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101

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Could one structure Dominion as a serious tournament game (for serious money)?

« on: August 22, 2012, 04:02:51 pm »

It may take too long, but I'd love to see a tournament with pool play: you play some round robin prelim brackets, and then the top 2 players in each bracket (to guard against seeding mistakes where the two best players are in the same bracket) make it to either playoff round robins, or double-elimination, or something like that.  I say playoff round robins because the more games the better, but again I understand if that isn't feasible for large groups.  Starting with pool play would definitely be best I think.

Prelim matches should probably be best-of-3, raised to best-of-5 (or 7) in the finals.  Either 2p or 3p is fine (4p is not), if it's actually possible to set it up so you play both that would be ever better.

As for choosing the kingdoms, my preference would actually be to do it something like duplicate bridge.  The TD gets DXV or someone else who's really good at Dominion and isn't playing to come up with a whole bunch of kingdoms which are interesting, not too luck-based, have multiple paths, aren't going to take an hour to play, run the whole gamut of published cards.  And then the kingdoms are announced just before play, no time to think about them beforehand.  You could have the prelim players rotate tables (which have the kingdoms out there to begin with), for ease of setup.

102

Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: The Bold Predictions Thread

« on: August 20, 2012, 08:29:06 pm »

Also: FWIW, I'm not entirely sold on Rebuild, but other than that I agree with Winder's OP 100 percent.

103

Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: The Bold Predictions Thread

« on: August 20, 2012, 03:12:35 pm »

I think it's actually not bold at all to call Squire a power card.  +2 Actions, +$1 for $2 is pretty reasonable to begin with, and when you add in all the other things it can do for your engine (+2 Buys, trash for an Attack) OR for your alt-VP rush (Gain a Silver, +2 Buys again) I think it's entirely reasonable to view this card as on par with the Lighthouse/Courtyard/Hamlet trio, and very possibly better than them. 

Here are some bold predictions that I'm probably not going to test for awhile yet, since I'm trying to take a break from online Dominion for a little bit:

*Poor House is going to be better than you think.  Obviously it needs an enginey setup with trashing and +Action and +Buys, but when those things are around it will be an amazing way to ramp up your buy power quickly.
*Wandering Minstrel is going to be one of my favorite cards, even though it kind of defies the typical Village theming.  I've been waiting for a minstrel-themed card since day 1, and tacking that theme on to a Village that fishes for Actions is just gravy.  I think it is probably going to be the best $4 Village, certainly better than Farming, though Worker's may still have a case.
*Mercenary is not going to be all that great.  At some point, you're going to run out of things you want to trash, even with all the DA trash synergies, and it's an "if you do" clause, so it's not even like you can discard down to nothing and try to trash to get the attack.  I'm sure it will have its uses every once in a while, but most of the time I bet it's actually not worth it- or even when it is, you'll only be able to play it once or twice.

104

Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: Only one $1?

« on: August 16, 2012, 06:44:07 pm »

Why is it necessary to establish which set is the flip-side of prosperity?

Which set is the flip-side of Intrigue, Cornucopia or Alchemy?

I can't find the quote, but I'm pretty sure Donald has mentioned that he doesn't let symmetry dictate his card design. On another note, $1 cards will be, by normal standards, not very good. So I can imagine that trying to add several cards at $1 that you might actually want to buy as the game progresses is not a very appealing task.

Hinterlands, of course.  Cornucopia and Alchemy are the flip side of each other.

Actually, I recall Donald saying somewhere that Seaside got more $2s and no $6s specifically to provide balance for Prosperity's high-cost cards.  Or something like that.

105

Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: DA, first Printing, Misprinted?

« on: August 16, 2012, 04:51:12 pm »

But sometimes you might NOT want to be right with Wishing Well for whatever edge reason.

That one's easy; you don't want a reshuffle. We like challenges!

You, sir, fail, and: haha, smirk!

Whether you wish wrong or right, you need to reveal the card anyway!

You want to go "gain a Copper, trash your hand" with Count, but don't want to trash the second card down because it's a good one or something.

106

Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: Pictures of All Cards (except ruins and havens)

« on: August 16, 2012, 03:08:15 pm »

50 Members and 64 Guests are viewing this topic.

(Warning: while I typed that 5 new replies were posted.)

107

Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: Since the cat is out of the bag...Dominion Leaked Cards

« on: August 16, 2012, 01:37:06 pm »

Where did everybody go? If the cards have been posted somewhere else on the internet, be so kind as to humor us with a link...

A bit more info is trickling out in this thread:
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=4099.0

Beggar
Action/Reaction
Cost: 2

Gain 3 Coppers, putting them into your hand
.                                                 
When another player plays an Attack card, you may discard this. If you do gain 2 Silvers putting one on top of your deck.

Also it appears the last non-supply pile is Knights, which consists of 10 (!?) different cards in a pile with names like Dame Anna and Sir Bailey

There's a bunch of card names and costs too

Actually it looks like Knights is a supply pile, if I'm not mistaken?

108

Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: Two new cards!

« on: August 16, 2012, 01:17:37 pm »

Alright, folks.

There's no way Watchtower is the card whose value is boosted most by Dark Ages.  It was already in the top 10 for its price range, and I still don't see it surpassing Amb/Masq/FV/Menagerie, it'll get better but there's a ceiling here, which it was already not too far from.

Fairgrounds, on the other hand, has just received an insane cuckoo mega-boost.  Ten different Knights all with different names!  In *addition* to all the other crazy variety boosts we've seen already from Dark Ages.  Wow.

109

Game Reports / Re: Thief: The Perfect Storm

« on: August 16, 2012, 02:44:42 am »

(Okay, fine.  Maybe not Scout...)

Actually, yes, even Scout.

110

Game Reports / Re: Counting House/Coppersmith vs. King's Court/Thief MADNESS

« on: August 16, 2012, 02:37:18 am »

Wow, what a board.  I think I'd go with something very close to Big Money, except to throw in one or two Shanty Towns early for +Card (in Big Money they're as good as Lab for $3, long as you don't get too many) and take Warehouse over Silver at some point.

There's probably something you can theoretically do to draw your deck and set up a Thief pin with King's Courted Wishing Wells, but I can't see any way it gets reliably set up before the BM player has half the points.  If I was trying to go suboptimal and fancy, I might actually open Potion/Warehouse and get my Transmute on.  But I expect that would crash and burn just as badly.

111

Dominion Isotropic / Re: Anybody gonna do anything special for their last Iso game?

« on: August 16, 2012, 12:19:05 am »

Earlier this evening, I played these two games in a row:

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201208/15/game-20120815-162017-fe20a568.html
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201208/15/game-20120815-162801-85beb6b4.html

The first of which featured buying Scout and having it be an actual good thing to have in the deck (there being Scrying Pool and Nobles), and the second in which I went Cache/Counting House, my favorite combo featuring two absolutely horrid cards that sorta kinda work well together.  (Sorry, Chancellor/Stash, you're not horrid enough by yourselves to count here. )

I figured that was a good sendoff.  Would've liked to ideally have a Transmute/Menagerie/Hamlet/Bishop-apalooza, but this'll do. 

I may take a break from online Dominion for a few weeks and wait for more expansions to trickle in; but otoh I may want to play a few games with Dark Ages rather than just theorycraft.  Either way I'll be around but less active. 

Au revoir, Iso!

112

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Ask FunSockets anything!

« on: August 15, 2012, 02:04:44 pm »

You've managed to snag perhaps THE golden IP of the decade, but a lot of companies seem to want to roll their own solutions (e.g. DoW) or produce for specific platforms (mostly iOS). Do you have other licenses in the pipeline? Are any with companies other than RGG?

Wasn't there a rumor about them having Citadels too?  I'd imagine they probably have a few RGG titles in the pipeline.

113

Dominion Isotropic / Re: Isotropic Avatars

« on: August 14, 2012, 10:27:22 pm »

Done.  Base Cards and Isotropic are all uploaded into the forum avatar gallery.  You can change your avatar here: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?action=profile;area=forumprofile

And they're bigger than the usual 100x100 limit!

114

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Favourite Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2

« on: August 14, 2012, 07:38:17 pm »

 No love for Transmute? 

 

Guess I should bother to do this next time.

115

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The kingdom is your top 10 favorite cards.

« on: August 13, 2012, 06:10:39 pm »

$P Transmute, Vineyard
$2 Hamlet
$2P Scrying Pool
$3 Menagerie
$4 Bishop, Remake
$5 Festival, Bazaar
$8* Peddler

Really, the biggest question here is whether to open Remake or Potion, and get Remake on Turn 3/4.  I do love me some Transmute, but Remake renders it superfluous, sadly.

Watchtower and Goons are probably the next two cards on the outside looking in, both of which would be even more combo-licious.

That's actually kind of a tough call. I think I would open Remake/Hamlet and get the Potion ASAP? That might be wrong, though.

Yeah, I don't know the right answer at all.  I think you do definitely want to open Hamlet, though.

116

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The kingdom is your top 10 favorite cards.

« on: August 13, 2012, 06:06:21 pm »

$P Transmute, Vineyard
$2 Hamlet
$2P Scrying Pool
$3 Menagerie
$4 Bishop, Remake
$5 Festival, Bazaar
$8* Peddler

Really, the biggest question here is whether to open Remake or Potion, and get Remake on Turn 3/4.  I do love me some Transmute, but Remake renders it superfluous, sadly.

Watchtower and Goons are probably the next two cards on the outside looking in, both of which would be even more combo-licious.  Other cards that I might consider for my top 10 favorites depending on mood might include Horn of Plenty, Trade Route, Fishing Village, Nobles, and Coppersmith.

117

Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: Dark Ages Preview #5: Necropolis, Overgrown Estate, Hovel

« on: August 13, 2012, 03:42:30 pm »

As for Overgrown Estate - the thought process was to have a card that cannot be played - a card that just sits in your deck.  It also does not yield any VP.  But we don't have a card type for that.  So make it a Victory - now it can interact with Scout and Silk Road, but that's ok.

All this discussion makes me think... Curse really could just be type "Victory." I get that it's worse for flavor, which I'm sure is why it was done that way. But functionally; curses are identical to the basic victory cards. Just another card that you can't play on your turn, that counts towards your score at the end of the game, and that is available to buy in every game.

But, as we all know, it would completely break the game if it Curse were a Victory card, because Scout is too powerful as it is!


Ok, seriously... Crossroads, Tribute, Scout, Bureaucrat, Transmute, Silk Road, and Hoard would all get a little better. Talisman, and Haggler would technically get worse, though not in a noticeable way.

Wuh... buh... why would you buy a Curse with Talisman in play?

Run out the third pile when you're ahead.  Or you're boosting your Gardens to the next level, which gives you more points than the Curse takes away.  Or you have a consistent draw-your deck engine that gets all its cash from pumped-up Trade Routes, and those Trade Routes need new fodder- and the Coppers are gone.  Or Goons/Watchtower (where Talisman is irrelevant). 

ed: ninja'd by WW, at least for the most common option

118

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Favorite Dominion Card(s)

« on: August 13, 2012, 03:31:15 pm »

Gotta be Menagerie.

Honorable mentions to Bishop, Remake, Festival, Bazaar, Hamlet, Vineyard, Scrying Pool, and (for sentimental reasons more than actually being good) Transmute.

119

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: Potion cost cards

« on: August 13, 2012, 03:22:15 pm »

Erm.. Possession is still a must buy on like 25% of boards, and a possible buy on another 15%. It's no great shakes but clearly outclasses Alchemist/Golem.

It's mostly just mechanic-hatred that has people voting it so low.

Nah, it's the outrageously high cost.  Possession is worth buying no more than half as often as Alchemist, and the ratio is not much better with Golem.

I might have bought alchemist maybe once in the past 15 games it appeared in.

Wow.  I'd say that Alchemist is worth it almost exactly half the time.

I don't agree that Alchemist is worth it half the time at all. I can't remember the last time I bought Alchemist, although I'm sure I under buy it.

Well, that's probably mostly the old engine/BM dichotomy again.  But, really, almost all the Alchemy cards are primarily engine cards.

120

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: Potion cost cards

« on: August 13, 2012, 03:20:42 pm »

If we were to follow the stats (which is highly questionable), you overbuy Alchemist and I don't just overbuy possession, I also suck with it in general.

You're misreading my Possession numbers, I have a negative Effect With and very strong Effect Without.  If anything, I should buy it even less.

The Alchemist effects are pretty minor, honestly.  While I'm defending it here, it's still a card I buy less than the general population, and as such it's not that common for me to go Alchemist but for my opponent to avoid it.  This means there are more mirror matches, and my win rate gets pushed closer to 1.00.  Also, my Alchemist habits have changed over time; I did overbuy it at first but then I underbought it for awhile, and have been picking it up slightly more often as of late.  That might have an effect, or maybe not.

121

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: Potion cost cards

« on: August 13, 2012, 02:57:27 pm »

Erm.. Possession is still a must buy on like 25% of boards, and a possible buy on another 15%. It's no great shakes but clearly outclasses Alchemist/Golem.

It's mostly just mechanic-hatred that has people voting it so low.

Nah, it's the outrageously high cost.  Possession is worth buying no more than half as often as Alchemist, and the ratio is not much better with Golem.

I might have bought alchemist maybe once in the past 15 games it appeared in.

Wow.  I'd say that Alchemist is worth it almost exactly half the time.

122

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: Potion cost cards

« on: August 13, 2012, 02:54:07 pm »

Erm.. Possession is still a must buy on like 25% of boards, and a possible buy on another 15%. It's no great shakes but clearly outclasses Alchemist/Golem.

It's mostly just mechanic-hatred that has people voting it so low.

Nah, it's the outrageously high cost.  Possession is worth buying no more than half as often as Alchemist, and the ratio is not much better with Golem.

123

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: Potion cost cards

« on: August 13, 2012, 01:51:26 pm »

I'm not very good with Golem, but I think I can aptly defend University over Alchemist. I do University is better, and I haven't always thought that. I used to be a big University naysayer.

The thing with University is that there are a growing number of cards that let you cheat and get more out of your Universities, like Watchtower, Highway, and Bridge. And then there are quite a few cards that actually do really love University, like Torturer, Governor, Stables, Laboratory. Basically, if your goal is to build a killer awesome engine, University is a good friend, and can get obscenely good depending on how much support there is.

Alchemist is also building for the mega-engine, but it seems to me that Alchemist needs better support. I'm not even considering Alchemist in a Province game without +buy. Okay, I'm probably not considering University either. But throw in supporting cards and University just jumps a couple strides ahead. And in that it's cheaper (less of a fear of not getting University early enough), and to me you just have a card that's better.

Isn't Torturer/Village better than Torturer/University?  I mean, sure, University is a village ergo it likes Torturer, but virtually every single other village loves it more, because every other village is faster (and most give +1 Card too).  University/Watchtower is pretty great, but $6 Actions are rare enough that I don't find cost reduction to really help University all that much.  You have to have a killer $6 Action, AND University, AND the cost reducer, and then you need to line up the latter two, which probably means trashing or draw as well, and at that point you're into pretty niche territory.  Bridge/Highway is a much better friend to Workshop/Ironworks, because it helps them get Victory cards and $5 Actions, which is much much much more common.

Yeah, Alchemist is for sure not going to be worth it in +Buy-less Province games.  But more games than not are going to have +Buy, or perhaps a substitute like Horn of Plenty or Outpost, both of which go *fantastic* with Alchemists.  And it's not quite true that +Buy and Colony are the only reasons to go mega-engine; strong attacking can sometimes do the same thing as well.

The gap between $2P and $3P is, admittedly, pretty sizable; that's really the only thing which gives me pause here.

But Alchemist relies on some trashing, too, in order to draw the Potion consistently.

Sure, you get the Attack faster if you just buy it. So yeah, you aren't going University to get Witch. But the better drawing Attacks like Torturer and Margrave do lend themselves to nice University engines, in my experience. Then there's Fairgrounds and Vineyards as reasons to go Universities. I don't know. I think University and Alchemist are similar in that they both need support to be worth the cost, they need + buy, possibly Colony, or some weird Victory card accumulation strategy (via Horn or Fairgrounds or something). But I tend to find the support existing for University more than Alchemist, and University is significantly cheaper, like you said. I could be wrong, it's just my feeling about them.

University also has much better synergy with other Alchemy cards, if that counts for anything. And it probably does, because other Alchemy cards are the number one reason to pick up a Potion in the first place.

I find Alchemist to be somewhat more tolerant of no-or-low-trash setups than University, actually.  But yes, it does prefer trashing as well.

Yeah, University/Vineyard is a killer duo, and it works very well with Apprentice and Scrying Pool too, sure.  But I don't think University actually combos all that well with the rest of Alchemy, since every other Potion card is a card University can't gain.  And it's not like Alchemist is bereft of Alchemy combos, either: it's Herbalist's second-best friend, after all.

I guess University over Alchemist is not implausible: the Vineyard combo is a favorite, and it's frequent enough especially with the "3 to 5" Alchemy rule that perhaps I should give it more weight.  But I do still think folks are underselling the frequency with which Alchemist engines are still viable, and overselling the extent to which it's a trap.  Whereas Golem's trappiness has really been flying under the radar- it's pretty darn rare these days for me to go Potion for the sole purpose of Golem, but it's not like anyone's pointing that out all the time.

124

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: Potion cost cards

« on: August 13, 2012, 01:37:17 pm »

The reason why Torturer likes University so much is because every time you play your village you get a new shiny Torturer.

The reason Torturer likes every single other village more is you don't have to muck around with Potion, and will be able to buy a Torturer outright on Turns 3/4, which is very likely not going to happen if you open Potion/Silver.

125

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: Potion cost cards

« on: August 13, 2012, 12:58:09 pm »

I'm not very good with Golem, but I think I can aptly defend University over Alchemist. I do University is better, and I haven't always thought that. I used to be a big University naysayer.

The thing with University is that there are a growing number of cards that let you cheat and get more out of your Universities, like Watchtower, Highway, and Bridge. And then there are quite a few cards that actually do really love University, like Torturer, Governor, Stables, Laboratory. Basically, if your goal is to build a killer awesome engine, University is a good friend, and can get obscenely good depending on how much support there is.

Alchemist is also building for the mega-engine, but it seems to me that Alchemist needs better support. I'm not even considering Alchemist in a Province game without +buy. Okay, I'm probably not considering University either. But throw in supporting cards and University just jumps a couple strides ahead. And in that it's cheaper (less of a fear of not getting University early enough), and to me you just have a card that's better.

Isn't Torturer/Village better than Torturer/University?  I mean, sure, University is a village ergo it likes Torturer, but virtually every single other village loves it more, because every other village is faster (and most give +1 Card too).  University/Watchtower is pretty great, but $6 Actions are rare enough that I don't find cost reduction to really help University all that much.  You have to have a killer $6 Action, AND University, AND the cost reducer, and then you need to line up the latter two, which probably means trashing or draw as well, and at that point you're into pretty niche territory.  Bridge/Highway is a much better friend to Workshop/Ironworks, because it helps them get Victory cards and $5 Actions, which is much much much more common.

Yeah, Alchemist is for sure not going to be worth it in +Buy-less Province games.  But more games than not are going to have +Buy, or perhaps a substitute like Horn of Plenty or Outpost, both of which go *fantastic* with Alchemists.  And it's not quite true that +Buy and Colony are the only reasons to go mega-engine; strong attacking can sometimes do the same thing as well.

The gap between $2P and $3P is, admittedly, pretty sizable; that's really the only thing which gives me pause here.