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[jsh357]

You need only look at the number of threads and comments asking for an iphone version to see how in demand offline play is.  I don't personally care about it but a lot of people do, and frankly it makes no sense that you have to be online to play the AI right now anyway.

[yed]

it makes no sense that you have to be online to play the AI right now anyway.

Not true: AI must be implemented on server side (because 3 player game of Human, Human, AI) and porting AI code (or coding portable from begining) to client side takes more time.

EDIT: There is also some game management code (for example shuffling) which right now happens only on the server.

[ghostofmars]

it makes no sense that you have to be online to play the AI right now anyway.

Not true: AI must be implemented on server side (because 3 player game of Human, Human, AI) and porting AI code (or coding portable from begining) to client side takes more time.

EDIT: There is also some game management code (for example shuffling) which right now happens only on the server.

Just because a part of the code runs on the server does not mean that it needs to run on an online server. You could run a server and client on your local machine.

[jsh357]

it makes no sense that you have to be online to play the AI right now anyway.

Not true: AI must be implemented on server side (because 3 player game of Human, Human, AI) and porting AI code (or coding portable from begining) to client side takes more time.

EDIT: There is also some game management code (for example shuffling) which right now happens only on the server.

It might make sense from a programming standpoint, but to the end user it doesn't since a one player game should be available whether you are online or not.

[yed]

it makes no sense that you have to be online to play the AI right now anyway.

Not true: AI must be implemented on server side (because 3 player game of Human, Human, AI) and porting AI code (or coding portable from begining) to client side takes more time.

EDIT: There is also some game management code (for example shuffling) which right now happens only on the server.

Just because a part of the code runs on the server does not mean that it needs to run on an online server. You could run a server and client on your local machine.

Yes, but that is exactly what I said, it needs to be a portable code.

[yed]

it makes no sense that you have to be online to play the AI right now anyway.

Not true: AI must be implemented on server side (because 3 player game of Human, Human, AI) and porting AI code (or coding portable from begining) to client side takes more time.

EDIT: There is also some game management code (for example shuffling) which right now happens only on the server.

It might make sense from a programming standpoint, but to the end user it doesn't since a one player game should be available whether you are online or not.

Yes, I agree with this statement

[cactus]

Well, I certainly prefer having a client that I can download, because that means

1) I can have a bunch of data on my hard drive instead of not having it there, which makes it faster to load that data
2) I can free up one browser bookmark for something else
3) I can pin it to my task bar which allows launching it with a hot key

I play on a iPad - I have for the last 18 months approx - so I guess if the new version is a downloaded client that ain't going to work too well for me. 

Yeah, they're going to need something that will run on iOS, Android, etc, or there will be a segment of very unhappy people.

Will be?  That segment of people is either already unhappy or long since gone past unhappy into 'playing something else' territory - or they never found Dominion at all because the only version it's ever had as an app that I know of is Androminion.  But then, that's true of a lot of players of this game - I could play MF, but I find the play experience so inimical that I choose not to, even for free.

Yes, that segment is already unhappy, but I'm talking about a much more specific segment: people who have paid for sets, but play exclusively on iOS or Android.  Telling them "other people can keep playing, but you're SOL" is a really terrible business move.

For that matter, does the downloadable work on non-Windows machines?  I hope so, because that would be a much larger segment of unhappy people.

Yep. That describes me exactly. My mate and I play on iPads. I use a computer at work but at home I pretty much only use an iPad. There is an old laptop around here somewhere but I'm not going to try to resurrect it just for Dominion.

[LastFootnote]

Again, thanks for the work you guys have been putting in, and a special thanks for you for taking the brunt of the community ire when things aren't right.

My question is: how far away are we from MF saying, "OK guys this is good enough. Scrap the old version, this is what it is now!"  I'm worried they will do this before it is where it needs to be. That's kinda how it went with the transition from isotopic to goko and it left a really sour taste in people's mouths.

Is the company's expected timeline available for public knowledge?

The honest is that I don't know. I just asked for a community update, so I think that Jeff and John are crafting a statement to tell us where we're at and what's in the near future.

Just my own opinion here, but I want to see the friend finder in place before 1.0 is shuttered.

I think that before the old version disappears, you need to have a working web version and a working iOS version.

If you want a smoother transition, you should implement Adventures, giving people a reason to play and get used to the new version before you pull the plug on the old one.

[Seprix]

Again, thanks for the work you guys have been putting in, and a special thanks for you for taking the brunt of the community ire when things aren't right.

My question is: how far away are we from MF saying, "OK guys this is good enough. Scrap the old version, this is what it is now!"  I'm worried they will do this before it is where it needs to be. That's kinda how it went with the transition from isotopic to goko and it left a really sour taste in people's mouths.

Is the company's expected timeline available for public knowledge?

The honest is that I don't know. I just asked for a community update, so I think that Jeff and John are crafting a statement to tell us where we're at and what's in the near future.

Just my own opinion here, but I want to see the friend finder in place before 1.0 is shuttered.

I think that before the old version disappears, you need to have a working web version and a working iOS version.

If you want a smoother transition, you should implement Adventures, giving people a reason to play and get used to the new version before you pull the plug on the old one.

That's a good idea. Putting Adventures on the new version only.

[Watno]

How about you keep the old version up until people start to use the new instead of it voluntarily (which will probably happen with the implementation of Adventures, if ever)?

[thespaceinvader]

-AI is a joke to play
-Playing AI is not a good way to get better at the game

a) Not everyone is interested in playing Dominion hyper-competitively

b) Playing against a BAD AI isn't a good way to get better, but I think it should be possible to build an AI sufficient to challenge most players.

Playing a bad AI is better than no dominion at all - as long as the implementation is decent - hence Androminion having been a thing.

[Witherweaver]

Or they could buy Androminion and update that with the new sets and better AI.  That would be awesome.

[Tables]

So, base set act 3 game 18 is pretty ludicrous, in a bad way. You're up against someone who starts with a Province, Duchy, Estate, Silver, 3 Coppers and 3 Witches. You have a standard starting deck but you get a free phantom Throne Room play at the start of each turn.

The kingdom is: Chancellor, Village, Workshop, Feast, Moneylender, Remodel, Throne Room, Festival, Laboratory, Witch

Basically, everything there just works to dick you over as much as possible. He's going to open Village or Festival, and usually play a Witch on turn 1 and 2 Witches on turn 2, and will also grab Throne Rooms to let him probably put all 10 curses into your deck by about turn 6 or 7. The only trashing is Remodel and Moneylender, and there's no defence against the Witch otherwise. After he's cursed you to death, he'll sometimes remodel the Witches, usually buys gold, and starts slamming down on the Provinces from about turn 9 or 10, during which time you're dealing with having 20 junk cards and probably only a handful of decent cards to deal with it.

So far the only even vaguely reasonable strategy I've found is to resign turn 1 until you get a 5/2 start, preferably going first (yes, that's random as well, for some inexplicable reason), and then open Witch/nothing (yeah there's nothing at $2 to help in this case either, any of the base game $2s would have been really helpful here), and hope that you can play your Witch twice before the curses run out in order to go 4/6 on the curses. If you manage that, and follow up with good play (Moneylender is great, Remodeling curses is surprisingly helpful, Thrones, Labs etc.) you have a decent chance of losing by less, and a small chance of actually winning. It took me quite a few tries to actually get through.

Edit: Thanks to the advice of PST and DXV, I've posted a strategy that wins maybe 1/4 to 1/3rd of the time, which is still frustratingly low but good enough to get through.

[Beyond Awesome]

So, base set act 3 game 18 is pretty ludicrous, in a bad way. You're up against someone who starts with a Province, Duchy, Estate, Silver, 3 Coppers and 3 Witches. You have a standard starting deck but you get a free phantom Throne Room play at the start of each turn.

The kingdom is: Chancellor, Village, Workshop, Feast, Moneylender, Remodel, Throne Room, Festival, Laboratory, Witch

Basically, everything there just works to dick you over as much as possible. He's going to open Village or Festival, and usually play a Witch on turn 1 and 2 Witches on turn 2, and will also grab Throne Rooms to let him probably put all 10 curses into your deck by about turn 6 or 7. The only trashing is Remodel and Moneylender, and there's no defence against the Witch otherwise. After he's cursed you to death, he'll sometimes remodel the Witches, usually buys gold, and starts slamming down on the Provinces from about turn 9 or 10, during which time you're dealing with having 20 junk cards and probably only a handful of decent cards to deal with it.

So far the only even vaguely reasonable strategy I've found is to resign turn 1 until you get a 5/2 start, preferably going first (yes, that's random as well, for some inexplicable reason), and then open Witch/nothing (yeah there's nothing at $2 to help in this case either, any of the base game $2s would have been really helpful here), and hope that you can play your Witch twice before the curses run out in order to go 4/6 on the curses. If you manage that, and follow up with good play (Moneylender is great, Remodeling curses is surprisingly helpful, Thrones, Labs etc.) you have a decent chance of losing by less, and a small chance of actually winning. It took me quite a few tries to actually get through.

That sounds messed up.

[Seprix]

So, base set act 3 game 18 is pretty ludicrous, in a bad way. You're up against someone who starts with a Province, Duchy, Estate, Silver, 3 Coppers and 3 Witches. You have a standard starting deck but you get a free phantom Throne Room play at the start of each turn.

The kingdom is: Chancellor, Village, Workshop, Feast, Moneylender, Remodel, Throne Room, Festival, Laboratory, Witch

Basically, everything there just works to dick you over as much as possible. He's going to open Village or Festival, and usually play a Witch on turn 1 and 2 Witches on turn 2, and will also grab Throne Rooms to let him probably put all 10 curses into your deck by about turn 6 or 7. The only trashing is Remodel and Moneylender, and there's no defence against the Witch otherwise. After he's cursed you to death, he'll sometimes remodel the Witches, usually buys gold, and starts slamming down on the Provinces from about turn 9 or 10, during which time you're dealing with having 20 junk cards and probably only a handful of decent cards to deal with it.

So far the only even vaguely reasonable strategy I've found is to resign turn 1 until you get a 5/2 start, preferably going first (yes, that's random as well, for some inexplicable reason), and then open Witch/nothing (yeah there's nothing at $2 to help in this case either, any of the base game $2s would have been really helpful here), and hope that you can play your Witch twice before the curses run out in order to go 4/6 on the curses. If you manage that, and follow up with good play (Moneylender is great, Remodeling curses is surprisingly helpful, Thrones, Labs etc.) you have a decent chance of losing by less, and a small chance of actually winning. It took me quite a few tries to actually get through.

The tables have turned.

...please don't kill me...

[markusin]

Speaking of the Campaign, why is there no VP counter for the Campaign AI games? The AIs in 3+ player games play at a speed where the VP counter is most useful. It's annoying to not know if you have enough points to end the game on a win unless you trawl the log. Reading through a gigantic log is not what I want to do while playing the Campaign.

Also what Tables is describing is screwed up.

[Drab Emordnilap]

Speaking of the Campaign, why is there no VP counter for the Campaign AI games? The AIs in 3+ player games play at a speed where the VP counter is most useful. It's annoying to not know if you have enough points to end the game on a win unless you trawl the log. Reading through a gigantic log is not what I want to do while playing the Campaign.

Also what Tables is describing is screwed up.

Campaign VP counters is something on their update list. No idea how far down the list it is, though.

And didn't Donald X come up with the different starting variations for the campaigns? We know who to blame for that madness. :p

[Rabid]

So, base set act 3 game 18 is pretty ludicrous, in a bad way. You're up against someone who starts with a Province, Duchy, Estate, Silver, 3 Coppers and 3 Witches. You have a standard starting deck but you get a free phantom Throne Room play at the start of each turn.

The kingdom is: Chancellor, Village, Workshop, Feast, Moneylender, Remodel, Throne Room, Festival, Laboratory, Witch

I've not tried this but how about a workshop / feast / duchy rush?

[markusin]

Speaking of the Campaign, why is there no VP counter for the Campaign AI games? The AIs in 3+ player games play at a speed where the VP counter is most useful. It's annoying to not know if you have enough points to end the game on a win unless you trawl the log. Reading through a gigantic log is not what I want to do while playing the Campaign.

Also what Tables is describing is screwed up.

Campaign VP counters is something on their update list. No idea how far down the list it is, though.

Good to know. I haven't yet taken the plunge into MF's forum.

[Tables]

So, base set act 3 game 18 is pretty ludicrous, in a bad way. You're up against someone who starts with a Province, Duchy, Estate, Silver, 3 Coppers and 3 Witches. You have a standard starting deck but you get a free phantom Throne Room play at the start of each turn.

The kingdom is: Chancellor, Village, Workshop, Feast, Moneylender, Remodel, Throne Room, Festival, Laboratory, Witch

I've not tried this but how about a workshop / feast / duchy rush?

Hmm... I'm going to give it a go. I don't expect success though - between the curses and their starting deck composition, you're 17 points down to begin with.

Edit: Here's a compilation of attempts, an a short summary of each. I only kept games where I was going first but did keep a few where I opened 5/2 (and thus grabbed a Witch immediately)

https://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20150721/log.0.1437517629331.txt - I grabbed a Lab with my first Feast, wondering if it might help. Probably a bad move, should just gun straight for the Duchies. Lost 25-15 in 13 turns.
https://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20150721/log.0.1437517790212.txt - Nothing too remarkable happens. In fact this one is quite lucky, since I don't take the final curse until turn 8 and only have 3 in my deck on the 3rd shuffle. Still lose,
35-22.
https://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20150721/log.0.1437517920580.txt - I get a Witch first on a 5/2 opening, the gun straight for the Duchies. I lose 22-14. In retrospect I probably should get two Workshops before I go for Feasts, I do that in later games.
https://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20150721/log.0.1437518081218.txt - another 5/2 open. I win this one! Barely. I think getting two Workshops quickly, after slinging a few curses, and then him completely failing to get his economy going, is what won it.
https://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20150721/log.0.1437518252199.txt - this time I got a 4/3 open (it took at least 10 attempts to get a 4/3 open where I went first, 43% chance my ass). Open double Workshop, finish very quickly (turn 11), lose 25-17

So, uh, yeah. It can win, but it's certainly not a reliable strategy (that or I suck at executing it)

[pst]

I think Feast works really good on that board, with the implicit Throne Room.

[Donald X.]

So, base set act 3 game 18 is pretty ludicrous, in a bad way. You're up against someone who starts with a Province, Duchy, Estate, Silver, 3 Coppers and 3 Witches. You have a standard starting deck but you get a free phantom Throne Room play at the start of each turn.

The kingdom is: Chancellor, Village, Workshop, Feast, Moneylender, Remodel, Throne Room, Festival, Laboratory, Witch

I beat it on my second try. I opened Workshop / Feast, used the Feast on two Witches, only managed to give him 2 Curses, and focused on Remodel.

It's possible it should be easier, but for sure it didn't take sitting there and restarting 3/4 openings.

[Tables]

So, base set act 3 game 18 is pretty ludicrous, in a bad way. You're up against someone who starts with a Province, Duchy, Estate, Silver, 3 Coppers and 3 Witches. You have a standard starting deck but you get a free phantom Throne Room play at the start of each turn.

The kingdom is: Chancellor, Village, Workshop, Feast, Moneylender, Remodel, Throne Room, Festival, Laboratory, Witch

I beat it on my second try. I opened Workshop / Feast, used the Feast on two Witches, only managed to give him 2 Curses, and focused on Remodel.

So I've tried this, I'm reasonably confident it's not good to focus on Remodel, that only managed to win me one game in about 6 or so tries but focusing on the Feasts into Duchies after getting 2 Witches is definitely a good way forward, I think I won about 3 times doing that out of maybe 10 games. I completely overlooked Feast at first, since it's usually such a niche card and I'm bad at Dominion (mostly because of the latter part), but it works extremely well on this board since getting Duchies is pretty much all you can hope to do.

Still the big issue here I'd say is that whether you win or not is so dependent on what the AI does. If it grabs a Gold in the midgame, then it's usually GG since it'll have 2-4 Provinces by about turn 13-14, which is usually when you can close the game out. But if it doesn't manage to get a Gold, it starts diving for Duchies and Estates, and that usually leads to you winning since you can squeeze those points out with Feasts and Workshops faster than it can, and often only manages 1 or no Provinces. And you have so little control over this. Like, getting the Witches helps, since giving 2 or so curses makes it less likely to get that Gold, but it's not a huge amount.

Anyway for people struggling on this board: On a 4/3 open Workshop/Feast. Get 2 Witches with your first Feast (unless it drops to turn 5), and from there, buy Workshops with $3 and Feasts with $4. Turn those Feasts into Duchies and Workshops into more Feasts. Prioritise playing Feasts over Workshops, unless you're very short on Workshops (use your common sense). Probably buy Duchies or Feasts with $5+ but you won't get those hands often. From about the 4th shuffle onwards, buy Estates with $2. On a 5/2, open Witch/Nothing. Get 2 Workshops with your next $3/$4 hands, and then follow the above strategy. You're more likely to get $5 hands with this, since you have that Witch from earlier on to draw you 4 cards, when you have more copper. I would probably still suggest Feasts there, the $5's are tempting but honestly, Feasting into 2 Duchies is just 6 points, that's more than a double Festival or whatever is likely to get.

[markusin]

The advice on that act is greatly appreciated.

[mail-mi]

So just a couple basic questions since I haven't been following this at all:

Do I keep the sets I bought on goko?
Is it download only?
How much space does it take up?