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3076

Innovation General Discussion / Re: Making the jump to figures/cities?

« on: May 01, 2014, 08:49:43 pm »

I never play without echoes anymore: any game without echoes just seems like a scorefest.  But any game w/ echoes is a power fest.  So I guess it depends on what you like to do more.  Personally I like to build a massive board of death.  But that's just me the optimization player...

Thanks for the insights. . . When we play echoes in real life it is fun but definitely not relaxing. It requires twice as much concentration as the base set because there are so many more potential ways you can inadvertently "break the rules" by failing to trigger an effect, or even claim a special achievement. Figure karmas might have that problem too but at least you can only have 1 per player in most cases, no matter how splayed your stacks.
After having played the 2 expansions, I prefer switching the expansions up from game to game. . . the Dominion analogy is kind of apt, if every board had Goons it would not be the exciting and rare opportunity to try out a different strategy, it would just be the default game strategy (like going for wheat and ore in Settlers every time).

Aha! So going for wheat and ore really is the solution to Settlers of Catan?

I really have to get back into playing Innovation. Such a fun game. Echoes really feels tough to master, but much more deep than just base. I've played with Figures once or twice. Figures seems much more about making the best of the cards given to you, since you almost certainly won't empty a Figures age pile.

3077

General Discussion / Re: Random Stuff

« on: May 01, 2014, 12:06:18 pm »

Guess what the fan expansion of Cosmic Encounter is called?

Osmic Domino?

Osmic DominIo

Once again, I'm a few posts behind in this thread

3078

General Discussion / Re: Random Stuff

« on: April 30, 2014, 10:31:01 pm »

...

This is now my desktop.

It's the most beautiful  thing I've ever seen :')

If I ever get a labtop, I might also make that my background.

You know what though, KingZog3 and I live in the same city. If any lurkers see that as my wallpaper they might mistake me for him. Or, they might correctly realize who I am. Interesting.

3079

General Discussion / Re: Random Stuff

« on: April 30, 2014, 10:28:23 pm »

...

This is now my desktop.

It's the most beautiful  thing I've ever seen :')

If I ever get a labtop, I might also make that my background.

3080

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Really bad card ideas

« on: April 30, 2014, 10:17:53 pm »

Does anybody else remember in your middle school history books when the first page would say "turn to page 30", and then page 30 would say "turn to page 256" and so on and so forth until you get to the very end when it says "haha you suck, loser!" or something to that effect?

If by history books you mean those make-your-own-story Goosebumps books then yes.

3081

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

« on: April 30, 2014, 08:04:48 am »

I remember a game where I beat Cultist with PStone+Storeroom (which is known to be a strong combo, made even stronger by all those Ruins) - it was close though, and I have no idea what its win rate is like against it.

Even then, you had to pick a strategy that works well specifically against Cultist -> you didn't ignore Cultist.

Doesn't "ignoring" a card usually involve addressing it's power in some way. Ignoring Witch might mean you get an extra trasher.

And anyway, PS-Storeroom is good enough without Cultist, just like Workshop/Gardens can work without an oppoaing looter.

This argument holds for Counting House in Mountebank Games, where the CH strategy relies on your opponents Mountebank to even be decent.

3082

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Strength of T1 Mountebank/Nothing

« on: April 28, 2014, 12:31:16 pm »

Got ninja'd without even realizing it.

3083

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Strength of T1 Mountebank/Nothing

« on: April 28, 2014, 09:15:28 am »

I'd be interested to know how these statistics do hold up now.

I wonder if a Baker-enabled opening like Goons/Chapel, Mountebank/Tournament or something with Doctor would take the top spot.

Mountebank/Tournament would be interesting, spending that extra coin token on both opening turns. Still the important thing to remember is that Baker-fueled openings are competing with other Baker-fueled openings, so... I dunno.

How do you open MB/Tournament?

I... just told you. You spend the starting coin token on both turns.

Or player 1 opens Noble Brigand, discarding two of you Estates. The answer is always Noble Brigand.

3084

Dominion General Discussion / Re: soothsayer thought experiment

« on: April 26, 2014, 06:42:00 pm »

Can Sarah pick up a trasher to trash her Estates and/or her Soothsayer?

Sure. Thought experiments should still strive to control the variables.

3085

GokoDom / Re: GokoDom III: Playoff Round Results and Discussion

« on: April 26, 2014, 09:03:02 am »

Well it could be a new trend, like the following :

There's Kirian on the board, but given the synergy between SheCantSayNos and WanderingWinders, possibly upping it with a few Qvists and Stefs, the engine looks more plausible. And you can always disrupt your opponent's deck with a soulnet 

Sad that the markusins are usually a trap.

3086

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition: $5 cards (Part 5/6)

« on: April 25, 2014, 01:39:12 pm »

Late game Lab is better than Witch too

I am comparing cards that are extremely similar. 

"early game Stables is better then Kings Court too but it would be foolish to say Stables is better then Kings Court"

You rarely even get KC early game though, and it rocks once you get even a semi-good action density.

The community ranked Cartographer pretty low too, so I guess the trend has shifted a bit.

3087

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition: $5 cards (Part 5/6)

« on: April 25, 2014, 11:00:09 am »

Drawing most of your deck is much better with labs.  With stables you are going to run into times where you cant cause a reshuffle because you have 100 coppers in your discard. 

I just think they are a lot closer just like the rankings suggest.  They might both be a little overrated but there is no way they should be more then 5 ranks different.

I disagree. I'm with Awaclus here. Stables can be used in BM, but also as a sort of Warehouse+Lab drawer. It's got the same sifting as Lab (3cards) but increases your hand size. And honestly, it's very often worth it to discard Silvers to play them.

And with gold gainers like Hoard, I wouldn't be afraid to discard the Gold to, say, find my Goons.

Those that say Lab > Stables are arguing that the end game weakening of Stables is not worth it's strength in the early-mid game. I think that the early-mid game is crutial and is where you really get ahead of your opponent with better play. It's probably okay if your Stables are stalling when you're already 3 Provinces ahead. The cycling from Stables can give you such an edge depending on how strong the rest of the kingdom is.

3088

General Discussion / Re: Random Stuff

« on: April 25, 2014, 08:47:09 am »

Recently, I noticed that when I pour hot water into my tea cup, the water level quickly drops a bit. At first, I thought maybe the tea bag was absorbing the water, but why that would make the height of the water in the cup draw was beyond me. But then, I noticed that the height of the hot water still dropped even when there was no tea bag.

What I was witnessing must have been the water decreasing in volume as it quickly cooled and contracted once in the cup. Go material science! Or does material science only care about solids? Whatever, that's the domain of physics it reminded me of.

3089

General Discussion / Re: Random Stuff

« on: April 25, 2014, 08:40:42 am »

Does anyone here type without looking at the keyboard?

I type without looking at sthe scroeen and correcting my mistakes.

I correct half my mistakes without having to look at the screen though. Sometimes, you just know that what you just typed was wrong.

Yeah, I know what you mean. When I made that post I was intentionally just typing faster than I actually can, so when I didn't know which button to press next I just pressed something and let it stick.

Also, 75 WPM adjusted to 73 WPM. I don't touch type, but I can at least type at a pace which is reasonably fast. I think also two of the errors in there were kinda unfair, I put a full stop at the end of a sentence that didn't have one, but ehh.

Huh? Oh, there were typos in your post. Didn't notice.

3090

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Really bad card ideas

« on: April 24, 2014, 09:29:58 pm »

Engines and Combos are fun
Victory - $7
5 VPs
---
In games using this, at the start of your buy phase, gain an action costing up to $5, putting it on the bottom of your deck.

Because screw Big Money, why not have a card that accelerates you to the fun part of the game, lets you put your engine and combo together at rapid pace, and provides a bunch of extra expensive VPs to make sure a money - Province based strategy really can't keep up?

I Hate Engines $7
Treasure
Worth $4
+1 buy

+1 buy? Nah, still too engine-y for my tastes.

I <3 Big Money - $6
Action
+$4

3091

Game Reports / Re: Pearl Diver Shines!

« on: April 24, 2014, 09:12:06 pm »

Because sometimes, you just want a cheap cantrip. Beyond Silver. Hamlet would have really been nuts here in place of Pearl Diver, but alas Pearl Diver was here instead.

3092

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition: $5 cards (Part 5/6)

« on: April 23, 2014, 08:34:42 pm »

My top 5:

1.) Rebuild   [X]
2.) Mountebank   [X]
3.) Wharf   [X]
4.) Junk Dealer   [X]
5.) Cultist   [X]

Witch ekes out at #6, and I still think Junk Dealer deserves consideration for top 5. It's still in a much better place than last year.

I had Soothsayer at #9. Admittedly, I don't feel like I've played enough games with it to know its proper place and it's probably an overrate, but to me the Gold gaining is HUGE. Sure, a light trasher can trash the curses in your opponents deck pretty easily, but having a light trasher in a deck with a straight up gold gainer really forces your opponent to build up a strong deck quickly. Similar to Masterpiece, Soothsayer enables BM strategies that didn't exist before. On the other hand, the +card your opponent gets can save their engine when it would otherwise stall, and is extremely helpful for combo decks.

I had Ghost ship above Margrave, but just barely. Honestly, I find them very hard to rate against each other because they excel in different scenarios. Ghost ship is absolutely brutal in more sloggy games, and Margrave is great in engines that want +buy (never forget, +buy means more endgame control for the engine) and a very strong terminal in BM decks with high quality treasure.

3093

General Discussion / Re: Random Stuff

« on: April 22, 2014, 04:33:18 pm »

Does anyone here type without looking at the keyboard?

I type without looking at sthe scroeen and correcting my mistakes.

I correct half my mistakes without having to look at the screen though. Sometimes, you just know that what you just typed was wrong.

3094

General Discussion / Re: Random Stuff

« on: April 22, 2014, 04:30:13 pm »

I rearranged my keyboard to be slightly off what it should be to foil any keyboard lookers that try to use it:

qwertyiupo
adsfhgjlk
xzbcvmn

Ach, my muscle memory!

I can sorta type without looking at the keyboard, mostly with my index fingers to boot, but it seems suboptimal for me.

3095

General Discussion / Re: Random Stuff

« on: April 22, 2014, 02:36:13 pm »

I learned cursive in elementary school. Once I got the hang of it, life was great. Legible handwriting was never my strong point, but at least with cursive I could easily tell where one word ended and another started. With print writing, you had to find spaces that were slightly larger than the spaces between letters. Lame.

In recent years, print-writing has corrupted my autopilot. I swear I've caught myself switching from cursive to print or vice-versa mid sentence. Luckily, pretty much the only time I'm handwriting is when taking personal notes in class. There is a major shift towards digitization.

Interestingly enough, in Canada they want to stop teaching cursive. Here's a starter link that I couldn't be bothered to read more than a paragraph of:
http://www.todaysparent.com/family/education/cursive-writing-in-schools/

You know what else they tried teaching in my elementary school? How to type without looking at the keyboard, index fingers on F and J style. Never got the hang of that. I type so much faster when I look at the keyboard and type freestyle, mostly with my index fingers.

Does anyone here type without looking at the keyboard?

3096

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Enterprise (Beta)

« on: April 21, 2014, 02:30:42 pm »

I'm not sure how balanced this would be with the rest of your set, but have you considered something like:

Broker
Types: Action
Cost: $5
You may spend any number of Trade tokens. For each token you spend, +$2.
+2 Cards. +1 Buy.
While this is in play, when you gain a Victory card, take a Trade token.

This variant seems like it would be really strong with mid-turn gainers like Workshop, but this is terminal so you'd have to work for that. The vanilla bonuses can probably be adjusted, but of course the real question is if it makes the card any more interesting. This version makes you spend the tokens before you draw and get full information, and adds the possibility of token saving similar to Merchant Guild.

I feel like a one-shot +$2 is Fund's schtick. Mining Village did it first, of course, but Fund and Mining Village are in different sets and they're different enough for that to be sufficient. I don't really want to have another Enterprise card do it if I can get away with it, though.

In general, I want players to be informed as possible about what they'll get when they trigger a one-shot ability. That's why I'm against Trade tokens for blind draw. Similarly, I'm not a fan of spending tokens for Coins and then drawing, such that you'll have to guess whether you actually needed those Coins. If you guessed wrong, you either wasted your token or you don't have enough Coins. Fund is way better than Mining Village in this way, since you almost always know how many Coins you have this turn when deciding whether to activate its effect.

There are two reasons I try to design cards this way. First, it makes for fewer times when the players feel like they wasted an ability due to a bad guess. That's no fun. Second, it makes the decision about whether to spend the ability more meaningful. If players have to guess whether it's worth it to spend a token. Terrace is probably as far as I'm willing to go in the direction of blind results. With Terrace, you're often thinking, "My next 5 cards have got to be better than this" and you're usually right.

Fair enough. I forgot about Fund as well. I was thinking that it would be more thematic to have to invest trade tokens with incomplete information. But then, Mining Village can lead to all sorts of action paralysis.

3097

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Enterprise (Beta)

« on: April 21, 2014, 12:50:02 pm »

Broker (I'm not sold on this name.)
Types: Action
Cost: $5
+2 Cards. +1 Buy. +$2. You may spend a Trade token. If you don't, discard 2 cards.
While this is in play, when you gain a Victory card, take a Trade token.

I'm not sure how balanced this would be with the rest of your set, but have you considered something like:

Broker
Types: Action
Cost: $5
You may spend any number of Trade tokens. For each token you spend, +$2.
+2 Cards. +1 Buy.
While this is in play, when you gain a Victory card, take a Trade token.

This variant seems like it would be really strong with mid-turn gainers like Workshop, but this is terminal so you'd have to work for that. The vanilla bonuses can probably be adjusted, but of course the real question is if it makes the card any more interesting. This version makes you spend the tokens before you draw and get full information, and adds the possibility of token saving similar to Merchant Guild.

3098

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition: $5 cards (Part 3/6)

« on: April 21, 2014, 12:42:07 pm »

I'm genuinely curious to know if there have ever been simulations of Mine BM vs. BMU (no Colonies) where the effectiveness of prioritizing the mining to Copper->Silver is compared to prioritizing Silver->Gold. In the absense of discard attacks, the increased variance in mining Silver->Gold over Copper->Silver is non-zero but small. At the same time, Silver->Gold increases the chance that you have nothing to mine when Mine is in your hand, since gold cannot be turned into a better treasure.

I would always mine Copper->Silver first when I used to play, and am still temped to do the same in games without discard attacks.

Discard attacks are one good reason to want Mine, as is almost any sort of sifting at all. Also there are the various tricks you can do, as described by DG.

In the absence of any of those, you probably shouldn't be buying Mine at all. If you're buying Mine primarily to turn Coppers into Silvers, you're probably making a mistake.

At least the first one (maybe two) are better than silver in straight BM, though of course to be fair, this is virtually irrelevant.



Variance is I think generally good, particularly against discard attacks, though not against them, you have to weigh this against the possibility of having mine in a hand with no non-gold treasures. Colony games definitely swing to mine up the expensive ones, but... well, the whole question is very close to irrelevant, anyway.

It's all in the name of academic interest. I don't expect much from Mine-BM, except that it has a slight edge over BMU. But yeah, who cares about BMU these days anyway.

Thanks for the responses guys. I am satisfied.

3099

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition: $5 cards (Part 3/6)

« on: April 21, 2014, 12:20:41 pm »

You are actually expanding the Copper, not upgrading it.

Technically I'm mining Copper. Or am I mining Silver? I guess I'm mining Copper into Silver. Whatever. The point is that it's a waste of Mine if you have a better target available in your hand.

I'm genuinely curious to know if there have ever been simulations of Mine BM vs. BMU (no Colonies) where the effectiveness of prioritizing the mining to Copper->Silver is compared to prioritizing Silver->Gold. In the absense of discard attacks, the increased variance in mining Silver->Gold over Copper->Silver is non-zero but small. At the same time, Silver->Gold increases the chance that you have nothing to mine when Mine is in your hand, since gold cannot be turned into a better treasure.

I would always mine Copper->Silver first when I used to play, and am still temped to do the same in games without discard attacks.

3100

Introductions / Re: [Insert Socially Acceptable Greeting Here]

« on: April 20, 2014, 01:08:38 pm »

[insert [insert random topic] to [insert random verb]]