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101

Dominion Articles / Re: Remodel

« on: July 27, 2012, 09:36:37 am »

Ok. Here we go: If I'm reading it right, this says that if you have 3 governors or more, then a single remodel makes the deck stronger. I could be wrong, of course, I suck an interpreting stats:

http://councilroom.com/optimal_card_ratios?card_x=Governor&card_y=Remodel

I guess the better way to do this is to simulate, but I don't know if anyone has got to simulating Governor well yet. Also, opening Remodel on a Governor board seems dumb, so I couldn't say for sure when the best time to buy/gain it would be.

102

Dominion Articles / Re: Combo: Mint/Fool's Gold

« on: July 27, 2012, 09:30:19 am »

Yeah, no doubt about this combo's power. Hell, according to Councilroom its the 5th best opening in the whole damn game.

Anyone ever won against a 5/2 Mint/FG opening with a 4/3?

103

Dominion Articles / Re: Mountebank

« on: July 27, 2012, 09:28:25 am »

I'd add that Mountebank greatly increases the likelihood of a three pile ending. It slows down the game in terms of reachign provinces or colonies, but empties the curse pile rapidly by virtue of the fact that when its present, both (or all for multiplayer) players will almost invariably take it and use it lots.

One rule I always have for myself is that when Mountebanks are present, its a good idea to get 1 or 2 provinces as soon as you can, then after that, grab duchies like crazy. This is opposed to non-Mountebank games, where usually the time to get duchies is when 3-4+ provinces have gone.

Winning the duchy split very often wins mountebank games, in my experience.

104

Dominion Articles / Re: Remodel

« on: July 27, 2012, 09:20:11 am »

I can't present evidence for this, but I've often found that a single Remodel increases the efficiency of Governor-rushing, as it brings your governors close together, and you've got a spare terminal action anyway, and lets you make your last gold->province without giving your opponent a $4->duchy, or alternatively, lets you do that $4->duchy thing if your opponent hits the Governor boom switch first.

Also, I've found it works reasonably well with Highway, as it clears the path for Highway chaining and can give you more value because of the Highways. Works even better if you have a decent $4 to remodel estates, especially Worker's Village. In this case, of course, its more of a case of making the already powerful Highway/Worker Village even more powerful.

I'd agree entirely though that any stronger trasher works better in both these circumstances, and would also agree about the stated disadvantages of Remodel, especially the tempo slowing effect of playing 3 card hands, which I think a lot of people underestimate.

Theres also a real trap in remodelling estates to remodel. If there isn't another good $4 card there you too often end up with hands of copper + more than one remodel... and then what are you supposed to do? Remodel to Gold? Sure, but you'd have been faster getting to a decent deck with silver / silver...

On the other hand, say you have Border Village or Grand Market there, and it gets a lot more interesting...

Oh, which brings me to the other point. Grand Market is a card that makes Remodel better.

105

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Fun 2/5 combo: Embargo/Haggler

« on: July 27, 2012, 09:09:58 am »

Hmmm.. 250 cards(ish?) total, 10 selected, 4% chance of getting one card, 0.16% chance of getting both, 0.027% chance of getting both with a 2-5 opening.  Or 1 in 3,750 games.

BUT WHEN IT HAPPENS, YOU'LL BE HAPPY YOU READ THIS

Good answer.

106

Dominion General Discussion / Re: One Trick Pony

« on: July 27, 2012, 09:07:48 am »

No love for Herbalist?

I got you dog.  10 Herbalists...and the victory.  Thank you DominionStrategy.com!
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120527-143217-d90299d9.html

Ooooh, nice strategy. Wouldn't have known to do that myself

107

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Cards You Horribly Misjudged

« on: July 27, 2012, 08:58:42 am »

Bureaucrat. I remember playing a few games, introducing Dominion to a friend, and explaining how Bureaucrat was just the best card. You don't have to buy any more Silvers--it gives you all the Silvers you will need!

Hey, this is pretty much STILL how I view Bureacrat. For Province games it seems like a fantastic accelerator that lets you add silver to your deck while spending your precious buys on other stuff, with a moderately useful early game attack thrown in. There's quite a lot of games where I open Bureaucrat / Silver, then just BM it to Provinces...

It might not be the game's strongest card, but for games where an engine isn't worth it and theres no terminal draw to go BM + X, BM + Bureacrat is pretty solid, I think.
(For reference, my %+ given availability is 27% compared to a 23% average. My win rate with is 1.30 compared to a 0.8 average.)

In my experience a lot of people seem to write of Bureaucrat as a weak card, so don't even consider it, where a lot of the time there's a lot to be said for instantly stacked silver that costs an action and a card, but no buys, and has a low level attack tagged on it. In some kingdoms its a trap, but in others, its a game winner.

108

Dominion Articles / Re: Combo: The Embargoed Spice Venture

« on: July 27, 2012, 08:48:26 am »

Also, what happens when your opponent embargoes venture? As you say, the combo then loses big. So what you're relying on is an opponent who sees you buying ventures, and isn't smart enough to either embargo ventures, or compete with you for them.

Sure, once you have a clean Venture deck, you can generate $8 off your Ventures, but embargo can come in fast, and those curses will make it harder for your Spice Merchant to hit copper.

The real combo here is Venture + a card that trashes coppers for good benefit. Venture is no doubt a strong card, being a treasure thats always at least a silver, and potentially worth a lot more.

Embargo just isn't a card thats easy to simulate, unless you simulate some good decision making as to whether to buy an embargoed card or not. Plus the way embargo works is that it shifts around what is optimim strategy in a kingdom as each embargo hits. This could make weaker strategies more valid, so requires a reassessment of the Kingdom each time an embargo lands.

109

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Questions about trade route

« on: July 23, 2012, 06:00:00 pm »

I find it hard to understand this card...

- When would you open with trade route ?

When its the bane card.

110

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Clasic_Cards #8 - Hanging Gardens

« on: July 23, 2012, 05:58:24 pm »

I love the maths headache that turns up if its in the same kingdom as Duke.

111

Dominion General Discussion / Re: One Trick Pony

« on: July 06, 2012, 10:42:22 am »

For non-ironworks, non-workshops approaches, I think the trick is having a treasure card that supports a one-action strategy, so actually its a two-card based deck, but qualifies for one trick pony as the treasure card doesn't count for it.

Looking at my stats, I've done one trick pony 9 times: 3 games with ironworks, 4 games with workshop.

My other two were: Caravan (with one Talisman):
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120306-070441-d2a61815.html

...though if you look at how this ends, it ends stupidly, with my opponent buying the last colony then losing because he hasn;t added up.

and: Monument with IGG:
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120305-105509-297dbbda.html

...a tempting board, with all those engine components for goons meganess, labs, king courts, tactician, bazaar... but I took one look at it and thought "no trashing except lookout, IGG present and monument there? Its gotta be monument/IGG all the way."

Perhaps I was lucky that the monuments never collided, but regardless, I felt confident that IGG was going to slow down my opponent enough. In all honesty, what I expected was IGGs bought by my opponent too, and a much faster game, and I never expected to get so many monuments, but there it is...

112

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Bishop Treasury combo?

« on: July 01, 2012, 10:11:03 am »

3) You want to pull of Scrying Pool chains, and there's a better chance of it working if the Treasuries are shuffled in.

Is that correct?  Playing 5 top-decked treasuries and then SP to pull up 6 other actions is just as good as playing SP to pull up 11 actions including the 5 treasuries, isn't it?  Does having the treasuries shuffled in actually increase the odds of making a bigger chain (discounting what you would have had just from top decking)?  My mathemability is failing me here.

I may be wrong, but I think yes it does.

Extreme example just to show the thought experiment: say you have 10 treasuries, 1 scrying pool, 15 golds in your deck.

If you stack 10 treasuries, then you'll get the 10 treasuries played, and have 5 golds in your hand. That makes $10+$15

If you don't stack the treasuries, have no treasuries in hand, then scry and draw 10 treasuries, you then end up with a 15 card hand that contains ten treasuries and 5 golds. You play the ten treasuries to draw 10 more golds, and that leaves you with $10+$45.

Obviously thats an extreme sample for the sake of demonstration, but I think its broadly true that scrying pool + drawing multiple cantrips = more cards in hand.

I guess for specific circumstances, you need to work out what chance the scrying pool is going to give you of a bigger hand, and balance that against the guaranteed but smaller payout of having treasuries on top of your deck. In the example above, it might not be such a good idea not to stack in practice, as the odds of both drawing that scrying pool and then drawing treasuries with it is going to be pretty low.

I think the more scrying pools you have, the less likely you'll want to stack the treasuries. Also, theres the question of how many buys you are likely to generate, how many $ you need to win, what other actions you have, etc etc.

Even so, I think there are definitely moments when its better to return treasuries to the deck rather than stack them where scrying pool is concerned.

113

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Bishop Treasury combo?

« on: June 29, 2012, 08:54:23 am »

I think conceptually, its an entirely valid and strong strategy to build around Bishop and Treasury, and it does qualify as a combo as both cards are stronger for the presence of each other.

This isn't a combo that'd be easily simulated though, as likely you'd be engaging in it as part of a broader and more complex strategy, likely one with an engine that gets you to the point where you can play the whole chain each turn. Multiple bishops, some +buy and some card drawing would all mesh in well.

I played a game a while back (that I posted in game reports) where I led my opponent on Colonies by 6:0, but where a carefully built Bishop and Attack engine locked me at that point, and then went to overtake me in VP across a drawn out slow grind to victory. Bishop VPs can definitely be used to win a game on their own, even if they're not quite as powerful as Goons-chains.

As to when not to topdeck treasuries when you have the opportunity to do so, the circumstances I can think of are as follows:

1) You know you're likely to be hit by Masquerade. In this case, just topdeck four of them.
2) You expect to get hit by Jester, then there's a fair argument for not topdecking more than five, though equally there's a fair argument for deliberately topdecking them, as once treasuries run out that'll become an attack nullifier.
3) You want to pull of Scrying Pool chains, and there's a better chance of it working if the Treasuries are shuffled in.
4) Very specific small deck circumstances where you want your opponent's Bishop is going to trash a card for you.
5) Where you expect a Governor chain to end the game this turn, and you'd rather have a $4 card in hand that will be upgraded into a duchy when your opponent starts gaining provinces.
6) Where you are expecting a discard attack, and think you'd have a Tunnel in your hand instead. Though admittedly... treasury and tunnel, what is going on with that deck?

Goons is a tough one. Kuildeous analysis makes sense to me, but you also have to think about where the Treasuries are going to be after you discard them: that is, to reach them again, you have to draw through your whole deck and hit the shuffle. Thus a lot of it would depend on the drawing power of the deck, where they'd be anyway (i.e. in your deck, or the discard) and the relative values and risks of them being in your hand or not.

114

Dominion Isotropic / Re: Complete list of Things that are better than Isotropic

« on: June 29, 2012, 08:50:54 am »

I also think Isotropic is better than playing in real life. My opponents online actually challenge me, and there's no painful waiting to shuffle, or sneaking suspicions that my opponents are subtly cheating out of the sheer frustration of losing all the time.

However, here is my list of things better than isotropic:

My baby daughter.
My wife.
Not being in debt anymore. Woooo.

115

Game Reports / Re: Ambassador loves Engines

« on: June 29, 2012, 08:48:47 am »

Loved this play:

Asklepios plays an Upgrade.
   ... drawing 1 card and getting +1 action.
   ... trashing an Upgrade.
   ... gaining a Border Village.
   ... ... gaining a Curse.

Thanks! That was probably the turning point, when I realised thay my number one priority was to keep him from playing Ambassador back at me. After all, we both had Kings Courts (he got there first) and Ambassador.

My opponents main weak points, imho, were wasting early upgrades on coppers, and on buying gold when border village was there. To me, lovely though Ambassador and King's Court were, it was Border Village and Upgrade that made the deck efficient.

116

Game Reports / Ambassador loves Engines

« on: June 27, 2012, 01:02:00 pm »

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201206/27/game-20120627-095607-59d3ceb4.html

Quite possibly the most fun I've had playing Dominion so far. A game that really made me think hard, and where every card in the kingdom was bought or gained at least once. There was ambassador warring, menagerie manipulation, upgrade cleverness, king's courting, forging...

My favourite moment was the last turn, when I realised that I could end the game on provinces, if I first ambassadored two provinces to my opponent. As it was, the game was pretty much locked by that stage, but still I'm happy with how I ended it.

On the last turn of the game:

Me: Kudos to you for not quitting before now.
Opponent: People do that?

Uh, yeah. I do, anyway. But I'll think twice before doing so in future

117

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Best Designed Card

« on: June 26, 2012, 07:49:07 am »

Wow. I consider two of these cards (IGG and Masquerade) terribly dull and dominant in 50% of the games they show up in, and would consider them cards I *dislike*.

Yeah, +1 to this comment! I'm very surprised to see that much love for IGG. In game terms, I consider it the epitome of a card whose rules design has made the game less fun. IGG-rush is a low skill strategy, yet its almost always dominant when IGG is present.

For my own part, I'll add +1 vote for another unpopular card, but one which I like a lot:

Possession!

Great art, thematically feels like what it represents (you are taking control of them as if they were your puppet, mwahahaha!). Rules wise its surprisingly satisfying, in that its not an auto-grab if its present, but its presence always affects how you strategise for a given kingdom.

118

Dominion Articles / Re: Provinces in a Colony game

« on: June 22, 2012, 07:08:31 am »

I think the key thing here is to consider the VP totals available, and the strategies that will take you there. In other words, it depends on the kingdom. Or to be more specific, it depends on the tempo of the game, the VP sources and the expected final scores.

Broadly speaking though there are a few numbers to bear in mind when you make your assessment.

First off, 8 Provinces = 48 VP. 5 Colonies = 50VP.

Thus, if the time it takes you to get to 8 Provinces is more than the time it takes your opponent to get 5 Colonies, you lose.

Naturally its not entirely that straightforward, as even if you pursue Provinces you might be able to pick up 1 or 2 Colonies. On the other hand, you probably won't have that time, as you'll be buying Provinces instead of Platinum on those $9-10 hands, and strongly considering accelerating game end by buying Provinces on $11 hands too.

As to Tournament, I'd observe that yes, Tournaments make Provinces a lot better, but that doesn't necessarily mean the presence of Tournaments indicate that you should try and run out Provinces. Sometimes the best thing to do is ignore Tournaments. Sometimes the best thing to do is to get just one Province to activate Tournament with, and otherwise build towards an engine that will let you draw them together while you climb towards colonies.

As for fast setups, what we're looking for here is VERY fast setups: ones that will get you to 8 provinces before your opponent gets 5 colonies, and which aren't just as good at racing for 8 Colonies. The megaturn approach is probably the best one, because you get all those Provinces in one turn, so you're not committing to the risk of provinces at all. By the time you decide to end the game on them, you've ended the game on them.

Governor is the awesome megaturn enabler here - its pretty easy to get all 8 provinces in 12-16 turns with a Governor focus, and quite hard to turn Governor advantage into Colonies.

JoAT I'd be very nervous about. Yes, its a relatively fast way to 4 Provinces compared to many setups, but its not that fast to 8 Provinces. Doublejack can take 20-23 turns to get to 8 Provinces, and during that time your opponent could easily get 5 colonies, or 4 colonies and the last province. Plus a Jack approach is pretty much committing to silver-logging your deck, which while it doesn't preclude colonies makes them a lot harder to achieve.

This has all been mentioned though. Here's a few more thoughts:

In kingdoms with strong attacks that slow progress to greening, getting to colonies can take way more time than you'd expect. Mountebank games for example, tend to end on three pile, and you should probably get Provinces as soon as you're able. On the other hand, I wouldn't expect Provinces OR Colonies to run out with Mountebank on the table.

119

Solo Challenges / Re: Velocity Challenge: Maximum points per turn

« on: June 22, 2012, 05:56:26 am »

A deck of village, monument, possession (plus chapel or something to have got to this state) will get you as many points as you want without advancing the turn counter at all once you're set up.

Explain this to me. How do you stop the turn counter advancing when there's no second player?

By repeatedly possessing yourself. Possession turns don't increment the turn counter.

My mistake, didn't realise you could possess yourself!

120

Simulation / Re: Simulation Challenge: Fishing Village + Bad Terminal

« on: June 22, 2012, 05:54:30 am »

Said this on the other thread, but I think Bridge without +cards is weaker than BM even with Fishing Village in the mix. Also Conspirator would qualify, I think.
However neither of these cards are better as multiples WITHOUT fishing village. They just lose to big money. There's plenty of terminals you only want one of that don't benefit from fishing village over silver, as I mentioned in the other thread.

As to cards that where (2 or more Terminals + BM) > (2 or more Terminals + Fishing Village + BM) its harder to say. I'd intuit Mountebank, as the extra copper and curses reduce collisions. I can't think of any others.

Maybe I don't understand, are you saying BM w/o bridge is better than with? Because that's obviously wrong as the first bridge is better than silver for sure.  Are you saying BM bridge is better than FV/bridge? I doubt that.

The embassy question is an interesting one...

Oh no not at all.

I'm saying (Multiple Bridges + Fishing Villages + BM + no card draw) is < (1 Bridge + BM + no card draw).

Is this wrong?

121

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Which card is best for you?

« on: June 20, 2012, 04:02:39 am »

Going by "effect with" (i.e. number of standard deviations better than expected I perform) my top 5 are:

1) Bag of Gold: 20.23
2) Treasury: 2.52
3) Bureaucrat: 2.17
4) Monument: 2.11
5) Torturer: 2.12

Its not that I buy these cards a lot but rather that I feel comfortable with when to use them. Which for Bag of Gold, my number one, is almost never. My %+ is 3.4% for this card, compared to 17.8% in general. As a rule of thumb, unless Bag of Gold creates a guaranteed Province for me this turn (say, a card drawer and a Remodel in hand), I'll take a Duchy instead.

Likewise with Treasury, I think I see people buying it too often. To me its only worthwhile if greening is likely to occur late in a game, and there are engine components of high value and high cost. I also like it if there are means to gain rather than buy the green, such as Border Village, Ironworks, Horn of Plenty, etc. Otherwise, I tend to not rate it much.

Bureaucrat and Monument I think I know when to use, which is basically weak kingdoms where money matters, or where there's a specific benefit to them (like a game with lots of green predicted for bureaucrat (silk road, gardens rush, workable tunnels) or an opportunity to play multiple monuments per turn in a province game (say chapel, village, monument)). I probably veer more towards money than a lot of players, so I play Bureaucrat as an opener quite a lot, as a lot of kingdoms don't seem fast enough to compete against its mix of treasure generation and light attack.

Torturer I tend to play only when I am playing for a Torturer lockdown, and I almost never "splash" into this card. This card isn't really worth its cost until you play two of them in a turn.

Incidentally I think "effect with" is probably the best column to go by when judging your effectiveness with a card, as "winrate given availability" tends to be down to the strength of the cards mostly.

122

Solo Challenges / Re: Velocity Challenge: Maximum points per turn

« on: June 20, 2012, 03:53:47 am »

A deck of village, monument, possession (plus chapel or something to have got to this state) will get you as many points as you want without advancing the turn counter at all once you're set up.

Explain this to me. How do you stop the turn counter advancing when there's no second player?

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201206/19/game-20120619-190723-536f27cd.html in 16 turns

Excellent! I make that a Velocity Score of 38.5, a new benchmark.

Not mine, but don't forget http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=2779.0. shark_bait's solution to that challenge scores 1106 points in a mere 11 turns, for a velocity of ~100.5.

Whoa. 100.5.

Yep, I guess nobody is going to beat that!

123

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Card idea : discard-to-gain

« on: June 20, 2012, 03:47:41 am »

I'm not quite convinced this should cost $4.

Yes, early on if it costs $3 then a Cavern/Cavern opening will rush a $5 pile very quickly. But as the game goes on, its usefulness drops off much faster than Horse Traders. If the other 4 cards in hand are $5 or more, it's useless. In comparison, Horse Traders can still discard 2 Coppers (and even a Copper + Silver) for at least some benefit. Additionally, Horse Traders money is a lot more flexible than the gain effect.

In an engine, I think Horse Traders would be perform slightly better or the same as Cavern in the building phase. They break even at 2 dead cards in hand, and Horse Traders +$ is better than the gaining. Later on, Cavern would get better.

I think it would be a very strong $3, but a fairly weak $4 that wouldn't feel fun on a visceral level unless it was played in an engine. Up to you...

I'd say that $4 plus a weak bonus effect would put it on a par with Horse Traders. I agree that Horse Traders overtakes it quickly, but Cavern would be more reliable on that critical first reshuffle, and that relaibility means a great deal in decks with a strong $5. Plus don't forget that with the big discard it is stronger than Horse Traders with cards that interact well with discard-for-effect, such as Menagerie, Library, Watchtower, Tactician. With its gain-on-action effect it'd be a boon to complex engine decks of this sort, especially if comboed with stuff like fishing village and watchtower.

All in all, a better comparison might be to Vault, as essentially Cavern looks like a worse version of Vault, in that you don't get to draw and your big treasures end up being used separate to the effect. On the other hand, this might be a boon in those odd circumstances when you'd rather have a medium gain and medium buy rather than a big buy... which is generally much true for engine building rather than VP acquisition, but could be useful in something like a Gardens deck (say discard 3 cards, gain a Gardens, spend remaining silver on an estate).

$4 is the right place for it, I think. Its not as good as Horse Traders at doing what Horse Trader does, and its not as good as Vault, but it has elements of both. As I said though, a weak bonus effect would be desirable, such as a reaction/effect that gives you+1 card if you discard it outside of your cleanup phase.

124

Game Reports / Re: Etiquette, or What did I do wrong?

« on: June 19, 2012, 07:54:36 pm »

Your mommas so nice, I'd gladly play Dominion with her.

Wait... I'm doing this wrong, aren't I?

125

Solo Challenges / Velocity Challenge: Maximum points per turn

« on: June 19, 2012, 07:47:42 pm »

I'm sure something like that this has been done before, but out of curiosity, whats the highest points per turn you've achieved in a solo game?

The reason I ask this, is that I was playing around with random solo sets, and managed to get 480 points in 16 turns. It was a Goons game, naturally, and I didn't select the cards at all but just played for a megaturn, with no particular goal in mind. For me, a game average of 30 points per turn is far and away the highest I've ever managed in a solo game. And this was just a random solo game...

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201206/19/game-20120619-163938-eb40d07c.html

So as an informal challenge, post your games with the highest points velocities.

The rules

Solo game.
Kingdom of your choice.
Game must end properly (i.e. three pile, or colonies or provinces run out, not resigning).

Your score for this challenge is your Game Score / Number of turns.

Post the link to the isotropic game.
Post as many times as you like.
Try to make sure that your score velocity is better than the poster before. So to start off, that means going for better than 30 pts/turn average.

Let's see what you got!

edit: I'm aware I haven't structured this in the normal way for a solo challenge, so if this belongs in another forum, apologies.