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Author Topic: Cards to Use (or Avoid) to Speed Games Up  (Read 5504 times)

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Saul Goodman

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Cards to Use (or Avoid) to Speed Games Up
« on: January 09, 2020, 01:33:19 pm »
+1

Sometimes my friends and I need a game that really will go no longer than 45 minutes.  We don't play online.

Is there a list posted somewhere of cards (including sideways cards) that will speed up games (e.g. Cathedral) for an intermediate-to-advanced player?

Similarly and of equal importance, which ones should be avoided because they slow games down?

Specific cards and general suggestions welcomed!
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mxdata

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Re: Cards to Use (or Avoid) to Speed Games Up
« Reply #1 on: January 09, 2020, 02:16:50 pm »
+2

Sometimes my friends and I need a game that really will go no longer than 45 minutes.  We don't play online.

Is there a list posted somewhere of cards (including sideways cards) that will speed up games (e.g. Cathedral) for an intermediate-to-advanced player?

Similarly and of equal importance, which ones should be avoided because they slow games down?

Specific cards and general suggestions welcomed!

In general, cards that hand out junk, especially curses, can really slow a game down, *especially* if you have no trashing cards.  You can't do as much on your turns if you're frequently drawing a Curse or two (or more!) with your starting hand
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pubby

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Re: Cards to Use (or Avoid) to Speed Games Up
« Reply #2 on: January 09, 2020, 02:29:14 pm »
+1

chapel
donate
governor
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Wizard_Amul

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Re: Cards to Use (or Avoid) to Speed Games Up
« Reply #3 on: January 09, 2020, 02:31:26 pm »
+2

Like mxdata said, the biggest thing to avoid is a kingdom that has both junking (curses, ruins, etc.) and no trashing. Here are my takes at coming up with a list for each, though.

Cards to use: Donate, anything that trashes 2+ cards at a time, gainers (like Ironworks, Workshop, etc.)

Cards to avoid: Handsize attacks, Knights, Tax, Keep, Ambassador, Sea Hag, Swamp Hag, Possession, Goons, Platinum/Colony, Dominate, Castles, Gardens, Silk Road

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allanfieldhouse

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Re: Cards to Use (or Avoid) to Speed Games Up
« Reply #4 on: January 09, 2020, 02:32:26 pm »
+13

There's a crucial distinction to be made when defining the term "speed up". You're talking about total time of playing a game IRL. Typically on these forums the definition is more along the lines of number of turns per game.

For example, Hunting Party will typically speed up games online because it's a good non-terminal drawer. But to actually play with the physical card would really slow down  your game. You have to keep looking through your deck, showing your hand, and reshuffling extra times. Online these things happen very quickly, but they're a pain IRL.

Additionally look out for any cards that present varying complex options. Playing a Village is easy, but Count can take a long time to think about.
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spineflu

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Re: Cards to Use (or Avoid) to Speed Games Up
« Reply #5 on: January 09, 2020, 03:45:39 pm »
+2

There's a crucial distinction to be made when defining the term "speed up". You're talking about total time of playing a game IRL. Typically on these forums the definition is more along the lines of number of turns per game.

For example, Hunting Party will typically speed up games online because it's a good non-terminal drawer. But to actually play with the physical card would really slow down  your game. You have to keep looking through your deck, showing your hand, and reshuffling extra times. Online these things happen very quickly, but they're a pain IRL.

Additionally look out for any cards that present varying complex options. Playing a Village is easy, but Count can take a long time to think about.

+1 to this and also, more subtlely, cards that require a player make a decision on the card - "Choose one" cards are the easy culprit, which is why I disagree with Governor as a suggestion to speed things up, but also Reaction cards will do this (with the only kind-of exception of Moat). Player A says, "I play Mountebank", then player B has to say "Oh wait no I have this Reaction card so I do this instead" and it turns into a real mess if Player A already threw the Curse and Copper at them from Mountebank.

Tournament & Black Market are likewise bad for this IRL - Tournament has a double whammy of "Ben, stop looking at your phone, do you have a province?" and "oh wow I can pick any prize? let me stop and read all of them", whereas Black Market is mostly selling analysis paralysis.
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boris

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Re: Cards to Use (or Avoid) to Speed Games Up
« Reply #6 on: January 09, 2020, 04:43:20 pm »
+6

Adam Horton talked a couple times about organizing IRL tournaments on the Making Luck podcast and said that he banned some cards due to various reasons. One of the reason for a card getting banned is if it takes long to resolve. Here is a blog post by him on this topic (I only skimmed it): https://adamhorton.com/flog/dominion-running-an-irl-tournament/

I guess you should be able to find more information on his website.

In addition to not playing with stuff like scrying pool, I would say that playing without any villages speeds things up.
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JW

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Re: Cards to Use (or Avoid) to Speed Games Up
« Reply #7 on: January 09, 2020, 04:46:01 pm »
+2

Tournament & Black Market are likewise bad for this IRL - Tournament has a double whammy of "Ben, stop looking at your phone, do you have a province?" and "oh wow I can pick any prize? let me stop and read all of them", whereas Black Market is mostly selling analysis paralysis.

Page, Peasant, and cards that give hexes also require a lot of time to resolve (including the time to read them!) which slows down the game. Philosopher's Stone would also be in this group if bought, but it's sufficiently weak that it rarely gets bought by stronger players. You also want to avoid cards that require a lot of tracking (such as most cards with multiple options, or King's Court). And no one mentioned this explicitly, but alternate sources of VP other than Province/Duchy/Estate tend to slow down games, particularly games that aren't likely to end on three piles.
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Saul Goodman

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Re: Cards to Use (or Avoid) to Speed Games Up
« Reply #8 on: January 09, 2020, 05:22:19 pm »
+1

Man, this is all very helpful, folks!  And pretty intuitive.
 Thank you!!
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crj

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Re: Cards to Use (or Avoid) to Speed Games Up
« Reply #9 on: January 09, 2020, 07:31:47 pm »
+2

Oracle is top of my list of cards that look harmless but unexpectedly slow things down. The problem is the number of times you need to go to and fro between different people performing tasks and making decisions. In an N-player game there are 4N-2 switches between players.
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Worblehat

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Re: Cards to Use (or Avoid) to Speed Games Up
« Reply #10 on: January 09, 2020, 10:58:01 pm »
+2

Sometimes my friends and I need a game that really will go no longer than 45 minutes.  We don't play online.

The phrasing suggests that the number of players is likely more than two. In that case hitting a 45 minute deadline is pretty tricky. My group normally plays 2-4 players during the lunch hour, and the 4-player games usually run a bit long. 3-player tends to be 50-60 minutes depending on the board.

You might want to favor pre-defined kingdoms rather than using a randomizer, to make sure you have a reasonably quick kingdom. And avoid wasting setup time repeatedly hitting the randomize button when it gives you kingdoms with "slow" cards.  :P

For what it's worth, the fastest 4-player game we ever had was a (random) kingdom with Workshop & Garden; two of us went all-in on the rush, the other two still picked up a few Workshops, so it was a super-fast 3-pile, done in half an hour (including setup time).

In general I'd expect the later expansions to be more of a problem for playing speed. There's just more to keep track of both in gameplay effects and physical fiddly bits on the table. Our slowest games tend to involve Empires and Nocturne (and Prosperity of course).

Specific cards:

Emphasizing the previous point on strictly banning Black Market, even worse than the analysis paralysis, it greatly adds to the setup time.

Rats are good to have. If there's a viable way to trash them, they'll likely self-pile, speeding up a 3-pile ending.

Lurker should be good. Works as a gainer of sorts early, can quickly finish a 3-pile late.

Swindler and Jester are good attacks for quick games since they also reduce piles (particularly in multiplayer).
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Saul Goodman

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Re: Cards to Use (or Avoid) to Speed Games Up
« Reply #11 on: January 10, 2020, 10:48:19 am »
0

Sometimes my friends and I need a game that really will go no longer than 45 minutes.  We don't play online.

The phrasing suggests that the number of players is likely more than two. In that case hitting a 45 minute deadline is pretty tricky. My group normally plays 2-4 players during the lunch hour, and the 4-player games usually run a bit long. 3-player tends to be 50-60 minutes depending on the board.

You might want to favor pre-defined kingdoms rather than using a randomizer, to make sure you have a reasonably quick kingdom. And avoid wasting setup time repeatedly hitting the randomize button when it gives you kingdoms with "slow" cards.  :P

For what it's worth, the fastest 4-player game we ever had was a (random) kingdom with Workshop & Garden; two of us went all-in on the rush, the other two still picked up a few Workshops, so it was a super-fast 3-pile, done in half an hour (including setup time).

In general I'd expect the later expansions to be more of a problem for playing speed. There's just more to keep track of both in gameplay effects and physical fiddly bits on the table. Our slowest games tend to involve Empires and Nocturne (and Prosperity of course).

Specific cards:

Emphasizing the previous point on strictly banning Black Market, even worse than the analysis paralysis, it greatly adds to the setup time.

Rats are good to have. If there's a viable way to trash them, they'll likely self-pile, speeding up a 3-pile ending.

Lurker should be good. Works as a gainer of sorts early, can quickly finish a 3-pile late.

Swindler and Jester are good attacks for quick games since they also reduce piles (particularly in multiplayer).

Thank you!
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LostPhoenix

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Re: Cards to Use (or Avoid) to Speed Games Up
« Reply #12 on: January 12, 2020, 08:42:04 am »
0

Avoid both Boons and Hexes, especially Fool.
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pacovf

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Re: Cards to Use (or Avoid) to Speed Games Up
« Reply #13 on: January 12, 2020, 12:07:19 pm »
0

Wharf tends to speed up IRL games, in my experience.
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crj

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Re: Cards to Use (or Avoid) to Speed Games Up
« Reply #14 on: January 12, 2020, 06:46:14 pm »
0

Avoid both Boons and Hexes, especially Fool.
Ah yes. Fool. I'd forgotten about that. It's the only Dominion card I've consciously vowed never to use again. I think I've even played three Possession games!
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hhelibebcnofnena

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Re: Cards to Use (or Avoid) to Speed Games Up
« Reply #15 on: January 13, 2020, 02:17:53 pm »
0

Avoid both Boons and Hexes, especially Fool.
Ah yes. Fool. I'd forgotten about that. It's the only Dominion card I've consciously vowed never to use again. I think I've even played three Possession games!

That's Saboteur for me. I felt so bad for my opponent when I overused it with KC that I decided I wasn't going to ever use it again (in fact, I believe that was my first post on this forum, in the Dear My Opponent: I'm Sorry thread). And when it isn't devastating, it's weak anyway. I actually did vow to never use Fool again as well, but I've since changed my mind about that, for two player games. Then it's just fairly slow, rather than excruciatingly slow.
« Last Edit: January 13, 2020, 02:19:00 pm by hhelibebcnofnena »
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Saul Goodman

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Re: Cards to Use (or Avoid) to Speed Games Up
« Reply #16 on: January 13, 2020, 11:00:28 pm »
0

I am just getting familiar with Nocturne and Renaissance.  Suffice to say Capitalism + Torturer is both deadly and a horrible thing to do to a friend.

But I did it.

Hexes are just an ultracomplicated curse pile that never runs dry.  It is such a time suck to play a three player game and dole out 3 hexes per player.  Felt bad . . . but now we know.  Also had Skulk in that game.  It should be renamed "Dick Move."
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ConMan

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Re: Cards to Use (or Avoid) to Speed Games Up
« Reply #17 on: January 13, 2020, 11:10:59 pm »
+1

I am just getting familiar with Nocturne and Renaissance.  Suffice to say Capitalism + Torturer is both deadly and a horrible thing to do to a friend.

But I did it.
Capitalism + Torturer ... shouldn't do anything special on its own? Because Torturer doesn't have the coin symbol, it doesn't become a Treasure. Although it does mean that some of the cards Torturer might draw won't be dead cards any more, if they do have that symbol.
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mxdata

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Re: Cards to Use (or Avoid) to Speed Games Up
« Reply #18 on: January 13, 2020, 11:28:14 pm »
+1

I am just getting familiar with Nocturne and Renaissance.  Suffice to say Capitalism + Torturer is both deadly and a horrible thing to do to a friend.

But I did it.

Hexes are just an ultracomplicated curse pile that never runs dry.  It is such a time suck to play a three player game and dole out 3 hexes per player.  Felt bad . . . but now we know.  Also had Skulk in that game.  It should be renamed "Dick Move."

You only have one hex per attack, everyone gets the same attack
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AJD

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Re: Cards to Use (or Avoid) to Speed Games Up
« Reply #19 on: January 14, 2020, 09:55:39 am »
0

I suspect that he meant Tormentor.
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Saul Goodman

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Re: Cards to Use (or Avoid) to Speed Games Up
« Reply #20 on: January 14, 2020, 10:14:57 pm »
0

I suspect that he meant Tormentor.

Yes.  It was Tormentor.
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greybirdofprey

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Re: Cards to Use (or Avoid) to Speed Games Up
« Reply #21 on: January 31, 2020, 07:12:54 am »
0

Engineer.
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Wolphmaniac

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Re: Cards to Use (or Avoid) to Speed Games Up
« Reply #22 on: February 05, 2020, 12:59:06 pm »
0

Donate has to be the surest way to make a Dominion game super fast.  And since it's an event you don't even need to own any particular set to play with it.

Your game will be over in 12 turns.

https://dominionstrategy.com/2018/11/15/donate-money/
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