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Dominion General Discussion / Re: Custom Set Challenge #2
« on: August 16, 2011, 05:15:01 am »
I'm guessing all cards with potion costs are off limits?
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77
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Explaining Chancellor to new players…
« on: August 13, 2011, 05:03:33 pm »
From Donald X's "The Secret History of the Dominion Cards" (which can be found in these forums):
Emphasis is mine. Valerie is a reference to Valerie Putman (I believe she contributed to the development of the game and helped demo it for RGG at Origins), but inessential to understanding what he's saying about the card here.
Quote
Chancellor: When Valerie got her copy of the game at Origins 2007, she also got a copy of the first expansion as I had it then. So when cards left the main set, she knew all about those expansion cards, and on one occasion nominated this card to be swapped into the main set. I think she was looking for another +coins card, to provide another anti-Thief option. I really like having the card in the main set, as it's simple but subtle. New players are always like, huh? Why would I want to do that?
Emphasis is mine. Valerie is a reference to Valerie Putman (I believe she contributed to the development of the game and helped demo it for RGG at Origins), but inessential to understanding what he's saying about the card here.
78
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Any Gossip About Fall 2011 Expansion?
« on: August 12, 2011, 07:08:26 pm »
I just checked and the Seaside and Prosperity texts don't seem to mention anything about components, so it's possible that this set will have some components (perhaps tokens, as we've seen for Pirate Ship, Trade Route, Embargo, and the VP tokens)?
79
Tournaments and Events / Re: Any GenCon or WBC news?
« on: August 11, 2011, 04:05:10 pm »The rest is easy, even with one copy of the full game, you can support 13 games each with 10 disjoint kingdom cards; to make it more fair, players could rotate to different tables (like duplicate bridge?), but maybe there are fears of scouting these tables?
I'm not sure if a significant amount could be gained by finding out what cards are available at each table, especially if every player has equal access. Unless there's a lot of potential downtime in the tournament for players to be practicing/simulating, I'm not sure how much of an advantage could be gained if everyone knows what every kingdom is going to be right when the tournament starts. It's not like there's hidden information in the setup like there is in Bridge.
This is quite true. However, I noticed that in my original suggestion, there would be issues with Black Market (this is easiest to fix, maybe just have 11 games instead of 13, or have a spare full-sized expansion or base game on hand), Potion cards, and Colonies/Platinums, but I'm sure something could be worked out.
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Tournaments and Events / Re: Any GenCon or WBC news?
« on: August 09, 2011, 09:41:16 pm »The fairest way to run a tournament (2-player only) is also the most impractical way to run a real-life tournament, since where are you going to find so many Dominion sets? Maybe you could split big sets (e.g., Table 2 gets a random set of 10 comprised of cards not in Table 1), but that seems like a huge logistical barrier.
Maybe RGG should sell some basic kits of the seven basic cards (which is about 220 cards). For two players, there need only be 170 base cards, so if we could take out 10 coppers and 10 silvers, we could bring this to 150 without drastically changing the game, which makes it the size of a small expansion. These would not only be excellent for tournaments, but also for players who don't want to sleeve their cards, but are only worried about wearing out their non-kingdom cards (once you own a lot of expansion, each individual kingdom card stack sees relatively infrequent play). Perhaps this could run for $25 retail.
The rest is easy, even with one copy of the full game, you can support 13 games each with 10 disjoint kingdom cards; to make it more fair, players could rotate to different tables (like duplicate bridge?), but maybe there are fears of scouting these tables? Then all we needs is for each player to purchase half a basic kit, or just bring a basic kit along.
Alternatively, forget the basic kit idea. Each player (or roughly half the players) bring their own basic cards from their own purchased set, and the kingdom cards are supplied by the tournament organizers.
81
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Which cursing card to go for (when 2+ are available)?
« on: August 07, 2011, 05:22:39 pm »
Thanks for running the sims, jonts26, it's good to have some data.
82
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Which cursing card to go for (when 2+ are available)?
« on: August 07, 2011, 02:19:08 pm »
I think I would still go for Torturers (in addition to other cursers, perhaps) in University games. Does this seem like a valid exception to the "don't get Torturers in the presence of other strong cursers" rule?
83
Dominion General Discussion / Which cursing card to go for (when 2+ are available)?
« on: August 07, 2011, 02:48:11 am »
When it comes to opening and early game strategy, one of the few things I'm still pretty unclear about is which cursing card to buy when there is more than one option. The main cursers are:
Witch
Torturer
Sea Hag
Familiar
Mountebank
Young Witch
I think I rarely go for young witch when there's something better on the board (especially if the bane card is strong such as fishing village, ambassador, or even lighthouse -- because that means the lighthouse can defend you twice as often). However when it comes to others, I'm not so sure.
If there's an article or post on this topic already out there, please let me know, and I apologize for the redundancy.
Witch
Torturer
Sea Hag
Familiar
Mountebank
Young Witch
I think I rarely go for young witch when there's something better on the board (especially if the bane card is strong such as fishing village, ambassador, or even lighthouse -- because that means the lighthouse can defend you twice as often). However when it comes to others, I'm not so sure.
- Would you always take a Sea Hag on a 4/3 start when Witch and/or Mountebank are out there?
- When is the Potion -> Familiar track worth the investment with Witch and/or Mountebank in the mix? Does this depend on the presence of other useful potion-cost cards such as Scrying Pool or Golem?
- Does the presence of other good cursers pretty much cause Torturer to be an overpriced Smithy, or are torturer chains still worth building?
- When it comes to Witch vs Mountebank, which will do the most damage? I feel the Mountebank's +$2 is more useful early on than the Witch's +2 cards when there are so many weak cards (coppers and curses) floating around in the game (at least with no trashing), but Mountebank won't always hit, maybe letting the Witch to allow the curses to split 6/4 (in favor of the Witch player), and with a little luck 7/3, but even then the Mountebank is always useful as it can hand out coppers even when the curse stack is depleted. Then again, I doubt Witch can be played as often as Mountebank, as the Witch player's deck has more weak cards in it. Therefore, intuitively, it seems to me that Mountebank is the way to go, at least more often than not.
- What cards on the board favor certain cursers over others? Perhaps Counting House makes Mountebank a liability, or Fishing Villages make Witch more appropriate than Familiars?
If there's an article or post on this topic already out there, please let me know, and I apologize for the redundancy.
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Dominion General Discussion / Re: Tournement / Competition?
« on: August 03, 2011, 12:13:45 pm »
Although I hadn't thought about it as much when I posed the 1/3 or 1/2 question, in light of what everyone has said, I think 1/2 makes more sense for Dominion. Of course, if we want to use integer-valued scores, we can let losses be worth 0, ties be worth 1, and wins be worth 2.
We can even make losses worth 1, ties worth 2, and wins worth 3; this way if someone can't make a game, rather than disqualifying them, they still may be able to place, while we still reward players for participation and playing every game.
It may also be worthwhile to have the top 4 (or 2 or 8, but I think 4 sounds about right) players of the Swiss tournament to play in a knockout tournament (maybe scheduled for a different day). We could even use best 3 of 5 for that round, but maybe I'm overcomplicating things.
We can even make losses worth 1, ties worth 2, and wins worth 3; this way if someone can't make a game, rather than disqualifying them, they still may be able to place, while we still reward players for participation and playing every game.
It may also be worthwhile to have the top 4 (or 2 or 8, but I think 4 sounds about right) players of the Swiss tournament to play in a knockout tournament (maybe scheduled for a different day). We could even use best 3 of 5 for that round, but maybe I'm overcomplicating things.
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Dominion General Discussion / Re: Tournement / Competition?
« on: August 02, 2011, 02:50:29 pm »Well, this explanation is way better than the one on Wikipedia.
I get it now, thanks.
Edit: I don't know whether an even number of players is needed. If so I will participate / sit out depending on the number of players.
If it is odd, I'll join in. If it is already even, I'll sit out.
There is a "bye" system to handle an odd number of players if people are fine with this. When using byes, the currently lowest ranked player in the tournament who has yet to receive a bye in this tournament (for the first game this can be decided randomly or using Isotropic ranking, as Agrisios has suggested) sits out for a round and plays no one, but receives a full win point (i.e. the number of points someone would receive for willing).
If a loss is worth 0 points and a win is worth 1 point, we have to decide how many points a tie is worth; the two standard choices are 1/3 (used in Magic: The Gathering and in group rounds of some association football tournaments) and 1/2 (used in chess).