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26

Game Reports / Re: fun win against a Gardener

« on: December 16, 2013, 10:33:33 pm »

Base only is a fine way to play. Also, I think you should have played witch more. If you give him all 10 curses, that adds 10 cards to his deck. If he gets all 8 gardens, then he gets 8 extra points from the gardens, but loses 10 from the curses. There is the added benefit of making his deck much worse, and ensuring that he can't buy duchies.

Does anyone have the sim data on Witch BM vs WS/Gardens? I think it's something like 65-35 in favor of Witch, but it's been a while since I last checked, so I might be off.

27

Help! / Re: Did I play the strategy poorly, or was the strategy a bad choice?

« on: December 15, 2013, 03:31:23 am »

Cache is also fairly good for Duke as well. Duke is dominating any Province strat here.

Death Cart / Rats sounds good on paper, but its more of a nombo than a wombo.

28

Dominion Articles / Re: Butcher

« on: December 14, 2013, 04:56:06 am »

I like the article. A few things that came to mind.

Some strong synergies include:

-Fortress: Butcher one into itself, gain two tokens and keep the Fortress. This is a given, because Fortress combos with TfB in general.
-Peddler: Turn your Peddlers into Provinces a la Swindler. Can be incredibly powerful in engines.
-Grand Market: You can either turn 4's into GM, or save your tokens in order to get one later when you have a hand that has more money.
-Border Village: Turn it into itself, gain a 5 and two tokens, or turn one into a Province. Either way, it's excellent.
-Good two cost cards: Hamlet, Pawn, Candlestick Maker, Lighthouse in looter/curser games

Places Butcher just doesn't cut it:

Slogs. I'm not sure that turning Coppers -> Curses is as good as you think it is. If it's the only option in that hand it's better than nothing, but some sort of increase in deck value is most likely better in many cases. The tokens can be nice to spike a Province, but in looter games it really fleshes out to be a terminal silver with a slight benefit.

Deck thinning. It just doesn't work with butcher. Trashing copper with butcher is so bad it's only done when there are power 2's in an engine board, and even then there are usually better targets.

Where Butcher shines is in the endgame. It gives an absolutely enormous amount of control, way more than salvager. It can turn a deck into an ungodly amount of VP. Golds -> Provinces is always nice, but there's always 4-6 costs to Duchy. You can keep the tokens for later and win the Duchy dance, or spend them now on Provinces. There is always the option of extending a lead by turning Province into Province when ahead, and that is done with an added benefit of 2 tokens.

All in all, Butcher is a card I wouldn't mind picking up with a 2/5, but be wary of the dreaded Butcher /CCCC hand that could arise. Picking one up in the midgame is rarely a poor idea, as it gives a lot of control over who ends the game, and when.

29

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Is there a "good" and "bad" way to Win in Dominion?

« on: December 10, 2013, 03:42:51 pm »

Alright, I've been reading through this thread, and I think that I've found a solution. It's a simple rule change that should stop this three pile ending madness.

The game only ends when all Victory card piles are empty.

One of Count's gripes is that the person with the better deck could lose to the unfair technique of buying out low piles and an estate, even if the other players deck is better! This way, it will be clear who has the better deck, as it will be the person with more than 1/2 of the vp. Sure the games might be longer, but at least this way you will know for certain who has the better deck. No more vagrant snipes, just plain engine building without any consequences for building too much. This of course wouldn't work with VP chips, so those should just be removed.

30

Goko Dominion Online / Re: First ever online gaming better than Goko?

« on: November 23, 2013, 06:06:44 pm »

I played me some Diablo 2. Man, i should boot that up again, it was a fun game.

31

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Most annoying card interface?

« on: November 02, 2013, 08:19:54 am »

It's gotta be hamlet. The amount of times I've discarded a smithy-variant for +buy on accident is just painful.

32

Help! / Re: How do you play Feodum/Wharf/Tournament?

« on: October 15, 2013, 04:38:53 pm »

Which is exactly what will happen if you set out to get all 8 Provinces on your own.

Are you kidding? Wharf / Village can get 8 provinces on it's own fairly easily, and this board adds prizes, Scheme, and strong trashing! Getting 8 provinces will be a cakewalk, and Followers is just brutal.

The engine beats a Feodum slog every time here.

Now that's not to say that fairgrounds are useless here. They'll be quite good, and with luck could even get up to being 8 points a pop. But you'll want to get them later than usual, because tournament is just too strong.

Simulations I've done show that even Hermit/Market Square loses to BMU about 2.5% of the time. I've examined the logs of the losing games and they all show absolutely horrible shuffle luck (i.e. it's not due to poor programming). This surprised me: I expected H/M to win 100% of the games. So I started thinking a bit about this mismatch between my expectation and reality, and concluded that when I (and I assume others too) intuitively examine the validity of a strategy, we take for granted at least slightly bad to mediocre shuffle luck, thus not accounting for the worst 10% and certainly not the worst 1-2% of scenarios.

On to this game. I obviously agree that with, say, top 95% shuffle luck a massive Wharf engine crushes a Feodum strategy, regardless of whether you go for Provinces or Fairgrounds. Maybe going for Provinces gets you the win a bit faster, or maybe going for Fairgrounds does, but it doesn't matter: what's faster is completely irrelevant if you're winning anyway.

To determine what to go for, then, we have to look at the situations where you have atrocious shuffle luck in combination with your opponent doing well. This starts with not getting your first Wharf until the end of the 3rd shuffle, and it then landing on the bottom of your deck. You'll eventually grab some Provinces, but you keep drawing poorly: your Wharves keep on colliding, they draw two Villages dead, you keep hitting $7, etc. Now, in the absolute worst case scenario, your opponent will win regardless of what you do. In some slightly better situations, however, you slowly collect the Provinces while your opponent catches up via Fairgrounds. Here having gone for Provinces was a critical mistake, because denying Fairgrounds would have made it a hell of a lot harder for your opponent to catch up, as he now has to get $8 Provinces instead of $6 Fairgrounds, and the Fairgrounds are also easier for you to get, making it far less likely that you miss.

I have a very poor intuition for how often these worst-case scenarios occur (I wouldn't be surprised by anything between 0.1% and 5% lol), but I'm sure that when they do occur, having gone for Fairgrounds gives you significantly better prospects of still winning the game than having gone for Provinces does, and in all the other cases it doesn't matter.

Btw, I really do not appreciate things like "Are you kidding?" I'm certainly not always 100% right and I might even overlook something really obvious every now and then, but a priori it's much more likely that when something I say strikes you as totally ridiculous on a first glance, you're not fully understanding what I'm saying (for which I certainly deserve part of the blame--expressing myself precisely takes alot of time, and I often prefer giving a brief approximation of the underlying thought over saying nothing at all) than that I'm sprouting nonsense. If an objection is super obvious, it's likely that I've considered it as well.

Ok, you've confused me slightly. From your post I took that you were advocating a Feodum strategy, which while on some boards can be good, but just isn't here. Fairgrounds on the other hand, are much better.

Fairgrounds here will be 6 points. There are plenty of ways to get it there and still have a strong engine. However there is a problem. Tournament is just dominating, and the top two picks will certainly be followers, then princess. I'm not denying that there is room for a comeback from the fairgrounds player, but provinces can not be ignored here. You raise a point about hitting 7$ too often, or bad shuffles. Hitting 7$ is less of a problem in an engine, as you can just keep building. In fact, my first 8$ would be Wharf/ and a 3$ card

Bad shuffles are hugely mitigated by scheme. To a point where they are simply impossible to have. Scheme a village back on top of the deck, and when your wharves draw next turn you'll have an unstoppable drawing engine. Once you have followers, scheming a deadly attack every turn. Scheme will do what it's meant to do, smooth shuffleluck to a point where you don't get bad draws anymore.

Trading post is also very important here. It will be extremely helpful to hit 5$, and trashes well at the same time. Altar is a card I'm less sure of. I don't know if it will be worth the loss in tempo. It can be powerful, but I think it's outshone here by the other cards. I could be wrong on this front however.

The game ended on Silver, Estate, and Feodum. I had 15 Silvers and 5 Feoda. She had the other 3 with 9 Silver

I'm a bit confused here. Did you play with 40 silvers? Did you trash a huge amount of silvers? How did the game end when only 24 silvers were in both of your decks?

33

Help! / Re: How do you play Feodum/Wharf/Tournament?

« on: October 14, 2013, 10:34:15 pm »

Which is exactly what will happen if you set out to get all 8 Provinces on your own.

Are you kidding? Wharf / Village can get 8 provinces on it's own fairly easily, and this board adds prizes, Scheme, and strong trashing! Getting 8 provinces will be a cakewalk, and Followers is just brutal.

The engine beats a Feodum slog every time here.

Now that's not to say that fairgrounds are useless here. They'll be quite good, and with luck could even get up to being 8 points a pop. But you'll want to get them later than usual, because tournament is just too strong.

34

Game Reports / Re: Is Rats-Bishop a Thing?

« on: October 13, 2013, 01:46:31 am »

What A Drowned Kernel said, and note that Bishopping a Rats only gives 3 points, which isn't that hot compared to the 5 points from Bishopping a Province or 6 points from Bishopping a Colony, and in this kingdom it's not so hard to get to one-Province-per-turn or one-Colony-per-turn. (Though it might be better to just mass HPs via Haggler and just keep the Colonies.)

Bishoping a province actually provides a net loss of one point, and a colony is -4 points. Not something you really want to do when there are faster alternatives.

Bishop/Rats is good, but it requires villages, of which there are none here. I agree with ADK in general, but would add that one haggler is probably enough, and stick with Hunting parties as opposed to stables.

35

Game Reports / Re: My mind is kinda blown after this game

« on: October 11, 2013, 03:19:59 am »

My guess is some sort of crazy three pile ending on like turn 10. Stonemason accelerates like you would not believe.

36

Game Reports / Re: Trouncing Wandering Winder (video)

« on: October 11, 2013, 03:16:59 am »

I think that WW could have had the win if he utilized Fool's Gold. He had a strong draw engine, and plenty of buys. There's a point in the game where he hovers over fools gold and debates going for it, and I think if he went for it there he could have done a lot better. He could have blown past your bishop points with consistent double province turns, and your bishops helped get his trashing to a point where it would have worked great.

On your side, Poor House! You have a super thin deck with absolutely no treasures, Poor house loves that. Torturer hurts your deck much less than usual because you can trash the curses right away, you don't have to draw them. I like the trashing here a lot, opening bishop isn't always the absolute worst option.

37

Game Reports / Re: How to play this

« on: October 08, 2013, 12:51:33 pm »

There are two main strategies that I see here. There's the simple, but strong, Ironworks/Gardens. I would be tempted to go for this one myself. Then there's the enginey thing with Ironworks/Monument/Wandering Minstrel. This also looks very strong, the big question is "Is it fast enough?".

First, IW Gardens. The rushing player would have several advantages. One: They are competing with the engine for Ironworks. Two: The engine player will need several Wandering MInstrels(At least 5), giving the rush player an easy pile to run out while they are still ahead. Three: Ironworks gardens is very fast. Once on isotropic I had a mirror last 8 turns. It would be difficult to accrue the points advantage before the rushing player simply ends the game.

On the other hand, the engine has a lot of enablers. My opening would be IW/Chapel on 4/3 or 5/2. I would like a second, or possibly even a third Ironworks with which I can pick up every engine piece I would want. Monument is the crux of this engine. It gives money and a quick way to get the points to fight the gardens player from ending it too soon. Expand here is effectively useless, there are no 5s to turn to provinces, and expanding province -> province doesnt help as much here. Militia is fairly important here, but it hurts IW/Gardens less than it hurts other strategies. Caravan will be important, as it is the only source of draw(alchemist is far too slow), and it costs 4$ which means IW can easily pick it up.

The game is going to be a balancing act for the engine player. They are going to need to get enough engine pieces to win, but keep the piles high so they can't pull out a surprise ending.When the piles get low, they have to have the points to keep the rusher from ending it immediately. I would go for the engine here, as I like a challenge, but I would love to see some logs from your games. It looks like it could be very close either way.

38

Help! / Re: Apothecary+Ambassador+Mercenary, no idea...

« on: October 02, 2013, 02:55:50 pm »

Only +1 Cards on anything in the kingdom, only way to increase handsize is Apothecary (or maybe KC-Merc), Philosopher stone in kingdom to help counter Ambassador. I'd suspect you can actually skip Ambassador here, or at least skip the opening. How far that takes you, against something who thins down heavily and buys a Curse, I don't know, but the engine isn't that amazing here even with KC, and Candlestick Maker gives easy +Buy to pick up more Coppers.

If you do go for the engine, I think you have to load up on CM and go for a coin token megaturn.

KC Mercenary does not increase handsize. That's like saying KC Warehouse increases handsize.

The best option here is getting a decent coin lead with KC/CM, as you can mega turn out with them no problem since CM gives buys. Trash down to a thin deck, KC urchin for draw, and save coin tokens until you can end the game in a win. Also, KC/ambassador is brutal to the opponent, so winning the amb war is a number one priority here. Once you can draw your deck and KC an ambassador every turn, you win.

39

Help! / Re: Apothecary+Ambassador+Mercenary, no idea...

« on: October 02, 2013, 12:11:40 pm »

Ambassador didn't help you because you didn't use it! On turn 5 you discard it to urchin (?), on turn 7 you use it to pass a potion, on turns 10 and 13 you use it to pass just a single estate! Not once did you ambassador coppers, which help you thin more than they help his apothecarys draw.

Ambassador is a tricky card, and I suggest you read the articles by Theory http://dominionstrategy.com/2010/12/23/seaside-ambassador/ and WanderingWinder  http://dominionstrategy.com/2013/02/18/seaside-ambassador-201/ It will really help you in these kinds of situations.

40

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Random Victory card idea

« on: September 26, 2013, 01:23:56 am »

From the Power Grid design contest

Mill (Or better name, to be decided)
Cost: 6$
Victory
At the end of the game, count the number of mills still in the supply pile.
Mill is worth 1 VP per mill remaining.

Sort of plays on the backstabbing aspect of power grid, where you can buy out resources from underneath each other. Could also serve as a way to deny other players points by buying them, but competes with gold.

Thoughts?

41

Variants and Fan Cards / Different Cursers

« on: September 09, 2013, 11:09:46 pm »

Lately, I've been thinking more and more about cursers that give options. Some ideas:

$4
Debt Collector
Each other player may choose: Gain a curse; or the person who played this gains a Silver, putting it in hand.
Action-Attack

A card where you are stuck between slowing yourself down, and speeding your opponent up. If they dont take the curse it's a terminal silver, and once the curses are gone, it's completely useless.

$5
Poisoned Chalice
+2$
Each other player may choose: Gain a curse; or gain two Coppers, putting one on top of their deck and the other in hand.
Action-Attack

This one gives an interesting choice. You can get +1$ for this turn, but add two junk cards to your deck, one of which you will see instantly, or gain the curse.

3$
Salted Field
2VP
+2 buys
You may gain a curse. If you do, +1$
__________________________________________________________________________________________
At the end of the game, if there are no curses left in the supply, each curse is worth 1 VP instead of -1 VP
Action-Victory

This gives a second pile of estates that can run extremely quickly, but aren't worth anything unless they are all gone. Too weak? Perhaps, but I like the concept below the line.

42

Game Reports / Re: Finding the combo

« on: September 03, 2013, 10:45:48 pm »

I have no doubt that my opening was suboptimal. However, i believe my middle / endgame was pretty well done. This board could end in prolly 13 turns played right, it's insane

43

Game Reports / Finding the combo

« on: September 03, 2013, 10:30:35 pm »

Chapel, Lighthouse, Ambassador, Chancellor, Fortress, Remake, Remodel, Smithy, Border Village, Forge (shelters, provinces)

Do you see it?

I didn't, at least not at first. What I saw was ambassador. Having rarely played ambassador with shelters, I didn't realize just how bad it can be. But after my awful opening I see it. I could only hope I wasn't too late, but my opponent missed it and I still managed to take the win. Fortress is one of my top 3 villages, easy.

http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130903/log.50a06f0fe4b0638b8d8e5da1.1378261305032.txt

44

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: New Dominion CONTEST

« on: September 03, 2013, 06:33:09 pm »

I cant see those cards ta56636, could you post them as text?

45

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: New Dominion CONTEST

« on: September 03, 2013, 04:29:46 pm »

Elba
4$ Action

+2 Cards
+1 Buy
You may play all Actions and Treasures from your Island mat, in any order.  (If you play one, play every single one)
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
In games using this, when you buy a card, if it's not the first card you bought this turn, gain the card you bought to your Island mat instead of your discard pile.


Opted for clunky wording to try to be crystal clear on the Trader interaction.
Best use for Ruined Village ever, right?  If this gets to play testing, I would recommend trying it out with a Looter.  I could see this being overpowered in a Chapel or Mountebank or Ambassador kind of way, it might be unskippable, but the other purchases should be interesting and the game should have a unique feel.

I thought about giving the card less powerful vanilla bonuses, but the card really needs to be powerful to keep up with its own "games using this" rule.  If the vanilla bonuses were too far behind average engine components, a good engine would always beat a heavy Elba user just by buying Victory cards to the Island mat.

When you play the cards on the Island mat, do they get shuffled back into your deck, or do they stay? If it's the latter, its broken beyond belief, but if it's the former than I'm not sure of its power. Buying ruins or coppers to play them isn't a great idea, and ruins don't add up to mega-turn material. If it's a mountebank, than I would almost rather have it in my discard pile so I can shuffle it in next time, instead of having to play the Elba.

Also, the implementation doesn't lead to putting 5 costs on your mat. If you have two buys than your options could be to buy a copper and a 5 cost, adding a junk card to your deck in order to activate Elba, or spending 8$ on a silver / 3 cost to put that 5 on the mat.

Additionally, there arises the problem of not buying Elba. It's just impossible. Because Elba says "in games using this" as opposed to "when this is in play" it makes it unavoidable if you want to buy more than one card in a turn, as  the second card goes on the mat no matter what. This should be changed to "you may put the card on the Island mat", or "when this is in play etc."

46

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: New Dominion CONTEST

« on: September 03, 2013, 02:17:20 am »

Poisoned Chalice

$5

+2$

Each other player either gains a curse, or gains two coppers, putting one in hand and the other on top of their deck.

47

GokoDom / Re: GokoDom II: Round 3 Discussion Thread

« on: August 30, 2013, 01:41:09 pm »

Game 1 Destierro 35-25 - http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130829/log.50a06f0fe4b0638b8d8e5da1.1377842611510.txt
Masq BM. Yawn. Nothing to see here.

Game 2 Gwinnr 54-38 - http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130829/log.50a06f0fe4b0638b8d8e5da1.1377843406765.txt
We both look at the board and see forager/venture into colonies. He gets a salvager t2, while I opt for double forager. His salvager collides with estates often, giving him an early venture lead and the game.

Game 3 Destierro 24-22 - http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130829/log.50a06f0fe4b0638b8d8e5da1.1377843920429.txt
Mirror, mirror on the wall... Seriously, the first 3 games of this matchup were complete mirrors. Starring in this game, rebuild. First turn, and my extra rebuild carry me to victory.

Game 4 Destierro 47-35 http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130829/log.50a06f0fe4b0638b8d8e5da1.1377844806321.txt
I see Sea Hag. I ignore Sea Hag. Wharf / Counterfeit / Masterpiece BM is so strong here. Mainly the wharves, which Gwinnr decides not to pick up until turn 10, when I already had 4 and 2 counterfeits. My lighthouse maybe should have been a silver, but looking at the log it actually blocked a curse, so good enough.

Thanks for the games GwinnR.

48

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Inventions

« on: August 22, 2013, 09:00:39 pm »

There's an amusing reaction between redo and fortress

Open Redo/Fortress

Redo Fortress into redo, Redo2 goes into hand, fortress goes into hand, repeat until redos are gone.

49

Game Reports / My first Rats piledrive

« on: August 19, 2013, 02:44:39 pm »

Scrying Pool, Develop, Woodcutter, Feast, Feodum, Horse Traders, Ironmonger, Rats, Rabble, Goons

Scrying Pool and Rats have always gone well together thematically in my head, and with the (minor) trashing of Develop and the nearly 100% +action rate of Ironmonger I decide to go Goons. It works fairly well, taking only two steps to develop Rats into Goons.

Some endgame considerations. I could have ended it with a win one turn earlier, but completely forgot about the Rats piledrive until after I had played all my actions. It still works out, but I was kicking myself.

Enjoy

http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130819/log.50a06f0fe4b0638b8d8e5da1.1376937208146.txt

50

GokoDom / Re: GokoDom II: Round 1 Discussion Thread

« on: August 18, 2013, 04:12:32 pm »

Destierro 3 Craisins 0

Game 1: 39-30 Destierro
http://dominionlogs.goko.com//20130818/log.50a06f0fe4b0638b8d8e5da1.1376853957102.txt

Chapel, Pearl Diver, Forager, Scheme, Alchemist, Trader, Embassy, Festival, Mountebank, Hunting Grounds

I thought I was a goner when he opened 5/2 on a board with mountebank and chapel. I grabbed trader/ chapel, hoping to get some good trader luck, and that is exactly what happened. Even though he blocked my mountebank twice in the first three plays, he failed to pick up any money besides gold, and stalled hard in the greening phase. My 8 silvers helped tremendously, allowing my to get the last two requisite provinces to secure a win.

Game 2: 28-9 Destierro
http://dominionlogs.goko.com//20130818/log.50a06f0fe4b0638b8d8e5da1.1376854953023.txt

Develop, Quarry, Bandit Camp, Butcher, City, Counterfeit, Margrave, Merchant Ship, Mint, Farmland

Wow, this board was crazy. I opened 5/2 and could not resist the blinding power of Counterfeit. It was amazing here, being able to turn spoils into mountains of cash after trashing every last copper. Quarry was also very important, allowing my to pick up 5 cost engine pieces for 1 each, and counterfeit and margrave supplied and enormous amount of +buy. Ignoring counterfeit on this board is suicide.

Game 3: 36-15 Destierro
http://dominionlogs.goko.com//20130818/log.50a06f0fe4b0638b8d8e5da1.1376855792181.txt

Poor House, Haven, Scrying Pool, Thief, Baker, Duke, Inn, Pillage, Trading Post, Treasury

A baker board, which I am unaccustomed to. Also, there's duke, but I see little support for it. I open silver/trading post, pick up  2 bakers to smooth my money, and some golds. I green fairly quickly, but after I have two provinces, his deck looks less than threatening, and I pick up gold on 6 instead of using my baker tokens. After the shuffle, I cruise through the provinces, picking up 6 by turn 16 with 5 baker tokens to spare.

An interesting set of games, thanks for playing Craisins!