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

Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Graverobber rules question

« on: August 30, 2012, 06:37:49 pm »

What happens if I choose the second option, but do not have an action card in hand? (This is not the same as the accountability issue mentioned earlier -- I can have zero cards in hand, or I can even reveal them though I am not forced to do so.) The FAQ specifically says I can choose an option even if I know I can't do it, so the answer isn't "you can't choose that option".

The relevant text of the card is "...or trash an Action card from your hand and gain a card costing up to 3 Coins more than it."

There are a couple of different interpretations that make sense to me:

1. "trash a card" and "gain a card" are not separate clauses. You either do everything in the single clause "trash a card then gain a card" or you do none of it. So if you don't trash an action card, you gain nothing. This is supported by the FAQ on Governor, which has the same wording, and so I'm pretty sure this is the right interpretation, but the FAQ on Graverobber doesn't mention it so I thought I'd check.

2. They are separate clauses. You didn't trash an Action card, so there is no cost. No cost is equivalent to $0. Therefore you may gain a card costing up to $3. This was my initial interpretation, since the text is not the same as the text on Remodel/Expand/Upgrade/Remake. On the other hand, maybe the text is different only because there's too much text on the card, which is supported by the text on Governor. On a third, orthogonal (ewww) hand, is an undefined cost really the same as zero?

3. They are separate clauses. You didn't trash an Action card, so the cost is undefined. Uh...I don't even know where to go from here (do I get to make up the cost since it's undefined and I'm the active player? That can't possibly be right) so I'll just make a programming joke: null pointer exception, the game ends in a draw and you pick a new kingdom.

27

Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: A new accountability issue in Graverobber

« on: August 27, 2012, 05:02:37 pm »

You wouldn't necessarily need to be forced to play the Graverobber; you might want to play it for Horn of Plenty/Peddler reasons, for example. And if the only eligible cards in the trash are Silver, I could see you not wanting to clutter up a cantrip engine deck (which, of course, would be well-suited to gaining cheap Peddlers).

28

Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: Dark Ages Retail Store Availability

« on: August 24, 2012, 02:57:52 pm »

My store in San Mateo, CA says they expect to have it in today, but have not called to confirm.

29

Dominion Isotropic / Re: Council room player pages not working?

« on: August 24, 2012, 01:18:21 pm »

Been down for a couple days for me.

30

Dominion Articles / Re: Combo: Haven & Watchtower/Library

« on: August 17, 2012, 06:28:38 pm »

Haven reduces your hand size some turns to help draw until X, but then it makes your hand size large other turns, which hurts draw until X.  I guess Haven itself probably lets you manage that, but it still seems sketchy and I'm skeptical.

+1. I've tried Haven/draw to X decks; when they work badly (when you draw haven-haven-haven on turn x and watchtower on turn x+1) they're really bad, and even when they work well (draw haven-watchtower together, and no watchtower on the next turn) they're not great because you often have to guess what to Haven -- since you're taking blind draw you might haven coin and come up short of $8, or you might haven green and wind up with $11. That really hurts Haven's main selling point, which is to smooth out your draws.

31

Dominion General Discussion / Re: No free promo cards at GenCon.

« on: August 16, 2012, 05:22:42 pm »

Um, am I reading the OP wrong? "No free promo cards at Gencon" and "they cost $5" suggests to me that there's a promo card to be had. Any word on what it is?

32

Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: Band of Misfits rules questions

« on: August 16, 2012, 04:27:45 pm »

If I have a BoM and a Cultist in hand, I can play BoM-as-a-Cultist and then Cultist, but not the other way around, right?

33

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Thank you to dougz and isotropic.

« on: August 15, 2012, 02:32:54 pm »

In addition to those already mentioned -- big thanks to all of them, without whom I probably would have stopped playing Dominion long ago -- there's also rspeer, who IIRC has been involved in both councilroom and in simulator development.

Thanks everyone!

34

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Game I lost with Hunting Party/Alchemist/Mountebank--what did I miss?

« on: August 14, 2012, 02:57:02 pm »

Open Monument/Silver, 1 Mountebank ASAP, HP/Silver, 1 Gold after the HP are gone -> beats HP/Mountebank about 60-40.
Getting 1 HP first, then Mountebank, then HP -> beats HP/Mountebank 52-45.

The comparison against HP/Monument is basically the same: 84-14 for getting Mountebank first, 83-14 for 1 HP first.

Head to head, the version that gets Mountebank first comes out on top, 51-45.


So, it's close enough to be within the margin of shuffle luck, but you should get the Mountebank first. I suspect this is because getting that first Curse into your opponent's deck is big -- makes it that much harder for his HPs to find the key terminals.

35

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Game I lost with Hunting Party/Alchemist/Mountebank--what did I miss?

« on: August 09, 2012, 02:16:12 pm »

Simulator says:

 - HP/Monument gets crushed by HP/Mountebank, around 2:1.
 - Buying HP over Gold is very important; if you let HP/Monument do this but make HP/Mountebank get 1 gold first, this makes it about breakeven.
 - Monument/Mountebank/HP/one gold after all the HP are gone beats HP/Mountebank about 2:1 and HP/Monument about 3:1, and most of the time the game ends on piles (HP/Curse/Estate).

i.e., what Toskk said.

36

Dominion Articles / Re: Combo: Cartographer/Tunnel

« on: March 21, 2012, 11:50:12 am »

I spent some time playing around with the simulator before making that claim, because it certainly doesn't seem intuitive, for the reasons that you state. Best I've been able to do so far is a 49-47 split in favor of Cartographer/Tunnel, which I suppose makes it a bit hyperbolic to say that Cartographer/Tunnel is "better", but my intuitive sense from tweaking the bots is that it's also easier to play Cartographer/Tunnel well (a naive bot that just opens Silver/Silver, buys Cartographer, then buys Tunnel, then buys Province/Cartographer/Tunnel + some endgame VP, does almost as well as the tweaked bot).

I suspect what you are seeing is that in solitaire, you have no competition for the Provinces, so you can get them more quickly with Vault/Tunnel. But in real games, you'll find that Vault/Tunnel stalls more quickly, especially once you start getting some Duchies. Cartographer/Tunnel has less of a problem with this, because you can't really overstuff your deck with Cartographers, whereas you can have too many Vaults.

* my usual disclaimer applies: I'm not that great at optimizing the bots, so folks are welcome to try and do better.

37

Dominion Articles / Re: Combo: Remake + City

« on: March 12, 2012, 03:10:10 pm »

Agree with Catalytic; I think this strategy is too slow for a Province game. In your first linked game, you buy Province on turn 12, 13, 15, and 16 and have no Estates, which probably loses to Big Money even without a decent enabler, and this is with your opponent buying 4 (!) Remakes and Havens available to smooth out your draw. In the second, you bought your first Province on turn 14, even though your opponent bought 3 Remakes and 3 Tunnels, helping you empty both piles.

The strategy might be good enough to catch up in an otherwise boring Colony game, but even then I'm not sure. Your opponent can build up an economy and snipe 3-4 Cities without too much trouble, and then their deck is going to be roughly as good as yours plus they have another 4-5 turns' worth of buying cards; that's a pretty big lead to catch up to. Something to look out for, though, in a Colony game; if you see your opponent stocking up on Remakes, make sure you get a few Cities before he snaps them all up!

I agree that this strategy will play well against an Ambassadoring opponent, but not against Masquerade (since that is a very strong BM enabler). This is assuming there's an engine to be built; otherwise I'm fairly sure Remake into BM will beat Ambassador just as well.

Also, worth pointing out that you generally will not have much help emptying the Remake pile -- it was mentioned at least three times in the "Cards you only need one copy of" thread.

Pretty sure that a well-played Bridge/NV strategy will crush this, but I think it's tricky (Remake player can go for Cities earlier/buy NV on the $2s; Bridge/NV player can choose not to empty those piles and/or go for a couple L3 Cities of his own).

38

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Dominion Sporcle Super Quiz!

« on: March 08, 2012, 12:47:32 pm »

Incredible! I've also done the other one. Please make some more!!!

Agreed, these were both fun, and just the right amount of difficulty. Thanks for making these!

One grammar nitpick: "What is the highest amount of points that a Duke could be worth?" should use "number" instead of "amount".

39

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Young Witch on a strong trashing board (and other questions)

« on: March 02, 2012, 06:25:56 pm »

I know it's not easy to do so reliably, but if you were playing Spy, Scout, etc... and could do so, is it worth it? It sounds like it is according to you, and I would probably agree, but I wanted to hear from a few more players who are better than me.

I think the answer depends on how to interpret your question.

If you're asking, "Hey, I'm getting a bunch of Curses, is building a deck around Spy/Native Village to put them on my mat a good idea?" then I think the answer is pretty clearly no, that deck is too slow and too hard to set up and the potential payoff is pretty weak.

If you're asking, "Hey, I already have a deck with Spy and Native Village in it, and I happened to get a Curse, should I set it aside w/Native Village or get a trasher to deal with it?" I think in general the answer is probably not to get a weak trasher (and as Curse-trashers come it doesn't get much weaker than Develop). But then, why did you build a deck with a bunch of Spies and Native Villages in it anyway? What were you trying to do with those cards? As I said above, you don't want to build a Spy/Native Village deck just to deal with Curses, so either you're going to lose anyway, or you built that deck for some different purpose. What that purpose is, and the characteristics of the deck, determine the answer to your question.

It may be more helpful to consider an example. Let's say I'm building an Apothecary/Native Village deck, and there's a Develop on board. Ordinarily I wouldn't buy that, because it doesn't go with the rest of my deck. Now let's say my opponent manages to give me a Curse. Should I put it on my mat, get Develop to deal with it, or ignore it? I'd say the answer depends on the stage of the game and the nature of the Curse.

If:
 - early/mid-game, got Curse via Swindler/Jester/some other not very consistent Curse-giver: put it on mat along with Victory cards, since this is a minor speedbump and I will rely on my deck's superior speed to win the game.
 - early game, got Curse via consistent Curse-giver like Sea Hag or Ill-Gotten Gains: buy Develop, punch self in the face for picking a strategy that is going to fail hard against Curses, look for better strategy to transition into
 - mid game, consistent Curser: the only consistent Curser I can think of that wouldn't start giving Curses until the mid-game would be a multiple-Torturer engine, in which case I think I would probably get a Develop since a) there's a much better chance I get some shuffle where I only have $3, b) since the curse is in hand I'm much more likely to be able to draw Develop and use it on the Curse, and c) I need to make sure my deck doesn't get clogged by Curses before it gets going
 - late game: ignore and draw through, putting VP on mat as usual, since the game will be over soon

So...yeah, I guess what I'm trying to say here is, if you get the opportunity to put a Curse on your NV mat, and you know you don't ever want to pick up the NV mat, it's usually the right move to get it out of your deck. However, it's usually not the right move to build a deck that can consistently do this.

40

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Young Witch on a strong trashing board (and other questions)

« on: March 02, 2012, 04:22:42 pm »

@Jorbles: Geronimoo's sim also has Lookout/Jack losing badly to Jack, but it doesn't know to prefer to trash Copper over Estate. Does Dominionate? I don't see any code in your posted snippet that would tell it to do so, but maybe that's built in to the sim.

41

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Young Witch on a strong trashing board (and other questions)

« on: March 02, 2012, 02:38:15 pm »

Most other cards just slow down Jack's effectiveness buy colliding with it.

I'm fairly sure simulators have shown conclusively that this is not true. Cantrip +$, like Market, work great with Jack, and so do sifters.

I think many of us (myself included) got caught up in the simulator results and believed DoubleJack was the be-all. If I'm not mistaken the current consensus is that SingleJack + most cards you would buy if Jack were not on the board > DoubleJack. You just have to be a bit careful not to overload on terminals.

I suppose you could pick up a Young Witch of your own if enough of your opponents don't buy Jacks, but it probably isn't worthwhile.

For example, SingleJack + Young Witch defeats DoubleJack handily, 60-37.

In a 2p game, I'd open Jack/Lookout, use the lookout to trash copper, pick up a YW with my next $4, and play BM from there. I don't know if this is the absolute best strategy, but I'm reasonably certain it will be competitive against human opponents (you might skip the lookout and get silver; I don't know because the simulator doesn't know to trash copper over estates early).

In a 3p or more game, your strategy has to be more dependent on what your opponents do. If nobody gets a YW, then Jack/YW is going to be very strong. In a 4p game, if two opponents get YW, you probably want a lookout to go with that. If all three opponents load up on YW, I might go doublejack double lookout and just outrace my opponents to 5 provinces, picking up a Remodel in the late game to speed things up.

Some sim results to back me up:
2Jack v 2Jack v 2Jack v Jack/YW: 18/19/19/36; Jack/YW clear favorite here
Jack/YW v Jack/YW v Jack/YW v Jack/Lookout/YW: 22/22/22/27; Lookout/Jack/YW a bit slower to ramp up but produces consistently better $ through the late game due to trashed coppers
2YW v. Jack/YW v Jack/YW v 2Jack/2Lookout: 12/21/21/40: Everyone else too busy giving curses; Jack/Lookout the favorite.
 
Also, it's worth noting that while there are tons of trashing options on this board, they're mostly pretty bad. Develop is horrible for dealing with Curses (spend an action to trash a curse and play with a 3 card hand - yuck), and Forge is pretty bad here too since there's no way to increase handsize and it's expensive. Remodel is similarly weak since you don't shrink your deck and the $2s don't seem to fit well with the rest of the board. Trader is OK, especially in multiplayer, but it anti-synergizes with itself -- the more Curses you deflect for Silver, the less likely you are to have Trader in your hand in the future (same if you use Trader on non-Curse/Copper).

42

Dominion Articles / Re: Combo: Cartographer/Tunnel

« on: February 29, 2012, 08:33:37 pm »

I left Secret Chamber (attacked) off the list for simplicity's sake, because it's complicated. You are correct that an attacked hand has a search space of 6, but if you don't find a Tunnel, you have the option of putting the Secret Chamber and a non-Tunnel card back on the deck for the next hand, reaching another 3 cards (unattacked) or 5 cards (attacked) but at the cost of delaying the search a turn. I couldn't figure out a way to represent that in the table that I was happy with so I just left it off.

I agree that Embassy can build reliable engines, but I don't agree that an Embassy/WV/Tunnel deck is worth building. When are you going to buy those Worker's Villages? Are you intending to build up to double-Province buys? I have a hard time believing you're going to get there fast enough to beat straight Embassy/Tunnel, and that's not even considering that it's tactically much harder to build that engine than it is to play the simple combo.

Hamlet...maybe, since Hamlet also activates Tunnel, and is much cheaper to acquire. But I'm skeptical.

43

Dominion Articles / Re: Combo: Cartographer/Tunnel

« on: February 29, 2012, 12:07:22 pm »

You're correct; the additional play column should only be the number of new cards in the search space. I modified the table to reflect this. The new table looks pretty good on a pure "how good is this combo at gaining Gold" level if you order it by the sum of the two columns -- it doesn't, of course, address how good the deck will be overall, but it seems useful as a tool to understand how good the enablers are relative to each other.

44

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Howdy and some Help

« on: February 28, 2012, 08:47:11 pm »

It's more that you often want to write the post right away, while the game is fresh in your mind. Sometimes the next day you won't remember why you bought something early or chose not to trash a copper or whatever.

45

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Howdy and some Help

« on: February 28, 2012, 07:55:05 pm »

I believe council room games are available forever; isotropic logs are available for a shorter amount of time. As a reader I vastly prefer councilroom logs, since they also show you the status of each supply pile and the current score, which is super useful. The only downside is that councilroom doesn't get the log until the next day, which can be a downer if you just finished a game and want to post a link right away.

I thought your play in that game was pretty solid. I think I might have gone Silver/Silver, especially against a Bishop-ing opponent, and I think your Horn of Plenty buy was a turn too early, but those are pretty minor nitpicks.

46

Dominion General Discussion / Re: In a 3-4p tournament setting, what's the best way to minimize luck?

« on: February 28, 2012, 06:17:26 pm »

1. 4p and up games are much faster than 2p and 3p games, because in 2p and 3p games there are 4 provinces per player, but only 3 per player in 4+ games. Therefore, in 4+p games, you should a) green earlier than you otherwise would, since you need to get your share of the provinces and you're less worried about stalling out, and b) you should favor strategies that are fast over strategies that deliver megaturns later.

2. The number of green cards changes, but the number of kingdom cards does not. For this reason I tend to shy away from decks that are combo based and need multiples of a single popular card (especially if that card is a village-type), unless the combo is incredibly powerful or there is sufficient trashing, since it's very likely that you'll end up with fewer of the card than you need and you'll have 1-2 piles depleted or near depleted by the time you figure it out.

3. Rush strategies play very differently. Consider Workshop/Gardens. If you're the only one playing this strategy, you'll likely need 4 more turns to empty the Gardens, plus another 3-4 turns to empty the Estates, than you normally would. In a 4p game, you're talking about needing 7 more turns to end the game -- chances are that the game ends on Provinces before you get a chance to do that. The math changes in similar ways for Duke and Silk Road strategies.

4. Opponent strategy is much more important. In a 2p game, if I go Witch and you don't, I'm probably going to win. In a 4p game, if three of us go Witches, the guy who goes Moats has the best chance of winning. This ties in with the previous 2 points -- if you spot a strong strategy that nobody else does, then you're clear to gobble up as many of the key cards as you need; similarly, if someone else is Workshop/Gardening in a 3p game, it's very likely the two of you can 3-pile very early. It helps to know your opponents, but reading their opening and turn 3-4 buys is pretty important.

5. Opponent skill is more important. In a 2p game, if I get to 5 Provinces first (and there are no alternative VP, etc.), chances are good I'm going to win, even if I stall, because I can buy Duchies. In a 3p game, this is also true...unless one of your opponents is absolutely terrible, allowing your other opponent to green later and beat you by getting 6 Provinces (or 7). It's important to have at least a rough idea of each player's deck and whether they'll be buying Provinces anytime soon, and how many you think they'll end up with.

6. Attacks are much more devastating. Torturer with no village in 2p is pretty benign. Cutpurse is pretty weak after the early-game. Saboteur is only worth considering if you can play it consistently. But in multiplayer, a lot of these considerations go away -- if each of your opponents has a Saboteur, that's pretty similar to having a single opponent who can play his every turn. Same goes for Torturer. When you read the board, consider the possibility that each of your opponents will be playing, say, Bureaucrat, and adjust accordingly.

47

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Worst Kingdom Design Thread!

« on: February 28, 2012, 02:42:56 pm »

RE: games that just take forever, are you sure you couldn't fit King's Court-Cartographer in there somewhere? Seems like every game I play with that combo has me staring at the screen wondering if my opponent is still there....oh, ok, there, he put all 4 cards back on the deck...and drew another...and looks at 3 of those cards again...

Also, http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120210-194546-b10d8a83.html. Seems like a fairly innocuous board but this 16-turn game went nearly half an hour long.

48

Dominion Articles / Re: Combo: Cartographer/Tunnel

« on: February 28, 2012, 01:39:28 pm »

Nice work on the table! I think an additional column might be interesting:

Card	First play	Additional plays
Embassy	9	0
Warehouse	7	3
Young Witch	6	0
Inn	6	2
Vault	6	0
Hamlet	5	1
Oasis	5	1
Horse Traders (attacked)	5	0
Navigator	5	0
Cartographer	4	4
Minion	4	3
Cellar	4	3, 2, ...
Harvest	4	0
Tactician	4	0
Secret Chamber (unattacked)	4	0
Horse Traders (unattacked)	4	0
Lookout	3	2
Oracle	2	0
Spy	1	1
Scrying Pool	1	1
Duchess	1	0
Jack of all Trades	1	0

Obviously this is not the final word in how good each enabler is, since the cards actually, you know, DO something besides enable Tunnel, but it may be helpful in thinking about, for instance, why Cartographer/Tunnel is better than Vault/Tunnel, even though Vault has a bigger pool size AND is generally a better card.

49

Dominion Articles / Re: Combo: Cartographer/Tunnel

« on: February 28, 2012, 11:39:19 am »

In general, Tunnel + some enabler seems good for Gardens strategies since you can gain multiple cards per turn, and the drawback of too many Tunnels is somewhat mitigated since you typically will need very small hands to buy Gardens or Tunnels. However, you have to be careful since fast Tunnel strategies involve sifters and continue to gain Gold into the late game -- fast Province strategies that are resistant to stalling are very strong against Gardens strategies.

Taking all 10 Curses is not generally advisable in a Gardens game, since it makes each Gardens worth 1 more, for a net total of -2. Better to dish out some of those curses back at your opponent and take only enough to get to the next multiple of 10.

50

Dominion Isotropic / Re: Karumah?

« on: February 24, 2012, 03:41:35 pm »

You don't get a feeling of skill and achievement, as you know you cheated.

You don't get the respect of your peers, because you never play your peers.

You don't get the satisfaction of having fooled the other players, because... well, because of threads like this.

You might get the feeling of skill and achievement -- either because you feel accomplished in having successfully gamed the system, or because you don't care that you cheated to get the #1 spot. Some people like seeing their name in lights and they don't care how they got there.

You might get the respect of many people and the satisfaction of having fooled them as well, because the number of people who play on isotropic and check/care about the leaderboard is likely to be a superset of the people who post here, and not everyone who posts here checks every thread.

You might also not consider it cheating at all -- different people draw the line in different places.