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Author Topic: Kingdom Designs  (Read 1608 times)

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Sinewave

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Kingdom Designs
« on: June 18, 2018, 11:52:54 pm »
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Hi everyone, I've never posted before but I wanted to ask, where is a place to discuss kingdom design, and where are all the kingdoms designed for tournaments recorded? I haven't seen anything incorporating cards beyond Dark Ages.

I enjoy designing kingdoms*, usually with some options and difficult decisions, or at least a couple strategies the players can try out. Sometimes I'll read a card strategy article and design a whole kingdom around exploring every possible strategy for that one card, essentially making it a center-piece. Other times I'll add combinations to create some ridiculous scenarios.

*e.g; http://www.dominiondeck.com/games/mad-scientist-bane-trade-route

I'd love to share and discuss kingdom designs with others if there's a space for it and people are engaged in that sort of thing.
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Eran of Arcadia

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Re: Kingdom Designs
« Reply #1 on: June 19, 2018, 04:18:53 pm »
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I'm super casual. Whenever I choose cards for a kingdom I always make sure to have at least one each of a trasher, +Buy, and village.
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LastFootnote

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Re: Kingdom Designs
« Reply #2 on: June 19, 2018, 04:26:24 pm »
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There's precious little Kingdom design talk around these parts. I think there's a few reasons for that. First, most people don't want to take the time to create specific Kingdoms when random sets of 10 produces, on average, games that are interesting enough. Second, the online implementation (which most f.DS regulars play most of the time) doesn't allow you to design a board and then automatch with people to play it.

I think Kingdom creation is cool, but admittedly even I don't often spend any time on it unless I've been asked to, either for a tournament or for the rulebook Recommended Sets of 10.

I think Reddit has a Kingdom of the Week. Maybe you'd get more traction there? You're welcome to talk about it here, of course. I just worry that you won't get as much feedback as you like.

The Dominion Discord server also talks about boards, albeit usually randomly generated ones that people have encountered. That server is here: https://discord.gg/t33kPS
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greybirdofprey

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Re: Kingdom Designs
« Reply #3 on: June 20, 2018, 10:22:08 am »
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There's some random kingdom generators you can find online.

I couldn't really find one with the options I like so I wrote my own in Java, and I mostly use that.

Other than that I'd say that cards within a single expansion usually work quite well together. I don't 'design' per sé but when I randomly generate a kingdom I first look at it to make sure it's not too 'bad', as subjective as that may be.
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samath

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Re: Kingdom Designs
« Reply #4 on: June 20, 2018, 10:56:38 am »
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Kingdom design used to be a bigger discussion topic here back when certain tournaments featured submitted kingdom designs. It’s a lot of work, but could lead to some really cool boards. I could see such a tournament making a comeback at some point.

I agree with LF that the reason it’s rare is that random kingdoms are often pretty interesting these days. Dark Ages in particular has quite a bit more trashing, which is often the key ingredient making eng8nes possible. Second editions of Base and Intrigue also removed some of the biggest duds, meaning you interact with more of the kingdom.

That said, random kingdoms are never going to be as good as designed kingdoms, and I’d hope that designing would come back into the mix at some point. Personally, I would love to see more kingdoms where there are multiple reasonable strategies rather than one clearly dominant strategy both players aim for.

I always think in terms of tournaments, but I guess designing also happens in the Puzzles thread, e.g. the quest to find kingdoms where the first player can win on their first turn.

I guess that actually illustrates a problem with designed kingdoms in a tournament context these days: They can be just ridiculously nuts with certain events and some newer cards like Villa. Like Donate boards in general, this has the potential to make every kingdom into a puzzle, which is fun in small doses, but might be tiring to play repeatedly. I suppose this is just something for designers to keep in mind, though.
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Chris is me

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Re: Kingdom Designs
« Reply #5 on: June 20, 2018, 12:01:48 pm »
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Designed kingdoms, in practice, tends to result in playing a lot of the same kinds of games over and over again. There was one season of League where every deisgned kingdom had Procession in it, and many others where it’s either clearly Build The Big Engine, or occasionally, How Does This Niche Rush Stack Up?

That said, I’m interested in the topic and I’ve been meaning to get back into t sometime.
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crj

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Re: Kingdom Designs
« Reply #6 on: June 20, 2018, 12:08:22 pm »
+1

I play almost entirely constructed kingdoms. One thing I'm very careful of is never to plan out my own strategy while building the kingdom; it would be deeply unfair - and boring - if I built a kingdom around combos I happened to know, or a sole dominant strategy.

One key advantage is that it's often quicker to construct a kingdom than to randomise. Another is that you can favour cards you don't think you've seen enough of recently.

But a major advantage is that you can tailor the kingdom to the players. Novices? Simpler cards. A slow player? Easy on the villages and cantrips. Not much time to spare? Include some obvious power cards and go easy on the attacks. If you're playing with people who demand the ability to defend against attacks, you can cater for them. You can even tweak the kingdom according to how much table space you have. (-8
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LastFootnote

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Re: Kingdom Designs
« Reply #7 on: June 20, 2018, 12:11:09 pm »
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A slow player? Easy on the villages and cantrips.

I need to do this more in my IRL games. There's one player in my main group who's just slow as molasses, at any game. We played a 4-player game of Kingdom Builder yesterday and her turns took as long as the rest of our turns put together. And for one of the three of us, it was their first game.

To her credit, she wins Kingdom Builder frequently. Not that time, though.
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ackmondual

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Re: Kingdom Designs
« Reply #8 on: June 22, 2018, 03:18:05 am »
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A slow player? Easy on the villages and cantrips.

I need to do this more in my IRL games. There's one player in my main group who's just slow as molasses, at any game. We played a 4-player game of Kingdom Builder yesterday and her turns took as long as the rest of our turns put together. And for one of the three of us, it was their first game.

To her credit, she wins Kingdom Builder frequently. Not that time, though.
One of our exceptions was Crossroads, since it's a "branch action", but only for the first one you play.  Perhaps Throne Room or Kings Court on "chain" (exactly +1 action).


There was one 3p game where it was one guy, but the other 2 people weren't "running on all cylinders", and they were new to Dark Ages (around when it first came out).  B/c of that, they had to reread many of the cards over and over for each of their turns.  That one game took 1.5 hours.  I was playing in another room, and shocked to hear that was their only game all that time!  The other group I was in managed to get in two games of Ticket To Ride (Nordic Countries, and Marklin).  It should be the other way around!  :o
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Village, +2 Actions.  Village, +3 Actions.  Village, +4 Actions.  Village, +5 Actions.  Village, +6 Actions.  Village, +7 Actions.  Workers Village, +2 Buys, +8 Actions.  End Action Phase.  No Treasures to play.  No buy.  No Night cards to play
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