it turn 5.

[qmech]

Scout (weak) and Rebuild (strong) are examples of cards that do make the game less interesting.

I can't remember the last time I played a Rebuild mirror.  Part of that is probably that I make a point of trying to skip it, but I'd far rather promise never to buy Rebuild than promise to buy no Kingdom cards other than Rebuild whenever it's on the board.

[popsofctown]

Chapel is high variance and especially annoying if it misses a reshuffle. However, the solution isn't to ban Chapel, the solution is to play more games. If you have time constraints and can't do that, I still don't think I would ban Chapel since it removes too many strategies, especially if you're playing Base only. It's generally not the end of the world if you can only play it turn 5.

If you only have base, Chapel is kind of important to that ecosystem, I'd agree.  If you have some other expansions, I don't think missing the card from the randomizer deck is end of the world.

[iguanaiguana]

How has no one mentioned DoubleJack? Or is that not a thing anymore?

[Awaclus]

How has no one mentioned DoubleJack? Or is that not a thing anymore?

It's not really a thing very often.

[Seprix]

Chapel is fine. Nothing wrong with Chapel.

On the other hand, cards like Swindler, Tournament, Urchin, Cultist and Rebuild can be annoying on the right board because you usually have to go for them.

[Awaclus]

Chapel is fine. Nothing wrong with Chapel.

On the other hand, cards like Swindler, Tournament, Urchin, Cultist and Rebuild can be annoying on the right board because you usually have to go for them.

Pretty sure Chapel is much less ignorable than any of those cards. Except maybe Cultist, but Cultist isn't that swingy anyway.

[Seprix]

Chapel is fine. Nothing wrong with Chapel.

On the other hand, cards like Swindler, Tournament, Urchin, Cultist and Rebuild can be annoying on the right board because you usually have to go for them.

Pretty sure Chapel is much less ignorable than any of those cards. Except maybe Cultist, but Cultist isn't that swingy anyway.

But there are so many other options for trashing these days besides Chapel. Chapel isn't even close to overpowered. It's a card that doesn't buy points or hurt your opponent, so no one is going to feel 'oppressed' by it. Plus, anyone can get it, even the unfortunate 5/2.

Cultist isn't swingy, but in a game without trashing (or suitable defense), you pretty much *have* to go for it, and whoever loses the ruins split will likely lose. Getting more Cultists than your opponent can be considered 'swingy', but it's more shuffle luck screwing you, which isn't Cultist's fault anyways.

[A7A]

"to make up for the nerf, and to further make a double Chapel opening desirable, you could add some utility that makes the card useful when you've trashed down and are low on economy, and hey, it'd be pretty cool if it was still useful when you're getting your engine going. Since it trashes 2 cards, it would make sense if you could choose between that, and getting +$2, or +2 cards. But now it's pretty powerful already so the price should probably be increased to $3."

I see what you did there! ;P

I understand the idea that cost isn't a function of power, mainly. But still, opening both with chapel and a 5 is certainly much better than opening a chapel priced at 3 and then getting a 4, right? But sure, then a 5/2 split would open with chapel and nothing in some instances, and the variance problem would still be an issue. I think making chapel just trash a maximum of say 1 or 2 victory cards/turn would be a good tweak which makes for less variance.

But yeah in my newbie mindset, where to me it seems that hitting three estates with it while the other person misses the reshuffle or gets chapel + a 5 card and three coppers in the same shuffle is really just far behind in that game. But yeah I'm more inclined toward making weaker cards stronger and more interesting (replacing thief with noble brigand in all games, for example) so that big money becomes less attractive. But if the community thinks it's such a well-balanced game, wouldn't there be less consensus in for example the Qvist rankings concerning the cards, like year after year? And I'm not talking about that sort of faux balance which is supported by the argument "well if the card is so powerful so what, everyone has access to it!"

[HiveMindEmulator]

But if the community thinks it's such a well-balanced game, wouldn't there be less consensus in for example the Qvist rankings concerning the cards, like year after year? And I'm not talking about that sort of faux balance which is supported by the argument "well if the card is so powerful so what, everyone has access to it!"

It's unrealistic to expect all card to be equally powerful. It's not a problem if some are more powerful than others because the game does not just consist of buying 1 card. Chapel is strong, but so what? It's not like you just buy Chapel and the game is over. After you trash your stuff, you have to build an engine, and have a bunch of decisions to make as to how to put that together. Even if the presence of Chapel removes the decision of what to buy on turn 1/2, it doesn't decrease the total amount of decisions you make over the course of the game. Other powerful cards share the same attribute. Mountebank/Witch are very strong, but the Curses prolong the game which gives you more time to make other decisions.

[Awaclus]

But there are so many other options for trashing these days besides Chapel. Chapel isn't even close to overpowered. It's a card that doesn't buy points or hurt your opponent, so no one is going to feel 'oppressed' by it. Plus, anyone can get it, even the unfortunate 5/2.

And you always ignore all of the other options when Chapel is present. It's not overpowered, but it definitely is extremely powerful.

I understand the idea that cost isn't a function of power, mainly. But still, opening both with chapel and a 5 is certainly much better than opening a chapel priced at 3 and then getting a 4, right? But sure, then a 5/2 split would open with chapel and nothing in some instances, and the variance problem would still be an issue. I think making chapel just trash a maximum of say 1 or 2 victory cards/turn would be a good tweak which makes for less variance.

But yeah in my newbie mindset, where to me it seems that hitting three estates with it while the other person misses the reshuffle or gets chapel + a 5 card and three coppers in the same shuffle is really just far behind in that game. But yeah I'm more inclined toward making weaker cards stronger and more interesting (replacing thief with noble brigand in all games, for example) so that big money becomes less attractive. But if the community thinks it's such a well-balanced game, wouldn't there be less consensus in for example the Qvist rankings concerning the cards, like year after year? And I'm not talking about that sort of faux balance which is supported by the argument "well if the card is so powerful so what, everyone has access to it!"

The difference between trashing 3 Estates and 1 Copper on turn 3 and trashing 3 Coppers on turn 3 isn't that big. It's mostly the fact that the first guy is going to have a $5 hand on turn 4 and the second guy is going to have a $2-$4 hand on turn 4 that makes colliding Chapel with Estates powerful. I'd much rather trash 3 Coppers on turn 3 than have Chapel miss the reshuffle and then trash 3 Estates and a Copper.

[GendoIkari]

"to make up for the nerf, and to further make a double Chapel opening desirable, you could add some utility that makes the card useful when you've trashed down and are low on economy, and hey, it'd be pretty cool if it was still useful when you're getting your engine going. Since it trashes 2 cards, it would make sense if you could choose between that, and getting +$2, or +2 cards. But now it's pretty powerful already so the price should probably be increased to $3."

I see what you did there! ;P

I understand the idea that cost isn't a function of power, mainly. But still, opening both with chapel and a 5 is certainly much better than opening a chapel priced at 3 and then getting a 4, right? But sure, then a 5/2 split would open with chapel and nothing in some instances, and the variance problem would still be an issue. I think making chapel just trash a maximum of say 1 or 2 victory cards/turn would be a good tweak which makes for less variance.

But yeah in my newbie mindset, where to me it seems that hitting three estates with it while the other person misses the reshuffle or gets chapel + a 5 card and three coppers in the same shuffle is really just far behind in that game. But yeah I'm more inclined toward making weaker cards stronger and more interesting (replacing thief with noble brigand in all games, for example) so that big money becomes less attractive. But if the community thinks it's such a well-balanced game, wouldn't there be less consensus in for example the Qvist rankings concerning the cards, like year after year? And I'm not talking about that sort of faux balance which is supported by the argument "well if the card is so powerful so what, everyone has access to it!"

Dominion is a game with a lot of luck in addition to a lot of skill. This is shown pretty well by the fact that the best players in the world still can lose to far worse players; and their winning percentage is generally less than 70%. Yes some cards cause more variance than others, but even with a set of all low-variance cards, having your turns 1-2 buys both be at the bottom of your deck after your first shuffle is going to hurt much more than most other unlucky things. This luck is simply part of the game. It's balanced out mostly by the fact that it's a quick enough game that you can play multiple games in a row, and the variance goes down as you play more games. Changing cards isn't going to stop it from being a game that depends a lot on luck.

[LastFootnote]

But there are so many other options for trashing these days besides Chapel. Chapel isn't even close to overpowered. It's a card that doesn't buy points or hurt your opponent, so no one is going to feel 'oppressed' by it. Plus, anyone can get it, even the unfortunate 5/2.

And you always ignore all of the other options when Chapel is present. It's not overpowered, but it definitely is extremely powerful.

I do not always do this. Maybe I should, but I don't.

[JW]

Scout (weak) and Rebuild (strong) are examples of cards that do make the game less interesting.

I can't remember the last time I played a Rebuild mirror.  Part of that is probably that I make a point of trying to skip it, but I'd far rather promise never to buy Rebuild than promise to buy no Kingdom cards other than Rebuild whenever it's on the board.

You don't have to buy Rebuild every time it's on the board. But that doesn't change the fact that Rebuild is correctly perceived as a less fun card, including by Donald X., (for example, you mention trying to skip it when possible), and that if you are trying to maximize your chance to win, you'll be buying it often.

For example, Stef and Mic Qsenoch each gain Rebuild in 51-55% of the games it's in the Kingdom (per this tool: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=12420.msg456057#msg456057).

[LastFootnote]

I don't really think I'm good enough at the game to suggest balancing changes, but if I had to, I would probably see if there is some way to tweak Rebuild slightly.

I don't think there is. Rebuild is fundamentally flawed because it bypasses the process of building up your deck. That's the entire concept of the card: turning little Victory cards into bigger ones directly. And since building up your deck is the fun part of the game, a card that obviates the need to do that is going to either be too weak to buy or really boring to play.

[sudgy]

How has no one mentioned DoubleJack? Or is that not a thing anymore?

Jack has many other uses too and can be used in other decks.  You would probably go for Double Jack if the board was already a Big Money board.

[A7A]

Heh, missing turn 1-2 buys on reshuffle, yeah, balancing individual cards won't change that... Maybe I just haven't played enough, since I read someone with like 3000+ posts on this forum claim that mid-to-endgame was (sadly, they seemed to imply) the most important part of the game, whereas right now I sometimes feel that it's the opposite and runaway leading is the biggest issue (exacerbated by some specific cards which are very good at the beginning of the game, but also just in general due to shuffle luck).

[Mic Qsenoch]

Heh, missing turn 1-2 buys on reshuffle, yeah, balancing individual cards won't change that... Maybe I just haven't played enough, since I read someone with like 3000+ posts on this forum claim that mid-to-endgame was (sadly, they seemed to imply) the most important part of the game, whereas right now I sometimes feel that it's the opposite and runaway leading is the biggest issue (exacerbated by some specific cards which are very good at the beginning of the game, but also just in general due to shuffle luck).

The beginning of the game is the most important, and I think winning at Dominion is largely about getting runaway luck. But the running away isn't as easy as it might first appear (and in some boards is very complicated) and that makes the middle and endgames very important also. At all skill levels people can botch up big early leads from favorable luck or early choices, I just watched it happen in the World Cup finals.

[Awaclus]

I don't really think there's a phase in the game that's more important than the others. Sometimes your opening buys and early luck will make a huge difference, sometimes your mid-game choices and luck will, and sometimes it all comes down to end game tactics and shuffles. The earlier you make a small mistake, the longer it will affect you negatively; the later you make a small mistake, the faster its negative effects will accumulate — in the very late end game, it's possible to make a small mistake that immediately costs you the game on your opponent's next turn (well, I guess you could argue that it's a pretty big mistake then, but it's very easy to make a mistake such as forgetting that Count can gain Duchies, and lose because of it).