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16901

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What you think you've done / What you've actually done

« on: February 15, 2012, 10:11:25 am »

I see that a lot of people get caught up too much with Cartographers and this makes them buy less money or other good cards.

And Cartographer can cause nasty reshuffles so those discarded bad cards get thrown right back into the mix.

I think Cartographer is a very useful card, but you are absolutely right about people over-buying it, buying it instead of money, and buying it too early. You will see people make Cartographer their first purchase when they $5, when all they have in their deck is Coppers, Estates, a few Silvers, and a terminal Action. In that case, Cartographer is just the world's worst Warehouse.

Double Cartographer is a good alternative to trashing, or a nice supplement to trashing in a bloated deck or a deck under heavy attack from cursers. I've also found it semi-useful at matching together cards like Baron with Estate. And great with Tunnel, of course. But people buy it like its the first and most vital purchase in an accelerated engine chain, which is most likely wrong.

16902

Game Reports / Re: Using Stash

« on: February 14, 2012, 06:02:44 pm »

That's neat. It's kind of interesting that Stash's only great combo was actually available here: Chancellor/Stash. That combo might not have stood up very well to persistent sabotage, though.

16903

Game Reports / Scrying Pool vs. Pirate Ship

« on: February 13, 2012, 04:00:22 pm »

Here's a game I just won: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201202/13/game-20120213-125122-f90084ba.html

Scrying Pool makes me very nervous, as I don't consider myself very good with 'em. But my opponent opened Pirate Ship, and I figured that with him trashing some of my Coppers, Scrying Pool would be really strong here--plus there were good Actions to load up on, Native Village, Stables, Oracle, Smithy, and Cutpurse. No extra buy, though.

I got decently lucky in that most of his initial Pirate Ships miss entirely--of course, I was loading up on Actions, so I'm not sure that was unexpected. Anyway, everything goes according to plan, he knocks me down to just 3 Coppers, my Scrying Pools go great, I keep him under attack with Oracle and Cutpurse, and I score an easy win.

My question is this: If he hadn't opened Pirate Ship, should I have still bought Scrying Pool? Or done something fairly conventional with Stables, or Smithy/Big Money, or Oracle/Big Money?

16904

Game Reports / Re: Man I hate Saboteur

« on: February 12, 2012, 01:14:19 pm »

Border Village is a nice disrupter to Saboteur, since you don't mind when they get hit. And a Province can become a Border Village and a Duchy, which isn't so bad and gives you a potential buffer for future Saboteurs.

One of the only cards I've seen as a good engine for Saboteur is Hunting Party. Of course, Hunting Party is so fast, and Saboteur is taking up a valuable place in your engine for some better unique card. But Hunting Party + Saboteur can really hurt the other person if they are going Hunting Party (which is likely since it's so strong). Losing Hunting Parties to Saboteur makes it really hard to eek out the last few Provinces.

16905

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Pivoting out of Fool's Gold?

« on: February 12, 2012, 01:06:27 pm »

I've found that the Fool's Gold dilemma is greatly exacerbated in three person games. I played a non-isotropic game recently where two of us ignored Fool's Gold, so the other person got all of them. That person won easily. But had either me or the other guy contested the Fool's Golds, the non-Fool's Gold person would have probably had the strongest deck.

16906

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?

« on: February 10, 2012, 03:30:38 pm »

Scout can also be an effective counter to Fortune Teller and (much more importantly) Rabble - especially late-game multi-Rabble pins. But Farming Village is an even stronger counter, costs the same, and is useful in a much broader set of circumstances. Scout should have been "draw any green from top four cards, then +1 card +1 action."

It's a counter, but I'm not sure I'd call it an effective one. Sure, Scout will bail you out of a Rabble attack the one time you have it in hand. But that's not really going to matter if you're being Rabble-pinned every turn. And buying extra Scouts is a huge problem, because Scout doesn't do anything in the situation except defend against the Attack, so you aren't really improving your deck. It's much more worthwhile for your deck to load up on Farming Villages and Lighthouses.

Did you read beyond the first sentence of my post?

Sorry, I read the whole thing. I didn't quote the rest because I didn't have an intelligent comment for your sentence about improving Scout. I wasn't trying to say you were wrong--it looks like we pretty much agree. I was sort of just adding on to your thoughts about Scout vs. Farming Village in that situation. Sorry if I came across as disagreeable.

16907

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?

« on: February 10, 2012, 03:27:25 pm »

-- There is almost no other situation where Scout is very useful. It's not even a good sifter, really.

Minion, Tactician, Scrying Pool, Vault, Wishing Well, against Ghost Ship and that is just from the top of my head...

Yes, Scout is bad. But still - he is an ugly cousin of Cartographer and Cartographer is pretty good so...

I really like Scout, it is my most favourite card from this list

Let me take these one by one:

Minion: When do you pick up Scout in a Minion game? Not in the first two turns, when you desperately need a trasher, or $$ to get to $5. Losing the Minion race is tantamount to losing the game in most Minion setups, right? I guess it's not a terrible buy if you have a random turn with $4 in hand... but getting all the Minions, and doing a little trashing, is way more important.

Tactician: It would be okay, except I can't see myself saying, "Yes, let me spend this turn buying a Scout with my $4 in order to hopefully pair it with my Tactician, hopefully draw at least 1 green card into my current hand, and minutely improve my Tactician hand." You would need like, a couple Scouts for that to be any sort of strategy, and I don't think anyone wants to defend buying 2-3 Scouts (unless Crossroads, GH, Nobles, and Harem all come to the party, and even then the Crossroads and GHs are more important for less money).

Scrying Pool: Since Scrying Pool decks tend to overload on Actions, I can see buying Scout (even multiple Scouts!) in this case. But Coppers are a bigger problem than Estates for the early Scrying Pool deck, and Scout doesn't do anything about that, so it's only a $4 I would buy if there weren't any other good spammable $4s--no Caravans, Mining Villages, etc. Scout might be helpful nearer to end if you have the right amount of money for it.

Vault: I don't think Scout meaningfully improves a Vault deck. Vault decks hit their target amounts of money pretty easily.

Wishing Well: Yeah, I agree with you here. Of course, since Wishing Well draws a card to begin with, if you're Scout does a really good job--draws 3 green cards into hand--it won't work. So interestingly, Scout failing to do what it's supposed to do is one of its better uses, when paired with Wishing Well.

Ghost Ship: Yes, but similarly to Rabble, I don't know if it's a meaningfully good counter unless you have a bunch of Scouts, and you'd still rather have Farming Village or Lighthouse.

So, you're definitely right that I misspoke earlier. Scout can be useful in a few other situations. But I'm not sure it's more useful than buying a different $4, or just buying Silver, most of the time, even in those situations.

16908

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?

« on: February 10, 2012, 03:08:27 pm »

Scout can also be an effective counter to Fortune Teller and (much more importantly) Rabble - especially late-game multi-Rabble pins. But Farming Village is an even stronger counter, costs the same, and is useful in a much broader set of circumstances. Scout should have been "draw any green from top four cards, then +1 card +1 action."

It's a counter, but I'm not sure I'd call it an effective one. Sure, Scout will bail you out of a Rabble attack the one time you have it in hand. But that's not really going to matter if you're being Rabble-pinned every turn. And buying extra Scouts is a huge problem, because Scout doesn't do anything in the situation except defend against the Attack, so you aren't really improving your deck. It's much more worthwhile for your deck to load up on Farming Villages and Lighthouses.

16909

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What you think you've done / What you've actually done

« on: February 10, 2012, 01:51:49 am »

Situation: Bought Hoard in a Colony game.

What you think you've done: Prepared yourself for gold-gaining so you can move on to Platinums and Colonies.
What you've actually done: Bought an expensive Silver that will tempt you to decrease the value of your deck.

16910

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?

« on: February 10, 2012, 01:46:19 am »

Scout shouldn't even be on the list.  Just because newbs open it, doesn't mean it's not amazing in crossroads/great hall/harem/nobles decks.

I disagree. Scout should very much be on this list. In fact, I think it's close to being the worst card on this list, though not quite as bad as Transmute. Scout is certainly helpful in the above situation, but keep in mind the following:

-- Scout is the least important card in that deck. I mean, Crossroads with GH, Nobles, or Harem runs pretty spectacularly on its own.
-- All those cards (5 of them!) showing up in the same game is pretty rare. Start cutting some of them out, and Scout just falls apart. Scout/Harem is okay, Scout/Nobles is meh. Scout/Great Hall isn't even worth mentioning without great support, like Ironworks or something. Crossroads would be better than Scout in those situations, and it's much cheaper.
-- There is almost no other situation where Scout is very useful. It's not even a good sifter, really.

You could cost Scout at $2 and Crossroads would still be better most of the time. Heck, Cellar would be better most of the time.

16911

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?

« on: February 08, 2012, 03:20:29 pm »

Thief is excellent in certain high-trashing but still money-dependent games. Chapel + Platinum, for example. It's also frequently excellent when Gardens is available, since playing it usually results in a net cards change of +2 for you relative to your opponent. (Better than Ironworks, for example.) It can be excellent when Harem is in the game.

Lastly, as crazy as this sounds, a Kings Court+Engine+Thief strategy can completely lock down a strategy with no virtual money. Easily, even. The only reason you don't hear about it as often as KC-Goons-Masquerade is that the latter combo is based on three power cards everyone always look for.

Even a softer version of the lockdown can totally screw up a greening Big Money player. Sample Game with a victory over a top-ranked player.

I have a win rate of 1.67 with Thief, as high as Followers. It's by no means a good card, which is why I purchase it only in one game out of every 30. But at least it's reasonably acceptable.

I accept Transmute, Counting House, Adventurer, and Scout as the actual worst cards, but I understand that Thief is misplayed worse than any of those.

Yeah, I pretty much agree. Thief gets a bad wrap. I mean, Thief is usually awful, but it is certainly more useful in more situations than Transmute, Scout, and Adventurer... and maybe Counting House.

I realize Develop is another one I didn't really consider. I think it may just be too new for me to have a good feeling about it. I'm NEVER tempted to buy it.

16912

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?

« on: February 08, 2012, 03:12:26 pm »

Voted Transmute.

All of these cards are pretty bad, although Contraband and Explorer aren't quite as bad. And as generally useless as Duchess, Secret Chamber, and Moat are, they are so cheap, that I just don't think they're really capable of doing enough damage to your deck. Not like, say, buying Adventurer over Gold.

Adventurer and Scout for me are close to being the worst, simply because they are so wrongly priced. I love what Adventurer does, but its cost makes it almost never worthwhile. I mean, if there is any other $6+ card available, you are probably not buying Adventurer. And Gold is always available! Scout, on the other hand, hasn't ever seemed worthwhile even in its best case scenario decks--Nobles, Harems, Crossroads, Great Halls. It's better then, but not nearly as important as those other cards.

But at the end of the day, Transmute is the most ill-priced card in the game, thanks to its Potion cost. The setup where Transmute is the dominant strategy, or even among the dominant strategies, has to be rarest among all these terrible cards.

16913

Dominion General Discussion / Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $6 cards

« on: February 08, 2012, 01:32:25 am »

I will also come to the defense of Expand over Forge.

Forge is certainly more useful in the early game. I would rather have a Forge on Turn 3 than an Expand on Turn 3. But unless I've got Baron (or Mining Village, I guess? I'm sure there are others) to work with, odds are I'm not getting either card on Turn 3.

The later the game goes before you can actually get these cards, the more useful Expand seems (of the two). You want Forge to do heavy-duty trashing, but the mere fact that you want Forge probably means cheaper trashers weren't available. So by the time you actually get Forge, you've sort of missed the valuable trashing stage of the game. Not every time, of course, but Forge becomes pretty dependent on what it gets drawn with in a big deck.

Expand is also sort of random in what it gets drawn with (by the time you can afford it), but decidedly less so than Forge. You only need to draw Expand with one other good Expand target, whereas Forge needs at least two to be worth it in most cases. Also, I can see picking up Expand in a deck that already has good trashing as a means of snagging an extra Province or Duchy somewhere. Less so for Forge.

Ultimately, I would say that the $7 cost harms Forge much more than Expand, since Forge is a card for the early game, and Expand is a card for the mid-late game.

16914

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What you think you've done / What you've actually done

« on: February 07, 2012, 12:20:20 pm »

Situation: Played a bunch of Governors for +cards, and bought one Province with your $20 in hand.

What you think you've done: This is great, I drew my whole deck!
What you've actually done: So did everybody else.

16915

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What you think you've done / What you've actually done

« on: February 07, 2012, 12:22:55 am »

To be specific, I meant the optimization of Chapel/Big Money vs. Big Money, not necessarily the Silver/Chapel opening.  A turn 3 or 4 Chapel might be better, trashing estates and coppers only as much as you can while still buying a silver or gold.

I've read that buying Chapel after turn 2 is really bad. If you are going to buy Chapel, you should buy it as soon as possible.

The point with Chapel vs. Big Money is that trashing Coppers and Estates doesn't really help unless you are then going to construct a massive engine.

16916

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What you think you've done / What you've actually done

« on: February 06, 2012, 05:02:31 pm »

Situation: You Embargo the Golds.

What you think you've done: Mercilessly blocked your opponent's Tunnel and Hoard-based deck. Curses for him!
What you've actually done: Forgot that gaining is not the same thing as buying. And now you can't buy Golds.

16917

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What you think you've done / What you've actually done

« on: February 06, 2012, 04:57:49 pm »

I presume you mean "Chapel/BM and Chapel/Dead draw/BM are slower than Dead draw/BM"?
Since I'd be incredibly surprised if Chapel Bot loses to BM bot.

Either way, thank you for the illumination.

My original claim was that Chapel/Big Money will lose to Big Money + Envoy (or Smithy). Of that, I'm positive. Chapel/Big Money might even lose to pure Big Money, I don't know. The latter is closer.

The reason is because a Chapel/Big Money deck really hurts during the greening stage. The fewer cards you have, the more your purchasing power suffers from filling your hand with Victory cards. Now, a well-constructed Action chain can handle the Victory cards, which is why Chapel is such a powerhouse--it's the fastest route to such an engine.

But if no engine exists--because the available cards don't lend themselves to one--trashing Coppers and Estates unnecessarily slows you down from getting Silvers and Golds. And Smithy/Big Money buys 4 Provinces in 14 or 15 turns, on average. With Chapel, you'll be trashing between Turns 3-6, and then need another couple turns for money. Also, say you manage to tie it up. The Chapel/Big Money player will in all likelihood lose the Duchy dance, because his purchasing power suffers way more from additional greening, while Mr. Smithy/Big Money continues along merrily buying Duchies (Coppers aren't so bad for buying Duchies, after all).

16918

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What you think you've done / What you've actually done

« on: February 06, 2012, 02:27:25 pm »

Situation: Opened Chapel/Silver in a game with Envoy and no other useful Actions.

What you think you've done:Prepared yourself to do some early trashing and set up one of those 'engines' you've heard so much about.
What you've actually done: Prepared yourself to buy your first Gold on the same turn that your opponent buys his second Province.

16919

Dominion General Discussion / Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $6 cards

« on: February 06, 2012, 12:26:55 pm »

For starters, I would bump Fairground ahead of Harem, Nobles ahead of Bank, and Goons ahead of Grand Market.

If I were pressed to make additional changes, I might put Nobles ahead of Peddler. You'll never buy Peddlers without +buys (well, almost never), whereas Nobles makes for a strong addition to more decks, since it can serve as part of Smithy + Big Money, or an Action chain.

And I can see the argument that Fairgrounds should be ahead of Forge. Ahead of Expand, I'm not so sure.

16920

GokoDom / Re: IsoDom 3 Round 1

« on: February 02, 2012, 02:11:28 am »

Volkmar did a good commentary on our series, so I'll just do quick additional thoughts:

Game 1: Volkmar 35 Robz888 28 http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120131-190942-62be629c.html
My opponent had not looked at the set before hand, and I had, and I still got trounced. He ignored Familiars and didn't buy Watchtower, which I thought would fail for sure. It didn't. His Hamlet/Torturer engine simply exceeded me in the end game.

Game 2: Volkmar 42 Robz888 30 http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120131-191936-925a832e.html
I pretty much win the Ambassador war, and my opponent picks up Coppers from his Caches, and I feel pretty confident. But ultimately I just can't catch up. I must commend my opponent for winning these first two games--in both I thought my strategy was better, and I got crushed.

Game 3: Robz888 33 Volkmar 28 http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120131-192445-0d3de260.html
My first victory in the set turns out to be probably the least interesting game of all. I go for Stables, there's nothing better than Stables, my opponent doesn't, and I win. I think my opponent's draws pushed him away from Stables, though, so I may have gotten lucky here.

Game 4: Robz888 48 Volkmar 36 http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120131-194429-3ccc1f3b.html
One of the tenser games I've ever played. What to do with Ambassadors, Tournaments, and Minions? I do slightly better with Ambassador than he does, and I decide to go for Gold instead of Minions, which was probably wrong. He goes for Minions, which pays off because even though I have more Tournaments, I can never connect them when I am Minioned every other turn. Unfortunately for him, I'm pretty sure his Followers hurt him more than they hurt me, by making it harder to keep the Minion chain going, and I eek out a nailbiting win. Still, I might have gotten lucky to close the deal on this one.

Game 5: Robz888 38 Volkmar 21 http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120131-195325-d70e780f.html
I did outplay him here. I Apprentice more aggressively and it translates into an easy win.

Game 6: Volkmar 51 Robz888 46 http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120131-200723-1db0eeed.html
Early trashing is key to his superior Nobles/Torturer chain. A good win for him.

Game 7: Robz888 36 Volkmar 36 http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120131-201616-3dbd2c15.html
As noted above, I totally blew this one.

Game 8: Volkmar 40 Robz888 29 http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120131-203643-0ad1a2e7.html
What do you do when both your strategies are so bad, so incapable of winning, and yet you're so committed to them? We both back out of our horrendous attempts at Scrying Pool engines and go for Fool's Gold. In the end, his Trade Routes make the difference. I sort of got unlucky here, but it's hard to complain when everything I did was wrong anyway.

Anyways, check out Game 4 for probably the coolest match, and Game 8 for the most disaster-ish.

16921

GokoDom / Re: IsoDom 3 Round 1

« on: February 02, 2012, 01:52:39 am »

Game 7, Volkmar 36 - 36 Robz888
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120131-201616-3dbd2c15.html
Alchemist, Develop, Great Hall, Haven, Library, Potion, Secret Chamber, Smithy, Village, Vineyard, and Worker's Village
A draw in the last game, it just can't get any closer. I still feel like I should've lost this one. I went Alchemist/BM. I saw the Alchemist/Worker's Village/Smithy/Vineyard thing, but when I got the chance to take an early gold I decided to try and outrace that. In the end I was just able to take the draw, but if the game went on any longer I would've been toast.

This is about as ideal of a vineyards set as I know.  You can easily grab 24 actions and 8 vineyards while still being able to draw your deck.  You do acknowledge worker's village and secret chamber (easier source of money than gold) so I'm sure you were on to it.  Trust it and go for it fully!  Havens to split up potions.  Develop if you want to even make more actions.  WV for + buys, smithies/alchemist to draw so you're never stuck.  It takes a lot of turns for BM to hit 8 provinces... A lot.  Heat of the moment

You are absolutely right. I'm just not that comfortable with a pure Vineyards strategy, because you really have to ignore Provinces, right? I sort of meandered my way into Vineyards, and I had a really powerful deck going there, so I took a chance and bought the PPR, knowing that worst case scenario, he would tie me. Which is what happened, and then I lost the tiebreaker, so shame on me.

16922

GokoDom / Re: IsoDom 3 Round 1

« on: January 31, 2012, 11:42:31 pm »

Sadly for me, Volkmar has defeated Robz888 4-3, with 1 tie. I will post the logs when they become available on Council Room.

Eight absolutely crazy games, some of them long and painful. A Minion-Ambassador-Tournament war in game 4 was particularly interesting.

Bad luck may have gotten the best of me in the tie-breaking game, but I played poorly enough in games 1 and 2 that I don't begrudge the result whatsoever. My opponent played very well, had some innovative thinking that sure paid off, and I wish him the best in the rest of the tournament.

16923

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Top 10 Card Artwork

« on: January 31, 2012, 04:21:59 pm »

Favorite artwork? Gotta go with my girls, Peddler and Forge.

Peddler: She's just so adorable. Seriously, I'd buy everything on her cart, until I was out of buys.

Forge: This girl clearly has a story. Her father was a blacksmith, and his father, and his father before him. He passed his craft on to her before he was killed by an evil knight. She swore revenge, and has been dutifully reforging her father's sword, patiently waiting. Soon, she will rain vengeance down upon the evil knight's dominion. She will trash everything he holds dear.

16924

GokoDom / Re: IsoDom 3 Round 2 Kingdom Submissions

« on: January 31, 2012, 01:26:57 am »

I love it.

16925

Dominion General Discussion / Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 3/4 posted

« on: January 30, 2012, 03:05:43 pm »

I don't really think Upgrade deserves its spot. It's so slow, has risks in the end game, and its rather expensive. It can be a cheat to Grand Markets, but really Remodel does that better. And other less expensive trashers like Remake, Salvager, Steward, Moneylender, and Spice Merchant just seem to offer better trashing or bigger benefits. It's nice that Upgrade is a cantrip, and that it effectively destroys curses and coppers, but it wouldn't be #18 for me.

I will also admit to being one of the people that ranked Cartographer much better (I'm not sure exactly where I put it, though). A Cartographer or two can really filter out your bad cards, and cycle through your deck much quicker. In a simple Big Money game, you can skip over Greens and Coppers. In more complex engines, you'll have an easier time matching +cards to villages. I've had success using it to continuously match Barons with Estates. I might have been too generous in my ranking of it, but I don't think it should be any worse-ranked than it is here.

Also, Jester is so hard to place. I think it makes sense where it is, but it's such a swingy attack. I played a game yesterday where my opponent's first three Jester plays hit my Moneylender. Do you know where a deck with 4 Moneylenders is going? Nowhere.