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676

Game Reports / Re: Another thing can beat Rebuild: Courtyard-Hoard

« on: December 20, 2013, 03:54:23 pm »

Holger, can you post the Dominate code? I would be interested in looking at what you are running. Thanks!

(FTFY)

Here it is; I've just added the Hoard and Harem lines to the existing OBM Courtyard code, and now made the "second" Duchy gain priority unconditional. (Remove the Harem line to get "my" CY-Hoard BM.)

Code: [Select]

{
  name: 'OBM Courtyard'
  author: 'HiveMindEmulator'
  requires: ['Courtyard', 'Hoard', 'Harem']
  gainPriority: (state, my) -> [
    "Province" if my.countInDeck("Gold") > 0
    "Duchy" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 4
    "Estate" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 2
    "Hoard" if  my.countInDeck("Hoard") == 0
    "Harem"
    "Gold"
    "Duchy" #if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 5
    "Silver" if my.countInDeck("Silver") == 0
    "Courtyard" if my.countInDeck("Courtyard") == 0
    "Courtyard" if my.countInDeck("Courtyard") < my.countCardTypeInDeck("treasure") / 8
    "Silver"
    "Courtyard" if my.countInDeck("Courtyard") <= 1
  ]
}

677

Game Reports / Re: Another thing can beat Rebuild: Courtyard-Hoard

« on: December 20, 2013, 03:27:22 pm »

Very nice game. A good demonstration of the idea that strong BM decks are very competitive against Rebuild, much more so than simply decent engines. Something like Courtyard/Hoard/BM is reaching for VP much faster than a competing engine, which is exactly what you want against Rebuild.

I don't want to spoil jaybeez' success, but a single game is not a proof of a superior strategy, the win can easily be due to shuffle luck. Simulating a few hundred games on Dominiate shows that Rebuild beats Courtyard/1Hoard/BM decisively (71:29), and seems to narrowly beat Courtyard/1Hoard/Harem/BM (51:49) as well. AFAIK, the only BM strategy (excluding Witch/YW) known to beat Rebuild in simulations is Wharf/Bank, and even that by a very small margin (53:47).

Hmm, well I have very little experience with the simulators, but how well do they play Courtyard in conjunction with Hoard? Put back rules a little tough, maybe? Because that result does surprise me a bit...

Unfortunately I don't know, I just used the implemented put-back rules.

Edit--re: Holger's simulation data, I'm wondering the same thing that Robz888 is, deciding what to put back with Courtyard can require some thought, depending on where you are in your shuffle, what you know is still in your deck, etc.  I can't imagine the simulator can account for that.  Also, IMO if you're going Courtyard-Hoard (Harem or no) whether you get one Hoard or two depends partly on how your draws go in the early- to mid-game.  So only buying one Hoard irrespective of anything else does not seem like optimal play for that strat.  I could be wrong though.

Edit #2: to be clear, I'm not suggesting that Courtyard-Hoard or Courtyard-Hoard-Harem are necessarily superior strategies to Rebuild.  It's just that I decided to try it, thought it had a good chance of working out, and it did, and I was happy about that, so I decided to post the results

Yes, I didn't account for the option to buy a second Hoard; to simulate it, you'd need a clear rule when to buy a second one, and I was too lazy to find one myself 

Are you adjusting the Duchy buy rules?

jaybeez bought Duchies right away. I would be interested in if it's worth passing up the first Duchy for a Venture (if you don't have Hoard in hand).

No, I didn't. But trying it now, it turns out that buying Duchies from the start leaves the win rates almost unchanged.

678

Game Reports / Re: Another thing can beat Rebuild: Courtyard-Hoard

« on: December 20, 2013, 02:18:06 pm »

Very nice game. A good demonstration of the idea that strong BM decks are very competitive against Rebuild, much more so than simply decent engines. Something like Courtyard/Hoard/BM is reaching for VP much faster than a competing engine, which is exactly what you want against Rebuild.

I don't want to spoil jaybeez' success, but a single game is not a proof of a superior strategy, the win can easily be due to shuffle luck. Simulating a few hundred games on Dominiate shows that Rebuild beats Courtyard/1Hoard/BM decisively (71:29), and seems to narrowly beat Courtyard/1Hoard/Harem/BM (51:49) as well. AFAIK, the only BM strategy (excluding Witch/YW) known to beat Rebuild in simulations is Wharf/Bank, and even that by a very small margin (53:47).

679

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Donald X on Rebuild

« on: December 18, 2013, 03:58:47 pm »

But does it become any more interesting if you just buy Estates instead of Duchies? I don't think so.

I think it would be very seldom you'd like to buy Estate for $5

Then you just buy another Rebuild.  One of the tactical decisions you have to make in a Rebuild game is knowing when to switch from Rebuilds to Duchies.  If Duchy is not a buy option, then you just go for Rebuild every time.  Of course that's slightly weaker than if Duchy is available, but not nearly enough that Rebuild is no longer dominant on most boards.  I think it's only a slight nerf, and actually makes Rebuild less interesting.

Yes, that's what I think as well. The strategy would be simple: Buy Rebuild for $5, Silver or Estate for $3, Estate for $2.

Is there a reason why the "return to supply" fix hasn't been discussed more?  I think that's by far the simplest, and probably the most effective, fix yet.

I think the simplest fixes are removing the +1 Action or increasing the price; and both have been shown to be effective for making Rebuild-BM non-dominant (the price increase to $6 probably too much so).

"Return to supply" is also a relatively simple (and elegant) fix, but I'm not sure if it really weakens Rebuild so much; have you playtested/simulated it? It could actually help Rebuild that the Duchies rarely run out in the non-mirror, similarly as with pst's proposal. (It might hurt Rebuild more if only the Provinces are returned to the supply instead of trashed, not the Duchies.)

Maybe you could just increase the Province pile size in Rebuild games, fixing Rebuild without changing the card itself?

680

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Donald X on Rebuild

« on: December 18, 2013, 11:57:33 am »

Well, won't Rebuild get simply more dominant?

The only way to get Duchies would be to Rebuild Estates, so the Rebuilder just buys Estates and Rebuilds them to Duchies while the non-Rebuilder can't buy Duchies to deny them to his opponent.

Yeah, but that fix wasn't meant to make it easier to avoid using Rebuild at all; but to make a game with Rebuild more interesting. (On many boards you will lose if you don't get Witch, and both players will know it. That is also no problem. There can be lots of variation in what else you are doing.)

But does it become any more interesting if you just buy Estates instead of Duchies? I don't think so.

If you want to change buying rules, I'd rather consider:

"You may not buy Rebuild unless a Province has been bought."

(You could use the Trade Route tokens to track this.)

681

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Donald X on Rebuild

« on: December 17, 2013, 10:24:33 am »

Terminal Rebuild makes it weaker, but worsens the Interestingness/Strength ratio. If Rebuild is terminal you can't pair it up with Scavenger, Horse Traders or Rogue, for example; the space of viable strategies becomes much more limited.

As I said above, Terminal Rebuild is weak enough that the "boring" Rebuild-BM is rarely the optimal strategy, which should increase the space of viable "interesting" strategies (though it does kill the Rebuild+TerminalAction-BM strategies).

But if you prefer to keep all of Rebuild's current interactions intact, I'd suggest making the card "semi-terminal" by using an "inverse Cultist clause":

Rebuild, $5
Name a card. Reveal cards from the top of your deck until you reveal a Victory card that is not the named card. Discard the other cards. Trash the Victory card and gain a Victory card costing up to $3 more than it.
You may play an Action from your hand other than Rebuild.


This would weaken Rebuild-BM and keep it weaker than Rebuild/Scavenger etc., so it's "strictly more interesting" than the published version IMO. It also has a curious synergy with every non-terminal Action card since these allow you to still play several Rebuilds in one turn.

682

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Donald X on Rebuild

« on: December 16, 2013, 05:04:19 pm »

One thing that I found really interesting about Donald's comments relative to this thread's discussion is how adamant f.ds seems to be on keeping a Rebuild variant.  There is this sense of the published cards being the chosen ones, and that at most we may wish to tweak them.  Yet Donald's perspective is different.  He starts from various large collections of card ideas without any of them being particularly special.  For him, if Rebuild turns out to be unbalanced, the natural solution is to throw out Rebuild and use Card Idea X instead, rather than endlessly tweaking Rebuild until it works.

But Donald did consider terminal Rebuild unbalanced and (unfortunately) tweaked it to the current version, instead of replacing it by a different card. Only now that this does turn out to be unbalanced in the other direction does he mention a different card idea as a possible replacement.

Donald's alternative Rebuild to me seems like a not-too-interesting Lookout variant with potentially even higher luck factor - instead of the remote risk of trashing a Province, you may be lucky to rebuild a Gold in the late game, or unlucky and only reveal Coppers. I'm not sure if it's really more interesting than a fixed Rebuild; back then, Donald's playtesters didn't think so (of course, they already considered Rebuild fixed). Maybe LastFootnote has some experience playing with his "Build" now...

On the other hand, for the purposes of forum discussion, tweaks provide a much more manageable scope than all of the possible replacement cards.

Indeed; it's easier to judge a card that's similar to an existing one, I think.

683

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Donald X on Rebuild

« on: December 13, 2013, 08:33:06 am »

I don't think this would be too strong - you'd unwillingly hit a Province maybe every second time, so Rebuild is useless much more often than with terminal Rebuild.

If it's not a mirror, hitting Province isn't too bad for you because it still contributes to emptying the Province pile.

But if you often hit Province, emptying the Province pile is actually bad because you're probably losing. Rebuild isn't that good if it only nets you 1 or 1.5 VP per play - I'd rather play Monument or Ironworks-Great Hall...

684

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Donald X on Rebuild

« on: December 13, 2013, 08:02:16 am »

I have been thinking about this version:

Rebuild - $5

+1 Action
-------------------
Look through your discard pile. You may trash one Victory card from it.
If you do, gain a Victory card costing up to $3 more than the trashed card.


So basically this trashes from your discard instead of your deck and you can target any card without the awkward "name a card you don't want to trash". Being able to trash any card looks stronger on paper, but you're shuffling way less, so you'll get to play Rebuild less often, and of course have to deal with the "Counting House" problem where you won't always have the card you want in your discard. So overall I wonder if this stronger, weaker, or somewhat similar.

Thoughts?

I think this would make it weaker. You often have only two types of VP cards anyway, or don't mind so much whether you hit an Estate or a Duchy (in the non-mirror). Since you only look through the discard, you'd usually need two or three "rebuildable" cards instead of one, which is a significant nerf. You'd also lose the cycling. This might be interesting to try. (Alternatively, you could also nerf Rebuild by letting it only look through at most N cards, with N=10 maybe.)

What would happen if you simply removed the clunky 'name a card' thing?  Would that make it completely unplayable?

It would make it less overpowered, but still way too strong, and swingier and less tactically interesting.

I don't think this would be too strong - you'd unwillingly hit a Province maybe every second time, so Rebuild is useless much more often than with terminal Rebuild. (OTOH, it would speed up the game even more.) But I agree that it'd be swingier and even more boring, so no a good fix.

685

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Donald X on Rebuild

« on: December 12, 2013, 03:16:42 pm »

Funny thing, I was thinking about the suggestion of removing the +Action on Rebuild, and I'm pretty sure that would actually make Rebuild more centralizing.  If Rebuild were terminal, the effect would still be just as good in a lot of kingdoms, only now you'd have to pick between it and other potential terminals so you'd probably just default to picking Rebuild unless there was truly a better option.

This "danger" exists, but the default terminal Rebuild strategy turned out to be no stronger than BM-Council Room in my simulations (and much weaker than DoubleJack). So it'd rarely be the dominant strategy, I think; usually engines will be better.

686

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Donald X on Rebuild

« on: December 12, 2013, 02:52:41 pm »

Well, the simulations only consider BM, of course. But since Rebuild-BM loses to pure BM, I'd expect Rebuild+X-BM to lose against X-BM in most cases as well, because very few cards (like Rogue, Graverobber) combo specifically with Rebuild. And unlike Expand, Rebuild gets weaker, not stronger, in card-drawing engines due to more "collisions" with Duchies.

Wait, what? I'm pretty certain that's false. Is your simulator foolishly buying Golds instead of Rebuilds and Duchies?

I think he's talking about $6 Rebuild.

Ah, gotcha. Sorry about that.

Right, sorry for the confusion. Only $6 Rebuild loses to BM, while $5 Rebuild clearly wins, of course (with or without the +1 Action).

687

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Donald X on Rebuild

« on: December 12, 2013, 02:50:20 pm »

[...]
In engines, Rebuild is also usually weaker than Gold - instead of Rebuilding a Duchy, you can just use the Gold to buy Province instead of Duchy directly, and Rebuild is dead if you draw all your Duchies to hand (or if you don't have a Duchy in your deck). So at $6, Rebuild may well be too weak to matter on most boards. (But I'd like to be convinced otherwise...)

I don't agree here.

Playing Rebuild as soon as you draw it mitigates the problem. It would be horrible luck to always draw Rebuild after drawing all of your expandable green. Any one sifter completely eliminates the problem in engines that draw your deck.

Yes, but most boards don't have a sifter. And even drawing Rebuild dead only every second or third time would weaken it immensely.

Even one Rebuild can help engines tremendously in games where trashing, extra buys, or extra gains are light. Those starting Estates likely become Provinces by the end of the game, no problem. What's better than buying a Province? Rebuilding a starting Estate and buying a Province, of course! It sifts to get to new engine cards faster, if you are not drawing your deck. Rebuild also helps end the game on your own terms (like Apprentice, Remodel, Salvager, etc.) if you are ahead and just want to clear out those Provinces. In the endgame a lot of engines can clog and you are buying Duchies, anyway. Threatening draining the Provinces or getting 3 points or both can be huge. I think $6 Rebuild would still be plenty useful.

Right, these may be reasons to go for a $6 Rebuild in an engine, at least when sifting is available. (But most games have a cheaper (Estate) trasher that may be preferrable to a $6 Estate trasher.)

Edit: However, "games where trashing, extra buys, or extra gains are light" tend to be BM games, not engines.

Edit^2: $6 Rebuild (as well as terminal Rebuild) could be very good in slogs, where it may be the only way to get to Provinces. If you get to $6 in slogs...

688

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Donald X on Rebuild

« on: December 12, 2013, 02:11:31 pm »

(Assuming no Shelters [...], which do weaken Rebuild.)

Have you done extensive simulations? My experience tells me this specific claim--unfortunately a persistent myth--is utter nonsense, and the few limited simulations I've done show a few % difference at most, if I recall them correctly. So yeah, technically they weaken Rebuild, but almost never in a way that would have you switch strategies depending on whether there are Shelters or Estates (b.c. strategies that are close to 50% against Rebuild are so rare to begin with), which is the only criterion that should matter.

No, I haven't simulated Shelters at all, since they're not implemented on Dominiate AFAIK; it was just a caveat to the results I mentioned. I'd be interested to see your simulation results. (So is my claim "utter nonsense" or "technically" correct?  )

I'd hope that there are a few more BM strategies that beat Rebuild with Shelters, but I don't know any specific examples. Even a few percent difference can matter e.g. when playing Rebuild+weak support against Bank+Wharf.

689

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Donald X on Rebuild

« on: December 12, 2013, 12:36:49 pm »

We've talked a lot about Rebuild often completely dominating whatever kingdom it shows up in. In what (if any) situations can Rebuild be safely ignored?

There are also strong BM decks which can snap up 4 Provinces and a Duchy in enough time. I'm not as sure about the BM claim, maybe there have been simulations that show otherwise.

I think you need a lot, standard Wharf-Bank wins by a bit only...

Indeed; only very strong combos like Beggars-Gardens and Masterpiece-Feodum convincingly beat Rebuild. DoubleWitch-BM beats Rebuild, but is beaten by "Witch-into-Rebuild"-BM, and similarly for Young Witch.
(Assuming no Shelters and Colonies, which do weaken Rebuild.)

690

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Donald X on Rebuild

« on: December 12, 2013, 12:21:07 pm »

1.) Well, some suggested to make it cost $6. At first I thought this is a valid move, but later I realised that it probably makes Rebuild games only worse because the strength of the card is the same and if someone gets a lucky $6 after the first reshuffle and your opponent not, he's maybe already miles ahead. So, it probably only adds variance and luck, that's not want I want to do.

Actually, Rebuild becomes extremely weak at $6, as DStu posted at the quoted BGG thread: BM-Rebuild loses 25-75 to BM-Smithy, and even loses narrowly to pure BM. I suppose it's because you rarely get to $6 in standard Rebuild games.

2.) So, it was clear to me that the card itself has to be fixed, not the cost. But I really don't want a totally different card, like the one Donald X. suggested. The only thing I came up with is removing the +1 Action because, honestly, the +1 Action barely matters, but it can matter. [...]

Surprisingly, the +1 Action matters quite a bit; I simulated "TerminalRebuild" recently on Dominiate:

TerminalRebuild loses to the strongest BM cards: Wharf, Goons, GhostShip, DoubleJack, all Cursers.

It essentially ties with Monument (51:49), Envoy (48.5:51.5), Smithy (52:48) and Courtyard (50:50), and wins against all other implemented one-card strategies (Militia, Masq., HP, Amb., Library, ...).

I suppose 1 or 2 self-collisions per game are enough to lose many narrow games, even in the absence of terminal support cards. This seems to be a suitable fix to make Rebuild non-dominant on most boards.

I am glad you mentioned the simulation results, but I want to mention that I don't think the simulations show that Rebuild is too weak at $6. Just like with Big Money, a Rebuild strategy gets better with the addition of almost any <$5 card, so testing Rebuild only in the non-terminal $6 case doesn't show that it's weak. That would be like saying Expand only is weak because it loses to Smithy. It misses that Rebuild is still going to be a great addition to consider to almost any engine-based deck that doesn't end with buying all the VP on one turn (Province-Duchy or Duchy-Duchy buys become a lot more potent if you threaten Rebuild next turn). We just don't see those decks because right now if a hybrid deck is viable, then it is almost certainly dominated by Rebuild-only.

Well, the simulations only consider BM, of course. But since Rebuild-BM loses to pure BM, I'd expect Rebuild+X-BM to lose against X-BM in most cases as well, because very few cards (like Rogue, Graverobber) combo specifically with Rebuild. And unlike Expand, Rebuild gets weaker, not stronger, in card-drawing engines due to more "collisions" with Duchies.

In engines, Rebuild is also usually weaker than Gold - instead of Rebuilding a Duchy, you can just use the Gold to buy Province instead of Duchy directly, and Rebuild is dead if you draw all your Duchies to hand (or if you don't have a Duchy in your deck). So at $6, Rebuild may well be too weak to matter on most boards. (But I'd like to be convinced otherwise...)

691

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Donald X on Rebuild

« on: December 11, 2013, 05:42:01 pm »

You don't need to buy Duchies if you buy Rebuild only in the mid- to late game; you'll have enough fuel for the rest of the game just by upgrading the starting Estates (if you didn't trash them in the early game already).

Bear in mind that Rebuild is a Dark Ages card, so you have to take into account the fairly likely scenario that you have no starting Estates to upgrade.

Okay, I was assuming all-random kingdoms, which usually have starting Estates. But even with Shelters you can still get 3 Rebuild uses out of the one Overgrown Estate.

Even in an Estate game, if you take the route of waiting until mid to late game to start rebuilding, there may not be enough Duchies left to rebuild your Estates into.

Occasionally, yes; so it's not an automatic buy. But usually Duchies don't run out long before the game ends if the Duchy rush is not viable, I think.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but... what if Rebuild was a Potion-cost card?

That would limit the number you could easily pick up per shuffle and it's definitely strong enough to consider buying a Potion even if it's the only Potion-cost card.

What should it cost? 3P or 4P?

That's an interesting idea. I think 3P should be enough, since 4P is even harder to get than $6. And the potion is useless for buying Duchies.

692

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Donald X on Rebuild

« on: December 11, 2013, 04:35:23 pm »

1.) What I meant is that card strength is still the same and if you're lucky to get an early $6, that may be huge. The problem is getting to $6. If there's a strong attack, you may not even get to $6 for a while what makes Rebuild probably weak. I'm also not that surprised that it loses to BM+Smithy, but 75-25 is more than I expected. But all the wins where probably out of an early $6 after the first reshuffle. Anyway, it makes the card itself not more interesting or balanced. Changing the cost doesn't fix it. That's exectly what I meant.

Thanks for the clarification, now I see what you mean. I haven't looked into the simulation details of getting an early $6, but I think I would usually prefer Gold on an early $6 to a $6 Rebuild anyway: Rebuild is only really good when you can get several, since you have to "clean up" the Estates first (which only nets you 2 VP instead of 3 VP) and since you have to rush to the Provinces against engines; and one Rebuild doesn't help you to get another since it actually weakens your economy, unlike Gold. But I agree that a price change doesn't make the card any more interesting.

2.) I'm glad that you can confirm that the +1 Action matters, that's what I suspected. That lets me believe that a terminal Rebuild would be a valid fix for the card. It seems still strong, but not that overpowered anymore.

Yes, I'd also try this as a fix. I think this change might even make it a bit weak, since e.g. BM+Smithy is not competitive on most boards, and since Rebuild becomes weaker in engines.

The question is, is it an interesting, fun card? Simulations won't be able to determine that. It's worth noting that terminal Rebuild was tested and nobody won a game with it.

The root problem with Rebuild is that it forces you to buy Duchies to fuel it. Spending your $5 buys on Duchies is boring.

EDIT: Let me try to explain that further. I enjoy Duchy dancing as much as the next guy; probably significantly more, actually. But spending all your non-Rebuild buys on Duchies is dull. Duke doesn't really have this issue since you need some kind of support to go Duke. You can't just buy Duchies from the get-go or you'll choke. Rebuild doesn't really have that issue. So its strength is part of the problem, but even if you make it terminal or raise its cost, the Duchy rush still remains.

You don't need to buy Duchies if you buy Rebuild only in the mid- to late game; you'll have enough fuel for the rest of the game just by upgrading the starting Estates (if you didn't trash them in the early game already).
I'd expect the "no-fun" TerminalRebuild-Duchy rush to lose against most engines based on the comparison to BM-Smithy. But you could add one or two TerminalRebuilds to many decks as a mid-game addition like Harem or Great Hall, or try to build a Rebuild semi-engine with Villages or Throne Rooms, which seems potentially much more fun to me. But it's true that you'd have to playtest it to determine if the fix is worth it - can someone convince Goko to implement it?

693

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Donald X on Rebuild

« on: December 11, 2013, 11:24:19 am »

1.) Well, some suggested to make it cost $6. At first I thought this is a valid move, but later I realised that it probably makes Rebuild games only worse because the strength of the card is the same and if someone gets a lucky $6 after the first reshuffle and your opponent not, he's maybe already miles ahead. So, it probably only adds variance and luck, that's not want I want to do.

Actually, Rebuild becomes extremely weak at $6, as DStu posted at the quoted BGG thread: BM-Rebuild loses 25-75 to BM-Smithy, and even loses narrowly to pure BM. I suppose it's because you rarely get to $6 in standard Rebuild games.

2.) So, it was clear to me that the card itself has to be fixed, not the cost. But I really don't want a totally different card, like the one Donald X. suggested. The only thing I came up with is removing the +1 Action because, honestly, the +1 Action barely matters, but it can matter. [...]

Surprisingly, the +1 Action matters quite a bit; I simulated "TerminalRebuild" recently on Dominiate:

TerminalRebuild loses to the strongest BM cards: Wharf, Goons, GhostShip, DoubleJack, all Cursers.

It essentially ties with Monument (51:49), Envoy (48.5:51.5), Smithy (52:48) and Courtyard (50:50), and wins against all other implemented one-card strategies (Militia, Masq., HP, Amb., Library, ...).

I suppose 1 or 2 self-collisions per game are enough to lose many narrow games, even in the absence of terminal support cards. This seems to be a suitable fix to make Rebuild non-dominant on most boards.

694

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Is there a "good" and "bad" way to Win in Dominion?

« on: December 09, 2013, 05:30:59 pm »

But you can't just omit the middle step in an argument!

It'd be like saying "I ordered the cheapest entrée because I had some spare money to spend on food". It makes no sense, even if the full story is: "I went to a more expensive restaurant than usual because I had some spare money to spend on food. I didn't want to be too extravagant, so I ordered the cheapest entrée."

I'm not omitting the middle step, there never was a middle step in the scenario unless Donald X. is hiding something. What I'm saying is "I had some spare money to spend on food, therefore I decided that the cheapest entrée at an expensive restaurant would be the thing I'm getting, then I went there and ordered it". What you're saying is "I had some spare money to spend on food, therefore I decided to go a more expensive restaurant, and while I was there, I realized I couldn't afford anything but the cheapest entrée", and the conclusion you're drawing from that is that you actually didn't get a more expensive meal than you usually do, because it was cheaper than some other stuff you could have ordered in that restaurant.

I'm at a loss to explain this honestly because, to me, answering "what is the game design purpose of ending the game when 3 piles are empty" with "to reduce the strength of Duchy rushing" is obviously nonsensical, because Duchy rushing would be weakened without that rule. Am I the only one?

What's going on here is that you and Awaclus have different interpretations of what "without that rule" means. To you, it means "strike that rule from the current rulebook, leaving other rules the same as they are now"; to Awaclus, it means "return to the status quo ante before that rule was instituted".

In the latter case, what the game would be like without the 3-pile ending rule is that it would have the "game ends when any one pile is empty" rule, in which Duchy rushing is strong. The reason the game has the 3-pile rule is to eliminate that.

Right, but it's an interesting question why there is an "x-pile" rule at all. I suppose it's
a) to prevent infinite or very long games when no player can afford Provinces, and/or
b) because the game becomes less interesting when many piles are empty.

You could probably replace 3 piles by 4 (as in 5-6p) without too much detriment, if you prefer a longer/higher-scoring game.

695

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: OP with, or UP without?

« on: December 06, 2013, 07:33:18 am »

I think the card is too strong with the italicized part; you could then use it as a one-shot "+5 cards, gain a Ruins" or even better by discarding more cards. It'd also kill looter attacks by transforming ruins into better smithies. (Making them better moats is bad enough.)

The card seems still good without the Ruins clause to me; in an action-heavy deck it potentially becomes a not-self-trashing terminal Madman, with the chance to get two more cards for a Ruins or the trashing.

696

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Playing certain potion cards without potions

« on: December 03, 2013, 06:17:56 pm »

No way, Golem is nowhere near as good as KC - KC effectively lets you play more action cards than are actually in your deck, never mind your hand, and anyway KC is liable to put everything in your hand, and also lets you choose which actions it plays.

But KC may be drawn dead with a low action density. The higher the action density, the better KC becomes - it's better than Golem in engines, but Golem is better in BM games and slogs (except with looters). Overall, you may be right that KC would be better at the same price but I don't think it's so clear-cut.

And this begs the interesting question: why didn't KC get a potion cost instead of Golem? It's better in multiples too, due to its stackability...

697

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Playing certain potion cards without potions

« on: December 03, 2013, 03:38:03 pm »

Note that Donald X. himself playtested two potion cards at non-potion costs and found them okay: Vineyards at $4 (originally in Base) and Philosopher's Stone at $7 (originally in Prosperity). With University, you're following his "rule" by replacing the Potion cost by a $4 cost increase. I think this "translation" could work for most Alchemy cards, except maybe for the most expensive ones (and Alchemist, of course).

Golem  cost $5 and added this clause: You may only buy this if you discard a curse from your hand. (I thought it was appropriate to have to have something special in order to buy a golem, and this makes a minor use for having a curse without nullifying its penalty)

Essentially, you're just replacing the potion cost by a "curse cost". This may work in the absence of cursers, but it would seriously weaken cursers since they effectively give out (worse) potions.
I think Golem may work at $7 or $8; it's about as good as King's Court IMO (both let you play two more action cards that you don't have in hand "for free").

698

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Unlimited buys

« on: November 29, 2013, 04:47:14 pm »

What about, "You may buy any number of cards costing more than $0 this turn"?

I think this would be reasonable (though very situational) at $2 or $3; it's rarely better than Squire. (Edit: Ninjaed.)


For mail-mi's original card, I would try it at $6 or $7, and ban Gardens, Goons, Bridge and Highway. That price should prevent it from being an automatic buy in most games - you could usually buy a Gold or even a Province instead, which help you to win the game, not just give the option to end it one shuffle later. It does completely mess up the endgame, but I think that could be interesting. When there's no cursers or looters, the card effectively allows you to:

(i) end the game on 2 empty piles (by buying all Coppers), or
(ii) end the game on 1 empty pile when leading by >10 VP (by buying all Coppers and Curses)

This would shorten the game notably, but should not allow the Duchy Rush to be a viable strategy in most games. However, with cursers or looters (for an extra $0 pile) in the game, it might be too dominant.

699

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Theory about what is going on with Goko

« on: November 29, 2013, 07:41:15 am »

Rebuild and Scout were printed as currently written.

AND WE ARE PERMITTED TO USE THEM IN COMBINATION!

There's a house rule to fix both at once:

"You may only play Rebuild if you have a Scout in play."

700

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: New Dominion Cards by... Me!!!! :D

« on: November 27, 2013, 08:12:59 pm »

Chapel is an exceptional case.

Lookout is not cantrip.  The +1 card matters a lot.  Moreover, it gives you far reduced selection (3 cards instead of your hand) and it gets very dangerous to play in the mid game.

Loan is a copper, which is not at all like a cantrip.  And it only trashes treasures.  If you buy any other Treasures it will start to whiff (hitting your Silvers and Golds) quite a lot.

Lookout doesn't have +1 Card, but since it trashes from deck instead of hand, it keeps your handsize the same as a cantrip trasher would do, so it seems equivalent to a (nerfed) cantrip trasher to me. The same holds for Loan, which neither costs an action nor decreases handsize any more than Junk Dealer does. (If the top card of my deck is a Copper, playing Junk Dealer to trash a Copper and playing Loan actually do exactly the same thing, both for my current term and for my deck content.)
Of course both cards have the substantial nerfs that you mention, but they also have the advantage of mild filtering resp. giving $1 over a "vanilla" cantrip trasher.
The question is if Lookout and Loan are so weak only because of these nerfs, or if a cantrip trasher isn't that strong to begin with.

It's not about the hand size though.  With Loan, it's like you played a cantrip and it drew a Copper.  If you played an actual cantrip, you would get an average card from your deck which should be better than Copper.  Copper is the stuff you want to get rid of, after all.  But alright, "nerfed cantrip" is an OK approximation.  The nerfs do matter a lot though.

Upgrade without the card gain is easily worth $4, because you often play it without the card gain anyway (trashing Copper).  Sweeper does better because the trashing isn't even forced.  That is why I say that it is certainly too strong for $3 and quite possibly too strong for $4.

I agree that "Upgrade without the card gain" would probably be fine at $4; I'm not sure if it becomes too strong with the suggested buff. Anyway, thanks for the discussion!