Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[theory]

How do you use the veto mode on Isotropic?

[painted_cow]

I veto Cursers most of the time, or annoying cards like Tournament, Black Market, or just BigMoney-cards like Smithy, JackofallTrades.

Goal: ensure a game, where I can possibly build a engine :-)

[WanderingWinder]

I chose option A, because it seems closest to what I do, but it's not quite what I do. I veto whatever I think will maximize my chance of winning (mostly this involves getting rid of obvious dominant strategies), secondarily I get rid of cards I just don't like or am not good with, and if I can't really pick based on the first two criteria (or somewhat based on my mood), then I go random.
Also, I don't ensure veto mode, but rather always go with "don't care"

[DG]

There should be an option for veto based on going first or second. Some players perceive first player bias for certain cards.

[Mean Mr Mustard]

I usually just try to take out the card that will tend to dominate the board, such as the nastiest attack card or JoATs, etc.  One of the things that kinda annoys me about this game is that there are certain cards you just cannot ignore.  If I can be pretty certain that my opponent is going to be able to push a match based on the luck of buying or drawing a super card before or more often than me, I will veto it.  Prime example:  Grand Market.

[Lekkit]

I don't require veto games, but when they come up I almost always veto King's Court, since the first player to KC an action card almost always win. Grand Market is another card that I try to veto, since the first one to get one is the one likliest to get the most and thereby the win. I do not always veto those cards, however, since a few games with them every now and then could be fun.

Other than that I veto cards that I don't feel like playing at the moment. Or basicaly that's what I always do.

[Kirian]

I usually just try to take out the card that will tend to dominate the board, such as the nastiest attack card or JoATs, etc.  One of the things that kinda annoys me about this game is that there are certain cards you just cannot ignore.  If I can be pretty certain that my opponent is going to be able to push a match based on the luck of buying or drawing a super card before or more often than me, I will veto it.  Prime example:  Grand Market.

This.  I take this as option three:  vetoing to stop a dominant but luck-based play style.  That means Chapel, Ambassador, Cursers, Torturer, Black Market, Highway, KC.  Perhaps others.

If nothing like that is out, random.

[ana]

I also veto Ambassador as often as possible, to avoid a game ping-pong with coppers and estates.

[mypetrock]

I don't like playing with Possession or Saboteur (too swingy) so I'll generally get rid of them. My next veto is for a card that contributes nothing to the board (Workshop/No Gardens). If the card set hits neither of those, then I'll veto at random.

mypetrock

[ehunt]

If I'm choosing between two divergent strategies and don't know which is better, I break one of the strategies (usually just the one that's less fun to play) so that I can take the other. On the other hand, if I'm confident that mine is better, I leave the other one up as a trap. I often veto mining village and hamlet because they are too good to ignore but the clicking annoys me. (Sometimes my subconscious does something ridiculous, like buying village over mining village with 4, because it hates the clicking so much.)

[Thisisnotasmile]

If I'm choosing between two divergent strategies and don't know which is better, I break one of the strategies (usually just the one that's less fun to play) so that I can take the other. On the other hand, if I'm confident that mine is better, I leave the other one up as a trap. I often veto mining village and hamlet because they are too good to ignore but the clicking annoys me. (Sometimes my subconscious does something ridiculous, like buying village over mining village with 4, because it hates the clicking so much.)

I buy Silver over Stash all the time.

[dan11295]

I generally will just veto a random card, although I will sometimes veto cards that can really drag the game out (Golem), cause wild swings (Torturer, Tournament), or I just find annoying (Saboteur). If there is only 1 potion card in the kingdom I might veto that also.

[guided]

I buy Silver over Stash all the time.

This could certainly be a strategic move in a FtF game

On isotropic, it could technically be strategic assuming you're not willing to use a random number generator to decide where to put your Stashes. (I'm assuming here that my failure to recall ever being given any information about where my opponents' Stashes are on isotropic is an interface limitation rather than just a failure on my part to pay attention.)

[Thisisnotasmile]

I think you CAN actually see if an opponent has any Stashes in hand in the info panel. I don't ever recall looking in a game to find out this information though.

[ehunt]

I was actually going to post this as a puzzle, but it was too ill-defined: name pairs of cards such that card a is strictly superior to card b. Mining village/village and worker's village/village are almost certain. I thought silver/stash was like this too, but you're right- maybe you don't want your opponent to know where your silvers are. The reason I gave up on making it a well-defined puzzle is that being "different" can in and of itself make a card better, e.g. if you have a bunch of menageries, you want differently named cards, and therefore should pick village over worker's village once in a while, or...

BTW, you can see your opponent's stashes on isotropic if you click info. I've never found much use for this. edit: Second time today I've x-posted w/ Thisisnotasmile.

[jsh357]

I always hit Random unless it's a 3p+ game with Pirate Ships

[theory]

I actually used the ability to see my opponents' Stashes to great effect in a recent game where I went Minion and he went Stash.  That went about as well as you'd expect.

[theory]

I don't require veto games, but when they come up I almost always veto King's Court

This is all I could think of when reading your post:

[chwhite]

My veto priority is:

1) Kill the KC-Masq pin, or remove Possession iff Ambassador/Masquerade are in the game.
2) JoaT, JoaT, JoaT.  DoubleJackBot games are extremely unfun and I suck at them because I can't resist the urge to do something more interesting.
3) Other cards I have a distaste for, mostly because they encourage BM games, weird Duchy rushes, or are otherwise annoyingly high-variance.  Envoy, Duke, Baron, Familiar, IGG are frequent targets.  I do NOT consider frequent bugbears Tournament, KC, or Possession to be swingy in these ways, I'll always keep those cards (well except for Possession/Amb games).
4) If I don't have a lot of time, I'll speed the game up by removing other cursers or Ambassador, but normally I don't mind them so much.
5) Failing that, I'll veto an irrelevant card to preserve the potential for interesting combos or just go random.

I have veto set to "don't care"; it's nice to have but all-random setups are good too (and if they have JoaT then I deal with it).

In short, I veto to maximize my enjoyment of the game; trying to win is obviously a big part of that enjoyment but is by no means the only part.

[WanderingWinder]

I don't like playing with Possession or Saboteur (too swingy) so I'll generally get rid of them. My next veto is for a card that contributes nothing to the board (Workshop/No Gardens). If the card set hits neither of those, then I'll veto at random.

mypetrock

Man, workshop is useful in a lot more cases than Gardens games. But then, it's the card I probably best use in comparison to the masses if you look at my popular buys data (+3.96 effect with/-1.31 effect without), excepting, of course, copper, where the numbers are at least somewhat inflated by my end-of-the-game shenanigans (I would guess they would otherwise be about the same as workshop, probably even still a little better, because there are lots of situations where you actually wanna buy copper, and strong players basically never do, and weak players do too much and lose, cause those 'lot of situations' are still a big minority of games).

I also want to add than I make sure not to veto traps.

[popsofctown]

It looks like I never posted in this thread.

If some combo looks way too silly and fun to resist, I will leave it in and veto stuff that counters it.  (not always an attack - sometimes it's a trasher that will make gardens unplayable, sometimes it's a good BM card).

I always veto Vault for being too good of a big money card.  It's probably not the worst big money card, nor is it a swingy one.  I just dropped from 15 to 10 because I didn't understand how Secret Chamber tied to a cripplied Smithy could possibly good, then went from 10 to 20 play BM vault everytime it came up, and now I'm p sick of the card.  I still play around with Jack, actually, I like seeing what single action cards I can fit into it..

My highest veto priority is Treasure Map if it's even remotely playable.  I believe it to be the most variant card in the game.

I veto Chapel usually, just because I'm bad at Chapel.  I always feel guilty though.  I promise.

Otherwise I leave traps in, and veto one of two choices when I'm not sure like ehunt said.  Sometimes I like all the cards and veto one of the ones that isn't going to be purchased at all.  Perhaps that sacrifices some rank for some fun, but perhaps not, the remaining cards might all be cards I'm good at.

I really would like veto mode more if people used it with some logic besides "Sea hag is gay" and "Possession is gay".  As I've said I dislike variant cards but that's not really the biggest trend as far as I can tell.  Maybe there's a legitimate reason to have a preference against them but I suspect it's just people giving in to some sort of cognitive bias.  Just like "Counterspell is gay, but Terror is fine" from MtG.

[olneyce]

I have two veto priorities. 

1st - cards I just dislike.  I don't find Possession games remotely fun, for example.  I really dislike Saboteur.  I don't enjoy the strategy of Tournament.  And so on.  This has a lot to do with swinginess, but it's not necessarily that.  I dislike Gardens rushes, so I'll veto those but it's not a top priority if there are engine alternatives that stand a chance to beat it.

2nd - cards that are likely to be dominant, which will control the board.  Mountebank is boring because you basically have to go for it.  Familiar is the same.  It's not just the cursing cards, though.  I veto Envoy, too, if it's clearly going to be dominant. 

The cards that straddle these two categories are the really bad ones.  Ambassador games are boring, and if it's there you almost have to go for it. 

On the other hand, dominant cards aren't necessarily bad.  It has to do with the way they force strategies to conform to them.  Fishing Village is an extremely powerful card that doesn't by itself force any particular strategy, so I really enjoy it.  Minion, on the other hand, more or less obligates you to play it.  That's what I don't enjoy.

[kn1tt3r]

There are various strategies:
- I veto a card I don't like (like Smugglers)
- Especially against lower-ranked players I veto cards that increase randomness (like Black Market)
- In second position I veto cards with a high 1st player advantage (like Milita)
- I sometimes see a strategy and veto the card that would endanger it
- I sometimes veto cards that would lead to very long games
- If I don't see anything worth vetoing I veto randomly

[Wingnut]

First it's cards I can't stand because they annoy me: Pirate Ship (my first game ever with it was IRL and I was 4th player) and Saboteur (also in that first Pirate game and it hit my Vault)

After that its usually situational: Black Market with no Village available. Break up the KC-Masq pin. Games with a powerful 5 and nothing great at 3-4 (Usually Witch, Mountebank or Embassy)

No situations like those, then whatever non-Village card extends the game the longest: Scrying Pool, Reactions, Sea Hag

[pooka]

I tend to veto cards I have stubbed my toe on more than mean attacks.  So lookout, counting house, Inn.  I don't usually veto attacks because I don't want to look like a baby.  Overcompensating, I know.  I make an exception for Torturer.  I don't think most attack cards are really worth the cost (mostly opportunity cost, but sometimes coin) in a 2 player game.  I usually wait to be attacked before I buy attack cards, and even then there are some I wouldn't bother with such as Mountebank. 

I find that if I'm shopping for Possession, I lose sight of the proper goal of the game.  Same thing happens with Black Market.  The difference is I enjoy Black Market, even when I realize it's dissipating my focus.