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.

1

Dominion Articles / The Tables quote

« on: December 27, 2022, 01:05:42 pm »

This famous post from Tables is often quoted in paraphrasing, but the real post is buried in the middle of a godawful thread and not that easy to search for unless you remember the exact wording so here it is for everyone's convenience.

In Dominion, the objective is not to have the most points when the game ends. The objective to have the game end when you have the most points.

This fundamental understanding of the objective of the game changes a lot of the perspective on how you should play. Ending the game isn't just something which will eventually happen, but should in fact be a part of your goal. In fact, in many engine type games, you might be more concerned with the question of 'can I end the game' than 'can I score points'!

That said, the points obviously still matter. You need to have more of them before you end the game - or a means to get more when you do end the game. Therefore, getting a single Province when piles begin to run low can be a very powerful move. Now your opponent might be able to end the game, but they won't be able to have more points when they do it. Conversely they might end up with more points from their turn, but they won't end the game, giving you a chance to do so instead.

And of course as seems to be always the case in Dominion, edge cases apply. 3+ player games are fundamentally different because someone may end the game as strong second instead of possibly being overtaken. Sometimes (actually not too infrequently) racing to get 1/2 of the points is a better choice than just ending the game - once you have half the points, you can't lose. etc.

2

Other Games / Generals.io

« on: November 03, 2022, 01:07:18 pm »

https://generals.io/

Does anyone else here play Generals? I was introduced to it a while ago, and it's a pretty fun fast-paced turn-based* strategy game with minimal RNG (the map is randomly generated and leads to asymmetrical starting positions, and it has fog of war, but there's no other RNG during the game itself; the difference the starting position makes is still completely negligible at the skill level I'm at in 1v1, makes a considerable minor difference in 2v2, and actually matters a lot in 8-player FFA, which are the three main game modes people queue for).

It has a bit of that problem where most people you run into are either pros you have no chance of beating or n00bs who have no chance of beating you, which is typical of low RNG games without huge player bases, but the player base is at least large enough that some of the time you get winnable but non-trivial matches too. I've also found it entertaining enough to play against the pros who beat me every time, because it helps me improve faster.

In fact, probably the best thing about the game is how quickly you can improve at it, since there's no need to memorize e.g. units, interactions, lines or anything like that.

*: TL note: turns are simultaneous and take 0.5 seconds each

3

Dominion Online at Shuffle iT / Is ShiT down?

« on: October 30, 2022, 01:31:47 pm »

My Internet connection seems to be working otherwise, but ShiT suddenly stopped working and won't reload anymore.

4

Puzzles and Challenges / Biggest limited collection?

« on: October 04, 2022, 08:32:16 am »

In solo game using a kingdom with Collection and some finite higher limit of how many VP you can get with Collections, what is the highest number of VP tokens you can get from Collections and how? You can assume perfect shuffle luck.

I don't actually have a complete solution myself, and I imagine the perfect solution involves optimizing the early game for a few extra VP which might or might not be so exciting to solve, but there are some cool tricks that let you go pretty high without quite going infinite.

5

Rules Questions / Merchant Camp + Way of the Mouse as Duration

« on: September 02, 2022, 09:10:25 am »

My understanding is that when you play a card as WotM->Duration, the card should stay in play to track the Duration, and in most cases, this is how it indeed works on ShiT. However, Merchant Camp is different — you can topdeck it at the end of your turn even if it has been played as WotM->Duration, and that seems weird to me. Is there some kind of a rules interaction there that I'm missing, or does ShiT just get the rules wrong in this case?

6

Other Games / Jelly Is Sticky

« on: May 19, 2022, 07:13:09 pm »

So, this new puzzle game by Lunarch Studios (whom you might remember as the developers of Prismata) just came out a few hours ago. Which is incredibly exciting for me personally, because I wrote and produced the music for the game, and this is the first time a game I've done music for is actually getting released. What's also exciting is that it's been really long singe Lunarch released anything and the game seems pretty cool based on SpiritFryer's stream, which I watched, and presumably the puzzles get harder later on although I haven't gotten any further in the game than that myself.

As of now, some people including myself are affected by a graphics bug that makes the game pretty annoying to play, but others are able to play it just fine. They're working on fixing that bug but there's no ETA on that. EDIT: It got fixed!

7

Dominion Online at Shuffle iT / A decline of rematching on Shuffle iT

« on: April 29, 2021, 12:35:47 am »

Recently, it seems to be pretty common for people to decline the rematch and then requeue immediately, only to get rematched against me anyway. Why on earth do people do this? It seems very silly.

8

Game Reports / Menagerie hype general

« on: March 03, 2020, 04:16:39 pm »

Post your fun Menagerie preview games here.

I'll start with this Procession/Fortress/Supplies/Kiln game in which I gained 9 Kilns, 4 Processions, a Fortress and a Province on turn 9:

Turn 9 - Awaclus
A starts their turn.
A gets +$1.
A plays a Procession.
A plays a Horse.
A draws a Procession and an Amulet.
A gets +1 Action.
A returns a Horse to the Horse pile.
Procession can no longer move Horse (it already moved).
A plays a Horse again.
A draws 2 Supplies.
A gets +1 Action.
A gains a Procession.
A plays a Procession.
A plays a Horse.
A draws a Copper and a Supplies.
A gets +1 Action.
A returns a Horse to the Horse pile.
Procession can no longer move Horse (it already moved).
A plays a Horse again.
A draws 2 Processions.
A gets +1 Action.
A gains a Procession.
A plays a Procession.
A plays a Procession.
A plays a Horse.
A shuffles their deck.
A draws 2 Processions.
A gets +1 Action.
A returns a Horse to the Horse pile.
Procession can no longer move Horse (it already moved).
A plays a Horse again.
A gets +1 Action.
A gains a Procession.
A plays a Procession again.
A plays a Procession.
A plays a Procession.
A plays a Fortress.
A shuffles their deck.
A draws a Procession.
A gets +2 Actions.
A plays a Fortress again.
A gets +2 Actions.
A trashes a Fortress.
A puts a Fortress into their hand.
A gains a Kiln.
A plays a Procession again.
A plays a Procession.
A plays a Fortress.
A shuffles their deck.
A draws a Kiln.
A gets +2 Actions.
A plays a Fortress again.
A gets +2 Actions.
A trashes a Fortress.
A puts a Fortress into their hand.
A gains a Kiln.
A plays a Procession again.
A plays a Kiln.
A gets +$2.
A plays a Kiln again.
A gains a Kiln.
A gets +$2.
A trashes a Kiln.
A trashes a Procession.
A gains a Kiln.
A trashes a Procession.
A gains a Kiln.
A plays a Procession again.
A gains a Procession.
A plays a Fortress.
A shuffles their deck.
A draws a Kiln.
A gets +2 Actions.
A plays a Fortress again.
A draws a Kiln.
A gets +2 Actions.
A trashes a Fortress.
A puts a Fortress into their hand.
A gains a Kiln.
A trashes a Procession.
A gains a Kiln.
A trashes a Procession.
A gains a Kiln.
A plays a Kiln.
A gets +$2.
A plays a Kiln.
A gains a Kiln.
A gets +$2.
A plays a Fortress.
A gains a Fortress.
A draws a Kiln.
A gets +2 Actions.
A plays a Kiln.
A gets +$2.
A plays an Amulet.
A trashes a Copper.
A plays a Supplies.
A gains a Horse.
A plays a Supplies.
A gains a Horse.
A plays a Supplies.
A gains a Horse.
A buys and gains a Province.
A draws a Procession, a Kiln and 3 Horses.

Too bad Triumph wasn't in the set.

9

Forum Games / Invitation to the Mafia Championship (season 6)

« on: March 29, 2019, 10:56:45 am »

(this is the invitation, not written by me)

INVITATION TO THE MAFIA CHAMPIONSHIP (SEASON 6)

Ahoy there!

I’m very excited to invite your community to participate in Season 6 of the Mafia Championship.

The Mafia Championship is an annual forum-based tournament series that pits representatives from various online Mafia (aka Werewolf) communities against one another as they compete to determine the Internet’s greatest forum Mafia player. Each participating community democratically elects one person to represent them and be their “Champion”.

The tournament first started back in 2013. Since then, 270+ different communities and 50+ different nationalities have been represented.

It’s a super fun event that has created many new friendships and close bonds between communities. I hope that you would be interested in taking part

1. DO YOU ACCEPT THE INVITATION?

If your community wishes to participate, please confirm your participation to Thingyman as soon as you can to ensure yourselves a spot. Currently, the plan is to accommodate 187 communities this season (last season featured 170 communities), and if interest is high enough we will expand even further to 204.

If your community agrees to participate, the deadline for selecting your representative is April 26, but the sooner the better.

The games will take place on Mafia Universe. If it’s okay, I can link directly to the general discussion thread regarding this topic on Mafia Universe.

Important notes

• You may decide yourselves how you want to elect your representative, but we highly recommend some sort of democratic process (public nominations followed by a poll usually works out well).
• In addition to electing a representative, you should also name an alternate who will be asked to step in if the first choice needs to back out.
• Your representative should be prepared for having to read upwards of 600 posts per 24 hours during the early stages of the game. Additionally, there’s a requirement that each player must make at least 10 posts per Game Day. Only active players should apply/participate. I repeat: Your chosen player needs to be able to promise a good amount of activity on a daily basis.

2. SEASON 6 FORMAT

The tournament structure

• 187 communities will participate, each sending one representative.
• QUALIFIERS: 11 Qualifying Games will be played, consisting of 17 players each. I.e. every representative plays in one Qualifying Game. The players themselves vote post-game to determine who is deserving of advancement. 1st place will advance directly to the Finale Game (i.e. 11 of the 17 finalists are found this way), while the 2nd place finishers will advance directly to one of the two Wildcard Games.
• WILDCARDS: A Jury consisting of finalists from Season 5 will discuss and vote to determine 23 players in total deserving of a second chance. They will play in 2 Wildcard Games along with the aforementioned 2nd place finishers that advanced directly to these games. From each game, three players will advance to the Finale Game based on a post-game player vote, just like in the qualifying phase.
• THE FINALE: The Finale Game is played. Once it has completed, the players vote to determine who shall receive the title of Season 6 Champion and a winner’s certificate signed by Dmitry Davidoff, the creator of mafia.

This year’s setup: Mad17
The setup is called Mad17 and features 17 players.

13x Town
4x Mafia

Each of the following 17 roles will be assigned at random to one player in the game without regard for the player's alignment. Each role is restricted to using its action only on the nights listed on the chart.



Relevant mechanics info
- Day start
- Role reveals at death are alignment only. You will not learn a player's exact role when they die.
- Majority is not in effect.
- Votes are automatically locked in at LYLO.
- Mafia factional kills are assigned. They can be tracked, watched, or roleblocked.
- Mafia share a factional Night Kill, which is a single standard shot for their faction.
- Mafia members may perform the faction kill in addition to their regular action at the same time.
- Mafia may communicate at any time.
- Tied votes will result in a player being lynched at random from among the tied players.
- Each individual player may make a maximum of 200 posts per day phase (this restriction is lifted 2 hours before day end).
- The game will have a host to oversee everything and make sure everyone’s following the code of conduct, but otherwise the game is completely automated (automatic votecounts, thread locks and reveals roles automatically, the bot receives and processes actions, etc.).

3. SEASON 6 TIMELINE

There will be 11 Qualifying Games, and your representative plays in just one of these. They will have start dates during the months of April, May and June. So in other words, as long as your representative can play sometime during that period, they should be good and I’ll make sure they get scheduled into a game that suits their schedule well. I.e. if your rep is busy until June, that isn’t a problem.

Wildcard games will be played in July, and the Finale Game sometime in August/September (whenever we can work out something that suits everyone).

If you want to get in contact with me ASAP, you can find me on Discord (Thingyman#6075).

Kind regards,
Thingyman

10

Dominion General Discussion / The Dominion Cards Lists 2018 Edition: $0-$2 Cards (Top Half)

« on: February 12, 2019, 04:25:06 am »

Note:  There were 3 new cards added in the $0-$2 range from Renaissance.

The Best - Cards (Top Half)

	#24 =0 Border Guard (Renaissance) Weighted Average: 50.21% / Unweighted Average: 52.27% / Median: 53.19% / Standard Deviation: 19.88% Border Guard is the ultimate mediocre card, sitting at almost exactly the middle of the weighted ranking. It is one rank higher in the unweighted ranking. It never hurts your deck in a vacuum because it’s a cantrip, and its ability is not super amazing, but it’s just useful enough that it’s quite often a pretty reasonable purchase when you have a spare $2-3 and there’s nothing more important to buy. It received a wide range of different votes from very low to very high, but it was never voted first or last.
	#23 ▼2 Crossroads (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 50.35% ▼2.6pp / Unweighted Average: 53.18% / Median: 51.06% ▼3.6pp / Standard Deviation: 20.08% After gaining a rank last year, Crossroads lost two ranks this year. It is one rank higher in the unweighted ranking. It’s a non-trivial card to utilize in a traditional engine, since it doesn’t draw any cards on its own and it only acts as an anti-terminal once per turn, but it does have its uses every so often. Like Border Guard, it received a wide range of votes, but never first or last.
	#22 ▲5 Native Village (Seaside) Weighted Average: 51.49% ▲4.7pp / Unweighted Average: 52.1% / Median: 51.06% ▲3.3pp / Standard Deviation: 18.59% Native Village gained 5 ranks this year, taking it from the bottom half of this list to the top half. In the unweighted ranking, it is 2 ranks lower. Native Village is a very strong card in some rare situations where you’re able to utilize its setting-aside ability to create a megaturn or to pseudo-trash your bad cards, but most of the time, it is still a perfectly usable (if less than ideal) anti-terminal for a regular engine. It was voted #1 by one voter.
	#21 ▲2 Fool's Gold (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 54.69% ▲6.2pp / Unweighted Average: 55.79% / Median: 55.32% ▲0.7pp / Standard Deviation: 22.83% After an astonishing drop of 11 ranks last year, Fool’s Gold gained two ranks this year. It’s slightly higher but on the same rank in the unweighted list. It also has one of the highest standard deviations on the list, meaning that there’s a lot of disagreement in the community over how strong it is. Fool’s Gold is certainly no longer the powerhouse it was once considered to be, mostly because it doesn’t fit very naturally into the early game of an engine build order, but it can still be used as a late-game payload in the absence of better options, as well as the occasional big money style deck. It was voted last once.
	#20 ▼1 Squire (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 59.47% ▲0.5pp / Unweighted Average: 61.56% / Median: 63.83% ▲4.7pp / Standard Deviation: 15.61% Squire continues its trend of falling down the ranks, but this year it actually gained some points, signaling that it’s starting to stabilize. It is 4 ranks higher in the unweighted ranking, suggesting that it might be overvalued by less experienced players. Squire is a versatile card for engines and other types of decks, doing a pretty unimpressive job at a few different important roles. The on-trash benefit can oftentimes be a trap, since losing the Squire, losing the ability to play the Squire that turn, and wasting an opportunity to get rid of a junk card is, in total, a steep cost to pay for what might easily feel like a “free” Attack card, but there are a few situations where you can utilize that ability to great extent. One voter voted it first.
	#19 ▼4 Courtyard (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 60.82% ▼9.1pp / Unweighted Average: 57.81% / Median: 61.7% ▼4.2pp / Standard Deviation: 19.76% Courtyard was still considered a top 5 card in 2015’s list, but it has since then lost ranks each year, and this year is no different. In the unweighted list, it is a rank higher but a few points lower. While the card used to be one of the better options for monolithic big money strategies, nowadays its best use case is perhaps in the early game of an engine, where it can help you cycle faster and hit $5 more often, without becoming a liability in the later stages of the game. Nobody voted it first or last.
	#18 ▲7 Pixie (Nocturne) Weighted Average: 62.1% ▲15pp / Unweighted Average: 56.69% / Median: 59.57% ▲11.8pp  / Standard Deviation: 19.36% Pixie gained an impressive 7 ranks from last year. In the unweighted ranking, it is two ranks lower. Like any other cantrip, Pixie doesn’t hurt your deck in a vacuum, but unlike the lower ranked cantrips on this list, the benefit that it gives can sometimes be very substantial. It wasn’t voted first or last.
	#17 ▲1 Lighthouse (Seaside) Weighted Average: 62.8% ▲3.7pp / Unweighted Average: 63.3% / Median: 61.7% ▲0.3pp / Standard Deviation: 15.7% Lighthouse has been dropping in ranks for a long time, but this year, it broke that trend and gained a rank. It is 3 ranks higher in the unweighted ranking. As the primary purpose of the card is to block Attacks, its strength depends very largely on the Attacks that are available in the kingdom, but being non-terminal, it is relatively convenient to add to your deck when you need that defense. It was voted first by nobody, and it was voted in the bottom third by nobody, being the lowest ranking card on this list to achieve that feat.
	#16 =0 Travelling Fair (Adventures) Weighted Average: 63.03% ▲2.6pp / Unweighted Average: 57.23% / Median: 61.7% ▲2.6pp / Standard Deviation: 21.81% After rising 8 ranks last year, Travelling Fair stays in that same spot this year. It is 3 ranks lower in the unweighted list. Travelling Fair is a card-shaped thing that you don’t always end up buying, but its strength comes from the opportunities and flexibility that it provides just by being there — you no longer have to buy an Herbalist for $11 or buy it preemptively before you really need it when TF is available. It wasn’t voted first or last.
	#15 =0 Lackeys (Renaissance) Weighted Average: 65.17% / Unweighted Average: 62.15% / Median: 65.96% / Standard Deviation: 21.59% LACKEYS is a powerful 2-card terminal draw that can act as a 2-shot anti-terminal instead if necessary. Oh, and it’s ALSO PROMPT. It’s the same rank in the unweighted list, but with a substantially lower score, and nobody voted it first or last.
	#14 ▲1 Borrow (Adventures) Weighted Average: 67.8% ▲8.5pp / Unweighted Average: 60.87% / Median: 65.96% ▲9.2pp / Standard Deviation: 24.57% Borrow continues to rise in the rankings this year, gaining 8.5 points but only one rank. It’s three ranks lower in the unweighted ranking. The "strength" of an effect such as Borrow can be very difficult to evaluate, even if we have a pretty good understanding of when it’s a good idea to buy one, and this manifests as a rather high standard deviation, but although it has votes ranging from the bottom 10% to the top 10%, nobody voted it first or last.
	#13 ▼4 Coin of the Realm (Adventures) Weighted Average: 69.23% ▼6.7pp / Unweighted Average: 68.7% / Median: 74.47% ▼2.8pp / Standard Deviation: 17.65% After losing 2 ranks last year, CotR lost 4 more ranks this year. It is 2 ranks higher in the unweighted list. CotR is great for adding reliability to terminal draw engines, at the cost of having a stop card in your deck only some of the time. Nobody voted it in the bottom ¼, and nobody voted it first.
	#12 ▲1 Ratcatcher (Adventures) Weighted Average: 69.8% ▼0.8pp / Unweighted Average: 71.99% / Median: 72.34% ▲1.8pp / Standard Deviation: 13.65% Ratcatcher gained another rank this year after gaining one last year as well. It’s two ranks higher in the unweighted ranking. It’s a versatile and cheap trasher that basically never gets in your way, and this is why it is fairly highly ranked, even though it is slower than most other trashers. It has the lowest standard deviation on this half of the list, and it wasn’t voted first or in the bottom third by anyone.
	#11 ▼3 Alms (Adventures) Weighted Average: 73.02% ▼3.3pp / Unweighted Average: 66.07% / Median: 76.6% ▼0.7pp / Standard Deviation: 25.96% After increasing in ranks two years in a row after its release, Alms has dropped three ranks this year. It would be another two ranks lower in the unweighted ranking. Alms is at the very least useful for concealing your opening split in pretty much every game of Dominion, but it also guarantees that you can always hit at least $4, which is especially useful when you have an unlucky hand or when you trash cards from your hand, leaving you with fewer coins to spend. Like Borrow — and probably for the same reason as Borrow — Alms has a very high standard deviation, but it wasn’t voted first or last.
	#10 =0 Hamlet (Cornucopia) Weighted Average: 73.35% ▼1.3pp / Unweighted Average: 72.11% / Median: 74.47% ▼2.8pp / Standard Deviation: 14.23% In the old days of the Qvist rankings, Hamlet was considered the second best $2 card after Chapel. If you ignored all the new cards that were released since then, that would still be the case in this year’s ranking. It’s one rank higher in the unweighted list. Like Squire, it is a versatile card for engines, but because it draws a card, it’s much easier to add to your deck without causing damage. Hamlet also has a pretty low standard deviation, and wasn’t voted first or in the bottom fifth.
	#9 ▲2 Lurker (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 74.55% ▲0.9pp/ Unweighted Average: 72.11% / Median: 78.38% ▲1.1pp / Standard Deviation: 19.51% After its entrance last year, Lurker gained two ranks this year. It would be one rank higher in the unweighted list. When you are the only player who has a Lurker, it is a very strong gainer, and if your opponent contests it, it kind of sucks for both players until someone draws two of them together. It can also be used to threaten a 3-pile ending in the late game, and it has some neat tricks with cards that interact with trashing. Nobody voted it first or last.
	#8 ▲4 Save (Adventures) Weighted Average: 75.01% ▲2.5pp / Unweighted Average: 68.01% / Median: 78.72% ▼0.9pp / Standard Deviation: 26.14% Save gained 4 ranks from last year. It would be 4 ranks lower in the unweighted ranking. Save can be highly useful for a wide variety of purposes: it helps connect cards that are supposed to connect, it helps separate cards that weren’t supposed to connect, it can help you hit a higher price point by saving a good economy card, it can make one of your bad cards miss the shuffle, and it can just smooth out your shuffles in general. Much like the other higher rated Events here, Save has a very high standard deviation, but it wasn’t ever voted first or last.
	#7 ▼1 Raze (Adventures) Weighted Average: 80.71% ▲1.3pp / Unweighted Average: 79.48% / Median: 82.98% ▲1.2 / Standard Deviation: 13.68% Raze dropped a rank this year, breaking its streak of gaining ranks ever since it was first introduced. It is a rank higher in the unweighted list. It’s an extremely strong card for getting rid of your Estates, and it is still pretty sufficient as a Copper trasher, and it can also get rid of itself once you don’t need it anymore. Raze also has one of the lowest standard deviations on the list, and was never voted first or last.
	#6 ▲1 Stonemason (Guilds) Weighted Average: 80.73% ▲3.8pp / Unweighted Average: 73.39% / Median: 85.11% ▲3.3pp / Standard Deviation: 26.94% Stonemason gained a rank this year after falling two ranks last year. It’s one rank lower in the unweighted list. Stonemason itself can range from a useless stop card to a pretty useful trasher or gainer, and obviously the overpay ability is usually the main reason to buy it. It has the highest standard deviation on the entire $0-2 list, and was voted first by one voter and last by another voter.
	#5 ▼1 Monastery (Nocturne) Weighted Average: 80.81% ▼0.4pp / Unweighted Average: 79.48% / Median: 86.96% ▲0.6pp / Standard Deviation: 18.39% Monastery dropped a rank after its introduction last year. In the unweighted ranking, it has the same ranking with a slightly lower score. Monastery can sometimes trash multiple cards, but even when it only trashes one card at a time, it is remarkably good at doing that since it cannot be drawn dead and it can trash a Copper that you already played and spent, which makes it great for maintaining momentum even as you’re thinning your deck. Nobody voted it first or last.
	#4 ▲1 Encampment (Empires) Weighted Average: 85.81% ▲5.2pp / Unweighted Average: 84.5% / Median: 87.23% ▲3.1pp / Standard Deviation: 13.93% Encampment continues its streak of gaining ranks every year since its release. It’s the same rank with a slightly lower score in the unweighted ranking. A Lost City for $2 is obviously very strong, even with the drawback of having to have enough Golds or Plunders in your deck. Because it is a split pile and thus only five of them exist in the supply, they run out very fast and it’s often important to focus on winning the split. It has one of the lowest standard deviations on the list and was never voted first or last.
	#3 =0 Page (Adventures) Weighted Average: 94.81% ▲0.6pp / Unweighted Average: 92.22% / Median: 95.74% ▲0.2pp / Standard Deviation: 15.19% Page maintained its spot as the #3 card on the list, with a quite substantial (although smaller than in 2017 and 2016) gap of 9 points between the top 3 and the #4. All of the top 3 cards are very close together, however, having unweighted averages of 90-93%. It is one rank higher in the unweighted list. Page gives you access to the extremely strong Champion, but due to Treasure Hunter and Hero being rather low utility in many cases, it’s not as strong as the Peasant line overall. Page was voted first 4 times, and only once in the bottom half.
	#2 ▼1 Chapel (Base) Weighted Average: 96.3% ▼1.5pp / Unweighted Average: 92.01% / Median: 97.87% ▼2.1pp / Standard Deviation: 22.32% For the first time in the history of Qvist’s lists, Chapel drops a rank and is no longer the #1 $2. It’s a rank lower in the unweighted ranking. Chapel is without any doubt an extremely strong card and one of the strongest trashers in the game and can strongly effect your Estates and Coppers, particularly in a destructive way, but it has been shown that the strongest single-card trashers such as Masquerade can be a close match for Chapel’s speed in terms of overall deckbuilding, and with the introduction of new strong trashers such as Donate and Cathedral, perhaps some players have found Chapel’s utility ever so slightly less irreplaceable in this year’s ranking. 18 players voted it as #1 and someone voted it as the last card.
	#1 ▲1 Peasant (Adventures) Weighted Average: 96.58% ▲0.3pp / Unweighted Average: 92.91% / Median: 97.87% ▲0.2pp / Standard Deviation: 16.84% And finally, we have Peasant, which gained a rank from last year and is the top rated card both in the weighted and the unweighted rankings. Since the Peasant line only consists of useful cards, many games with Peasant in it are centered around buying a lot of Peasants and leveling them up to the appropriate levels. It received 13 votes for the first place and only one vote below 50%.

11

Puzzles and Challenges / RNG vs decisions

« on: October 24, 2018, 10:59:00 am »

2-player Dominion, one player gets to make all decisions for both players and the other gets to choose how each deck is shuffled. Obviously in most kingdoms, the decision player can just have the RNG player buy out all the Curses and never buy anything else and then it just becomes a matter of time until the decision player can force good enough draws to win the game, but this might not be the case in every game.

1) Can you think of a kingdom where the RNG player can force a stalemate?
2) Can you think of a kingdom where the RNG player can force a win?

12

Mafia Game Threads / Mafia Finnish championship (we're invited)

« on: August 25, 2018, 12:49:44 pm »

I got invited to the Finnish Mafia championship to represent f.ds. We're allowed to send up to 3 Finnish people. I suppose it's fine with everyone if I agree? Also it'd be great if Eevee participated too, and I don't think we have a third Finn but correct me if I'm wrong. I'll post further details later, on a phone atm.

13

Dominion: Renaissance Previews / Dominion: Renaissance on RGG's website

« on: August 04, 2018, 05:29:38 pm »

http://riograndegames.com/Game/1334-Dominion-Renaissance

It's a momentous time. Art has been revolutionized by the invention of "perspective," and also of "funding." A picture used to be worth a dozen or so words; these new ones are more like a hundred. Oil paintings have gotten so realistic that you've hired an artist to do a portrait of you each morning, so you can make sure your hair is good. Busts have gotten better too; no more stopping at the shoulders, they go all the way to the ground. Science and medicine have advanced; there's no more superstition, now they know the perfect number of leeches to apply for each ailment. You have a clock accurate to within an hour, and a calendar accurate to within a week. Your physician heals himself, and your barber cuts his own hair. This is truly a golden age.


This is the 12th expansion to Dominion. It has 300 cards, with 25 new Kingdom cards. There are tokens that let you save coins and actions for later, Projects that grant abilities, and Artifacts to fight over.

14

Dominion General Discussion / Why I'm quitting Dominion for the foreseeable future (not satire)

« on: July 06, 2018, 09:47:55 am »

EDIT: note that this thread is from 2018, the post is otherwise unedited
So I haven't played any ladder in almost three months and I just finished my matches for this season in the League and decided not to return for the next season. Here are some reasons why, in order from most to least important:

1) Prismata doesn't have any of the following problems and it's just a really good game in general so I'd rather spend my time playing Prismata.
2) My opponent can take a really long time to think while I have nothing to do. Slowrolling on purpose is a rare problem, but people who just take a long time to think are pretty common and just as frustrating to play against.
3) There's no deck tracker. This means I have to choose between spending a long time digging the log for information all the time and making uninformed decisions all the time.
4) Shuffle iT's implementation is sometimes very slow, which is probably at least partially because it's a browser client, not a standalone.
5) There are many reasons why the game can be a serious uphill battle for one player for reasons nobody had any control over. The most notable reason is first player advantage, but games where that happens because of shuffle luck are also common enough that they actually happen. While alternating the starting player can make it a fair match in a tournament or the League, that doesn't make it any more enjoyable to play the games where a player can only really lose if they make an enormous mistake.
6) If I play ladder actively, I mostly have to get matched against people who are significantly worse than me. This might not be true at the moment, but it was when I stopped playing ladder three months ago, hoping that the other problems wouldn't bother me so much in the more competitive and more evenly matched League setting (but as it turns out, they still did).
7) Donald X. has been talking about each new expansion being diminishing returns because you only get to see the new cards so often when there are 300 other cards in the pool, and with the release of Nocturne, I think we finally passed some kind of a threshold for me where I feel like it actually didn't really contribute very much towards making the overall game more interesting. I still have a lot of Nocturne cards that I suck at playing, and I think that's mostly just because a lot of kingdoms just have the same old cards that I can already wrap my head around and the Nocturne stuff doesn't show up all that much. This is not really even a problem per say, but some kind of a standardized format (that you could automatch for) that leaves out some of the older expansions certainly wouldn't hurt.

Honestly if Stef gets his ShiT together and does something about points 2, 3, and 4, that will probably be enough for me to get back into playing Dominion actively, but aside from that, I'll probably only play in the big tournaments and whenever there's a new expansion just to check it out.

15

Dominion General Discussion / Alchemy card revelation...

« on: May 20, 2018, 06:48:07 pm »

16

Dominion General Discussion / What does it mean for a card to be "powerful"?

« on: April 26, 2018, 10:00:28 am »

I think everyone has an intuitive understanding of what makes a card strong, but it's much more difficult to put it in a formula. Here are some ways to determine card strength and reasons why they don't work:

1. How often (top?) players gain the card
This doesn't take into account a scenario in which nobody gains the card, but it makes an impact by merely being present in the kingdom (e.g. Salt the Earth). It also doesn't take into account a scenario in which a card is only very slightly weaker than many other similar cards (e.g. Walled Village), in which case the card in question is not gained in many kingdoms because a slightly stronger card is gained instead. It also can't tell the difference between a low-impact card that you buy almost every time because it has a low opportunity cost (e.g. Pearl Diver) and a card that you buy almost every time because it has a huge impact (e.g. Goons).

2. How often do (top?) players win with the card vs. without the card
When a card is very strong, top players might have a very high win rate without the card because the weaker opponent will buy the card every time, whereas the top player is better able to consider the rare situation in which the card is not worth buying. The reverse is true for very weak cards. On the other hand, if we consider the entire player base instead of just top players, strong cards that don't have a high skill requirement (e.g. Rebuild) will appear higher while strong cards that do have a high skill requirement (e.g. Bridge) will appear lower. Much like 1), this does not take into account cards that can make an impact by being present even if nobody buys them.

3. If two top players of similar strength play a match where they are and aren't allowed to gain a card, respectively, how big of an advantage will the former have
This addresses all of the previous problems, but introduces a new one: the player who is allowed to buy the card has access to the knowledge that the other player will surely not buy it, which gives them an inherent advantage, partially independently of the card's strength. This also makes self-synergistic cards seem stronger than they really are. In the case of a real match between two real players, as opposed to a thought experiment, it also has the problems that six games is a very low sample size which can result in kingdoms or shuffles favoring one player over the other, and the players might not be giving their best performance at the time of the match even if they are very closely ranked.

Personally, I think that given how difficult it is to objectively measure a card's strength, it might be more important to talk about when to buy the card, and when to consider the card for your kingdom analysis as separate things. How big of an impact it makes in both cases is not so important. For example, Pearl Diver isn't really a very "strong" card, but you can buy it whenever there's nothing better to do, and due to its low cost and spammability, it can make pileout endings easier which is something that you should consider during kingdom analysis. It doesn't make a very big impact in either case, but you're not going to have the thought process "oh Pearl Diver only helps me a tiny little bit here, I guess I'm not going to buy it".

What do you think? Are there any other ways of measuring card strength that actually work?

17

Forum Games / Invitation to Mafia Championships Season 5

« on: April 17, 2018, 04:01:47 am »

Hi! Thingyman asked me to share this on his behalf:


INVITATION TO THE MAFIA CHAMPIONSHIP (SEASON 5)

Hello there!

It is with great pleasure that I hereby invite your community to take part in Season 5 of the Mafia Championship.

The Mafia Championship is an annual forum tournament series that pits representatives from various online Mafia (aka Werewolf) communities against one another as they compete to determine the Internet’s greatest forum Mafia player. Each participating community democratically elects one person to represent them and be their “Champion”.

The whole thing started back in 2013, and since then more than 225 different communities and 50+ different nationalities have been represented.

I hope it sounds like a fun and exciting event

1. DO YOU ACCEPT THE INVITE?

If your community wishes to participate, please confirm your participation to me as soon as you can to ensure yourselves a spot.

If you agree to participate, the deadline for selecting your representative is May 1. If this is too soon for you to decide on anyone, let me know and we can work something out.

The games will take place on Mafia Universe. If it’s okay, I can link directly to the general discussion thread regarding this topic on Mafia Universe.

Important notes

• You may decide yourselves how you want to elect your representative, but we highly recommend some sort of democratic process (public nominations followed by a poll usually works out well).
• In addition to electing a representative, you should also name an alternate who will be asked to step in if the first choice needs to back out.
• Your representative should be prepared for having to read upwards of 500 posts per 24 hours during the early stages of the game. Additionally, there’s a requirement that each player must make at least 10 posts per Game Day. Only active players should apply/participate. I repeat: Your chosen player needs to be able to promise a good amount of activity on a daily basis.

2. SEASON 5 FORMAT

The tournament structure

• 170 communities will participate, each sending one representative.
• 10 Qualifying Games will be played, consisting of 17 players each. I.e. every representative plays in one Qualifying Game. The players themselves vote post-game to determine who is deserving of advancement. 1st place will advance directly to the Finale Game (i.e. 10 of the 17 finalists are found this way), while the 2nd places will advance directly to one of the two Wildcard Games.
• A Jury consisting of finalists from Season 4 will discuss and vote to determine 25 players in total deserving of a second chance: 1 will advance directly to the finale, and the 24 other players will play in 2 Wildcard Games along with the 2nd places that advanced directly to these. From each game, three players will directly advance to the Finale Game based on a post-game player vote.
• The Finale Game is played. Once it has completed, the players vote to determine who shall receive the title of Season 5 Champion and a winner’s certificate signed by Dmitry Davidoff, the creator of mafia.

The setup explained very briefly (more details on host site)
This (view picture below) is a semi-open grid setup meant for 17 players: 4 mafia versus 13 townies. First you randomly select a number to decide the mafia team's composition of Power Roles (1-2), then you randomly select a letter to decide the town's composition of Power Roles (A-E). Fill in the number of Vanilla Townies needed to make the town team have 13 members total, and you have your setup.



*Town Jack of All Trades: 1x Vigilante, 1x Roleblocker, 1x Tracker.

Relevant mechanics info

• Day start.
• Deadline Lynch w/ Option for Majority starting Day 2. I.e. when day timer runs out, person with most votes will be lynched. However, day can also be ended early (starting Day 2) if there is ever a majority of votes on one person.
• If there is a tied lynch, one of the tied players will be randomly lynched.
• No outside communication. I.e. you may not contact the other players outside of the thread (unless you are Mafia and wish to speak with your teammates).
• Phase Lengths and Deadlines will be up to the players themselves (I’ll organize them into games with deadlines that suit their preferences).
• Thread is locked during Night Phases.

3. SEASON 5 TIMELINE

There will be 10 Qualifying Games, and your representative plays in just one of these. They will have start dates during the months of May and June. So in other words, as long as your representative can play sometime during that period, they should be good and I’ll make sure they get scheduled into a game that suits their schedule well. I.e. if your rep is busy until June, that isn’t a problem.

Wildcard games will be played in July, and the Finale Game sometime in August/September (whenever we can work out something that suits everyone).

Kind regards,
Thingyman

If you want to get in contact with me ASAP, you can find me on Discord (Thingyman#6075).

18

Dominion Articles / How to be good at Dominion

« on: March 24, 2018, 05:31:14 pm »

Always keep in mind that winning is more important than having fun, and learning is more important than winning (unless it’s an important tournament match, in which case winning takes precedence). If you have an ambitious goal that you want to reach, such as being good at Dominion, you can’t expect to get there by fooling around forever, and you certainly can’t expect to get there by doing the things you already know how to do forever. If you want to get there, you need to be prepared to work hard, and you need to be prepared to fail.

In other words, whenever you’re just playing Dominion on the ladder or even unranked games, don’t pick the most fun strategy or the strategy that gives you the best odds of winning, pick the strategy that makes you feel the most uncomfortable. If you can’t do that, you might have to face the harsh reality that you won’t have great hopes of getting good at Dominion.

19

Variants and Fan Cards / Addressing the first player advantage

« on: March 14, 2018, 03:03:36 pm »

I don't think a VP based handicap is great, because a number of VP which is hardly significant on one board could be a really big deal on another board, and a bidding based system can result in ridiculous games where it's a Province megaturn game and getting down the optimal bid is suddenly like half of the skill element in the game.

I have two different suggestion for making the game more balanced:

1) A coin token based handicap. Coins always have pretty much the same value, so if you can find the perfect number of coin tokens to compensate for the first player's advantage without giving the second player an unfair advantage in turn, that should work across most kingdoms (I imagine that number is exactly 1). The main issue that I see with this is that a 5/3 opening is a big deal in all levels of play, whereas FPA is only a big deal when both players are like in the level 60 range, so for the average ladder game, this would make the situation worse than it is now.

2) After the starting hands have been dealt, player 1 must choose either turn 1 or turn 2 and then they won't be allowed to buy anything or play any cards on that turn. Effectively, player 2 is now half a turn ahead, but player 1 is half a shuffle ahead. I have no idea if this is balanced or not, but it doesn't sound too unreasonable on paper.

20

Dominion Articles / Tempo Challenge (Puzzle/article hybrid)

« on: February 22, 2018, 05:58:47 pm »

Recently, I solved all the puzzle challenges in Prismata, partially with some help from better Prismata players, and I improved a lot as a result. So I thought that I should make a Dominion challenge in that style, and give you the sort of advice that will help you beat the challenge while also getting better at Dominion.

The challenge:

Get over 50 VP and end the game on turn 11 (or earlier) in a solo game on Dominion Online, using this kingdom:

Code: [Select]

Bureaucrat, Poacher, Bridge Troll, Counting House, Harvest, Transmute, Chapel, Courtyard, Masquerade, Village


Rules:
 - Unlike on the Puzzles forum, here you don't get to have perfect shuffle luck — you actually have to do it. However, you are definitely allowed to resign and try again in hopes of better shuffles.
 - You are allowed to abuse the undo feature as much as you want, even for things like going back several turns and changing your buys to prevent a terminal collision.
 - Hard mode: buy Chapel before the first reshuffle

I recommend trying to solve the challenge without any help first. If you get stuck or frustrated though, down below are some tips that should help. The first tips are just some general things; the further down you read, the more specific they will get. Text in spoilers contains advice for the hard mode; I mention the hard mode in there a couple more times but those don't really help with solving it. "The conclusion" contains references to the advice so you don't want to read that either.









The advice:

• First of all, you do need good shuffles to beat the challenge, but not unreasonably good. You can probably safely resign any game in which your important opening buys miss the second reshuffle or collide t3/t4, but if it takes you more than 5 attempts that you didn't resign on t4, there's a good chance you could be doing something better
• Hard mode requires better shuffles, but also better playing.
• In general, this challenge is all about maximizing your speed. Maximizing your consistency can help, but that isn't a requirement, and it can be neglected if necessary.
• Try to think as many turns ahead as you can. If I buy this card now, will I be able to buy this other card before the next reshuffle? What will my deck be able to purchase if I draw the entire deck next turn? How much draw and Villages do I need to draw the deck next turn, and how many do I already have? Etcetera. You can use Undo to go back to a previous turn and make a different decision if you overlook something.
• Try not to waste anything. Ideally, you will usually spend all of your coins and buys every turn, and every time you play an Action with +cards, it actually draws cards. Sometimes you have to make a compromise between wasting one thing and wasting another thing, and sometimes the best build order requires you to waste something, but avoid it whenever possible.
• Don't overtrash. Make sure you know how many Coppers are in your deck, how many Bridge Trolls are in your deck, and always take a moment to consider the benefits of trashing a Copper (removing a stop card) vs. the benefits of not trashing it (having $1 more in your deck and for your current turn) before you trash it. If you're going for the hard mode, this will involve particularly difficult decisions at the stage where you still want to get rid of more Coppers while you also want to do things with your current turn.
• To be more specific, you want to trash the Copper if you can't draw your deck otherwise, and you want to keep it if it allows you to go for a more convenient build order. For example, there's no point in keeping $7 of Coppers when you have 1 Bridge Troll, because you only need 6 Coppers to buy another Bridge Troll and a Village or Masquerade.
• You should prioritize getting rid of your Estates early on.
• To be specific, you should open Masquerade as long as you're not going for the hard mode. The opening that I had the most success with was double Masquerade, since it puts you into a really good position as long as you have good enough draws on turn 3/4 and you can reasonably quickly just resign games until you get those draws, although I also managed to beat the challenge once with the two Masqs colliding on t3.
• You probably shouldn't buy any Silvers or Poachers (doesn't apply to hard mode). EDIT: markusin beat normal mode while buying Poacher so that can work too
• Here's a full solution: 11926128 (you have to make a table, set minimum players to 1 and then check the load old game option to load a 1-player game)

The conclusion:

This challenge highlights a few things that are actually useful for real Dominion matches. Most directly, sometimes you're playing against a faster strategy and you have to maximize the efficiency of your build order even if it means taking some risks, which is exactly what you're doing here. But also, the basic concepts of tracking your deck, tracking your shuffles, thinking a few turns ahead and really having an idea what your deck will be concretely able to do after a few turns of building are very much present in every real game of Dominion and this challenge requires you to do those things. The main concept that I really wanted to highlight more than anything else is overtrashing or trashing too much too early, which results in having a really nice thin deck that doesn't really do anything useful, and that's exactly why you want to avoid it; you can build your deck much faster if you trash little by little while you're already building, even without taking the sort of risks involved in this challenge.

It also highlights a few things that aren't useful for real Dominion matches. In real games, you shouldn't go for a greedy opening and just hope that it works out, and you also shouldn't trash down to a very consistent deck with very few junk cards when Masquerade is around. You also can't plan your build orders this elaborately if there's an Attack present that your opponent might or might not play (but you can if you're reasonably sure they will play it).

21

Dominion General Discussion / Letting a computer design Dominion cards: recurrent neural network edition

« on: January 31, 2018, 09:41:05 pm »

Someone gave me a fully functional old IBM server machine for free, so I thought of a great use for that computer: training useless neural networks for the lulz. And so, here we are.

For the training data, I used all the Dominion cards and a bunch of fan cards whose wordings I deemed to be good (and were available as text that I could copy and paste). In practice, those fan cards were LastFootnote's Enterprise and a few random cards from other fan designers. Lastly, in order to strongly effect the data set, particularly in a destructive way, I added the entirety of Dominion: Gunpowder.

I'm still training the network some more, but in the meantime, here are some of the cards it has designed so far:

Presumably, I can reveal a Province from the Province pile


Depending on whether or not Boons are in the game, this could be worth 0 or 24


When am I allowed to play an Att?


The useless +buy aside, this is actually not that ridiculous


Whenever I play Sentry:


At least it counters Knights


It designed a totally OP Giraffe rip-off


I mean, this is actually a fairly reasonable card, just a bit weak compared to Altar


Festival too OP pls nerf


Appropriately for a Silver+, it costs $5


Combos with Watchtower


I like to think that 2xiply is some kind of a portmanteau of 2x and multiply

22

Dominion Articles / Key card-based kingdom analysis

« on: January 02, 2018, 07:11:24 am »

Key card-based kingdom analysis

This is my attempt to explain how I normally analyze kingdoms. It's recommended to read my Obstacles: Beyond the Five Deck Types article first.

Why you should or shouldn't use KCBKA

KCBKA takes advantage of your pattern recognition abilities, which are extremely good because you are a member of the human species. The benefit over, for example, AdamH's method is that this is much faster at identifying the available strategies, which frees up your time and attention span to better evaluate the pros and cons of each strategy as well as your opening buys. Some of the benefits of AdamH's method over this method are that it's easier to learn, and you're less likely to make careless mistakes.

It goes without saying that I prefer my own method, and I consistently rank in the top 50 on dominion.games to show for its usefulness. There are also roughly 49 others who have similar qualifications and I'm sure many of them analyze kingdoms in completely different ways. In summary, this is a method that works, it's not the only method that works, we have no idea which method really is the best, but I prefer this one especially for laddering. In tournament games, I do some additional analysis after applying KCBKA.

How do you analyze a kingdom using KCBKA?

1. Before you start a game, have an existing mental table of all the cards and the roles (component, support, counter, etc) they play in each strategy and roughly how strong they are in each role
2. After you start a game (i.e. when you see the kingdom), focus on cards starting with the most important ones until you find a strategy that works

In other words, there's just one simple step that you have to do each game. I make it sound very easy, but it really is very easy. If the kingdom is simple (e.g. base only), I can usually decide on a strategy in 2 or 3 seconds. The difficult part is having the table in your mind, and having a less-than-optimal table (which is inevitable, no pun intended) is the reason why you occasionally make those careless mistakes I mentioned earlier.

Constructing the table

Your table should be a collection of all the experience you've gathered while playing Dominion, specifically in regards to what each individual card has achieved, weighted towards the things that tend to matter more. For example, when you see Goons on the board, you should immediately think "engine payload!" even though Goons is also a very good card in other types of decks, and only consider the idea of Goons/BM after you have confirmed that the engine doesn't have all of its required components present on the board. Therefore, you should "mark it down" as primarily an engine payload card, and an extremely strong one too.

You should also consider card interactions here (the more you're able to consider them here, the less you have to consider them during the game). For instance, engines need cycling, and when you see Farming Village and Council Room on the board, you should immediately recognize that combination of cards as a means of cycling which is sufficient to build the engine. Similarly, you should recognize Counting House and Travelling Fair as the required components for Counting House/Travelling Fair.

Generally, the key cards are engine payloads (such as Goons), extremely strong engine components (such as Wharf), extremely strong big money enablers (such as Wharf), strong rush enablers (such as Rebuild), etc. In other words, they are reasons to go for a specific strategy. One card can be a key card for multiple different reasons, and one card can also be a key card for one reason while being a less important card for some other reason.

You should have a fair number of cards you think of as key cards. Preferably, you should aim to have one or two of them per average kingdom, but it's fine to get the occasional kingdom without any.

The table doesn't have to be very concrete. My example table provided below is, but I made it very concrete only for the purposes of demonstration; I have something more abstract in my mind.

Example table of base set cards

The relevance of each card in each role has been rated from 1 to 5 where 1 doesn't matter, 2 doesn't matter very much, 3 matters a little more, 4 is significant and 5 is a key card. Note that this is not directly a ranking of card strength (although strength is a factor to consider) — a lot of cards, such as Poacher, don't have to catch your attention at all during kingdom analysis even though they might be strong cards, and some weak cards have to catch your attention more than some strong cards. Note also that your individual experiences with these cards might differ from this example table, which is fine.

*you wouldn't remember three-piece interactions for all expansions full random, but you would for base-only full random

Cellar
weak engine support, 2

Chapel
extremely strong engine support, 4

Moat
counters Council Room/Militia based engines, 4*
weak engine support, 2
weak big money enabler, 2

Harbinger
1

Merchant
1

Vassal
1

Village
engine cycling with terminal draw, 4
engine payload with terminal payload Actions, 4
Workshop/Gardens rush support, 2

Workshop
weak to moderate engine support, 3
enables Workshop/Gardens rush, 2

Bureaucrat
1

Gardens
very weak engine support, 2
enables Workshop/Gardens rush, 2

Militia
counters big money, 5
strong engine payload, 5
strong big money enabler, 4

Moneylender
very strong engine support, 4
weak big money support, 3

Poacher
1

Remodel
strong engine payload with Gold gainers, 5
strong engine support with $4 or $3 engine components, 4

Smithy
strong engine cycling with anti-terminals, 4
mediocre big money enabler, 4

Throne Room
strong engine cycling with terminal draw and trashing/other support, 5
strong engine payload with payload actions and trashing/other support, 5

Bandit
strong engine payload with Remodel, 5
counters big money, 4
mediocre engine payload, 4
strong big money enabler, 4

Council Room
strong engine cycling with anti-terminals, 4
mediocre big money enabler, 3
mediocre engine payload with coin-generating cards, 3

Festival
weak engine cycling with terminal draw, 4
mediocre engine payload, 3

Laboratory
weak engine cycling, 4
weak big money support, 3

Library
strong engine cycling with anti-terminals and payload actions, 5
mediocre big money enabler, 4

Market
mediocre engine payload with coin-generating cards, 3

Mine
weak engine payload, 2

Sentry
strong engine support, 4
mediocre big money support, 3

Witch
counters engine, 5
strong engine payload, 5
strong big money enabler, 5

Artisan
extremely strong engine support, 4

Identifying the strategies using key cards
First, you search for something you rated as a key card, then you check whether or not all the required components for the strategy are present. Repeat this process until you have found every key card and figured out whether those strategies are enabled. If you found at least one key card whose strategy was enabled, you can move onto deciding which of those strategies is the best by looking at everything that supports or hinders those strategies, and once you have decided on the best strategy, that's the one you're playing.

If you didn't find any key cards whose strategies were enabled, you have to start considering the next most important rating of cards, and basically do the same thing with those as you did with the key cards. If that still didn't work, you move onto the next most important rating after that, etc.

A lot of the time, you'll find exactly one key card, find out that the strategy is available, and then you immediately know you're playing that strategy.

Conclusion

I have no idea whether or not any of this made any sense to you at all, but I would hope that it did.

23

Dominion General Discussion / Magic Lamp is the dumbest card-shaped thing

« on: December 20, 2017, 03:42:55 pm »

It might as well read "Roll a 6-sided die. If it's a 6, the game is over and you win." because that's incredibly close to what it does.

24

Dominion Articles / Bard is not weak

« on: November 17, 2017, 05:55:34 am »

Here are the different effects you can get out of Bard:

1. +$2, you may discard a Treasure to gain a card costing up to $4.
You get to choose between an Ironworks-ish effect and a terminal Silver. That's super versatile and fairly strong.

2. +$3, +1 action
That's super good at hitting $5.

3. +$2, you may trash a card from your hand
That's Salvager. Salvager is a very powerful card.

4. +$3, +1 buy
That's strictly better than Horse Traders without the reaction part, which is already a decent card.

5. +$2, you may topdeck a card from your discard pile
That's strictly worse than Scavenger. Probably the worst Boon you can get, it sort of sucks if you get it without anything good in your discard pile, but even then it's no worse than having a Swindler hit an Estate or having a Militia hit two.

6. +$2, gain a Silver
That's Explorer. Considering that you only paid $4 for the card, that's very good tempo in the early game. You probably don't want it in the late game though.

7. +$2, +1 card at the end of your turn
That's great at hitting $5 and in general.

8. +$2, +1 card
That's a bit more awkward than the above, but still pretty good.

9. +$2, you may discard 3 cards to gain a Gold
If you actually want the Gold, that's super strong. If you don't, well, it's not.

10. +$2, Cartographer effect
That's a lot better than Navigator, which doesn't say much necessarily, but the difference is really big.

11. +$2, gain a Wisp
Gaining a Wisp in addition to the terminal Silver is pretty good for most decks.

12. +$2, Dungeon effect
Again, that's super good at hitting $5.


Half of these make it super likely that you hit $5 on turn 3 and/or turn 4, either allowing you to open Bard/Silver and have realistic hopes of hitting $5 twice, or Bard/trashing while still having a decent chance of hitting $5 at all. The other ones are still on-par with most other cards for hitting $5, and they give you stuff like trashing, free Wisps, and sometimes something of very low utility in addition. All in all, it doesn't do anything amazing, but it is more than sufficiently strong at what it does, which is early game economy.

25

Dominion Online at Shuffle iT / How do you pronounce "Shuffle iT"

« on: October 21, 2017, 04:42:51 am »

So basically, do you pronounce the infamous abbreviation as "shy tea" or "shit"? I've been doing the former in my head so far, but I'm not sure if that's correct.