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Author Topic: I'm not so sure I like the idea of knights.  (Read 14775 times)

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Beyond Awesome

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Re: I'm not so sure I like the idea of knights.
« Reply #25 on: August 17, 2012, 12:53:55 am »
+1

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.
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rspeer

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Re: I'm not so sure I like the idea of knights.
« Reply #26 on: August 17, 2012, 01:03:29 am »
+1

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?
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Young Nick

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Re: I'm not so sure I like the idea of knights.
« Reply #27 on: August 17, 2012, 01:05:28 am »
+1

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.
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Beyond Awesome

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Re: I'm not so sure I like the idea of knights.
« Reply #28 on: August 17, 2012, 01:17:39 am »
0

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.
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Rhombus

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Re: I'm not so sure I like the idea of knights.
« Reply #29 on: August 17, 2012, 03:38:53 am »
0

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?
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Grujah

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Re: I'm not so sure I like the idea of knights.
« Reply #30 on: August 17, 2012, 04:53:47 am »
0

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.
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LastFootnote

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Re: I'm not so sure I like the idea of knights.
« Reply #31 on: August 17, 2012, 12:08:02 pm »
0

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.
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Matt_Arnold

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Re: I'm not so sure I like the idea of knights.
« Reply #32 on: August 17, 2012, 01:38:12 pm »
0

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

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Re: I'm not so sure I like the idea of knights.
« Reply #33 on: August 17, 2012, 01:39:25 pm »
0

It says so in the rulebook and on the randomizer card
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Varsinor

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Re: I'm not so sure I like the idea of knights.
« Reply #34 on: August 17, 2012, 05:47:39 pm »
+1

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.
« Last Edit: August 17, 2012, 05:50:48 pm by Varsinor »
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engineer

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Re: I'm not so sure I like the idea of knights.
« Reply #35 on: August 19, 2012, 12:21:52 am »
0

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.
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ftl

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Re: I'm not so sure I like the idea of knights.
« Reply #36 on: August 19, 2012, 12:52:30 am »
0

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.
« Last Edit: August 19, 2012, 12:53:42 am by ftl »
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engineer

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Re: I'm not so sure I like the idea of knights.
« Reply #37 on: August 19, 2012, 01:14:59 am »
0

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.
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Rhombus

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Re: I'm not so sure I like the idea of knights.
« Reply #38 on: August 19, 2012, 01:21:41 am »
0

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).
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dondon151

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Re: I'm not so sure I like the idea of knights.
« Reply #39 on: August 19, 2012, 01:33:12 am »
+1

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.
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engineer

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Re: I'm not so sure I like the idea of knights.
« Reply #40 on: August 19, 2012, 01:58:45 am »
0

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. ;)
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dondon151

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Re: I'm not so sure I like the idea of knights.
« Reply #41 on: August 19, 2012, 02:12:04 am »
0

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.
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Beyond Awesome

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Re: I'm not so sure I like the idea of knights.
« Reply #42 on: August 19, 2012, 02:37:51 am »
0

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.
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eHalcyon

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Re: I'm not so sure I like the idea of knights.
« Reply #43 on: August 19, 2012, 02:46:34 am »
0

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

Quote from: Donald X.
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.
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MasterAir

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Re: I'm not so sure I like the idea of knights.
« Reply #44 on: August 20, 2012, 04:28:45 am »
+1

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.
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Gamer_2k4

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Re: I'm not so sure I like the idea of knights.
« Reply #45 on: August 21, 2012, 03:20:07 pm »
0

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.
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Grujah

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Re: I'm not so sure I like the idea of knights.
« Reply #46 on: August 21, 2012, 03:29:11 pm »
+1

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

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Re: I'm not so sure I like the idea of knights.
« Reply #47 on: August 21, 2012, 04:02:16 pm »
+1

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.

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Drab Emordnilap

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Re: I'm not so sure I like the idea of knights.
« Reply #48 on: August 21, 2012, 04:04:10 pm »
0

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.
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