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[jonts26]

Well I guess I got outvoted on the other thread, so I'm making my own campaign. With blackjack and hookers. Sans the blackjack. And the hookers. Mostly just strategy based. If there is at least some interest here, I'll go ahead and head it up, but I don't want to be by myself.

Anyway, here is the general idea I have right now, but feel free to propose something else.

Each level is designed to illustrate a certain strategic principal. I guess we start super basic (big money + x, importance of trashing, etc) and go from there. We do away with the story component. The text before each game is a short discussion of a strategic principal. Then the kingdom will provide opportunity to apply that principal, while still being fun to actually play.

I do think there will be a lot of interest from new players and maybe intermediates as well. Maybe we can eventually have multiple campaigns (beginner, intermediate, advanced) so people don't have to play through super basics if they got them down.

Anyway, whos with me?

[werothegreat]

I'd be down.  I think we should really break everybody into different groups - having 10 different people working on one campaign, especially in this format, is not really the best idea.

[SirPeebles]

I like this idea.

[jonts26]

OK, so if there's people on board lets talk overall game plan. We probably need to stay with the current template for campaigns which is, each act is 20 levels with a boss level every 4th. The way I see it, we can have 3 levels which discuss individual strategy points, then the boss level can be putting it all together.

So what we need first, is, what will the lessons for each level be? We need some sort of natural progression and a way to tie them together for the boss levels.

[SirPeebles]

Is this base set over, or is it for players with multiple expansions?

[jonts26]

Is this base set over, or is it for players with multiple expansions?

Right, we should probably discuss that too. Well, I think just base is a bad idea since it so heavily favors BM and we don't really get to the meat of Dominion strategy. I'd like to just do Super Pack 1, even though that's what the other guys are working with. Super pack 1 just seems like the most likely to be bought first and it has all of the strategy space you need. Though we could certainly go for super pack 2 as well.

[werothegreat]

Super Pack 1 has Coppersmith AND Counting House.  Now we're cooking with charcoal.

Possible lessons:
1) Native Village/Bridge
2) Baron as an opener
3) Saboteur/Bridge
4) Goons/KC/Masq
5) Wharf/BM
6) Chancellor/Counting House
7) Minion engine
8 ) When to go for City

[DG]

There is actually plenty to learn from the base set. It's all in there with good kingdoms. Treasure strategies are also the right place to start. The only difficulty with treasure strategies would be the reasonable chance of winning with a poor strategy and good draws.

I would suggest the first game should be base set only and a tutor for playing against miltia.

[jonts26]

Super Pack 1 has Coppersmith AND Counting House.  Now we're cooking with charcoal.

Possible lessons:
1) Native Village/Bridge
2) Baron as an opener
3) Saboteur/Bridge
4) Goons/KC/Masq
5) Wharf/BM
6) Chancellor/Counting House
7) Minion engine
8 ) When to go for City

I think individual card/combo lessons certainly have a place, but I think we should start even more basic than that. Or at least, use the individual cards to talk general points. i.e. we can do a smithy focused level which discusses the importance of terminal draw/BM. Or we can do the minion engine one to talk about single card engines, etc.

Still, I think the earliest levels should be

1) BMU + X
2) Trashing
3) Attacks
4) Boss Level: putting that together (chapel/witch? something)

[jonts26]

There is actually plenty to learn from the base set. It's all in there with good kingdoms. Treasure strategies are also the right place to start. The only difficulty with treasure strategies would be the reasonable chance of winning with a poor strategy and good draws.

I would suggest the first game should be base set only and a tutor for playing against miltia.

Well base is certainly good for BM type decks. And it has the best trashing and two of the best attacks (and one of the worst). So, yeah, there's a lot to work with, but 20 levels of just base gets dull fast. Anyway, I think first game should be about playing big money type decks. As basic as you can get. We can add attacks (militia) in game 2.

[Donald X.]

Is this base set over, or is it for players with multiple expansions?

Right, we should probably discuss that too. Well, I think just base is a bad idea since it so heavily favors BM and we don't really get to the meat of Dominion strategy. I'd like to just do Super Pack 1, even though that's what the other guys are working with. Super pack 1 just seems like the most likely to be bought first and it has all of the strategy space you need. Though we could certainly go for super pack 2 as well.

Goko is specifically looking for campaigns that use more than one expansion, meaning more than one set not counting the base set. So I would do one of those! They are not looking for a pure base set thing - they might like it if you delivered one, but it's nothing they've specifically mentioned, and we've got three main set campaigns already (with the three available now due to be replaced by better ones someday).

There is no problem with there being two super pack 1 campaigns, and no problem if there aren't. Look in your heart. In the long run the plan would be to have a bunch of multi-set campaigns.

So far I am told "everything" is most likely to be bought first.

[greatexpectations]

i am in, though i feel that this will be a difficult job to do well with the tools available to us.

my starting questions are:
- can we edit what gets you 1/2/3 stars? from what i have heard the requirements for this have changed somewhat over time. this seems like an easy way to encourage play styles to beat home a strategy concept.
- as you guys have said, what sets are we working with? and what cards are in those sets? not all of us (ie me) are familiar with how goko has broken things up. i would prefer to see all cards here obviously, but i guess you can't assume people will buy all cards. there could be room for flexibility there though. goko could simply allow all cards for this campaign, but they could also make that contingent upon a small extra fee or by having N expansions already. a well designed campaign could arguably be an advertisement for them, so it would be reasonable that they might relax their rules a little.

anyway, onto the campaigns. if we are going to do beginner/intermediate/advanced i would propose the following general breakdown:
beginner - BM, trashing, attacks, basic combos
intermediate - basic engines, rushes, counters
advanced - advanced engines, megaturns, three piling, alt vp

[Tables]

Donald, how likely is it that if we go to Goko with a campaign we've made, they'll want to add it into the game?
Do you think making multiple campaigns is going to make them more likely to reject them, or are they likely to accept multiple?

[Donald X.]

- can we edit what gets you 1/2/3 stars? from what i have heard the requirements for this have changed somewhat over time. this seems like an easy way to encourage play styles to beat home a strategy concept.

Until such a time as they do any more specific programming there, you can edit what gets you 1-3 stars, however you only have one option for how it works. There is a field that looks like "stars: [1, 39, 48]." And for sure you can edit that. And I have no more information there but my reasonable guess is that it's how many VP you need to get 1/2/3 stars. I understand that VP is not always a good measure of how well you did.

- as you guys have said, what sets are we working with? and what cards are in those sets? not all of us (ie me) are familiar with how goko has broken things up. i would prefer to see all cards here obviously, but i guess you can't assume people will buy all cards. there could be room for flexibility there though. goko could simply allow all cards for this campaign, but they could also make that contingent upon a small extra fee or by having N expansions already. a well designed campaign could arguably be an advertisement for them, so it would be reasonable that they might relax their rules a little.

Don't worry about how Goko broke the sets up - just deal with entire expansions, just like the ones irl. You can see visual spoilers at http://dominion.diehrstraits.com/

I recommend wildly assuming that your audience has whatever set of expansions you want them to have.

My plan is for the new main set campaign to advertise sets by including a few cards from Intrigue/Seaside/Prosperity even though you don't necessarily own those expansions. I did a little of that in one other campaign too, I think Hinterlands. I would assume for the moment though that no user-made campaigns will get to do that.

[Donald X.]

Donald, how likely is it that if we go to Goko with a campaign we've made, they'll want to add it into the game?
Do you think making multiple campaigns is going to make them more likely to reject them, or are they likely to accept multiple?

I think if you guys make ten campaigns that Goko is likely to include all ten. You could make an anti-Swedish campaign or something and then okay they would reject it. But you know. They want campaigns with multiple expansions, and asked me for some, and if I said here they are then I am pretty sure they would (eventually) go up, so if I say "these guys made some instead" then your odds seem amazing.

I do not think having more or fewer campaigns will affect the odds of them going up. Nothing will go up until they devote some time to it, and then it's just a matter of putting your data into their format. If you-all made 300 campaigns then okay, they would not all go up promptly.

[Ozle]

Donald, how likely is it that if we go to Goko with a campaign we've made, they'll want to add it into the game?
Do you think making multiple campaigns is going to make them more likely to reject them, or are they likely to accept multiple?

I think if you guys make ten campaigns that Goko is likely to include all ten. You could make an anti-Swedish campaign or something and then okay they would reject it. But you know. They want campaigns with multiple expansions, and asked me for some, and if I said here they are then I am pretty sure they would (eventually) go up, so if I say "these guys made some instead" then your odds seem amazing.

I do not think having more or fewer campaigns will affect the odds of them going up. Nothing will go up until they devote some time to it, and then it's just a matter of putting your data into their format. If you-all made 300 campaigns then okay, they would not all go up promptly.

Darn
*screws up his 'Storm the Riksdag' scenarios*

I do think though if multiple people are working on multiple scenarios, the less overlap the better. If all three have NV/Bridge in them then its not the best result for the end user is it.

[ednever]

One way I've found effective with new players:
- play a set
- teach a lesson on that set
- play the set again
- teach another lesson
- etc

It may make sense in this to play the same kingdom more than once with different lessons. And/or teach the lesson after they have a chance to play the board themselves (a good way to test if they found the optimal solution)

Ed

[Ozle]

Would the different bots offer that opportunity?
One would play simple idiot, the other would lean towards strategy?

[jonts26]

One way I've found effective with new players:
- play a set
- teach a lesson on that set
- play the set again
- teach another lesson
- etc

It may make sense in this to play the same kingdom more than once with different lessons. And/or teach the lesson after they have a chance to play the board themselves (a good way to test if they found the optimal solution)

Ed

I think this could work. We can have each set of 4, culminating in the boss level, be the same set. Actually , do the bosses have to come at regular intervals? I would guess that's editable, but maybe Donald can confirm. If not, then we dont have to force sets of 4 if we don't want to.

Would the different bots offer that opportunity?
One would play simple idiot, the other would lean towards strategy?

I'd like to have a more detailed description of what the bots actually do. I can sort of infer from some of their names, but specifics would help us choose the best bot(s) for sure.

[werothegreat]

One way I've found effective with new players:
- play a set
- teach a lesson on that set
- play the set again
- teach another lesson
- etc

It may make sense in this to play the same kingdom more than once with different lessons. And/or teach the lesson after they have a chance to play the board themselves (a good way to test if they found the optimal solution)

Ed

Playing the same set several times gets boring.

[Ozle]

One way I've found effective with new players:
- play a set
- teach a lesson on that set
- play the set again
- teach another lesson
- etc

It may make sense in this to play the same kingdom more than once with different lessons. And/or teach the lesson after they have a chance to play the board themselves (a good way to test if they found the optimal solution)

Ed

Playing the same set several times gets boring.

Isn't the idea to teach them how to play strategically though?
I'm not sure most people will pick it up and understand it first time through...

[Donald X.]

I think this could work. We can have each set of 4, culminating in the boss level, be the same set. Actually , do the bosses have to come at regular intervals? I would guess that's editable, but maybe Donald can confirm. If not, then we dont have to force sets of 4 if we don't want to.

I strongly recommend having no duplicate levels in your campaign. If after level one you say "did you see this combo," people can replay level one, they can replay it all day if they want. They can't play the three levels you didn't include because you included level one four times though.

I don't think you actually need to have bosses, let alone bosses every 4 levels, but at this early stage, why not just copy what they did to maximize the chance it's what they want?

I'd like to have a more detailed description of what the bots actually do. I can sort of infer from some of their names, but specifics would help us choose the best bot(s) for sure.

I have no information there. For the most part I would just use the best AI they have, which I think is Lord Bottington. I am not 100% on you getting to pick a bot.

[jonts26]

One way I've found effective with new players:
- play a set
- teach a lesson on that set
- play the set again
- teach another lesson
- etc

It may make sense in this to play the same kingdom more than once with different lessons. And/or teach the lesson after they have a chance to play the board themselves (a good way to test if they found the optimal solution)

Ed

Playing the same set several times gets boring.

Well, it can. As long as we dont over-use this trick maybe it can work then. I mean, consider geronimoo's first game engine article. We can play the board smithy/BM and then play it again once or twice building up the engine. It's not boring as long as you don't play the set the same way. And I guess we can't force them to play BM or engine, but we can at least tell them to. And if they are playing this set, I would wager they are serious about improving strategy, so they probably don't mind replaying a set a couple times here and there.

[Donald X.]

Well, it can. As long as we dont over-use this trick maybe it can work then. I mean, consider geronimoo's first game engine article. We can play the board smithy/BM and then play it again once or twice building up the engine. It's not boring as long as you don't play the set the same way. And I guess we can't force them to play BM or engine, but we can at least tell them to. And if they are playing this set, I would wager they are serious about improving strategy, so they probably don't mind replaying a set a couple times here and there.

Do not use a set of 10 twice, okay? Whatever you are getting out of repeating a set of 10, I bet you can get without repeating. You can recommend them playing the same level multiple times different ways; I don't mind that. Having two levels with the same scenario, no, let's just rule that out now. I would like to whole-heartedly advocate these campaigns and you have somehow managed to find something I am against.

[SirPeebles]

It really sucks to have to replay a stage in adventure mode.  Especially when you consider that a really strong strategy often only gives you an edge 70-30, it is quite feasible that a player will have to execute the "correct" strategy three or so times based on luck alone.  You could always give tips for better play to help get to three stars.