The games of Dominion that I enjoy (from a competitive standpoint, excluding any other factors like specific-player interaction, etc) are ones where there are both tactical and strategical decisions to be made. Now, from an engine vs. other point of view, the major strategy decisions come for an opening; usually the cards you want for competing strategies on the engine vs. other scale are very different, so that decision is very important and comes immediately. There are still strategy decisions that come after that, depending on payload options, opponent's strategy signals, etc etc, but that is the main strategy decision point. A board where it is "obvious" that you should build some engine removes this decision point, and can punt the other strategical decisions down the road (if they exist at all). Whether or not to choose Big Money on an enabled board against a weak engine is a very interesting strategical decision, and the fact that
It's gotten to the point where I don't really consider Big Money or slog options on boards where anything resembling an engine is viable because I know the competitors won't even attempt them.
suggests that even the best players are leaving potential win% on the table means that there is room to grow and compete.
As far as tactical decisions go, I wish I had saved the chat log from the channel of the discussion after the match had concluded. If I could quote the exact log, I'd feel comfortable naming the person who voiced this opinion, but since I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth I'll just say that someone voiced an opinion to the effect that "they wanted to play games where tactical decisions are relevant" in the context of playing BMish games. I think there are still meaningful tactical decisions to be made on BM boards, particularly about when it is appropriate to leave the "script" exactly when you hit 5 and there's a potentially useful action, or when you feel behind enough to pick up some more actions on a high-variance comeback attempt, when to violate PPR, etc. The fact that I lose most of my moneyish games against higher-rated players suggests that they do reflect the skill of better Dominion players. The same can be said for the tactical decisions in a slog, where decisions about what to do with your 4c hand in a Duke game, which junker "synergizes" more with your plan, etc can make differences in win% as well.
To bring this back around to the context of the championship match in particular, the fact that all six boards were "engine" games (we can debate the meaning of engine, but they were certainly no BM games or slogs) seems to favor better engine builders in what is ostensibly a match to determine the better Dominion player. The championship match format is a separate topic of conversation, but if the stated goal is to determine the better player of Dominion, then the games should be representative of Dominion games as a whole.
Only playing kingdoms that privilege certain strategies will find the players who are best at executing those strategies and not the players who are best at Dominion. I'm highly opposed.
yea this is at the heart of why i see this as a problem. you can guarantee that every championship will feature a game where procession is important, and that just completely goes against one of the main points of dominion (variety). i think a wider range of macro-level strategies should be represented for sure.
i guess a good example of what i'm looking for would be a board from last season's championship where rebuild was arguably the way to go, but there was a competitive engine and it wasn't at all clear. both players just went for the engine there though, which speaks to awaclus's point in a way.
keep it coming yall~
When I'm picking kingdoms to use, I give good scores to the kingdoms where I read the cards and I don't know what I'm going to do like right away. I like interesting and difficult decisions.
Let me give you an idea of what you're up against here: each season we get anywhere from 20 to 55+ kingdoms to pick six of for the championship match. I don't remember exactly, but I can't think of any seasons where we had more than about three submissions where an engine was not possible to make. Also, on boards where Big Money was competitive, I've only ever seen players go for Big Money in one game -- it was Embassy+BM vs. a cool Talisman/Vineyards thing that in playtesting we found was usually better. MQ had a 5/2 and went for Embassy (which may be correct with that opening) and his opponent mirrored (don't remember who it was). It's gotten to the point where I don't really consider Big Money or slog options on boards where anything resembling an engine is viable because I know the competitors won't even attempt them. Like, I'll playtest them but the fact that they're just plain better than super-awful weak engines in like all of the playtesting games doesn't stop me from giving them good scores anymore.
We make a huge effort to make sure that the six games we pick all feel different. If anything I have a bias against Procession because it makes games take a lot longer and we used to lose the audience that way. That said, all six games this season had some kind of village, two of them had Procession, and all of them were engine games; and this is representative of the submissions we received. We will include less-intersting money boards or slog boards for the sake of variety when we have them, but there are seasons where we just don't.
So let's say there are people out there who don't like the kingdoms we pick for these matches. Very few of them have actually submitted kingdoms -- in fact the only one who has is funkdoc. If you don't like the kingdoms we're using then submit more of them! Be the change you want to see! I actually think it's just that simple. Any worries that non-engine boards people submit won't make it into the matches are entirely unfounded -- these types of boards have always had a higher chance of making it in than engine boards. I don't think anyone actually believes that the selection process is flawed, do they?
What makes an interesting non-engine board? That's a really interesting and difficult question to answer because you have to define engine, and you have to define interesting, which are both subjective terms anyways. Fortunately, the solution to what you all want to see is not affected by the answer to that question -- just submit more of the types of boards that you want to see, whatever they are.
And also if you want to be part of selecting the kingdoms, that's not hard either. Just ask. The answer will probably be yes.
I would like to preface, or postface for those present in the league championship match chat, the following comments with the fact that I was unaware of the selection process until I was illuminated in the chat during/after the match. I'd also like to point out that I have nothing against the playtesters and am not trying to accuse them individually of biasing in favor of certain board types. What I will say is this: if, again, this is only an if, the purpose of these matches is to determine the better Dominion player, then the committee that chooses the kingdoms should try to make the set representative of games of Dominion
as played, not as the community thinks it should be played. I accept the argument that most of the boards submitted will be engine boards; I think its quite clear that those types of games are the ones most people enjoy and are likely to find interesting. However, I think that the committee should seriously consider looking at the selection of boards submitted and supplement the pool with games from types that are missing. Adam's comment here that they didn't receive any BM or slog boards as submissions shouldn't mean none appear in the match. I find it hard to believe that no-one on the team had played a remotely interesting game of Dominion in the last several weeks that didn't include a village or a throne-variant. Playtesting, and if necessary, tweaking, such boards to create a variety of games for the championship match will produce a set of games that better reflects the competitors' skills in different areas of Dominion play, not just engine building.
As a final note, if the playtest/board selection team would consider a player who hovers between levels 35-38 on the new leaderboard, I'd be happy to put my
money time where my mouth is and help out for the next season's championship.