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

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

26

Other Games / Re: Mafia [split from In defense of Monopoly]

« on: May 11, 2012, 09:43:52 am »

Is mafiascum.net still running? I was an old hand there (cubansmoker).

I invented time-traveling mafia. Now that was strategic. At least, I pretended it was.

27

Dominion Isotropic / Re: Ozymandias II?

« on: March 26, 2012, 04:03:25 pm »

He may have intentionally cheated his way to the top of the leaderboard as a form of social commentary.

Now that Ozymandias stands at the top of the leaderboard, some players will remember his 'works' and despair at how he was able to climb to the top, and we were not. And yet, in some short time, his fame (infamy?) will pass. Next, the isotropic leaderboard will go away, replaced by the commercial version. Ultimately, online Dominion will fade in popularity and disappear.

Nothing beside remains.

28

Game Reports / Re: Why I hate 4-player

« on: February 29, 2012, 10:39:40 am »

This is right, 2nd and 3rd are worth something on ISO. One rational thing a player can go for is to maximize the EV of their game points. It would be tough to calculate that on the fly in most situations, but I will gun for a 2nd place finish and end the game if I am pretty sure I can't win.

29

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Shuffle Definition

« on: February 26, 2012, 07:10:13 pm »

On a slight tangent, I have wondered how good the typical player's shuffle is at randomizing the deck. My inspiration is a chapter or two from Stanford Wong's BJ card counting books. He analyzes the way in which cards are picked up from the BJ table by the dealer, stacked in a typical way, then processed through a manual house shuffle.  The research is a bit dated now because of the heavy use of CSMs and automatic shufflers, but the premise was very interesting. The standard casino shuffle, while being very thorough, did not completely remove correlation between certain cards and the distance between them in the shuffled deck.

In dominion speak, your discard pile could look like EECCC 1st buy E CCCC 2nd buy going into the first reshuffle. Is your deck after your first reshuffle truly random, or do those copper clumps and buys end up in predictable places? I think a shuffle study would be really interesting, but damn if I have the time to do it.

30

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Shuffle Definition

« on: February 26, 2012, 07:04:23 pm »

I do a poker shuffle: riffle, riffle, strip, riffle, cut. If the deck is really small, sometimes I deal 'randomly' into stacks, reassemble, repeat, then cut. In close games, or with a small deck, I'll offer the cut to my opponent.

I haven't seen a live tourney, but if I ran one I would make offering your opponent the cut mandatory on EVERY shuffle. I know enough about fake shuffles and moving cards to the top of the bottom that I'm sure there's someone in every group of card players that can do it. Once there's something to play for, someone might start cheating.

If you intentionally cheat while playing Dominion, I hope you have as much fun as you deserve.

If you unintentionally/naively cheat while playing Dominion, such as being a terrible shuffler or trying to avoid collisions with discard manipulations... I don't know, that's a gray area. I will insert my actions and early buys into stacks of coppers to 'randomize' my discard pile. I guess that's against the rules, but doesn't feel wrong. I shuffle well to compensate.

31

Game Reports / Re: A game in which Contraband is the dominant card on the board

« on: February 10, 2012, 12:50:40 pm »

I think contraband can be pretty solid when there are alternate VPs, or even border villages. Especially if it's the only +buy.

32

Game Reports / Re: Triple Mandarin/Duke

« on: February 07, 2012, 12:08:42 pm »

An interesting idea, but the biggest hurdle is the lack of +Buy to close out the game once you have emptied the duchies and dukes. Your opponent shouldn't let you take them all, so you need to burn a 3rd pile before they buy too many provinces.

Turns 19-23 where you both end up buying all the estates is too long for this type of rush. If either of his 7s were 8s in those turns, I think you lose.

Horse Traders works better because of the +Buy. Without a non-terminal +buy (like market, festival, wharf?), this isn't going to work great most of the time.

33

Help! / Re: Open Trade Route/Cutpurse on a Witch board?

« on: January 31, 2012, 05:59:24 pm »

I agree, silvers instead of villages in turns 3&4 would have worked better.

34

Help! / Re: Was the Baron a mistake here?

« on: January 31, 2012, 05:55:07 pm »

Baron+Estate is not much better than 2 silvers. I do think it's good, and could have worked here. The big difference here was card-draw. He got his first GM after playing a stables. After that, GMs are easy to get. He started discarding silvers to the Stables, but that's not a big deal when he can buy more GMs with his GMs and moneylender (and Haggler, he got one too).

Stables > Labs here, I think that's the difference. Maybe some luck too.

35

Rules Questions / Re: Smugglers preceded by Outpost

« on: January 26, 2012, 03:22:35 pm »

Short answer: only his 3-card turn.

Smugglers says "on his last turn", while outpost is clear that you take an extra turn after this one. Two different turns.

36

Help! / Re: What strategy is best for a really fast set?

« on: January 25, 2012, 12:25:04 pm »

If you already have +Buy from the Tactician, a Baron & discarded estate is no better than 2 silvers (although, easier to acquire I suppose). He never made 3 buys, so that's not the trick.

I think the small difference here was crossroads. He never drew it dead, and played it for +4cards on the last turn. Otherwise your decks were very similar.

37

Help! / Re: Governor faster than Ambassador?

« on: January 25, 2012, 12:17:13 pm »

I think the biggest mistake(s) you made were drawing cards with your Governors early on. You draw Turn 7, when your opponent has 6+ a pearl diver in hand. You buy a Gold with your extra cards, and allow him to buy a Province. You could have just gained the Gold instead.

Then on Turn 9 you draw again, buying a province, but you also increase his hand from 7 to Province.

You draw again on turn 10, which lets you send back 2 estates, but then he buys a Province again (he had to Governor draw to get it though, this one not so bad).

So... Governor is really fast against Ambassador if you keep drawing cards for your opponent!

38

Help! / Re: Is there anything I could have done to win?

« on: January 24, 2012, 12:30:33 pm »

Not much, although I don't like the turn 8 province. Gold or IGG, or... Vault! How about a vault! I think a couple vaults could have helped.

39

Rules Questions / Re: KC/TR vs Goons

« on: January 24, 2012, 10:20:19 am »

Another played vs in play situation:

If you TR a bridge, costs go down 2.
If you TR a highway, costs go down 1.

40

Help! / Re: Complicated Black Market game... help?

« on: January 23, 2012, 08:28:04 pm »

He bought the masquerade from the BM before you bought Sea Hag. Against his Scrying Pool + Masquerade + random actions deck, you did not want 1 curser. Note how the game ended with YOU having 2 curses, the trash 2, and him having 0.

You were a little unlucky to keep drawing your chapel together with the BM and Sea Hag, but with a small deck, that's bound to happen sometimes.

You had a nice opportunity for double tactician with the BM and the vault. Keep your deck trim, get a little drawing power, with say, some scrying pools, and you should be able to pull it off a few turns of the game.

I think the key to this board was the scrying pool

41

Rules Questions / Re: Counting Treasures for Bank

« on: January 23, 2012, 10:25:34 am »

I must have missed this in the rules somewhere. My fault! Is there anything besides Bank that would be sensitive to the order of treasures?

The Bank explanation is in the Prosperity Card FAQ, with a specific example.

The Prosperity rulebook and FAQ has some other examples where the order of playing treasures matters

42

Help! / Re: jack/duke or alchemist? (live 3-player)

« on: January 19, 2012, 11:05:40 am »

With no +Buy, I don't like the Alchemist deck, it should be too slow.
With no +Buy, and only light trashing, the KC-coppersmith deck should be unreliable and not be able to take advantage of big hands if it does hit.

Double Jack (I have been informed that buying the 2nd Jack right away is the way to go) + lots of duchies (empty them first if you can ), then lots of dukes should crush your opponents. As posted above, don't bother with gold. Your Jacks will produce enough silver by themselves to keep you going. You could be buying duchies by the 1st or 2nd reshuffle.

43

Help! / Re: A loss by 2 on a board with no attack..

« on: January 17, 2012, 10:58:31 am »

Given the strategy you did take, you probably wanted a trade route for the +buy and the money it was providing at the end. Don't need to open TR, but buy one a few turns in.

44

Help! / Re: Ignore torturers??

« on: January 16, 2012, 11:55:47 am »

With no trashing besides the Governor and the expensive village that is Bazaar (meaning you can't get them as easily), your Torturer chain was never going to be very reliable. You probably needed the +buy from pawn to stand a chance, e.g. look at turn 13, where you used $15 to buy a Bazaar.

Governor can end games very quickly, Menagerie is a nice counter to one Torturer, while Governoring a curse into a moat, crossroads or pawn could work nicely for your opponent (also helps your deck, not sure on this).

In short, without good trashing or +buy, go Governor here.

45

Help! / Re: Pirate Ship beats double Jack???

« on: January 14, 2012, 09:13:36 pm »

I'm no expert on dblJack, but I think you don't want to buy the second one on the first reshuffle. Also, I'm pretty sure you don't want Caravan, that anti-syns with Jack. Finally, I think you trashed the 2nd one too early.

Otherwise, him pirateshipping every turn with only 2 is pretty lucky... that may have been tough to overcome.

46

Help! / Re: Was I a victim of BM?

« on: January 14, 2012, 09:04:00 pm »

Well, ya see, here's your problem right there: you opened Throne Room / Silver. Probably not a great opening, as there is nothing to TR. Note you drew it dead three times before you got to use it. That's not bad luck, that's fate for opening TR.

You still got $5 after the first shuffle, which got you a Governor. But you probably shouldn't use it for cards early on, Gold is better. Then you can get Grand Markets. Your opponent is using Bureaucrat to load up on silvers to get GMs. You let him draw a 6th card with your Governor, so he happily bought a GM.

Opening Lessons: Don't open TR, and don't use Governor for cards early when your cards suck. Make your deck better with Golds.

47

Help! / Re: Pretty new - Didn't see this spanking coming

« on: January 12, 2012, 04:39:32 pm »

Inn is a lame warehouse. It's good for setting up big turns, maybe a bridge + inn megaturn is out there somewhere, but you shouldn't be buying inns early in the game. It's not a great +card.

Your potion buy is too late, if you want to try to get familiars, it should be early. AND your opponent already had a lighthouse, and the buys to get more. Either best to avoid familiars on this board, or try to hit them early and often.

Finally, Apprentice is good. Apprentice + Hoard = awesome. (echoing previous posters): Feed it the estates/duchies you buy, 1 bridge for buy, and off you go.

48

Dominion Isotropic / Re: Decline of civility on isotropic?

« on: January 11, 2012, 09:21:05 pm »

Some (many? most?) people say "How's it going" and don't actually want to know the answer. Or, at least, hope you say "Fine, and you?".

I'm with the social convention crowd. I say "gg" to acknowledge the other person. I don't know them, I usually don't care to speak to them, but I will carry on a pleasant conversation if they initiate. Finally, I really don't care if they are offended because the game wasn't good.

I have real friends I play games with, and things are very different. With the anonymous avatars online... gg = thanks for the game.

49

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: In which Sarah king's courts a golem

« on: January 03, 2012, 10:51:45 am »

What I want to know is how the game got to this state in the first place!

King's Court and Island has a funny way of making cards disappear from your deck

50

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Alchemist vs Margrave

« on: December 22, 2011, 07:14:42 pm »

We knew that Alchemist was a trap without +buy or something else to support it, but we both figured if you get to play your Margrave every turn, you were likely to find your potion & money, and get the +buy to buy province and more engine parts.

I didn't expect to see the simulated Margrave + BM trounce that plan so badly.