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251

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Good "First Game" Kingdom Alternatives

« on: May 27, 2016, 10:33:29 am »

When teaching a first game, I use a tablet randomizer app (Jack of all Dominion. Silly name, great randomizer.) I set up the rules to require at least one +buy, at least one village, at least one terminal draw, at least one trasher, and at least one duration. I blacklist cursers.

Then I swipe away any cards that will either make the game miserable, introduce too many choices, or is game-warpingly good in a way that makes everything else irrelevant. Complex cards with too much text go away, like Count or Native Village. Lots of different mechanics are fine. I may or may not include Events depending on how sharp the players are.

But because I also like to play, I give myself a bit of a challenge. Because I know that new players are always going to buy too many actions, I try to build a kingdom that isn't a particularly good engine, one where BMX could win, then I play an engine anyway just for practice. So I'll swipe away Wharf but keep Dungeon. Swipe away Smithy but keep Courtyard. Swipe away Goons but keep Monument. It also keeps the turns shorter in multi-player.

For a second game, I'll re-randomize with no duplicates (but Duplicates are ok) and I'll leave some of the power cards in, but still get rid of cards that are too complex. I find this approach helps really introduce the game. The rules, the power variance, and the immense variety.

Here's the reality: Non-gamers or occasional gamers are never going to like it, no matter how simple you make it. Trust me, I've tried. Not happening. Casual gamers (even old-school fans of classics like Monopoly and Scrabble) will usually like it, even with a complicated kingdom. Hardcore gamers will be turned off if you oversimplify, so hedge your bets.

252

Dominion: Empires Previews / Re: Empires Bonus Preview #2: Crown

« on: May 27, 2016, 10:11:09 am »

Magic players are usually easy marks for getting addicted to Dominion. First of all, they love lots of variety, so I usually play two games right up front (randomizing from the entire collection and cutting slog-makers) so that they can see how different the games can be.

But more importantly, a large part of the fun of Magic is the acquisition part. The buying of cards. Magic players get an endorphin rush just from the smell of a newly-opened booster pack of cards that they now own. And there's the anticipation factor of flipping through the stack seeing what those cards are (or, at least, what the rare is.)

The act of buying cards is the principle game mechanic of Dominion. You get that endorphin rush every time you pick up a card from the supply and place it in your pile. And when you clean up and draw a whole new hand at the end of each turn, you get that anticipation factor of flipping through a whole new hand instead of just one card.

The money/acquisition cycle is a powerfully addictive one. Magic takes advantage of that by actually selling cards to players with real money. Dominion acknowledges that principle and uses it to make a fun and engaging game using virtual money. Some of us have given up the Magic treadmill for good. I sold my collection years ago.

Dominion is like methodone for ex-Magic players.

Now shut up and take my money for Empires.

(On the flip side, it's accessible for non-hardcore gamers. When I tell casual gamers that Magic releases as many new cards as are in all of the Dominion expansions put together approximately every six months, they're aghast. As they should be.)

253

Dominion Articles / Re: Who's who in Adventures Events?

« on: May 24, 2016, 10:14:53 pm »

Gotta concur with the love for Bonfire and Plan. Of note: They don't clog your deck. Once you're done with Chapel, it's a dead card.

Also, here's a question: Is Plan worth buying in BM since it doesn't leave a dead action in your deck while you buy your terminals? I recently played a Plan/"3rd Gear" game which was startlingly fast. Without Estates, it skipped buying Silver altogether and went Gold/Province/Province/Province/Province/Gold/Province/Province/Province (I guessed correctly that the second gold would enable more provinces rather than settling for Duchies.) Opponent's engine didn't have a chance.

Would that apply for other BM+X cards or not? Wharf? Smithy? Simulations, anyone?

254

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Examples Showing Strategy for Specific Supply Cards

« on: May 24, 2016, 09:59:42 pm »

The problem with Chapel+BM, and the reason it's not a thing, is because it chokes on the green cards really quickly. Straight BM or BM+X is more resilient because it increases the money density through sheer volume; when you start greening, you keep greening for a while, because playing Smithy from a Smithy/Gold/Copper/Copper/Province hand has a good chance to hit $8. Gold/Silver/Province/Province/Province has to settle for a Duchy.

Where Chapel shines is in an engine where you can have a hand of Village/Smithy/Province/Province/Province and you're just fine. You're probably going to draw your whole deck anyway.

Dramatic deck thinning also works in cantrip decks. Imagine a deck with literally nothing but 8 Markets in it (all the starting Coppers and Estates gone.) It wouldn't start choking on green cards until you bought the fifth Province. Until then, even one Market guarantees $8 (you'll learn all about the joy of Peddler one day...)

You can also mitigate the greening problem with sifters, but base set only has Cellar, which is lame compared to the great ones like Warehouse and Embassy (drool.)

At least you're farther along than many beginners in recognizing the importance of trashing in early and often. Mostly early. I still have to reach across the table in IRL games and smack my playgroup members who keep buying Steward and playing hands of Steward/Estate/CopperX3 by using the Steward for $2 so that they can afford that $5-cost right away. I'm going hoarse yelling "That's now how you Steward!!"

255

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Examples Showing Strategy for Specific Supply Cards

« on: May 24, 2016, 09:42:52 pm »

Actually, you shouldn't be looking for strategies for specific kingdoms. Instead, read the dominion strategy wiki articles on the basic deck archetypes (money, engine, rush, slog) and articles on specific cards, since those articles will tell you what archetypes they're good in and what other cards they synergize with. Reading the articles on the base set cards is a good start.

Nutshell:

Money: You buy 2 actions and money and VP and nothing else. Smithy+BM is the canonical example. Beats the unprepared beginner so fast they'll think Dominion is stupid. And sadly, sometimes it's the best thing available. Recognizing that is important.

Rush: In base, it's usually Gardens/Workshop or Gardens/Woodcutter. You can empty three piles (usually G/W/Estate) while your opponent is working on his fourth or fifth Province.

Slog: Beware of Witch (and later, other cursers) with no trashing or sifting. Some kingdoms are so miserable that you can barely get $5 a hand. So buy Duchies! Curses are a supply pile, so slogs usually run out on piles. Your seven Duchies will beat your opponent's two Provinces he kept desperately buying those Golds to afford.

Engine: Why We Play Dominion. They're the hardest to play, the most fun, and the only practical way to buy multiple Provinces per turn. Engines have lots of different cards and reward skill in knowing how to play them and in what order to buy them. Engines are played by the best players...and the worst ones. The most common beginner mistake is to buy tons of actions, creating basically an engine that spins its wheels. Even for experienced players, not every board is an engine board. Festival+Moat just isn't going to get there. Village+Smithy is great, but if there's no +buy, there may not be any point. An engine is basically this: Some source of action/draw combination that can get essentially your entire deck either in your hand or on the table. It may have some virtual coin, some +buy, maybe some sifting to skip the green cards, and maybe an attack as a nice punctuation mark at the end.

You need to be able to look at a board and say "This is an engine board" or "this is a money board" or "this is a slog." Experienced players looked at your sample kingdom and said Woodcutter/Gardens rush, meaning they would ignore most of the kingdom. That may seem trivial, but playing a rush requires careful timing. When you play Workshop, when do you gain another Workshop, a Gardens, or an Estate? What do you buy when you hit $3 or $4? Watch the piles carefully.

Once you add the rest of the expansions, of course, things get amazing. Card combos and strategies that open up all kinds of possibilities like game-ending megaturn engines that do nothing for the first dozen turns, then buy out all the Provinces at once.

Enjoy the journey. It's a great game with a tremendous variety. You'll be hooked in no time.

256

Let's Discuss ... / Re: rēs cornūcōpiae consultēmus: tournament

« on: May 20, 2016, 11:23:37 am »

What I've done for my IRL games is make a separate stack of prizes for each player. That way we all get a chance at getting the prizes.

Tournament for Millennials.

257

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Best Uninteresting Moments of Dominion 2016

« on: May 20, 2016, 11:12:44 am »

4P IRL. Plaza, Wandering Minstrel, Embassy, Journeyman in the kindgom... but no +buy. Played Smithy+BM and won. Yawn.

(Ok, fine, yes, I know. Don't even. Here, wait, let me go ahead and do it right now and save some space. The next reply will be "FTFY: 4P IRL, [strikethrough rest of message.] Just realize that not everyone hates 3-4P. First, I recommend using 16 Provinces in 4P to encourage engines with double-buy capacity [endorsed by Donald X here http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=15189.0.] Second, with an experienced playgroup, it's quite fast. Third, it's a different game with different strategic elements, and can be much less multi-solitaire-ish than 2P. Cursing isn't as automatic when taking the math into account that a player who ignores cursing to build gets an advantage over other players cursing each other. Figuring out if you should bother with Fool's Gold or other "win the split, win the game" cards in 4P is much trickier. Pins don't work. Counting points is harder. If anything, it's a more challenging variant than 2P. So enough hate.)

258

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The page line: spoiler alert, it's fun and awesome and I love it.

« on: May 20, 2016, 10:50:23 am »

Champion warrior is pretty weak by itself.

This is the real nugget of wisdom in this whole discussion.

If the kingdom doesn't have anything else to support it, trying to create an engine using just the Page line isn't going to work. It at least needs some trashing, and it probably needs some other drawing support. Also, cheap extra buys are helpful to grab pages quickly.

That said, correct me if I'm wrong, but when you're looking at incorporating the Page line, you probably do want to grab some number of pages, upgrade one of them as quickly as possible to Champion, and upgrade all of the other ones to Warrior, as basically the "default" way to treat this line in an engine; it's just that that alone won't be enough, so have something else in mind as part of your plan. It's rare that you're going to want to keep Treasure Hunters or Heroes around without exchanging them, though buying/keeping Pages later might be really good if Training or Pathfinding is around.

259

Dominion: Empires Previews / Re: Empires Previews #2: Split Piles

« on: May 19, 2016, 11:24:05 am »

That's going to take a lot more than 4 hours when you take into account all the obscure but official variants like Hot Air Balloons, Factories, Specialists, Catan Rally, Dragonslayers, Magic Castle, Oil Springs, Atlantis, Football Fields, Catan is Round, Chocolate Market and many more...

The horror!

That's one of the many things I really appreciate about Dominion. No matter how many expansions you add, there's the self-limiting factor: 10-card kingdoms. Every other game adds time/setup/complexity when expansions are added, and while Dominion does add complexity with certain mechanics, if anything, some of them actually speed up the game.

260

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The page line: spoiler alert, it's fun and awesome and I love it.

« on: May 19, 2016, 10:59:47 am »

Absent Chapel/Steward/Remake, using Plan on Page is pretty cool. Trash your starters, cycle more quickly, exchange Pages, re-buy them for even more trashing.

261

Dominion General Discussion / Re: House rules you use

« on: May 16, 2016, 11:11:47 am »

I do like how you tried to edge-case it to make us sound less incompetent, but. It was Adventures only - that's your homework for the week.

Ok, let's see. I'll assume 2 Events: Bonfire and Quest.

Kingdom cards: Gear, Guide, Duplicate, Miser, Distant Lands, Hireling, Transmogrify, Amulet, Ratcatcher, Raze

I think that might do it. That might be a kingdom where there would be no reason to buy Bonfire. I also cheated a little by putting the three other trashers in the Kingdom (Amulet/Ratcatcher/Raze.) There's no +Buy, no +Actions, no gaining, so there's no engine here; nothing better you could possibly do than buy a Province a turn. Plus, Gear is in the Kingdom, the new king of Big Money. I don't think there's anything else faster than three Gears, pile the Provinces and move on to the next Kingdom and forget this mess ever appeared. Bonfiring coppers wouldn't accomplish anything but costing turns; it's not worth increasing the money density by trashing when playing BM because you'll stall faster when greening.

Now we'll see if anyone edge-cases my edge-case. Maybe some sort of weird Distant Lands Golden deck? I put in Distant Lands just to draw out other comments. I couldn't see a way to get/play multiples in one turn though, so even a deck of G/S/DL doesn't beat a Province a turn.

I have to admit, learning to play this game properly really does take time. It can be broken down into several stages:

1. Buying too many actions and making gigantic engines that do nothing.
2. Realizing that BM+X beats those bad engines easily. (Being sad for a minute.)
3. Realizing that a good engine will beat BM+X, but usually only by making multiple victory card buys, or by being much more consistent once greening starts.
4. Reading the strategy wiki and forums to find out what card combos work and about all of the different deck archetypes, buying proprities, money density, etc. Also terminology.
5. Being able to look at a Kingdom before buying a single card and identifying the optimal strategy for that kingdom. (Results may vary.)

One important note: Ignore the edge-case posts, parodies, facetious advice and pedantic arguments. Read the other 20% of the forum posts. There are some fantastic articles and discussions here about strategy, statistics, card evaluations, etc. Not all of them are gospel, but a surprising number of them are better than some of the now-outdated articles on the strategy wiki.

262

Dominion General Discussion / Re: House rules you use

« on: May 14, 2016, 09:51:07 am »

it stalled when no-one wanted to buy a particular event (possibly Bonfire, because we're all rubbish at this game.)

Hey, I can edge-case that. Maybe you're not all rubbish. Maybe you had already trashed all of your coppers by that time. And you weren't playing with Rats. Or Sea Hag once the curses pile out (gotta love throwing a "witch" on a bonfire.) Or it was an undisputable BM-X board which didn't want you to trash coppers.

Buy yeah, Bonfire is normally great. If your group doesn't like trashing, you're doing it wrong. I watched a non-beginner in my IRL playgroup veto Chapel recently and the rest of the table nearly rioted. Now we play with a "reserve" round before the veto round so each player gets to pick a card that can't be vetoed.

263

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Best Dominion moments 2016

« on: May 13, 2016, 02:07:52 pm »

3P IRL game.

Plan on Page --> Candlestick Maker (Warrior-proof) --> Double Page buys --> cycle like crazy --> buy more Pages, trash all starting cards, lock opponents out of Travelers by grabbing all Warriors and upgrading only one of them to Champion. Put Pathfinding on Page. Final build:

...8 Pages, 4 Warriors, three Platinums, three Silvers leftover from Treasure Hunters. Draw whole deck repeatedly, trashing literally every 3-4 cost card in opponents' decks along the way, play one Candlestick Maker for exactly $22 and two buys, buy double Colonies...five turns in a row.

One opponent was attempting Page buys with Forager (not Warrior-proof) and the other was attempting Pathfinding/City chains. Final score: 106 - 20 - 0.

That said, I made a huge mistake in a 4P IRL game yesterday:

Excellent engine parts (Smithy, Journeyman, Plaza, Count) but not a single extra buy. No junking. Harem. Played a boring Smithy-BM, won by a few points, apologized for being boring.

However, I saw it too late: Highway, Count, Ball. Derp! The Kingdom could easily have supported a very thin deck playing 4 Highways and Balling two Provinces a turn, no double-buy required. I've got to remember that Ball says "a card" and not "an action card" like so many Events do.

(One more: Highway/Prince-Embassy. Wow! Only won by two points over opponent who got Highway/Prince-Journeyman.)

264

Dominion: Empires Previews / Re: Empires Previews #2: Split Piles

« on: May 13, 2016, 01:02:49 pm »

...This helps avoid the scenario with City and Knights...

You definitely want to avoid this scenario when your friends say "Let's play Catan!" Noooooooooo!....

"What about Seafarers?" Great, just what Catan needed, more less-productive coastal properties leading to dead turns.

Next person to complain about some nitpicky aspect of Dominion should be sentenced to play a few 4-hour-long games of 6-player Catan with all the expansions.

265

Dominion General Discussion / Re: How to play randomized kingdoms?

« on: May 02, 2016, 02:22:47 pm »

Don't let the fact that a strong terminal happens to draw prevent you from adding it to a trashed-down stack of useful cantrips or lab-variants. Attacks like Witch, Ghost Ship, (occasionally Torturer or Margrave) can be worth playing every turn even if they draw dead a lot. Vault can also be useful, particularly if you can't get rid of your Estates (or if you want to get your hands on some sweet Grand Markets).

True enough. That's why I listed "+coin, +buy, trashing and attack" as things you might do at the end of the chain. You wouldn't want Smithy or Journeyman or Hunting Grounds or even Catacombs if you've got a high enough action density for a cantrip engine to work. (Ooh, I forgot to mention Conspirator! Now there's a skill-tester of a card that doesn't need Villages if you do it right. But it also doesn't want any terminals added at all.)

Vault is a funny card. You know, when I see it in a Kingdom, I kind of don't even think of it as a draw card. I think of it as more of a terminal +coin card, where the coin value can be really big. I don't think I've ever played an actions/draw engine with Vault as the only draw card. But, yeah, if I see Vault and Grand Market together, hooray! Maybe I'll throw a vault into an engine if I have enough extra actions, but I wouldn't usually try Village/Vault to draw my deck any more than I would try it with Moat.

Usually. That's the thing. The whole "depends on the kingdom" principle applies everywhere. But when someone relatively new is asking about general principles, start with the basic concepts and then cover the edge cases later.

I have to say, one of the things that helped me was playing a LOT of games against the Provincial bot. The official Dominion on-line bots just aren't very good, and it's hard to play many, many quick games against people, either online or IRL. (I can see why it's better; playing a randomized game against a Dominion On-line bot would be a bit silly if it said "please wait 30 minutes while I find the optimal strategy for this kingdom.") Sure, the Provincial program is largely academic, with a very limited card set, and a limited number of pre-calculated kingdoms, and there are certain strategies it doesn't play well (it can't play a megaturn worth squat) but you learn some things quickly, such as how powerful optimized buying strategies are. It's also good to try at least three different approaches to each kingdom: Try your own guess at optimal play, try mirroring the bot buying rules, then try to find a different strategy that will beat it (the third step is often the most difficult.) It really teaches discipline. You have to be dedicated to double-buys, or patiently building for the megaturn, or optimizing for quick singles instead of going for fun cards, or buying Duchies instead of more $5 actions while greening. It will destroy most casual players, even if they have some experience and kind of know what they're doing.

266

Dominion General Discussion / Re: How to play randomized kingdoms?

« on: May 02, 2016, 12:28:12 pm »

So what is the best way to deal with no +2 action kingdoms?

Other than possible BMX strategies, I often look for engine possibilities with trashing/cantrips and a single terminal payload that is NOT a draw card (+coin, trashing, +buy, attack, etc. Terminal draw doesn't want to draw a bunch of cantrips!) Many players will look at a Kingdom and say "no village, no engine" but you might be surprised. A Peddler chain doesn't need drawing or +actions to hit $8 with startling reliability, and there are a bunch of cards that do a pretty darned good Peddler imitation like Ironmonger and Magpie. However, you'll be in for trouble if you try it with more expensive cards like Market, or cards with drawbacks like Oasis. Or cards that don't really do much like Wishing Well or Pearl Diver. If there are non-terminal handsize increasers, consider them. Laboratory, Stables, Menagerie (don't open!) and a single terminal payload card can be pretty sweet.

That said, if you own Adventures, the Events are game-changers. Village, shmillage. Pathfinding or Training turn cheap, otherwise almost useless cantrips into crazy. I mostly play IRL, and I feel like the on-line play is going to get turned upside-down once Adventures is released in the on-line version.

267

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Fools Gold/X Combos

« on: May 02, 2016, 12:11:02 pm »

I'm going to have to agree with most of the experts here. None of those are combos, and in fact, many anti-synergize.

Margrave/Fool's Gold -- Margrave is a bomb, but I'd be somewhat wary of using it on a Fool's Gold board depending on what else is in the Kingdom. Allowing your opponent to draw a card before going down to 3 is dangerous. If you're playing a Margrave engine and allowing them to do that multiple times it's even worse; you're significantly improving their chances of lining up THEIR Fool's Golds in the same hand!

Ill Gotten Gains/Stables; Treasure Trove/Stables -- Add me to the chorus. Stables does NOT want more treasure! The point of Stables is that you need to do LESS trashing. It's certainly not that you want to do no trashing, and definitely not that you want to add treasure. Stables starts to shine when you can play multiples per turn. If you load up on treasure, you will definitely not be able to string Stables together. If you're just playing one and discarding a copper or IGG, then, well...you're playing Moat/BM. Seriously. Ick.

I'd like to add one small story about trashing and engines. I had an IRL game recently that included Embassy, Chapel, Bridge, Port. I thought to myself: If I'm going to build a double-Province Port/Embassy/single-Bridge engine, can I get a jump on my opponents by skipping trashing and buying components faster, using Embassy's incredible sifting power and the lightning acquisition speed of cheap, plentiful ports with Bridge buys. One play of Embassy skips the Estates. Another play skips half your copper. Who needs trashing? Yeah, well, turns out, even THAT needs even some trashing; it's all about reliability. The player who trashed everything won on single Province buys (and free silvers, of course) before I could get doubles going. So no, don't ever, EVER clog up your deck with extra coppers unless you're playing some sort of slog or Gardens rush.

I recently played with some young beginners who tried to tell me how great a Beggar/Moneylender combo was. The fact that I had to actually work to convince them otherwise was truly astounding.

Journeyman/Fool's Gold -- And what are you going to name? Copper? Here's your handful of Estates. Oh, you're trashing those? In that case, trash the coppers as well and see what else is in the Kingdom before you buy $5 Smithies. Journeyman is terminal and doesn't have +buy, which means that Fool's Gold doesn't really like it.

The Fool's Gold strategy article on the Wiki is actually pretty good. It could probably use some updating, but that's the best place to start when you're looking for strategy advice and combos. Posting a poll here if you haven't done your homework is just asking for a pile-on.

268

Let's Discuss ... / Re: Let's Discuss Alchemy Cards: Apprentice

« on: April 26, 2016, 05:03:41 pm »

Nonterminal "trash a Copper" isn't so bad.

Not bad at all. It's worth every bit of the $2 I paid for that Raze. And since it can trash itself when I'm done, it's even better than Apprentice (if all I'm using it for is trashing copper.) Just to put it in perspective. If you're going to buy Apprentice, have big plans for it.

269

Game Reports / Re: For Newer Players

« on: April 24, 2016, 11:15:05 am »

TL;DR: "made a serious mistake...he got Transmute"

I definitely agree with the point of the post, though. I also see engine-building on non-engine boards. It just happened last night in a 4P IRL game, using vetoes. I looked at the cards, I had a nice multi-Province engine in my head, then my left-hand opponent vetoed Junk Dealer and my right-hand opponent vetoed Envoy. Seriously? Ok, then. Wharf-BM it is. Coasted to victory while the rest of the table tried building engines having vetoed pistons and crankshafts. No trashing, no draw, no engine. Although, I suppose I should throw out the question: Wharf really doesn't want to be an engine card along with Villages, right? It's such a premier BM card, and with no trashing, it would take an awful lot of Village/Wharf building to reliably draw $16.

The next game, though...oh, man. My left-hand opponent, who has tired of me having gotten good and disciplined about thinning my decks to practically nothing, vetoed Remake. Remake! The best $4 in Dominion! After a hopefully humorously exaggerated freak-out on my part (and lecture about the value of certain cards) I sighed and picked up my opening hand. $5. Oh. Well. Ok, I'll buy Count. And speaking of engines...Oracle/Lost Arts. No one else seemed to see that as the dominant strategy and I won the Oracle split 4/2/2/2 by the time anyone woke up. (Oracle was the only draw on the table! I thought Lost Arts/Draw was about as automatic a strategy as you can get.) Discard/Discard/Keep. Discard/Keep/Keep. Keep/Keep/Keep. Count, topdeck an Oracle/$3. Add cash. Buy Colony. Repeat. I ended with 9 Colonies (no +Buy in the kingdom.) Sometimes an engine really is the right answer, even without +buy. Also, the trick with an Oracle chain is to play fast and pick discards before the table loses the will to live (See: Spy Fatigue.)

270

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Ambassador/Pirate Ship isn't actually a thing, right?

« on: April 24, 2016, 09:54:22 am »

Hey, at least we actually now have good Counting House combo now with Travelling Fair.

I actually saw another one recently: Counting House/Scouting Party. In the particular game we played, a Beggar helped kick things off by gathering more copper and allowing hitting 5 quickly, but another cheap +buy might be just as good. All it takes is two Counting Houses. With a hand full of 12-14 copper, you can purchase only as many Scouting Parties as it takes to ensure that your second Counting House is in your next hand, and that your deck is 5-6 cards. Clean up, play House, repeat. Way faster than Golem, extremely reliable, and kicks off a Province a turn starting around turn 6-7. The trick is that since you're pulling all the copper into your hand BEFORE you have to buy parties, the rest of your deck is, what, 5-10 cards, depending on how green it is? Makes it easy to manipulate, even if you need to trigger a reshuffle to get your Counting house. Just don't stop scouting with a 2-4 card deck!

Oh, man, I just realized that list still has a Counting House/Coppersmith on it from 2010. Yikes. That wiki needs an enema.

271

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Ambassador/Pirate Ship isn't actually a thing, right?

« on: April 23, 2016, 09:46:19 am »

This concept might need a whole new thread. Whoever's managing the wiki: You might want to put out a call for some review/feedback of the extremely large and outdated combo list in general. Frankly, there are things in the "neat/useful" thread that are far better than some of the "combos" listed on the wiki.

I've mentioned it in another thread, but Golem/Counting House is perhaps the canonical example of a listed combo that seems amazing when you first look at it, because the interaction between those cards creates a very particular situation which guarantees a single large cash buy. However, I just double-checked a simulator, and it doesn't even beat generic Big Money. Well, that seems like it should be the litmus test for useless. This is a particularly good example, because you cannot add any action cards to the deck at all or your break the combo (unlike Ambassador/Pirate Ship, which someone will find an edge case for involving other cards.) The only buys are Potion (1 is better than 2 according to the simulator) and Silver (without it, you don't hit 5/4P early enough) 1 Counting House and all the Golems you can eat. No matter how you tune the victory buys, it doesn't beat BM.

Yeah, I know: Let the edge cases begin. Or maybe I'm just not using the simulator right. But I still suspect we have a clunker or five on that list.

272

Game Reports / Re: Loving Prince

« on: April 18, 2016, 02:32:25 pm »

Re: Loving Prince...

...is easy 'cause he's beautiful. Do do do do do dooooo.

273

Dominion Articles / Re: Dominion COMBINATIONS

« on: April 18, 2016, 02:24:45 pm »

Also, check this out:

http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Combos_and_Counters_List

However, a word of warning: This list is vast and much of it is old. The reality is that some of these combos, while they technically "work" are really terrible. Counting House and Golem for example. Sure, it guarantees a Province every time you draw a Golem. But it takes so much time and investment to set up, and it fundamentally prohibits putting anything else in your deck, that I would guess most modern players would dismiss it as almost useless. I don't even think it beats straight Big Money.

274

Let's Discuss ... / Re: Let's Discuss Base Set Cards: Festival

« on: April 16, 2016, 12:55:24 pm »

It's a card many players overbuy. Non-terminal $2 is really enticing, sure, but I've seen way too many "Festival Idiots" who buy scads of them and then use them to buy single Provinces and think they're great, not realizing that they're just playing BM and overpaying for silver. +1 buy is often helpful. +3-4 buys rarely is.

For engine building, it requires GOOD draw cards (+3 or better) and ideally sifters to help prevent stalls, and a greater dedication to trashing, but in the bargain it mitigates it's own drawback: Since it provides money with the actions, you don't have to buy as much economy in the form of treasure and other money payload cards, meaning you CAN do much more trashing and make it work just fine as long as you make your deck really thin.

I'm not sure I would ever use Pathfinding or Training on Festival. That's what cantrips are for. Turning a bunch of $2 Pearl Divers into $5 Labs with upside is fantastic. Turning a $5 Festival into a slightly more reliable $4 Conspirator seems iffy.

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Dominion General Discussion / Multiplayer house rules?

« on: April 15, 2016, 12:27:52 am »

Does anyone out there play with any special 3P/4P/5P house rules?

In particular, curses. I know that the pile increases so that it will pile out after exactly 10 plays of Witch/etc. However, there's a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that it should increase so that, like the 2P game, each player should be entitled to 5 curses if they split evenly, meaning 4P should be a 20-curse pile, not 30. 5P would be a 25-curse pile, not 40(!) Anyone tried that?

In fact, my playgroup simply doesn't play with cursers at all. They're blacklisted from the randomizer. (Note: Engine still beats BM most of the time! And Feodum/Gardens/Silk Road rushes are definitely still a thing.) But I feel like we're missing an important component of the game. In fact, trashing attacks are also blacklisted, though I keep trying to convince them that Thief isn't good just because they watched KC-Thief completely deplete a couple of players of all their cash that one time. And yeah, trashing attacks can be a little swingy. It's a card game, after all.

Piling out a shorter curse pile is an issue, of course, but absent crazy gaining/gifting like Haggler or Border Village or Messenger, our games rarely pile out; even when a player can do so deliberately, knowing who's ahead is trickier in 4P.

I know a lot of players scoff at 4P. It's a whole different animal. Hermit/Market Square isn't happening. Also, you're probably not going to get 6 Peddlers. And yet, viable engines are still a thing, even if their only point is one reliable Province a turn or Province/Duchy. Sometimes all you need are two or three copies of a few cards and decent trashing. But the curse thing still bugs me.

I do like that the 5P rules specify a 4-pile ending, and more Provinces. Shouldn't they also specify more Colonies? (I've drawn colonies on some of the extra blanks to try it.) And some people play 12 supply piles, which we have also tried and seems to work well.

Some users complain about long downtimes in multiplayer, but everyone in my group plays pretty fast, so even with 4P and 5P and everyone playing engines, the turns are pretty quick. These are all experienced gamers.

Any other suggestions for multiplayer with/without house rules? I'd like to cut down the blacklist, though Possession may just have to stay on it.