Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[crj]

A trend I've noticed recently is for people on f.ds to look at, for example, Skulk and say things along the lines of "but you don't want Gold anyway in modern Dominion". The impression I get is that some people have decided Treasure-less engines are now the only game in town and you want virtual coin, VP tokens, gainers, etc. instead.

Once upon a time, Gold was just fine as an engine payload. Once upon a time, a key skill in the game - on a par with choosing when to start greening - was to balance your purchases of Treasure against Actions.

Is Treasure genuinely now playing second fiddle, or is this just groupthink, or hyperbole by a vocal minority?

I can't help noticing that Nocturne contains more kinds of Treasure than any previous set, as well as plenty of Treasure gainers. That suggests to me that Donald X., at least, thinks Treasures are still relevant.

[LastFootnote]

I get Treasures plenty often, and I don't think that line of reasoning for Skulk is very sound. EDIT: I mean that I think you want Skulk plenty often, and the Gold is a big part of that.

Bear in mind that most of the playtesting that gets done is with at least three players, and often with four or more. You don't always have the time or resources to build the perfect Treasure-less engine in those games. For Nocturne specifically, basically 100% of the testing was done at Donald's IRL table or mine, and I bet you could count the number of 2-player testing games on two hands.

[Awaclus]

Is Treasure genuinely now playing second fiddle, or is this just groupthink, or hyperbole by a vocal minority?

It's a mixture of options 1 and 3, where the vocal minority mostly consists of people who are better at the game than a majority of people.

The important things to understand are how many stop cards your deck can support, how many it needs, how many it doesn't necessarily need but wants anyway, how time-consuming it is to increase the stop card space, how much time you have vs. what your opponent is doing, how fast the payload pays off vs. how costly it is to add it into your deck, how efficiently the payload spends your stop card space, and what's the best compromise between all of that.

Buying basic Treasures from the supply is the worst compromise that you'll ever go for. Obviously you won't ever go for something worse than what's always available. But they're really very inefficient at paying off fast, and they're also very inefficient at spending your stop card space, and a lot of the time, there's something better for the engine. If there isn't, that's one of the most common reasons to consider playing a non-engine strategy even if building an engine is technically possible.

If you can gain basic Treasures for "free" e.g. with Courtier, that's way faster than buying them from the supply, which makes them a lot more attractive as an engine payload option. It still has the problem of spending your stop card space rather inefficiently, but a lot of the time, mostly with trashing or strong draw available, you can accommodate that by building a bigger engine and it'll be worth it because the payload increases fast enough over time.

A lot of kingdom Treasures aren't as inefficient as the basic Treasures, either in terms of stop card efficiency or tempo efficiency, or both. Horn of Plenty and Fortune are both, for example, and they're also great payload options. Treasure Trove is better for tempo but worse for stop cards, so it's rarely ever seen as engine payload. Plunder is better for stop cards but arguably not better for tempo, but it's a very common payload. Fool's Gold is about on-par for stop cards, but better for tempo, and it's sometimes used for payload but not super often, which is also true about Hoard. Royal Seal and a bunch of others are neither, and they suck even more than the basic Treasures do.

A lot of kingdom Treasures also have utility besides just being payload. Coin of the Realm and Crown are anti-terminals, Loan and Counterfeit are trashers, IGG and Relic are attacks*, and Talisman, Quarry, Charm and Capital can help with early/mid game economy better than basic Treasures.

*IGG is not an attack

But yeah, TL;DR: buying Gold really is super bad for engines. Another way to put it is that a long-known fact is that on a board with Village and Smithy, Smithy BM is better than the engine, and another slightly more recently known fact is that on a board with Smithy and Navigator, Nagivator BM is better than Smithy BM so that gives you some perspective into how good basic Treasure only payload is for an engine.

[AJD]

I can't help noticing that Nocturne contains more kinds of Treasure than any previous set, as well as plenty of Treasure gainers. That suggests to me that Donald X., at least, thinks Treasures are still relevant.

...Eh?

1. Prosperity contains more different Treasures than Nocturne.
2. Most of the Treasures in Nocturne aren't ones that are competing with other things in the supply for your attention.

[werothegreat]

I can't help noticing that Nocturne contains more kinds of Treasure than any previous set, as well as plenty of Treasure gainers. That suggests to me that Donald X., at least, thinks Treasures are still relevant.

...Eh?

1. Prosperity contains more different Treasures than Nocturne.
2. Most of the Treasures in Nocturne aren't ones that are competing with other things in the supply for your attention.

I think crj means Heirlooms.

[AJD]

I can't help noticing that Nocturne contains more kinds of Treasure than any previous set, as well as plenty of Treasure gainers. That suggests to me that Donald X., at least, thinks Treasures are still relevant.

...Eh?

1. Prosperity contains more different Treasures than Nocturne.
2. Most of the Treasures in Nocturne aren't ones that are competing with other things in the supply for your attention.

I think crj means Heirlooms.

Yes, I know.

2. Heirlooms aren't competing with supply Treasures for your gains; they're competing with Copper for your trashing. The presence of Heirlooms doesn't really say to me "the expansion is recognizing the importance of strategies involving Treasure gaining."

1. Nocturne has seven Heirlooms plus Idol.  Prosperity has eight kingdom Treasures plus Platinum.

[crj]

Drat; miscounted.

OK, the second most different Treasures after the set called "Prosperity".

And Empires (a set apparently targeted at expert players) had seven different Treasures that can appear in the Supply, rather than starting hands.

My point was (and remains) that, if there is indeed a sentiment that Treasures shouldn't be bought by strong players, Donald X. doesn't seem to agree.

[LastFootnote]

I think it’s a false dichotomy. The Treasures in recent sets are stronger on average than the ones in older sets. Making something a Treasure doesn’t automatically make it worse. In general it’s far better than the equivalent terminal Action.

[jonts26]

Gold and silver aren't bad because they're treasures.

[crj]

Making something a Treasure doesn’t automatically make it worse.

Personally, I agree with you. But I'm sensing some people don't.

The argument seems to be that cantrip money makes your engine run more smoothly by reducing the risk of drawing a dud hand. But then people seem to gush over non-cantrip virtual coin as well, so... *shrug*

[jonts26]

I have literally never heard anyone argue that treasures as a class are inherently worse.

[crj]

I have literally never heard anyone argue that treasures as a class are worse.

Well, Awaclus did it again ^up there. And isn't the only person doing so on f.ds .

[aku_chi]

"Yellow as Purple" is a meme.  It's based in some truth, but it has the potential to mislead, as this thread indicates.  I dislike the meme for this reason.

The constructive takeaway from the "Yellow as Purple" meme:

• Treasures are stop cards; they make it harder to draw your deck.  If you can draw your deck, add as few stop cards as you can while building to that point.
• Buying Gold and Silver is inefficient payload; do so only if there's nothing better.

What this does not mean:

• It's bad to open Silver.
• Silver and Gold gainers are usually bad.
• Silver and Gold are bad in non-engine contexts.

[Commodore Chuckles]

Is Treasure genuinely now playing second fiddle

The short answer is that yes, it is, and arguably it's been doing that since Intrigue Version 1 gave us Minion and Conspirator.

The longer answer is that yes, Treasures tend to be cards you don't want too many of, but that absolutely does not mean you should never buy them. The main fallacy I seem to see a lot is people assuming that a deck-drawing virtual-coin engine is possible on every board, which is of course ridiculous. Drawing your whole deck will usually beat a money strategy simply because the latter relies much more on the mercy of the pernicious shuffle gods, but sometimes you just can't do that. You can say that this makes most Treasures, especially Silver and Gold, "weak" or "niche," but now that Scout has gotten the boot even weak and niche cards can have their place.

[Awaclus]

I have literally never heard anyone argue that treasures as a class are worse.

Well, Awaclus did it again ^up there. And isn't the person doing so on f.ds .

I certainly did not do it and I never have. Did you even read the post?

[Dingan]

I have literally never heard anyone argue that treasures as a class are inherently worse.

I Inherited Crown once, it was pretty fun

[Commodore Chuckles]

I have literally never heard anyone argue that treasures as a class are inherently worse.

I Inherited Crown once, it was pretty fun

Here's something I've been wondering: does inherited Crown online have all three colors? Because no printed card actually has three colors, but I think it would need the white because green + yellow just means Victory-Treasure.

[Mic Qsenoch]

Here's something I've been wondering: does inherited Crown online have all three colors? Because no printed card actually has three colors, but I think it would need the white because green + yellow just means Victory-Treasure.

It's just green/white.

[DG]

• Buying Gold and Silver is inefficient payload; do so only if there's nothing better.

I wouldn't say that silver and gold are inefficient if you only look at payload. If you compare them to minion or conspirator, say, they are reliable and have better ratio of income to cost. All the other elements of Dominion can make the actions cards better as long as you can get those action cards played. Even so, there are some interactions such as counterfeit that will favour treasures as payload.

[Commodore Chuckles]

Here's something I've been wondering: does inherited Crown online have all three colors? Because no printed card actually has three colors, but I think it would need the white because green + yellow just means Victory-Treasure.

It's just green/white.

Actually, now that I think about it, there are a bunch of cards that would technically need three colors. Caravan Guard definitely comes to mind. I'm pretty sure I've done that one, but I can't remember what colors it had. Also, inheriting an action-reaction creates an interesting problem because green-blue just means Victory-Reaction, so you'd need the white even though neither of the "merged" cards actually has that. Then there's Werewolf, which would need three colors and altogether a whopping five types.

[ConMan]

Copper, Silver and Gold are there to ensure that you always have *something* available. Their strength is in their ubiquity, and so they have to be weak (or at least not universally strong) because otherwise the correct strategy in every game would be Big Money No Whammies. As it stands, they're strong enough that on a decent percentage of boards you want to get at least one Silver or Gold at some point.

Treasures in general have the common strength of being spammable, and so they also mostly have the collective weakness of making it harder to fill a hand with them to spam, i.e. they are stop cards. That doesn't make them bad, it just means you have to balance their strength with their weakness like any other card, and like other stop cards you need to decide how many of them you want in your deck.

[werothegreat]

Treasures are not Curses, don't be silly.

However, I think Silver and Gold are intentionally meant to be weak, as they're always in the Supply.  They're only there in case there's no other way to make in the Kingdom.  It was a bad thing when Dominion was dominated by Big Money strategies - if Silver is the best thing to buy, what's the point in even putting out a Kingdom?  That's not to say there isn't a place for BM strategies, just that they shouldn't be the Gold (aha) standard.

[crj]

There is a (large) middle ground between a big money strategy and a no-Treasures strategy.

Once upon a time, basic treasures were a common engine payload. And, to me, at least, basic treasures never being a good payload would be almost as boring as them always being a good payload.

[faust]

There is a (large) middle ground between a big money strategy and a no-Treasures strategy.

Not that large, actually. You have the case where there's no better payload for the engine. But having that and still an engine that's better than BM is kind of rare. The second case is where you use money for TfB, in which case the only important thing about the Treasures is their price point and the fact that some cards gain them easily. Then there is Platinum, which is enough cash in a single card to usually work in an engine.

[Screwyioux]

Sometimes I wonder if Donald made Bandit Fort as a satire on "modern Dominion."

[greybirdofprey]

I get Treasures plenty often, and I don't think that line of reasoning for Skulk is very sound. EDIT: I mean that I think you want Skulk plenty often, and the Gold is a big part of that.

Bear in mind that most of the playtesting that gets done is with at least three players, and often with four or more. You don't always have the time or resources to build the perfect Treasure-less engine in those games. For Nocturne specifically, basically 100% of the testing was done at Donald's IRL table or mine, and I bet you could count the number of 2-player testing games on two hands.

I play almost only real-life games, and I indeed notice that with 3/4-players there often isn't enough virtual coin in a kingdom to supply everyone's engine (often there aren't enough engine parts either, depending on the kingdom). It's a sort of prisoner's dilemma.

[phonological loop]

Bear in mind that most of the playtesting that gets done is with at least three players, and often with four or more. You don't always have the time or resources to build the perfect Treasure-less engine in those games. For Nocturne specifically, basically 100% of the testing was done at Donald's IRL table or mine, and I bet you could count the number of 2-player testing games on two hands.

This is sort of hair-raising. A huge chunk of Dominion games are played online in a 2-player random kingdom format. I am astonished that this format receives "basically 0%" of the attention in playtesting.

[Chris is me]

Bear in mind that most of the playtesting that gets done is with at least three players, and often with four or more. You don't always have the time or resources to build the perfect Treasure-less engine in those games. For Nocturne specifically, basically 100% of the testing was done at Donald's IRL table or mine, and I bet you could count the number of 2-player testing games on two hands.

This is sort of hair-raising. A huge chunk of Dominion games are played online in a 2-player random kingdom format. I am astonished that this format receives "basically 0%" of the attention in playtesting.

You’ll be shocked to learn how much playtesting uses an all sets full random format, then.

Seems to work out fine though, doesn’t it?

[LastFootnote]

Bear in mind that most of the playtesting that gets done is with at least three players, and often with four or more. You don't always have the time or resources to build the perfect Treasure-less engine in those games. For Nocturne specifically, basically 100% of the testing was done at Donald's IRL table or mine, and I bet you could count the number of 2-player testing games on two hands.

This is sort of hair-raising. A huge chunk of Dominion games are played online in a 2-player random kingdom format. I am astonished that this format receives "basically 0%" of the attention in playtesting.

Explain to me how we are meant to do 2-player online playtesting without an online simulator that has the cards being tested? During development the cards are changing all the time, and it's a tall order to ask somebody to create, maintain, and update an online version. We had access to isotropic for Adventures and part of Empires, but eventually even dougz threw in the towel.

[GendoIkari]

Bear in mind that most of the playtesting that gets done is with at least three players, and often with four or more. You don't always have the time or resources to build the perfect Treasure-less engine in those games. For Nocturne specifically, basically 100% of the testing was done at Donald's IRL table or mine, and I bet you could count the number of 2-player testing games on two hands.

This is sort of hair-raising. A huge chunk of Dominion games are played online in a 2-player random kingdom format. I am astonished that this format receives "basically 0%" of the attention in playtesting.

Explain to me how we are meant to do 2-player online playtesting without an online simulator that has the cards being tested? During development the cards are changing all the time, and it's a tall order to ask somebody to create, maintain, and update an online version. We had access to isotropic for Adventures and part of Empires, but eventually even dougz threw in the towel.

I don't think that online vs on tables was the part he was talking about. It was 2-player full random vs 3/4 player set-specific.

[phonological loop]

Bear in mind that most of the playtesting that gets done is with at least three players, and often with four or more. You don't always have the time or resources to build the perfect Treasure-less engine in those games. For Nocturne specifically, basically 100% of the testing was done at Donald's IRL table or mine, and I bet you could count the number of 2-player testing games on two hands.

This is sort of hair-raising. A huge chunk of Dominion games are played online in a 2-player random kingdom format. I am astonished that this format receives "basically 0%" of the attention in playtesting.

Explain to me how we are meant to do 2-player online playtesting without an online simulator that has the cards being tested? During development the cards are changing all the time, and it's a tall order to ask somebody to create, maintain, and update an online version. We had access to isotropic for Adventures and part of Empires, but eventually even dougz threw in the towel.

I don't think that online vs on tables was the part he was talking about. It was 2-player full random vs 3/4 player set-specific.

Yes, just the "competitive" 2-player all random format.

You’ll be shocked to learn how much playtesting uses an all sets full random format, then.

Seems to work out fine though, doesn’t it?

It does, though perhaps more by accident than by design.

[LastFootnote]

I don't think that online vs on tables was the part he was talking about. It was 2-player full random vs 3/4 player set-specific.

Yes, just the "competitive" 2-player all random format.

Oh, I see.

That's just down to logistics. Neither Donald X. or I are ready to say, "Sorry I know this game supports 4 or 5 players, but we have a 2-player quota we need to hit." That seems like a good way to lose playtesters.

Obviously test games can't be "full random", because then some of them wouldn't include new cards at all, and few would include more than two. That would make testing way too slow. And also I don't want to cart around all of Dominion for every game session. It's impractical. I'll grab the base cards, the set being tested, and then one or two other sets. And then I randomize a game with 5 new cards and 5 cards from another set. Plus Events/Landmarks, if it's a group that's used to Dominion, which it usually is.

[GendoIkari]

I don't think that online vs on tables was the part he was talking about. It was 2-player full random vs 3/4 player set-specific.

Yes, just the "competitive" 2-player all random format.

Oh, I see.

That's just down to logistics. Neither Donald or I are ready to say, "Sorry I know this game supports 4 or 5 players, but we have a 2-player quota we need to hit." That seems like a good way to lose playtesters.

If you're talking about a 4 player game, it can be pretty trivially done as 2 separate 2 player games as well. Which gets you twice the amount of new card testing for less time spent. Not saying you shouldn't be doing any 4 player testing also, but it doesn't make much sense to say that you need to do only 4 player testing so that you are allowing more total people to play.

Obviously test games can't be "full random", because then some of them wouldn't include new cards at all, and few would include more than two. That would make testing way too slow. And also I don't want to cart around all of Dominion for every game session. It's impractical. I'll grab the base cards, the set being tested, and then one or two other sets. And then I randomize a game with 5 new cards and 5 cards from another set. Plus Events/Landmarks, if it's a group that's used to Dominion, which it usually is.

Well obviously when play testing, "full random" would actually be purposefully using some specific cards from the new set, while the rest of the Kingdom is chosen at full random. Of course there can be practical limitations to having every set available; but it seems that at least some playtesting would be done at people's houses, where they already have all the sets ready and combined into one storage solution.

[phonological loop]

GendoIkari beat me to it. I agree with his response.

Mainly my concern is with there being no 2-player testing, when this is apparently the most common format. It's essentially an entire different game with an entirely different set of choices and meta-game. To essentially not test it and just hope it all works out seems ... weird.

Whether you're doing "full random" or "base plus two sets plus the expansion to be playtested" seems inconsequential.

[jonts26]

GendoIkari beat me to it. I agree with his response.

Mainly my concern is with there being no 2-player testing, when this is apparently the most common format. Whether you're doing "full random" or "base plus two sets plus the expansion to be playtested" seems inconsequential.

I'm not sure 2 player is the most common format. Online, yes, but for most dominion players IRL I would be very surprised.

[phonological loop]

GendoIkari beat me to it. I agree with his response.

Mainly my concern is with there being no 2-player testing, when this is apparently the most common format. Whether you're doing "full random" or "base plus two sets plus the expansion to be playtested" seems inconsequential.

I'm not sure 2 player is the most common format. Online, yes, but for most dominion players IRL I would be very surprised.

Well, I hedged my statement because I am also uncertain. I have no data on the matter. But there is certainly a vibrant community here that mainly plays 2-player, and I'm sure you could find statistics on the total number of such games played online. So in absolute terms 2-player seems popular, or at least popular enough that I find it weird that it's ignored in playtesting.

[faust]

I think it's fine to focus on multplayer as the money is being made in IRL sales, and IRL games are frequently multiplayer. There are more 2-player games online, but online doesn't create revenue for Donald X.

[LastFootnote]

GendoIkari beat me to it. I agree with his response.

Mainly my concern is with there being no 2-player testing, when this is apparently the most common format. Whether you're doing "full random" or "base plus two sets plus the expansion to be playtested" seems inconsequential.

I'm not sure 2 player is the most common format. Online, yes, but for most dominion players IRL I would be very surprised.

Well, I hedged my statement because I am also uncertain. I have no data on the matter. But there is certainly a vibrant community here that mainly plays 2-player, and I'm sure you could find statistics on the total number of such games played online. So in absolute terms 2-player seems popular, or at least popular enough that I find it weird that it's ignored in playtesting.

I think if you looked at total games played both online and off, 2-player would easily win. But if you looked at, for each player, what kind of games to they mostly play, I think 2-player probably wouldn't come out on top. Especially not if you lump 3-player and 4-player games together. And I think that's the statistic that matters more. It's certainly the one I'd care about, if I gave much thought to such things.

If it makes you feel any better, Nocturne testing was the exception, not the rule. It just so happened that all the other former playtesters were busy or uninterested. So Donald X. and I did basically all of the testing. I wouldn't expect that to be the case for future sets, and it wasn't the case for Adventures and Empires. I will bet good money that very few 2-player games were involved in testing the base game or the first few expansions, though. You can argue (correctly, I think) that those expansions are worse, but I think that's more a function of Donald X. getting better as he went along, rather than the number of players in testing games.

[O]

but online doesn't create revenue for Donald X.

Is this true (zero revenue for Donald) or just mostly true (tiny revenue compared to IRL)? Curious.

[JW]

Is this true (zero revenue for Donald) or just mostly true (tiny revenue compared to IRL)? Curious.

Tiny revenue compared to IRL.

[Commodore Chuckles]

Sometimes I wonder if Donald made Bandit Fort as a satire on "modern Dominion."

Donald's been punishing Treasure strategies since the very beginning. Remember Thief? And then we got Pirate Ship, Noble Brigand, Poor House, Alms, Bandit...

[crj]

Thief and Pirate Ship are... not widely regarded as game-distortingly strong.

[Kirian]

Thief and Pirate Ship are... not widely regarded as game-distortingly strong.

But Thief could cause exceptionally-rare contrived stalemates that forced Donald to add the "whoever starves first loses" rule!

[Donald X.]

but online doesn't create revenue for Donald X.

Is this true (zero revenue for Donald) or just mostly true (tiny revenue compared to IRL)? Curious.

For the last year of MF, our share of the take was $0. But yes, tiny is the correct answer.

Not that I do that math to decide how to playtest. I have people that want to play, I play with that many people.

There were two-player online games from very early on, because I wrote a program for playing online and we used that. And then there was isotropic for all those years.

[Commodore Chuckles]

Thief and Pirate Ship are... not widely regarded as game-distortingly strong.

I never said that. And Thief was much better (though still not good) back in the beginning when Treasures were much more important.

[Asper]

Base cards in general play the second fiddle. It's not different for Duchy and Estate, and even Province often stands back behind kingdom cards. That's natural, design-wise, as it ensures the variable supply has a meaningful effect on the game.

The idea that treasures in general, or even the base treasures in general, were poisonous garbage you may not ever include in your deck, is hyperbole spread by people who want to suggest that their experience from 2P games could be applied to Dominion in general. Either because they don't bother thinking about multiplayer at all, or in Awaclus' case, because they are disdainful towards playing preferences other than their own.

[teamlyle]

Base cards in general play the second fiddle. It's not different for Duchy and Estate, and even Province often stands back behind kingdom cards. That's natural, design-wise, as it ensures the variable supply has a meaningful effect on the game.

The idea that treasures in general, or even the base treasures in general, were poisonous garbage you may not ever include in your deck, is hyperbole spread by people who want to suggest that their experience from 2P games could be applied to Dominion in general. Either because they don't bother thinking about multiplayer at all, or in Awaclus' case, because they are disdainful towards playing preferences other than their own.

My experience is that in games with many players, the Provinces run out too quickly for an engine to get started. If one player goes for the engine and the other 5 go for big money, the engine would have to be absurdly fast in order to actually win the game. Some people might not mind that, and one could argue that that's not better or worse, just different. I personally prefer for it to get around to my turn quickly, and to not have my engine be beaten by many opponents playing Smithy big money, so I like 2 player more. I understand how others may feel differently, though.

[Screwyioux]

Base cards in general play the second fiddle. It's not different for Duchy and Estate, and even Province often stands back behind kingdom cards. That's natural, design-wise, as it ensures the variable supply has a meaningful effect on the game.

The idea that treasures in general, or even the base treasures in general, were poisonous garbage you may not ever include in your deck, is hyperbole spread by people who want to suggest that their experience from 2P games could be applied to Dominion in general. Either because they don't bother thinking about multiplayer at all, or in Awaclus' case, because they are disdainful towards playing preferences other than their own.

My experience is that in games with many players, the Provinces run out too quickly for an engine to get started. If one player goes for the engine and the other 5 go for big money, the engine would have to be absurdly fast in order to actually win the game. Some people might not mind that, and one could argue that that's not better or worse, just different. I personally prefer for it to get around to my turn quickly, and to not have my engine be beaten by many opponents playing Smithy big money, so I like 2 player more. I understand how others may feel differently, though.

Another advantage of what people call an engine in terms of pacing is not just speed, but control. With two players, greening later is normally a strong tactic because building more lets you determine how quickly piles are depleted, points are scored etc.

If our decks gain the same number of points over the course of X number of turns, but I can gain all of mine at once and you gain yours gradually, I come out ahead for endgame positioning because I can score my points whenever I see fit.

The more players you add, the more robbed of that control every deck is and the more important having a point lead is at any given time, because you might not get another turn.

[LastFootnote]

I guess I feel like, in terms of testing cards, what's the difference between 2 players and 3+ players? Well, if a card is great in multiples, then you'll want to be sure it's not crazy if you can get 6 copies of it, like you might in a 2-player game. I think the only cards in Nocturne that fit the bill are Idol and Werewolf, though you could make an argument for Vampire. Idol is admittedly way stronger than my group thought it was, though I don't think it's too strong. And we actually discovered that it was strong after Nocturne testing was over when a new player joined our games and went for a heavy-Idol strategy. So we got to see that play out despite it not being a 2-player game.

[MatthewCA]

It's worth mentioning (in my opinion) that this could be a symptom of a large skill gap among the player community. I think it's easy for us to forget that not everyone who plays Dominion frequents these forums, or reads strategy articles, or is familiar with all of the cards. A combo or synergy that may seem obvious to a veteran player will elude a newbie every time. Yes, BM is not as good as a properly functioning engine, but the BM player probably doesn't know how to build a properly functioning engine yet.

Further complicating this is that in 1st edition Base set, gold was (arguably) the best card in the game. I'm guessing a lot of people didn't challenge that assumption and always go for gold, and try to play as many gold as possible. Gold does have it's place in today's game too. When it's not possible to build a treasureless deck, gold will provide economy. I think in some situations, having access to the treasure cards drastically speeds up the game. Gold and silver a re a fail safe that can keep a boring kingdom from being a boring and painfully slow kingdom. Keeping the game fun for as many people as possible is the goal, not making the best things for a 2 player game.

[trivialknot]

I guess I feel like, in terms of testing cards, what's the difference between 2 players and 3+ players? Well, if a card is great in multiples, then you'll want to be sure it's not crazy if you can get 6 copies of it, like you might in a 2-player game. I think the only cards in Nocturne that fit the bill are Idol and Werewolf, though you could make an argument for Vampire. Idol is admittedly way stronger than my group thought it was, though I don't think it's too strong. And we actually discovered that it was strong after Nocturne testing was over when a new player joined our games and went for a heavy-Idol strategy. So we got to see that play out despite it not being a 2-player game.

The blog has a pretty great series on strategy in 2P vs 3P+ games, and I would say that "you can get more copies of cards" is rather oversimplifying the matter.  If Dominion were mostly playtested with 3P+, the thing I'd worry about is if a card leads to degenerate engine strategy that usually isn't feasible in 3P+, and is particularly unfun in 2P.  So, something like Possession.

But I'm not especially worried, given that apparently the only recent set tested without many 2P games was Nocturne, and Nocturne is solid.  In fact, the one card that DXV seemed to agree has problems is Fool, because it plays too slowly--and arguably this is only a problem in 3P+.

[trivialknot]

And is heavy-Idol really that strong?  I'm so skeptical.  I really want to try it.   

[pacatak]

i'm not sure the number people they playtest with is that important.  I mean how many expansions into this thing are we and it is pretty dang fun.

[Awaclus]

i'm not sure the number people they playtest with is that important.  I mean how many expansions into this thing are we and it is pretty dang fun.

Well, the methods don't matter as long as the results are good. However, the number of people they playtest with could turn out to be important if some later set includes cards that work poorly for competitive play and nobody catches that before the set is released.

[MatthewCA]

i'm not sure the number people they playtest with is that important.  I mean how many expansions into this thing are we and it is pretty dang fun.

Well, the methods don't matter as long as the results are good. However, the number of people they playtest with could turn out to be important if some later set includes cards that work poorly for competitive play and nobody catches that before the set is released.

Or, worse yet, a broken interaction is missed because playtesting wasn't done at certain player counts (Masquerade pin, anyone).

However I think those days are behind us, as Donald and the playtesters as a whole have gotten better at making cards

[Marcory]

I would imagine 3-4 player games promote more diverse use of the available cards in the Kingdom, and are thus better for playtesting.

This is to say that in 2P, each player can go for the same strategy, hoping to tweak it better than their opponent can. But in 3-4 player games, there will almost always be 2-3 diverse strategies being attempted.

[Donald X.]

Or, worse yet, a broken interaction is missed because playtesting wasn't done at certain player counts (Masquerade pin, anyone).

Player counts is not how that got missed.

When that combo broke, the previous front page article was about a particular board that had King's Court and Masquerade on it. Despite writing an article about playing that board, theory somehow didn't note how you could trash 3 of your opponent's cards each turn. https://dominionstrategy.com/2011/03/15/annotated-game-5/

[Titandrake]

Worth noting that I assume the point of playtesting is not to find which cards are strong and which are weak, it's to figure out which cards are fun. It's okay for a card to be ridiculous (King's Court, Goons, Chapel) if they lead to interesting games and you still have some neat things to do in the actual game.

In this respect, I assume that a fun card in 3-player / 4-player is usaully going to be fun in 2-player.

Of course, if a card is too strong, it can stop being fun, and if a card is too weak, it's just taking up space, so you do have to care about power level somewhat...but I don't think it's the primary thing you're looking for and it seems like people are thinking about it from a standpoint of game balance / making card power levels flatter, rather than from the stuff that gets people to play your game in the first place.

I suspect 2-player Dominion is pretty robust in terms of balance - if a card is nutty in multiples, and both players go for it, it'll still break out even. So not too surprised sets can turn out well even without a lot of 2-player testing.

[Asper]

Base cards in general play the second fiddle. It's not different for Duchy and Estate, and even Province often stands back behind kingdom cards. That's natural, design-wise, as it ensures the variable supply has a meaningful effect on the game.

The idea that treasures in general, or even the base treasures in general, were poisonous garbage you may not ever include in your deck, is hyperbole spread by people who want to suggest that their experience from 2P games could be applied to Dominion in general. Either because they don't bother thinking about multiplayer at all, or in Awaclus' case, because they are disdainful towards playing preferences other than their own.

My experience is that in games with many players, the Provinces run out too quickly for an engine to get started. If one player goes for the engine and the other 5 go for big money, the engine would have to be absurdly fast in order to actually win the game. Some people might not mind that, and one could argue that that's not better or worse, just different. I personally prefer for it to get around to my turn quickly, and to not have my engine be beaten by many opponents playing Smithy big money, so I like 2 player more. I understand how others may feel differently, though.

Admittedly, when I say "multi-player" I don't mean 5 or 6 players so much as 3 or 4. The original game was advertized for that player count, and I think Donald X himself said he only ever played 5P to be nice (and wasn't nice enough for 6P). I think that says a lot. Personally, I don't mind 5P, but 6 just takes too long to be fun.

[crj]

if a card is too weak, it's just taking up space

Unless, of course, it's so much fun you don't care.

In that respect, cards less experienced players will buy and enjoy using are fine, even if an expert would pick something else for their perfect engine. Is there any reason to drop Treasure Map from the game, for example?

[Awaclus]

Chariot Race and Secret Cave are some examples of cards that are somewhat detrimental for competitive Dominion in their current state, which could have been more obvious during testing if testing had been more oriented towards competitive playing.

[dz]

Chariot Race and Secret Cave are some examples of cards that are somewhat detrimental for competitive Dominion in their current state, which could have been more obvious during testing if testing had been more oriented towards competitive playing.

I can see why you say Chariot Race, but why Secret Cave?

[LaLight]

Chariot Race and Secret Cave are some examples of cards that are somewhat detrimental for competitive Dominion in their current state, which could have been more obvious during testing if testing had been more oriented towards competitive playing.

I can see why you say Chariot Race, but why Secret Cave?

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=18081.0

[GendoIkari]

Chariot Race and Secret Cave are some examples of cards that are somewhat detrimental for competitive Dominion in their current state, which could have been more obvious during testing if testing had been more oriented towards competitive playing.

By Secret Cave, do you mean Magic Lamp? Secret Cave isn't to blame for whatever Magic Lamp does.

By detrimental for competitive Dominion do you mean swingy or more luck-driven? Is Chariot Race more swingy than Swindler? Or any card where the effect of playing it will be unknown until after you play it? It seems like when it's a game where you can get the bad luck of having your opening buys be cards #11 and #12; the luck of what happens when you play a Chariot Race isn't really worse in comparison.

[Awaclus]

Chariot Race and Secret Cave are some examples of cards that are somewhat detrimental for competitive Dominion in their current state, which could have been more obvious during testing if testing had been more oriented towards competitive playing.

By Secret Cave, do you mean Magic Lamp? Secret Cave isn't to blame for whatever Magic Lamp does.

By detrimental for competitive Dominion do you mean swingy or more luck-driven? Is Chariot Race more swingy than Swindler? Or any card where the effect of playing it will be unknown until after you play it? It seems like when it's a game where you can get the bad luck of having your opening buys be cards #11 and #12; the luck of what happens when you play a Chariot Race isn't really worse in comparison.

1) Yes.

2) The problem isn't the luck of what happens when you play a Chariot Race. The problem is when you play five of them and all of them miss because your opponent has a high cost card and then your opponent plays five of them and all of them hit because you have a Copper. Which is actually fairly common, unlike Golden Sombrero or a 1/12 chance of Swindling the important card.

[Donald X.]

Chariot Race and Secret Cave are some examples of cards that are somewhat detrimental for competitive Dominion in their current state, which could have been more obvious during testing if testing had been more oriented towards competitive playing.

The goal as always wasn't to make the online game as fun as possible, but to make the physical game as fun as possible. Concessions to the online game, if any, are very minor.

In the physical game, you can tell your friends, "I don't like Chariot Race, let's not play with it," and so much for that. Whereas you can't tell your friends, "I like Sheep, let's play with it," because there is no card Sheep. If you see what I mean.

We had lots of fun with those cards, and there they are so other people can have fun with them. As a wise man once said, if there were no cards some people hated, there would be no cards some people loved.

[GendoIkari]

2) The problem isn't the luck of what happens when you play a Chariot Race. The problem is when you play five of them and all of them miss because your opponent has a high cost card and then your opponent plays five of them and all of them hit because you have a Copper. Which is actually fairly common, unlike Golden Sombrero or a 1/12 chance of Swindling the important card.

Makes sense. Sounds like Tournament, though. The difference between your opponent having a Province in hand or not isn't just what your 1 Tournament will do; it's what all of them do.

But I agree that Chariot Race sounds like it would just be more exciting in general if it discarded your opponent's card as well.

[Asper]

But I agree that Chariot Race sounds like it would just be more exciting in general if it discarded your opponent's card as well.

I disagree. First of all, it would re-introduce Tribute's unpopular trait that people feel like they're being attacked whenever their good stuff is discarded. So even if it hits your King's Court and their Copper, you just discarded your King's Court and they discarded their Copper. On avarage, it doesn't matter, but it becomes less satisfying for either party.

Also, now you'll have to pointlessly go through cards during your opponent's turn. That just drags out games for barely anything. For physical Dominion, Chariot Race as is is clearly the better choice.

[Commodore Chuckles]

But I agree that Chariot Race sounds like it would just be more exciting in general if it discarded your opponent's card as well.

I disagree. First of all, it would re-introduce Tribute's unpopular trait that people feel like they're being attacked whenever their good stuff is discarded. So even if it hits your King's Court and their Copper, you just discarded your King's Court and they discarded their Copper. On avarage, it doesn't matter, but it becomes less satisfying for either party.

Also, now you'll have to pointlessly go through cards during your opponent's turn. That just drags out games for barely anything. For physical Dominion, Chariot Race as is is clearly the better choice.

Tribute felt like an attack because your opponent got better stuff when you turned over better cards... often, anyway. The dual-type cards always gave a bonanza, and they got nothing if you turned over two Curses. With Chariot Race your opponent gets worse stuff when you turn over better cards, so it can still feel like "beating" them, even if you get nothing out of it.

And if your opponent's card is a Province then you're pointlessly going through bare cantrips on your own turn. To me this feels much more frustrating than being forced to cycle your own deck.

[Donald X.]

But I agree that Chariot Race sounds like it would just be more exciting in general if it discarded your opponent's card as well.

Tested and rejected! We also tried putting their card on the bottom of their deck. It's less attacky, but a bother.

It's totally nice to have the result be more average, as discarding their card accomplishes. Not flipping over the card was even nicer.

[GendoIkari]

But I agree that Chariot Race sounds like it would just be more exciting in general if it discarded your opponent's card as well.

Tested and rejected! We also tried putting their card on the bottom of their deck. It's less attacky, but a bother.

It's totally nice to have the result be more average, as discarding their card accomplishes. Not flipping over the card was even nicer.

I think that just illustrates what Awa was talking about; that sometimes what's best for competitive online Dominion is not the same as what's best for casual IRL Dominion. I definitely agree that casual players would get annoyed at both their time being wasted and their cards being discarded.  But like Commodore said, to get a better experience for the opponents IRL, you do have to sacrifice the experience for the one playing several Chariot Races in a row.

[Jeebus]

There is a (large) middle ground between a big money strategy and a no-Treasures strategy.

Not that large, actually. You have the case where there's no better payload for the engine. But having that and still an engine that's better than BM is kind of rare. The second case is where you use money for TfB, in which case the only important thing about the Treasures is their price point and the fact that some cards gain them easily. Then there is Platinum, which is enough cash in a single card to usually work in an engine.

Wait. Even when there are "better payload" for the engine than treasures, you might need treasures as payload too. If there is no Action-based coin and no (or not enough) straight gaining, you need treasures to get cards. But you usually want the engine anyway, to attack, to trash, to get VP tokens, etc. In those cases you need treasure as payload (in addition to the other payload cards). Or what am I missing?

[Donald X.]

I think that just illustrates what Awa was talking about; that sometimes what's best for competitive online Dominion is not the same as what's best for casual IRL Dominion. I definitely agree that casual players would get annoyed at both their time being wasted and their cards being discarded.  But like Commodore said, to get a better experience for the opponents IRL, you do have to sacrifice the experience for the one playing several Chariot Races in a row.

No, not at all. Do not agree.

During playtesting, Chariot Race was a popular card. The fact that your opponent might reveal Copper or Province and lock in your Chariot Races for the turn did not in any way ruin it for us. It's not that we never played multiple Chariot Races; man, how could that be. I've played five a turn plenty of times. And I personally am a fan of the card, despite that.

I am looking through a playtesting thread for competitive players and hey here's Stef. He preferred Chariot Race leaving the card on top. He didn't like the randomness, on the receiving end, of getting your card turned over; the randomness on the other side is simply the price you pay for going for Chariot Races. And you even get to affect that sometimes.

So it's not like there's some straight divide, competitive players preferring it one way and casual players the other.

[faust]

There is a (large) middle ground between a big money strategy and a no-Treasures strategy.

Not that large, actually. You have the case where there's no better payload for the engine. But having that and still an engine that's better than BM is kind of rare. The second case is where you use money for TfB, in which case the only important thing about the Treasures is their price point and the fact that some cards gain them easily. Then there is Platinum, which is enough cash in a single card to usually work in an engine.

Wait. Even when there are "better payload" for the engine than treasures, you might need treasures as payload too. If there is no Action-based coin and no (or not enough) straight gaining, you need treasures to get cards. But you usually want the engine anyway, to attack, to trash, to get VP tokens, etc. In those cases you need treasure as payload (in addition to the other payload cards). Or what am I missing?

Yeah well, I would include the case where you get 1-2 Silvers that you then trash in the framework of "no treasure strategy". I just took that to mean "a strategy where you want Silver/Gold(/Copper) in your final deck composition".

[ackmondual]

but online doesn't create revenue for Donald X.

Is this true (zero revenue for Donald) or just mostly true (tiny revenue compared to IRL)? Curious.

For the last year of MF, our share of the take was $0. But yes, tiny is the correct answer.

Not that I do that math to decide how to playtest. I have people that want to play, I play with that many people.

There were two-player online games from very early on, because I wrote a program for playing online and we used that. And then there was isotropic for all those years.

Always interested in hearing the inside scoop about how digital games get made, so it was neat when Stonemaier Games did a blog post about making bg into digital implementations here...
https://stonemaiergames.com/the-truth-about-digital-board-games/

Some highlights:
-costs can vary greatly, but one typical cost is $100K
-typical split from sales of the game is 80/20, with 80% going to the developer studio, and 20% to the publisher/designer

-SM Games prefers companies over individuals
-My Little Scythe on Tabletopia took weeks to implement, but a "proper" app took 2+ years to get onto Steam Beta
-digital bg have driven up sales of the boxed versions
-digital bg don't make much money, if at all

-some of the companies that specialize in making bg include, but not limited to:
Asmodee Digital
DigiDiced
Handelabra Studio
Mobo Studios
Playdek
Temple Gate Games
The Knights of Unity
Fay Games

[Jeebus]

There is a (large) middle ground between a big money strategy and a no-Treasures strategy.

Not that large, actually. You have the case where there's no better payload for the engine. But having that and still an engine that's better than BM is kind of rare. The second case is where you use money for TfB, in which case the only important thing about the Treasures is their price point and the fact that some cards gain them easily. Then there is Platinum, which is enough cash in a single card to usually work in an engine.

Wait. Even when there are "better payload" for the engine than treasures, you might need treasures as payload too. If there is no Action-based coin and no (or not enough) straight gaining, you need treasures to get cards. But you usually want the engine anyway, to attack, to trash, to get VP tokens, etc. In those cases you need treasure as payload (in addition to the other payload cards). Or what am I missing?

Yeah well, I would include the case where you get 1-2 Silvers that you then trash in the framework of "no treasure strategy". I just took that to mean "a strategy where you want Silver/Gold(/Copper) in your final deck composition".

Of course you often get 1-2 Silvers even when you want a (virtually) treasure-less deck. But you weren't talking about that and neither was I. As I said, I'm talking about the cases when you need Treasure to buy cards throughout the game. I won't specify further, because you can just re-read my post.

[Kirian]

Whereas you can't tell your friends, "I like Sheep, let's play with it," because there is no card Sheep.

*surreptitiously places pile of Sheep cards from Catan next to the kingdom piles*

----

At least we have Goat and Shepherd!

[ackmondual]

Further complicating this is that in 1st edition Base set, gold was (arguably) the best card in the game. I'm guessing a lot of people didn't challenge that assumption and always go for gold, and try to play as many gold as possible. Gold does have it's place in today's game too. When it's not possible to build a treasureless deck, gold will provide economy. I think in some situations, having access to the treasure cards drastically speeds up the game. Gold and silver a re a fail safe that can keep a boring kingdom from being a boring and painfully slow kingdom. Keeping the game fun for as many people as possible is the goal, not making the best things for a 2 player game.

And even then, its replacement, Bandit ("Thief 2.0") STILL gives you a Gold, perpetuating that ideal.

I guess I feel like, in terms of testing cards, what's the difference between 2 players and 3+ players? Well, if a card is great in multiples, then you'll want to be sure it's not crazy if you can get 6 copies of it, like you might in a 2-player game. I think the only cards in Nocturne that fit the bill are Idol and Werewolf, though you could make an argument for Vampire. Idol is admittedly way stronger than my group thought it was, though I don't think it's too strong. And we actually discovered that it was strong after Nocturne testing was over when a new player joined our games and went for a heavy-Idol strategy. So we got to see that play out despite it not being a 2-player game.

That's interesting because I just assumed that there would be someone on the play testing team who would run a "test case" like "spam all the cards" on a card-by-card basis.  OTOH, you folks also have a lot of other use cases to get through, so I digress.

Basically, if there's a rush for something, it can disappear a lot quicker than you think!...
The only village
The only +Buys (although unlike the branch actions, you may not need as many of these)
Heavy Attack board, but Lighthouse is the only defense
Arms race to fling out curses, so rush for the Cursers

This also has the side effect of causing the game to end earlier than think...
1) One case, Ill-Gotten Gains and another card were the group's "faves" in a 4p game.  Well, IGG also empties the Curses in sync, and as that other card was emptying, it hit us that yeah, if you haven't greened up, NOW's the time!

2) In a BSW 3p game when it was just base game...
We had a rush on 3 piles.  We've managed to trash our starting Estates, but when it was down to 1 pile left, *I* had an "epiphany" where I'd better get more points, and so did that other player!  I played a Festival and managed to buy an Estate and Duchy.  Before me, one other player managed to buy 2 Estates.  The end score was me: 4, that player: 2, and p3: 0!

[Cave-o-sapien]

I am looking through a playtesting thread for competitive players and hey here's Stef. He preferred Chariot Race leaving the card on top. He didn't like the randomness, on the receiving end, of getting your card turned over; the randomness on the other side is simply the price you pay for going for Chariot Races. And you even get to affect that sometimes.

So it's not like there's some straight divide, competitive players preferring it one way and casual players the other.

It does seem quite likely that the amount of complaining from competitive players would be the same if Chariot Race were the other way, but I imagine some of the complainers would be different (but only some).

The other interesting wrinkle is that online players tend to play many more games, so some of these scenarios that feel swingy in small sample sizes should seem less so at a macro level.

[faust]

There is a (large) middle ground between a big money strategy and a no-Treasures strategy.

Not that large, actually. You have the case where there's no better payload for the engine. But having that and still an engine that's better than BM is kind of rare. The second case is where you use money for TfB, in which case the only important thing about the Treasures is their price point and the fact that some cards gain them easily. Then there is Platinum, which is enough cash in a single card to usually work in an engine.

Wait. Even when there are "better payload" for the engine than treasures, you might need treasures as payload too. If there is no Action-based coin and no (or not enough) straight gaining, you need treasures to get cards. But you usually want the engine anyway, to attack, to trash, to get VP tokens, etc. In those cases you need treasure as payload (in addition to the other payload cards). Or what am I missing?

Yeah well, I would include the case where you get 1-2 Silvers that you then trash in the framework of "no treasure strategy". I just took that to mean "a strategy where you want Silver/Gold(/Copper) in your final deck composition".

Of course you often get 1-2 Silvers even when you want a (virtually) treasure-less deck. But you weren't talking about that and neither was I. As I said, I'm talking about the cases when you need Treasure to buy cards throughout the game. I won't specify further, because you can just re-read my post.

Ah well. But then aren't you just referring to my first case - no better payload? I thought that to include cases where there are cards that are better payload, but not enough of them (or not enough terminal space etc.), so some of your payload has to be Treasures.

[Jeebus]

There is a (large) middle ground between a big money strategy and a no-Treasures strategy.

Not that large, actually. You have the case where there's no better payload for the engine. But having that and still an engine that's better than BM is kind of rare. The second case is where you use money for TfB, in which case the only important thing about the Treasures is their price point and the fact that some cards gain them easily. Then there is Platinum, which is enough cash in a single card to usually work in an engine.

Wait. Even when there are "better payload" for the engine than treasures, you might need treasures as payload too. If there is no Action-based coin and no (or not enough) straight gaining, you need treasures to get cards. But you usually want the engine anyway, to attack, to trash, to get VP tokens, etc. In those cases you need treasure as payload (in addition to the other payload cards). Or what am I missing?

Yeah well, I would include the case where you get 1-2 Silvers that you then trash in the framework of "no treasure strategy". I just took that to mean "a strategy where you want Silver/Gold(/Copper) in your final deck composition".

Of course you often get 1-2 Silvers even when you want a (virtually) treasure-less deck. But you weren't talking about that and neither was I. As I said, I'm talking about the cases when you need Treasure to buy cards throughout the game. I won't specify further, because you can just re-read my post.

Ah well. But then aren't you just referring to my first case - no better payload? I thought that to include cases where there are cards that are better payload, but not enough of them (or not enough terminal space etc.), so some of your payload has to be Treasures.

You said that the "middle ground" between no-Treasure and BM is small, because it includes (1) cases where there's no better payload than Treasure, (2) TfB with treasure gainers and (3) Platinum - to which I guess we can also add other special Treasures like Plunder etc.

Regarding (1), if there's no better payload than Treasure, then I agree that the engine is not worth it, I guess ever.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean with your new case, but I guess you mean it's not worth building an engine because you can't consistently play enough payload cards.

But my point is that there are also cases where you want to and can play payload cards as often as possible, but the only or main way of getting cards is buying them with coins from Silver and Gold. So you want the engine. I don't think that's so uncommon. Or even cases where there are Action-based coins and/or gainers, but also Silver/Gold gainers that you use in addition, to get more buying/gaining power quicker.

[faust]

I'm not entirely sure what you mean with your new case, but I guess you mean it's not worth building an engine because you can't consistently play enough payload cards.

But my point is that there are also cases where you want to and can play payload cards as often as possible, but the only or main way of getting cards is buying them with coins from Silver and Gold. So you want the engine. I don't think that's so uncommon. Or even cases where there are Action-based coins and/or gainers, but also Silver/Gold gainers that you use in addition, to get more buying/gaining power quicker.

My point is that if you want Gold/Silver in your deck, then the engine you can build isn't usually very good. So often you might be able to build an engine, but some form of BM is better.

I don't think I ever* build engines where I want Gold/Silver gainers if there is no TfB. That's just asking for your engine to stall.

*slightly exaggerated

[Jeebus]

I'm not entirely sure what you mean with your new case, but I guess you mean it's not worth building an engine because you can't consistently play enough payload cards.

But my point is that there are also cases where you want to and can play payload cards as often as possible, but the only or main way of getting cards is buying them with coins from Silver and Gold. So you want the engine. I don't think that's so uncommon. Or even cases where there are Action-based coins and/or gainers, but also Silver/Gold gainers that you use in addition, to get more buying/gaining power quicker.

My point is that if you want Gold/Silver in your deck, then the engine you can build isn't usually very good. So often you might be able to build an engine, but some form of BM is better.

I don't think I ever* build engines where I want Gold/Silver gainers if there is no TfB. That's just asking for your engine to stall.

*slightly exaggerated

Ok, then that just seems pretty wrong to me. If there is trashing and attacks (and actions and draw), then I usually want an engine even if the only way to gain cards is through buying them with silver and gold. Lack of +buy might make me want to reconsider, but not always.

[Asper]

I'm not entirely sure what you mean with your new case, but I guess you mean it's not worth building an engine because you can't consistently play enough payload cards.

But my point is that there are also cases where you want to and can play payload cards as often as possible, but the only or main way of getting cards is buying them with coins from Silver and Gold. So you want the engine. I don't think that's so uncommon. Or even cases where there are Action-based coins and/or gainers, but also Silver/Gold gainers that you use in addition, to get more buying/gaining power quicker.

My point is that if you want Gold/Silver in your deck, then the engine you can build isn't usually very good. So often you might be able to build an engine, but some form of BM is better.

I don't think I ever* build engines where I want Gold/Silver gainers if there is no TfB. That's just asking for your engine to stall.

*slightly exaggerated

Ok, then that just seems pretty wrong to me. If there is trashing and attacks (and actions and draw), then I usually want an engine even if the only way to gain cards is through buying them with silver and gold. Lack of +buy might make me want to reconsider, but not always.

Is one of you talking about an engine with Gold/Silver in it and one about an engine with Gold/Silver gainers in it?

[Jeebus]

Is one of you talking about an engine with Gold/Silver in it and one about an engine with Gold/Silver gainers in it?

I don't think so. I'm simply talking about engines worth building where you need treasure to buy your cards. Naturally, my premise was boards where you can't easily gain cards through through action-based coins or gaining. Of course this kind of engine is helped by silver/gold gainers, but I wasn't saying that that's the only viable way of building it.

(As an additional example of where treasure could be worth it as payload in an engine, I mentioned silver/gold gainers. With this I mean that even if you have action-based coins or gaining, sometimes silver/gold gainers could be worth it to get more buying/gaining power quicker.)

But since this is so difficult, let's make it real.
Let's say you have Seahag, Junk Dealer, Margrave, Village and nothing else of great consequence. There is no way to gain cards here except buying them with Silver and Gold. You're not going to be buying much purely from Junk Dealer coins! I say, build the engine. As far as I can interpret Faust, he says don't build it. I'm even more sure if you add something more worthwile, like Wild Hunt, Tournament, Bridge Troll, Highway, Groundskeeper, Enchantress, Distant Lands, Orchard, Triumphal Arch...

[faust]

But since this is so difficult, let's make it real.
Let's say you have Seahag, Junk Dealer, Margrave, Village and nothing else of great consequence. There is no way to gain cards here except buying them with Silver and Gold. You're not going to be buying much purely from Junk Dealer coins! I say, build the engine. As far as I can interpret Faust, he says don't build it. I'm even more sure if you add something more worthwile, like Wild Hunt, Tournament, Bridge Troll, Highway, Groundskeeper, Enchantress, Distant Lands, Orchard, Triumphal Arch...

I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is that it is very uncommon to have a board where 6 cards are of no consequence.

[Holunder9]

Squire is the most obvious example of a card that you use in engines as a village and occasionally as a Silver gainer. Not that a glorified Necropolis is brilliant but engines are possible with Squire as the only splitter.
For example if you exchange Village with Squire in Jeebus' example the engine is probably still viable which is admittedly largely due to Margarve being so strong.

Mindlessly adding Treasures to your deck is dumb. But so is the notion that are no engines that don't need some Treasures.
As an extreme example, if there is no source of virtual coins and you somehow got some Silvers, e.g. due to Sauna, to early hit $5, via a Silver gainer or because there was situationally nothing better to buy, it is not out of this world to imagine a deck with 8 Silvers and Action cards that provide an extra buy and drawing power.

[ednever]

I'm not entirely sure what you mean with your new case, but I guess you mean it's not worth building an engine because you can't consistently play enough payload cards.

But my point is that there are also cases where you want to and can play payload cards as often as possible, but the only or main way of getting cards is buying them with coins from Silver and Gold. So you want the engine. I don't think that's so uncommon. Or even cases where there are Action-based coins and/or gainers, but also Silver/Gold gainers that you use in addition, to get more buying/gaining power quicker.

My point is that if you want Gold/Silver in your deck, then the engine you can build isn't usually very good. So often you might be able to build an engine, but some form of BM is better.

I don't think I ever* build engines where I want Gold/Silver gainers if there is no TfB. That's just asking for your engine to stall.

*slightly exaggerated

Ok, then that just seems pretty wrong to me. If there is trashing and attacks (and actions and draw), then I usually want an engine even if the only way to gain cards is through buying them with silver and gold. Lack of +buy might make me want to reconsider, but not always.

Does an attack not could as a "payload", or does "payload" only mean $$s?

(i.e., could Hag or Familiar be a "payload" that you want to make sure you play a lot with an engine - but need gold for $$s?)

[Jeebus]

But since this is so difficult, let's make it real.
Let's say you have Seahag, Junk Dealer, Margrave, Village and nothing else of great consequence. There is no way to gain cards here except buying them with Silver and Gold. You're not going to be buying much purely from Junk Dealer coins! I say, build the engine. As far as I can interpret Faust, he says don't build it. I'm even more sure if you add something more worthwile, like Wild Hunt, Tournament, Bridge Troll, Highway, Groundskeeper, Enchantress, Distant Lands, Orchard, Triumphal Arch...

I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is that it is very uncommon to have a board where 6 cards are of no consequence.

And additionally then, you're saying that those 6 cards almost always provide the coins and/or gains you need so that getting treasures isn't needed.

And I'm saying that it seems to me that it's actually pretty common that the coins/gains you get from action cards is not enough to build an engine but usually you still want the engine. In your original reply to Crj, you didn't even mention this category of kingdom, and when I brought it up, you thought it was part of one of your categories, and then later you say that you virtually never play such kingdoms. It's so strange, because I feel like I play them quite often.

[Jeebus]

Does an attack not could as a "payload", or does "payload" only mean $$s?

(i.e., could Hag or Familiar be a "payload" that you want to make sure you play a lot with an engine - but need gold for $$s?)

That's certainly how I interpret payload. Attacking, trashing, gaining, buying.

[faust]

But since this is so difficult, let's make it real.
Let's say you have Seahag, Junk Dealer, Margrave, Village and nothing else of great consequence. There is no way to gain cards here except buying them with Silver and Gold. You're not going to be buying much purely from Junk Dealer coins! I say, build the engine. As far as I can interpret Faust, he says don't build it. I'm even more sure if you add something more worthwile, like Wild Hunt, Tournament, Bridge Troll, Highway, Groundskeeper, Enchantress, Distant Lands, Orchard, Triumphal Arch...

I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is that it is very uncommon to have a board where 6 cards are of no consequence.

And additionally then, you're saying that those 6 cards almost always provide the coins and/or gains you need so that getting treasures isn't needed.

And I'm saying that it seems to me that it's actually pretty common that the coins/gains you get from action cards is not enough to build an engine but usually you still want the engine. In your original reply to Crj, you didn't even mention this category of kingdom, and when I brought it up, you thought it was part of one of your categories, and then later you say that you virtually never play such kingdoms. It's so strange, because I feel like I play them quite often.

No, the virtually never was referring to games with Gold/Silver gainers.

[faust]

Squire is the most obvious example of a card that you use in engines as a village and occasionally as a Silver gainer. Not that a glorified Necropolis is brilliant but engines are possible with Squire as the only splitter.

And I contend that if you're using Squire in an engine, using it to gain Silver more than once is just wrong.

Mindlessly adding Treasures to your deck is dumb. But so is the notion that are no engines that don't need some Treasures.

And noone said that.

it is not out of this world to imagine a deck with 8 Silvers and Action cards that provide an extra buy and drawing power.

It's not, but the deck you describe is not an engine.

[Holunder9]

Squire is the most obvious example of a card that you use in engines as a village and occasionally as a Silver gainer. Not that a glorified Necropolis is brilliant but engines are possible with Squire as the only splitter.

And I contend that if you're using Squire in an engine, using it to gain Silver more than once is just wrong.

Just roll with Jeebus's example of a Kingdom with Margrave, Squire and Junk Dealer. You cannot ignore Margrave and 1 or 2 Junk Dealer don't provide enough Coins. When you hit 6 you might rather buy a Junk Dealer or a Margrave so you need some Silvers via Squire.

Mindlessly adding Treasures to your deck is dumb. But so is the notion that are no engines that don't need some Treasures.

And noone said that.

You just did:

And I contend that if you're using Squire in an engine, using it to gain Silver more than once is just wrong.

it is not out of this world to imagine a deck with 8 Silvers and Action cards that provide an extra buy and drawing power.

It's not, but the deck you describe is not an engine.

So if I get this correctly your definition of engine seems to include a deck of 10 Peddlers but exclude a deck of 5 Villages, a Market Square, 4 Smithies and 8 Silvers.

[faust]

it is not out of this world to imagine a deck with 8 Silvers and Action cards that provide an extra buy and drawing power.

It's not, but the deck you describe is not an engine.

So if I get this correctly your definition of engine seems to include a deck of 10 Peddlers but exclude a deck of 5 Villages, a Market Square, 4 Smithies and 8 Silvers.

No, I don't think a deck of 10 Peddlers is an engine.

The deck you describe is a very poorly executed engine: Obviously, there was trashing and Market Square. Then using Silvers for economy is just plain stupid.

[faust]

Mindlessly adding Treasures to your deck is dumb. But so is the notion that are no engines that don't need some Treasures.

And noone said that.

You just did:

And I contend that if you're using Squire in an engine, using it to gain Silver more than once is just wrong.

I think you have trouble parsing what I am saying and suggest that you read again.

[faust]

Squire is the most obvious example of a card that you use in engines as a village and occasionally as a Silver gainer. Not that a glorified Necropolis is brilliant but engines are possible with Squire as the only splitter.

And I contend that if you're using Squire in an engine, using it to gain Silver more than once is just wrong.

Just roll with Jeebus's example of a Kingdom with Margrave, Squire and Junk Dealer. You cannot ignore Margrave and 1 or 2 Junk Dealer don't provide enough Coins. When you hit 6 you might rather buy a Junk Dealer or a Margrave so you need some Silvers via Squire.

No. If I need Silver to get more economy, I buy Silver over Squire. By the time I want Squires in my deck, I want them for +action, I also want to play Margrave every turn and clogging my deck with Silvers hinders that. I could gain Silvers to be able to play my Junk Dealers once I'm out of junk, but that is very ineffective and I doubt that a deck like described would ever have a sufficient surplus of actions or draw to make that worthwile.

[Holunder9]

Squire is the most obvious example of a card that you use in engines as a village and occasionally as a Silver gainer. Not that a glorified Necropolis is brilliant but engines are possible with Squire as the only splitter.

And I contend that if you're using Squire in an engine, using it to gain Silver more than once is just wrong.

Just roll with Jeebus's example of a Kingdom with Margrave, Squire and Junk Dealer. You cannot ignore Margrave and 1 or 2 Junk Dealer don't provide enough Coins. When you hit 6 you might rather buy a Junk Dealer or a Margrave so you need some Silvers via Squire.

No. If I need Silver to get more economy, I buy Silver over Squire. By the time I want Squires in my deck, I want them for +action, I also want to play Margrave every turn and clogging my deck with Silvers hinders that. I could gain Silvers to be able to play my Junk Dealers once I'm out of junk, but that is very ineffective and I doubt that a deck like described would ever have a sufficient surplus of actions or draw to make that worthwile.

Totally disagree. You won't buy Gold until you draw or even overdraw, when you hit 6 you will get Junk Dealers and Margraves. So Silver it is as Coin source. Not 10 but not just 1 either. If you open 5/2 you will most likely use the Squire twice or thrice to gain Silver (ignoring for the sake of argument that trashing it into a Margrave might be better). Or just exchange Squire with Lucky Coin, of course you will play it several times before you trash it.

One can imagine many more situations in which Silver gainers, no virtual coins and a draw engine go hand in hand. It is all a matter of opportunity costs: even if you prefer Gold over Silver you will take that Silver if it comes "cheaply" via a gainer and not get that Gold as getting engine pieces is more important.

We all like those engines in which everything comes from Action cards and we also like those tight engines which hit 16 every turn with some virtual coins and some Golds. Doesn't mean though that these nice engines are available in every Kingdom and something more messy and less aesthetically pleasant doesn't often happen.

[Jeebus]

Well, I just played this kingdom: Duke, Junk Dealer, Margrave, Vampire, Bank, Engineer, Farming Village, Miser, Rats, Wandering Minstrel. Both went for trashing via Rats and Junk Dealer, and village + Margrave. I also got a Vampire, but only attacked with it a few times. Nobody got Miser, I think it's too slow because you want to start attacking and trashing. So we had Vampire as a gainer and Miser as +coin, but still the main way of gaining cards was through treasure, and we each had to buy several silvers/golds. Would this be better as BM + Margrave? I don't think so. Would it be better with treasureless decks? I really don't think so.

[aku_chi]

I don't know why people are pretending that engines with treasure payload are rare.

[ackmondual]

I don't know why people are pretending that engines with treasure payload are rare.

It's still jarring to hear the pros have gone out of their way to avoid Silver and even Gold

[Kirian]

I don't know why people are pretending that engines with treasure payload are rare.

It's still jarring to hear the pros have gone out of their way to avoid Silver and even Gold

I mean, sometimes/often it's a good idea.  And sometimes it's terrible or impossible.  The pros have gotten good at distinguishing the two!

[Chris is me]

I don't know why people are pretending that engines with treasure payload are rare.

It's still jarring to hear the pros have gone out of their way to avoid Silver and even Gold

I think all other things equal, Gold is avoided more than Silver in “pro” Dominion, though the recent influx of Gold gainers may have changed that a bit.

Silver is useful in the opening, so you often have one, and there are a lot more ways to gain Silver without buying it than to gain Gold. You need six Treasures to get Province using Golds, and eight with Silver; two extra stop cards is often worth it if you have a way to gain Silvers but not Golds.

That said, there are plenty of boards where treasure is a big part of the payload. They’re not all that uncommon - but often you can do better these days, and you generally want to minimize the reliance on Treasures.

[Dingan]

What is this "pro" Dominion and how can I get in on it?

[Awaclus]

What is this "pro" Dominion and how can I get in on it?

git gud