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[Minotaur]

Hi all,

Just wanted to share a method for picking kingdom cards that somewhat changes the rules of the game, but not too much. Here goes:

1. Before the game starts, assemble a deck of randomizer cards from whichever games/expansions you wish. It is sufficient to have one playable game to pick from, but you will need at least 21 randomizers (more than 50 is perhaps overkill and pointless, but doesn't harm anything). Also decide in advance whether you are playing platinum/colony or not.

2. There are only basic money and basic victory cards available for purchase at the start of the game (including platinum/colony, if you chose to use them.)

3. Players start with 3 estates (or shelters, if you have a significant number of Dark Ages randomizers) and 7 coppers as usual.

4. At the start of each player's buy phase, reveal the top three randomizers. The player to the right bans one card, which is removed from the game. The current player picks one of the other two and adds that card's supply to the kingdom, places the remaining revealed card on top of the deck, and then proceeds with the remainder of the buy phase as usual. Perform additional set-up steps as needed (there could be civil disagreements about what makes the most sense to do with Trade Route, though). The ban and pick cannot be skipped.

5. When ten supplies have been added to the kingdom, the remainder of the game is played as usual.

[theory]

This is at least an interesting way to reduce first-player advantage!  Though I feel like you'd end up with a lot of Treasure-focused games; if P1 doesn't flip over a good Action he'll probably just buy Silver.  (Also, 5/2 openings get really shafted.)

[enfynet]

Maybe set it up with 5 piles out and 5 "to be determined" on those next few turns?

[Minotaur]

This is at least an interesting way to reduce first-player advantage!  Though I feel like you'd end up with a lot of Treasure-focused games; if P1 doesn't flip over a good Action he'll probably just buy Silver.  (Also, 5/2 openings get really shafted.)

There is a lot of randomness to it, but the bans make it possible to ban 4- or 5-cost cards on the first trip around the table just in case. There's a ton of randomness in Dominion anyway, so I'm not so sure this is out of line. Also, 5/2 can get shafted in a lot of standard games anyway if it's too early to make full use of a 5-cost and/or having to waste turn 2 on a copper or something when there are no 2-cost cards... In the dynamic draft, P1 did not reveal whether they had a 2/3/4/5 hand yet anyway, so P2 is most likely to ban a 4-cost card if the goal is to have the biggest expected impact on P1's first buy (unless they wanted to buy the same card themself).

I admit that over here we tend to pick/ban interesting/hated/redundant cards instead of trying to power up an advantage in the first three turns.

As far as the game being treasure-focused goes, I don't know. It seems to me like you'd probably get 5 hands and spend them on actions by the time it was your turn again, unless someone really wanted them all out of the game.

Maybe set it up with 5 piles out and 5 "to be determined" on those next few turns?

I guess this could be done, but to me the picks and bans feel like they already water down the randomness about as much as a moderately random game like Dominion needs.

[Minotaur]

Something I hadn't thought about before... in a 4P game, P4 probably has a moderate advantage. We've been doing 2P games over here, mostly.