26
Game Reports / Might as well just resign...
« on: December 13, 2015, 07:24:06 pm »
T3 Province?! I can't compete with this.
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27
Dominion General Discussion / Who's summoning who?
« on: December 09, 2015, 09:28:42 pm »
I showed my wife my Summons, I got a pack of them to hand out at my next tournament and she said she thought the butterfly was pretty (fun fact: she actually doesn't like butterflies IRL, they're too similar to moths and moths have no concept of personal space, so they're dad to her). So I was like "yeah you like the picture of the lady summoning the butterfly? OR WAIT, MAYBE THE BUTTERFLY IS SUMMONING THE LADY!!!!!1111"
28
Tournaments and Events / 3P tournament. Cincinnati, OH, Sat. Jan. 30, 2016, 1PM. All expansions.
« on: November 18, 2015, 11:10:36 am »
It looks like I'll be hosting IRL Dominion tournaments every three months or so, and alternating between 2P and 3P tournaments. This is the third tournament in my series; attendance at the tournament has been steadily growing, feedback has been mostly positive. Let's keep this thing going!
Join us on Saturday, January 30, 2016 at Game Swap in Mason, OH for an RGG-sanctioned Dominion tournament. This Swiss tournament will consist of mostly 3-player games from all expansions of Dominion. The tournament will start at 1PM, every player is guaranteed at least 4 games in the tournament, with the last match concluding by 7PM.
1065 Reading Rd. / Mason, OH 45040
People who enter the tournament will be given a Dominion Promo card EDIT: I got the promo cards in, I have Walled Villages and Summons. The winner of the tournament will be pre-qualified for the Dominion World National Tournament at GenCon in 2016.
The entry fee will be $5. For each entry into the tournament, $4 will be put into the prize pool. All prizes will be given in store credit. The top three or four players will be given portions of the prize pool (depending on how many people enter the tournament).
If you're planning to attend, contact the tournament moderator Adam Horton (me) at adam@adamhorton.com -- this is not required but can guarantee you a spot in the tournament and it will assist with planning. Feel free to send any questions there as well. You can also just reply to this thread, I'll be following it
If you want to hang out afterwards, there will be the normal game night for the local boardgaming group I'm an admin of. I hope to see lots of you there.
Join us on Saturday, January 30, 2016 at Game Swap in Mason, OH for an RGG-sanctioned Dominion tournament. This Swiss tournament will consist of mostly 3-player games from all expansions of Dominion. The tournament will start at 1PM, every player is guaranteed at least 4 games in the tournament, with the last match concluding by 7PM.
1065 Reading Rd. / Mason, OH 45040
People who enter the tournament will be given a Dominion Promo card EDIT: I got the promo cards in, I have Walled Villages and Summons. The winner of the tournament will be pre-qualified for the Dominion World National Tournament at GenCon in 2016.
The entry fee will be $5. For each entry into the tournament, $4 will be put into the prize pool. All prizes will be given in store credit. The top three or four players will be given portions of the prize pool (depending on how many people enter the tournament).
If you're planning to attend, contact the tournament moderator Adam Horton (me) at adam@adamhorton.com -- this is not required but can guarantee you a spot in the tournament and it will assist with planning. Feel free to send any questions there as well. You can also just reply to this thread, I'll be following it
If you want to hang out afterwards, there will be the normal game night for the local boardgaming group I'm an admin of. I hope to see lots of you there.
29
2015 / The Final Four: interviews and matches
« on: November 13, 2015, 07:13:26 pm »
The first of our two semifinal matches will be streamed live with commentary in just a couple of hours. We've taken the time to interview the players of this match.
Titandrake did his interview in audio form, which can be listened to here
Pubby's interview is here in text form:
How old are you, where are you from, what do you do for a living?
I'm 20 years old, I'm from Missouri, and I'm a student.
How did you get into Dominion? What kept you playing Dominion?
I was looking for an online boardgame to play with friends, so I went down the BGG top games list until finding one I liked. That lead me to Isotropic Dominion, and I quickly became addicted. I find game design facinating, and that's why Dominion is the perfect game for me; deckbuilding lets me play around with a whole bunch of interesting effects and game mechanics, just like game designers do.
How much do you play Dominion IRL? Do you get to play very much with Adventures?
I've never played IRL, and honestly I don't know how. Shuffling IRL is beyond my capabilities.
How did you find F.DS? What kept you coming back?
I googled "Dominion strategies" after I played my first game and this site came up. Funnily enough, this site didn't keep me coming back, but rather the opposite. I quit Dominion for a few years after reading a few articles, as it gave me the completely wrong idea about high-level play. I thought that the pros were good because they had memorized "build orders" and counted their cards, but this is far from the truth!
What was the most memorable Dominion match you’ve ever played?
My favorite games tend to involve hilariously stupid and lucky big money strategies. One time I played Vault BM against a Herald engine and had insanely good draws. I won the game with 7 provinces on turn 13. Another favorite was when I beat Mic using Counting House, on a board with Ambassador and Knights. That was just silly.
What are your favorite and least-favorite Dominion cards, and why? What about combos? Decks? Any favorites?
I really like Quarry, Counterfeit, and HoP. Vault is pretty good, too. I hate Rebuild, as do many others. Masquerade, Minion, Scrying Pool, and Possession peeve me because they are good ideas overshadowed by their badly designed attacks.
What’s some good advice you can give for someone trying to get better at the game:
1. Watch every single video that Wandering Winder has produced.
2. Use the VP counter.
3. If you lose a game, play the kingdom again against bots until you figure out the strategies.
If you could make a Dominion card/mechanic that describes you, what would it be?
Something that has really simple card text, and doesn't involve lots of clicking. Verbosity is just not my thing. e.g.
$4 Action
+2 cards
When you buy this, gain a gold.
What are your favorite board games other than Dominion?
Yahtzee, Boggle, and Ticket to Ride.
How do you like to spend your time when you aren’t playing Dominion?
I like programming and woodworking. I like taking walks and going on hikes. Best of all, I like wasting time on internet forums.
If you could choose one person on F.DS to be with you on an desert island, who would it be and why?
If it was only for a few months then someone entertaining like Donald or jsh. I'm not sure if their sanity would last much more than that, but if they tried to eat me then I'm pretty sure I can outrun them. If it was for several years then I'd pick someone easy to get along with; probably Mic Qsenoch or Voltaire. Definitely not anyone who participated in forum survivor!
Their match will be streamed at 0230 UTC, Saturday November 14th (just over two hours from this post!) with commentary on Mic Qsenoch's Twitch channel -- don't miss it!
Titandrake did his interview in audio form, which can be listened to here
Pubby's interview is here in text form:
How old are you, where are you from, what do you do for a living?
I'm 20 years old, I'm from Missouri, and I'm a student.
How did you get into Dominion? What kept you playing Dominion?
I was looking for an online boardgame to play with friends, so I went down the BGG top games list until finding one I liked. That lead me to Isotropic Dominion, and I quickly became addicted. I find game design facinating, and that's why Dominion is the perfect game for me; deckbuilding lets me play around with a whole bunch of interesting effects and game mechanics, just like game designers do.
How much do you play Dominion IRL? Do you get to play very much with Adventures?
I've never played IRL, and honestly I don't know how. Shuffling IRL is beyond my capabilities.
How did you find F.DS? What kept you coming back?
I googled "Dominion strategies" after I played my first game and this site came up. Funnily enough, this site didn't keep me coming back, but rather the opposite. I quit Dominion for a few years after reading a few articles, as it gave me the completely wrong idea about high-level play. I thought that the pros were good because they had memorized "build orders" and counted their cards, but this is far from the truth!
What was the most memorable Dominion match you’ve ever played?
My favorite games tend to involve hilariously stupid and lucky big money strategies. One time I played Vault BM against a Herald engine and had insanely good draws. I won the game with 7 provinces on turn 13. Another favorite was when I beat Mic using Counting House, on a board with Ambassador and Knights. That was just silly.
What are your favorite and least-favorite Dominion cards, and why? What about combos? Decks? Any favorites?
I really like Quarry, Counterfeit, and HoP. Vault is pretty good, too. I hate Rebuild, as do many others. Masquerade, Minion, Scrying Pool, and Possession peeve me because they are good ideas overshadowed by their badly designed attacks.
What’s some good advice you can give for someone trying to get better at the game:
1. Watch every single video that Wandering Winder has produced.
2. Use the VP counter.
3. If you lose a game, play the kingdom again against bots until you figure out the strategies.
If you could make a Dominion card/mechanic that describes you, what would it be?
Something that has really simple card text, and doesn't involve lots of clicking. Verbosity is just not my thing. e.g.
$4 Action
+2 cards
When you buy this, gain a gold.
What are your favorite board games other than Dominion?
Yahtzee, Boggle, and Ticket to Ride.
How do you like to spend your time when you aren’t playing Dominion?
I like programming and woodworking. I like taking walks and going on hikes. Best of all, I like wasting time on internet forums.
If you could choose one person on F.DS to be with you on an desert island, who would it be and why?
If it was only for a few months then someone entertaining like Donald or jsh. I'm not sure if their sanity would last much more than that, but if they tried to eat me then I'm pretty sure I can outrun them. If it was for several years then I'd pick someone easy to get along with; probably Mic Qsenoch or Voltaire. Definitely not anyone who participated in forum survivor!
Their match will be streamed at 0230 UTC, Saturday November 14th (just over two hours from this post!) with commentary on Mic Qsenoch's Twitch channel -- don't miss it!
30
Feedback / Would you be interested in some form of moderated discussion on F.DS?
« on: November 10, 2015, 10:53:19 am »
What does "moderated discussion" mean? Well unfortunately I don't know right now. There have been a couple of suggestions but it appears that nothing has been agreed upon.
There's an "I don't know" answer if this is an issue for you, feel free to pick it (it's the last one). You may even be moved to make a comment here explaining why (I like this idea, but I don't like this idea, or something along those lines), that would be super-helpful.
Maybe you have a different idea (I would post if it were such-and-such, but otherwise I don't like it, so I answered ABC) or you would just like to clarify your sentiments (moderated discussion is awful in any form because of reasons X and Y) (Seems like a good idea but I don't like any of the methods of moderation that have been suggested so far, so I answered Z): that would be great too.
There's an "I don't know" answer if this is an issue for you, feel free to pick it (it's the last one). You may even be moved to make a comment here explaining why (I like this idea, but I don't like this idea, or something along those lines), that would be super-helpful.
Maybe you have a different idea (I would post if it were such-and-such, but otherwise I don't like it, so I answered ABC) or you would just like to clarify your sentiments (moderated discussion is awful in any form because of reasons X and Y) (Seems like a good idea but I don't like any of the methods of moderation that have been suggested so far, so I answered Z): that would be great too.
31
Feedback / A place for more moderated discussion
« on: November 09, 2015, 07:46:25 am »
There has been some frustration recently (actually it's been going on for quite a while for me) that discussions tend to get off-topic and it's difficult to continue them productively. I think something that would help me a lot is if there was a place we could post (like a board just for this purpose) where posts that aren't on topic and aren't relevant to furthering the discussion are not allowed. I thought a [serious] tag might accomplish this but I believe that has failed to work 100% of the time so far. I've been told by some smart people that I trust that having a separate board for this, which is moderated more closely, may be a better solution.
Some people think that having moderated discussion is a bad thing, I would say to those people that they are not required to read or participate in moderated discussion. If those people are worried that nobody would participate in moderated discussion, then I would say to those people that silence is preferable to irrelevant noise. If those people choose to disagree with that statement, then I respect their opinion and would like to remind them that they are not required to read or participate in this moderated discussion, and also to please consider that other people out there may have a different opinion and would like to have a place to talk under these guidelines.
I don't think taking anything away from the current forums is a good idea; just adding a place where your posts are deleted or something-or-other when they aren't on topic and productive. I'm not sure exactly what this would look like, but it would have to be its own sub-board or something and it would have to have some moderators and clearly defined rules. I can come up with some rules but I'm not confident that they would be good. I can moderate it but I wouldn't like to be the only one doing it and I don't know that I'm the best guy for the job anyways. There are a lot of questions that need answered so hopefully we can have a good discussion here to come up with those answers (lol). Once this gets more clearly defined then I hope to add a poll to this thread to gauge interest in each of the options that has come up.
Does anyone else have any thoughts? If this gets too quiet I can share some of mine but I don't know of any of my thoughts that are without any problems.
Some people think that having moderated discussion is a bad thing, I would say to those people that they are not required to read or participate in moderated discussion. If those people are worried that nobody would participate in moderated discussion, then I would say to those people that silence is preferable to irrelevant noise. If those people choose to disagree with that statement, then I respect their opinion and would like to remind them that they are not required to read or participate in this moderated discussion, and also to please consider that other people out there may have a different opinion and would like to have a place to talk under these guidelines.
I don't think taking anything away from the current forums is a good idea; just adding a place where your posts are deleted or something-or-other when they aren't on topic and productive. I'm not sure exactly what this would look like, but it would have to be its own sub-board or something and it would have to have some moderators and clearly defined rules. I can come up with some rules but I'm not confident that they would be good. I can moderate it but I wouldn't like to be the only one doing it and I don't know that I'm the best guy for the job anyways. There are a lot of questions that need answered so hopefully we can have a good discussion here to come up with those answers (lol). Once this gets more clearly defined then I hope to add a poll to this thread to gauge interest in each of the options that has come up.
Does anyone else have any thoughts? If this gets too quiet I can share some of mine but I don't know of any of my thoughts that are without any problems.
32
Goko Dominion Online / [serious] Something we can do to help
« on: October 28, 2015, 11:29:30 am »
I put a serious tag on this post because I think it's very important that we stay on-topic here. If you have discussion on this, please continue it in this thread -- the purpose of this thread is for data collection only; other discussion will cause headaches that I don't have the moderator-powers to fix, so please, let's keep discussion on this in that thread:
F.DS has spoken. The one thing most valuable to this community in terms of improving the MF client is being able to play against appropriate opponents on automatch.
I've brought this to MF's attention but it's tough to tell them at this point a thing they can actually do since it's unclear where the problem is. The purpose of this thread is to collect as much data as possible relevant to this issue so that the problem can be pinpointed and MF can actually do something about it.
So here's what we can do to actually help:
If you play on MF, use automatch, and get paired with somebody who you feel doesn't meet the criteria of your search, please post the following information about that game (as much of this as you can come up with):
- The automatch criteria you used
- Your MF name
- Your rating on the MF leaderboard
- Your opponent's MF name
- Your opponent's rating on the MF leaderboard
getting the ratings before the game is ideal, but you might have to check the leaderboard after the game is over to get this info. The important thing is that both ratings are collected at the same time and we know when they were collected.
- Game log
Please do NOT mention why you felt it was an inappropriate matchup beyond saying you felt this person had either too high or too low of a rating to be matched up with you given the criteria you used. We have plenty of threads where we like to point out what we think are misplays and whine about it, let's not let any of that garbage get in the way of actually making Online Dominion a better thing, please?
Another note: if you look at the leaderboard and find out that the leaderboard says the matchup was legit, please still post the information here, it's still helpful!
Thanks in advance for your help collecting data on this. Together, as a community, we can make a positive difference in our experience playing Dominion Online.
F.DS has spoken. The one thing most valuable to this community in terms of improving the MF client is being able to play against appropriate opponents on automatch.
I've brought this to MF's attention but it's tough to tell them at this point a thing they can actually do since it's unclear where the problem is. The purpose of this thread is to collect as much data as possible relevant to this issue so that the problem can be pinpointed and MF can actually do something about it.
So here's what we can do to actually help:
If you play on MF, use automatch, and get paired with somebody who you feel doesn't meet the criteria of your search, please post the following information about that game (as much of this as you can come up with):
- The automatch criteria you used
- Your MF name
- Your rating on the MF leaderboard
- Your opponent's MF name
- Your opponent's rating on the MF leaderboard
getting the ratings before the game is ideal, but you might have to check the leaderboard after the game is over to get this info. The important thing is that both ratings are collected at the same time and we know when they were collected.
- Game log
Please do NOT mention why you felt it was an inappropriate matchup beyond saying you felt this person had either too high or too low of a rating to be matched up with you given the criteria you used. We have plenty of threads where we like to point out what we think are misplays and whine about it, let's not let any of that garbage get in the way of actually making Online Dominion a better thing, please?
Another note: if you look at the leaderboard and find out that the leaderboard says the matchup was legit, please still post the information here, it's still helpful!
Thanks in advance for your help collecting data on this. Together, as a community, we can make a positive difference in our experience playing Dominion Online.
33
Goko Dominion Online / Improving Online Dominion
« on: October 19, 2015, 01:09:42 pm »
Hi. I'm Adam. ("Hello, Adam.") You may remember me from Dominion. I'm also that jerk who was talking smack in SCSN's thread about his dll patches, the one who was overly paranoid about a bunch of stuff that nobody cares about, and the "MF Apologist." I was asked to stop polluting that thread with my differing opinion, which clearly and indisputably shows that my point of view is patently incorrect, so I did. I unfollowed that thread and stopped posting in it. I then made the mistake of going back to read it over the weekend and it made me deeply sad inside, but that's not exactly what I made this thread to talk about.
Let's assume that you're all right about all of this. Let's assume that MF's developers are completely incompetent and that we are entitled to a better gaming experience than what they offer. I am not conceding this point, but even if you believe all of this, it doesn't change this fact:
The only way we have of playing Dominion Online rests with Making Fun, and that will not change unless something big and unforseen happens.
If you don't like it, sorry. That's the way it is. I wish we still had Goko around, but we don't and it's not coming back. I still want to play Dominion Online and I want that experience to be as good as possible, I would assume that's what we all want here. Here's another fact that people seem to be losing sight of:
The MF Dominion client has been improving, and it still is being developed so it will continue to improve.
If you don't think it's improving fast enough, sorry. That's the way it is. If you don't like the order in which they choose to make their improvements, sorry. That's the wa--
Wait a tick, shouldn't we have a voice in this? Yeah actually we should. The problem is that our voice as a community has been really bad. We've spent pages of posts complaining about MF's software engineering process that we know absolutely nothing about. We've spent pages of posts complaining about MF's source code that we know absolutely nothing about (fact: stuff that gets spit out of a decompiler does not resemble the code MF writes, and is not grounds to criticize their design or anything else about them).
As a community, we've become so high on finding every small detail we can latch onto to say hateful things about MF and its developers. Whether or not you feel this is justified (pro tip: it isn't), it has resulted in representatives from MF no longer reading this forum (to my knowledge) and certainly not being able to get anything useful out of it.
A year ago, I bragged about this community to people I introduced the game to; today, I'm ashamed to be a part of it. The threads in here (the Dominion Online sub-board) have become so toxic, I'm seeing a side of people I used to have respect for that makes me want to have nothing to do with them. As a community, is this really what we want? Do we want to burn the bridge we have with MF, to throw away our chance to have our voice heard and to have features added that will make us happy?
A good portion of you just answered that question in your heads "yes". Really? You should seriously re-think that. If you think we have nothing to lose by doing this, that it's already completely hopeless, that's just not true. Uninstall the patch and look at the difference in animations between v40 and v43. It's not perfect now but it's come a long way, and do you know why? Because MF listened to people and improved their software from that. If you think that even if they listened to us they aren't capable of doing what we want, why does that matter? I mean, it's not true, so we are losing something here; it's either wait for MF to is this (pardon my language, I didn't make this term up) "circle jerk" worth it? I love whining just as much as the next guy, does it feel so good to whine and complain the way we are that it's worth throwing away our chances to have a voice? I really think you should reconsider.
We got less than 10 replies into pst's poll and already it's turned so toxic there. Just the results of that poll could be really helpful in letting MF know the one feature that's the most important to us as a community, but you can't scroll very far down the page before it's hard to take it seriously. People trying desperately to get something constructive out of this community are treated like crap, and it's really frustrating to be in that position. We're treating our own members with the same lack of respect we're giving MF (I don't know how pst feels, but I certainly feel that way). Why are we doing this? We are gaining nothing and losing everything.
Finally, the following is a harsh reality that needs to be said:
The dll patch is getting in the way of making Dominion Online a better experience.
Look, a decent amount of work has gone into that, and I'm not going to deny that it seems to make people's experience with v43 more enjoyable. Great. If you want to use it for your own benefit, if you want to sink time into expanding its capabilities, go right ahead and do that. Let's assume that it isn't a total waste of time. The fact is that MF is still making versions of their software that will eventually incorporate these features in a way that is actually robust and sustainable. The dll patch is a bandage that needs to be replaced every time there's an update to the software: the more complex and fancy you make that bandage, the more work it is to replace it. There is no guarantee that the dll patch isn't introducing new problems into the equation, and if someone experiences an issue that they want to report to MF, it can't really be handled properly with the patch installed.
Let me be clear: the patch in a vacuum is not the problem, it's the way our community has handled the patch and made grossly incorrect assumptions about the reality of MF's product from it. Did anyone out there ask MF if they could contribute in a constructive way towards Online Dominion by asking if MF would make a public-facing API or log file interface or something so that the changes made by the dll patch would be scalable, sustainable, etc? This would be a much better solution: something a lot more like Salvager, only still compatible with MF's continued development of their product.
If you don't want to be part of the solution, if you want to use the patch, fine. But if that's the route you take, please don't scream obcenities at the top of your lungs while the people who actually want to help are trying to have a mature conversation. The community here a year ago would have been able to handle this, let's see if it still can.
Let's assume that you're all right about all of this. Let's assume that MF's developers are completely incompetent and that we are entitled to a better gaming experience than what they offer. I am not conceding this point, but even if you believe all of this, it doesn't change this fact:
The only way we have of playing Dominion Online rests with Making Fun, and that will not change unless something big and unforseen happens.
If you don't like it, sorry. That's the way it is. I wish we still had Goko around, but we don't and it's not coming back. I still want to play Dominion Online and I want that experience to be as good as possible, I would assume that's what we all want here. Here's another fact that people seem to be losing sight of:
The MF Dominion client has been improving, and it still is being developed so it will continue to improve.
If you don't think it's improving fast enough, sorry. That's the way it is. If you don't like the order in which they choose to make their improvements, sorry. That's the wa--
Wait a tick, shouldn't we have a voice in this? Yeah actually we should. The problem is that our voice as a community has been really bad. We've spent pages of posts complaining about MF's software engineering process that we know absolutely nothing about. We've spent pages of posts complaining about MF's source code that we know absolutely nothing about (fact: stuff that gets spit out of a decompiler does not resemble the code MF writes, and is not grounds to criticize their design or anything else about them).
As a community, we've become so high on finding every small detail we can latch onto to say hateful things about MF and its developers. Whether or not you feel this is justified (pro tip: it isn't), it has resulted in representatives from MF no longer reading this forum (to my knowledge) and certainly not being able to get anything useful out of it.
A year ago, I bragged about this community to people I introduced the game to; today, I'm ashamed to be a part of it. The threads in here (the Dominion Online sub-board) have become so toxic, I'm seeing a side of people I used to have respect for that makes me want to have nothing to do with them. As a community, is this really what we want? Do we want to burn the bridge we have with MF, to throw away our chance to have our voice heard and to have features added that will make us happy?
A good portion of you just answered that question in your heads "yes". Really? You should seriously re-think that. If you think we have nothing to lose by doing this, that it's already completely hopeless, that's just not true. Uninstall the patch and look at the difference in animations between v40 and v43. It's not perfect now but it's come a long way, and do you know why? Because MF listened to people and improved their software from that. If you think that even if they listened to us they aren't capable of doing what we want, why does that matter? I mean, it's not true, so we are losing something here; it's either wait for MF to is this (pardon my language, I didn't make this term up) "circle jerk" worth it? I love whining just as much as the next guy, does it feel so good to whine and complain the way we are that it's worth throwing away our chances to have a voice? I really think you should reconsider.
We got less than 10 replies into pst's poll and already it's turned so toxic there. Just the results of that poll could be really helpful in letting MF know the one feature that's the most important to us as a community, but you can't scroll very far down the page before it's hard to take it seriously. People trying desperately to get something constructive out of this community are treated like crap, and it's really frustrating to be in that position. We're treating our own members with the same lack of respect we're giving MF (I don't know how pst feels, but I certainly feel that way). Why are we doing this? We are gaining nothing and losing everything.
Finally, the following is a harsh reality that needs to be said:
The dll patch is getting in the way of making Dominion Online a better experience.
Look, a decent amount of work has gone into that, and I'm not going to deny that it seems to make people's experience with v43 more enjoyable. Great. If you want to use it for your own benefit, if you want to sink time into expanding its capabilities, go right ahead and do that. Let's assume that it isn't a total waste of time. The fact is that MF is still making versions of their software that will eventually incorporate these features in a way that is actually robust and sustainable. The dll patch is a bandage that needs to be replaced every time there's an update to the software: the more complex and fancy you make that bandage, the more work it is to replace it. There is no guarantee that the dll patch isn't introducing new problems into the equation, and if someone experiences an issue that they want to report to MF, it can't really be handled properly with the patch installed.
Let me be clear: the patch in a vacuum is not the problem, it's the way our community has handled the patch and made grossly incorrect assumptions about the reality of MF's product from it. Did anyone out there ask MF if they could contribute in a constructive way towards Online Dominion by asking if MF would make a public-facing API or log file interface or something so that the changes made by the dll patch would be scalable, sustainable, etc? This would be a much better solution: something a lot more like Salvager, only still compatible with MF's continued development of their product.
If you don't want to be part of the solution, if you want to use the patch, fine. But if that's the route you take, please don't scream obcenities at the top of your lungs while the people who actually want to help are trying to have a mature conversation. The community here a year ago would have been able to handle this, let's see if it still can.
34
Dominion League / S10 Champion Match: LIVE streamed Wed. 7 October, 1900 UTC
« on: October 01, 2015, 07:32:42 am »
Join us for the Champion Match of Season 10 of the Dominion League! Can Lespeutere, a first-time A-division player, break into the exclusive League Champions club? It takes 4 wins to do it!
The match will be live streamed on my Twitch channel; Deadlock and I will be doing the commentary.
Also, we'll post here when the match goes live.
The match will be live streamed on my Twitch channel; Deadlock and I will be doing the commentary.
Also, we'll post here when the match goes live.
35
Dominion Videos and Streams / Multiple streaming threads: a solution?
« on: September 17, 2015, 08:50:55 am »
It's been a while since I've gotten any feedback on the live stream threads. It seems to me that there's been a little bit of confusion recently, so it's probably time to look at the current setup we have and figure out what is the best solution we have to let people know when Dominion live streams are happening. The current solution we have is the following:
1. The generic live streams thread
2. A thread for each season of the League (or whatever tournament play is going on)
3. The Twitch page for Dominion Online
4. People can follow whatever individual channels they want on Twitch and be notified that way.
Here are some issues with the current solution:
- Some people don't know which thread to post in if they're going to stream: do you post in the League thread if you're going to stream a league match? The generic stream thread? Both? People aren't doing a consistent thing here, but what is the correct "consistent thing"? Is there something that's clearly best to do here?
- If you're subscribed to both the League streaming thread and the generic streaming thread, you can get duplicate announcements for the same stream, or possibly get an announcement of a stream that isn't starting right now. Maybe some people don't want that or would like to have those separated.
- The F.DS threads are really only effective for people who have signed up for the forums and know how to use them in a way that suits them (which may not be possible). They don't help to expand the overall audience for Dominion streams.
- The Twitch page for Dominion Online can be followed, but if you don't have your stream set up nicely for it you won't be seen on that page. Also, it's pretty bad at capturing past broadcasts and highlights, so if nobody is currently streaming (which is usually the case) then it's unhelpful.
- Twitch notifications for channels you're following are pretty spotty, many times you don't get your E-mail/text/whatever until several hours after you should.
- It would be ideal if someone could just start streaming and all notifications were sent out automatically, instead of having to remember to post in one or more threads when you go live.
I've gone and investigated lots of outside solutions: a Twitch Team page would be really nice but I think that's off the table -- nobody here comes even remotely close to the minimum requirements to become a Twitch partner which is required to have a Team page, I sent them a message asking if there was something they could do for us as a community and of course I got no response. It seems that a lot of the issues we have can't easily be resolved by any means external to F.DS in a really graceful way.
I have not tried live streaming on YouTube since the fancy new thing came out about a week ago. I might give it a shot, but is the interface there any better? If they offer better things than Twitch for following Dominion players (doesn't seem difficult to do) then maybe just trying to move over to YouTube for most of our content would be a good thing to do. I wonder how many people would only watch or stream things on Twitch...
If there are things I've overlooked, please, suggestions are welcome. But so far nothing I've looked into is better than what we currently have, with the exception of the F.DS threads.
So I guess the purpose of this thread is to figure out what we should do about the F.DS threads we have, and I'm not sure I know of one solution that's clearly "best" because I don't know all of the ways people use the threads. So maybe we can collect some ideas, and if there still doesn't seem to be a "best idea" out there we can make a poll and see what the most people would want.
So, some ideas:
- Would it help if the Live Streams thread was cleaned up? Like, only a short OP and then any reply would theoretically be a stream that's currently happening? We would ask that people delete their own posts in that thread once they've concluded their stream, but we would want some board moderators to help out as well. I'd be willing to moderate but I definitely wouldn't want to be the only one doing it. This would help out lurkers who don't have an account but still check these threads to see if there are any streams live at the moment; that may sound a little fringe but I actually don't think it is.
- Harmonizing the live stream threads: how many people out there currently prefer to only hear about tournament streams or regular streams? If there aren't many people like this then we should probably just combine the threads into one. Maybe the League thread could be only for announcements like "SoAndSo and I will be playing our League match on [date] at [time] and I'll be streaming at [link]." and then you post in the combined thread when you go live? Maybe some variation on this would be better?
I suppose I'd like to collect ideas for a while, and then maybe make a poll out of it if that seems necessary. What do people think?
1. The generic live streams thread
2. A thread for each season of the League (or whatever tournament play is going on)
3. The Twitch page for Dominion Online
4. People can follow whatever individual channels they want on Twitch and be notified that way.
Here are some issues with the current solution:
- Some people don't know which thread to post in if they're going to stream: do you post in the League thread if you're going to stream a league match? The generic stream thread? Both? People aren't doing a consistent thing here, but what is the correct "consistent thing"? Is there something that's clearly best to do here?
- If you're subscribed to both the League streaming thread and the generic streaming thread, you can get duplicate announcements for the same stream, or possibly get an announcement of a stream that isn't starting right now. Maybe some people don't want that or would like to have those separated.
- The F.DS threads are really only effective for people who have signed up for the forums and know how to use them in a way that suits them (which may not be possible). They don't help to expand the overall audience for Dominion streams.
- The Twitch page for Dominion Online can be followed, but if you don't have your stream set up nicely for it you won't be seen on that page. Also, it's pretty bad at capturing past broadcasts and highlights, so if nobody is currently streaming (which is usually the case) then it's unhelpful.
- Twitch notifications for channels you're following are pretty spotty, many times you don't get your E-mail/text/whatever until several hours after you should.
- It would be ideal if someone could just start streaming and all notifications were sent out automatically, instead of having to remember to post in one or more threads when you go live.
I've gone and investigated lots of outside solutions: a Twitch Team page would be really nice but I think that's off the table -- nobody here comes even remotely close to the minimum requirements to become a Twitch partner which is required to have a Team page, I sent them a message asking if there was something they could do for us as a community and of course I got no response. It seems that a lot of the issues we have can't easily be resolved by any means external to F.DS in a really graceful way.
I have not tried live streaming on YouTube since the fancy new thing came out about a week ago. I might give it a shot, but is the interface there any better? If they offer better things than Twitch for following Dominion players (doesn't seem difficult to do) then maybe just trying to move over to YouTube for most of our content would be a good thing to do. I wonder how many people would only watch or stream things on Twitch...
If there are things I've overlooked, please, suggestions are welcome. But so far nothing I've looked into is better than what we currently have, with the exception of the F.DS threads.
So I guess the purpose of this thread is to figure out what we should do about the F.DS threads we have, and I'm not sure I know of one solution that's clearly "best" because I don't know all of the ways people use the threads. So maybe we can collect some ideas, and if there still doesn't seem to be a "best idea" out there we can make a poll and see what the most people would want.
So, some ideas:
- Would it help if the Live Streams thread was cleaned up? Like, only a short OP and then any reply would theoretically be a stream that's currently happening? We would ask that people delete their own posts in that thread once they've concluded their stream, but we would want some board moderators to help out as well. I'd be willing to moderate but I definitely wouldn't want to be the only one doing it. This would help out lurkers who don't have an account but still check these threads to see if there are any streams live at the moment; that may sound a little fringe but I actually don't think it is.
- Harmonizing the live stream threads: how many people out there currently prefer to only hear about tournament streams or regular streams? If there aren't many people like this then we should probably just combine the threads into one. Maybe the League thread could be only for announcements like "SoAndSo and I will be playing our League match on [date] at [time] and I'll be streaming at [link]." and then you post in the combined thread when you go live? Maybe some variation on this would be better?
I suppose I'd like to collect ideas for a while, and then maybe make a poll out of it if that seems necessary. What do people think?
36
General Discussion / Swiss tournament pairing script
« on: September 09, 2015, 10:56:53 am »
EDIT: I'm keeping the most recent versions of all relevant files attached to this OP.
I can't decide whether this belongs in the Tournaments subforum or here. I guess I'll put it here. Maybe it will tickle the brains of other software folks out there. Maybe someone organizing their own IRL tournament will find it useful.
So I'm organizing an IRL tournament. The first few rounds will be Swiss rounds and I wanted to write a script to automate the process of making pairings for these rounds. I did a little bit of research but there doesn't seem to be much out there in terms of algorithms or existing software for this, and even if there was, Dominion has some extra constraints that would probably complicate things. I wrote a script (which I'm attaching to this post, for the curious -- if anyone would like to play around with it and try to find bugs I certainly won't complain there are some things that are kind of hackish, though, sorry about that.)
Unique Constraints:
- My biggest constraint is sets of base cards. As it turns out, for a 2P tournament I can accommodate up to 2x+1 players given x sets of base cards -- I can have a three-player game if necessary for an odd number of players. It gets a little hairier if there are 12 or less people in some cases, but the goal is to create livable matchups without adding in any extra tables for number of players > 12. I really want to have tables set up with kingdoms that don't change throughout this process. Having the 3P game switch between tables is probably just fine but otherwise I don't want to be messing with the tables. This adds the constraint that a player can't sit at the same table twice. In fact, while most Swiss tournament constraints are pretty flexible, this one is a dealbreaker.
Regular Swiss constraints:
- Try to minimize pairing players with very different scores.
- Try to minimize pairing players who have already played each other (less important than having similar scores).
So the way I've ended up implementing the interesting part of this is like so:
- Before giving up and saying we need to add more tables to make matchups possible, we have to brute-force through every possible combination. I don't know of an elegant way to get around this, but luckily the only way this will happen for large tournament sizes is if you play more rounds than Swiss tournaments really want to play, so this shouldn't come up in practice.
- Once a pairing is generated, we check to see if it's possible to assign each pairing to a table that none of them have already played at. If we can, then we're done; if not, then keep going and try the next pairing. I'm not positive that my algorithm for pairing people together is perfect but it seems OK.
- I have two recursion functions that I use called SmartRecurse and DumbRecurse. DumbRecurse just pairs all remaining people left together just going down the list sorted by their scores. It tries that and if it doesn't work out, it gives up.
- SmartRecurse will try looking through all ways to pair the top remaining player with someone within 2 points of their score that they haven't played (first calling DumbRecurse to fill out the rest of the matchups, then SmartRecurse if none of the DumbRecurses work out). If that fails, we widen the search to include people that have already been played, DumbRecurse first then SmartRecurse like before. If that fails, we try including everyone else, Dumb then Smart. If all of this fails, it can only be because we need more tables, so it will prompt the user to add another table and try again.
- DumbRecurse isn't technically necessary, but I think it improves the performance and it pushes the priority toward having people at the top play opponents who are close to them in the score. I've tweaked this algorithm several times and this has given me results that look the most pleasing to me in all cases, so that's why I've ended up on this.
If there are any thoughts or criticisms on this, I'd certainly like to hear them. I'm not convinced that any of the parts of my algorithm are optimal. It's also pretty specific to this tournament format and the UI is something I just threw together and is probably far from perfect -- if there are ways to make this extensible I'm interested in that too. It may not actually be that difficult to make this work for a tournament that prefers 3P games as opposed to 2P games, though the assumption that you should be able to play enough rounds without adding tables and while having good matchups will probably change, so the priorities may be different, which could affect implementation significantly, so maybe not.
But one day, the dream is to have someone else moderate the tournament with the help of this script, so all they would need is to be able to resolve rules issues and make those calls, and then I can play in the tournaments!
I can't decide whether this belongs in the Tournaments subforum or here. I guess I'll put it here. Maybe it will tickle the brains of other software folks out there. Maybe someone organizing their own IRL tournament will find it useful.
So I'm organizing an IRL tournament. The first few rounds will be Swiss rounds and I wanted to write a script to automate the process of making pairings for these rounds. I did a little bit of research but there doesn't seem to be much out there in terms of algorithms or existing software for this, and even if there was, Dominion has some extra constraints that would probably complicate things. I wrote a script (which I'm attaching to this post, for the curious -- if anyone would like to play around with it and try to find bugs I certainly won't complain
there are some things that are kind of hackish, though, sorry about that.)Unique Constraints:
- My biggest constraint is sets of base cards. As it turns out, for a 2P tournament I can accommodate up to 2x+1 players given x sets of base cards -- I can have a three-player game if necessary for an odd number of players. It gets a little hairier if there are 12 or less people in some cases, but the goal is to create livable matchups without adding in any extra tables for number of players > 12. I really want to have tables set up with kingdoms that don't change throughout this process. Having the 3P game switch between tables is probably just fine but otherwise I don't want to be messing with the tables. This adds the constraint that a player can't sit at the same table twice. In fact, while most Swiss tournament constraints are pretty flexible, this one is a dealbreaker.
Regular Swiss constraints:
- Try to minimize pairing players with very different scores.
- Try to minimize pairing players who have already played each other (less important than having similar scores).
So the way I've ended up implementing the interesting part of this is like so:
- Before giving up and saying we need to add more tables to make matchups possible, we have to brute-force through every possible combination. I don't know of an elegant way to get around this, but luckily the only way this will happen for large tournament sizes is if you play more rounds than Swiss tournaments really want to play, so this shouldn't come up in practice.
- Once a pairing is generated, we check to see if it's possible to assign each pairing to a table that none of them have already played at. If we can, then we're done; if not, then keep going and try the next pairing. I'm not positive that my algorithm for pairing people together is perfect but it seems OK.
- I have two recursion functions that I use called SmartRecurse and DumbRecurse. DumbRecurse just pairs all remaining people left together just going down the list sorted by their scores. It tries that and if it doesn't work out, it gives up.
- SmartRecurse will try looking through all ways to pair the top remaining player with someone within 2 points of their score that they haven't played (first calling DumbRecurse to fill out the rest of the matchups, then SmartRecurse if none of the DumbRecurses work out). If that fails, we widen the search to include people that have already been played, DumbRecurse first then SmartRecurse like before. If that fails, we try including everyone else, Dumb then Smart. If all of this fails, it can only be because we need more tables, so it will prompt the user to add another table and try again.
- DumbRecurse isn't technically necessary, but I think it improves the performance and it pushes the priority toward having people at the top play opponents who are close to them in the score. I've tweaked this algorithm several times and this has given me results that look the most pleasing to me in all cases, so that's why I've ended up on this.
If there are any thoughts or criticisms on this, I'd certainly like to hear them. I'm not convinced that any of the parts of my algorithm are optimal. It's also pretty specific to this tournament format and the UI is something I just threw together and is probably far from perfect -- if there are ways to make this extensible I'm interested in that too. It may not actually be that difficult to make this work for a tournament that prefers 3P games as opposed to 2P games, though the assumption that you should be able to play enough rounds without adding tables and while having good matchups will probably change, so the priorities may be different, which could affect implementation significantly, so maybe not.
But one day, the dream is to have someone else moderate the tournament with the help of this script, so all they would need is to be able to resolve rules issues and make those calls, and then I can play in the tournaments!
37
Dominion Videos and Streams / Twitch uploading to YouTube issues
« on: September 01, 2015, 07:24:30 am »
I've used the Twitch uploader to take highlights from my stream and put them on my YouTube channel. Recently (the past couple of weeks) it's been doing something strange. Every once in a while (I'm having trouble predicting when, but usually it's the first time I highlight something in a given broadcast) it will upload the entire broadcast instead of just the times I've specified.
Has anyone else been experiencing this or had a similar issue, or maybe knows of a workaround or something I'm doing wrong?
Has anyone else been experiencing this or had a similar issue, or maybe knows of a workaround or something I'm doing wrong?
38
Tournaments and Events / 2P Tournament. Cincinnati, OH. Sat. Oct. 10 1PM. All expansions
« on: August 26, 2015, 10:53:47 am »
This thing happened once, and now it's gonna happen again, only better!
I'll be hosting a Dominion Tournament on Saturday, October 10, 2015 at Game Swap in Mason, OH. You should totally go. The address is 1065 Reading Rd. / Mason, OH 45040 The tournament will start at 1PM, the Swiss rounds should be done by 5PM (maybe earlier) and the tournament should be over by 7PM (maybe earlier).
There will be at 4 or 5 rounds of Swiss play, followed by an elimination round of 4 or 8 players (these numbers depend on how many people enter the tournament). ALL GAMES WILL BE 2-PLAYER GAMES (unless an odd number of people are present, in which case we'll have a single 3-player game). For this reason, the tournament is not "officially sanctioned by RGG" and I won't be able to qualify you for the World Nationals at GenCon next year from this particular tournament. Every player is guaranteed at least 4 games in the tournament.
The kingdoms for this tournament will not be "designed," but rather they will be randomly generated from all expansions with some filtering and tweaking done by myself and perhaps a few others to meet some constraints (how many copies of each card we have, not using some cards which won't be good for a tournament setting, removing BM+Embassy mirrors or Goons/money/Colony boards, that kind of thing). The point of this is that I want the kingdoms we use to *feel like* full-random kingdoms, just without any that are totally lame or might take forever to play.
I have some leftover Walled Village promos from the last tournament I can give out as door prizes, those will be first-come-first-served.
The entry fee will be $5. For each entry into the tournament, $4 will be put into the prize pool. All prizes will be given in store credit. The top three (or four) players will be given portions of the prize pool (depending on how many people enter).
If you're planning to attend, contact the tournament moderator Adam Horton (me) at adam@adamhorton.com (or send me a forum PM) -- this is not required but can guarantee you a spot in the tournament and it will assist with planning. Feel free to send any questions there as well. You can also just reply to this thread, I'll be following it As this is a 2P tournament, the maximum size I can accommodate is actually limited now, so this may be a good idea to do.
If you want to hang out afterwards, there will be the normal game night for the local boardgaming group I'm an admin of, we usually have a turnout of about 15-20 people without anything special going on. I hope to see lots of you there.
I'll be hosting a Dominion Tournament on Saturday, October 10, 2015 at Game Swap in Mason, OH. You should totally go. The address is 1065 Reading Rd. / Mason, OH 45040 The tournament will start at 1PM, the Swiss rounds should be done by 5PM (maybe earlier) and the tournament should be over by 7PM (maybe earlier).
There will be at 4 or 5 rounds of Swiss play, followed by an elimination round of 4 or 8 players (these numbers depend on how many people enter the tournament). ALL GAMES WILL BE 2-PLAYER GAMES (unless an odd number of people are present, in which case we'll have a single 3-player game). For this reason, the tournament is not "officially sanctioned by RGG" and I won't be able to qualify you for the World Nationals at GenCon next year from this particular tournament. Every player is guaranteed at least 4 games in the tournament.
The kingdoms for this tournament will not be "designed," but rather they will be randomly generated from all expansions with some filtering and tweaking done by myself and perhaps a few others to meet some constraints (how many copies of each card we have, not using some cards which won't be good for a tournament setting, removing BM+Embassy mirrors or Goons/money/Colony boards, that kind of thing). The point of this is that I want the kingdoms we use to *feel like* full-random kingdoms, just without any that are totally lame or might take forever to play.
I have some leftover Walled Village promos from the last tournament I can give out as door prizes, those will be first-come-first-served.
The entry fee will be $5. For each entry into the tournament, $4 will be put into the prize pool. All prizes will be given in store credit. The top three (or four) players will be given portions of the prize pool (depending on how many people enter).
If you're planning to attend, contact the tournament moderator Adam Horton (me) at adam@adamhorton.com (or send me a forum PM) -- this is not required but can guarantee you a spot in the tournament and it will assist with planning. Feel free to send any questions there as well. You can also just reply to this thread, I'll be following it
As this is a 2P tournament, the maximum size I can accommodate is actually limited now, so this may be a good idea to do.If you want to hang out afterwards, there will be the normal game night for the local boardgaming group I'm an admin of, we usually have a turnout of about 15-20 people without anything special going on. I hope to see lots of you there.
39
Dominion League / S9 champion match -- LIVE STREAMED Sunday 9 August 1700 UTC
« on: August 05, 2015, 07:20:45 am »
The Dominion league has seen only two different champions: Stef and Mic Qsenoch. This Sunday those two will face off in another exciting duel to determine the league champion for season 9!
Sunday, August 9, 2015
1700 UTC
Mic Qsenoch must win at least 4 of 6 games to take down the title, Stef must win at least 2.5. The games played will use kingdoms submitted for this season's Kingdom Design Challenge.
Commentary will be provided for the match by myself and Deadlock39.
The match will be live streamed on my Twitch Channel with commentary. Stef and MQ may also stream their own commentary as well.
This thread will be updated when the match goes live. See you then!
Sunday, August 9, 2015
1700 UTC
Mic Qsenoch must win at least 4 of 6 games to take down the title, Stef must win at least 2.5. The games played will use kingdoms submitted for this season's Kingdom Design Challenge.
Commentary will be provided for the match by myself and Deadlock39.
The match will be live streamed on my Twitch Channel with commentary. Stef and MQ may also stream their own commentary as well.
This thread will be updated when the match goes live. See you then!
40
Dominion Articles / Things that make Menagerie amazing
« on: July 30, 2015, 03:58:13 pm »
I'm not writing an article on Menagerie. Sorry if you got your hopes up. This is more along the lines of those discussion threads I've done before, where I feel like I'm bad at something and we can talk about it and collect information and perspectives.
Also, let's get this out of the way: Please, let's try to keep the discussion from going off-topic. Thank you.
All right, who here has never lost a game of Dominion because they underestimated Menagerie?
*crickets*
It doesn't feel good. Menagerie is such a fun card, and I don't want to watch my opponent have fun AND win the game! I want to have fun and win the game, I love both of those things! It's true, that if Menagerie was just +1 Action and +3 Cards for $3, it would be totally broken, so if there's a board where you can enable it to be that most of the time, you're going to lose if you don't make that a part of your strategy. Menageries are easy to get lots of, so what makes it worth focusing on?
Maybe this isn't quite the right way to go about it, but it's at least a starting point. Whenever someone makes a deck with Menagerie that I didn't think was viable or as explosive as it was, it's usually because I didn't think about a certain enabler.I think we could start by finding the best enablers for Menagerie and maybe the discussion can go from there.
What makes an amazing Menagerie enabler?
Well the best of the best are going to be non-terminal -- The Terminal ones have to be played before your Menagerie, which requires a Village before you get to use your awesome source of draw. This is hardly something I want to build a deck around, though it's not something I want to ignore either.
It discards cards from your hand -- this is a great way to get past duplicate cards in your hand to activate future Menageries, and it alleviates the main problem that decks like this have: they can stall once you buy your second Province.
It allows you to play duplicate cards -- An abundance of Actions from lots of Villages will allow you to run a Bridge deck or a Goons deck with Menagerie as your main source of draw, though a lot of the time it can take two stacks of Villages for you to get enough to make this really work.
What are things to look for in a kingdom that allow for Menagerie hands?
It gains Menageries -- Almost every gainer in the game has an easy time gaining Menageries because of its cost, and though they're pretty easy to buy, sometimes you're pinched on Buys and gaining them is much better.
It trashes cards -- you start the game with seven Coppers in your deck. If you can't get rid of some of them, you're going to have a hard time activating your Menageries.
...then there are some of the more questionable ways to make Menagerie good: things that help but I'm not quite sold on. Feel free to convince me that I'm wrong.
Having lots of unique cards in your deck -- Knights, Tournament, Black Market, all of those awful cards that nobody in their right might would ever want to play with. Sure, they have different names. Does that make Menagerie better? Uhh...
Terminals? Hunting Party? Disappearing cards (Festival, Native Village, Fishing Village, etc.)? Top-deck interaction? Maybe these are good. How good are they?
Ranking Menagerie enablers:
Hopefully with the help of this thread, we can put together an approximate ranking, maybe some categories, of how awesome various cards are at making Menagerie a truly broken card. I'm thinking like Warehouse on top of the pile, along with Hammy, Artificer. Then another layer with like Oasis, Upgrade, I dunno. If I had this part done already, I would just write an article, but I'm not that good so let's talk about it!
...and one more time, just for-safesies: Please, let's try to keep the discussion from going off-topic. Thank you.
41
Dominion League / Season 8 champion match -- LIVE Sunday June 28 at 1600 UTC
« on: June 23, 2015, 07:56:32 am »
For seven seasons, the Dominion League has only seen two champions: Mic Qsenoch and Stef. These two players have dominated so far, but we have a new challenger, dudeabides!
He started Season 1 in the C division and now he's finally broken through to the champion match, can he do it? Dudeabides must win 5.5 games out of 6 to be crowned Dominion League Champion for season 8, otherwise the title will go to Mic Qsenoch with his commanding lead.
Join us at 1600 UTC, this Sunday, June 28 for the Season 8 Champion Match, which will be live-streamed. Stef and I will most likely be providing commentary, and the match will be hosted on one of our Twitch channels -- more details to follow.
Also, after last season's champion match we hosted an informal "birthday party" tournament -- we'd like to try that again for this champion match, so be sure to stick around for the after-party.
He started Season 1 in the C division and now he's finally broken through to the champion match, can he do it? Dudeabides must win 5.5 games out of 6 to be crowned Dominion League Champion for season 8, otherwise the title will go to Mic Qsenoch with his commanding lead.
Join us at 1600 UTC, this Sunday, June 28 for the Season 8 Champion Match, which will be live-streamed. Stef and I will most likely be providing commentary, and the match will be hosted on one of our Twitch channels -- more details to follow.
Also, after last season's champion match we hosted an informal "birthday party" tournament -- we'd like to try that again for this champion match, so be sure to stick around for the after-party.
42
Help! / League match decision
« on: June 22, 2015, 08:22:28 am »
Game log
Video
A league match vs Robz, I believe the reason I lost this game is because of two unfortunate shuffles for me: at the end of T4 and T6 -- the Hagglers were not good to me. My first Haggler misses the shuffle and collides with my second Haggler, causing me to not hit $5 ever on either of those shuffles.
I'm not here to whine about my Haggler luck, though. There's one particular decision that I want to look at under a microscope here. It starts at 4:15 in the video, and it's on T6: my second Haggler buy.
The chat pretty unanimously says I should have bought a Bazaar there, saying I have too many terminals (before that buy, I had 11 cards, one of them was a cantrip (Tournament) and one was a Haggler -- so the second Haggler was my second terminal in a deck of effectively 11 cards), and given my draws, of course I wish I had a Bazaar instead, no question. That collision plus the rest of my shuffles really puts me far behind and things might have been better if that one Haggler was a Bazaar instead.
But looking back at it, I'm still pretty convinced that the second Haggler is the right play to make. First, since I know my first Haggler is missing the shuffle with another card, there's only a 1-in-3 chance that it will collide on that next shuffle (which is all that really matters, since the idea of picking up the second Haggler now is to hit $5 a few times and buy Bazzars and haggle some other stuff, probably a Tournament and then a Smithy, but it depends on draws obvs) and in this case I believe I'm clearly better off than if I have a Bazaar. There are plenty of cases in between what happened (total disaster, hitting more $4 hands) and the somewhat-ideal case I described (hitting $5 twice, haggling lots of delicious things) that I think are just as good as having the Bazaar. I feel pretty strongly that I want the second Haggler in my deck (obviously it doesn't end up being that good given my draws, since I have to go for green prematurely and I'm not even able to really consider contesting Prizes).
I've thought about this quite a bit and if I had it to do again, I'd get the second Haggler. I realize that lots of good people in the chat were disagreeing with me and there was nobody who spoke up to oppose them (many times there is), so I'm thinking I have to be missing something. If the second Haggler is no good here then I just don't understand why. The best I can glean from the chat is "LOL LOOK UR TERMINALZ COLLIDED" but that's just not good enough to convince me that I'm wrong.
So please help me learn something from this game.
Video
Code: [Select]
Vineyard, Forager, Menagerie, Wishing Well, Smithy, Tournament, Bazaar, Haggler, Library, FarmlandA league match vs Robz, I believe the reason I lost this game is because of two unfortunate shuffles for me: at the end of T4 and T6 -- the Hagglers were not good to me. My first Haggler misses the shuffle and collides with my second Haggler, causing me to not hit $5 ever on either of those shuffles.
I'm not here to whine about my Haggler luck, though. There's one particular decision that I want to look at under a microscope here. It starts at 4:15 in the video, and it's on T6: my second Haggler buy.
The chat pretty unanimously says I should have bought a Bazaar there, saying I have too many terminals (before that buy, I had 11 cards, one of them was a cantrip (Tournament) and one was a Haggler -- so the second Haggler was my second terminal in a deck of effectively 11 cards), and given my draws, of course I wish I had a Bazaar instead, no question. That collision plus the rest of my shuffles really puts me far behind and things might have been better if that one Haggler was a Bazaar instead.
But looking back at it, I'm still pretty convinced that the second Haggler is the right play to make. First, since I know my first Haggler is missing the shuffle with another card, there's only a 1-in-3 chance that it will collide on that next shuffle (which is all that really matters, since the idea of picking up the second Haggler now is to hit $5 a few times and buy Bazzars and haggle some other stuff, probably a Tournament and then a Smithy, but it depends on draws obvs) and in this case I believe I'm clearly better off than if I have a Bazaar. There are plenty of cases in between what happened (total disaster, hitting more $4 hands) and the somewhat-ideal case I described (hitting $5 twice, haggling lots of delicious things) that I think are just as good as having the Bazaar. I feel pretty strongly that I want the second Haggler in my deck (obviously it doesn't end up being that good given my draws, since I have to go for green prematurely and I'm not even able to really consider contesting Prizes).
I've thought about this quite a bit and if I had it to do again, I'd get the second Haggler. I realize that lots of good people in the chat were disagreeing with me and there was nobody who spoke up to oppose them (many times there is), so I'm thinking I have to be missing something. If the second Haggler is no good here then I just don't understand why. The best I can glean from the chat is "LOL LOOK UR TERMINALZ COLLIDED" but that's just not good enough to convince me that I'm wrong.
So please help me learn something from this game.
43
Puzzles and Challenges / Forum Survivor 2 Puzzles
« on: June 05, 2015, 12:23:53 am »
If you've read my signature in the last 9 months, you may have noticed that I hosted Season 2 of Forum Survivor. This thread isn't exactly about that, but the important part is that the game just concluded. Go check out the link in my signature if you're curious.
Anyways, one of the components of the game was the Hidden Immunity Idol -- throughout the game, you may find yourself with clues to the idol, and one of the puzzles you had to figure out was a Dominion puzzle. Now that the game is over, I can post these puzzles publicly and not compromise the integrity of the forum game, so here you go!
A few things to mention: mad props to Liopoil for helping me with these puzzles. Also, mad props to Galzria for beating the solutions Lio and I came up with for all three of these puzzles. Solutions can be found if you dig deep in the spectator materials for the forum game, and I'll probably post them here eventually, but for now we'll let people try to do as well as they can:
There were three hidden idols in the game, each with a different puzzle. The puzzles had the same description, just different kingdoms:
Given the following kingdom in Dominion and perfect shuffle luck, what is the highest score you can have in a solitaire game after seven turns? You don't need to worry about ending the game.
Purple Idol: Crossroads, Stonemason, Doctor, Swindler, Death Cart, Silk Road, Baker, Mountebank, Swamp Hag, Hunting Grounds (you may also choose the composition of the Ruins pile for Death Cart if you wish)
Orange Idol: Crossroads, Stonemason, Doctor, Coppersmith, Death Cart, Nomad Camp, Scout, Silk Road, Baker, Hunting Grounds (you may also choose the composition of the Ruins pile for Death Cart if you wish)
Green Idol: Crossroads, Stonemason, Doctor, Sage, Coppersmith, Death Cart, Nomad Camp, Scout, Duke, Hunting Grounds (The Ruins deck must be 10 copies of the card "Survivors")
Yes, the puzzles are sort of similar, they share several cards, but the solutions are pretty different and unique. There's one particular solution that Lio found that's really neat, but unfortunately there's a better way without doing the cool part. Sad day.
Let's see what you can come up with!
Anyways, one of the components of the game was the Hidden Immunity Idol -- throughout the game, you may find yourself with clues to the idol, and one of the puzzles you had to figure out was a Dominion puzzle. Now that the game is over, I can post these puzzles publicly and not compromise the integrity of the forum game, so here you go!
A few things to mention: mad props to Liopoil for helping me with these puzzles. Also, mad props to Galzria for beating the solutions Lio and I came up with for all three of these puzzles. Solutions can be found if you dig deep in the spectator materials for the forum game, and I'll probably post them here eventually, but for now we'll let people try to do as well as they can:
There were three hidden idols in the game, each with a different puzzle. The puzzles had the same description, just different kingdoms:
Given the following kingdom in Dominion and perfect shuffle luck, what is the highest score you can have in a solitaire game after seven turns? You don't need to worry about ending the game.
Purple Idol: Crossroads, Stonemason, Doctor, Swindler, Death Cart, Silk Road, Baker, Mountebank, Swamp Hag, Hunting Grounds (you may also choose the composition of the Ruins pile for Death Cart if you wish)
Orange Idol: Crossroads, Stonemason, Doctor, Coppersmith, Death Cart, Nomad Camp, Scout, Silk Road, Baker, Hunting Grounds (you may also choose the composition of the Ruins pile for Death Cart if you wish)
Green Idol: Crossroads, Stonemason, Doctor, Sage, Coppersmith, Death Cart, Nomad Camp, Scout, Duke, Hunting Grounds (The Ruins deck must be 10 copies of the card "Survivors")
Yes, the puzzles are sort of similar, they share several cards, but the solutions are pretty different and unique. There's one particular solution that Lio found that's really neat, but unfortunately there's a better way without doing the cool part. Sad day.
Let's see what you can come up with!
44
Dominion General Discussion / Adam is bad at kingdom design
« on: May 19, 2015, 12:43:12 pm »
So through my endless enthusiasm for Dominion I've put myself in a situation where I'm responsible for selecting kingdoms for a high-profile match on a regular basis, and also I'll be designing kingdoms for an IRL tournament. This is awesome, except for the fact that I don't think I'm particularly good at kingdom design.
For the league champion match, I usually have some other people I can consult with -- other commentators and league moderators. We get the job done. I consider this an easier job because it's kingdom evaluation instead of kingdom design, so at worst I can just play them and see how I feel at the end of it. Extra help is usually appreciated here, but it's probably more helpful if I know that the helping person is unlikely to be playing in a Champion Match any time soon. That's why I'm a good fit for this
But this IRL tournament, there are an interesting set of constraints for these kingdoms, and I happen to know that some people out there are pretty enthusiastic about kingdom design. It would be nice to have some people out there who I could consult with -- particularly people from far away who I know aren't going to this tournament. I know of a couple of people who I'll be contacting soon, but I'd like to see if there's anyone out there that would like to participate in my kingdom design adventures.
So let me know. PM me or reply here.
For the league champion match, I usually have some other people I can consult with -- other commentators and league moderators. We get the job done. I consider this an easier job because it's kingdom evaluation instead of kingdom design, so at worst I can just play them and see how I feel at the end of it. Extra help is usually appreciated here, but it's probably more helpful if I know that the helping person is unlikely to be playing in a Champion Match any time soon. That's why I'm a good fit for this
But this IRL tournament, there are an interesting set of constraints for these kingdoms, and I happen to know that some people out there are pretty enthusiastic about kingdom design. It would be nice to have some people out there who I could consult with -- particularly people from far away who I know aren't going to this tournament. I know of a couple of people who I'll be contacting soon, but I'd like to see if there's anyone out there that would like to participate in my kingdom design adventures.
So let me know. PM me or reply here.
45
Tournaments and Events / Tournament: Saturday, June 20, 2015 at 1PM -- all expansions (Cincinnati, OH)
« on: May 18, 2015, 02:05:59 pm »
Join us on Saturday, June 20, 2015 at Game Swap in Mason, OH for an RGG-sanctioned Dominion tournament. This Swiss tournament will consist of mostly 3-player games from all expansions of Dominion. The tournament will start at 1PM, every player is guaranteed at least 4 games in the tournament, with the last match concluding by 7PM.
1065 Reading Rd. / Mason, OH 45040
The first 27 people to enter the tournament will be given a Dominion Promo card. The winner of the tournament will be pre-qualified for the Dominion World National Tournament at GenCon this year.
The entry fee will be $5. For each entry into the tournament, $4 will be put into the prize pool. If 15 or more people join the tournament, an extra $30 will be added to the prize pool. All prizes will be given in store credit. The top three players will be given portions of the prize pool.
If you're planning to attend, contact the tournament moderator Adam Horton (me) at adam@adamhorton.com -- this is not required but can guarantee you a spot in the tournament and it will assist with planning. Feel free to send any questions there as well. You can also just reply to this thread, I'll be following it
If you want to hang out afterwards, there will be the normal game night for the local boardgaming group I'm an admin of, we usually have a turnout of about 15-20 people without anything special going on. I hope to see lots of you there.
1065 Reading Rd. / Mason, OH 45040
The first 27 people to enter the tournament will be given a Dominion Promo card. The winner of the tournament will be pre-qualified for the Dominion World National Tournament at GenCon this year.
The entry fee will be $5. For each entry into the tournament, $4 will be put into the prize pool. If 15 or more people join the tournament, an extra $30 will be added to the prize pool. All prizes will be given in store credit. The top three players will be given portions of the prize pool.
If you're planning to attend, contact the tournament moderator Adam Horton (me) at adam@adamhorton.com -- this is not required but can guarantee you a spot in the tournament and it will assist with planning. Feel free to send any questions there as well. You can also just reply to this thread, I'll be following it
If you want to hang out afterwards, there will be the normal game night for the local boardgaming group I'm an admin of, we usually have a turnout of about 15-20 people without anything special going on. I hope to see lots of you there.
46
Dominion League / S7 League Champion Match: Sunday 17 May at 1900 UTC
« on: May 11, 2015, 12:21:48 pm »
The suspense! Can you handle it?
SheCantSayNo challenges Stef in this season's champion match. All he has to do is win nine out of a possible six games to take down the title of Season 7 Dominion League Champion! Can he do it?
Umm, no. He actually can't. So congratulations to Stef, our League Champion for this season!
But it's not over, we had more submissions this season for the Kingdom Design Challenge than we have ever had, so even though it's an exhibition match, we'll still allow the top two players in the league to battle it out for all to see!
Join us this Sunday, May 17th at 1900 UTC to see Stef and SCSN play six of the best kingdoms submitted for the KDC this season. Myself and Mic Qsenoch will provide commentary for your listening pleasure.
The match will be streamed LIVE on my Twitch channel, and will later be put up on YouTube for your viewing pleasure.
SheCantSayNo challenges Stef in this season's champion match. All he has to do is win nine out of a possible six games to take down the title of Season 7 Dominion League Champion! Can he do it?
Umm, no. He actually can't. So congratulations to Stef, our League Champion for this season!
But it's not over, we had more submissions this season for the Kingdom Design Challenge than we have ever had, so even though it's an exhibition match, we'll still allow the top two players in the league to battle it out for all to see!
Join us this Sunday, May 17th at 1900 UTC to see Stef and SCSN play six of the best kingdoms submitted for the KDC this season. Myself and Mic Qsenoch will provide commentary for your listening pleasure.
The match will be streamed LIVE on my Twitch channel, and will later be put up on YouTube for your viewing pleasure.
47
Dominion General Discussion / Today I learned...
« on: May 10, 2015, 01:44:26 pm »
...that when you have a Prince out, it doesn't count as a unique card for Horn of Plenty (log)
48
Dominion League / Signups - Questions & Answers
« on: April 20, 2015, 08:29:05 am »Question: Do we just keep checking back here to see when we start and what division we are in or will we receive an email?
Season 8 will run from the 18th of May until 21st of June
It would be a good idea to check back at this time to see what division you're in and who you'll be playing, etc. If you'd like I can send you a reminder PM when that happens also, but unless you ask for it, you won't get a PM.
49
Dominion: Adventures Previews / Adam's Adventures Preview video
« on: April 06, 2015, 02:57:25 pm »
It's a think with lots of other online games, so let's make it a thing with Dominion.
I live-streamed my thoughts on the previewed cards this weekend so go check it out if you want.
Of course, these are just my opinions, so I could be very wrong. That's part of the fun of it, to wait a year and see how wrong I was about certain things!
I live-streamed my thoughts on the previewed cards this weekend so go check it out if you want.
Of course, these are just my opinions, so I could be very wrong. That's part of the fun of it, to wait a year and see how wrong I was about certain things!
50
Feedback / Not getting E-mails for PMs
« on: April 06, 2015, 11:54:11 am »
I've gotten a few PMs this morning and I didn't get E-mails for them. This might be happening for topics I subscribe to as well, but I'm not sure.
I checked my settings and the "Notify by email every time you receive a personal message:" box is set to "Always"
It was working on Saturday, but doesn't seem to be working this morning.
I checked my settings and the "Notify by email every time you receive a personal message:" box is set to "Always"
It was working on Saturday, but doesn't seem to be working this morning.