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[GigaKnight]

Wow, that must have been very long ago. I can't remember the Throne ever being denieable.

It was probably 8ish years ago...?  Holy crap... I'm getting older...

Anyway, even at that time, we were playing a retro version at a LAN party because some heroes were hilariously broken.  The current version at the time didn't let you deny the throne but I just tried out of frustration.  It worked, so our team piled on and finished it.  Then we celebrated like we were the winners!

[WanderingWinder]

the trick with BM or a rush designs is that you want something to oppose it.

Why? I mean, in general I agree that it would be nice, but half the sets here there's really nothing to oppose an engine. Which is okay, but it can be the case for engines and big money too.

yeah occasionally you get the chance for finesse/tactics in a BM/rush mirror,

Heck, even straight BM/Wharf or the straight Ironworks/Silk Roads game are extraordinarily complex.

but at this level the mirror will likely be heavily luck based.

This is also true of engines as well, if we're truly talking mirror here. I mean, either way, it's possible to outplay the opponent and still go down in flames.

you would like to see another option: a weak engine, attack, or rush is ideal here. or of course you could play two different BM/draw strategies.

I totally agree. We didn't see this, though, except you could say for the wharf/thief/fool's gold/worker's village/chapel/throne room/margrave/I-forget-the-other-cards set

as i liked saying when discussing the sets, a diverging strategy rarely means a competitively divergent strategy.

Well, naturally. Most strategies are terrible. And on every board, there's going to be one singular best way to play. We're looking for that to not be evident too easily, though there isn't a board we can't eventually 'solve' (or get a close approximation to solving).

there were a couple sets i can remember where the rush or BM seemed clearly too strong or too weak. while you want to see more balance you don't want to see it shift that far either. long story short, i think a great BM/rush design is more difficult than an engine design because you can't simply pick different paths.

Which is all fine, except for two things. First, why do you not hold engines to the same standard? Because the engines on many of these boards are clearly 'too strong', or at least, clearly the strongest thing out there. But the second thing is my real point, which is, are you saying there weren't any of these out there that you didn't pick? Man, that's fine - I think there were some, but it's not at all easy to see that kind of stuff - like I said before, it's a very difficult and thankless job. And of course, maybe I'm wrong about these sets.

fwiw i thought there was a decent slog and rush option in the sets. i thought that shark_bait's game was a solid slog design with an engine likely only viable in the late game. the curious draw of colonies for both games made that one more engine-y than it would have been otherwise. and jonts26's game did give you some decent rush options.

jonts26's set definitely gives you a look at a rush, and it was one of the best kingdoms there, definitely. With all due respect, though, shark_bait's just looks like an engine even without colonies.

[dondon151]

I know some are going to vehemently disagree with me, but engines are just very strong in general and it's pretty difficult to make a board where a non-engine option is dominant and the engine looks tempting but is actually bad. Most of those kingdoms are going to be very clearly rushes or BM or whatnot.

I'm not going to argue that BM or rushes are not tactically complex, but they do tend to be strategically simple whereas engines can be strategically and tactically complex.

Plus, the definition of engine is broad. It seems that any time you can combine 2+ cards to make for decently big turns, it's an engine.

[WanderingWinder]

I know some are going to vehemently disagree with me, but engines are just very strong in general

They certainly are.

and it's pretty difficult to make a board where a non-engine option is dominant and the engine looks tempting but is actually bad.

Well, thing is, we don't actually care if it's dominant. We just want it to not be dominated. Particularly super-easily. And well, 'pretty difficult' is of course entirely subjective, as is whether the engine 'looks tempting'. But whilst I'd say it's probably pretty difficult, it's also definitely doable. On the other hand, being able to pick these out of a list of 229 is damn hard, particularly because the whole point is that the engine looks good! I mean, if you can tell it off of the time that the pickers here had, then it's probably pretty obviously engine...

Most of those kingdoms are going to be very clearly rushes or BM or whatnot.

And most of the others are going to be very clearly engines. But most isn't all, in either case, and I do believe it's *possible* to make kingdoms that it's not very clear on.

I'm not going to argue that BM or rushes are not tactically complex, but they do tend to be strategically simple whereas engines can be strategically and tactically complex.

Okay, here's where I actually start disagreeing with you. Sure, there are lots of BM games where you just play DoubleJack or Courtyard/money, or whatever, and that's it. But there's lots and lots that are pretty darned messy, and actually, if we want to talk about it, I find that these are where Mic Q has his biggest leg up. And actually, these are probably the ones I understand the least. But I don't think there's a significant drop in strategic complexity from engine to money - I mean, HP/X ain't very strategically complex either, and neither are LOTS of engines, really - it's how you put them together which is a very finessed and big difference, and how you put money decks together has similar if *slightly* less critical concerns.

[Polk5440]

Having said that, I can also understand that theory and whoever helped him pick the sets were in a difficult position, and that it's not at all easy to pick sets that are going to be interesting enough, good enough, tactical and reactionary enough, with multiple directions, AND try to keep this meta-balance up, and first player advantage to boot, which could have come up. And all ahead of time. And some kudos to these guys for picking good sets - I can't point to one that I would just say it's super obvious you have to play it this way here. Sometimes, yes, it's very clear that it will be an engine, but that is a lot of Dominion nowadays, and really there are lots of decisions left with which engine to play, how to build it etc. So, as I can't say 'oh this set shouldn't have been in there', I really can't blame them much if at all, and their job was fairly thankless.

I don't think theory was in a difficult position and did a great job selecting interesting kingdoms. There were different types of kingdoms he could have selected, sure, but the ones selected could have played out in different ways. Any selection from the list of candidates would make a more interesting final than pure random. I think the vibrant discussion about the kingdoms in the SC was good evidence of that. Even in the kingdoms selected, some could have been played differently, there were tactical misplays, and some players even picked the wrong strategies from the start. And these are THE top players. I certainly got tripped up when I tried out a couple with gman.

And I don't think a game where the only obviously viable strategy is Big Money-Embassy (or Smithy or Envoy or ....) is worth including in a championship series. Suppose a great player can tweak the basic strat to get a 10% higher chance of winning. I don't think this is worthy of a championship game -- even if it's difficult to see the right tweak. And least not one I want to watch or go out of my way to create a special kingdom for.

I also have a strong bias that building the right engine is difficult....

[WanderingWinder]

And I don't think a game where the only obviously viable strategy is Big Money-Embassy (or Smithy or Envoy or ....) is worth including in a championship series.

Nobody is advocating that...

[greatexpectations]

sorry, i can't reply to all of that WW. (and i am only speaking for myself here, not theory) but for reference, the only criteria for the KDC were:

You may submit Kingdoms with any intent, and the voters can select whichever Kingdom they like for any reason. That being said, in selecting the final Kingdoms, we will look for Kingdoms that can promote future discussion. The ideal Kingdom will encourage diverse strategies, have no clear dominant approach, and emphasizes skill over luck.

this is all building to another discussion entirely. remember, the use of these kingdoms in the final was a secondary consideration. some might not like that, but those were the terms of the tournament that we agreed to upfront. the contest was for the best kingdoms, and there was no obligation there to mix in BM/rush/slog kingdoms. there might be debate about that or room for improvement, but that is something we can discuss (along with all of the usual talk of point counters, identical hands, and each other migration from the official rules) when we prepare for next year.

personally, i think the chosen sets met those criteria just fine. some adjustments were made in the end to fit this better into a final, largely in passing over sets with too many duplicate cards. and yes some more balanced and intriguing BM/rush/slog sets would be nice to see, but that is up to you guys to submit them. because while of course it's possible that there was a BM set we missed that fit those rules and was better than the ones we are voting, i think it is a little unlikely. especially when so few comments even mentioned a BM approach and the card distribution clearly favors engine building and alt VP.

and as for shark_bait's kingdom, he referred to it as an early game "slogfest" which could transition into a potentially powerful engine. which is basically what i said too, so you can share your respect with both of us.

[Polk5440]

And I don't think a game where the only obviously viable strategy is Big Money-Embassy (or Smithy or Envoy or ....) is worth including in a championship series.

Nobody is advocating that...

Sorry. I must have misunderstood the conversation.

[WanderingWinder]

Clarifying post: here are the claims I'm actually trying to make here:
1. It is possible to make interesting kingdoms where some form of BM is clearly best.
2. It is possible to make interesting kingdoms where BM is best, but not clearly.
3. It's especially possible to make kingdoms where BM is not best, but still viable (i.e. not totally crushed).
4. It's possible to make kingdoms where BM is an important leg of a RPS-type wheel.
5. There were some of these (those mentioned in 1-4) kingdoms submitted in the KDC.
6. From 5 it follows that they could have been selected.
7. They weren't selected (I suppose the wharf/fool's gold/chapel/workshop/thief/worker's village/etc. kingdom fits as a type 4, but that's pretty much it.).
8. Mic Q can rightly feel disadvantaged by the process, which produced fewer of 'his kind' of kingdom.
9. Having said all of this, it's unreasonable to expect theory, GE, et al to choose these kinds of kingdoms given the constraints they were under, even though it is technically possible as shown in 5.

Ideally, you'd want a good number of 2s, 3s, and 4s (though not everything needs to be a 2, 3, or 4). And perhaps tying the KDC to the finals is not the greatest idea, but that is another discussion. I also think it's really hard to just pluck these off a page, much harder than to actually design such things, which isn't super easy but definitely doable. I could also question the decision to make sure all the kingdoms were from different people or included as criteria whereas including the diversity of kinds of decks wasn't, but it's not terribly relevant at this point.

[Robz888]

Just wanted to chime in and say I largely agree with WW that the kingdoms were hardly money conducive, and that this hurt MicQ. But I also agree with him that there's no obligation to provide the specific kinds of kingdoms that would benefit one player or the other, and of course there are way more enginey kingdoms than money kingdoms now. And also, the exact thing we want--complex, multi-viable option strategy kingdoms--is by definition the hardest thing for the choosers to identify. If the multi-strategy, who-knows-what-would-be-best-here boards were easily identifiable, then they almost by definition wouldn't fit the criteria we are looking for.

So I still want to salute theory and co for picking highly interesting kingdoms (how about that Game 6 Kingdom? What a sexy set of cards...). And for running a really enjoyable tournament, which was by no accident won by the greatest Dominion player in the world.

[mith]

I'm toying with the idea of a tournament where the players take turns choosing the kingdom cards (with some sort of veto power for the non-choosing player, to avoid a player picking the same set over and over)... similar to how they run trick-shot billiards tournaments (players alternate choosing a trick, some from a book, some not, and then both players attempt the trick).

Seems like a lot of effort for the players though, so maybe no one would be interested.

[gman314]

Seems like a lot of effort for the players though, so maybe no one would be interested.

I would definitely be interested, and given the amount of overlap between those who entered the KDC and those who entered the tournament, there would probably be plenty of interested players.