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76

Dominion Articles / Re: Updating the Top 5 lists

« on: December 22, 2011, 06:16:31 pm »

My theory (no pun intended, theory) on why FV is said to be "evenly balanced" is because it's bought so freaking often that it cancels itself out. That would also explain why Chancellor is not at rock bottom -- it's bought so infrequently that WRW vs. WRWO is a bit skewed.

Well, also, it has to do with there being plenty of cards that are much worse than Chancellor, which is, at the very least, not harmful if you aren't for whatever reason worried about a terminal clash (only action or a deck that has plenty of +actions).  It's not like Mandarin or Develop or Saboteur where -- aside from all the same terminal conflicts that Chancellor also is prey to -- can be actively detrimental to your deck if bought in many or most situations.

77

Game Reports / Highway!

« on: December 22, 2011, 03:12:11 pm »

I've never actually been on a good board for Highway before, so I was pleased as punch to build a Hamlet/Watchtower/Ironworks/Upgrade/Highway engine on this table, successfully exploding into turns where I could Ironwork multiple Provinces per turn.

And so my opponent apparently rage-quit and left me with the timeout.  Thanks, dude!

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201112/22/game-20111222-120711-d6c04a8b.html

78

Dominion Articles / Re: Not Combos -- Cards that don't work well together

« on: December 21, 2011, 05:11:35 pm »

In one game I though: "Loan is pretty much the only trasher, got to buy it. Maybe one terminal for a second buy. Hey, time to try something different, I'll buy Bureaucrat."

Few turns later I had both of them in same hand: "Great,  he has a victory card in hand and have to put it back to his deck, now it's time for Loan..."

Um.

You're aware that Loan goes through YOUR deck, not your opponent's?

EDIT:  Aaaaaaaand, I'm stupid!  Well, nice to know that I'd have done exactly the same thing you did!

79

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Cards You Horribly Misjudged

« on: December 21, 2011, 05:07:31 pm »

I can't imagine I was the only one with that sentiment and for that reason I feel like Donald could have placed the worst of attacks in Cornucopia and people still would have overestimated it like crazy.

The problem with this hypothesis is that Donald did put Fortune Teller in Cornucopia, and I don't think many people overestimated it.  While Fortune Teller isn't in many ways the "worst" attack, it's on nobody's top 5 list, and it never attracted any particular excitement.

80

Help! / Re: What could I have done here??

« on: December 20, 2011, 03:20:23 pm »

Okay, so on Blooki's turn 11, he forces you to give him a Masquerade, and I think that's the turning point.  You've got 2 Colonies and 2 Curses in your deck at that point, and next turn you break your Alchemist stack, and then have a turn where you are buying just the one Masquerade, and it's generally not the most wonderful situation.  I think that was just mainly bad luck.

Alchemist/Masquerade is a tough situation, since the Alchemist ability can leave you prone to bad situations of having hands dense with good cards that you have to trade away.

Since this was almost an exact mirror match, I'm not really sure that there was much you could've done differently.  You were ahead at turn 7 due basically to dumb luck, and you were behind at turn 12 due basically to dumb luck.  Not really a reflection on either of your play.  The only really interesting thing that happens there is when Blooki Embargos Colonies in an attempt to catch up.

It might've been interesting for you to try similar efforts to regain your lead once you lost it.  Embargo Colonies again and let him wade through more Curses if he wants to end the game while he's ahead?

81

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Tributary - seven fan cards.

« on: December 20, 2011, 12:52:53 pm »

Yeah, it's a lot like the Bishop/Chapel combination that gets you a 5 card deck that purchases and trashes for VP a Province every turn, except that:

1.  It's not giving your opponent free trashes.
2.  It's not giving up 1 VP per Province.
3.  It actually works with Colonies just as well (probably better than) Provinces.
4.  But it probably takes longer to set up.

Bishop/Chapel is probably dominant on 90% of the boards that it appears on, and is a 2 card combo.  It feels like MiaB/any way to get multiple MiaBs quickly is likely to be similarly dominant, and much more prevalent.

EDIT:  Though it is more fragile than Bishop/Chapel, in that any of the Thief-alikes, Council Room, Governor, Tribute, Rabble, etc. would force a reshuffle and put your chaff deck back into play.

82

Rules Questions / Re: Baron: how many Estates can you discard?

« on: December 20, 2011, 12:17:05 pm »

But that's not linguistically inconsequential. I mean, this whole side-track is pretty inconsequential, but as far as it goes, English being a Germanic, not a Romance language, would mean you'd expect it to act more like Germanic than Romance languages - which it does.

German, and other Germanic languages, share the trait that dondon151 mentions as a characteristic of Romance languages: the equivalents of "the" change for plurality.  For example, "der Junge," (the boy), "die Jungen," (the boys).  In German, even words that are unchanged with plurality can imply their plurality with the article:  "das Mädchen" (the girl), "die Mädchen" (the girls).

83

Rules Questions / Re: Baron: how many Estates can you discard?

« on: December 20, 2011, 12:13:24 pm »

The horses is a single group of horses. But obviously a gaggle of geese is more than one as well. And the horse is only one horse.

No.  A gaggle.  But not "a horses."  "A" implies singularity.  "The" does not imply singularity.  You can use "the" with both singular and plural.  Of course "the horse" is only one horse -- that's because the noun, not the article, gives you the information that it's singular.

If you take a noun that is ambiguous as to plurality, such as say "fish," then adding "the" does not tell you whether it's singular or plural.

So:

"The fish swam behind the coral."

You don't know there if one or multiple fish swam behind the coral.  Contrast:

"A fish swam behind the coral."

That's just one fish.

Of course, in english, almost all nouns have unambiguous plurality (even traditionally ambiguous ones are being displaced by unambiguous usages, as I think most people would now say "fishes" in my first sentence if they meant the plural, though "fish" is also correct).  So you usually don't have to look at the article in order to tell.  But none the less, that does not mean that "the" implies singularity, because it doesn't.

84

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Tributary - seven fan cards.

« on: December 19, 2011, 06:24:51 pm »

5x Message in a Bottle seems like it's fairly obviously broken once it's in play, right?  Just keep playing the same hand turn after turn, like it was a five card deck that you can still freely gain green cards with?  Not hard to see how that's ugly.

So, how easy is it to get 5x Message in a Bottle?  Probably hard enough that you don't want to do it... unless maybe there's +buy on the board, in which case it might be unacceptably easy.  I'd have to playtest it to be sure, but there are danger signs in my mind posted around MiaB.

85

Rules Questions / Re: Baron: how many Estates can you discard?

« on: December 19, 2011, 05:51:56 pm »

Your question has been answered, but if you see 'an' or 'a' or 'the' in English, the number is basically always going to be 1.

Not "the," no.  "The horses ran a race."  "A" and "an" are grammatically only usable with the singular.

86

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Farmland vs Silver

« on: December 19, 2011, 05:18:19 pm »

You can't buy Farmland to remodel Province into Province anyway - it's an exactly +$2 Remodel. Farmland on Province = no more Province. I got burned by this early on in the Hinterlands release.

Yeah, we know.  We were discussing whether there would be an exploitable interaction if it were the case that Farmland allowed "up to $2" instead of "exactly $2."

87

Game Reports / Re: Awesome combo or luckiest draw ever?

« on: December 19, 2011, 05:04:10 pm »

I can not make it happen with Festival/Quarry/Crossroads, nor with Festival/Quarry/Crossroads/Silk Road.  I mean, I can't even REMOTELY make it happen.  Like, not just "no double Province back-to-back turns by turn 14," I mean, "no Provinces by turn 16."

Maybe I'm deeply misplaying it?

88

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Farmland vs Silver

« on: December 19, 2011, 04:44:00 pm »

Well, remember that unlike Salvaging or Remodeling Province -> Province, Farmland Province -> Province does add a dead green card to your deck.  Not a problem if you're in the very late game and are not expecting a reshuffle, but something I'd do much less aggressively when there were 5 Provinces in the supply and I was 1 Province up.

89

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Farmland vs Silver

« on: December 19, 2011, 04:29:56 pm »

You could have played that Silver and bought a Province instead, for 6 points instead of 5. Although, if there's 1 Province left and you are behind, that could be a pretty good move.

Yeah, there are a bunch of problems with Farmland.  Maybe the biggest is that it doesn't even work on the cards you'd MOST likely want it to work on.

Like, sure, playing the Silver would get you a Province.  Okay.  So what about a different $3 card that's not redeemable for the Province?  Sounds better!  Except...  what is that card?

There are a bunch of $4 early enabler cards that you could totally see yourself drawing essentially dead in the late game and wanting to Farmland into a Duchy.  Baron.  Moneylender.  Remake.  A dead Throne Room (no Actions to play it on, and you aren't expecting a reshuffle).  Dead Conspirator.  Sea Hag after the Curses are out.  Potion.  Quarry.  Young Witch after the Curses run out.  Spice Merchant that has run out of Treasures to trash.  Trader in the late game.

Like, I could really, legitimately see myself in a ton of games buying any of those cards, and I could see drawing them uselessly in the late game and saying, "Oh, cool, I can convert them into Duchies in the late game, that's useful for Farmlands."

There are a lot fewer $3 cards that I'm going to want to buy and then they draw dead.  I guess I can always Farmland one of those dead $4's into another Farmland, but, obviously, that's less useful than turning them into a Duchy.

It feels like, as weak and situational as Farmland is, it wouldn't have hurt to let it remodel an "up to $2 more" rather than "exactly $2 more."  Is there some specific exploit that makes that problematic?

90

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Farmland vs Silver

« on: December 19, 2011, 01:33:44 pm »

Is there maybe a very fragile Farmlands/Peddler interaction?  Like, if you get Peddlers down to $4 or $2, then you can Farmlands Estates or Coppers into Peddlers.  Get Peddlers to $6, buy Farmlands, then turn the Peddler into a Province?  I dunno, probably too fussy to actually be useful in play.  But it seems appealing to get a remodel during the buy phase when Peddler price has changed.

91

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Farmland vs Silver

« on: December 19, 2011, 01:12:42 pm »

I don't think of Farmland as something that you ever buy in quantity -- so I don't think that Farmlanding a Farmland is something to look to.

I think its role is, "it's the late game (<=4 Provinces in supply), and I have 3 gold in my hand.  I could get a Province, or I could buy a Farmland and remodel my third Gold into a Province."  Or, you know, similar.  The ability to get a tie-breaking extra 2 VP along with however many VP you'd already buy -- turn $6 that you'd usually use to buy a Duchy into a Farmland and turn an extraneous $3 card into the Duchy you'd buy anyway, or whatever.  Turn Plat + 2 Gold into Colony + Farmland instead of just Colony.

Limited use, but potentially quite valuable at the end of the game, where the situation of, "Any point differential higher than Province (or Colony) is game-winning."

Think of it as like Chapel in terms of being a card that can be desirable without ever being something you'd get more than one or maybe two of.

92

Game Reports / A close one

« on: December 19, 2011, 11:52:12 am »

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201112/19/game-20111219-084349-0a453c64.html

This is a game that came down quite tightly -- if he hadn't bought the final Province on the turn he did, I probably would have won (maybe not, if he had bought a Duchy, but it ended with an 11 point victory for him, and I had the capacity for doing Monument -> Province).

We played fairly divergent strategies, and I'm wondering who made the best decision, since it felt like it could go either way.  He was planning on going Duke, but the game ended too soon.  I was hoping for some turns of 2x or 3x Monument, which never happened.

EDIT:  Hmm, I remembered my final hand as better than it actually was.  Hard to say if I'd have been able to buy the ultimate Province with that -- the possibility was there, with the HP and the Wishing Well to draw into more money, but definitely not guaranteed.

93

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Wharf engine help

« on: December 18, 2011, 10:26:56 pm »

I think that this is actually a game for you to go Thief.  He has a very slim deck highly reliant on his Plat + 2 Gold -- losing any of those would really hurt him and really help you.  And you have a draw engine that should let you play Thief fairly reliably.

94

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Ignoring actions

« on: December 17, 2011, 01:45:05 am »

You might be able to get away with Vineyard, if there's no other practical reason to go Potion.

Nope, not if our standard is, "Perfectly optimal player will never even consider it."

I mean, there are plenty of potential situations where it is SIMPLY IMPOSSIBLE to win with the remaining standard VP cards, but in which the game is not over, and it is theoretically possible to win given another source of VP.  So at that point the perfectly optimal player will look at getting Potion, Actions, and Vineyards, as the only possible route to victory.

Now, of course, it would be one game in a million -- or possibly much less -- where that actually comes about and leads to anything other than utter defeat.  But it's possible, so the perfectly optimal player would consider it.

95

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Ignoring actions

« on: December 15, 2011, 09:40:32 pm »

So, what's the goal, here?  Are we saying, "cards that in practice, you would ignore," or are we saying, "A perfectly optimal player would ignore them"?

Because, in practice obviously nobody's going to buy BVs on the theory that they'll be controlling shuffles.  But, sure, a perfectly optimal player could potentially eke some kind of small advantage out of that.

Similarly, any VP card at all, even Fairgrounds that are only worth 2VP: it's pretty easy to imagine scenarios in which the right play is to buy this card.  Example:

You and your opponent have depleted the Duchies pile.  You have exactly $6 and know that if you have a 2 VP advantage, your opponent will not be able to take the final Province without handing you the game.  Clearly, the proper play is to take the Fairgrounds.

Or, hell, a magical VP card that cost $11 and was worth only 1 VP: still there are scenarios in which you should buy it (Duchies and Estates are depleted, you need more VPs, and the last Province will cause the game to end and you to lose: you should buy our hypothetical Bad VP card).

So, no VP cards at all can be in the Kingdom.

96

Dominion Articles / Re: Updating the Top 5 lists

« on: December 15, 2011, 07:19:47 pm »

Ironworks made Gardens a heckuva lot stronger.

True.  Though this points out that almost every other card makes Gardens -- and any other card which is all-but-valueless in the absence of specific combos -- weaker.

97

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Ignoring actions

« on: December 15, 2011, 06:47:22 pm »

I don't understand, why are you puting Hamlet in here! Whenever I have 2$ and going only for BMU, Hamlet is supirior to nothing, so it cannot be here! 

Not a LOT superior to nothing, but point taken.  But your thing has University, some Actions, and Vineyard, and Fairgrounds!  Fairgrounds just by itself is worth buying in the greening stage, and University/Vineyards is arguably worth pursuing.

98

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Ignoring actions

« on: December 15, 2011, 05:58:52 pm »

I think that Modifed-Dstu's first-post is still the best answer:

1.  Talisman
2.  Quarry
3.  King's Court
4.  Throne Room
5.  Village
6.  Walled Village
7.  Hamlet
8.  Worker's Village
9.  University
10.  Golem

So, the questions are:  Do Talisman or Quarry, interacting with the +buy of Hamlet or Worker's Village, lead to... something?

I don't THINK that they do.  Quarry: no Actions in this deck actually do anything.  KC->a village leads to minor card advantage, but surely not enough for the opportunity cost.

Talisman:  The only target for Talisman is Silver.  If Talisman + BMU < BMU, I can't see how Talisman + +buy + BMU > BMU.

99

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Ignoring actions

« on: December 15, 2011, 05:50:03 pm »

Gardens can't be a part of this kingdom, because you'd be willing to buy it in Duchy panic time, even in an otherwise BM deck.  That also disqualifies Silk Road and Great Hall, which would otherwise be great choices for this challenge.

Here's a setup where I'd probably just go straight BM:

Coppersmith
Thief
Treasure Map
Develop
Saboteur
Vineyard
Transmute
Philosopher's Stone
Possession
Peddler

With no trashing, buys, or +Actions, Peddler is kinda useless!  Avoiding several of these would be a judgment call, but in this particular setup I'd probably leave all ten Kingdom cards alone.

Specify a 2-player game (heck possibly even a 3p game) and Pirate Ship could join this party. 

ED:  Outpost is another possible contender for this setup.

Straight up single-Thief beats Big Money, so it can't be in this Kingdom.

100

Dominion General Discussion / Re: How good are these combos?

« on: December 15, 2011, 04:57:13 pm »

With 10 Peddlers and a fair number of Hamlets and WVs, I'd be surprised if you couldn't swing 4 Provinces by turn 15 given the scenario you describe, which obviously beats Big Money. This neglects that that deck with its +buy also retains the flexibility to spend its first big turn doing something like Gold/Gold.

Fair enough.  But, seriously, these were decks that were 1 or 2 Silvers, 10 Peddlers (and, sure, Peddlers are admittedly pretty good), and a bunch of essentially cantrip +buy cards.  That's not obviously an awesome deck.

I ran through a test game just now, and sure enough, with Hamlet->Peddler, I got 4 Provinces on turn 14.

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201112/15/game-20111215-135700-04bdc594.html