Print

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

[jotheonah]

Honestly, I think these will be annoying as heck in a real game, especially a 4-player game.

Lets say my draw-my-deck engine desperately needs buys and Sir Martin is the only one on the board. He flips up on my turn when I buy Dame Josephine. Now I have to hope none of the other 3 people in the group hit $5 on their turns or completely replan my deck. 

Part of the inherent balance of Dominion was that no card was really OP, since everyone had access to it. With Knights, that's no longer true. (Technically the same could be said of Tournament, but getting the first prize was a matter of strategy, whereas getting a specific Knight is pure chance.)

They look awesome, but I can't help but think they're actually going to be a source of great frustration.

[blueblimp]

This was my first thought, but I think it won't be too bad. Knight games will resemble Swindler games, because the attack is so crazy. So it'll be difficult to formulate a coherent strategy no matter which knight you get.

[Grujah]

I think of bonuses as "little extra", not as "I buy knights for this". Esp as your knights will die and that extra stuff will be lost.

You buy knights for their attack.

[jonts26]

This was my first thought, but I think it won't be too bad. Knight games will resemble Swindler games

I think you contradicted yourself.

[blueblimp]

This was my first thought, but I think it won't be too bad. Knight games will resemble Swindler games

I think you contradicted yourself.

Well, yeah. I should say it won't be any worse than Swindler games.

[Davio]

I'm not too bothered by them.

You can always see the top one, so you can decide to wait if you wish, but then your opponent gets the chance to play one first.

[Voltaire]

Lets say my draw-my-deck engine desperately needs buys and Sir Martin is the only one on the board. He flips up on my turn when I buy Dame Josephine. Now I have to hope none of the other 3 people in the group hit $5 on their turns or completely replan my deck. 

I would say it's bad strategy to aim for one card in that situation. Just my take.

[jotheonah]

I guess my general point is that a card that I can get and you can't breaks one of the things I love the best about Dominion. But I also hear and appreciate the people saying that the bonuses are small and mundane enough that it won't really feel like that.

[Grujah]

That, but more importantly, if you are building a strategy over a single Knight, you are making a big mistake. It is not-likely to be gettable and is very likely that he will die when you play it / opponent plays it.

Joth, you also had this same thing with BM before. I can get Curser and you cannot.

[jotheonah]

I know I was not alone in hating that aspect of Black Market when it came to certain power cards.

[Davio]

I guess my general point is that a card that I can get and you can't breaks one of the things I love the best about Dominion. But I also hear and appreciate the people saying that the bonuses are small and mundane enough that it won't really feel like that.

Well, initially you might think: "We share the same cards, there must be no luck in this game!"

But then you play a game with Familiar and 2P on turn 5 vs. your opponent's 3P on turn 3 and remember that there is still a lot of luck in Dominion. I don't think the knights add significant more randomness and luck than what's already inherent to the game.

[timchen]

I think this is a reasonable concern. So knight is like an improved saboteur. One buys it for its main functionality.

How does the different extra bonus contribute to the game? It does add flavor, diversity, and variance. Is it enough to compensate the extra swinginess to the game?

From a serious, tournament-minded perspective I don't think so. May as well make it all the same with say, +2. But from a casual game perspective I can see its value.

[Beyond Awesome]

I don't think getting any one Knight is game breaking as winning the Tournament race and getting Followers on a non-cursing board. As a matter of fact, I'm not sure of the power level of Knights in general.

[rinkworks]

Tournament and Black Market are definitely greater offenders in this regard.  Getting the Knight with the critical bonus on some particular board (probably the trasher and the +Buys one stand the best chance of being significant) is way less swingy than lucking into Followers or whatever goodies Black Market might give you.

I'm stoked, myself.  Black Market is one of my favorite cards precisely BECAUSE of the variance, though I certainly wouldn't want every Dominion game to be as luck-dependent.  But that's what I like about Dominion -- every game plays a little differently.

[Young Nick]

Yeah, I've talked about this at great length before on f.DS. First came Black Market, then Tournament. In the previews, we saw Looters who give some people Ruined A and others Ruined B. Now we get knights.

It is definitely one of my least favorite aspects of Dominion. Obviously, I still love Dominion, but would rather that all had equal access to cards. Not a deal-breaker for me, or anything close to it, but I guess we all have things about Dominion that we dislike more than others.

The availability aspect of all of the cards is what made me fall in love with the game, at first, too.

Maybe later I will find some of my previous comments about this type of stuff and post 'em here.

[Hockey Mask]

I love the idea of Knights but my first thought was that it would have made a good promo.

[werothegreat]

Knight is not an improved Saboteur.  It does things differently.  Saboteur hunts through the deck - it is not confined to the first two cards, and has no upper price limit.  Because of this, the defending player is allowed to take a crappier consolation prize.  Knights offer no such prize.  You may as well say that Noble Brigand is better than Thief.  Sure, he gives +$1 and gives out Coppers, but on boards with kingdom Treasures, you'll want the Thief.  Thief is actually rather fun in games with multiple kingdom Treasures.  If your goal is to destroy engine cards or Duchies, pick up a Knight.  If your goal is to knock out Provinces and Colonies (potentially to scoop them up with Graverobber), pick up a Saboteur (or rather, lots of Saboteurs, because one Saboteur ain't gonna do shit).

This goes over to the thread about Rogue v. Knight.  Knight is primarily an Attack.  Rogue is primarily a trash-gainer, that has a secondary Attack to ensure there's stuff in the trash to gain, much like Graverobber's ActionExpand.  Rogue is for stealing, Knight is for destroying.

[ftl]

Graverobber can't pick up Provinces and Colonies, it also only works on cost 3-6 cards, right?

[Coone]

I think that in a 2 player game, a knight won't really change the game more than saboteur has.  With its trash but don't replace strategy and its extra effect, it may be more viable than the saboteur, but without the right engine it's probably not going to gain game-winning momentum.

In a 3 to 4 player game I think it will be very annoying, but in all the ways I expect multiplayer games to be annoying anyways.  I personally look forward to when both knights and vineyard plus pawn or herbalist is on the board so I can play a low money game while other people slow themselves down by the knight (and yes, I'm in the imaginary world where no one else sees this potential and copies my strategy)

[ftl]

You will be sad when the knights keep eating your potions, though.

[Coone]

You will be sad when the knights keep eating your potions, though.

Oh snap! XD  Though herbalists do offer some protection from that.

[dondon151]

I've noticed that Spoils work fairly well in the presence of Knights. Spoils-gainers are more vulnerable, though.

[Loschmidt]

They look awesome, but I can't help but think they're actually going to be a source of great frustration.

Meh, probably. But they don't come up often, and if you want a serious Dominion game where you can show off your skills shuffle in a different card.

I think Knight games (especially multiplayer games) will be a bit swingy but FREAKIN AWESOME! Deck building makes you love your own unique snowflake of a deck and Knights give it the chance to literally have something the other players dont. I also love the challenge of figuring out how to use my random edge to my advantage. Like making the most of ruins except more awesome.

[Whitecrow]

I'm not certain unique knights are good idea.
Promptly there will be popular ones and unpopular ones.
1) Let's say sir discard or someone nice is on top: First player has much better chance to buy him, strengthen 1p advantage more.
2) Got unpopular one on top, the pile is dead. Everybody will think twice before buying a knight when it's bad one and the next one might be a better knight.

Trashing attack alone is not great either. It looks like nerfed saboteur to me as if saboteur were a power card. (of course it rules in MP...)

[HiveMindEmulator]

I think the differences in the extra bonuses of the various knights is not that big of a rage-inducing luck factor compared to what the actual attack hits.

[Beyond Awesome]

I had this question in another thread, but no one seems to be reading it, so I will add my question here because it is a good question.  Can all 10 go into the Black Market deck? My guess is yes because they all have different names.

[rspeer]

That has a couple of easy but unhelpful possible answers.

Can they go in the Black Market deck when you're playing face-to-face? Yeah, you're in fact allowed to make that deck any way you want.

Can they go in the Black Market deck on Goko? No, because Goko doesn't have Black Market.

But the remaining interesting question is: did they go in the Black Market deck on the playtesting version of Isotropic?

[Young Nick]

I had this question in another thread, but no one seems to be reading it, so I will add my question here because it is a good question.  Can all 10 go into the Black Market deck? My guess is yes because they all have different names.

From the FAQ: "If you choose to use the Knights with Black Market (a promotional card), put a Knight directly into the Black Market deck, rather than using the randomizer card."

So that is not the clearest, but it looks like you just put one in.

[Beyond Awesome]

I had this question in another thread, but no one seems to be reading it, so I will add my question here because it is a good question.  Can all 10 go into the Black Market deck? My guess is yes because they all have different names.

From the FAQ: "If you choose to use the Knights with Black Market (a promotional card), put a Knight directly into the Black Market deck, rather than using the randomizer card."

So that is not the clearest, but it looks like you just put one in.

That is an interesting ruling to go with. I wonder why Donald chose that.

[Rhombus]

Graverobber can't pick up Provinces and Colonies, it also only works on cost 3-6 cards, right?

Graverobber/Rogue + Bridge/Highway and/or TR/KC/Procession in conjunction with Saboteur/Knight?

[Grujah]

I think the differences in the extra bonuses of the various knights is not that big of a rage-inducing luck factor compared to what the actual attack hits.

This.

Quote from somebody whom actually played it:

Knights: Forget the differences between the Knights. What's going to piss you off during play is when you hit two Coppers and I hit your Duchy. The ability for them to fight and kill each other is cute, but I never saw it happen.

[LastFootnote]

I didn't notice until just now that if you reveal 2 cards costing from $3 to $6 when an opponent plays a Knight, you (the victim) get to choose which one to trash. That's something, I guess.

Same with Rogue.

[Matt_Arnold]

All: Where are you getting the information that Knights are shuffled rather than chosen a-la Tournament Prizes?

[Watno]

It says so in the rulebook and on the randomizer card

[Varsinor]

Some of it has already been said, but here's my opinion on the Knights anyhow:

I don't like them! But not really for the differences between the individual knights, which don't seem to be that strong to me - at least compared to Tournament and Black Market. (Well, I guess Dame Anna (trashing) is an exception if she can be bought early on boards without other trashing, especially when there are Cursers and/or Looters.)
I still don't like those differences too much although they are comparably weak, but this mechanic also has interesting implications and the individual names sound kind of cool, so overall that is OK for me.

But what makes me dislike it is that the card is still terribly luck based! I think overall more luck based than every other card (maybe except Treasure Map).

I predict that at least on boards heavy on Dark Ages (with 7 cards with relevant on-trash-benefits), the Knights will usually be very weak because their attack which even on other boards doesn't seem too strong on average to me has a decent probability to actually be really *useful* for the opponent.

So while weak on average at least on Dark Ages boards (and I think even on many boards without on-trash-benefits), the attack is highly luck dependent, so that (weak or daredevil) players which go for the suboptimal Knight may very well win on that decision alone anyway. (Kind of like with Treasure Map for which I dislike that as well.) You can hit a Fortress or other on-trash-benefit-card, but you could also hit and trash the opponents early Gold or Mountebank or Witch or whatever.
Just the extreme difference between these too scenarios should be significant enough to decide most games.
I mean, it is about as bad as swindling the early Mountebank or Witch into a Duchy compared to kindly removing an opponent's Estate from the top of the deck - but I also hate that about the Swindler and it should be more likely to happen with a Knight given that it attacks two cards and also hits $6 cards badly (and not just $5s).

Even on boards where going Knight is the best decision because it can be expected to give the best bang for your buck on average, getting unlucky with it by only hitting Estates/Shelters/Coppers/Ruins/Curses/etc. is still highly luck dependent.

I think that Dominion has enough luck based aspects already, having more cases of such extremely different outcomes of playing a single card is bad IMO.

[engineer]

You know what I'm worried about?  When Donald talked about why he never did trashing attacks, he always mentioned how games would devolve into states where everybody had 5-card decks and couldn't make any progress.  I thought that this issue was one reason that previous trashing attacks essentially remodel cards instead of trashing them.

I feel like the reason that knights can kill each other is to avoid the 5-card-deck scenario.  But there are 10 knights.  If one player gets more knights than the other (i.e. wins the "knight split"), then once the knights cancel out, the player that started with more knights will still have knights, and at that point he'll be able to trash his opponent's deck down to 5 and keep him there.

I get how pins like this exist already (i.e. KC-Goons-Masq), but those pins were always several card combos, requiring several different cards to show up in the same kingdom.  With knights, though, there is no combo card needed.

Now, I'm assuming that Donald has playtested these cards very thoroughly, so in my mind, there's only two possible explanations: (a) there's some reason that this 5-card-deck pin doesn't actually work out with knights, or (b) Donald just decided that those games are fun sometimes, so he made a card which can create that scenario.  Personally, I'm hoping that it's (a) and I'm just missing something.  If the answer is (b), I'll probably avoid playing with knights when possible.

[ftl]

The knights can only trash cards costing 3 to 6. So they can't trash your coppers, so you always can
1) Pad your deck with a bunch of coppers so that it's less likely you'll lose your more expensive cards
2) Be able to afford cards costing up to 5

so you'll never get locked in to a 5-card hand and have whatever you buy be immediately trashed. You can always make progress, even if that progress is padding your deck with coppers and estates and THEN getting more expensive cards.

[engineer]

The knights can only trash cards costing 3 to 6. So they can't trash your coppers, so you always can
1) Pad your deck with a bunch of coppers so that it's less likely you'll lose your more expensive cards
2) Be able to afford cards costing up to 5

so you'll never get locked in to a 5-card hand and have whatever you buy be immediately trashed. You can always make progress, even if that progress is padding your deck with coppers and estates and THEN getting more expensive cards.

Okay, I can see how you can prevent yourself from getting completely pinned, but still -- if you opponent has 2 knights left, you have none, and the rest are gone, it seems like the other guy could almost always win the game in the time it takes you to build up to a card costing more than $5.  Of course, I haven't played with the card yet, so I'm really just guessing.

[Rhombus]

Perhaps there are pins and more intense scenarios, but knights are strong on some boards, weak on others, and irrelevant on others (just like most cards).  When we played there were no 'knight races' - winning the split just didn't matter (in this particular case at least).

[dondon151]

Honestly, if you're in a position to get pinned, then you were likely already at a massive engine disadvantage to begin with, and had little to no chance of winning the game anyway.

[engineer]

Honestly, if you're in a position to get pinned, then you were likely already at a massive engine disadvantage to begin with, and had little to no chance of winning the game anyway.

But that might not be the case with knights.  That's my point: a simple knight split might decide the game.  If two players go for mirror match and player A gets 6 knights where player B gets 4, has player A basically won the game at that point?  IF this is the case (and that's a big IF) and IF knights are dominant when one player buys them and the other ignores them (another big IF), then most boards with knights will turn into a knight rush.

Like I said, I'm sure that these cards have been playtested thoroughly enough to catch such a problem, so I doubt the game will always play out that way.  But I'll only know for sure once I get to try them out myself.

[dondon151]

But that might not be the case with knights.  That's my point: a simple knight split might decide the game.  If two players go for mirror match and player A gets 6 knights where player B gets 4, has player A basically won the game at that point?  IF this is the case (and that's a big IF) and IF knights are dominant when one player buys them and the other ignores them (another big IF), then most boards with knights will turn into a knight rush.

I strongly suspect that your concerns are unfounded. Knights do very poorly when it comes to chaining into each other and don't contribute very much to building your own deck. Furthermore, say the Knights do split 6-4 - then they start trashing each other, and the guy who "won" the Knight split will only have 2 Knights in presumably a rather large deck. That's not really going to be locking anyone down...

Also consider the fact that Knights cannot trash Provinces without cost reduction assistance, and when a Knight turns up 2 cards to trash, the victim gets to choose which one to trash if both are $3 to $6.

The only way to really "pin" an opponent is to build an engine that can sustain multiple Knight plays per turn. But those kinds of pins work with a lot of other attack cards as well: even the traditionally weak Thief and Pirate Ship can render an unprepared opponent helpless, and other attacks, such as Militia, Ghost Ship, Margrave, and Rabble, are damaging enough to very reliably keep an opponent from hitting $8. Minion too, kind of.

[Beyond Awesome]

Honestly, I don't think Knight seems like a power $5 attack. They seem more like a nuisance. But, I haven't played Dark Ages yet, but I don't see them being board defying like say Witch or Goons or other similar cards. Though, maybe, I am underestimating the power of Knights. I'm sure on some boards they will be strong.

[eHalcyon]

Here is the relevant quote from Donald about trashing attacks.  It's from the Intrigue Secret Histories, for Saboteur:

Saboteur: This is one end result in the quest for a working version of "each other player trashes the top card of their deck." That concept, as I have previously mentioned, has three problems: 1) it's often weak, trashing Coppers and Estates; 2) it's too random, sometimes trashing one player's Copper and another's Province; 3) it can lead to a weird game state in which everyone only has 5 cards left and can't get anywhere, which is cool if it just happens once ever, but bad if it happens every time a particular card is on the table.

Notice that it says it is one end result.  Knights are evidently another end result.

The problem with the original was that it blindly trashed the top card.  As others have stated, Knights don't do this.  They can't trash Coppers and they can't trash Provinces without support -- and note that if that support is provided, it causes Knights to miss other cards, e.g. Silvers will be passed over.  Also, the victim having the choice weakens Knights too.

[MasterAir]

Most importantly with Knights.  The prospect of Knight + Graverobber leads to UNDEAD KNIGHT HORDES deck.  Which, while pretty poor on paper allows for undead knight hordes.

I think they are a fun idea, similar to Tournament, but they'll fade into the background as I don't think their attack is strong enough.  People who are upset that Dominion is a game with a mixture of luck and skill will be upset by them, but it seems they haven't realised that Dominion is a card game that you can play in about 20 minutes.  If you get beaten due to rotten luck, you can probably play again and get your own back.

I love that Knights make Fairgrounds phenomenal (for certain values of phenomenal). You can have a Jousting Tourney.

[Gamer_2k4]

The problem with the original was that it blindly trashed the top card.  As others have stated, Knights don't do this.  They can't trash Coppers and they can't trash Provinces without support -- and note that if that support is provided, it causes Knights to miss other cards, e.g. Silvers will be passed over.  Also, the victim having the choice weakens Knights too.

They can NEVER trash Provinces, right? Cards that reduce the costs of other cards only apply to hands and the supply, I thought.

[Grujah]

they apply to all cards. Can trash provinces with 2 Bridges/HW.

[Fuu]

You know what I'm worried about?  When Donald talked about why he never did trashing attacks, he always mentioned how games would devolve into states where everybody had 5-card decks and couldn't make any progress.  I thought that this issue was one reason that previous trashing attacks essentially remodel cards instead of trashing them.

I feel like the reason that knights can kill each other is to avoid the 5-card-deck scenario.  But there are 10 knights.  If one player gets more knights than the other (i.e. wins the "knight split"), then once the knights cancel out, the player that started with more knights will still have knights, and at that point he'll be able to trash his opponent's deck down to 5 and keep him there.

This sounds like mutually-assured destruction. We cannot allow a Knight card gap!

My own guess is that like countering Saboteur, it will be possible to work around the threat of being wiped out by Knights. Especially in Dark Ages kingdoms because of the on-trash effect/reaction cards and also (perhaps) because of useful cards costing less than 3. But in the general case I guess having loads of silver would work.

They can't trash Coppers and they can't trash Provinces without support -- and note that if that support is provided, it causes Knights to miss other cards, e.g. Silvers will be passed over.

^ I think this could also be quite important.

[Drab Emordnilap]

I got to play a couple of games at GenCon in my hotel lobby with someone who had picked up Dark Ages. Not a super-competitive environment, so the Knights seemed fun. I wish they would have killed off some of my Rats for me, instead of having their silly little jousting battles with my Foragers, though. Luckily, my Fortresses could hold them at bay a good portion of the time.