Unfortunately for Dr. Zoidberg, Futurama's melancholic urchin just can't compete with the Urchin of Dominion: Dark Ages. In fact, Urchin the card is one of Torturer's best enablers.
A wise player once said that Torturer is a Young Witch whose Bane is the value of the worst two cards in your opponent's hand. That's a clever way of saying that your opponent does have a defense against your Torturer; if he doesn't need his two weakest cards, then a single play of the card isn't hurting him. Torturer needs to be chained or Throned to do serious damage, because unlike other discarders, it does still affect a three-card hand. To that end, Torturer works well with other discarders, provided you play them first. Use Militia to give your opponent a mandatory three-card hand, and then Torturer him, so that he is forced to accept a Curse or discard down to a hand of practically nothing. And as Donald X. once said, "Discarding five cards and passing is not the path to greatness."
Of the discard attacks that complement Torturer, none are as effective as Urchin. For one thing, Urchin is non-terminal, so it's much easier to play both cards. With Militia/Margrave/Followers/Goons, you would need a village of some sort to effectively use both cards.
At $3, it's also cheaper than the other options. Aside from Militia, the other discarders are priced competitively with Torturer, which may mean you simply end up purchasing multiple Torturers. But an Urchin costs as much as a Silver, and it won't get in the way of your Torturer chain as much, since it's a cantrip.
Urchin only knocks a single card out of your opponents deck, but if you are following up with Torturer, that one card is still a pain to lose. Now he has to contemplate dropping the next two out of his four-card hand, in order to block the Curse. The effect on your opponent is essentially the same as Torturer-Torturer, but a little easier to set up.
In addition to all this, Urchin is a card that actively wants you to play another attack card. Doing so yields a Mercenary! Among other things, Mercenary is a discard attack. Depending on your deck, you may wish to stick with the Urchin, but the trade-up isn't mandatory. If you have a deck with extra +action, or you need to do some light trashing, Mercenary can step in and accomplish these things, while still providing assistance to Torturer.
Now, Torturer is a terminal draw card, so you can run the risk of playing Torturer only to draw a bunch of Urchins and wish they were all Silvers. But lack of a tight, engine-y deck is usually a sign that Torturer wasn't the right move anyway. And if Torturer is the right move, you are going to want Urchin. Not Zoidberg, though. Nobody wants him.
I was just playing a game, and suddenly this message flashed across my screen, "Your opponent is having connection difficulty."
Haven't seen that yet; it's a cool feature, if it works.
(Incidentally, I believe that my opponent vanished a few seconds before I could buy the last Province and win. And now I wait for the time out victory...)
I was just about to break my 10 game losing streak with an excellently played Processoion/Throne Room/Wishing Well/Mystic/Nobles/Ironworks extravaganza.
I was safely ahead, but I pushed my luck. I knew there was an Overgrown Estate or something on top of my deck, and I played Mystic, but I can't select OG from the supply, so I picked "Show All Cards." Well that shows ALL cards, and as I was scrolling through the C's, I said to myself, "I am so far ahead, no point scrolling all the way over to OG, it doesn't matter." So I just picked Crossroads.
Most people stateside are asleep, but things have gone completely fucking bonkers. There was a shootout--involving explosions--in Cambridge and Watertown, Massachusetts. One suspect, I believe, is in custody. A police officer was killed.
Meanwhile, the identity of one of the presumed Boston bombers is now known. I am hearing it reported that there IS a connection between Boston and the incidents tonight (i.e., the same perpetrators).
When any opponent quits, the game ends. The guy who quit gets last. Fine. Good.
But this creates multiplayer problems! It looks to me like the non-quitting players are scored as if the game ended naturally: whoever has the most points (and didn't quit) wins. Either that or it's a tie between all non-quitting players; I can't actually tell, since the box just says "Opponent Quit" and puts that opponent last no matter his score.
Either is problematic. The game should simply continue without the quitting player.
In the game I just played, my opponents both played terribly. They went Counting House Big Money??? Anyway, it gave me PLENTY of time to set up my Madmen/Goons engine. Mwahaha. I executed it once, picked up 30 points, and then set up to execute it again. Well, AS I was executing it the second time, one of my opponents quit, and the game ended in the middle of my turn. (Which sucked for me, because I had just played 6 Goons! Think of the VP!). Thankfully, I still had the most points, but just barely.
This happened to me on Goko: I played King's Court on a Deathcart. I only had one other Action Card in hands (Abandoned Mine), so I trashed it. Then, my King played Deathcart again, and I had no card to trash, so my Deathcart was trashed.
And yet, when all was said and done, I received $15 from Kinging the Deathcart. Is that correct? I was thinking I would only get $10, similar to how I couldn't get +$6 for Kinging a Mining Village and trashing it 3 times. But I guess the coin portion of Deathcart isn't contingent on trashing it... but can I really play it a third time if it goes into the trash after the second time?
I think it would be hard to argue that I played well, but hey, it worked! I went for a Duchy/Duke thing, so I didn't bother participating in the Ambassador war (this was 3-player). I soon learned that as my two opponents battled, I would just get all their Estates, and all the Estates in the supply. But on such an engine-y board, the spectre of three-piling reared its ugly head. And I think both of my opponents were significantly overbuilding in search of like flawless decks. In the meantime, I just kept collecting Estates...
I think my opponent, who bought a Province and the last 3 Estates to end the game, assumed he was ahead of me. Nope!
Due to recent events, Board Moderators want all Mafia Game players to understand a few things.
-- Mafia is a social deduction game that involves heavy amounts of deceit and argument. It necessitates telling lies and accusing others of telling lies. By necessity, things get tense at times.
-- That said, all players are required to treat each other in a civil manner. What does this mean? Your criticisms of other players should not rise to the level of personal attacks. At the same time, you should assume other players' criticisms of you are not intended as personal attacks. In practice, remember that it is just a game, and though a player may be lying to you and distorting every word you say, that player is not an evil person outside of the context of the game. By the same token, if someone accuses you of lying and distorting every word he says, you should not assume that that player is accusing you of being evil outside of the context of this game.
-- In this spirit, choose your words considerately. Strong language may be required to express strong arguments--and no one wants to limit the strategic landscape of the game by policing speech--but please be reasonable. Everyone who is a member of this community can provide examples of debates that were appropriately colorful and heated, as well as a few instances that went over the line. We don't want anyone to sour on playing games with us because the language and the tone became personal, offensive, aggressive, etc. Don't do that.
-- If someone says something to you that you truly believe was intended as a personal slight, do not retaliate. If escalation occurs, moderators will step in and take appropriate action, including the locking of threads.
-- Voluntarily stepping away from the game for a few hours is the best way to prevent yourself from saying something you regret.
-- When a thread is LOCKED, do not post in it! Every player is responsible for skimming PPEs* to make sure no thread lock occurred while you were writing. Whenever a Board Moderator or a Game Moderator locks a thread, you will be physically unable to post. But when a co-mod locks a thread, though you are able to post, you are disallowed from doing so. Infractions may be dealt with more severely in the future.
-- No one other than a Board Moderator, Game Moderator, or Co-Mod, may lock a thread.
-- Every person is responsible for reading the rules of a game before agreeing to play it. If you violate the rules of the game, you are eligible to be mod-killed.
-- Every game requires participation. Do not sign up for games that you are unwilling to play. /Outing has become increasingly problematic lately. It's an action that should be highly, highly frowned upon--an exception, rather than something that happens at least twice in every game. Finding replacements is tough on the mods, the other players, and the replacements themselves.
Edits: *PPE stands for pre-post edit. It's a post that appears while you are in the process of writing a post. Usually, you get a message "there are new replies" before your post goes live if there are any PPEs. Please at least skim them before posting to make sure you are not violating a thread lock.
Minion boards can really making the opening decisions difficult. Do I want to prioritize hitting $5 so I get more Minions, or do I want to prioritize trashing so that my deck is tight enough to get the most out of my Minions? This board definitely has that quandary. Monument is a no-brainer, but do you pair it with Silver or Loan?
I grab Loan, my opponent gets Silver, and I can't blame him. Sure enough, I'm stuck on $4 hands, while he has no problem reaching $5. This causes me to lose the Minion split rather badly, 7-3. GG? Not quite.
I soon realize that this is actually a deceptively weak board for Minions. A couple Lighthouses leave me well defended, and Warehouse works even harder, making sure my 3 Minions connect (and I can discard my last few Coppers, draw them with Loan, and achieve the 100% treasure-free deck). Okay, but what else can we do? I see Highway, but I know I need +buy to make that worthwhile at all. And okay, we have Squire, which is pretty good for that sort of thing. So I grab one (I overpay for it but it's worth it!). Soon enough, I can draw my whole deck every turn, playing bunches of Highways, a Monument, and 3 buys.
Meanwhile, my opponent has the Minions, but he can't hurt me with them, and he has all his Coppers, so its not like he has a really reliable thing going. And I actually cruise past him fairly easily.
I see two things: Beggar is going to be an excellent Duke enabler, and there's good old Golem/Tunnel. Can I do both? I think I can't, but I try it anyway, opening Potion/Beggar.
My opponent goes Beggar/Beggar and goes immediately for Duchies while I stop for Golem and Tunnel. I think he gets terrible luck though, missing $5 like 4 times in a row, allowing me to pull even in the Duchy split. And then he's really hosed.
With only 1 Beggar, my Golem draws and discards my whole deck every time. So I just load up on Tunnels, and pretty soon I can actually buy Province off of a hand of like, Gold/Copper/Copper/Copper/Golem, because Golem draws my Beggar, and that's another 3 Coppers in hand.
It was really pretty in execution on Goko, with all those Coppers just flying by.
Since I know there are some Game of Thrones fans in here, I thought I would share my April Fools Day column with you all. It is called "The Man America Needs: Stannis Baratheon."
Well, I was half an hour in to a four-person slog with Ruins and Curses, and... I guess somebody quit? It doesn't seem like the game ever ends now. The three of us are just sitting here.
This is a major, major problem, Goko people. Please design a mechanism that ejects quitters and the continues the game in multiplayer.
Well, I'm cautiously playing on Goko now, and finding the experience fine. There are things I like (you can actually click through things pretty quickly, and I'm getting used to where stuff is and how you put cards back on the deck, etc.) and things I don't (the leaderboard and lobbies are a mess). But hey, it's online Dominion, and I finally get to play with Dark Ages online!
Here's the video, courtesy werothegreat:
Cards in supply: Altar, Saboteur, Library, Worker's Village, Death Cart, Steward, Masquerade, University, Beggar, Poor House
Wero essentially played Masquerade + Mostly Money. I open Masq/Potion and go for a University/Library deck, which is a pretty good thing that has excellent support here; +action is abundant thanks to WV, and Masq and Steward can provide trashing and supplement my Library draw.
I can actually dispense with all my treasures fairly quickly here, leaving room to add Poor House and Death Cart to my deck in really, really awesome ways. Death Cart's drawback isn't a drawback at all for me; I'm easily drawing everything, and DC supplies its own fuel in the form of Ruins. And it's a terminal +$5! Meanwhile, Poor House is even better: a super, super cheap terminal +$4! And since everything is actions, I can easily draw things in the correct order, using Library to set aside draw cards when I need more villages and set aside villages when I'm looking for draw cards.
Note that we started with Shelters, and I actually got 2 immensely helpful Hovels [edit: I mean Necropolises] because he passed me one with Masq. I woulda bought the darn things if I could--they were great for my Libraries!
On the turn I headed big time for green, I had 8 buys and $30 all from Poor Houses, Death cart, and Stewards--and not a single treasure. Pretty neat, huh?
(This was our second game. Wero won the first; watch as I horribly misplay the end game of a Duke slog: )
cards in supply: Baron, Chancellor, Colony, Explorer, Fortune Teller, Grand Market, Haven, Oracle, Platinum, Shanty Town, Warehouse, and Worker's Village
The 5/2 start is really no good for me here (nobody wants to open Explorer, especially on a Colony board). I have to settle for Baron/Haven, where my opponent goes for Baron/Silver. I think Baron/Warehouse is probably better for him, but oh well.
He's able to pick off 3 Grand Markets before I can even get one, which is quite disconcerting. To counter, I aim for villages and draw, using my $7 Baron hands to grab 2 engine pieces at once, dipping into Worker's Village, Shanty Town, Warehouse, and most of all, Oracle.
He wins the GM split 7-3, but there's no trashing here, so it's not like he can play the whole stack every turn. Meanwhile, I am scoring some huge hands thanks to villages + Oracle, and I am really tossing his good cards into the discard. My Golds and Platina, coupled with good draw, prove more than a match for his GM lead, and I can hit Colony territory much more reliably. He's 25 VP behind when he resigns, which actually wasn't SO huge, but hey, I'll take the win!
cards in supply: Ambassador, Apprentice, Bridge, Council Room, Courtyard, Explorer, Minion, Oracle, Shanty Town, Tunnel♦, and Young Witch
Highly interesting game with a bit of a rock-paper-scissors thing going on. My opponent opens Young Witch, and then follows with Tunnel, which is the Bane. Tunnel makes a really interesting Bane to Young Witch, because Young Witch is actually such a great Tunnel enabler that Tunnel can actually do a decent job of blocking curses. But... we have Ambassador! And I decide that there's no reason not to fight his Curses with Double Ambassador. I can give them all back, right? And then I have any number of Shanty Town-based engines to transition into (with Courtyard or Bridge or Minion to support).
The plan goes fine on my end; I quickly build a thin deck that returns Curses faster than I take them. But man, Young Witch/Tunnel gives him a LOT of Gold, and I'm kind of worried he'll just be able to power through the Curses. Two further developments support this fear. 1) I decided Minions are really good for my deck, and they are, but they also enable his Tunnels, 2) Apprentice is great for him, allowing him to chuck extra Gold for +6 Cards.
And... I totally destroy him. I eventually pick up 2 Tunnels of my own, which I can activate several times per turn with my Minions. I think my deck actually has a higher Gold density, since he has 8 Curses. And with such a tight deck, I don't even need all that many Minions.
I think the key here is, I saw his opening, I picked a plan that I thought would beat it, and then I stuck to that, despite his deck peaking a lot earlier. And then I set myself up for a huge comeback.
I think it's possible that a more committed Apprentice/Gold approach might win, but I'm not sure.
And now, empty out your wallets and open up your checking accounts, because you are headed for the Bank of Robz!
The cool thing about this game is that each night phase will take place in a world map, RPG-style dungeon of sorts. At game start, each player will only be able to see a small part of the map, but as you explore, more will be revealed to you. Your location is very important--it effects who you can target, who can target you, etc. But most importantly, it effects which powers you can access.
In this game, all players will either be Scum-aligned Mountebanks, or Town-aligned Coppersmiths (and it will be full random). No town player will have abilities beyond any other at game start. There is no player who is "the Cop" or "the Doctor," for instance.
Various rooms of the world map (henceforth, "the Bank") contain shops ("Vaults" for flavor purposes) where players can purchase night powers. The available powers in the starting rooms are of course very weak, but eventually you may gain access to rooms designed for wealthier patrons, with better powers.You may even chance upon some secret rooms, where strange and unusual powers await.
Powers (henceforth, "items") can be purchased with coins. Coins can be earned through a variety of ways, though they may not be apparent at game start.
That's all you need to know for now. Let me stress that though this sounds a bit wild, the core gameplay will still be traditional mafia-style. If you played my previous game, Mafia XI: Find Yourself in the Courtyard Masquerade, you know what you're in for. Just like that game, this one WILL BE BALANCED.
Player List: 1. Jimm 2. raerae -- Lynched Day 6 3. yuma -- Killed Night 4 4. ashersky -- Lynched Day 5 5. Insomniac -- Killed Night 5 6. Eevee -- Vengekilled Day 6 7. Jorbles 8. liopoil -- Killed Night 2 9. Archetype (replaced sparky5856) -- Lynched Day 4 10. mcmcsalot -- Killed Night 3 11. sudgy -- Vengekilled Day 6 12. xeiron -- Killed Night 1 13. Lekkit -- Lynched Day 3 14. Ozle -- Modkilled Night 4 15. Kooshie -- Lynched Day 1 16. mail-mi -- Lynched Day 2
FAQ #1
Only two types of PMs were sent out. Here they are:
Role PM for Coppersmiths Thanks for opening up an account with the Bank of Robz! I see that you are a Town-Aligned Coppersmith. You win when all Mafia-aligned players are under arrest or dead.
Each night, you will be able to move throughout the various rooms of the Bank, purchasing items from various vaults. You begin the game with $3.
You can’t see the whole Bank, nor will you know where the other players are, though certain items may change this. Accordingly, you get a link to a map of the Bank that only you can see. Here it is:
As you discover new rooms, I will update your map. As you can see, any room adjacent to a room you have visited shows up on the map. You can’t see what’s in the room, though, until you’ve visited it at least once.
Please confirm via PM.
Role PM for Mountebanks Thanks for opening up an account with the Bank of Robz! I see that you are a Mafia-aligned Mountebank. How terrifying! You win when your faction constitutes at least half the remaining players, you brute.
You may communicate with your partners in your qt right now and during all night phases. Here is your qt: REDACTED
Each night, you will be able to move throughout the various rooms of the Bank, purchasing items from various vaults. You begin the game with $3.
You can’t see the whole Bank, nor will you know where the other players are (except for your partners), though certain items may change this. Accordingly, you get a link to a map of the Bank that only you and your partners can see. Here it is: REDACTED
As you discover new rooms, I will update your map. As you can see, any room adjacent to a room you have visited shows up on the map. You can’t see what’s in the room, though, until you’ve visited it at least once.
At the end of the night phase, one of you or your partners may perform the factional kill. If your kill succeeds, the player you chose will be “captured” and taken to whichever of the 2 Captured Players Vaults you choose to lock him up in. You will also have access to both of those qts, but don't post in them! Living players may gain access to those qts at some point, and you wouldn't want to give yourself away by gloating over the captured players.
Here are those qts: REDACTED
One of you or your partners may also perform a special move, Pillage. During the end of the night phase, you may name a player. You will steal half that player’s coins. If you are in the same room as that player, you will steal all his coins. Any scum can perform this move, including the scum who is performing the factional kill.
Please confirm via PM or in the Scum QT.
FAQ #2
Hopefully this goes without saying, but absolutely NO sharing qts, moderator-supplied information, links to spreadsheet maps, etc., with other players anywhere. Even if you're out of the game! Because "dead" players will still be part of the game, and may end up communicating with still-active players. So no bending the rules, even if you're strictly out of the game.
FAQ #3
Remember that some players may have access to much less--or much more--information than you. This may make their lies seem more credible or their truths less credible. Or vice versa. Be on your guard.
FAQ #4
You will earn $$$ for doing various things. You have no idea what earns you $$$, and you will never know. When I tell you how much money you have, it might be much more--or much less--than you expected.
FAQ #5
Movement! You can only enter rooms that border your room with an arrow. Some rooms are adjacent, but don't actually connect. Here's how much it costs to enter a room:
Cost to move to a Copper Room, Hallway, and all other rooms $1
Cost to enter a Silver Room $2 $1, if Silver Key purchased by your faction $1 after Night 2
Cost to enter a Gold Room $5 $2, if Gold Key purchased by your faction $2 after Night 3
Cost to enter a Platinum Room $9 $3 if Platinum Key purchased by your faction $3 after Night 5
Basically, unless the room is special, it costs $1 to move to it. When you've been to a room, you can see everything in it (but not everyone). I'll update your maps accordingly. I'm not going to put the description of items on the map, because they don't fit, but PM me and I'll tell you if I forget.
Moves happen at once. So, everybody moves to one new room at once. Then everybody who wants to move again, that all happens at once. This means the item you want might be bought by the time you get to the room. If two players try to buy an item at the same time, we will head to auction.
You can make as many moves per night as you want, as long as you have the cash. You can only make 1 purchase, though, unless you have extra buys.
FAQ #6
Here is the Order of Operations
Role PMs are sent Night 0 begins Players submit moves Coin update Day 1 begins Lynch Coin update Night 1 begins Players submit moves Players submit orders All orders resolve Coin update Day 2 begins Lynch Coin update Night 2 begins
Basically, we are having a night start, but nobody will be able to use regular items* or perform actions (that's what "orders" are). So no one will die here.
*Some items can be used at times other than the action resolution stage.
FAQ #7
Rooms are color coded.
Orange-ish/tan = Copper Room Really light blue = Silver Room Bright yellow = Gold Room White = Platinum Room Grey = Hallway Red = Captured (Killed by Scum) Players Vault Faint Red = Jail for Arrested (Lynched or Killed by Town) Players Dark Blue = Poorhouse Faint Green = Garden Neon Green = Unknown Bright Pink = Uknown
Silver Rooms offer better items than Copper Rooms, Gold Rooms offer even better items, and Platinum Rooms even better items than that. The other rooms may have items, trigger events, or do nothing.
FAQ #8
More on movement: Everybody does one thing at a time. So you can all tell me a million things that you want to do, but they happen one at a time. Let's say, Ozle says "I want to buy X, and then move to the west." What happens? Ozle buys X, ashersky does Y, Eevee buys Z, etc., etc. Then, when all that has transpired, Ozle moves to the west, assuming he has enough money to do so. And everybody else does their one thing.
FAQ #9
You always (well, almost always) get to know what an item does before you buy it. If you're in a room with an item and you don't know what it does, I may have just forgotten to tell you. PM me!
cards in supply: Bank, Caravan, Golem, Jack of All Trades, Lighthouse, Nobles, Potion, Thief, Trading Post, Venture, and Village
I started 5/2, and figured Trading Post into Venture would be decently strong. So I opened Trading Post/Lighthouse. Well, that Lighthouse was the only time I hit less than $5 all game! Which is pretty cool.
(Still, I only won by 1 VP, since my opponent's Trading Post into Nobles engine was also strong.)
This is a really interesting set with a dizzying amount of synergy going on.
For Vineyards, you have great support. Workshops is nice, and even better given Island being available. You also have Cellar which is a nice, Cheap friend to a Vineyard deck. Oh, and Transmute! So right there, that's a whole lot of good stuff for Vineyards. Rabid goes for this off the 4/3.
I'm first, but I'm 5/2. So already, I'm not planning to do the Vineyards thing. Highway/Cellar is the obvious opening. There's no trashing here, but my plan is to mix in a few Islands to do a little pseudo trashing, get a whole lot of Highways, and do big Highway + Islands with Cellar helping me out. Bridge is shiny but unnecessary; Workshop is better here.
Then I start to think about Tunnel. At first, Gold seems like it's going to get in the way of the big Highway chain I plan to have. But some unfavorable draws keeping me in the $3 range make me rethink this. So what I end up doing is more Cellar/Tunnel with a few Highways and Workshop.
My opponent's plan goes perfectly well; he gets 8 Vineyards worth 5 VP, and he has Islands and Tunnels and such. But Tunnel and Cellar make my deck really, really resistant to greening, such that I can manage to grab all the Provinces, lots of Duchies, and some Islands and Tunnels of my own. By the end-game, I'm really in control, and it would have taken 2 more bumps for his Vineyards to overtake me. He's never in the game for Provinces.
What do you guys think? Would my plan beat his if we both started 4/3?
Edit: Said "Ironworks" twice when I meant "Island."
cards in supply: Bishop, Counting House, Haven, Ironworks, Militia, Mining Village, Moneylender, Saboteur, Stash, and Witch
It shouldn't have worked.
I say to myself, this is pretty much a Witch Big Money set up. So I get Witch, sprinkle in Silvers and Gold, and plan to go with that. I'm first player, so everything should be fine. He opens Bishop/Silver to my Silver/Silver, which is okay, I think not as good, but fine.
With his first $5 hand, he passes on Witch for Saboteur. "That can't be right," I say. "There's no way the worst $5 card could possibly hold its own against the best $5 card on a board with very little ability to trash curses (Bishop helps your opponent trashes Curses better than it helps you!)."
He hits my Witch, fine, I buy another one. I head for Provinces. When he hits them, I turn them back into Gold, in order to buy back Provinces later. When we get toward the end, I know I'll take Duchy instead.
He does eventually get a Witch... and 2 more Saboteurs and a bunch of Havens and Mining Villages.
I am buying Silvers very liberally! And taking Gold so my economy doesn't die. And eventually Duchies, because he's destroyed my entire deck. And eventually those are turned into Estates, but I still have a huge lead! But then, when everything in my deck is worthless except my Duchies, he kills those 3 at a time, too. In the end, he doesn't buy like any Green, but he has 17 stupid Bishop points! And he kills me.
So, I know there were a bunch of little things I could have done better to hold my own. Ironworks should have helped. An earlier Militia might have really disrupted him. I could have used Havens to hide my valuables. I just didn't think any of that was necessary, because it's Saboteur vs. Witch.
I eventually pick up 2 Tunnels of my own, which I can activate several times per turn with my Minions. I think my deck actually has a higher Gold density, since he has 8 Curses. And with such a tight deck, I don't even need all that many Minions.