Dominion Strategy Forum
Miscellaneous => Other Games => Topic started by: theory on December 14, 2011, 02:20:21 pm
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I never thought DominionStrategy would actually take off. But a year later, it's led to an unbelievable community of outstanding Dominion players. Writing the blog has been an incredibly rewarding experience, both personally and Dominion-skill-wise.
So I am branching out and starting another blog, one for my absolute favorite game (sorry, Donald X.!) and current #1 on BoardGameGeek: Twilight Struggle.
The new site is at http://twilightstrategy.com
Those of you that do play Twilight Struggle, I'd appreciate any feedback. TS is a very different game to write for, there being no easy way to play online and no logs to analyze. And there's no equivalent to sitting in the Isotropic lobby to advertise the site.
Those of you that don't play Twilight Struggle, I do not think this will affect DominionStrategy. TS is a self-contained game without expansions every several months, and so its card articles are much easier to write than Dominion's. But if push ever comes to shove, this site will always take priority. I have no posting schedule in mind for Twilight Strategy yet.
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Awesome.
Twilight Struggle is up there with Dominion in my top 5 games all-time, though it's been months since I've had a chance to play it.
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By the way, theory, have you played with the new cards in the Deluxe edition and/or the CCW variant? (Personally, I am all in favor of the new cards, but dead set against CCW.)
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Yes. I should probably mention this somewhere, but the blog assumes that you're playing with the Optional Cards and not with CCW.
Twilight Struggle at WBC, of course, does it the completely wrong way and has CCW but not Optionals because the players there feel that Optionals are "too much luck", i.e., they're not used to playing with them and don't want to change.
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Can I comment on the game? I have played it once. While the game mechanics is interesting (essentially, continuously strategic evaluation), you really need strong interests in either history or battle chess to justify the initial learning curve. I believe for experts like you guys the game becomes completely uninteresting if the opponent is not familiar with all the cards.
I don't know, for me, I have to really know all the cards for me to enjoy the game. But I have no intention to learn the cards by playing a lengthy game I currently do not enjoy. Neither am I interested in reading and familiarize with the cards on my own before playing the actual game.
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That's understandable. I think TS has one of the steepest learning curves of the games I play.
On the other hand, I find it tremendously rewarding, and the process of learning the cards comes much more via osmosis than studying. If you play 2-3 games against someone of approximate equal ability, then you should have a decent grasp of all the important cards. Obviously to excel at the game you need to master every card in the deck, but that is something that comes rather easily with experience rather than memorization.
Compare to Dominion: you don't need to know in advance what cards do (since you can see it, right there), and so no one actually goes and memorizes card texts, but after 1-2 games with a card you can probably recite all of its info even though you hadn't made any effort to memorize it.
The main knock against Twilight Struggle is that it's not always easy to find an opponent for a 2-3hr 2p game. But whenever I have a chance, TS is always my #1 choice of game, and I doubt that will ever change. It is incredibly tense, in a way that no other game has ever replicated for me. It's the thrill of drawing all my opponent's vicious events, desperately trying to figure out a way to deal with all the threats and crises on the board, while my opponent is doing the same.
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The only Twilight strategy you need is "Don't read those books, ever."
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The Twilight Strategy Forum (http://forum.twilightstrategy.com/index.php) is now online!
No, Robz, there are currently no Forum Games being played over there.
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The Twilight Strategy Forum (http://forum.twilightstrategy.com/index.php) is now online!
No, Robz, there are currently no Forum Games being played over there.
I know I said my next noob game will my be themed - but now it is cold war themed.
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Twilight Struggle is a typical "Bucket List" game for me, really want to play it at least once in my life - if only to see what the fuss is about - but I need someone who has a copy to play it with. :(
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Twilight Struggle is a typical "Bucket List" game for me, really want to play it at least once in my life - if only to see what the fuss is about - but I need someone who has a copy to play it with. :(
Pick a more sensible place to live? Nobody puts influence into Benelux.
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Twilight Struggle is a typical "Bucket List" game for me, really want to play it at least once in my life - if only to see what the fuss is about - but I need someone who has a copy to play it with. :(
Pick a more sensible place to live? Nobody puts influence into Benelux.
Except with some really eccentric US openings.
Or you've lost the Med countries and have nowhere better to place your Marshall Plan IP.
But yes, except for these (and other) overly pedantic edge cases, I wholeheartedly agree with the spirit of Frisk's joke.
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Wow, i was going to post a cheeky comment pointing out this thread has more posts than the forum...but i was waaaaay too slow
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Twilight Struggle is a typical "Bucket List" game for me, really want to play it at least once in my life - if only to see what the fuss is about - but I need someone who has a copy to play it with. :(
Pick a more sensible place to live? Nobody puts influence into Benelux.
Gay marriage, abortion, legal drugs, euthanasia, nah, I'll stay here. :)
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Twilight Struggle is a typical "Bucket List" game for me, really want to play it at least once in my life - if only to see what the fuss is about - but I need someone who has a copy to play it with. :(
Pick a more sensible place to live? Nobody puts influence into Benelux.
Gay marriage, abortion, legal drugs, euthanasia, nah, I'll stay here. :)
That's one hell of a weekend!
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Twilight Struggle is a typical "Bucket List" game for me, really want to play it at least once in my life - if only to see what the fuss is about - but I need someone who has a copy to play it with. :(
Pick a more sensible place to live? Nobody puts influence into Benelux.
Gay marriage, abortion, legal drugs, euthanasia, nah, I'll stay here. :)
That's one hell of a weekend!
The Hangover part 3: Amsterdamned.
But I guess things that are legal are no longer fun.
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Only 7 more cards to go in Twilight Strategy. This feels somewhat sad. It is amazing how much easier it is to write analyses of cards that don't interact with each other much.
What comes after TS? RaStrategy? RFTGStrategy? ChutesAndLaddersStrategy?
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Only 7 more cards to go in Twilight Strategy. This feels somewhat sad. It is amazing how much easier it is to write analyses of cards that don't interact with each other much.
What comes after TS? RaStrategy? RFTGStrategy? ChutesAndLaddersStrategy?
Have you thought about doing kind of "one of" strategy articles for different games? Obviously, some games are too deep for that kind of thing, but I'd be interested in shorter pieces about game theory and strategy for shallower games.
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I am not super comfortable writing "overview" articles for most games that I'm not very good at.
However -- most games only really need "overview" articles, unlike Dominion/TS.
I guess one example is Tichu. Aaron Fuegi already wrote the best possible beginner's Tichu guide (http://scv.bu.edu/~aarondf/Games/Tichu/frame_strategy.html), so I tried to follow it up with an advanced guide (http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/799194/advanced-strategy-in-tichu).
I was thinking of doing something simple like that for Ra: why Pharaohs are/aren't the key to victory, etc.
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I was actually wondering what you were planning to do with TS after you finish the card list. I guess maybe an annotated game or two, and then, more articles on general strategy? Or just stop?
Although your suggestion on what to do next did make me think, really bad strategy blog ideas:
TicTacToeStrategy
SudokuStrategy
MonopolyStrategy (although there's actually maybe a bit to be said there...)
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Only 7 more cards to go in Twilight Strategy. This feels somewhat sad. It is amazing how much easier it is to write analyses of cards that don't interact with each other much.
What comes after TS? RaStrategy? RFTGStrategy? ChutesAndLaddersStrategy?
I could see RTFGStrategy having an audience.
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Only 7 more cards to go in Twilight Strategy. This feels somewhat sad. It is amazing how much easier it is to write analyses of cards that don't interact with each other much.
What comes after TS? RaStrategy? RFTGStrategy? ChutesAndLaddersStrategy?
I could see RTFGStrategy having an audience.
I think RTFGStrategy would be awesome. I feel like I play about as much RFTG now as I played Dominion before discovering DS.
Seriously, DS is the reason I play so much Dominion. Well, that and Iso and WW's videos. But without DS, Dominion would just be another game on the shelf rather than one of my obsessions.
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Only 7 more cards to go in Twilight Strategy. This feels somewhat sad. It is amazing how much easier it is to write analyses of cards that don't interact with each other much.
What comes after TS? RaStrategy? RFTGStrategy? ChutesAndLaddersStrategy?
I could see RTFGStrategy having an audience.
I think RTFGStrategy would be awesome. I feel like I play about as much RFTG now as I played Dominion before discovering DS.
Seriously, DS is the reason I play so much Dominion. Well, that and Iso and WW's videos. But without DS, Dominion would just be another game on the shelf rather than one of my obsessions.
seconded I would be active in those forums/community as well.
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TS is a very different game to write for, there being no easy way to play online and no logs to analyze.
I think I happened across a place to play online that required all sorts of fiddling with Proxies and Ports, etc. My dad and I never got it to work - is there another option anywhere?
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innovationstrategy?
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Only 7 more cards to go in Twilight Strategy. This feels somewhat sad. It is amazing how much easier it is to write analyses of cards that don't interact with each other much.
What comes after TS? RaStrategy? RFTGStrategy? ChutesAndLaddersStrategy?
I could see RTFGStrategy having an audience.
Living card game strategies? LotR, Star Wars, Game of Thrones....
First article: Take Eowyn. ;D ;)
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I guess I vote RftGstrategy, too. I've played 30+ games against the Keldon (sp?) AI, and maybe 15 games IRL. After the last RftG game, my friend and I were contemplating how much strategy matters -- as he said, maybe we can't see the strategy because we both suck at the game. But I've read strategy articles from rrenaud around the web, and I feel like I'm doing a decent job strategizing...but RftG feels much more chancy than Dominion.
To be more specific, it seems like it's very hard to win unless your strategy happens to work well with whatever 6-cost development cards come your way. In the meantime, good tactics can help, but it just seems not very useful to make up any sort of overarching plan (as you might do in Dominion).
Is the game just all tactical, or what?
Thoughts? I guess this should be in other board games but it seems apropos.
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I think that the clear choice is innovationstrategy.com, as that game I can play on isotropic! :P
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Although your suggestion on what to do next did make me think, really bad strategy blog ideas:
TicTacToeStrategy
... and already done (http://xkcd.com/832/)
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Although your suggestion on what to do next did make me think, really bad strategy blog ideas:
TicTacToeStrategy
... and already done (http://xkcd.com/832/)
Somebody should just buy the domain name and link it there. That's too cool.
Edit: At least for Tic Tac Toe nobody can say, "Depends on the board."
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I got Android: Netrunner in the mail a couple days ago and finally got around to playing it tonight (well, teaching it to two friends and helping them play) and wow, what a phenomenal game.
All I can say is Netrunnerstrategy.com is going to happen if it hasn't already, and I'd love to see theory and rrenaud (and Frisk?) or other members from this site at the helm. It might be difficult since there are so many new cards so often, but there is most certainly strategy to be discussed.
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Edit: At least for Tic Tac Toe nobody can say, "Depends on the board."
But it does depend on the board! n-in-a-row tic-tac-toe in d dimensions is a draw for small d, and a win for d sufficiently large.
Challenge: show that no version of tic-tac-toe can be a second player win.
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Challenge: show that no version of tic-tac-toe can be a second player win.
Solution:
Suppose p2 has a winning strategy.
Observe that having an additional square filled in can only cause you to win or tie, not cause the other player to win, because it doesn't affect the winning condition of the other player. So p1 can on turn 1 make an arbitrary initial dummy move, then on turn 2 an onwards, follow p2's winning strategy, ignoring the dummy move. If the strategy ever calls for p1 to play on the square with the dummy move, instead make a dummy move somewhere else arbitrarily.
Thus, under the supposition that p2 has a winning strategy, p1 has a strategy that guarantees either a win or a tie, a contradiction. So p2 has no winning strategy.