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Author Topic: What would you change about Dominion?  (Read 16615 times)

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theblankman

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Re: What would you change about Dominion?
« Reply #25 on: March 23, 2015, 12:16:30 am »
0

I might consider the online game a true spinoff and try things there that physically can't be done, like bottomless piles.  What if the base VP piles (estate, duchy and province) were bottomless?  Every game would end on three piles, because you can't empty province or colony, or slog past half the available points. 

These might become an endless race where people are constantly buying VPs at the same rate and ending the game gives the other person the lead...

Possible but rare because base green cards clog your deck.  Even a super-reliable engine would have to keep buying some components while it buys green, which would lower piles and eventually end the game.  Only golden decks could do what you're suggesting endlessly, and there are already possible "stalemate" situations like that in the real game.  It can happen pretty easily in a Bishop/Fortress mirror, for instance. 
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Donald X.

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Re: What would you change about Dominion?
« Reply #26 on: March 23, 2015, 11:00:02 am »
+7

4 player games use 16 of each VP card and only end when 4 piles are empty instead of 3. Would make the game less of a sprint for VP.
I like the game length in terms of turns more with 4 Provinces per player, but made it 3 for 4 players due to the game length in terms of minutes. For sure if the minutes aren't an issue for you then 16 Provinces for 4 players is a good variant. I don't know what the best number of empty piles would be, I would have to do testing.
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Donald X.

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Re: What would you change about Dominion?
« Reply #27 on: March 23, 2015, 11:02:00 am »
+6

Would 12 Kingdom cards realistically work? or would something be skewed?
I think 8-12 are fine. With 8 you have the advantage of it taking more games to see everything (relevant when you just have the main set), and of course the disadvantage of having fewer options in each game. I wouldn't go much higher than 12 because you are asking a lot of new players.
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Donald X.

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Re: What would you change about Dominion?
« Reply #28 on: March 23, 2015, 11:04:39 am »
+4

I think Action card piles should add a card for every player past 2.  That might make games last a little longer, but it might mean you can actually construct a halfway decent deck in a 4 player game before the Villages run out.
Obv. you would not possibly want to do this irl; it's just way too much set-up. If the game had started out as an online game, I would have tried having non-VP piles be unlimited (and done whatever work on the ending condition that I'm not doing for a hypothetical).
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Donald X.

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Re: What would you change about Dominion?
« Reply #29 on: March 23, 2015, 11:08:34 am »
+8

I also like getting to use a lot of any given board.  My least favorite kingdoms are the ones full of terminals, where you just pick the best one or two, grab a few copies, and otherwise buy treasure and green.  To get rid of that I'd consider making plain Village a base card with a pile of 40 like Silver.
For me it's a huge plus to the existing game that basic parts shift in availability (and that this works). Some games there's no village, some games there's a village; some games there's a village for $2, some games it's $5. Hooray, different experiences. Villages are so common that you usually have one, and sometimes several, but which village it is shakes things up, and you get those different games with no villages.

Anyone who always wants Village, or Moat, or whatever, is obv. free to just always include it, and that's that. The game is already handling that just by letting you pick the kingdom cards however you want.
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iguanaiguana

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Re: What would you change about Dominion?
« Reply #30 on: March 23, 2015, 01:20:54 pm »
+6

A variation i like to play once in a blue moon is called BMU (black market ultimate) where you take 100 randomizers from the randomizer stack and put them in ten stacks of ten face down with only the top card revealed. Now you're not playing dominion, you're playing ascension with dominion cards and rules. Pro tip: this does not make dominion better, it is hard to make dominion better, but it does do hilarious things to card power and balance.
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theblankman

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Re: What would you change about Dominion?
« Reply #31 on: March 23, 2015, 01:44:26 pm »
+1

I also like getting to use a lot of any given board.  My least favorite kingdoms are the ones full of terminals, where you just pick the best one or two, grab a few copies, and otherwise buy treasure and green.  To get rid of that I'd consider making plain Village a base card with a pile of 40 like Silver.
For me it's a huge plus to the existing game that basic parts shift in availability (and that this works). Some games there's no village, some games there's a village; some games there's a village for $2, some games it's $5. Hooray, different experiences. Villages are so common that you usually have one, and sometimes several, but which village it is shakes things up, and you get those different games with no villages.
Yeah later in the thread I backed off the idea of village as basic card, it's not a very good answer to what I wanted to solve anyway (random boards where you just pick the best kingdom card).  And I do love the replay value that comes from varying parts. 

Anyone who always wants Village, or Moat, or whatever, is obv. free to just always include it, and that's that. The game is already handling that just by letting you pick the kingdom cards however you want.
Not if you're playing goko pro mode, which I suspect is the majority of Dominion games for f.ds users.  "Just pick the cards you want to play with" is a perfect answer to almost every complaint or suggestion I've ever heard about Dominion, which is why I think it's such a shame that the de facto online standard doesn't have that feature.
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Donald X.

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Re: What would you change about Dominion?
« Reply #32 on: March 23, 2015, 01:53:04 pm »
+4

Not if you're playing goko pro mode, which I suspect is the majority of Dominion games for f.ds users.  "Just pick the cards you want to play with" is a perfect answer to almost every complaint or suggestion I've ever heard about Dominion, which is why I think it's such a shame that the de facto online standard doesn't have that feature.
You can play whatever cards you want online, and I expect that someday the system for doing so will be better. You won't get ranked for those games and well there's no way around that; picking the cards confers too much of an advantage.
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JW

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Re: What would you change about Dominion?
« Reply #33 on: March 23, 2015, 04:02:32 pm »
+2

You can play whatever cards you want online, and I expect that someday the system for doing so will be better. You won't get ranked for those games and well there's no way around that; picking the cards confers too much of an advantage.

People like Leck cheat act dubiously by playing the same chosen trap board hundreds of times in casual (e.g., http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150109/log.516dc44be4b082c74d7c8c25.1420802054571.txt). 

A feature that showed the string used in the Salvager Kingdom generator to create a game (for unrated/casual games) but hid the Kingdom itself would be great. For example, suppose you want to include Prince (or exclude Scout), but not see the Kingdom in advance.

In addition, there are ways in the current Salvager Kingdom generator to make different cards come up with varying frequencies. However, the associated Kingdom generator strings are cumbersome. If before joining a game you couldn't see the Kingdom but could see an indication that, "All cards have equal probability, except: 3x frequency of Jack of All Trades, 1/3 frequency of Knights, excludes Tournament", that would increase the market for unrated/casual games. You could see that this person likes Jack and dislike Knights and Tournament, but hasn't preset the board.
« Last Edit: March 23, 2015, 05:09:29 pm by JW »
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Re: What would you change about Dominion?
« Reply #34 on: March 23, 2015, 04:08:02 pm »
0

You can play whatever cards you want online, and I expect that someday the system for doing so will be better. You won't get ranked for those games and well there's no way around that; picking the cards confers too much of an advantage.

People like Leck cheat by playing the same chosen trap board hundreds of times in casual (e.g., http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150109/log.516dc44be4b082c74d7c8c25.1420802054571.txt).   

That isn't cheating.

Flip5ide

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Re: What would you change about Dominion?
« Reply #35 on: March 23, 2015, 04:27:37 pm »
0

You can play whatever cards you want online, and I expect that someday the system for doing so will be better. You won't get ranked for those games and well there's no way around that; picking the cards confers too much of an advantage.

People like Leck cheat by playing the same chosen trap board hundreds of times in casual (e.g., http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150109/log.516dc44be4b082c74d7c8c25.1420802054571.txt).   

That isn't cheating.

True: it isn't cheating
True: it is cheap. it's hard to take casual ratings too seriously.

It would be interesting to pit a top player against a "trap" board player and see what happens, whether they take the same route off the bat.
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A Drowned Kernel

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Re: What would you change about Dominion?
« Reply #36 on: March 23, 2015, 05:15:11 pm »
+23

The punishment for playing the same trap board over and over in casual rating is that you have to play the same trap board over and over in casual rating.
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jaybeez

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Re: What would you change about Dominion?
« Reply #37 on: March 23, 2015, 08:57:59 pm »
0

I would change the theme, because I don't like the medieval European aesthetic.  It invariably reminds me of lame-ass "creative anachronism" types and their ren-fests and LARPing and all that garbage.  That's just me though.

But the benefit that everyone would get out of that would be that the cards would have to get different artwork which would mean that no one would ever have to look at the likes of Candlestick Maker or Scout or Harem ever again.
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Jimmmmm

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Re: What would you change about Dominion?
« Reply #38 on: March 23, 2015, 10:33:02 pm »
+12

But the benefit that everyone would get out of that would be that the cards would have to get different artwork which would mean that no one would ever have to look at the likes of Candlestick Maker or Scout or Harem ever again.

   

Better?
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jaybeez

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Re: What would you change about Dominion?
« Reply #39 on: March 24, 2015, 03:54:18 pm »
0

Not remotely.  Who said anything about a sci-fi theme?
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Awaclus

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Re: What would you change about Dominion?
« Reply #40 on: March 24, 2015, 04:04:20 pm »
+4

Who said anything about a sci-fi theme?

You just did.
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GreyICE

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Re: What would you change about Dominion?
« Reply #41 on: March 24, 2015, 10:08:46 pm »
+3

My favorite variant is simultaneous turns.  It's mainly for 4-6, but basically everyone takes their turn at the same time.  It requires a few rules changes.

- Priority marker: Designates who gets priority in the buy phase if there's a dispute over who is buying the last two cards.  Rotates clockwise every turn.
- Attacks resolve on the next hand.  Draws happen before discards (Council Room/Militia)
- If players tie, they're joint winners.  Alternatively you could do most green cards, farthest from priority, etc.
- Possession is banned (not much of a rule, I know)

Makes the 4 player game suck a lot less, and makes 5-6 playable.  Although really, going up to 12-15 stacks for 6 is kind of good.
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Re: What would you change about Dominion?
« Reply #42 on: March 24, 2015, 10:44:08 pm »
0

But the benefit that everyone would get out of that would be that the cards would have to get different artwork which would mean that no one would ever have to look at the likes of Candlestick Maker or Scout or Harem ever again.

Oy.  I like Candlestick Maker.
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Flip5ide

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Re: What would you change about Dominion?
« Reply #43 on: March 25, 2015, 05:44:39 am »
+1

  • Both players sit with their cards backwards, facing their opponent.
  • Player 2 plays any and all action cards possible (in any legal order) from Player 1's hand and makes applicable decisions for Player 1 during the Action phase. Villages (+2 action variants) must be played if possible.
  • Player 1 now buys any card(s) he/she wishes to buy, which all go to their (Player 1's) deck, just like normal.
  • Play continues to Player 2, who (always holding his cards backwards) has his action phase run by Player 1.

EDIT: There are a few holes in the idea that I can think of. Namely BM and trashers in general. Looking for some way to tweak the idea.
« Last Edit: March 25, 2015, 05:45:57 am by Flip5ide »
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lehmacdj

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Re: What would you change about Dominion?
« Reply #44 on: March 26, 2015, 10:19:24 pm »
+3

Kind of an idea of a friend but also partially my idea:
1. Play a 4 player game of Dominion with players opposite each other on the same team.
2. The team with the most points total at the end wins.
3. Attacks can either affect your partner or not depending if they want them too.
Seems like one of the best ideas I have ever thought of for playing co-op Dominion.
Leads to possibilities for some engines where there otherwise couldn't be engines (i.e. parter goes for pirate ship you build an engine) that possibly make the game more interesting than two player sometimes.
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Flip5ide

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Re: What would you change about Dominion?
« Reply #45 on: March 27, 2015, 04:11:34 pm »
0

Kind of an idea of a friend but also partially my idea:
1. Play a 4 player game of Dominion with players opposite each other on the same team.
2. The team with the most points total at the end wins.
3. Attacks can either affect your partner or not depending if they want them too.
Seems like one of the best ideas I have ever thought of for playing co-op Dominion.
Leads to possibilities for some engines where there otherwise couldn't be engines (i.e. parter goes for pirate ship you build an engine) that possibly make the game more interesting than two player sometimes.

That's simple enough that it might actually be interesting to try a few times. I bet there would be few kinks. However the problem is that there is nothing separating this game from a standard 4-player game. I mean, you could literally pair up into arbitrary teams on Goko, but there would be little true "teamwork." You need at least one aspect or rule that adds to teamwork or it will never stick.

EDIT: I'm not saying mine would fit the bill either. I'm just thinking out loud.
« Last Edit: March 27, 2015, 04:13:08 pm by Flip5ide »
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