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51

Dominion General Discussion / Re: More reliable: Hexes or Boons?

« on: January 02, 2018, 07:02:34 pm »

My impression is that Hexes are both somewhat more reliably bad, and also have a much higher power ceiling, so they are still way more swingy than Boons.

A Locusts, Poverty or Envy at the right moment can make or break a game, while I don't think a single Boon draw has ever decided one of my games. I could see it happening with Earth, Forest, and maybe River and Wind I guess.

But Boons might just be less in-your-face about their long-term effects, idk.

52

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.

« on: January 02, 2018, 10:29:12 am »

Individually, Heirlooms seem to impact gameplay much more than the three Shelters put together.
If you were to make Shelters nowadays, would you make them more impactful?

53

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.

« on: January 02, 2018, 09:49:29 am »

The obvious follow up: when will you ask?

Well of course I'm waiting at least until you stop beating your wife.

I didn't know you cared that much about your playtesters' winrate against their significant others.

54

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Revised versions of published cards

« on: January 02, 2018, 08:59:08 am »

Before Miserable was revealed, I wouldn't have been surprised by a Doom card that sets aside two Hexes at setup, letting players choose which one hits them Torturer style.

I guess I could work that into an Event or a card with Miserable banned or something.

I think it could work even with Miserable included. -4 points is fairly relevant, and card-shaped things need not always be awesome. 
I would be more concerned about having two indefinitely stackable attacks out (War, Locusts, Greed), or Deluded plus an indefinitely stackable attack.

55

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Fool is a pity

« on: December 28, 2017, 07:00:10 pm »

It might be my impression, but the amount of confusion/rule questions generated by HoP when it first came out was higher than the confusion generated by the Night mechanic.

56

Let's Discuss ... / Re: Let's discuss Alchemy cards: Transmute

« on: December 26, 2017, 04:37:53 am »

The solution to Transmute is to have it gain e.g. Will-o’-Wisp when you trash a Treasure. That way you get something for trashing that Potion.

This might be it.
I'm going to try this with a random Action pile chosen at setup. 

57

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Christmas Kingdoms 2017

« on: December 26, 2017, 04:19:55 am »

Eagerly waiting for the Secret History of Dominion: Holy Days!

58

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Which Removed Cards Do You Use IRL?

« on: December 25, 2017, 04:57:39 pm »

I have all the expansions/2nd editions and include all the banned cards. I don't have the problems/issues with any of the cards that others have.

We draw random and deal with what we get. Any card, good or bad, can be useless/useful in any given set. Every kingdom we draw is fun to play. Some kingdoms are just tougher to figure out, which is what it's about, right?

No veto. No exclusions. No whining about likes and dislikes.

I would argue that weak cards make for kingdoms that are easier to figure out, but this was discussed ad nauseam when second edition came out so maybe I should have kept my mouth shut.
I only miss those cards for sentimental reasons, and have used them all as proxies for fan cards.
I wish something could be done for the rest of Dominion, but I am afraid that the only solution is to houserule the extreme outliers in power level, and to endure them online. Looking forward to ban lists online.

59

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Magic Lamp is the dumbest card-shaped thing

« on: December 22, 2017, 03:26:35 am »

two Urchins
[...]
Tournament/Province
[...]
Magic Lamp

Magic Lamp gives you three Wishes, but you can only ever do it once.

...

Is Magic Lamp really a bigger deal than Tournament and Treasure Map?

One also has to take into account that Tournament prizes and Gold Treasures are topdecked (= no reshuffle before they take effect) while the cards gained with Wishes take two reshuffles before taking effect. The difference between "four Golds now" and "three strong cards some time later" is considerable (even though in many cases only 2 2/3 of the 4 topdecked Golds are effectively used so that four Golds shuffled into draw pile might even be stronger).

One reshuffle. Wishes gain to hand. It's like lamp said, gain three cards costing up to 6. But it gives you wishes instead, so you get a bit more flexibility.

60

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Homage to the Best Card

« on: December 20, 2017, 10:02:18 am »

I thought we were all               Moat    !

61

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Fool is a pity

« on: December 20, 2017, 09:58:12 am »

I like Fool.
I like the implications of letting your opponent get the only one. I like the hot-potato Lost in the Woods and wish there were a couple more positive states in Nocturne. The three boons are nice, and unlike the other Fates you're pretty much guaranteed to get something nice.
I think that, paradoxically, the fact that it's coupled with Lucky Coin is what makes it so slow. In games in which you don't need to buy Silver, you are more likely to get Fool, even if you don't really need it. So a lot of the time you end up getting Fool because without Silver, it's the best thing to get at 3.
It's a slowish card, and everybody got it without really needing it, so everybody at the table is soured towards it. A bit like Scrying Pool, but worse if you don't know the Boons, and better if you do. And you generally want SP, while you get Fool for lack of better purchase options.

Or to make another example, Great Hall with Lucky Coin as Heirloom would be bought much more often.

62

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Fool is a pity

« on: December 19, 2017, 03:48:35 am »

I haven't played nocturne irl, but I can see it being extra-heavy to get used to in a nocturne-heavy game.
It does add more new mechanics than any other expansion.
So maybe try to dilute it a bit?

Also, Fool is probably weaker than you think, so the game could have been faster with less fool-ish players
It reminds me of the awfully long tribute wannabe-engine games that we imposed on ourselves back when intrigue was new.

63

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Dutch second edition Dominion is in stores.

« on: December 16, 2017, 05:29:12 pm »

I don't have that experience, it looks weird but that's really the only thing. If i mix my english cards with the dutch cards of my friends, some people say "Hey, half of these cards are in english, why is that", and then we have to give a short explanation, but that's that. I really don't mind. Maybe i even like the weirdness.

If you ever ended up mixing Dutch and English base cards, you could get some interesting interactions with things that care about a card's name!

Are there two different cards which have the same name in two different language?
Like Magpie being "Cardname" in German, and Cultist being "Cardname" in Finnish.

What do the rules say about mixing languages? Nothing, as far as I know.

Not a perfect match, but Adventurer is Esploratore in Italian, and Explorer is Avventuriero.
I also know that in Spanish Dominion, Explorer is Exploradora while Scout is Explorador.

64

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2017 Edition

« on: December 15, 2017, 08:49:29 am »

Seeing all those removed cards made me feel nostalgic. 

65

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Annoying and potentially harmful card anti-synergies

« on: December 15, 2017, 08:39:28 am »

As Bella found out the hard way, if you put Vampires and a Wolf Den together, what you'll get is a headache.

66

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Tom Vasel Nocturne Review

« on: December 15, 2017, 04:17:46 am »

I just watched Vasel's review of Nocturne.  Although I do agree with some of what he says, mostly I just got a kick out of it.  It was funny, because it was pretty obvious that he doesn't really know what he's talking about when it comes to dominion. 

I watch his reviews for lots of games I am interested in, but this makes me wonder how well he explains them.  He described ghost saying "you can look through your deck and set aside an action card".  He neglected to mention the part that is actually good about ghost.  He also just said a lot of things wrong.

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/344530-briefly-stated-the-gell-mann-amnesia-effect-is-as-follows-you

So much of this.  I think I watched one of Vasel's reviews and... nothing about it made me think he was a good reviewer.

I think he's got a huge passion for what he does. But he's the poster child of the 3-plays-is-a-lot mindset, and with the output of videos he pushes through, I doubt he plays more than a couple of games each (and he doesn't always get the rules straight).

I know he's got a very different mindset than I have, and I enjoy his reviews keeping that in mind. He did direct me to Sheriff of Nottingham, which is a game I love.

I mean, it's a bit of a conundrum really - we expect a professional reviewer to try a lot of games for us (good and bad), and tell us how they are, but games are not movies or books, and playing them once or twice is in many cases not sufficient to form an informed opinion. So what's a reviewer to do?

67

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Tom Vasel Nocturne Review

« on: December 14, 2017, 06:30:49 pm »

Having seen the full video, some observations:
- Tom doesn't know the cards. (see Zombies and Ghost) Which is fine, I guess -already knowing all cards in a kingdom might seem like obvious but it's not to the real casual players. Those players might be better served by playing more of the Dominion they own, so hey that's fine.
- He seems to really hate Fool - I've never played it IRL but I can see it being fiddly. Still, if you have ever King's Courted a King's Court, Fool doesn't seem worse (by design).
- I just don't see a lot of the criticism he moves against Night cards. Back in the day, Durations were more fiddly, Treasures-that-do-stuff more confusing, Reactions-to-weird-stuff more outlandish, and Crown more enraging. It feels like that horse has already bolted 8 expansions ago...
- Regarding Hexes and Boons, I don't mind them.  But again, I see the fiddliness argument, but it doesn't seem too bad. I really have trouble believing statuses are as bad as he paints them.

Ultimately, I think that Tom is not the target audience - the target audience being people who know the Dominion sets they play with and want to try something different.
The fact that he had already reduced his collection seems to support this hypothesis.

68

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Tom Vasel Nocturne Review

« on: December 14, 2017, 05:53:36 pm »

And if we're nitpicking: "There is necromancer, it lets you play cards from the trash, there are zombies in the trash, they do this this and this, and I guess that technically there could be other good cards in the trash, which is rare but might happen if there are other cards in the game that allow you to do that".

Like uh, two of the three Zombies you just read aloud?

69

Dominion: Nocturne Previews / Re: Previews #1: Devil's Workshop, Raider, Ghost Town

« on: December 14, 2017, 01:22:23 pm »

I think it's pretty good whenever you can trash all Coppers, and even more so when you can't trash estates.
Never get more than two. Technically it's also slightly better than Gold at spiking high costs, but I've never gotten it for that reason alone - being a duration is a big disadvantage.

70

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Ice Age

« on: December 13, 2017, 04:50:22 am »

Oh, and let me say that I really like Barbarian's concept, and Cargo Ship is also neat.

71

Dominion General Discussion / Re: list your big nocturne secrets

« on: December 13, 2017, 03:34:26 am »

I don't usually track the hexes, but I usually end up wishing I did.

72

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Revised versions of published cards

« on: December 13, 2017, 03:25:28 am »

Harem is also essentially replaced by Conquest, which is almost-but-not-quite strictly better. (if you want a 6$ silver, you're probably happy to get two, so the only real case for Harem is needing a Victory-Treasure card for some reason)

73

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Ice Age

« on: December 13, 2017, 03:19:00 am »

A possible solution to the once-per-shuffle problem is to add a Heirloom-like copper (or silver?) variant saying "When you play this, remove one ice token from all of your frozen cards, then if you removed the last ice token from any of them, put it in your discard pile".

The pros:
It doesn't need outside-card-text rules, or remembering to thaw at start of turn.
It has some cute interactions with stuff like Storyteller and Crown.
It's possibly more interesting, and gives you the ability to control your thawing rate.

The cons:
It can skip shuffles (but so can anything else)
It sort-of-breaks some cards in their current form (Snow Witch and Ice spirit, for example) and as they are now.
There are already 7 copper replacements.

But it's an interesting possibility.

74

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.

« on: December 13, 2017, 02:55:52 am »

Did you ever consider or playtest a complex number of victory cards in the piles?

You mean something like a pile composed by 7 cards? I have trouble imagining it.

75

Simulation / Re: Testing Big Money Ultimate

« on: December 07, 2017, 10:54:20 pm »

I had one opponent loading silvers on a Bandit fort board.
This explains everything.