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2951

Dominion General Discussion / Four-player Mountebank: Estate rush?

« on: December 06, 2011, 12:09:45 am »

Following up on <a href="http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1080.msg17671#msg17671">a comment I made in another thread</a>—in a four-player Mountebank game, you can take a lot of punishment really fast between your turns. But this game has the interesting property that two piles will get depleted very fast: in a four-player game, there are only a couple more Coppers than Curses in the supply to begin with, and the Mountebanks are handing both out like hotcakes. This makes the four-player Mountebank situation not too different from the Ill-Gotten Gains situation: the must-have cursing attack (well, or whatever IGG is) causes a second pile to get depleted at about the same time as the curses, and your deck will have plenty of Copper in it.

With Ill-Gotten Gains the correct strategy is to rush the Duchies in that case; but with Mountebank, you'll probably have a slightly lower treasure density because you don't get the turn-boosting effect of the IGGs themselves. So I'm not totally convinced a Duchy-rush strategy in this case would be viable. But what do you think of an Estate-rush strategy in a four-way Mountebank game, with the intent of finishing off the Estates not too long after the Curses and Coppers are depleted—or even sooner? There are some cheap actions that could help with this and be relatively easy to pick up in a clogged deck, like Worker's Village and Baron. If your opponents get wise to what you're doing, other than competing with you for the Estates, what are they going to do? Stop playing their Mountebanks, to prevent the Curses and Coppers from being depleted? That may require reorienting your strategy, but that'll be a lot easier to do if you're not getting Cursed every turn.

Thoughts?

2952

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Enterprise: A One-Shot Expansion

« on: December 05, 2011, 08:37:03 pm »

Tinker
Types: Action
Cost: 3
Reveal the top card of your deck. Choose one: Trash the revealed card and gain a card costing exactly 1 Coin less than it, putting it on top of your deck; or trash the revealed card and gain a card costing up to 2 Coins more than it, then trash this card. +1 Card. +1 Action.

As for the card's actual effect, I admit that it's a gamble. There's a lot of luck involved. Overall, though,  I think the effect is a net postive and a little luck can be a lot of fun sometimes. Let's walk through what could happen when you play Tinker. Chances are good you're going to open with it to maximize the number of Coppers and Estates you can trash with it, so let's assume that.

The obvious comparison here is Lookout, right, as another nonterminal blind trasher. Tinker gives you less flexibility about what to trash at any given time; but on the other hand I would love to have a Lookout that could self-trash when my deck got good enough to not need the Lookout anymore.

2953

Rules Questions / Re: Coppersmith/ Black Market

« on: December 05, 2011, 07:46:49 pm »

The general rule is, cards do what they do when you play them when you play them; other effects don't reach back into history and change the effects of cards you've already played. So when you play a Copper, it gives you $1, right now. Playing Coppersmith only changes the effect of future Coppers played.

Consider a comparable case: you have three Pirate Ships. You play one for let's say $4, the second to trash someone's copper, and the third for $5. Then you have a total of $9, not $10; the second Pirate Ship doesn't reach back in time and give you an extra dollar for the first one you played also.

2954

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: How would Dominion look if it was designed as a computer game?

« on: December 05, 2011, 05:09:50 pm »

There would, in fact, be unlimited Copper, Silver, and Gold. (This would substantially change four-player Mountebank games.)

2955

Variants and Fan Cards / Thought experiment: On-buy Princess?

« on: December 05, 2011, 02:41:43 pm »

Suppose we wanted a card that had this rule:

"When you buy this card, +1 buy and all cards cost $2 less for the rest of this turn (but not below $0)."

Is there any combination of cost and other behavior that could render such a card balanced?

Some thoughts:

Presumably it should be something you don't want to clutter up your deck with too much of; we don't want people to have too much incentive to buy out the whole stack on one turn and then grab a Colony for free. Maybe a 2-point Victory card? I'm thinking Farmland as a model here. You still might do that whole-stack buyout in endgame, though, so maybe a victory card isn't the right way to go. Weak terminal action is also a possibility—something that someone might want to buy before endgame, but not too many of at once.

Farmland might also be a good comparison point for pricing. With Farmland, if you have $8 you buy a Province, but if you have $9 you might buy a Farmland and remodel a Gold. So suppose this is $6. In that case, if you have $8 you can buy one of these and let's say a Caravan.... You'd probably go for the Province anyway. If you have $9, you can get this and a Duchy—not as good as Farmland, but you don't have to trash a Gold for it either. With $10, you can one of these and a Gold, or two of these and a Caravan.... Hm. To buy out the stack, you'd need $12.

If it's $5, then $8 gets you one of these and a Duchy, or two of these and a Gardens.... $9 empties the stack. That's too cheap. If it's $7, then buying out the stack costs $16, but by the time you can put together $16, a few of these may already have been bought.

Other sources of +buy could make this insane, of course.

Thoughts?

2956

Dominion Isotropic / Re: Alchemist (Treasury) / Scheme bug

« on: December 05, 2011, 11:16:46 am »

A related, if inconsequential, cleanup bug is also noted <a href="http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1085.0">here</a>.

2957

2011 / Re: Schedule and Results: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships

« on: December 04, 2011, 04:39:46 pm »

DG defeats AJD 4-3 in a Round 2 match in the Thief division:

Game 1: DG 44 – 35 AJD
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201112/04/game-20111204-113837-6ff2e929.html
We both went more or less Envoy / big money; I opened Trader with the intention of increasing my Silver density for the Envoy to pick up, but it didn't end up paying off fast enough.

Game 2: AJD 37 – 22 DG
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201112/04/game-20111204-114854-7a54a805.html
A Swindler/Jack start, transitioning into Hunting Party stacks. I got my economy running sooner with an early Gold and it was more or less smooth sailing for me to the end of the game.

Game 3: AJD 42 – 38 DG
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201112/04/game-20111204-120941-ddf0e2cc.html
Fishing Villages enabling Goons combos. We both bought Black Markets but mine at least was mostly wasted; there never was anything in it that I wanted more than more Goons or Fishing Villages. I got two double-Goons turns off before DG got one, and from there it was basically a race for me to empty three piles before DG could catch up.

Game 4: DG 34 – 7 AJD
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201112/04/game-20111204-122340-a171283e.html
A punishing Ghost Ship game. At least, I felt pretty punished; we both opened Ghost Ship / nothing, and then DG hit $5 again on turn 5 for a second Ghost Ship, and the next thing I knew DG had three Ghost Ships, a Bazaar, a Forge, and a Nobles before I had my second $5 turn. When I had $4 on turn 3 I got a Sea Hag, which might have been a mistake since it slowed my economy down just as much, and I didn't get to play it often enough to have much of an effect.

Game 5: DG 36 – 12 AJD
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201112/04/game-20111204-123853-a17a660d.html
I got my Walled Village / Torturer engine running first, with some Tactician support, but DG made a brilliant pivot halfway through once the curses were running out into a double-Tactician deck using Conspirators for money and left me in the dust. I was planning to buy a Forge early on but DG embargoed them and I decided not to; it retrospect, I should have just eaten the curse to get the Forge; in a Forge/Tactician deck, it's not like the curse would have stuck around very long anyway.

Game 6: AJD 31 – 29 DG
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201112/04/game-20111204-124620-97ca4a62.html
Haven / Trading Post openings into Wharf / big money decks. DG started greening a little early; I bought a second Wharf, which gave me a chance to make up lost ground. My first-turn advantage probably made the difference here.

Game 7: DG 42 – 21 AJD
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201112/04/game-20111204-125518-3af20883.html
We both opened Masquerade/Jack. After my Masquerade and Jack conflicted on the first reshuffle and DG's didn't, putting DG well on the way to Grand Markets and me losing tempo, I figured I'd have to do something crazy to have a chance of catching up. Unfortunately, the only crazy thing I could find was Pirate Ships and Noble Brigands, which predictably didn't work out very well for me (although my Brigands did manage to snatch a couple of Golds). DG sailed to the match point.

Good games, DG! In this thread we often say things like 'the lopsided score obscures how even the match was', but here I think it's just the opposite: the closeness of the 4–3 final score obscures how much better DG played than I did; the victory was well deserved.

2958

Rules Questions / Re: Black Market -> Feast -> Mandarin

« on: December 04, 2011, 12:57:36 pm »

Since they have no "while this is in play" clause, I view the treasure in the same way as any other type of +action/buy/coins. Once the card is played you've got its bonus, no matter what happens to the card afterwards.

<i>Some</i> treasures have a "while this is in play" clause. (But sure.)

2959

Rules Questions / Re: Black Market -> Feast -> Mandarin

« on: December 03, 2011, 11:31:42 pm »

I have multiple Actions and a Black Market, Feast, and 3 Copper in hand. Can I:

1) play Black Market, and play my 3 Copper
2) play Feast, gaining a Mandarin, and placing my 3 Copper in play back onto my deck
3) Have $3 to spend at this point?

Well, the nitpicky answer is no, you have $5 to spend, since you didn't spend the +$2 from the Black Market either. But yeah, this is covered by the FAQ entry: "This does not stop you from having the coins you got for playing those treasures." Essentially the same question was brought up in a thread at BGG regarding a potential ludicrous Horn-of-Plenty/Mandarin/Venture combo that could result in you playing the same Treasure card multiple times on the same turn.

2960

Dominion Isotropic / Re: Minor Walled Village bug?

« on: December 03, 2011, 06:41:39 pm »

I think the behavior here is a "there's no meaningful priority here so we'll give the player a "choice" thing that we see in other places.  Consider when you have Goons and Hoard in play.  You buy a Duchy.  Iso then gives you the "choice" of gaining a Gold or a VP chip.  You're going to get both, so it doesn't matter.

Well, except that according to the rules of Dominion the player is allowed to choose whether to gain the Gold or the VP chip first, but isn't allowed to choose whether to top-deck the Walled Village or the Treasury first. But you're right that it doesn't matter, certainly. (And because of that, I do wish Isotropic didn't make me have to go through the pointless extra clicking in the Goons/Hoard scenario.)

2961

Game Reports / Re: The kind of thing that happens when you're trying to end the game on piles

« on: December 03, 2011, 06:36:38 pm »

I've done it to power up a City stack before, or yes, end the game.

Both of those were involved here, actually! The City and Curse stacks were both empty, and most of the Feasts were gone as well because they'd been getting traded in for Cities. My opponent had more Cities than me, but also more Curses, and I had two Provinces already. So I thought about taking a Duchy with that Feast (and when I had picked up the Feast, it had been with the intention of getting a Margrave), but instead I decided to bet that I could deplete the last two or three Feasts before my opponent was able to catch up to me in Provinces.

2962

Game Reports / The kind of thing that happens when you're trying to end the game on piles

« on: December 03, 2011, 01:58:15 pm »

The kind of thing that happens when you're trying to end the game on piles:

You play a Feast.
... You trash the Feast.
... You gain a Feast.

I was just amused enough by that that I wanted to post it.

2963

Dominion Isotropic / Minor Walled Village bug?

« on: December 03, 2011, 02:32:09 am »

The actions I had in play were Walled Village and Treasury, and I got the "Clean up which card next" question, since both Walled Village and Treasury were eligible to be top-decked. I don't think this is correct, however; the text of Walled Village seems to require that Walled Village be top-decked first if at all, so I shouldn't be offered the choice—right? (Or at least, if I choose to clean up Treasury first, it shouldn't permit me to then top-deck Walled Village after it, which it does.)

It's... implausible that this should ever make a difference, so perhaps it's not worth worrying about, but it is strictly speaking an incorrect behavior.

2964

Game Reports / Re: Stables vs. Alchemist vs. Scrying Pool

« on: December 02, 2011, 06:24:15 pm »

No, adding the Pawn is definitely better than not. Stables is non-terminal, so you won't draw Pawns dead, and since you can play Pawn as a cantrip, you always have the option of cycling to the next card at the beginning of a hand if that's what you want. Thus there's no way in which it can hurt, and if you get the Stables going in a big way the +buy clearly has potential.

It's not quite true that there's no way it can hurt. You always have the option of cycling it to the next card if that's what you want; but there will be some times when you opt not to cycle it because of the uncertainty of what the next card is, even if it to do so would have been the best move. ...Right?

2965

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Idea for Reaction card - needs name.

« on: December 02, 2011, 04:04:01 pm »

Donald posted somewhere or other that he tried various Remodel variants that put the gained card directly in your hand, but they were problematic in some way.  I guess putting Treasure in your hand (Trading Post, Mine) wasn't a big deal, but Action cards were.  Unfortunately I don't know what the problems were, if they were to do with balance or loopholes or what.

I would guess it's a balance issue: perhaps having an Action that puts non-Treasures directly into your hand would be either too strong in the presence of Villages or too weak in the absence of Villages, so it was impossible to give it a fair price?

2966

Dominion Articles / Re: Ill-Gotten Gains

« on: December 01, 2011, 05:30:44 pm »

If you're going to put "Itself" in the "works with" section, you might want to clarify and say "Duchies", since that's the natural thing to empty after the rush is over.

If you're doing an IGG rush, is it also worth picking up Dukes when they're around after you've got four or five Duchies, or should you just go for emptying the Duchy pile as fast as possible? I guess it depends on how well and how fast your opponent is recovering from the curses.

2967

Game Reports / Re: On not giving in to temptation

« on: December 01, 2011, 01:35:25 pm »

Your turn 5 Wharf buy bothers me especially. Chances are you're either going to draw Wharf with Chapel in the same hand or pick Chapel up from the Wharf draw itself. You already had BM as a terminal!

"Giving into temptation" is a common theme with Black Market, and this was another case of it on my part. Wharf is a great card, you know, and when you (by which I mean, I) see one in the Black Market you're likely to go 'Ooh! Awesome card, and this is my only chance to get one!' without really reasoning through whether it's the best card for your deck at this point in the game. At least, that's what happened to me in this game with both Wharf and (to a lesser extent) Chapel, and I think it's a problem I fall victim to with Black Market a lot.

2968

Game Reports / Re: On not giving in to temptation

« on: December 01, 2011, 09:55:16 am »

Yeah, it definitely depends on what the game turns into after the Curses are gone.

If it's a Colony game, then Chapel is looking pretty good.
If it's a Province game without much else on the board, then Familiar is looking better.

Could you provide the complete board for us?

Here it is: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111130-205507-9a4d0a29.html

The thing that kept getting my goat was that Randomizer would play a bunch of Governors, giving me a huge handsize for my next turn, but with no Chapel in it—sometimes because Randomizer had made me skip my Chapel with a Spy, but sometimes not. I don't think I ever had my Chapel and any of my seven Curses in hand at the same time for the entire game.

2969

Game Reports / On not giving in to temptation

« on: December 01, 2011, 03:13:59 am »

Didn't save the game log. However, here's a lesson I learned the hard way tonight:

If you open Black Market / Potion, and then on Turn 3 you have Black Market plus $2P and the Black Market offers you a Chapel...

you should probably tell the Black Market no thanks, and just get that Familiar anyway.

2970

Dominion Isotropic / Re: Decline of civility on isotropic?

« on: December 01, 2011, 02:10:49 am »

This isn't a "civility" issue per se, but my opponent bought the last Province and the following baffling exchange happened:

The game is over! (All Provinces are gone.)
AJD has 24 points (4 Provinces) and took 12 turns.
v3ck has 20 points (4 Provinces and 4 Curses) and took 12 turns.

1:28 v3ck: ? ? ? ? ? ?
1:28 AJD: ...What do you mean?
1:28 v3ck: weird shuffles?
1:29 v3ck has returned to the lobby.

No, v3ck, it wasn't weird shuffles; it was I bought a Witch and you didn't. What did you think was going to happen?

I was distracted and something got mixed up in my head, then said something rather odd. I admit that I do that occasionally. However, it really doesn't belong in this thread (even if you say it isn't really a civility issue). I don't appreciate being disgraced by being quoted among the people saying things like "fuck you", "faggot", and "piece of shit".

I apologize for that, v3ck; you don't deserve that. In my defense, perhaps, I did note at the top of my post that you hadn't been uncivil; I was just perplexed by your comment.

2971

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: The Seven Deadly Sins - Mini-expansion concept

« on: November 30, 2011, 11:06:37 pm »

Pride is still broken in very obvious ways that have already been stated.

Alright you're gonna have to tell me why it's broken, cause you simply haven't mustered up adequate reasoning against it so far.

Because Curses are easy to get, and Pride is relatively easy to get, and Pride gives you a very large number of victory points for having Curses. It only takes three turns to make each Pride give you as many points as a Province. Consider how long it would take to make each Gardens or Silk Road worth as much as a Province. That's how long it should take to make a $4 Victory card worth six points.

Okay, see what I mean that you're taking everyone's experience about card design and shitting on it because you think you're better at it? You momentarily expressed some willingness to reconsider your cards in light of valid criticisms, but it's ringing false.

I'm not shitting on experience with card design, it's just that there isn't any specific rules about discarding in Dominion.  It's perfectly valid to rearrange the cards before you discard them in Dominion.  It has nothing to do with going against the actual game design.

To be clear, the complaint is not that Sloth is inconsistent with the rules and structure of Dominion. The complaint is that it would not be fun to play a game using that card. I'm not convinced I agree; but be aware of what you're responding to.

2972

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Exception to the rule, Part 3

« on: November 30, 2011, 08:18:13 pm »

When you're trying to set up a Torturer engine, is my most immediate response—especially if there's a $4 that will help you get to $5 fast to make up for not getting a Silver with your $3, like Feast or Horse Traders.

2973

Dominion Isotropic / Re: Bug report: Watchtower can dig through a shuffled deck

« on: November 30, 2011, 04:06:37 pm »

isotropic has a limitation where I'm only allowed to reveal Watchtower at most once for each card. Technically in a FtF game I could reveal it once, top-deck the card, then reveal it again to trash the card, but I can't do that on isotropic.

I think Donald ruled <a href="http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1028.msg16184#msg16184">over in the Rules forum</a> that this doesn't work in a FtF game; top-decking it once causes the Watchtower to lose track when you try to reveal it the second time.

2974

2011 / Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Kingdom Design Challenge Rules

« on: November 30, 2011, 08:57:21 am »

Or you could challenge them both to a game and then cancel.

Wouldn't that leave them stuck with 12 provinces and so on?

I think if you challange them and reject before they accept, the game is proposed to these two players. As only two player enter the game, there are only 8 Provinces.

Oh, I see. Yes, I misunderstood your suggestion (or it's too early in the morning for me to think clearly).

2975

2011 / Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Kingdom Design Challenge Rules

« on: November 30, 2011, 08:50:44 am »

Or you could challenge them both to a game and then cancel.

Wouldn't that leave them stuck with 12 provinces and so on?