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11326

Help! / Re: Fool's Gold/Remake or Remodel

« on: January 10, 2012, 04:42:37 pm »

My opponent went for the Bridge strat. I won the FG battle 7-3 with the remake.

Eh what? Any turn he draws the Bridge gets him 2 FG's... so if he opens Bridge/FG, I really don't see him ending up only at 3 FG's when you opened Remake.

I should clarify that he bought the Bridge on his third turn, without buying Fool's Gold either of the previous two turns. That obviously led to me having an advantage. Sorry for leaving that info out.

11327

Help! / Re: Fool's Gold/Remake or Remodel

« on: January 10, 2012, 09:14:45 am »

Were there any 3 or 4 costing cards(other than remodel/remake) worth noting?

There was both bridge and workshop. Both seemed like possible strategies for getting to Fool's Golds, but obviously neither were able to eliminate junk at the same time. My opponent went for the Bridge strat. I won the FG battle 7-3 with the remake. I imagine it could have been higher had I used Remodel. Shanty Town was also present which in the end benefited me because I was able to Remake my Estates into them instead of into Silvers. I didn't want Silvers because they would have collided with my FGs that I was trying to triple up on, as well as Shanty Town helping in drawing two cards in a hand that lacked action cards...

But in retrospect it appears Remodel was the best choice, Remake was just good enough.

11328

Help! / Fool's Gold/Remake or Remodel

« on: January 09, 2012, 09:34:16 pm »

I just played a game that I forgot to copy the log in which Fool's Gold appeared to be the optimal strategy because of the presence of a trashers with both remodel and remake present. In the game I chose remake out of a gut instinct but later wished I had opted for Remodel. I won't tell the final outcome of the game to be consistent with the rules of this board.

Which trasher would be better--I realize other cards may make one more advantageous than the other, but what cards would those be?  I have the Remodel/Remake argument with myself pretty consistently and can normally find a quick decision given the situation. But in this situation I am not too sure, even the council room logs are split with Remodel being the ninth best card to pair with Fool's Gold--the best $4 cost card in fact--while Remake is the twelfth best.

Any thoughts?

11329

Dominion General Discussion / Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $4 cards Part 2/3 posted

« on: January 08, 2012, 10:21:25 am »

This is my first input into these lists--aside from voting--and my biggest complaints are tunnel and scheme as high as they are. I am looking forward to TINAS in depth response to scheme, although I wouldn't rank it quite as low as he. But for me tunnel can be killer it a bad way. Even with self discards I am rare to buy it because of the danger of drawing it to start with and taking up hand slots for the discarding card, money or other actions. I only like using it with cards such as warehouse or young witch were I am drawing and even then I will rarely open with it. It can be a good card if +buy is around, but most of the time it takes way too long for the gold to be obtained and cycled back into my deck to be useful, and in the mean time nondiscarded tunnels are barely more worthwhile estates. Tunnel certainly isn't the worst of the $3, but I don't know if it belongs so high. Oh, and steward is much too high.

11330

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Male vs Female Cards

« on: January 05, 2012, 06:37:03 pm »

To get a proper balance of male vs. female "characters" in the game, you kind of have to add the "unisex with people" number to BOTH the male-only and female-only totals and compare those instead.

So there are 44+12+41 = 97 male representations, and 11+7+41 = 59 female representations, or roughly a 5:3 ratio. 

That does change the demographic when looked at from that way. Thanks for bringing that up, the ambiguous sex cards threw me for a loop sometimes. I had a good, solid debate with my wife about what sex the Jester was, and we still aren't sure.

11331

Dominion Articles / Re: Silk Road

« on: January 03, 2012, 01:20:00 pm »

I think what we really really need is a hole for all of the people who post uninteresting comments about "uninteresting" things.

Hey you know what's awesome? Silk Road!
Hey you know what's neat? Silk Road!
Hey you know what's really cool? Silk Road!
Silk Road is a gnarly card!
Silk Road is a tubular card!
Silk Road is a rad card!
The awesomesauce of Silk Road is not to be underrated.
I bet you wouldn't guess, but I like Silk Road.
Silk Road is boss.
Silk Road is wizard.
Silk Road. Is. Silk. Road.

I think you explained the awesomesauceness, radness, bossness and wizardness of Silk Road pretty well here. Totally a gnarly and tubular article man.

11332

Dominion General Discussion / Male vs Female Cards

« on: December 31, 2011, 02:08:27 pm »

A while back there was a bit of discussion about female and males cards. I am not trying to make a point, or demand change or equality, but I thought it would be interesting--and there was a major lull at work--to look more into this.

This is what I found.  There are 157 cards in dominion at the moment. 56 of them are male cards--with male characters on them.  44 of these are non attack cards. 12 are attacks. There are 18 female cards. 11 are non-attacks while 7 are attacks. There are also 42 cards without people in the drawings and 41 with people either of both sexes or of a gender that can't be determined.

I took from this that Dominion has a male bias with 35% of all cards being obviously male and a 3:1 ratio to female cards. Furthermore, a higher percentage of female cards are attacking cards than male cards; 38% of female cards are attacks while 21% of male cards are attacks.

Here is the breakdown of the types of cards.  Again, I am not trying to make any sort of argument or criticize the makers of Dominion. I love it. My wife loves it. I just wanted to show that there fewer female cards than male, which for the time period Dominion is supposed to represent may be appropriate.

Male: 44
Chancellor
Mine
Moneylender
Smithy
Woodcutter
Alchemist
Apothecary
Apprentice
Golem
Transmute
Baron
Conspirator
Duke
Masquerade
Nobles
Pawn
Scout
Shanty Town
Steward
Counting House
King's Court - this card has both sexes in the picture but it is a king's court, not a queen's court
Loan
Mint
Venture
Bazaar
Fishing Village
Navigator
Pearl Diver
Salvager
Smugglers
Tactician
Horse Traders
Hunting Party
Tournament
Cartographer
Develop
Haggler
Jack of All Trades
Mandarin
Scheme
Spice Merchant
Black Market
Envoy
Governor

Male Attacks: 12
Spy
Bureaucrat
Thief
Minion
Saboteur
Swindler
Torturer
Goons
Mountebank
Ambassador
Margrave
Noble Brigand



Female: 11
Herbalist
Courtyard
Harem
Forge
Peddler
Explorer
Fairgrounds
Farming Village
Princess
Duchess
Trader


Female Attacks: 7
Witch
Possession
Scrying Pool
Sea Hag
Fortune Teller
Young Witch
Oracle



Unisex w/o people: 42
Cellar
Chapel
Council Room
Gardens
Moat
Remodel
Throne Room
Workshop
Philosopher's Stone
Vineyard
Bridge
Great Hall
Contraband
Hoard
Monument
Quarry
Royal Seal
Talisman
Vault
Watchtower
Ghost Ship
Haven
Island
Outpost
Treasure Map
Treasury
Warehouse
Bag of Gold
Diadem
Horn of Plenty
Trusty Steed
Remake
Border Village
Crossroads
Oasis
Farmland
Tunnel
Cache
Fool's Gold
Ill-Gotten Gains
Stash
Walled Village

Unisex w/ people of both sexes or unknown gender: 41
Adventurer
Feast
Festival
Laboratory
Library
Market
Village
Familiar--male? female? I can't tell
University
Coppersmith
Ironworks
Mining Village
Trading Post
Tribute
Upgrade
Wishing Well
City
Expand
Grand Market
Rabble
Trade Route
Worker's Village
Caravan
Cutpurse--looks like a woman, but I can't tell
Embargo
Lookout
Merchant Ship
Native Village
Pirate Ship
Wharf
Followers
Hamlet
Harvest
Jester - is this clown a man or a woman? I can't tell
Menagerie
Highway
Inn
Nomad Camp
Stables
Silk Road
Embassy

11333

Dominion Articles / Re: Ill-Gotten Gains

« on: December 31, 2011, 12:59:22 pm »

I have often felt that Ill-Gotten Gains struggles when in a kingdom with trashing cards because the curses don't seem to do enough damage fast enough. So when I started into this game http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201112/31/game-20111231-095217-527aaac2.html I wasn't planning on buying Ill-Gotten Gains, until it struck me. Once I buy them I can simply trash them--Salvager was on the board and I have recently fallen in love with the card buying it nearly every time it is out.

In the end the strategy worked pretty well, I think part of it was that my opponent also bought the Salvagers at a high rate allowing for a quick 3 pile ending and a low score of 7-2. If the Salvager pile wasn't low I think I might have been able to swing a Duchy advantage by trashing my remaining IGGs and potentially buying multiple Duchies a turn.  My opponent was able to swing one Province which made me panic for a bit.

Anyone else had success with IGG and a trasher?

11334

Dominion General Discussion / Re: stockpiling on trash for benefit cards

« on: December 29, 2011, 12:13:56 pm »

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201112/29/game-20111229-091000-4a53cadd.html

Thought I would post this since I had just barely read the thread. But in this game I stockpiled Apprentices to overcome double Ambassador in a Colony game. My opponent tried to do the same but to a lesser extent. Not a perfectly played game but interesting given the conversation.

I also noticed it was the first Colony game I had ever played that neither bought a platinum.

11335

Dominion General Discussion / Hunting Party w/o Buys

« on: December 28, 2011, 04:06:09 pm »

I've got a question about Hunting Parties in a board without any extra +Buys. The question is this, in a turn where multiple Hunting Parties are drawn and capable of being played should a player continue to play them and draw additional cards after reaching the magic $8 for a Province or stop and go straight to Buy phase without playing the other cards?  Perhaps an even better question is, does this even matter?

I know there are other situations where this can occur, Labs, etc--obviously duration cards would want to be played for benefit for next turn.

Just in my own reasoning I figured a lot would depend on what I knew was in my draw pile, what was in my discard and how close I was to a reshuffle, but is there more strategy there than that?

11336

Help! / Re: Loan vs Steward

« on: December 28, 2011, 11:49:53 am »

Thanks for the insight.

11337

Help! / Loan vs Steward

« on: December 28, 2011, 09:42:13 am »

Here is a game report where I felt like I started with the better strategy

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201112/28/game-20111228-063623-d26b1db8.html

but despite using my Loan 8 times I only drew up a copper once meaning the other 7 times I had to discard a silver or gold. Because at the start I imagined my treasure quality being high and my quantity being low I bought Labs instead of Stables--my opponent also bought Labs for some reason. I eventually bought a Steward as a desperation move but ended up never used it for trashing.

Was I wrong to buy Loan over Steward?

11338

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Wedding Card

« on: December 27, 2011, 08:49:49 pm »

Each person may reveal a card from their hand.  You may gain any or all of the revealed cards into your hand; each person that you take a card from draws 2 cards.

So would this be an attack, as in the person revealing the card loses it? Or is it more like a Tribute in that the person revealing discards it and the wedding player gains a copy of the card from the supply?

I like the idea of drawing cards. Thanks!

11339

Variants and Fan Cards / Wedding Card

« on: December 27, 2011, 12:02:14 pm »

So I've got an anniversary coming up with my wife--who I met playing Dominion--and as part of the celebration I want to create a card named Wedding. I have never created a card before and thought I would use the genius minds here in this forum to help me.

So the main idea I wanted to use here is one of a wedding, so big--outlandish, with guest involvement and everyone gets something--just like in a wedding everyone gets cake!  Also since getting married is a risk, I thought the wedding card should be a big risky. I know that designing a card around a name violates one of rinkwork's rules for card design, but given the situation I thought he would forgive me.

So, here is my initial idea, feel free to critique and suggest as I am new at this and would like it to turn into a card that we could play with.

Wedding
Cost $8

When you buy this card, gain another card costing $5 or less.
If you trash this card,
+6$, +Buy, all other players may trash a card from their hand.



I wanted this card to cost $8 because it seemed like it should be a risk to go for this instead of going for a province, but it is offset somewhat by getting a $5 card at least.

And while I know some of the concern about one-shot cards, Donald seems to like them more than the rest of us--I like the idea because a wedding should be a one time event.

Is the +6 too much? Too little? I think this card would only be bought early game or in situations at end game where a player is behind and would buy Duchies anyways when they have 8+.

Any thoughts or suggestions?
Thanks

11340

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Hamlet/Gardens?

« on: December 23, 2011, 03:48:28 pm »

Oh, also, Hamlet/Gardens with absolutely no other help is just a huge flop if your opponent is paying attention. However, Hamlet can supplement another gardens strategy really really nicely. (Heck, Hamlet/Counting House/Gardens is a lot of fun and not that bad)

I posted above some of my games I had tried with Counting house, hamlet and gardens and lost 5 straight games using that strategy. If you have time and inclination, how is my strategy not working compared to yours that does?  Or in other words, how do you think I am incorrectly using these cards?

No, those were coppersmith. Coppersmith is a LOT worse for this.

Well that explains it. On one hand I feel relieved that I wasn't using a good strategy improperly, but on the other I feel stupid for confusing the two. Add that to the confusing card list along with Baron and Bishop for me. I will have to try this Counting House strategy one of these days.

11341

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Hamlet/Gardens?

« on: December 23, 2011, 02:00:23 pm »

Oh, also, Hamlet/Gardens with absolutely no other help is just a huge flop if your opponent is paying attention. However, Hamlet can supplement another gardens strategy really really nicely. (Heck, Hamlet/Counting House/Gardens is a lot of fun and not that bad)

I posted above some of my games I had tried with Counting house, hamlet and gardens and lost 5 straight games using that strategy. If you have time and inclination, how is my strategy not working compared to yours that does?  Or in other words, how do you think I am incorrectly using these cards?

11342

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Hamlet/Gardens?

« on: December 23, 2011, 10:38:32 am »

I had this same thought a few weeks ago--but with the addition of Coppersmith thinking that buying up lots of coppers with my Hamlet's +buys would help--and tried it out on my buddy in a series of games. I lost every time. Now I am not a premiere player so my strategy may be a bit off, but neither is he so I figure it balances out.

Here are the councilroom logs, feel free to critic if you like because I would like this strategy to work.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111206-071809-05fef741.html

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111207-151233-ad102295.html

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111207-151651-6354e10a.html

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111206-070354-a4bcfd23.html

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111206-071159-896c8d44.html

11343

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Barracks - Three fan cards

« on: December 22, 2011, 10:34:21 am »

Even just making Ballista apply to yourself as well with the cavat of "you may" to yourself with just +1 action. Kind of combining Spy and Navigator. That said unless I saw it work really well I doubt I would buy it often as is, and probably would only buy it in certain situations the same way I only buy Navigator or Spy in rare situations.

11344

Dominion General Discussion / Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $4 cards Part 2/3 posted

« on: December 20, 2011, 03:03:33 pm »

I'd appreciate if I'd receive some more lists, especially some "Best" Lists from higher ranked players.

Qvist, I think there's sort of a high barrier of entry here. It's a fair amount of work both for the respondent to put together a half dozen lists and for you on your end to manually input all this data into whatever spreadsheet you're using. It's 2011, we have the technology.

I made this poll for the $2 cards in like three minutes…

http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/WEB22E8M7L8ENJ

You could probably hammer out the full 157 card list in 15 minutes (or spend another 15 and try to find a better survey site, I found that one by googling "create online draggable rankings survey"), post the poll here and I bet you'd get quite a few more responses, and save time on your end.

Just a thought.

I replied to Qvist awhile ago and just took the survey. On my end it was much, much simpler and easier than trying to do so in my word document or in my e-mail. Either way, thanks to Qvist for being willing to do this, I am excited to see the completed lists.

11345

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Evaluate your best and your worst board

« on: December 20, 2011, 02:01:52 pm »

Here is my best:
8$: Peddler
6$ Farmland
5$: Haggler, Explorer, Royal Seal, Mandarin
4$: Silk Road, Walled Village, Envoy
2$: Duchess

Archivist is actually in my top 10, number 2 in fact, but I have only played 4 games with it so I didn't include it.

I think what this shows is that I know to avoid these cards and not buy them. Because I don't like any of these with the exception of Silk Roads under appropriate circumstances and Haggler when there are no +Buys.

If I played this board the only card I would mostly likely only go for Envoy and go Envoy, Big Money.

My worst board:

6$: Boarder Village
5$: Venture, Rabble
4$: Trader, Bridge, Treasure Map
3P$: Philosopher's Stone, Alchemist
3$: Swindler
2$: Fool's Gold

A couple of cards on here surprised me, mostly Boarder Village, Swindler and Bridge. I feel like I know how to play these cards pretty well. I am thinking I buy Boarder Village too much over Gold and that hurts me. Swindler I don't know what my problem is and Bridge--perhaps I have bought too many without enough actions so they terminally clashed. The others... I rarely buy Rabble and I will almost always veto Alchemist or Philosopher's Stone because I am horrible at playing them. I am not sure how I would play this board, my first instinct is to go for potions and do philospher's stone, alchemist. Another option would be Treasure Map, but again I wouldn't feel too safe with that.  Any thoughts?

11346

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Thought experiment: No treasure

« on: December 19, 2011, 02:54:53 pm »

Vineyard would become even more important than it already is as all the treasures would count toward its total actions for VP at the end. Would potion be an action card as well?

11347

Dominion Articles / Re: Not Combos -- Cards that don't work well together

« on: December 16, 2011, 02:22:28 pm »

Just experienced a Bishop/Highway turn where my +5 highways made just about anything I trashed only worth a one Victory point. That was a little frustrating, especially since I only realized it about halfway through the game...

11348

Dominion General Discussion / Re: is consulting a simulator cheating?

« on: December 14, 2011, 05:03:41 pm »

I find this thread fascinating and may use it as the basis of a paper in an ethics class that is coming up next semester--we will see if there is something I can apply it to.

For my two cents: I am not a hardcore player like many on here, I suppose I am more casual and as a result less competitive--also not as good. As such I have never used a simulator, nor do I think I ever will, even outside of play. For this reason, I could be considered one of the unsuspecting players on Isotropic that could get slammed by someone using a simulator--I would also probably get slammed by them even if they weren't using it. And to be honest I wouldn't really mind. The fact that this person is willing to spend the time and effort to learn how to use a simulator, be good enough to use it fast enough before the time constraint ran out and know how to use the results that the simulator spits out is impressive.

However, I can see the point from players more competitive than I were such an advantage may be upsetting and a true advantage over another great player.

Is this cheating? I don't think so. What is cheating? Is it unethical? Probably. But then again what is ethics?

11349

Variants and Fan Cards / Card Names

« on: December 14, 2011, 01:44:20 pm »

So what are some names for cards that you would like to see in the final expansions?

I am not talking about what the card does, but simply the name or the card itself regardless of its purpose or type. Feel free to explain why. Note: this isn't intended to be suggestions for Donald X., but merely a fun exercise now that finals are over.

I would like to see:

Midwife - because there aren't enough cards with females on them--and even then those are normally bad, Witch, Young Witch, Sea Hag, Duchess is the one of a few that are positive and even then...

Knight-errant - because who wasn't surprised when they opened up the base dominion and didn't see a knight card even though there was a knight on horseback on the box.

Canoga - I am breaking my own rule. Canoga was a popular medieval dice game--I would only like to see this type of card if dice were implemented into the game, which too be honest, I don't think I would want.

Troubadour - because who doesn't love a good troubadour?

Artist Guild - mostly because I think a picture of the Lolly-pop guild on isotropic would be fun.

Bailey - Every good castle need a "motte" and a bailey.

Mathematician - in honor of all of the math geeks that love and frequent this board

11350

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Thought experiment: Curses

« on: December 12, 2011, 03:34:01 pm »

As the starter of the previous thread I thought I would mention what my group of friends did over the weekend because of the reminiscing about our previous inability to read the rule book. We tried this method over a couple of games and saw some interesting results.

Whereas when we first played the game we only bought the Curses when we had +Buy. This makes Woodcutter much, much stronger. And it makes Witch much, much weaker--as it does to other cursing attacks. In fact I don't think anyone bought a cursing attack the entire time we played.

As I mentioned on the previous thread, we originally played that we could just again place the curse into an opponent's discard pile when it came up in your 5 card draw. This left a slight discouragement from buying and giving curses because most often the person giving out the curses at the beginning of the game would be the one getting them. We played this way and we played a few where the curses remained in the pile after receiving them.  In the first situation, few curses were bought out of fear from getting those curses back--that is slowing down all three opponents' turns for one turn is not worth getting 3 curses into your hand, especially early in the game. There were a couple of hands drawn that had 3+ curses in them.

In the second scenario people bought curses much faster, and as GenoIkari mentions skipping a turn completely to only buy and give a curse occurred a couple of times. A friend tried a strategy where he opened +curse, +curse and got hammered because that left him behind in then next turns and because we all started targeting him with our curses.

In general we determined that we like Donald's version of curses much more. Which is why he is the genius and why we aren't.