Dominion Strategy Forum

Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: McGarnacle on April 14, 2016, 07:28:58 pm

Title: What does everyone think Dominion would look like without curses and cursers?
Post by: McGarnacle on April 14, 2016, 07:28:58 pm
Just curious what everyone thought Dominion would look like without curses and cursers. How would strategies change, and what cards, others than cursers, would look different?
Title: Re: What does everyone think Dominion would look like without curses and cursers?
Post by: faust on April 14, 2016, 07:29:54 pm
Less purple.
Title: Re: What does everyone think Dominion would look like without curses and cursers?
Post by: McGarnacle on April 14, 2016, 07:42:23 pm
Less purple.

Anything else?
Title: Re: What does everyone think Dominion would look like without curses and cursers?
Post by: Burning Skull on April 14, 2016, 08:04:05 pm
Faster games in general, more big money approaches --> less interesting games.

Sad story, in other words. No one likes curses, but they are here for a good reason.
Title: Re: What does everyone think Dominion would look like without curses and cursers?
Post by: Dingan on April 14, 2016, 08:11:39 pm
Without curses and cursers, the game would be like, well, games that don't have cursers.  So just play some of those games.  And if you prefer, play only those games.

More junking means more player-to-player interaction, which means less 2-player Solitaire games, which is good.
Title: Re: What does everyone think Dominion would look like without curses and cursers?
Post by: ConMan on April 14, 2016, 09:12:57 pm
To play a weak engine competitively against Big Money, you need a means of slowing your opponent down enough to give your engine time to fire. Which typically means having an Attack. There are Attacks other than cursers, definitely, but cursers are frequently great for this purpose - most of them also provide some halfway decent bonus to an engine, and since a BM player likely hasn't grabbed a deck thinner the Curses are highly likely to hinder them (compared to, say, a discard attack where the BM player may well be playing BM-big draw, or just has enough rubbish cards in hand to discard anyway). So without cursers, you have fewer games where you can make an engine work.

Another interesting consideration - if there were no cursers, would people be more or less likely to discover the power of thinning in the first place? A common progression that you hear from new players goes something like this:

1. Chapel is only there to trash Curses, so if Witch isn't in the Kingdom then I don't need Chapel.
2. Actually, since I can trash so many cards with Chapel, I wonder what happens if I trash the Curses *and* some of my starting cards?
3. Wow, my deck gets so much better when it's thin and filled with good cards rather than fat and filled with Estates and Coppers!
4. Maybe I should buy Chapel to trash my starting cards even if I *don't* have Curses.
5. Chapel is amazing!

If you just had the base set with no Witch and no Curses, how many players would just keep ignoring Chapel? How many would think "Why would I want to trash stuff?" and jump to step 2? I suspect that there are a few people, mostly serious gamers, who would see Chapel and realise the value of a thin deck, but so many more players would just see Chapel and play a 9-card Kingdom.
Title: Re: What does everyone think Dominion would look like without curses and cursers?
Post by: Aleimon Thimble on April 15, 2016, 03:46:45 am
Faster games in general, more big money approaches --> less interesting games.

Sad story, in other words. No one likes curses, but they are here for a good reason.

Cursers are a blessing and a...
Title: Re: What does everyone think Dominion would look like without curses and cursers?
Post by: drsteelhammer on April 15, 2016, 05:01:24 am
It is generally accepted that Curses help the engine since you can slow the money strategies down. However, I think that applies only to the Cursers who are bad for the money decks like Sea Hag, YW, Familiar etc. I really dislike Witch since I think it helps BM strategies since it's a BM enabler in itself.
Title: Re: What does everyone think Dominion would look like without curses and cursers?
Post by: Sten-Åke on April 15, 2016, 10:42:31 am
So how much weaker would cursers be if they where junkers dealing out say confusion cards instead? The problem with cursers is how often they are obligatory. Also several gives curses unconditionally (as long there are any left).
Title: Re: What does everyone think Dominion would look like without curses and cursers?
Post by: Eran of Arcadia on April 15, 2016, 10:51:15 am
Faster games in general, more big money approaches --> less interesting games.

Sad story, in other words. No one likes curses, but they are here for a good reason.

Cursers are a blessing and a...

Drawback? Penalty? "Malus?" What are you going for here?
Title: Re: What does everyone think Dominion would look like without curses and cursers?
Post by: McGarnacle on April 15, 2016, 11:46:28 am
Faster games in general, more big money approaches --> less interesting games.

Sad story, in other words. No one likes curses, but they are here for a good reason.

Curses are a blessing and a...

Drawback? Penalty? "Malus?" What are you going for here?

Curses are a blessing and a... curse.
Title: Re: What does everyone think Dominion would look like without curses and cursers?
Post by: Eran of Arcadia on April 15, 2016, 11:52:50 am
Faster games in general, more big money approaches --> less interesting games.

Sad story, in other words. No one likes curses, but they are here for a good reason.

Curses are a blessing and a...

Drawback? Penalty? "Malus?" What are you going for here?

Curses are a blessing and a... curse.

. . . no, I don't think that's it.
Title: Re: What does everyone think Dominion would look like without curses and cursers?
Post by: McGarnacle on April 15, 2016, 11:53:40 am
Faster games in general, more big money approaches --> less interesting games.

Sad story, in other words. No one likes curses, but they are here for a good reason.

Curses are a blessing and a...

Drawback? Penalty? "Malus?" What are you going for here?

Curses are a blessing and a... curse.

. . . no, I don't think that's it.

Being a blessing and a curse is an expression, so I think that's probably it.
Title: Re: What does everyone think Dominion would look like without curses and cursers?
Post by: MatthewCA on April 15, 2016, 11:57:47 am
Just curious what everyone thought Dominion would look like without curses and cursers. How would strategies change, and what cards, others than cursers, would look different?

I think if we hadn't gotten curse, confusion probably would have taken its place, a card that does nothing other than taking up space in your deck. I think it would've been less exciting, and we would've probably need up with more trashing attacks.
Title: Re: What does everyone think Dominion would look like without curses and cursers?
Post by: werothegreat on April 15, 2016, 12:00:37 pm
So how much weaker would cursers be if they where junkers dealing out say confusion cards instead?

You mean, like Marauder and Cultist?
Title: Re: What does everyone think Dominion would look like without curses and cursers?
Post by: J Reggie on April 15, 2016, 12:02:17 pm
Faster games in general, more big money approaches --> less interesting games.

Sad story, in other words. No one likes curses, but they are here for a good reason.

Curses are a blessing and a...

Drawback? Penalty? "Malus?" What are you going for here?

Curses are a blessing and a... curse.

. . . no, I don't think that's it.

Being a blessing and a curse is an expression, so I think that's probably it.

Explaining the joke: I think he's being sarcastic.