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Author Topic: The Dominion Cards Lists 2016 Edition: Landmarks  (Read 2958 times)

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aku_chi

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The Dominion Cards Lists 2016 Edition: Landmarks
« on: July 02, 2017, 10:06:50 am »
+4

Taking trivialknot's suggestion, here is a thread where we can discuss the Landmarks in particular.

Landmarks

21. Labyrinth
20. Aqueduct
19. Baths
18. Arena
17. Colonnade
16. Basilica
15. Battlefield
14. Palace
13. Defiled Shrine
12. Tomb
11. Tower
10. Obelisk
9. Moutain Pass
8. Orchard
7. Triumphal Arch
6. Wolf Den
5. Bandit Fort
4. Fountain
3. Keep
2. Museum
1. Wall
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schadd

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2016 Edition: Landmarks
« Reply #1 on: July 02, 2017, 12:08:44 pm »
+1

i don't like keep
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Burning Skull

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2016 Edition: Landmarks
« Reply #2 on: July 02, 2017, 08:08:03 pm »
+3

orchard is cool

Gherald

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2016 Edition: Landmarks
« Reply #3 on: July 02, 2017, 08:49:26 pm »
+1

I could do without Triumphal Arc.  It's okay, but I never have any desire to think about it.
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schadd

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2016 Edition: Landmarks
« Reply #4 on: July 02, 2017, 11:44:58 pm »
+1

orchard is cool
that was my next thought after not liking keep
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trivialknot

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2016 Edition: Landmarks
« Reply #5 on: July 02, 2017, 11:47:46 pm »
+3

So here are some landmarks that I think are most misranked:

4. Fountain - The copper trashing would have to be really weak (say, Salvager) for me to skip copper trashing for the Fountain points.  And if you do trash copper, 15 VP for 10 stop cards just isn't a very good alt-VP source.

9. Mountain Pass - as we were discussing in the other thread, it's hard to rank Mountain Pass, because when the players are sufficiently competent they choose the right price for Mountain Pass.  What makes Mountain Pass weak is that it doesn't really impact your overall strategy.  For instance, you generally won't buy province earlier or later just because of Mountain Pass.

11. Tower - Tower seems weak at first, because all it does is give you ~2 VP when you win the split of a key card.  But the biggest impact of Tower is that it enables rush strategies that otherwise wouldn't even make sense.  Generally, rush strategies are only possible when there's some cheap alt VP and two other piles you can easily empty (even given the junked deck).  With Tower, you just need to empty piles, and the VP comes for free.  It also works with copper and silver gainers like Masterpiece, Beggar, Raid.

Triumphal Arch is similar in that its biggest impact is also enabling rush strategies.  However, it's less likely to enable a rush, and has a greater impact than Tower in non-rush games.

I looked at how I ranked the landmarks myself, and... my rankings are terrible, let us not speak of them.
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drsteelhammer

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2016 Edition: Landmarks
« Reply #6 on: July 03, 2017, 12:19:48 am »
+1

Some comments/responses to Landmark remarks so far:

The Top 3 look good, altough I would have switched Keep with Wall. Keep significantl changes almost every game it's in, Wall often only mildly alters your buys.

Fountain: I ranked it at #4 aswell, which seems to have some opposition. Yes, 10 coppers are bad, but a 15VP swing it very significant (it even swings from +15->+-0 ->-15). We probably already agree that it's brilliant alt vp if there is no copper trashing, but there are still money games, slogs (try beating duchy/duke+fountain with provinces) and also engines that have the capacity to gain a few coppers a turn at the end of the game. (Gaining two beggars midturn on my last turn on a board with no +buy is one of my favourite dominion experiences this year!)

Tower: I have it at 5. I blame all the guys who voted it so low for their lack of creativity, it opens up so many possiblities which are game changing. Not many Landmarks can do this.

Defiled Shrine at 6: Uh, slightly overrated by me back then. Still, only one person gets the VP so it's a signifcant swing for a low cost (sometimes).

I had Obelisk at #10, and I am wrong and so are we all, apparently. Buying bad cards for VP doesn't make the cards better.

Bandit Fort at #15. Why are guys buying Yellow cards?

Rest looks ok, altough I have Baths and Battlefield a litle higher and Colonade lower, but that seems nitpicky.
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SirSlugma

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2016 Edition: Landmarks
« Reply #7 on: July 03, 2017, 12:19:13 pm »
+1

I get that the "do a thing to get 2 vp from the pile" landmarks are rarely exciting, but man, palace is just about never important. I would put it below the ones that reward you 2 vp for buying actions.
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Cave-o-sapien

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2016 Edition: Landmarks
« Reply #8 on: July 03, 2017, 12:40:50 pm »
+2

Fountain: I ranked it at #4 aswell, which seems to have some opposition. Yes, 10 coppers are bad, but a 15VP swing it very significant (it even swings from +15->+-0 ->-15). We probably already agree that it's brilliant alt vp if there is no copper trashing, but there are still money games, slogs (try beating duchy/duke+fountain with provinces) and also engines that have the capacity to gain a few coppers a turn at the end of the game. (Gaining two beggars midturn on my last turn on a board with no +buy is one of my favourite dominion experiences this year!)

I like Fountain because you have to decide almost from the start of the game if you can ignore it or not. There's nothing like the growing sense of dread when you realize you were wrong.
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aku_chi

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2016 Edition: Landmarks
« Reply #9 on: July 07, 2017, 09:15:30 am »
+4

My up-do-date ranking of Landmark Impact (differs substantially from what I submitted):

21. Baths
20. Basilica
19. Labyrinth
18. Obelisk
17. Palace
16. Arena
15. Collonade
14. Aqueduct
13. Mountain Pass
12. Defiled Shrine
11. Battlefield
10. Fountain
9. Tower
8. Triumphal Arch
7. Bandit Fort
6. Orchard
5. Tomb
4. Wall
3. Museum
2. Keep
1. Wolf Den

Notable differences from community rankings (not just the largest numerical difference):

Wolf Den
Community Rank: 6
Personal Rank: 1

The thing about Wolf Den is: it always affects my strategy.  It's something I think about on the very first turn and throughout the game.  -3 VP is a big deal, and it is rare for a unique card to be worth that kind of VP hit (it can happen, of course).  No other landmark so consistently affects my strategy.  Though, Keep and Museum almost always affect my strategy from midgame and beyond, and they put more VP on the line, so I could see an argument for Wolf Den at #3 - but no lower.

Wall
Community Rank: 1
Personal Rank: 4

Not a huge difference, but a notable one.  Wall does make me carefully consider my strategy from turn 1.  But unlike Wolf Den, Museum, and Keep: Wall doesn't always affect my strategy.  There are boards where there's not much you can do to play around Wall, and so it ends up having a minor impact.  There are other games where Wall can give you -10+ VP more than your opponent, but the Alt VP is powerful enough to overcome it.

Fountain
Community Rank: 4
Personal Rank: 10

It's very rare for Fountain to be worth pursuing when there's a good way to trash Coppers, and that's a majority of kingdoms.  On the minority of kingdoms where there is no (good) way to trash Coppers, Fountain is a big deal, and there's some interesting strategy to figure out when to add the additional 5-VP Coppers to the deck.

Tomb
Community Rank: 12
Personal Rank: 5

Sometimes Tomb has no effect on the kingdom.  Sometimes Tomb has a modest effect of nudging both players towards a thin engine with weak payload over the alternative.  But a surprisingly large portion of the time Tomb enables interesting strategies where trashing cards is a large portion of the payload.  Maybe I have Tomb slightly overrated, but these kingdoms really stick out in my mind.

Obelisk
Community Rank: 10
Personal Rank: 18

drsteelhammer said it best: "I am wrong and so are we all, apparently. Buying bad cards for VP doesn't make the cards better."  It's shocking how little impact Obelisk usually makes.  If Obelisk is on a good non-terminal, winning the split was probably important absent Obelisk - with Obelisk it's slightly more valuable.  If it's on a decent non-terminal, maybe it encourages one or both players to buy them before greening on boards with weak payload.  If it's on a good or decent terminal, it replaces maybe one Duchy buy (in games where that matters).  And if it's on a weak card, Obelisk simply doesn't matter.
« Last Edit: July 07, 2017, 12:30:15 pm by aku_chi »
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Loempiaverkoper

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2016 Edition: Landmarks
« Reply #10 on: July 07, 2017, 09:47:51 am »
+2

**
Nice remarks. I think you are right to test to which extend landmarks affect your strategy rather than just how many point they bring to the table.

drsteelhammer said it best: "I am wrong and so are we all, apparently. Buying bad cards for VP doesn't make the cards better."  It's shocking how little impact Obelisk usually makes.  If Obelisk is on a good non-terminal, winning the split was probably important absent Obelisk - with Obelisk it's slightly more valuable.  If it's on a decent non-terminal, maybe it encourages one or both players to buy them before greening on boards with weak payload.  If it's on a good or decent terminal, it replaces maybe one Duchy buy (in games where that matters).  And if it's on a weak card, Obelisk simply doesn't matter.
I just want to report an edge case where obelisk did affect my strat. I have no clue if this would happen often or not. I think I only played 2 obelisk games total.

I had a board with obelisk on ironworks and there were great halls. The rush of 'get all ironworks -> get all great halls -> empty something.' became a very strong strategy. At least in this edge case I think the obelisk points made the strategy much harder to beat than otherwise.
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markusin

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2016 Edition: Landmarks
« Reply #11 on: July 07, 2017, 10:14:54 am »
0

You flipped the personal and community ranking for the Obelisk ranking comparison, aku_chi.

Uh, I haven't played with enough landmarks to comment here. I didn't even submit a ranking for them.
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