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101

Game Reports / Sometimes you gotta Throne Room that Forge...

« on: October 01, 2012, 12:26:09 am »

It's a first for me:
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201209/30/game-20120930-212312-6f12aa43.html

— ednever's turn 15 —
ednever gets +$2 from the Merchant Ship.
ednever had played the Merchant Ship with a Throne Room.
ednever gets +$2 from the Merchant Ship.
ednever plays a Border Village.
... drawing 1 card and getting +2 actions.
ednever plays a Throne Room.
... and plays a Forge.
... ... trashing a Border Village and a Merchant Ship.
... ... gaining a Colony.
... and plays the Forge again.
... ... trashing a Colony.
... ... gaining a Colony.
ednever buys a Throne Room.

Border Village + Merchant Ship + Throne Room + Forge turned out to be a nice little 4-card combo.

Ed

102

Game Reports / Delicate mid and endgame w/ -Stef-

« on: September 30, 2012, 03:25:32 pm »

I lose by 1VP.

Lots to learn from this game: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201209/30/game-20120930-120503-cec3d1c2.html

cards in supply: Bazaar, Cellar, City, Fairgrounds, Farmland, Great Hall, Loan, Margrave, Thief, and Village

Early Game:
The large amount of alt VP makes building a draw engine the way to go (Bazaar+Margrave with Callar support). This means a long game. Which means a pile or two is going to empty, so Cities are an option, but it will kill you if you go there too early. Opening with Loan to get your draw the deck faster is also a good option.

Mid Game:
Turn 10 I avoid a mistake I've made in the past. With $8 and no +buy, I pick up a Bazaar instead of greening. It's hard to avoid temptation in these situations.

Instead I make a more subtle mistake (I think) on turn 12. With both Margrave and Bazaar piles running very low, I pick up 3 Cities. They come in handy a turn or two later when the Bazaar pile is fully empty, but by that point I can consistently draw my deck.

Stef makes a better decision on turn 12 and picks up a Gold. And another on turn 14. That extra economy gives him a big edge in the end game.

Both of us get terrible unlucky draws on turn 14/15 (mine even more so given the number of Margraves I had played on me)


My Turn 15 starts the end game
(Notice that Stef pickes up one more gold. His deck can now produce $22 and get two provinces and a farmland if it draws itself. I can only produce $16)

Stef goes the province route. I go Fairgrounds.

I make another mistake on turn 16 - trashing my Loan for a Duchy. It bites me later when I need to pick up a curse to get to 15 unique cards.

Stef uses that -1 VP to end it on his turn 19 - picking up three provinces to win by 1 VP. I needed $1 more to pick up a loan instead of a curse. (OR if I had trashed an Estate earlier into a THief instead of a Loan into a Duchy that would have helped too)


If you like analyzing games there is a lot to see in this one.

Ed

103

Game Reports / Sometimes you CAN get develop to work

« on: September 29, 2012, 08:27:36 pm »

Barely.

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201209/29/game-20120929-172330-55921be7.html

The game had Border Village and Grand Market - but great for Develop. But it didn't have a god spamable $4 action to partner with the GMs. I instead embargo'd provinces early in the game and picked up islands for my $4. I was going to run the game out on piles when my opponent managed to double province (with two curses).

I had to switch to picking up Duchies (Develop->Rabble, gain BV+Duchy+Militia or Bridge)

I got ahead by one point and then used one of those bridges to buy the last two rabbles and win by one.

Ed

104

Game Reports / When you DON'T want a prize (and only one has been taken)

« on: September 28, 2012, 11:19:09 am »

I've never made that decision before: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201209/28/game-20120928-081104-19dfb091.html

I got super lucky this game (picking up $5 on turns 3 and 5, flipping his Sea Hag on turn 4 - among other things). I ended up taking 8 Hunting Parties, taking them over Gold and Goons so I could play my hag more often (no extra actions).

Then I got lucky again and connected my Tournament with my Province before he did, letting me pick up a Trusty Steed (the only source of +actions).

Next plan was to pick up 2 Goons and play them both every turn. I connected a tournament and a province again and hesitated. Did I want a Followers? The curses were gone and I already had discard+ with Goons, so, no. Princess? Maybe, but with out one +action, I would rather play two goons a turn, so no. When about Bag or Diadem? In order to get the two goons to play every turn I wanted to limit variety in my deck. So no to those too. I definitely didn't want duchies yet.

It felt weird not picking up anything. First time I think.

At that point my opponent resigned (understandably)

After many many games of Dominion, I still find cases that happen for the first time.

Ed

105

Game Reports / Embargo! Goons! Upgrade! Oh My!

« on: September 19, 2012, 03:17:33 pm »

One of the most interesting games I've had in a long time:
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201209/19/game-20120919-120936-81bb0326.html

I was pretty sure I was going to lose in the end as I was relatively far behind in VP and piles were running very low. Upgrade and Border Village helped run them out fast.

Consistent use of Embargo meant you had to constantly adjust your strategy. And because of that we both ended up diverging in strategy pretty early - which then meant you could use Embargo more to disrupt his strategy without hurting your own.

Meanwhile Upgrade and Mine and Border Village let us both get the Embargoed cards we wanted - through round-about routes.

Davio thought I had a chance to win on turn 21, but I didn't see it. I'm pretty sure I could have ended it, but the embargos on The Embargo pile would have dropped me in points.

Very fun game. But I'll bet pretty hard to follow with the current log format unfortunately.

Ed

106

Game Reports / How about we don't buy Sea Hag or Mountebank, and then empty the Platinums?

« on: September 10, 2012, 05:16:18 pm »

My first time seeing the Plats empty.

Also maybe the first time I've seen both Montebank and Sea Hag in the Kingdom where neither one gets purchased:
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201209/10/game-20120910-141412-9d98bb81.html

Ed

107

Game Reports / 5/2 open with Margrave, Lighthouse, Tunnel and Lab

« on: September 10, 2012, 01:39:04 pm »

Interesting conundrum here:

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201209/10/game-20120910-103048-7bb9c229.html

Both of us opened 5/2.

A $5 attack is usually the right answer and Margrave was the only one available. BUT there was Lighthouse which is a great defense. So picking up Lighthouse made sense. But wait: There was also Tunnel. There was nothing that let you discard on your own, but if the other guy got a Margrave it was a nice way to get a ton of golds...

It led to a lot of interesting choices. At least once I chose not to play a lighthouse because I thought I would have a Tunnel in hand next turn and he would have a Margrave.

Unlike Moat, you can't choose not to activate a Lighthouse. So a few times I would have loved to discard two tunnels.

Another interesting combo on here:
University/Island (And University/Margrave and University/Lab)

I'm pretty sure my strategy was not optimal. I'm also not so sure there was an optimal strategy. So much depends on what the other guy is doing.

I ended up opening Margrave/Lighthouse (as did he).
Then I got an early Magrave and $6 and decided to pick up two tunnels - figuring it I would get hit by one of his discards sooner or later.
Then I followed him into University both for the extra actions on my Margrave, and to load up on Islands (a combo I think is better than many people think).

I ended up getting pretty far ahead on Tunnels and Islands. He was loading up on Labs - which was likely the right choice in general - but it left an opening to end the game on piles - which I did by picking up a Nomad Camp on my 2nd last turn to get to $5 on my last turn.

Really interesting board.

Ed

108

Dominion General Discussion / Building into a strategy

« on: September 06, 2012, 12:06:59 pm »

This should be a full length article, but I thought I would dump some of the ideas here first.

My theory is that learning Dominion follows a few common paths:

1- No idea what you are doing
2- You know what you are doing (the basic principles)
3- You get better at the game in general and start being able to identify key 2-card combos
4- You get very good at the game and can see and build engines across multiple cards, you can recognize when a generally bad card is good and when a generally good card is bad
5- "What this post is about"
6- More stuff about about getting better and better at the game


"What this post is about"
It took me a while to get to #4. It took me even longer to understand #5, because I think it's pretty subtle. Basically the idea is:
(1) You see what the dominant strategy of a board is; but...
(2) Instead of diving right into that strategy, you do something else first that sets up that strategy

A very simple example is: "Wow. The dominant strategy of this board is 'Possession'" -> that doesn't mean you should open with Potion (Unless there is a University/Scrying Pool/Apothecary thing that facilitates that open)

But it obviously gets a lot more subtle than that.

I read a post about how sometimes you want to NOT open Young Witch (due to a spammable Bane), but then transition into YW later when the decks are a little more bloated.

Here is the game that happened this morning that inspired this post:
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201209/06/game-20120906-085259-4dfcb9a9.html

The dominant strategy here is Horse Traders+Venture / Tunnel (Not perfect on a Colony board, but still dominant I think)
My opponent rightly saw the combo and opened HT+Tunnel

I saw the combo too, but made a slightly different choice.

I opened Steward/Island. The idea was the make my deck a little bit smaller and kill some coppers. I figured that would
(1) Make is slightly more likely the HT/Tunnels would collide
(2) Make it slightly less likely the Ventures would not hit copper

I figured I would have the time given it was a Colony game to play a bit more strategically.
I also didn't load up on Tunnels - I just needed enough gold to get me consistently to Platinum (A mistake I've made many times before - including an isodom match where I played Warehouse/Tunnel a little too heavily in a Colony match). Since the deck was a bit thinner, I also didn't need as many Tunnels to ensure collisions.


Again: Not a full article, but it's a discussion I don't think I've seen on this board before.

Discuss.

Ed

109

Game Reports / I don't like Envoy+Big Money

« on: September 05, 2012, 08:28:56 pm »

So much so that I built a painful painful Scrying Pool+Spy "engine"...
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201209/05/game-20120905-172458-9ba11417.html

I felt terrible for WHARF 2 THA BRIDGE. The turns went on forever.

Interesting to see where it landed. I'll bet his strategy wins 70-30...

Ed

110

Game Reports / Gardens/Taliman vs. Chapel/Bishop

« on: August 27, 2012, 04:47:10 pm »

An interesting game between Rabid and me.

He opens Talisman telegraphing his move into a Garden's strategy. I hesitated a lot before picking up Spice Merchant - figuring that will speed a Golden Deck set up (and help me get a few my VP in the early game by turning a Copper into a SM into 2 VP)

Because I didn't have extra buys, game ending was all on Rabid's plate (which he could do at just about any time with the Talismans). I knew I had to block his Gardens, so I managed to pick up 4 (and kill them with Bishop - a 'mini Golden Deck of Bishop+2 Silver+Gardens).

When Gardens was empty I transitioned into a more traditional deck - but had to venture into provinces (it was a colony game) to stay ahead in VP. If I ever fell behind I knew he would end it on his turn immediately.

Anyway, I thought it was a pretty thoughtful game. Enjoy the log: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201208/27/game-20120827-133827-f6953760.html

Ed

111

Game Reports / Avoiding Apprentice in Possession Games

« on: August 24, 2012, 07:53:51 pm »

I've learned to avoid TFB cards in Possession games the hard way (only thing worse is Ambassador or Masquerade). The issue is, they can help a lot in setting up the deck - until they become a liability.

I was regretting my avoidance of Apprentice in this match: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201208/24/game-20120824-164728-8a396950.html

I was getting killed. I got hit with a King's Courted Possession twice. Piles were emptying and I was in a ton of trouble.

Then I managed to play a single Possession.

My opponent's deck was so good, that was all it took. A KC'd Nobles, followed by a Apprentice->Possession let me set up a KC->KC->Nobles, Market, Market

That drew the deck and gave me enough to buy out the Duchies, pick up 3 Estates, and eek out a win by 2 VP.

Whew.

Moral: Stick to your guns and avoid that apprentice...

112

Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Dark Ages reco sets findings

« on: August 24, 2012, 11:25:52 am »

I played 8 dark ages games last night. We played the da only reco sets, as well as the reco sets combined with prosperity and cornocopia. we also played a game with ten of the fifteen that aren't in the reco davonly sets, and one with the five remaining cards and five random cards.

The first game was 2p, the others were all 4p.

Some thoughts:

1- first of all - very fun! Lots of card combos here Everywhere.

2- Ruins hurt. A lot. Marauder is as good or maybe better than Sea Hag (I think better). Hunting Party in particular gets demolished. Sage was much better at getting through stuff (but didn't supply the draw)

3- cultist chains are hard to set up, but it doesn't matter much. It may not be as bad as witch, but it's still pretty bad

4- fairgrounds is a killer card in DAs. In the reco game we figured fg could be worth 14 points (10 cards+7 base+mad man+3 shelters+5 ruins+9 other knights = 35. Getting to that level is basically impossible. Getting them to 6-8 though is pretty easy.

5- piles run out a lot in 4p...

6- best combo of the night: alter + rebuild. Alter turns anything into rebuild or duchy. Rebuilds turn your duchies and estate into provinces. Or they drive down the province pile. That game was over super fast.

7- rats ate a ton of fun, but man I did not play them well the first time...

8- feodom is a good card. Granted we played with hermit, squire, and bureaucrat, but it was pretty great. Since your support is silver, your deck is really resistant to the early greening. I think the pattern is (1) get cards that give silver, (2) buy feodoms while playing the cards that give silver, (3) after feodom is empty use all those silvers to buy duchies and provinces (and more silver). As fun as any of the alt vp cards.

9- procession is now my latest favorite card. So much fun- especially with this set. It's a bit like develop in that you need cards at the right price point, but it let's you have big turns and then upgrade your engine parts into better parts. Turns like:
Procession -> procession -> cultist (draw 7 cards, gain a hunting grounds), (cultist, draw two more) / procession -> squire (+2 actions/+2 buys/+2$, gain cultist, watchtower) / hunting grounds (draw 8 cards, gain duchy). Trash two processions, gain two cultists. Play some more cards, buy more processions and a ton more stuff.

10- squire is a great card. Second favorite 2-card combo: squire/peddler (it was mixed with procession but just those two are awesome). Necropolis, squire (+2 actions), squire x2 (+4 buys), pick up 5 peddlers. Also a good combo: squire, quarry. Basically +2 buys in some situations is obsene...


That's it for now.

Ed

113

Game Reports / Double Jack vs. Familiar+Goons

« on: August 19, 2012, 01:37:17 pm »

I just played a game and lost pretty badly.

Opponent went Familiar->Goons.

I thought Jack would counter both nicely and be pretty fast.

I was wrong. I got destroyed. the VP from Goons got him far enough ahead at the end that I couldn't buy the last province. And all the Duchies and curses were gone. I was forced to start picking up Goons on the hope I could get some VP on the next flow through my deck before he could empty the Estates or pick up the last Province.

After the game I put the two buy strategies through G's simulator. It looks like Double Jack KILLS Familiar/Goons (at least with the simple buy rules of combining the two optimized strategies already in there) 68-30.

My moral:
Before you try to take a lesson away from a game, make sure you check the simulators. I was pretty sure I was right at the start of the game, and pretty sure I had made a mistake by the end of the game. Turns out I just got really really unlucky after all.

(I didn't get the log in time. I can put it up tomorrow if people are interested)

Ed

114

Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Dominion Dark Ages, irl gaming in Seattle this Saturday

« on: August 18, 2012, 10:34:54 pm »

Thanks to Rhombus I will be receiving my copy of Dominion Dark Ages this week.

I'm getting a bunch of people together to play on Saturday. Between owning all the sets + base cards, I have enough cards to have three simultaneios games going. And I live in a condo with a very large public space (if it's nice we will be on the rooftop deck)

Plan is to play all day Saturday.

If anyone from this forum is in the Seattle area and wants to join, send me a PM and I can give you directions.

Looking forward to playing with these cards!

Ed

115

Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Dominion: Dark Ages, the book

« on: August 17, 2012, 03:56:07 pm »

Actually, Dark Ages: Dominion, the book

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0615373232/ref=redir_mdp_mobile

Was this you inspiration Donald?

Dark Age is an urban mythological trilogy about the future of mankind, where the super rich minority control the masses of super poor majority. The story begins in a vast decaying ghetto - known as The Slums, where the remnants of humanity try to survive. Gangs and Warlords rule over this chaotic dystopia where Information and technology is banned, punishable by death. ...The Slums surround a technologically advanced utopian city, known as The Corp. Within its well protected walls Corp leaders plot to destroy the Slums. They simply deem it's populace too unfit for the future age. Those in The Slums are clueless to The Corp's plans as they fight for survival in chaotic conditions. Only one man can truly reveal the plans of The Corp, a slum gangster named Zed, but he doesn't even know it... yet.

116

Dominion Isotropic / Dougz - I would like to send you money

« on: August 10, 2012, 04:14:36 pm »

Hey Doug-
Could you put up some sort if donation box on Iso that accepts credit cards (PayPal, square, something)

If you do I will send you some cash.

Isotropic is fantastic. Now that it's going away i'd love to donate something to you for your work.

I will likely be giving goko my money for a far inferior product. Only right I should give something to you.

Thanks again for building isotropic. Best free thing on the Internet since google.

Ed
Ps. Google: if you ate reading this I will not be making a donation to you. I think you are doing fine with the ads and the self driving cars and all that.

117

Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Dark Ages released on Amazon. Launch date listed

« on: August 10, 2012, 04:05:49 pm »

You can pre-order now. Release date is September 1st. With Prime that means you get it September 4th.

For people at Gen Con:
I would be happy to pay for the game + shipping + a margin for you if you buy it and send it to me. September 4th seems longer than I would like to wait. PM me...

Ed

118

Dominion General Discussion / When durations are better

« on: August 09, 2012, 08:15:51 pm »

Obviously duration cards are sometimes good and sometimes bad (like all things in Dominion)

But I've been thinking about another concept lately. Here's the idea:

Assuming no attackers on the board, when would you spend $3 on a lighthouse (over a silver) (Or if you didn't need actions - when Fishing Village over silver)

Even more extreme: When Merchant Ship over Gold?

We know that usually $2 over two turns is worse than $2 in one turn. Both because spikey money is (usually) better in Dominion, and because duration cards miss the shuffle a lot more than non-duration cards - meaning you get to play them less.

So what are the situations where you would RATHER have a card that spreads itself out?

Here's my theory (It still needs a lot of work, and likely some simulations - which is why it's here and not in articles):

"When you want cards that get out of the way."

I had a few games recently where I thought this made sense. Here's one:
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201208/09/game-20120809-164746-ed63e3cb.html

In that game I picked up Merchant Ships on $6+ instead of Gold. My thinking was, with an apothecary-engine I would rather have the card produce $4 (total) and stay out of the way on the second turn so I could still draw my deck (most/some of the time).

I've also used similar thinking to pick up Lighhouse over silver (even on $3) in Chapel Games - where I want the LH out of my hand so I can trash other things. I don't have logs for these ones unfortunately (maybe tomorrow I can find some).

Finally: I think there may be times in Colony games when you want LH instead of Silver. In these games you want to move 'past silver' as quickly as possible, and while LH provides less $s upfront, it gets out of the way more later.

Simulations:
I ran a basic simulation of "Just buy money" vs. "But Lighthouse instead of silver" and Money wins 66% of the time - so it's definitely not right as a basic precept.
I tried adding a card that likes to connect with other cards but isn't an attack - Baron. Now Baron-Silver beats Baron-LH but only by 51-43
Chapel: 50-46
Fool's Gold: 49-47
Then I tried Alchemist (who REALLY wants to connect with the potion) - LH finally wins 50-46

Maybe my thinking is off-base, but I think there is something here. Obviously LH is better when there are attacks on the board, and FV when you need actions. But I wonder if there is more to it in other situations.

Call it the "get out of the way" strategy.

Thoughts?

Ed

119

Game Reports / Piledrive Outposts

« on: August 08, 2012, 01:19:20 pm »

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201208/08/game-20120808-101615-f1cf0688.html

Also first time this happened:

ednever plays a University.
... getting +2 actions.
... there is nothing to gain

(And Vineyards worth more than Colonies)

Ed

120

Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Dark Ages Predictions, Day #2

« on: August 07, 2012, 10:59:08 am »

Branching off from yesterday's thread. Same rules apply. Post your prediction for the new cards based on first day. Ideally without reading other's commentary. Look back in 6 months and laugh at your folly.

My predictions:

Cultist:
Great card like almost all attack cards. It parallels witch, giving out ruins instead of curses. Ruins are (obviously?) not as bad as curses, most of the time. Which means he needs some other advantages (the same way Mountebank needs disadvantages since he gives out a copper as well). Of his two additional advantages:
(1) Chaining: Allows you to over-buy Cultist in a way you don't witch. It means those ruins will come out faster than curses
(2) Trashing benefit: You generally want to TFB your witch after the curses are done. Here you REALLY want to trash your cultuist - even with a normal trashier, not a TFB.
Result: You rush cultists off the top, especially if there is a trasher. Without a trasher you likely pick up three. With a trasher you likely keep going until the ruins are finished.

Feodum:
I love alt-VP. This is no different. With a facilitator I think it is massively powerful (I've run through the Silver pile with Trader before. Now it becomes a rush). How many Silvers are available all of a sudden takes on a whole new importance.
This will be in the same class as Vineyards (better than Silk Roads and Gardens and Fairgrounds) - since Silvers are pretty damn good all on their own.
Interesting that it conflicts with the cards that came out yesterday. Sage and Poor House really DON'T want Silver.....


Ed

121

Game Reports / How about a fun 4-card combo...

« on: July 27, 2012, 04:22:54 pm »

I didn't figure this one out until part way through the game:

Ironworks/Great Hall/Island (Know to all)

Then throw in Upgrade - after all the GHs and Islands are gone, you can upgrade your Ironworks into Duchies and end on piles.

I mistakenly over-committed to both Ironworks and Upgrades - but it paid off in the end...

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/27/game-20120727-132054-83cb60a5.html

Ed

122

Game Reports / Fool's Gold vs. Peddlers in Colony Game

« on: July 26, 2012, 07:07:52 pm »

This was a really interesting game: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/26/game-20120726-160117-78879b3e.html

I was playing NinjaBus (high ranking, somewhere in the high 40s)

There were two very different strategies on this board. Both very feasible and both usually so dominant that it's a rush to see who wins the 6/4 split.

Cards in supply:
Colony, Fool's Gold, Hoard, Lighthouse, Peddler, Platinum, Smithy, Stables, Treasury, Vault, Watchtower, and Worker's Village


Strategy #1 is Worker's Village + FG + Smithy later on. Get big hands of FGs with multiple buys. Likely some Platinum thrown in.

Strategy #2 is a draw your deck engine: Worker Village/Watchtower to start. Then Vault discards your hand and Watchtower picks it back up again. With the extra WV buys you draw down the Peddler pile. Even Stables helps by drawing up so Vault can discard. And on $2 you may as well pick up some Lighthouses as disappearing money.

The only thing the two strategies have in common is Worker's Villages, and the ability/desire to empty a pile (Fool's Gold and Peddlers respectively)

I think it's really unclear which strategy is dominant.

What do you think?

Ed

123

Variants and Fan Cards / My challenge #5 and #6 I didn't get in in time

« on: July 23, 2012, 01:41:53 pm »

Since I did the thinking already:

TFT card:

Mercantilism, $3
+1 card, +1 action
Trash a card in hand. Gain a card costing the same or less. Place the new card on hand.


Deck improver:

Peasant, $2
+1 action, +$1
You may discard an estate for +$1
Place a peasant from supply and put it on top of your deck
Setup: place 20 peasants in the supply


Sorry I was too slow for voting. Feel free to comment

I think both cards are ok on their own, and have some niche uses, but both shine with a number of different combos...

Ed

124

Dominion General Discussion / My conversation with Jay Tummelson (CEO RGG) at US Nationals

« on: July 18, 2012, 02:07:10 pm »

Rather than writing up a tournament report on US Nationals (By the time I sat down to do it it had pretty much been covered. I could talk about how I played specific games, but I'm not sure how interesting that really is), I thought I would share a little bit of, what was to me the highlight of the trip, my discussions with Jay Tummelson, the CEO of Rio Grand Games.

I used the time to ask him a ton of things about his business that I didn't know. Maybe some of this is common knowledge, but I've never seen it posted on these forums. So, here are some tidbits for your edification.

Rio Grand / Jay History
Jay began his career in traditional business. In 1995 he was ready to take a break and asked the owner of Mayfair Games if he could be involved somehow. The owner/CEO there said something along the lines of, "Can you ever!" and asked Jay to work for him full time as a Production Manager. By 1998 Mayfair was in trouble, and Jay left to found Rio Grand Games.

Rio Grand Structure
Rio Grand has two full-time employees: Jay and his wife. Everything else they contract out: from game design, to production, to art, to distribution. It's about as lean an organization as you could possibly have.

Rio Grand does no marketing (apart from supporting passionate players at places like GenCon where Jay will often buy meals for everyone in his rooms). He works on his own terms (Toy's R Us wanted him to sign their standard distribution agreement, and he declined. They wanted his product so bad that you will find his stuff in Toys R Us anyway - it goes through middle men who take the risk Jay refuses to)


Rio Grand International
Jay publishes in English and sells to distributors in the US. Internationally he has partners who do the same in the native language in that country. Most of Jay's games are distribution deals - i.e., someone else owns the original rights to the game, but Jay publishes and contracts with distributors in America. A few of his games he sourced himself. He owns the rights and let's others distribute them internationally - including Dominion and Race For the Galaxy.

These International Partners each make their own decisions when it comes to the Dominion World Championships. This is why some country National Champions are getting trips to GenCon and some are not - it all depends on the whims of the local partner.


How Rio Grand gets it's games
Jay gets many many proposals for games. He doesn't have time to handle it all (remember- it's just him and his wife). Donald asked him to publish Kingdom Builder. He turned it down - not because he didn't think it was good, just because he didn't have the capacity to do it (remember - they are just two people!).


Game Materials
We talked a little about material costs. First, he said, he tells his designers: "Design the best game. Don't worry about how to keep costs down." After the game is as good as possible, he works to find a way to make it work financially. Sometimes this is not possible (he gave details about a very cool unpublished game that will likely never be published because it can't be made economically), but usually it is.

As for what things in games are expensive, it surprised me:
1- Cards are expensive
2- Dice are the most expensive (he has a new dice-type game that sounds amazing: The die-building ecquivalent to the deck-building of Dominion. Very cool. You actually change the dice during the game!) 
3- Die cuts are very cheap (i.e., the tiles in Carcassone)

When they were making Prosperity the manufacturers wanted all the tokens to be die-cuts. Jay decided that Dominion was successful enough, and given that the theme of Prosperity was 'wealth', he wanted something different. The result was the cool metal tokens (more expensive for him to make than die cuts, but 'way cooler').


His thoughts on gaming
Jay has been a gamer for a long time. He enjoys tactical games rather than strategic ones (His examples: Puerto Rico is a tactical game where you need to make decisions every turn based on what your opponents did the last turn and you can't plan ahead very far. Agracola is a Strategic Game where you need to think about what you want to do 4-5 turns from now to inform your current turn).

He also likes Dominion a lot. I challenged him that I thought Dominion is the most strategic game I have ever played - you have to develop a completely new strategy every time a new kingdom is displayed. His counter-arguement: That may be true, but you can play it as a tactical game. Thinking about what you need on your next re-shuffle and enjoying the interactions.

He's the first to admit that he is not a strong Dominion player, but to him, that's not the point - the game is very enjoyable for people (like him) who ignore the strategic implications.

[Thought: This was eye-opening for me. Dominion may be the only game that appeals to people who love strategy more than anything else AND people who despise strategy more than anything else...]


His Thoughts on Tournaments
This has been mentioned here before, but I'll go into a little more detail. Basically he doesn't like tournaments at all.
His argument is that these games were designed to be fun. In tournaments the dynamic changes and people get very competitive. Inequities that don't matter in real life are front and center in tournament play (i.e., opening copper/estate split in Dominion)

He appreciates that people like tournaments, and so has created this Dominion series, but he will never love them. This is part of the reason that the Regional Events were not widely shared - he agreed to host the Nationals and the Worlds, but left it up to regional organizers to do the rest.

ACTION FOR THIS GROUP:
For Regional events to happen they need to be organized by someone. Jay is very happy to provide the resources for that. If this site had ~20 volunteers from the largest cities across the country there is no reason we could not have a great event series next year. Talk to a local game store to host. Talk to Jay to verify he will give your winner a spot at Nationals, and it will happen. In fact one of the participants at the Nationals got a local store to run the Regionals and he even participated (and then won).


Dominion 2013
He's not 100% sure there will be a Nationals/World's next year, but my guess is there will be. If so he will find a way to communicate the regional events better (maybe a page on the Rio Grands website).

At the Nationals themselves, the structure is in flux, but some things are very likely:
1- All 3-player games
2- All designed Kingdoms - likely by Donald X himself (this year it was random - an experiment he is not likely to repeat)


Funsockets and Online Dominion
I asked him how he selected FunSockets. He said that people have been coming to him for years asking to develop an online Dominion game. He did not like any of the proposals. Two examples of why:

1- The wanted to make it platform-specific. They would slowly roll out platforms over time. Jay is not a technology guy, so he didn't have counter proposals, but he didn't like the idea. FunSockets came to him with HTML5 - playform agnostic. It's what sold him (even though he hadn't heard of HTML5 before)

2- DominionSocal. Imagine if you played Dominion, but if you did well, or payed extra money you could get to draw an extra card every few turns. Or the ability to see your opponents hand. Or decide your starting hand. Or get a free silver in your deck. Or many more things. All you have to do is pay a small fee... (this is the Zynga Farmville/CityVille/etc model). They told him, "This is how you make money with games online."  He said this is not how he was going to make money with Dominion - because it wouldn't be Dominion anymore.

He's not entirely sure how Funsockets will work (he said he's leaving the money-making up to them), but here's what he thinks will happen:
1- Anyone can go on and play with a random set of Base Cards (not all 25 - likely closer to 15)
2- You can pay money to have more cards in your 'virtual locker' You can likely buy 1/2 sets at a time
3- When you play in a game all of your locker cards and the cards of the person you play with, are available to be used (just like in real life)
4- You can play games against the AI - again, only with your own cards
5- (This is a cool feature!) If you are playing against someone and they drop off for whatever reason, the AI will take over. They will have lots of AIs of different ability levels and they will try to ensure an AI of comparable level takes over from the person (the AI may not have the same style, but will be the same level of ability)

Isotropic and Funsockets and Donald X
Jay tells me that he thinks (he’s never asked) that Donald and Doug knew each other before he met Donald and that isotropic was used for testing cards before it was used for public playing. He also said he thinks Doug is working with Funsockets now to help with the coding of the site.
I’m sure Donald and Doug, if they read this, could provide way more color than Jay did. But if true, it’s nice to know that Doug is helping Funsockets if nothing else!



If you have any questions that this little interview didn’t cover, let me know. I may or may not know the answer, but it’s possible I just missed including something Jay shared.

Ed

125

Game Reports / If you think Workshop/Gardens is fast...

« on: July 16, 2012, 08:59:36 pm »

...Try adding Talisman.

Over in 11 turns, with 40+ cards in the deck:
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/16/game-20120716-175454-073bae9c.html

I would love to know the optimal way to play this. Tons of fun.

Turns like this:
— ednever's turn 11 —
ednever plays a Talisman.
ednever plays a Talisman.
ednever plays a Talisman.
ednever plays a Talisman.
ednever buys a Workshop.
... gaining another Workshop.
... gaining another Workshop.
... gaining another Workshop.
(ednever draws: 3 Coppers, an Estate, and a Workshop.)

Or even this:
— ednever's turn 6 —
ednever plays a Talisman.
ednever plays a Talisman.
ednever plays 3 Coppers.
ednever buys a Talisman.
... gaining another Talisman.
... gaining another Talisman.
(ednever draws: 2 Talismans, an Estate, and 2 Workshops.)

Fun times...

(There was a Herbalist/PStone combo here too, but the piles were going way way too fast)

Ed