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[Tables]

I have to say, this game feels a lot less fun to lose than Dominion does. In Dominion, well, any draw could be a critical Province buy, so you know you can come from behind. In Innovation, I was sitting looking at my opponent's engine working better than mine, not knowing what to do, and because of all his splays which I just hadn't had the chance to make, anything I could do would help him probably as much as it helped me (the card draws in return made it just marginally better).

Maybe it's just inexperience talking though .

[Drab Emordnilap]

I have to say, this game feels a lot less fun to lose than Dominion does. In Dominion, well, any draw could be a critical Province buy, so you know you can come from behind. In Innovation, I was sitting looking at my opponent's engine working better than mine, not knowing what to do, and because of all his splays which I just hadn't had the chance to make, anything I could do would help him probably as much as it helped me (the card draws in return made it just marginally better).

Maybe it's just inexperience talking though .

I think it might be. Imagine if you were playing Dominion with as little experience as you have with Innovation, and your opponent was playing 3 Torturers a turn when you haven't bought a Gold yet. There's certainly almost-unwinnable situations in both games, but usually they're caused by a choice you made (or didn't make) than by luck of the draw.

[Drab Emordnilap]

http://innovation.isotropic.org/gamelog/201301/01/game-20130101-213315-5498a273.html

Calendar[3] is missing the word "Draws".

Game crashed when winning with Self Service[10].

[theory]

Before I go and read the rules, I always heard that it is very luck dependant.
Can someone say something about that? Is it a game which you are able to play competitively?
And if yes, dougz, will you implement a leaderboard?

I think it's a little chaotic in 3p/4p, but supposed to be great fun 2p.  But I've only played once.

[Tables]

I have to say, this game feels a lot less fun to lose than Dominion does. In Dominion, well, any draw could be a critical Province buy, so you know you can come from behind. In Innovation, I was sitting looking at my opponent's engine working better than mine, not knowing what to do, and because of all his splays which I just hadn't had the chance to make, anything I could do would help him probably as much as it helped me (the card draws in return made it just marginally better).

Maybe it's just inexperience talking though .

I think it might be. Imagine if you were playing Dominion with as little experience as you have with Innovation, and your opponent was playing 3 Torturers a turn when you haven't bought a Gold yet. There's certainly almost-unwinnable situations in both games, but usually they're caused by a choice you made (or didn't make) than by luck of the draw.

Torturer is probably the nastiest single card in terms of beating on unsuspecting opponents.

[theory]

I tried to play a solitaire game and just ended up in limbo.  Is this intended or did I miss something?

[Ozle]

I managed to play a solataire game yesterday.....it wasnt much fun!

[Thisisnotasmile]

I have also played Solitaire and let me tell you, solitaire just doesn't work for Innovation like it does Dominion. 2+ player it is great though.

[Kuildeous]

Is solitaire at least good for figuring out the interface?

I got into one game with someone with the intent of not finishing the game. We were just going to figure things out a bit.

I clicked on a card name, but then nothing else seemed to happen. The other person was responsive in chat at first, but then he stopped answering me. Maybe he got booted, and I was stuck there wondering what to do.

I'll have to try again later.

Any advice on how to navigate through the interface? I don't want to slow up someone's game with unnecessary uncertainty. I'll have plenty of that as I take in the different cards.

[Thisisnotasmile]

Yeah, you can use solitaire to check out the interface, but only certain parts of it. You won't be able to see how an opponent's information is displayed, you won't be able to check out action sharing and things like that. As long as you've played Innovation before in some form or another you'll be fine to just play against an opponent. There's usually a fair bit of downtime between card plays even with experienced players as you need to check your cards and your opponent's tableaux and double check the symbol counts and cards in hand and scores before you make each click anyway.

[Drab Emordnilap]

Is solitaire at least good for figuring out the interface?

I got into one game with someone with the intent of not finishing the game. We were just going to figure things out a bit.

I clicked on a card name, but then nothing else seemed to happen. The other person was responsive in chat at first, but then he stopped answering me. Maybe he got booted, and I was stuck there wondering what to do.

I'll have to try again later.

Any advice on how to navigate through the interface? I don't want to slow up someone's game with unnecessary uncertainty. I'll have plenty of that as I take in the different cards.

Solitaire is good enough to figure out how to use actions, but you can't use solitaire as any sort of benchmark like you can in Dominion, because of all the missing interaction.

During setup, you'll start with one card in play and one in hand; I think that you're describing choosing the starting card.

To play a card from your hand, click the card in your hand. To use a dogma ability of a card in play, click the card in play. To draw a card, click the "Draw button". You get 2 actions a turn (Except the first player on their first turn).

[Thisisnotasmile]

Is solitaire at least good for figuring out the interface?

I got into one game with someone with the intent of not finishing the game. We were just going to figure things out a bit.

I clicked on a card name, but then nothing else seemed to happen. The other person was responsive in chat at first, but then he stopped answering me. Maybe he got booted, and I was stuck there wondering what to do.

I'll have to try again later.

Any advice on how to navigate through the interface? I don't want to slow up someone's game with unnecessary uncertainty. I'll have plenty of that as I take in the different cards.

Solitaire is good enough to figure out how to use actions, but you can't use solitaire as any sort of benchmark like you can in Dominion, because of all the missing interaction.

During setup, you'll start with one card in play and one in hand; I think that you're describing choosing the starting card.

To play a card from your hand, click the card in your hand. To use a dogma ability of a card in play, click the card in play. To draw a card, click the "Draw button". You get 2 actions a turn (Except the first player on their first turn).

This isn't quite true. During setup you each start with 2 cards in hand and simultaneously choose one to be your starting "in-play" card. For some reason I can't really tell, for THIS selection, you click text with the card names, rather than the cards themselves to choose the one to put in play. After all players have chosen, then it's as Drab says.

[theory]

No, when I start a solitaire game, I just see blankness.  In the middle is "score: 0 [] achievements: none hand: show text" and nothing else.  I see pictures on the left but clicking on them doesn't do anything.  I have no way of interacting except the Exit button.

[theory]

Found the problem -- didn't disable flashblock for the innovation.isotropic.org subdomain.

[andwilk]

I have no idea how to play this game but am now interested in learning solely because I can play it on Isotropic 

Thanks for expanding my gaming horizons dougz!

[Ozle]

Found the problem -- didn't disable flashblock for the innovation.isotropic.org subdomain.

Ahh, disabling flashblock, the solution to many of lifes problems.

[blueblimp]

I found solitaire to be enough to figure out most of the rules along with the rulebook here: http://www.asmadigames.com/innovation/InnovationRulesWeb.pdf.

[Drab Emordnilap]

I'm willing to teach any time I'm on; the more people who know how to play, the better.

[cluckyb]

One issue I noticed is that it's a lot easier to shoot yourself in the foot with this than dominion. If you play IRL you can be like "I'm going to play this card. Oh wait, you also have seven crowns? Nevermind I'll do something else". But here its just like "nope now your screwed"

(no real way to fix this other than being more careful. Its still fun and awesome and such. It just takes a little more focus to play than dominion)

[Qvist]

Just tried this out and it is really interesting.
But I got this error message in the last game:

http://innovation.isotropic.org/gamelog/201301/02/game-20130102-181931-a9149945.html

My opponent was just going to win because of 20 Light Bulbs.

[khanh93]

Feature suggestion: Add a warning for when you're going to be activating a dogma that your opponent has a higher score in (a demand that will fail or dogma that will be shared). It could work just like entering the buy phase with unused actions, buying something with unused treasures, and the resign button.

[Tables]

Feature suggestion: Add a warning for when you're going to be activating a dogma that your opponent has a higher score in (a demand that will fail or dogma that will be shared). It could work just like entering the buy phase with unused actions, buying something with unused treasures, and the resign button.

I don't think this is a good idea. Using Dogmas that will be shared is often a good move. Demands that do nothing, possibly, and Dogmas that will do nothing for you, probably.

[Kirian]

Feature suggestion: Add a warning for when you're going to be activating a dogma that your opponent has a higher score in (a demand that will fail or dogma that will be shared). It could work just like entering the buy phase with unused actions, buying something with unused treasures, and the resign button.

I don't think this is a good idea. Using Dogmas that will be shared is often a good move. Demands that do nothing, possibly, and Dogmas that will do nothing for you, probably.

Sure, it can be a good move, but it's useful to know that it's going to be shared and/or if the demand will fail.

Finding dogmas that will do nothing for you, though, is going to be almost impossible to program.  Just like Iso Dominion doesn't tell you not to play a ninth Highway in a Province game when your deck is empty.  (Go ahead, find me an edge case.)

[WanderingWinder]

Feature suggestion: Add a warning for when you're going to be activating a dogma that your opponent has a higher score in (a demand that will fail or dogma that will be shared). It could work just like entering the buy phase with unused actions, buying something with unused treasures, and the resign button.

I don't think this is a good idea. Using Dogmas that will be shared is often a good move. Demands that do nothing, possibly, and Dogmas that will do nothing for you, probably.

Sure, it can be a good move, but it's useful to know that it's going to be shared and/or if the demand will fail.

Finding dogmas that will do nothing for you, though, is going to be almost impossible to program.  Just like Iso Dominion doesn't tell you not to play a ninth Highway in a Province game when your deck is empty.  (Go ahead, find me an edge case.)

You have a boat-load of gardens hidden away on a native village mat, and the rest of your hand consists of say 3 rats, and you are planning on buying the last province (or gardens) this turn, and gaining out the rest of the rats will be JUST enough to bump the gardens to the next level.

You can do a similar thing with vineyards.

[Kuildeous]

I haven't yet played since my failed attempt to collaborate with someone on working out the interface, but I thought I saw an icon tracker that keeps count of your opponents' icons. Would it be easy to train yourself to check the icons? You can compare your own in the same way, right?

If I'm correct about the icon tracker, then perhaps formatting could change based on which dogma you're highlighting. When you hover over an "I demand" then every opponent with fewer icons than you becomes highlighted green. When you hover over "You may" then every opponent that matches or exceeds you becomes highlighted red. Or some such system. It may just be a matter of training ourselves. Visual cues could help with that possibly?

I'm still not all that familiar with the interface, so I hope I'm not talking out my ass here.