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Dominion Articles / Re: Request: Remodel
« on: August 24, 2011, 07:14:09 am »
Remodel is part of the family of endgame accelerators. Of the endgame accelerators:
Remodel, Expand, Salvager, Apprentice, and Forge(?)
Remodel is undoubtedly the weakest overall, but it is conveniently written to turn platinums into colonies and golds into provinces. They tend to be a very valuable random buy near the end of the game, especially in a money-type deck since:
1) Money decks vs non-money decks tend to jump ahead in green in the beginning, then try to keep the lead in the endgame as they get dragged down by green. Remodel helps end the game quickly.
2) You are very likely to draw a top treasure card with your remodel, which is huge in the endgame. Sometimes all you need is to remodel a province into another province to win, also.
Remodel, Expand, Salvager, Apprentice, and Forge(?)
Remodel is undoubtedly the weakest overall, but it is conveniently written to turn platinums into colonies and golds into provinces. They tend to be a very valuable random buy near the end of the game, especially in a money-type deck since:
1) Money decks vs non-money decks tend to jump ahead in green in the beginning, then try to keep the lead in the endgame as they get dragged down by green. Remodel helps end the game quickly.
2) You are very likely to draw a top treasure card with your remodel, which is huge in the endgame. Sometimes all you need is to remodel a province into another province to win, also.
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Other Games / Re: 7 Wonders??
« on: August 16, 2011, 10:55:09 am »
I found 3-player 7 wonders to be reasonably tactical and fun, since you have a lot more control over what happens and can mostly tell which cards everyone is getting after the first two passes (in theory, after the first pass, but I don't know all the cards).
The big selling point of the game though is that additional players don't make the game proportionately longer to play, and the rules are pretty light.
The big selling point of the game though is that additional players don't make the game proportionately longer to play, and the rules are pretty light.
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Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Solving the Good Curse Card problem?
« on: August 14, 2011, 01:01:32 pm »You cannot trash this card. If this card would be trashed for any reason, place it in its owner's discard pile.1) Masquerade/Ambassador
2) If it was more expensive, this could potentially become a big issue with trash-for-benefit cards, especially apprentice/expand.
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Other Games / Re: Bridge
« on: August 13, 2011, 04:10:21 pm »
Combination dominion ladder + bridge individual to determine the world's best dominion + bridge player? lol
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Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Can you beat the Lucky Chancellor ?
« on: August 13, 2011, 04:09:00 pm »
I just want to say I thought this was a really inventive and clever puzzle, well done.
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Rules Questions / Re: Combo : beginne questions
« on: August 13, 2011, 04:04:34 pm »
Every new turn, you start with 1 action, 1 buy, and $0. You can think of:
1) $ available to spend on that turn
2) # of actions on that turn
3) # of buys on that turn
as three separate "pools" that you add to and take away from during your turn. When the action pool goes to zero, you can't play any more actions; when the buy pool goes to zero, you can't buy any more things.
1) $ available to spend on that turn
2) # of actions on that turn
3) # of buys on that turn
as three separate "pools" that you add to and take away from during your turn. When the action pool goes to zero, you can't play any more actions; when the buy pool goes to zero, you can't buy any more things.
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Dominion Articles / Re: Conspirator
« on: July 07, 2011, 04:31:01 am »I'm not convinced about the conditions under which the Conspirator engine is strong. Take for example the following:On this board, Conspirator will be your cash source and HP/Wharf/Village will be your draw engine, should not be too hard to hit double province turns pretty early.
2 Chapel, Secret Chamber
3 Lookout, Wishing Well
4 Conspirator, Walled Village
5 Apprentice, Festival, Hunting Party, Wharf
It's got most of what you want; a Village, strong trashing (Chapel), Lookout if you want that, Wishing Well, Hunting Party, no attacks whatsoever. Would the Conspirator engine in fact be too slow here?
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Dominion General Discussion / Re: 5/2 split and mint..
« on: July 07, 2011, 04:18:14 am »
Mint/Lighthouse is the only combination even worth considering, and even then, the answer would almost always be no. These conditions would certainly have to be satisfied
1) No good alternative $5 card
2) No alternative trashing
3) Some kind of strategy that benefits greatly from a thin deck (like Conspirator)
1) No good alternative $5 card
2) No alternative trashing
3) Some kind of strategy that benefits greatly from a thin deck (like Conspirator)
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Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Most VPs in 4 turns
« on: July 02, 2011, 12:58:00 pm »
Maybe I'm missing something, but...
Silver/Envoy
3: Draw Envoy, Silver, 3 copper. Play Envoy, drawing 3 copper and 2 estates, discarding an estate. Buy a province.
4: Draw the remaining 1 copper, 1 estate, reshuffle, drawing envoy silver copper. Play envoy, drawing 5 copper, discarding one. Buy a province.
Silver/Envoy
3: Draw Envoy, Silver, 3 copper. Play Envoy, drawing 3 copper and 2 estates, discarding an estate. Buy a province.
4: Draw the remaining 1 copper, 1 estate, reshuffle, drawing envoy silver copper. Play envoy, drawing 5 copper, discarding one. Buy a province.
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Dominion General Discussion / Re: Supporting Alchemists
« on: July 02, 2011, 12:47:01 pm »
You don't need +buy if it's a Colony board. Alchemist is a reasonably fast way to get to $11, and often you can play so that you are drawing your entire deck, which consists of about $11, for the rest of the game.
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Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion:Underworld feedback (fan expansion)
« on: July 02, 2011, 12:33:24 pm »
Blackmail seems way too good. It's a $4 cursing silver-equivalent, and even though its curses aren't really curses, you might be underrating how devastating -$1 on a 3 card hand is early in the game, they will often not even be able to buy silver. I don't think it's good enough to be priced at 5 though, so either make the card a little better and price it at 5 or make it a little worse and charge 4 (maybe give the Black Mark cards +1 action).
Courtesan is strong on non-trashing boards. Very strong, and I would often buy it in preference to Lab. In fact the obvious comparisons to Laboratory make me want to say that it should be firmly priced at 5, at which it is an interesting card, but at that point it is probably worse than Lab on average so who knows.
My reaction to Ringleader is that it's very very good, hard to ignore on almost all boards, and leads to very degenerate games because it combo's so well with itself. I would go so far as to say that I would probably never buy gold with Ringleader on the board, since it plays so well with itself, the power actions, or even +actions cards. It's possible you could price it at $7.
Counterfeit might be way too strong a deterrent to action-chaining decks that are low on money. Also, clarify something to me, can I reveal a Counterfeit to knock -$3 off my opponents' Counterfeit? If I can, then that sucks because it makes the game incredibly random, and then the card is not playable. If I can't, then I like the card more, and well, that's what playtesting is for.
Overall though I think you did a good job with the theme and if you were in the LA area this is the kind of thing I'd be happy to playtest.
Courtesan is strong on non-trashing boards. Very strong, and I would often buy it in preference to Lab. In fact the obvious comparisons to Laboratory make me want to say that it should be firmly priced at 5, at which it is an interesting card, but at that point it is probably worse than Lab on average so who knows.
My reaction to Ringleader is that it's very very good, hard to ignore on almost all boards, and leads to very degenerate games because it combo's so well with itself. I would go so far as to say that I would probably never buy gold with Ringleader on the board, since it plays so well with itself, the power actions, or even +actions cards. It's possible you could price it at $7.
Counterfeit might be way too strong a deterrent to action-chaining decks that are low on money. Also, clarify something to me, can I reveal a Counterfeit to knock -$3 off my opponents' Counterfeit? If I can, then that sucks because it makes the game incredibly random, and then the card is not playable. If I can't, then I like the card more, and well, that's what playtesting is for.
Overall though I think you did a good job with the theme and if you were in the LA area this is the kind of thing I'd be happy to playtest.
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Dominion General Discussion / Rabble
« on: June 30, 2011, 03:09:23 am »
I've been thinking a lot about cards I don't really get, and I feel I don't understand Rabble very well. I have some questions for the community.
Exactly how powerful is it on a nontrashing board with +actions?
If I have sufficient +actions, is it typically worth buying in the midgame?
How do you play a rabble deck against another rabble deck?
How good do you think the card is, overall? How often do you buy it when it's available?
Exactly how powerful is it on a nontrashing board with +actions?
If I have sufficient +actions, is it typically worth buying in the midgame?
How do you play a rabble deck against another rabble deck?
How good do you think the card is, overall? How often do you buy it when it's available?
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Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Province on Turn 3
« on: June 30, 2011, 02:57:45 am »So is it possible to get a T3 Colony?
With opponent interaction it is: follow the instructions to get T3 $10 and just throw in a council room to have another copper in hand. How about solitaire?
In 3+ player? Sure, two opponents play Council Room, I draw coppersmith with 6 coppers.
In 2 player? I don't think so.
Edit: Ah, forgot about WW (see below comments), good catch.
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Game Reports / Re: Trading Post/- or Vault/-
« on: June 28, 2011, 02:09:24 am »I would never consider cutpurse to be an elite opener, it is worse than Militia after all. It's something that I tend to open only when there is nothing better to do.TP is a unique card in that it's elite as an opener, merely good at turn 3/4, and pretty much crap after that.
Cutpurse too, no?
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Dominion Articles / Re: Making it to Level 42: Level 1- The Beginnning
« on: June 24, 2011, 03:05:49 pm »
Great article idea, looking forward to the whole series.
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Game Reports / Re: Interesting Warehouse Board
« on: June 24, 2011, 01:50:06 pm »Seems kinda standard tho, I feel like im missing the point of the OP.
No real point, I thought it was interesting though. The reason we open Potion/Warehouse on a board with Familiar is we want to maximize our chance of hitting 3P before the reshuffle (I think it's better than Silver/P, anyway) and we want to maximize the number of familiars we play by cycling our deck way faster. When we accomplish this, what tends to happen is that our economy is broken, but unless our opponent has done the same thing their deck is even more ruined and we have enough time to recover. Remember, Warehouse/Familiar doesn't even really buy more than a silver or two in terms of economy for the first few turns.
In this game, there are two curse-resistant counter strategies. If Warehouse/TM hits, you can go pretty far by just spamming warehouses until you can find 3 gold or GGS in 9 non-warehouse cards. Another unbelievably curse-resistant strategy is Chancellor/Stash, where you never see the bad part of your deck anyway because you are spamming Chancellors, and getting 2+ stash before being overcome with curses should not be a problem, after which you can consistently buy chancellor/stash/province. Maybe some sort of hybrid strategy would work too.
I'm not sure what the answer is. At the table I went with Warehouse/TM and my opponent opened Warehouse/Potion. I hit TM at turn 5 and after that it was mostly over, though all this proved was that if nearly the best possible scenario happens for your strategy, you will probably win. I actually misplayed badly to win by only 1, but it should not have been close.
I would actually like to know what is the expected turn you hit Treasure Maps on with opening TM/Warehouse (buy rules: open TM/Warehouse, buy one other treasure map, else buy warehouses until they activate), if anyone can bother to figure that out.
Game log:
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110607-144518-7e707f8a.html
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Game Reports / Interesting Warehouse Board
« on: June 24, 2011, 12:56:33 pm »
Supply:
Harvest
Mint
Contraband
Stash
Coppersmith
Thief
Treasure Map
Familiar
Chancellor
Warehouse
You open 3/4 in first position (2 player). What is your plan?
(Your opponent opens 3/4 as well, his first buy is a Warehouse.)
Harvest
Mint
Contraband
Stash
Coppersmith
Thief
Treasure Map
Familiar
Chancellor
Warehouse
You open 3/4 in first position (2 player). What is your plan?
(Your opponent opens 3/4 as well, his first buy is a Warehouse.)
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Dominion General Discussion / Re: Open: What $3 cards are better than a silver?
« on: June 23, 2011, 03:11:42 pm »
Assuming your $4 is a terminal:
$2 I commonly use an opening buy on with $3:
Chapel (duh)
Pawn (if going for heavy trashing/actions deck, choosing +1 card/+$1 gives reasonable buying power in the beginning, and in the end you dont get slowed down by silvers)
Embargo (when opponent opens potion)
Lighthouse (vs heavy attacks)
Hamlet (peddler rush)
Best $3 openers:
Masquerade (Masquerade does not play well with terminals, beware of opening terminal/Masquerade, it is probably way worse than Masq/Silver)
Ambassador (duh)
Steward (duh)
Swindler (this card is situational, if you think your opponent is going to spam good $5 cards, turning them into Duchys is very powerful, this card is also really good if there is a bad $4/$3 on the board, sometimes I open 2x Swindler on boards where it's great)
Fishing Village (duh, FV is an action/draw deck's wet dream)
Lookout (if there is no other way to trash or if i trashing is a big priority)
Loan (but only if trashing to build an action-chaining deck is a priority, the -$1 buying power is big)
Warehouse (anytime your goal is to play a cursing attack over and over again, warehouse will help you draw it more frequently, also ridiculously good on boards without trashing)
$2 I commonly use an opening buy on with $3:
Chapel (duh)
Pawn (if going for heavy trashing/actions deck, choosing +1 card/+$1 gives reasonable buying power in the beginning, and in the end you dont get slowed down by silvers)
Embargo (when opponent opens potion)
Lighthouse (vs heavy attacks)
Hamlet (peddler rush)
Best $3 openers:
Masquerade (Masquerade does not play well with terminals, beware of opening terminal/Masquerade, it is probably way worse than Masq/Silver)
Ambassador (duh)
Steward (duh)
Swindler (this card is situational, if you think your opponent is going to spam good $5 cards, turning them into Duchys is very powerful, this card is also really good if there is a bad $4/$3 on the board, sometimes I open 2x Swindler on boards where it's great)
Fishing Village (duh, FV is an action/draw deck's wet dream)
Lookout (if there is no other way to trash or if i trashing is a big priority)
Loan (but only if trashing to build an action-chaining deck is a priority, the -$1 buying power is big)
Warehouse (anytime your goal is to play a cursing attack over and over again, warehouse will help you draw it more frequently, also ridiculously good on boards without trashing)
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Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Max Points From Green Cards
« on: June 18, 2011, 10:40:34 pm »
It's better to have actions than Harems.
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Dominion General Discussion / Re: Which is the card you hate the most?
« on: June 17, 2011, 02:40:02 pm »If you're talking about cards that reduce the board to 1 strategy, don't forget goons, familiar and the most annoying of all... minion. If course, you can always overlap these cards and the game becomes a bit more interesting... but incredibly brutal.
Swindler is the worst card to have vs weak players imo. On the other hand, the almost as random saboteur is a card I don't want to see vs good players.
This is true, but
1) While it's obvious to buy Goons when it's available, the way to use the card is not obvious, and "Goons games" have their own strategy to them. As an example, I think I lost a game to you recently when I did not appreciate how to properly build the engine, even though we both bought it. Even deciding when to start buying coppers is a nontrivial problem.
2) Sometimes it's right to ignore Familiar, but mostly I agree. The problem with the card is compounded by the fact that it's severely random, if you don't hit it on turns 3/4 that is the end of the game.
3) I have been thinking recently that Minion is not as dominant as people think. Yes it's very good, but it can be beaten by other engines, and determining which to go for is an interesting problem on some boards.
I didn't mention Swindler because even though it's a very annoying card, it isn't a substitute for an actual strategy, unlike Mountebank, where your strategy is probably just "play Mountebank as many times as possible."
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Dominion General Discussion / Re: Math/probability for silver/potion opening - getting Familiar/Alchemist turn 3/4
« on: June 17, 2011, 02:24:05 pm »
You are 5/6 to hit your potion on turns 3 or 4. Assume you hit your potion (5/6).
On the hand where you hit your potion...
if you draw silver (4/11), then you need SPEEE to not hit it, which is 1-1/Binomial(10,3) = 119/120
if you don't draw silver (7/11), then you need either CCCE or CCCC to hit it, which is (Binomial(7,3) * Binomial(3,1) + Binomial(7,4)) / Binomial(10,4) = 2/3
So your chance of hitting 3P on either turns 3 or 4 is
5/6 * (4/11 * 119/120 + 7/11 * 2/3) = 259/396 = .654
or you could just ignore this and read theory's post above.
On the hand where you hit your potion...
if you draw silver (4/11), then you need SPEEE to not hit it, which is 1-1/Binomial(10,3) = 119/120
if you don't draw silver (7/11), then you need either CCCE or CCCC to hit it, which is (Binomial(7,3) * Binomial(3,1) + Binomial(7,4)) / Binomial(10,4) = 2/3
So your chance of hitting 3P on either turns 3 or 4 is
5/6 * (4/11 * 119/120 + 7/11 * 2/3) = 259/396 = .654
or you could just ignore this and read theory's post above.
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Dominion General Discussion / Re: Which is the card you hate the most?
« on: June 17, 2011, 01:58:54 pm »
I dislike cards that tend to reduce the number of viable strategies on the board to 1. Witch, Mountebank, and Torturer (if chaining is allowed) are the biggest offenders of this, and those are the last three cards I want to see when playing a level <20 player, especially Mountebank.
Cards like Possession actually have a significant strategy built around them, so even though they randomize the game a bit, I actually like the card. I think level < 25 players typically do not grasp how to play a Possession game.
Cards like Possession actually have a significant strategy built around them, so even though they randomize the game a bit, I actually like the card. I think level < 25 players typically do not grasp how to play a Possession game.
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Variants and Fan Cards / Re: What would you like to see in Dominion?
« on: June 16, 2011, 07:31:09 pm »
An official storage box to put all the sets together. Yes I know there are instructions to make one, but I would rather just pay 10 dollars.
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Dominion General Discussion / Re: Beginner Game Flow + Strategy
« on: June 14, 2011, 03:46:01 am »
An exercise I find useful is thinking about what a card is "like". Here is an example for Mine, one of the beginning player's most beloved cards.
Beginner: Wow, what a great way to churn out golds. Gold is so hard to buy, but now I am just popping them out every turn with my silvers, and I even get to use them immediately.
Actually, in terms of buying power, your mine is worth a copper to you every time you draw it (barring platinums), since Silver + Mine = Gold = Silver + Copper. Near the end of the game it's like a $5 terminal copper, so if you think of it this way, you will see how bad it is. If you are playing a "money" type deck, the game is probably over in 16-17 turns anyway, so if you buy your mine relatively late (turn 8+) you almost surely would have done better to just buy a silver.
Here is a look at another card, Ambassador, a card often ignored by beginners.
How much money would you pay for a card that said this: Trash up to 2 cards, your opponents each gain a curse. Probably a lot! It's way better than witch until the midgame, which is already an obvious must-buy in almost all games.
Obviously ambassador is not nearly this good, but at a cost of $3, it's often doing something similar ("trashing" two cards from your hand, giving your opponent a useless (estate) or near-useless (copper) card). In these terms it's almost frightening that ambassador costs $3.
Beginner: Wow, what a great way to churn out golds. Gold is so hard to buy, but now I am just popping them out every turn with my silvers, and I even get to use them immediately.
Actually, in terms of buying power, your mine is worth a copper to you every time you draw it (barring platinums), since Silver + Mine = Gold = Silver + Copper. Near the end of the game it's like a $5 terminal copper, so if you think of it this way, you will see how bad it is. If you are playing a "money" type deck, the game is probably over in 16-17 turns anyway, so if you buy your mine relatively late (turn 8+) you almost surely would have done better to just buy a silver.
Here is a look at another card, Ambassador, a card often ignored by beginners.
How much money would you pay for a card that said this: Trash up to 2 cards, your opponents each gain a curse. Probably a lot! It's way better than witch until the midgame, which is already an obvious must-buy in almost all games.
Obviously ambassador is not nearly this good, but at a cost of $3, it's often doing something similar ("trashing" two cards from your hand, giving your opponent a useless (estate) or near-useless (copper) card). In these terms it's almost frightening that ambassador costs $3.
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