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Fabian

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Remember me?
« on: August 26, 2017, 07:47:55 am »
+20

Hey guys,

It's been quite a while since I've visited this place, but some of you might remember me. I used to be a top ranked player on Isotropic in 2012 or so, more or less quitting the game once that was shut down. I played a bit with Dark Ages, at least enough to recognize the cards these days, but everything released after DA is essentially new to me.

I recently kinda got back into playing, and oh my is it hard to play optimally when you only know half the cards!

Anyway, I'd appreciate some input on how the way the game is being played has changed in the last ~3-4 years. If you wouldn't mind, I'd also be interested in hearing your thoughts on how best to learn playing well with these latest expansions. Obviously my fundamentals are reasonably solid, but with a lot of rust and a lot of new knowledge requirements mixed in there. Reading the Articles on each card is probably a good start? Do you still do the card rankings you used to do back in the days? Seeing what new/unfamiliar cards are universally regarded as great (or really bad) would probably speed the process up.

Thanks for any tips, and maybe I'll see you at the table :)
« Last Edit: August 26, 2017, 07:49:00 am by Fabian »
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Awaclus

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Re: Remember me?
« Reply #1 on: August 26, 2017, 07:57:46 am »
0

You should join the Discord server and ask around if anyone wants to play using mostly the new cards. Articles can help a bit, but I think you're a good enough player that just seeing how those cards work in practice should give you better results.
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faust

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Re: Remember me?
« Reply #2 on: August 26, 2017, 08:56:39 am »
+1

There is a card ranking for 2016 that seems like a good first start. It does not include second edition cards, and some things are still severely misranked, but for an overall idea it's not bad. I think it might be particularly insightful to see how ranks changed for old cards that you still know, because that might help get a grasp of how the metagame changed.

In general I think the most recent expansions have strongly increased the decision density in Dominion. Back in the day, you could play something like Embassy-BM or DoubleJack in a fairly straightforward manner and win making very few actual decisions beyond choosing the strategy. That's mostly gone. There are way fewer boards on which BM is optimal, and even those where it is are more interesting and require more thought. Landmarks are a huge new concept that will influence a lot of games.
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McGarnacle

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Re: Remember me?
« Reply #3 on: August 26, 2017, 09:10:56 am »
+4

Engines keep getting better and Sea Hag sucks now.
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Fabian

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Re: Remember me?
« Reply #4 on: August 26, 2017, 10:55:27 am »
+2

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cascadestyler

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Re: Remember me?
« Reply #5 on: August 26, 2017, 11:09:17 am »
+9

Don't bother much with Donate (an Event from Empires). It's basically the new Chancellor :p
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Robz888

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Re: Remember me?
« Reply #6 on: August 26, 2017, 11:14:14 am »
+4

We live in the time of engines. You can almost always do something better than big money. Most of the traditional rushes (i.e. Gardens and Silk Road) are quite often obsolete as well.

Junking is still strong, quite often, though trashing options keep getting better and better. See: Donate.

Two-card combos don't matter as much, since they come up less frequently.

Probably the biggest check on engines is availability of extra gains or +buy. If a kingdom lacks both of those things, then maybe something simpler than an engine can win.

Landmarks are huge. Make sure to read them, it's very often worth going out of your way to collect those points, even if it means executing your strategy in a manner that would be supoptimal otherwise.

Watch out for Sauna/Avanto! It doesn't seem like a powerhouse, but dear lord is it strong.

Scout became too powerful when combined with later sets, so Donald X removed it. (Joking! But seriously, Scout was erased from existence.)
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Mic Qsenoch

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Re: Remember me?
« Reply #7 on: August 26, 2017, 12:32:55 pm »
+4

Landmarks are huge. Make sure to read them, it's very often worth going out of your way to collect those points, even if it means executing your strategy in a manner that would be supoptimal otherwise.

For a baseline I'd actually advocate ignoring Landmarks for the most part. Look for the good deck to build first and then check the ways you can use the Landmarks to score points. This isn't the complete story but I don't like letting the Landmarks push your choices very hard. Of course it's good to take the points if you don't have to go out of your way for them.
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McGarnacle

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Re: Remember me?
« Reply #8 on: August 26, 2017, 12:34:18 pm »
0

Don't bother much with Donate (an Event from Empires). It's basically the new Chancellor :p

btw Chancellor is also gone.
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Awaclus

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Re: Remember me?
« Reply #9 on: August 26, 2017, 01:39:52 pm »
0

Sea Hag sucks now.

Well, it doesn't suck exactly, it's just very skippable pretty often. You still have to buy it sometimes.
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Re: Remember me?
« Reply #10 on: August 26, 2017, 07:15:47 pm »
+1

Landmarks are huge. Make sure to read them, it's very often worth going out of your way to collect those points, even if it means executing your strategy in a manner that would be supoptimal otherwise.

For a baseline I'd actually advocate ignoring Landmarks for the most part. Look for the good deck to build first and then check the ways you can use the Landmarks to score points. This isn't the complete story but I don't like letting the Landmarks push your choices very hard. Of course it's good to take the points if you don't have to go out of your way for them.

Interesting that you say that. You are definitely better than me, so I will take this to heart, but I feel like my experience is often the opposite: I frequently ignore Landmark points if they will undermine my plans, and I typically lose this way.
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Mic Qsenoch

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Re: Remember me?
« Reply #11 on: August 26, 2017, 08:30:23 pm »
+1

Landmarks are huge. Make sure to read them, it's very often worth going out of your way to collect those points, even if it means executing your strategy in a manner that would be supoptimal otherwise.

For a baseline I'd actually advocate ignoring Landmarks for the most part. Look for the good deck to build first and then check the ways you can use the Landmarks to score points. This isn't the complete story but I don't like letting the Landmarks push your choices very hard. Of course it's good to take the points if you don't have to go out of your way for them.

Interesting that you say that. You are definitely better than me, so I will take this to heart, but I feel like my experience is often the opposite: I frequently ignore Landmark points if they will undermine my plans, and I typically lose this way.

I think it's most important to not pursue the Landmarks aggressively in the early game when those choices have the biggest impact on how long it takes before your deck is really humming along. This is analogous to not greening too early, though it's often not as clear-cut because a 2 point Harbinger from Obelisk isn't nearly as bad as an early Estate, but could be game losing relative to a Village or something. My biggest Landmark pet peeve at the moment is taking the Defiled Shrine points early.

Like all generic Dominion advice that isn't tautological, there are boards where this is 100% backwards (I love this game). It's just my current frame of reference, in-game there's always a lot more information to go off of to do more nuanced evaluation.
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Lekkit

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Re: Remember me?
« Reply #12 on: August 27, 2017, 06:18:22 am »
+1

I vaguely remember some Fabian guy who, after he left, let me and the wife dominating the "swedish" scene. But that can't be you, right?
Seriously, though. Welcome back! And enjoy the engines. They're where it's at.
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faust

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Re: Remember me?
« Reply #13 on: August 27, 2017, 06:42:23 am »
+1

Landmarks are huge. Make sure to read them, it's very often worth going out of your way to collect those points, even if it means executing your strategy in a manner that would be supoptimal otherwise.

For a baseline I'd actually advocate ignoring Landmarks for the most part. Look for the good deck to build first and then check the ways you can use the Landmarks to score points. This isn't the complete story but I don't like letting the Landmarks push your choices very hard. Of course it's good to take the points if you don't have to go out of your way for them.

Interesting that you say that. You are definitely better than me, so I will take this to heart, but I feel like my experience is often the opposite: I frequently ignore Landmark points if they will undermine my plans, and I typically lose this way.

I think it's most important to not pursue the Landmarks aggressively in the early game when those choices have the biggest impact on how long it takes before your deck is really humming along. This is analogous to not greening too early, though it's often not as clear-cut because a 2 point Harbinger from Obelisk isn't nearly as bad as an early Estate, but could be game losing relative to a Village or something. My biggest Landmark pet peeve at the moment is taking the Defiled Shrine points early.

Like all generic Dominion advice that isn't tautological, there are boards where this is 100% backwards (I love this game). It's just my current frame of reference, in-game there's always a lot more information to go off of to do more nuanced evaluation.
I think it's heavily dependent on the Landmark. There are some, particularly in the 2-VP-per-thing-you-do category that you don't want to go for too hard for or they'll leave you with a suboptimal deck, then there's stuff like Orchard and Triumphal Arch that can give pretty huge rewards for building your deck just a little differently.
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Mic Qsenoch

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Re: Remember me?
« Reply #14 on: August 27, 2017, 09:41:29 am »
0

I think it's heavily dependent on the Landmark. There are some, particularly in the 2-VP-per-thing-you-do category that you don't want to go for too hard for or they'll leave you with a suboptimal deck, then there's stuff like Orchard and Triumphal Arch that can give pretty huge rewards for building your deck just a little differently.

Both of those are Landmarks that usually align with how I want to build a deck (Action heavy), they don't push my choices very much.
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Fabian

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Re: Remember me?
« Reply #15 on: November 02, 2017, 06:13:52 pm »
+8

Well, I might not be a top 3 player any more like in early 2012, but I've learned most of the new cards now, and this old man can still throw some cards around!



As you can see, I play pretty sporadically, but it tends to go pretty well when I do play. Only a few more spots to reach the frontpage of the leaderboard, which I suppose will be my goal for next couple times I play, whenever that may be.
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Beyond Awesome

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Re: Remember me?
« Reply #16 on: November 06, 2017, 03:59:32 pm »
+1

Nice!

My advice is build, build, build, especially if any form of alt. vp is on the board. Let your opponent buy provinces, and just get VP from elsewhere. That usually works for me, anyway.

Also, watch Dan's and Mic's videos.
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Re: Remember me?
« Reply #17 on: November 07, 2017, 01:27:30 pm »
0

Was 2012 really that long ago? Yikes. Welcome back. You'll pick up again quickly.
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Chase Adolphson

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Re: Remember me?
« Reply #18 on: March 09, 2018, 01:07:16 am »
+1

Don't bother much with Donate (an Event from Empires). It's basically the new Chancellor :p


Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa stop right there. Donate is awesome!!!!!!!!! Chapel sucks compared to donate.
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Awaclus

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Re: Remember me?
« Reply #19 on: March 09, 2018, 01:10:06 am »
+2

Don't bother much with Donate (an Event from Empires). It's basically the new Chancellor :p


Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa stop right there. Donate is awesome!!!!!!!!! Chapel sucks compared to donate.

That's the joke.
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Bomb, Cannon, and many of the Gunpowder cards can strongly effect gameplay, particularly in a destructive way

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Chase Adolphson

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Re: Remember me?
« Reply #20 on: March 09, 2018, 01:15:28 am »
0

Oh. I thought he was being serious.
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