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1

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Dominion: Empires Announced!

« on: February 02, 2016, 03:37:11 am »

So excited for this!

I stopped playing online Dominion altogether about 14 months ago due to severe wrist tendonitis. So since then I have only played IRL Dominion, which naturally occurs much less frequently. Adventures really rekindled my interest in the game and Empires looks very exciting, taking the game in new directions. 2015-16 has been a surprisingly good time to be a Dominion fan, given that we expected the game to "end" with Guilds (at least for a long time).

I guess Adventures must have sold at least decently for them to do another expansion, which is also good news. I know that here in Denmark, several ordinary book stores sell Dominion and the various expansions.

2

Dominion: Adventures Previews / Re: Preview: Transmogrify

« on: March 31, 2015, 02:17:23 pm »

Gotta love this card. An instant favourite. This expansion is gonna be awesome.

3

Help! / Re: How did I lose on this GM board to Bandit Camp?

« on: May 30, 2014, 01:12:48 pm »

You got too many Bakers, economy-wise both Bandit Camp and Conspirator are better. And with Masq being the only draw and trashing, you absolutely want a 2nd, especially if your opponent is skipping it, allowing you to trash with reckless abandon.

Thanks. Going for the big GM-engine is still the right call in general, right? Or is it too slow to set up?

4

Help! / How did I lose on this GM board to Bandit Camp?

« on: May 30, 2014, 11:32:20 am »

Code: [Select]

Native Village, Masquerade, Tunnel, Conspirator, Feast, Scavenger, Baker, Bandit Camp, Royal Seal, Grand Market

So I figured there was a huge GM-Conspirator-Baker engine here with Masq providing the trashing.

But I lost to the bot playing a Bandit Camp-Conspirator "engine". The bot never even bought Masquerade!

The log is here: http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20140530/log.50f70ca7e4b0c53c94b0ca2d.1401463531810.txt

I tried to avoid buying treasure aside from a single silver, instead playing Bakers to gain coins with which to buy GM's.

I think I made at least a few mistakes here:

1) I didn't play Masq heavily enough. More aggressive Masq play could possibly have made the bot choke more.

2) I should probably have either bought a bit more early treasure OR bought a Bandit Camp to use the spoils to buy GM's.

Still I'm really surprised that the bot could buy 8 provinces in 18 turns with just 3 Conpirators, 2 Bandit Camps and 1 Baker.

Would love to hear what the experts think.

5

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Dominion in the Classroom

« on: May 28, 2014, 05:27:24 am »

As a high school teacher myself, I would be very interested to hear how this goes. Unfortunately I don't teach maths, but I could pass the idea along.

6

Help! / Re: How to build Scrying Pool with no trashing

« on: May 28, 2014, 01:29:07 am »

Open Potion/Sage.

Then buy only scrying pools, pawns and perhaps another sage.
Pawns are better then fishing villages now, because a) they can draw and b) they don't stop your sage from finding the potion.

At some point you start adding villages (mining village > fishing village here, although both are good), probably around turn 8-10.

How the game continues after that depends on what your opponent is doing. In a mirror, alchemists will not be worth it because 3-pile is already very close.
If he greens early, perhaps you can build a little more and get some alchemists after all.

I'm not a huge fan of the advisors here. It takes a long long time before you start to actually profit.

Damn. I would never have thought of this approach.

7

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Pillars of Dominion

« on: May 10, 2014, 02:33:07 am »

I'm pretty sure that an obscure promo card is not a pillar of the game.

inb4 the new promo is actually called Pillar

It's a combination of Pillage and Cellar.

Pillar
$5 Action-Attack

+1 Action
Each other player with 5 or more cards in hand reveals his hand and then discards as many cards from his hand that you choose. He then draws that same number of cards.

That could be a really annoying card. Not possession annoying, but still.

8

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition: $5 cards

« on: April 29, 2014, 08:46:38 am »

In a weak kingdom with say cards like Pearldiver, Duchess, Workshop, Woodcutter, Fortune Teller, Scout, Talisman, Harvest, Rebuild and Mountebank, do you go for a Rebuild strategy or a Mountebank strategy?

Instinctively, I would probably just go Rebuild, but I'm far from an expert.

9

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition: $5 cards

« on: April 29, 2014, 08:40:31 am »

For a while there I actually thought that Rebuild might take #1.

10

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Isotropish Leaderboard (alternative to Goko Pro)

« on: April 20, 2014, 12:03:12 pm »

Any idea why one would be massively higher rated on Isotropish than on Goko? I'm currently #587 on Goko, but #229 on Isotopish. Infact, I always seem to be higher rated on Isotropish.

Perhaps because your uncertainity is high, which means that Goko drops your rating more than Isotropish does.

No, Blueswan has Isotropish uncertainty of only 10.2, close to the lowest uncertainty of 9.x. The 1 sigma difference between the two ratings is unlikely to ever be the cause of such a difference, since Isotropish gives you a massively higher starting uncertainty - you start at 1000 points in Goko, but at level -50 (!) in Isotropish.

The most probable reason is that Blueswan plays very few games per day/week, so Goko's daily increase in uncertainty dominates the rating. It's the same for me.

Edit: Some bots (and one player) now have uncertainties <9. Was the algorithm changed in the meantime, or is this a rare coincidence?

The last few days I've been playing quite a bit, but up until a couple of weeks ago I pretty much hadn't played in 6 months or so. Still trying to find my groove. Getting better today even if my Goko rating is still fairly mediocre.

I don't know if it could have anything to do with the fact that the vast majority of my games are against Conqueror Bot.

11

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Isotropish Leaderboard (alternative to Goko Pro)

« on: April 20, 2014, 09:28:19 am »

Any idea why one would be massively higher rated on Isotropish than on Goko? I'm currently #587 on Goko, but #229 on Isotopish. Infact, I always seem to be higher rated on Isotropish.

12

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Donald announces new expansion!

« on: April 02, 2014, 10:06:21 am »

Joking aside, I actually really like these 5 cards:

Dungeon
3$ Action
Discard a card, trash a card, +3 cards

Tide
3$ Action-Duration
+1 action
Choose one:
+2 cards or discard two cards
At the beginning of your next turn, do the other one.

Surgeon
2$ Action
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal two cards with the same name. Trash the revealed cards.

The end is nigh
3$ Action-Attack-Ruins-Looter
+1 action +1 card. Reveal your hand. If you revealed at least one ruin card, all other players gain a Ruins.

Fat cow
5$ Action
Take 3 coin tokens

13

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Ideas for a Dominion tournament for noob students

« on: August 07, 2013, 10:46:09 am »

I also don't like the online idea.

One other thing you can do is have interested students sign up to bring their own games. (If you have to, have an approved list, or suggested ideas given time constraints, school code, appropriateness, etc.)

In high school for an NHS event we did this and it worked out really well. People brought Trivial Pursuit, Risk, cards (Euchre and hearts were big at the time), etc.

The people who bring the games obviously know the rules and are interested in playing, so that cuts down on having large upfront costs (both in terms of money to buy games for one-time use and in terms of teaching rules to a bunch of people). Students can mill about and play different games, too.

You could then contribute your own games (e.g. Dominion) and only have to teach a few interested students and keep a better eye on your games at the same time.

Of course, these are high schoolers choosing games over sports -- I hope there isn't too much of a concern about them ruining the games or eating the cards, or something.

WOW! This is a very good idea indeed. Amazing that I didn't think of that. Thanks mate! 

But they are not choosing games over sports. EVERYBODY has to do some sports for half of the day and then "other" activities the other half of the day. 

14

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Ideas for a Dominion tournament for noob students

« on: August 07, 2013, 10:31:26 am »

Okay, but playing online just seems convoluted to me.

If you want to go with Dominion for 20 students (5 groups of 4), you only need:
1 Base Set
1 Intrigue Set
3 Base Cards Sets.

The Base and Intrigue set provide 50 total kingdom cards which you can split into 5x10.
They also provide base cards for 2 groups so you only need 3 more.

This would cost around $100 (with shipping) for the school.

Right now, I'm thinking this would actually be nice. There'd be no tournament then. Just exploring the game. If I could make 5 fairly playable kingdoms from those 50 cards and then set a limit of 15 students so everybody would play 3 player games (a better gaming experience than 4 player IMO), then I think people will have a good time.

15

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Ideas for a Dominion tournament for noob students

« on: August 07, 2013, 08:32:19 am »

Have you considered playing werewolf? That's a game all students could play together and its very cheap or free if you make your own cards.
I think explaining Dominion to 20 people and then just having them play might not work out that well, whereas from my experience werewolf always works well.

Read about it, but haven't tried that either. In an ideal world I would try out all of these no doubt good suggestions, but I probably won't be able to find the time for it before the set date.

I kind of liked the idea of spreading the Dominion bug, but maybe it's not such a great idea after all. Not sure.

16

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Ideas for a Dominion tournament for noob students

« on: August 07, 2013, 06:09:32 am »

I mentioned card games earlier, how about Tichu? It supports 6 players, as well as Dalmuti.
You could mix partners or keep the same teams. You'd only need 3 sets, perhaps 4 and it's not very expensive.

Never played Tichu either! 

17

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Ideas for a Dominion tournament for noob students

« on: August 07, 2013, 06:08:56 am »

As much as I hate to say it, I would recommend a Magic: The Gathering tournament. You can get loads of cards for dirt cheap on the Internet. You don't need some crazy good cards just the basics like some creatures and spells to teach the fundamentals of the game. So, if you know the rules, you can have the kids pick a deck and compete with that and maybe even let them keep the deck at the end. Also, some kids might already know how to play Magic, so other kids can help teach the kids where the rules may have gone over the top of their head.

You might be right, but I've never actually played Magic myself.

18

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Ideas for a Dominion tournament for noob students

« on: August 07, 2013, 06:08:14 am »

If you want people to come to a game they've never played before, and then compete in a tournament, I don't think Dominion is the best game for that.  There's Go, there's Spades/Hearts/Euchre/those ones i don't know (very affordable). 

Dominion is the kind of game you spend ages playing and only get a little bit closer to understanding it.  The best experience for players picking up a game and then immediately competing would be one that is a little closer to being solved.

Yeah, the "tournament" was more for fun. It could very well just be playing for 2-3 hours. There's no need for a tournament structure as such.

19

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Ideas for a Dominion tournament for noob students

« on: August 07, 2013, 06:07:32 am »

Okay, but playing online just seems convoluted to me.

If you want to go with Dominion for 20 students (5 groups of 4), you only need:
1 Base Set
1 Intrigue Set
3 Base Cards Sets.

The Base and Intrigue set provide 50 total kingdom cards which you can split into 5x10.
They also provide base cards for 2 groups so you only need 3 more.

This would cost around $100 (with shipping) for the school.

Yeah, that's actually true. Would keep the cost down quite a bit.

20

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Ideas for a Dominion tournament for noob students

« on: August 07, 2013, 04:32:45 am »

Why not chess or checkers or something?

If they must be boardgames, uhhmm...some card games like Dalmuti perhaps?

I don't think Dominion is best suited for this kind of thing. If you force them to play online, they might just spend 2-3 hours on Facebook and agree on a draw.

I actually think that someone else is doing chess.

 I don't think students not participating is gonna be a problem since they'll be able to choose which activities they want to participate in.

21

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Ideas for a Dominion tournament for noob students

« on: August 07, 2013, 04:12:14 am »

A bit sad to play Dominion online with people in same room.

Yeah, I sort of agree.

22

Dominion General Discussion / Ideas for a Dominion tournament for noob students

« on: August 07, 2013, 03:21:21 am »

I'm a high school teacher. In september the school holds an "activity" day full of various competitions and events. Mostly sports, but the teachers are encouraged to come up with ideas. The gym teachers will organize all the sports events. The other teachers who participate each have to come up with some form of competition for 15-20 students. This event or competition will take place twice during the day with two different sets of 15-20 students.

My idea was to do some sort of boardgaming. First I wanted to see if there was a game that could be played with the whole group together. I sort of gave up on that. Second, I thought maybe we could divide the students up in smaller groups to play board games. The problem here is that I would either have them play MY OWN board games (reluctant to do that) or persuade the school to invest in board games (probably unlikely). Also, explaining rules for different board games to different groups would be virtually impossible.

So my idea now is to run a Dominion tournament. My first idea was to pursuade the school to buy 2 base sets and 2 sets of Intrigue and then have the students play the game in groups of four. However, I now think that maybe it would be more flexiable to simply hold a Goko tournament. So I would have the 15-20 students sign up at goko.com (for free, so base set only). I would explain the rules. I would then have the students join one of the obscure rooms with no other players in it and have them play as many games against each other in the 2-3 hour time frame as possible. Then the "winner" is the one with the highest ranking at the end.

What do you think about this? Does it sound workable? Any suggestions for improvements?

23

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Isotropish Leaderboard (alternative to Goko Pro)

« on: July 31, 2013, 01:58:10 pm »

I'm level 32 and ranked #159. Amazing. That is WAY higher than expected.

24

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Some of the best/interesting Kingdoms you can think of!

« on: July 07, 2013, 12:00:45 pm »

A Fairgrounds game I've made up:

Fairgrounds
Black Market
Tournament
Tribute
Harvest
Horn Of Plenty
Golem
King's Court
Knights
Rogue
Menagerie (bane)

It takes much longer to play than normal games, and you can get extremely long turns.
It may be pretty luck dependant.

A bane card with no Young Witch in the kingdom?

25

Dominion General Discussion / Re: WW's Power Rankings

« on: July 02, 2013, 04:52:34 am »

I'm more and more inclined to regard Rebuild as the strongest card in the game, since even with zero support it closes the game very very fast and it doesn't really care too much about having junk in your deck. The only real drawback for it seems to be shelters. On an Estate board, unless a very strong engine is possible that can close out the game in 12 turns or so, you probably should always go Rebuild. I think it is undercosted. At $6 it would have been much weaker, but still good. I don't like strategies as simple as the Rebuild strategy to be that strong.