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51

Let's Discuss ... / Re: Let's Discuss Adventures EVENTS: BALL

« on: February 19, 2016, 09:36:31 pm »

Quite a lot of events give you the benefits on an existing card without having to buy that card and put it in your deck. Not having to buy a talisman seems like a good deal.

This. So much this. It's really unrelated, but I played a board today that featured Smithy and Trade. And, man, does Trade spice up Smithy (terminal draw)-BM. I didn't bother letting it actually play against Trading Post (which seems comparable to Trade) + Smithy-BM, but I presume Smithy-BM + Trade would destroy it.

I assume it's possible to calculate how much lower opportunity cost is for Events compared to Supply Cards without too much effort, but if you want a certain effect in the early game I think it's fair to just say: Events > Supply cards.

The same goes for Ball, if compared to a double four-cost gainer like Talisman. Put easily, buying Ball costs skipping a fiver and lowering economy for the next turn. Talisman could have been a Silver which means Talisman will lower your economy for every future shuffle. You'd better have long term plans for Talisman, then.

52

Let's Discuss ... / Re: Let's Discuss Adventures EVENTS: BALL

« on: February 19, 2016, 02:17:24 pm »

so you buy your 3 Balls.

Heh. 3 balls.

53

Feedback / Re: F.DS is awesome!

« on: February 18, 2016, 05:49:51 am »

To me, reading stuff here and posting is like waving at a baby in the line at the grocery store. You feel a little silly and weird, but if the kid giggles, you realize that - for whatever reason - you really needed this interaction today.

Also, the "hommage to the best card" thread.

54

Help! / Amazing comeback! Not by me, though.

« on: February 17, 2016, 04:53:24 am »

I don't want to take this away from wachsmuth, because it is technically his pretty amazing comeback win to report on, but I'm posting this, because I am looking for advice:

We played this game yesterday:

Code: [Select]

Squire, Scrying Pool, Ambassador, Masquerade, Menagerie, Oracle, Wishing Well, Cutpurse, Wandering Minstrel, Laboratory
http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?http://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20160216/log.0.1455651170783.txt


I opened double Amb and he opened Amb-Potion. He was a bit slower to thin consequently (he did get a second Amb after that) and I felt I was pulling ahead. Then, I make one fatal mistake (I'm sure I made a hell of a lot of mistakes here) which is to ignore Scrying Pool thinking "Well, there is Menagerie and Lab, so I guess I'll be fine". This returned to monumentally bite me in the ass. My Menageries do draw amazingly for a while though and I do some half-hearted stuff like buying Province-Menagerie for a couple of turns and actually a Curse to double-junk my opponent thinking that will prevent him from getting his Scrying Pool engine to work. He does start to draw his deck though, and - thanks to SP on the one hand and my Menagerie failing to do much after a couple of Provinces clumped together on my part - a lot more consistently than me. At this point, he is four Provinces down. He then realizes (what I hadn't even seen until I saw it in action, even though he said "there's a pin possible here" in the chat ) that he could pin me with enough villages, Masquerades and Cutpurses in hand. He starts threatening that pin and I realize I will be toast unless I can outrun it. So I start revealing Provinces with my Ambs in the vain hope to escape the inevitable loss by the hairs of my ass. I didn't get there.

It was a really thrilling game, though, and the combination of the huge momentum shift and some "unconventional" attempt at escaping made this a very cool comeback (even though we, or at least I, probably did not play this anywhere near optimally).


My questions:

1. I still do not regret opening double Amb. Should I?
2. On what turn should I have gotten Potion myself (provided the answer to 1. is "no")?
3. It is clear that I started to screw around with a lot of cards I should not have favored over SP. Ignoring these mistakes, should I have tried to Amb Provinces sooner once I recognized my lead (ignoring the knowlegde I could be pinned later)?
4. Should you aim for the pin here or is that situational depending on how you come out of the Amb war with your engine?

Thank you!

EDIT: Linked the prettified log.

55

Let's Discuss ... / Re: Let's Discuss Adventures Cards: Ferry

« on: February 17, 2016, 02:15:45 am »

I've played with this once (the one time IRL I played Adventures). I didn't understand it at the time, but once I realized what it did, I thought it was WAY OP.  Maybe I'm wrong, but guaranteeing a Wharf or Minion or Monty or whatever on T2 seems just silly to me.

My first game with Adventures actually featured Ferry and Wharf. I got to open 3/4. The thing with Ferry and powerhouses that give +buy like Wharf or Goons is that once those cards are gone or you don't want any more of them, you can easily use a +buy that could have only gotten you a Silver on some boards to shift your -2 cost token to another Action Supply pile.

A nice interaction I could think of is Ferry-Stonemason. You could of course put the -2 cost token on a specific Action Supply pile. You could also put it on Stonemason. Which would mean, for the original cost of a Card you could always get two copies of that (if you pick up a Stonemason). And you would never have to shift the -2 cost token, if there are several cards you'd like more copies of. As long as Stonemason is still in the supply, having the -2 cost token there is somewhat like putting a -2 cost token on all the cards. Not literally of course, because it's not exactly the same, but you know what I mean.

56

Tournaments and Events / Re: New online tournament.

« on: February 16, 2016, 06:30:49 pm »

/in

As long as it's not supposed to take place all in one day, mostly because I can't (well, won't) stay up until four in the morning local time if everyone else is from the US .

EDIT: Nevermind, I didn't read the OP carefully enough. I'm in as long as my time zone does not disrupt the rhythm of the tournament too much.

57

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Organized Online Play

« on: February 16, 2016, 05:35:14 pm »

So, what would you need to actually set this up?

- A thread dedicated to organizing short 8 player-tournaments
- A way of announcing upcoming tournaments and a reasonable timeframe (scheduling a week or two ahead to let people know and then actual sign-ins like on the very day to avoid having to find replacements for cancellations? I don't know.)
- eight people willing to play.

That doesn't sound too bad. The problem is finding a balance between keeping these tournaments "spontaneous" (meaning as little work as possible) and giving people a reason to actually stick around. I agree that there's no way to incorporate that "let's have a beer afterwards"-feeling (there I go with the beer again. It's just, man, I like having a beer with people), but to keep people involved there has to be more than just the bare bones.

Even if there's no stream, no chat, no whatever, people - depending on their preferences of course - might get a greater feeling of accomplishment playing Dominion, if winning allows them to "advance a round" or "play in a finals game", but four out of eight people would have no reason to stick around or interact after losing in the 1st round, if there's no platform that can host that. And if I want 40 minutes of effort only to come up short and be disappointed, I could always put that gym membership to use that I pay for without ever going.

I guess finding out if more people are interested and what kind of format they would prefer has to be step one.

58

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Organized Online Play

« on: February 15, 2016, 06:07:20 pm »

That seems like a charming idea. I'd like to play in those, too. One problem with tournaments like these might be the time difference issue, though. You would pretty much have to host these on weekends.

Also, what's nice about an IRL tournament, is getting to hang around, chat, watch other games while not playing and the likes. And going for a beer afterwards. A one-afternoon-online-tournament might not be able to incorporate all that, even with modern technology. I mean, I could always sit in front of my computer with my own beer and it would be fine. But not the same.

If people were streaming though and there's some chat activity and what-not, pretty much everything except for the going-for-a-beer-afterwards-thing is kind of accounted for. I think this might be fun. At least, it should be tried.

I could also help, time permitting, instead of just complaining about beer.

59

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Accountability

« on: February 15, 2016, 07:18:50 am »

This topic does put up a highly political problem up for debate. The league is organized privately, yet the thought that there is an obligation to adhere to standards meant for the relation between an individual and some form of elected or derived authority is not completely ridiculous. As far as I know, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) was treated by European Courts as if it were a governmental body, because - even though it is privately organized - within its field, it has such power that the relation between a player and the UEFA is comparable to that of a citizen and the government.

I say this not, because I think the league adminstration should change anything at the moment (I have yet to play a single league match, the administration so far seems swift and friendly to me), I say this because the question intrigues me. When does a privatly organized "something" become powerful enough within its renumerative field that it has to implement measures like elections, when does it need to secure that all administrative measures with an impact on fundamental individual rights have to have written grounds agreed upon by the public ("laws" if you will) and that decisions must be justiciable?

I believe, this league is not big enough yet. More importantly, the ones running the league provide a service for every participant free of charge on a voluntary basis. This does not imply that something being commercialized is the deciding factor, but since there is no revenue you can't really demand that the administrators take all of the work upon themselves that would have to be done to include every possible ruling problem (there are rules and regulations already) and involve the public on every issue. Also, the first step would have to be asking the public (the league participants) if they even want this. I would imagine that there are those who want administration to be as speedy as possible because it's more fun this way. That said, I would like to offer my brainpower (there's little) if the administrators do want to extend rulings or implement similar measures, if my free time permits it. I have no skills regarding technological stuff and no league experience though, so I would probably be a liability. Still.

Something a little more on-topic:

I like AdamH's commentary. As I stated in my intro, his and Qvist's videos were my gateway to online Dominion. I have also watched other people stream and I enjoy their commentary as well. I recently watched a stream where MicQsenoch explained for two minutes how he chipped a tooth by biting down too hard on his fork, before calmly explaining what was going on in the game. I thought it was awesome. Point is, I enjoy hearing and seeing different people stream, not just for their playstyle but also because it's a (weird?) way of getting to know different personalities. AdamH has a kind of quality that screams official broadcast, but he is not the only option by far and picking different commentators for championship matches seems to provide its benefits.

In this case, DXV provided some useful insights as to how the co-commentator was picked. Also, I think this thread has been very civil so far, so I would advise against posting private PMs. I think Stef's request that AdamH states his questions or quotes them seems very reasonable to me.

60

Dominion League / Re: S12 Champion Match: Saturday 13-2, 16:00 UTC, commented by Donald X.

« on: February 10, 2016, 04:11:53 am »

When your friends want to watch soccer on Saturday and the Championship Game is on at the same time:

61

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Key card or gainer first?

« on: January 23, 2016, 12:58:26 pm »

So I can't help but think of the game we played, http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?http://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20160110/log.0.1452445133924.txt

I had this game in mind as well when I posted  .. We split the Minions, but I was toast at that point already.

62

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Key card or gainer first?

« on: January 23, 2016, 06:22:00 am »

Let's say there's Minion and Altar on the board (I choose those cards, because I think a case can be made for either approach in that scenario, and I had this combo on a board a couple of times), my thought process is usually this:

Looking at the board: "Alright, you can gain Minions with Altar. So that's pretty sweet."
Hitting an early $6: "I could buy Altar. That would be cool. But.. what if I don't draw it in time. WHAT IF I NEVER DRAW MY ALTAR? EVER!" Then I start breathing heavily, sweat dripping down my forehead and I buy a Minion.
__________________________________________________________________________________

That aside, I think it's interesting that you propose to look at the type of action card the key card is.

1. I would propose to look at the gainer first:

- Does the gainer trash for benefit? If so, can the gainer turn your starting cards into the key card?
- Is the gainer non-terminal?
- Is the gainer available to everyone or do you have to hit a lucky early $5 or $6?
- Is the gainer cheaper or more expensive than the key card?
- Does the gainer provide some additional benefit by letting you play the key card earlier (Armory)?
- Does the gainer say: "Gain a Card" or "You may ..."

2. Then I would look at what cards you can pair the gainer with. Essentially, buying the gainer over the key card while your opponent buys the key card means you are one down. Assuming every player could buy the key card each turn, you need to justify buying the gainer by at least gaining two of the key cards in one turn. I know that's very simplistic, but it helps me think about it.

- Is there cycling/sifting, so you can play the gainer more often?
- Is there decent trashing?

3. Thirdly, I would think about alternatives:

- Is there +buy?
- If both players are building towards an engine, can the gainer for the key card be outraced by your opponent's quick building involving all components (meaning: can your opponent draw his deck a turn or two earlier than you and snatch the last cards from you)?

4. You would also have to think about your opening as a whole:

- Does opening with the gainer force you to pair it with a card (like Silver) you're not super comfortable with on that board to increase your chances of being able to create the economy to buy the key card in the same turn you use the gainer?
- Does opening double gainer mean you can't get the necessary buying power early on?

5. I think the whole thing plays out differently, depending on the card's cost: If it costs $3 or $4, it is sometimes a question how many of those your deck can handle without any further build (gainer might be better here). $5 cards that are key cards usually run out quickly, because often enough you want all of those in your deck immediately.

6. You would also have to take into account, if the gainer becomes dead in your hand after the split is decided? Are the only other Cards you could gain detrimental to what you are building towards?

__________________________________________________________________________________

Back to the Altar-Minion case, I think there's reasonable grounds to panic-grab a Minion over Altar. Your opponent's Minions help him get more Minions or cycle (and attack you) and a turn where you can Altar an Estate into a Minion and still have $5 to spare (early enough that it might matter) is not guaranteed. Of course, if you tie the split and the Altar doesn't become dead weight, you might have a significant advantage in the endgame if there is no other way to gain two cards per turn.

To sum up: I dunno. But I am not very good at Dominion. Which is why I hope that someone who is really good at Dominion will explain to me where I'm patently wrong and where I might have a point.

63

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Casino Deck

« on: January 17, 2016, 05:40:32 pm »

First of all, I am shocked that not one Casino Event reads:

"+ 1 buy
Every player (including you) reveals the top 4 cards of their deck. They put the revealed Victory cards into their hand. They put the other cards on top of your deck in any order."

On a more serious note (although I was seriously shocked), I would agree with drsteelhammer that you don't really want this kind of mechanic in a "non-casual" (whatever that means) game of Dominion. Still, playing with friends and family, where perhaps you wouldn't go for the engine and annoy everyone even though it's there on the board and you could, I can see that this would be fun. I don't really have any more event cards to suggest, but maybe you would consider making an action (it can be the 11th kingdom card) out of it called "The Gambler" that is priced at $2 or $3 and reads:

"+ 1 Card
+ 1 Action
Shuffle the Casino Deck. Reveal its top Card and resolve its effect as if you had bought this as an event."

Or some more elegant form of phrasing this.

EDIT: Maybe not make "The Gambler" a Cantrip. Stacking them could be really annoying and also ruin the game for everyone.

64

Dominion League / Re: Season 13 - Signups

« on: January 12, 2016, 09:18:01 am »

Hi, I am new to the league and I'd like to join in for Season 13.

Username: teamrocketgrunt
Timezone: Europe/Berlin
Sets: All + Promos

I think I am only eligible for Division E ratingwise, but should you reach another conclusion, please put me in the lowest Division (which I assume is E) anyway. If anywhere, that is where I will fit in.

65

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Looking for Black Magic; http://revengewitches.info

« on: January 11, 2016, 08:15:31 am »

I am seriously curious as to how a consultation with Princess (Prince?) Fatima about an "Ultimate Death Revenge Spell" would go down. Do you think, they just scam you or do they at least give you a free voodoo show for your money, so you'll actually believe it? Do you get a receipt for the tax office at the end? Is there a discount, if you only want the regular "Death Revenge Spell"? What are the added benefits of Ultimate Death Revenge? If taming a stubborn or cheating lover misfires, is the "Ultimate Death Revenge Spell" for free?

Also, "Ultimate Death Revenge Spell" would be a pretty sweet name for a japanese Mathcore band. Not that anyone needs that.

66

Let's Discuss ... / Re: Let's Discuss Adventures Cards: Caravan Guard

« on: January 11, 2016, 07:34:04 am »

I played a game with Caravan Guard and Storyteller that had an engine culminating in a Bridge megaturn that was a little slow to build and that was hit repeatedly with discard attacks. I used Caravan Guard and Storyteller to mitigate the discards and it was.. okay. It still felt awkward though and at the end of the game I didn't really know, if I got super lucky the way that the CGs and Storytellers were shuffled or there is actually a bit of synergy there. It still feels greatly inferior to any hard counters. Or soft counters for that matter. Like Menagerie.

67

Help! / Re: Did I play this right? (Market Square / Apprentice)

« on: December 14, 2015, 11:11:01 am »

Yeah, forcing the tie that way was cool. Plus, I think this is one of the very rare occasions when a player did not get stomped despite buying an Ambassador more or less in the endgame when the opponent opened Ambassador.

68

Help! / Re: Did I play this right? (Market Square / Apprentice)

« on: December 14, 2015, 08:13:27 am »

I'm not really qualified for perfect feedback, but I like discussing stuff, so I'll give my two cents worth.

I'm not sure you should have taken Butcher over Apprentice. Actually I'd say that to stay on top of your decksize, you took the superior route with the apprentice. Neither Butcher nor Apprentice like trashing coppers (there's Hamlet on the board, so Butcher is not terrible), but Apprentice is non-terminal and mixes better with Ambassador-junking because you don't need a village. I think you might have gone for Ambassador earlier (I think by the time you bought your first one, your deck was three times as thick as his), but somehow between getting Golds early enough and a lot of Apprentices you made it work.

Butcher in the place of Apprentice would have probably meant having more junk and less Golds, so the non-terminal trashing saved you in my opinion. Plus, he got the golden sombrero in the beginning, having both his opening buys (especially Amb) miss the shuffle.

This looks like an interesting board, though. If you want, we could play this and try out some different combinations. I'd like to see Hamlet/Apprentice into Ambassador immediately fare against Double Amb for example.

69

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Who's summoning who?

« on: December 14, 2015, 06:15:42 am »

I have to disagree! Warrior Within is a very flawed game, but this is one of the (few) things I liked about it. It paired a plot twist with a gameplay twist! Plot-wise, the Prince was on a very tight schedule in order to meet his other self; game-wise, the player had to rush because of the Prince's constantly-depleting health.

Huh. It's (sort of) the other way around for me. I actually liked the game itself (I liked the additional challenge playing as the Sandwraith as well), but the plot-twist always felt very forced to me.

The Prince tries to prevent the Sands of Time from being created by travelling to the past. Then after facing so many challenges fighting his way through both the ruined palace in its present state and the glorious structure it once was, he realizes, his attempts at altering the present by altering the past were futile and that he himself caused the creation of the sands by travelling back in time. So far, so good. That felt consistent and - I thought -atmospheric. And then the game goes "But wait. All is not lost because - it just so happens - that there is one object that actually lets you alter the past. And - get that - it's also here in the palace that you're in right now."

I'm not even argueing on a time-travel-logic-level because the discussion in this forum made me realize how little I knew about different approaches, I just felt like the developers kind of pulled that item out of their sleeve to give the game a "good ending" and it screwed with the underlying message of the whole game: You can't outsmart your destiny.

I did play the game a couple of times. The first time when I was like fifteen, though. Maybe I formed an opinion too early. I don't know.

70

Help! / Re: Engine or money?

« on: December 11, 2015, 10:54:56 am »

I'm late to the party and not very experienced, but this board looked interesting, so I tried both the double-lookout opening going into FGs and then GMs and the Councilroom-FV engine with FG as payload completely ignoring GMs. A couple of times. The GM games ended on piles - as they should I suppose with GMs gone, FGs low and lots of buys. In my experience, ignoring GM meant having more buying power turns 11-12, but less buying power turns 13-14 (and that didn't even include getting the +1 Card from opponent's Councilrooms since I had to make due with whatever MF bot chose as a strategy and they didn't use Councilroom, so I couldn't have the strategies "compete"). Double lookout opening into FG and GM seemed (to me at least) to be more susceptible to bad shuffles early, but more reliable later on.

I'd really like to play someone on this board who either knows what they're doing (as opposed to me and the bots) to learn or someone who has (just like me) no idea what they're doing for the heck of it.

71

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Who's summoning who?

« on: December 11, 2015, 10:06:33 am »

I'm also quite amused at all of this speculation about time travel -- so many people seem so sure of their opinions when really nobody has any idea whatsoever what would actually happen and probably nobody ever will <3

I think you missed circling back to your original post, wrapping up this discussion about time-travel and putting a bow on it. It's the "Summon" question, isn't it? Is the lady summoning the butterfly or is it the other way around? I feel very content knowing that it's possible to qualify this whole spiralling thread as somewhat thematic on a very meta-level.

72

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Who's summoning who?

« on: December 11, 2015, 08:02:22 am »

+ 1 for tying it to the butterfly again. In style. The OP will be so happy!

73

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Who's summoning who?

« on: December 11, 2015, 07:36:29 am »

The philosophy I subscribe to is this exact one.  Otherwise put:  If you try to change history through time travel, you will inevitable fail - you already have failed.

That's true (well, unless you find that mask from Prince of Persia 2 that truely lets you alter the past - man, what a dumb game twist). What I particularly enjoy about the train of thought that is 'I bumped into my own ancestor while time-travelling and thus ensured my own conception' is that futurama-esque (remember the episode where Fry turns out to be his own grandfather?) absurdity. Being able to do this would make you capable of creating yourself out of nothing.

Time-traveller rule #1 (revised again): Bump whoever you want. They can't possibly be related to you.

74

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Who's summoning who?

« on: December 11, 2015, 06:01:11 am »

You bump a guy in 1800. He was going home to get his wife pregnant. You bumped him; now a different sperm makes it to the (same) egg, and a different kid is conceived.

Time-traveller rule #1: If you bump someone in 1800, he'd better not be related to you.

Well, actually, just the fact that you were able to time-travel proves he could not have been related to you OR (and that is way more likely) you were only conceived because you bumped your own great-great-great-great-great-grandfather and thusly triggered the exact genetic chain that allowed you to time-travel in the first place.

Time-traveller rule #1 (revised): Bump whoever you like. It's only time travel.

75

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Who's summoning who?

« on: December 10, 2015, 05:59:21 am »

Eight posts. It took eight posts to get from a Dominion Card that could or could not show a butterfly summoning a woman and/or could or could not show a woman summoning a butterfly to how time-travel with the goal of killing Hitler is a horrible idea. They say 'it's funny how the human brain works'. I like how multiple human brains work together way better .