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[GeronimoRex]

A friend got my wife and me hooked on Dominion recently, so I bought her the Big Box (Base, Prosperity, Alchemy + Walled Village and Governor promo cards) for her birthday last month. We've played probably 20 games and have started introducing friends to Dominion as well.

We've played most of the "suggested" kingdoms, as well as some totally random kingdoms, but one of the failings of the Big Box game is that it lacks any cohesion as a set. The cards work together, but it's really just a the base game and two expansions thrown into the same box--there is no effort to make it more than the sum of its parts. It doesn't even have slots marked out from the promo cards or a good space for the VP boards. (Don't get me wrong--I'm glad for the promo cards, even if they don't have intentional spaces for storage).

At minimum, I wish the set had suggested kingdoms that make use of all three components. There are the suggested base kingdoms, suggested prosperity kingdoms, suggested base+prosperity kingdoms and suggested base+alchemy kingdoms, but no kingdoms designed around balancing all three sets.

Without a lot of experience, it's been a little tricky to try to integrate the three sets together when dealing random kingdoms to guarantee some interesting play mechanics.

Anyone here want to suggest some interesting kingdoms that can be made from just the Big Box set? I'm guessing it will help other players and if there are some good responses, I'll add the kingdom suggestions to an Amazon review of the set to help future players. (please include whether or not you recommend making each a colony/platinum kingdom).

Thanks in advance for the help.

[shMerker]

I'd have to think more to come up with full kingdoms (I usually just play random kingdoms) but here are some interesting interactions:

Apprentice, Familiar, and Scrying Pool, which will all are good at increasing the "actions in play" count, reducing the cost of Peddler. Apprentice has an additional interaction that's kind of neat.

VP chip cards all work as defenses against Possession, as the possessing player does not get to receive VP chips.

Herbalist gives you more options when there are more special treasures in play, which Prosperity has a lot of.

[eHalcyon]

Just play full random and it will be fine.

[shark_bait]

Just play full random and it will be fine.

What ehalcyon said, just mix all of your blue-backed randomizers together and pick 10!

Edit:  There is one caveat to this approach though.  Make sure that you always get all of the randomizers back with the randomizers and never mix them up with the normal kingdom cards.  I have on numerous occasions thought to myself, "Gee, I haven't played with card X in quite some time."  Only to find randomizer X mixed in with the stack of card X.  This problem gets even bigger as you get the expansion as there are so many cards that statistically you shouldn't play with a certain card for quite a few games.  It can be very hard to notice if one is missing.

[sudgy]

Just play full random and it will be fine.

What ehalcyon said, just mix all of your blue-backed randomizers together and pick 10!

Edit:  There is one caveat to this approach though.  Make sure that you always get all of the randomizers back with the randomizers and never mix them up with the normal kingdom cards.  I have on numerous occasions thought to myself, "Gee, I haven't played with card X in quite some time."  Only to find randomizer X mixed in with the stack of card X.  This problem gets even bigger as you get the expansion as there are so many cards that statistically you shouldn't play with a certain card for quite a few games.  It can be very hard to notice if one is missing.

I've made the way I set the game up to have the least chance of this happening.  I remember when I had only a few expansions though that the Duke and the Village were missing (along with others)...

[gman314]

Yeah, if you play with full random you'll find some cool kingdoms from time to time.

However, if you want to try some stuff, here's some ideas. Try building a set of 10 around one of these:

The Golden deck: Bishop + Chapel can get you down to a deck of Gold, Silver * 2, Province, Bishop where you trash the Province and buy a Province every turn.

The cards which give VP chips (Bishop, Goons, Monument) are fun as a counter to Possession (The possessed player still gets the chips!)

Scrying Pool is awesome if you can trash to nothing but actions and get +Buys from something like Worker's village and play all sorts of actions which give +$, like Peddler! Alternatively, you can draw your actions with SP and discard with Vault for a crapload of cash.

It can be fun to get a board with cards that like Copper (like apothecary) as well as cards that hate it (like Grand Market) but it's difficult to balance the two. Although what can be fun is Apothecary to get an epic Mint Purchase and then head for GMs and use something like Apprentice to get rid of your Apothecaries.

That's about all I can think of right now!

[dondon151]

If you're playing IRL, you should stay away from using too much Scrying Pool or Possession, because those lead to long turns and long games.

The Golden Deck is cool the first time, but after that your friends will groan when they eventually realize that you can churn through the Provinces and they have no way to stop you.

[shMerker]

Buy cheap or free action cards with Quarry and then trash them for big draws with Apprentice.

Philosopher's Stone and--to a lesser degree--Apothecary like the extra cards from Mountebank.

If you want some analysis paralysis in your buy phase get Philosopher's Stones, Banks, and Ventures together.

Familiars empty out the curse pile fast so when they're on the board Cities become a lot more attractive.

There are really a lot of these. You can get a lot of mileage out of just picking 10 cards at random and seeing what emerges. Even the Alchemy cards don't really need each other to work.

[Awaclus]

Philosopher's Stone and--to a lesser degree--Apothecary like the extra cards from Mountebank.

And, to a greater degree, Counting House.

[shMerker]

I know, but the idea of the thread is to focus on interactions between Prosperity and Alchemy.

[eHalcyon]

I know, but the idea of the thread is to focus on interactions between Prosperity and Alchemy.

And base, and Walled Village, and Governor.

[Fuu]

I have on numerous occasions thought to myself, "Gee, I haven't played with card X in quite some time."  Only to find randomizer X mixed in with the stack of card X.

I've been using a simple C code I wrote to generate random kingdoms (with certain optional prerequisites like: if a card has on-trash benefit, include a trasher for that card type) recently - you could try something like that and avoid this problem ...

[shMerker]

I know, but the idea of the thread is to focus on interactions between Prosperity and Alchemy.

And base, and Walled Village, and Governor.

Which also don't include Counting House. What now?

Governor is loads of fun with handsize attacks like Goons and Militia in the kingdom.

Walled Village...is a village? It will fit anywhere another village would fit.

Oh speaking of Counting House there's a cute move you can do where you empty out your deck by playing a Golem when the only other action card you have is a Counting House.

[Just a Rube]

I second the advice about playing with random kingdoms. It will give you the experience to see weird interactions that you haven't thought about before. Plus, half the fun is figuring out crazy combos on your own.

That said, it might be better to think of things a bit more thematically. Alchemy has a theme of actions, with cards that let you gain or play lots of actions (e.g. golem and university) or that want your deck to have lots of actions in it (e.g. vineyards or scrying pool). So it might be good to look for cards in base and prosperity that have a good synergy with that. As an example, if you play lots of actions and have lots of buys, you can rapidly empty the peddler pile, which gives you plenty of good solid actions for vineyards or scrying pool to take advantage of. That's just one example, I'm sure you can think of others.

You can also go the other way: prosperity really wants big turns. A deck that just buys money and one or two actions might be able to compete for provinces, but will have a tough time buying colonies. So pick alchemy cards that lend themselves to explosive interactions. To give another example (which someone mentioned upthread), scrying pool can draw a lot of cards. If you make an engine that can draw your entire deck, then play a vault, you can discard all your actions except one scrying pool, then draw them back up again with that solitary scrying pool, and repeat the process with another vault, for massive moolah. Speaking from personal experience, that gives a sense of diabolical glee.

Those are just some ideas. You can try others and see if they work. Maybe you want to include a +buy in a set with vineyards? Why not workers village or trade route? You want to add trashing to a scrying pool set? Why not loan? You have familiar and want to add a counter? Why not watchtower? Try things and see if they work, that way you have a better sense of what new things to try.

Just a friendly tip though: don't put king's court and possession in the same set-up, unless you want a game where you risk spending 75% of your time watching someone else play your deck for you.

[LastFootnote]

I know, but the idea of the thread is to focus on interactions between Prosperity and Alchemy.

And base, and Walled Village, and Governor.

Which also don't include Counting House. What now?

Dude, Counting House is a Prosperity card.

[Lekkit]

I know, but the idea of the thread is to focus on interactions between Prosperity and Alchemy.

And base, and Walled Village, and Governor.

Which also don't include Counting House. What now?

Dude, Counting House is a Prosperity card.

Yes, and so is Mountebank. So there is no cross-set interaction. But there is an interesting interaction.

[shMerker]

Dude, Counting House is a Prosperity card.

Yeah that's why I mentioned the Golem trick. I should not have said "also" in that post. That bit wasn't meant all that seriously anyway.

[Pneumatiker]

Here's a kingdom with some nice cross-set interactions. I'm not totally sure that it's totally balanced but as your playing group seems to be (relative to many players from this forum) rather unexperienced, this shouldn't matter too much. So here we go:

Herbalist - 2
University - 2P
Watchtower - 3
Philosopher's Stone - 3P
Gardens - 4
Apprentice - 5
Festival - 5
Hoard -6
Expand - 7
Peddler - 8*

I'd suggest to play this with Colonies and Platinum.

[GeronimoRex]

Just a friendly tip though: don't put king's court and possession in the same set-up, unless you want a game where you risk spending 75% of your time watching someone else play your deck for you.

Funny story: our first totally random kingdom had that exact matchup. Two player game with my wife and I. We each spent ~half the game watching our deck get played by the other person. Frustratingly slow, but there was enough junk in each deck that KC/P wasn't the be-all-end-all it would otherwise be. It actually balanced out better than I would have guessed.

I was just glad she got the KC/P draw before I did. If I had been the first to crack that egg, she might not would have been willing to finish the game. As it was, she had so much fun playing it on me, she had no choice but to smile and keep playing when the tables turned.

[GeronimoRex]

Thank you all for your suggestions -- definitely some great ideas that I'll try and report back on. Looking forward to our playgroup becoming a little more experienced over time.

[sudgy]

Just a friendly tip though: don't put king's court and possession in the same set-up, unless you want a game where you risk spending 75% of your time watching someone else play your deck for you.

Funny story: our first totally random kingdom had that exact matchup. Two player game with my wife and I. We each spent ~half the game watching our deck get played by the other person. Frustratingly slow, but there was enough junk in each deck that KC/P wasn't the be-all-end-all it would otherwise be. It actually balanced out better than I would have guessed.

I was just glad she got the KC/P draw before I did. If I had been the first to crack that egg, she might not would have been willing to finish the game. As it was, she had so much fun playing it on me, she had no choice but to smile and keep playing when the tables turned.

I had a KC/P game once, my deck in the end was ONLY a bunch of green cards, KCs, Possessions, and Bishops.  It worked well, I would bishop my green cards and play Possessions to buy more green cards.  One time he KCed his Possession and did absolutely nothing all three turns.

[Polk5440]

Check out the Dominion Set Generator (which also does uniform random, if you don't want to mess around with randomizer cards).

And how about some of these recommended kingdoms? Especially, first 5 of Essen 2011, DS Champ 2011 games 3 and 5, Isodom 3 rounds 1 and 4.