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[LastFootnote]

I just wanted to reply to this thread to give my perspective.

I just wanted to share my progress.  I have been playing the Adventures for about four months now, since joining Goko, in an effort to beat them all, claim all the promos, and finish each level of each "territory".  I'm a bit of a completist, I guess you could say.

In the last four months I have advanced through the adventures in:

Base Set 1, 2, 3
Intrigue 1, 2, 3
Seaside 1, 2, 3
Alchemy 1
Prosperity 1 (working on 2)

I have managed this solely by spending the coins I collect from playing and winning games on zaps.  I do not spend zaps to raise my hand above what a normal Dominion hand should be, nor do I zap my opponents below what a normal Dominion hand is supposed to be.  Although, in annoying cases where I get stuck with four Estates, which has become more and more common in Acts 2 and 3 of each territory, since I cannot zap the fourth Estate into a Copper and get rid of the disadvantage that places me in, I do zap two of my remaining six Coppers to Silvers.

I typically buy the zaps 10 at a time, for 70 coins, because the rewards for buying Zaps in higher bulk amounts are negligible (something like three extra zaps for waiting five times as long).  When I do not have 70 coins to buy 10 Zaps, I go to play Multiplayer or Play Bots until I earn 70 coins, which I promptly spend on 10 zaps and return to Adventures.  Aside from these games, I do not Venture away from Adventures. (pun intended)

In four months I have played 1,082 games of Dominion and amassed a record of 592-466-24 (.558), I have earned exactly one promo card, and am about to earn a second one.

My response to this is that I'm aggravated that it has taken this much effort to make progress this slowly, but not so aggravated that I refuse to stop in my mission.  However, while I am willing to grind this out, day by day, and eventually earn the promos, I can imagine that a vast majority of players would not be up for this task.

One last thing.  The completist that I am, I am also really peeved, after the amount of effort I've put in and plan on putting in, that I'm not going to be able to get Walled Village without paying for it, since I did not link this account to Google upon starting it.

I'm not trying to make any arguments with this post, only give some perspective to the community.

http://forum.makingfun.com/showthread.php?4199-Wait-on-playing-these-that-s-my-advice

[DylanAM]

So... why not spend more of your time playing multiplayer, earn a ton of coins from that, then get the huge discount on zaps and run through the adventures really, really fast?

The adventures are currently so unbalanced that you might as well just overdo it.  But playing against real people, which is more fun, gets you more coins.  Actually, I'm pretty sure playing against bots gets you more coins too.

For two reasons.

1) I don't like playing Multiplayer if I don't have to.  I try to avoid them unless I'm playing someone I'm meeting that I know in real life.  I don't really have any interest in playing unknown folks, especially where there's a chance they'll leave the game early, which sucks win or lose.  I also like playing the AI because it's tough enough that it improves my play without beating me constantly (I have a 55% win rate).  I'd rather play the Adventures, then the bots, then a real player.

2) The bonus in Zaps is pretty negligible, like I said.  10 for 70 coins, done 5x, gets me 50 zaps.  The next biggest zap container gets me 53 for 350 coins, which only nets me 3 zaps and which makes me wait 5 times longer. 

Even the highest Zap reward, the Flask, awards a mere 500 for 2800 coins.  I would normally buy 400 zaps at that rate, getting them 10 at a time.  That's a 100 zap difference, but I would have to wait to resume playing Adventures for 40 times longer.  2800 coins at a 55% win percentage is a long time to have to be away from Adventures, whereas buying them 10 at a time lets me jump right back into Adventures.  For someone who would rather avoid multiplayer, even though it gives you 15 coins for a win instead of 10, a mere 100 zaps is not worth that.

[DylanAM]

http://forum.makingfun.com/showthread.php?4199-Wait-on-playing-these-that-s-my-advice

LastFootnote, thank you for that reference.  I'm halfway down that path by this point, though.  Might as well keep going.  There's something happy about a long grind, even though it's a tough grind.  It's a project, something to work on and something to enjoy the payoff when it's finished.

[Holger]

I just wanted to reply to this thread to give my perspective.

I just wanted to share my progress.  I have been playing the Adventures for about four months now, since joining Goko, in an effort to beat them all, claim all the promos, and finish each level of each "territory".  I'm a bit of a completist, I guess you could say.

In the last four months I have advanced through the adventures in:

Base Set 1, 2, 3
Intrigue 1, 2, 3
Seaside 1, 2, 3
Alchemy 1
Prosperity 1 (working on 2)

I have managed this solely by spending the coins I collect from playing and winning games on zaps.  I do not spend zaps to raise my hand above what a normal Dominion hand should be, nor do I zap my opponents below what a normal Dominion hand is supposed to be.  Although, in annoying cases where I get stuck with four Estates, which has become more and more common in Acts 2 and 3 of each territory, since I cannot zap the fourth Estate into a Copper and get rid of the disadvantage that places me in, I do zap two of my remaining six Coppers to Silvers.

I typically buy the zaps 10 at a time, for 70 coins, because the rewards for buying Zaps in higher bulk amounts are negligible (something like three extra zaps for waiting five times as long).  When I do not have 70 coins to buy 10 Zaps, I go to play Multiplayer or Play Bots until I earn 70 coins, which I promptly spend on 10 zaps and return to Adventures.  Aside from these games, I do not Venture away from Adventures. (pun intended)

In four months I have played 1,082 games of Dominion and amassed a record of 592-466-24 (.558), I have earned exactly one promo card, and am about to earn a second one.

My response to this is that I'm aggravated that it has taken this much effort to make progress this slowly, but not so aggravated that I refuse to stop in my mission.  However, while I am willing to grind this out, day by day, and eventually earn the promos, I can imagine that a vast majority of players would not be up for this task.

One last thing.  The completist that I am, I am also really peeved, after the amount of effort I've put in and plan on putting in, that I'm not going to be able to get Walled Village without paying for it, since I did not link this account to Google upon starting it.

I'm not trying to make any arguments with this post, only give some perspective to the community.

Do you recall how many zaps you used for each act/expansion, approximately? It would be interesting to have a guideline how many zaps one needs to use for a reasonable challenge. I try not to zap bots down all the way to equal starting hands unless I have to; I played the Base, Dark Ages, Alchemy and Cornucopia adventures using only about 5-10 (non-free) zaps per expansion. I'm now working on Hinterlands, which I expect to take >100 zaps; Act 2 is already insane. I haven't tried Intrigue or Prosperity yet...

Is it possible to buy Walled Village? I thought you couldn't get it at all without a goggle account.

http://forum.makingfun.com/showthread.php?4199-Wait-on-playing-these-that-s-my-advice

Unfortunately, the waiting time might be infinitely long given past experience with Goko; nothing has changed since Donald requested his "quick fix" more than a month ago, and other users requested similar changes more than a year ago.

[silverspawn]

Do you recall how many zaps you used for each act/expansion, approximately? It would be interesting to have a guideline how many zaps one needs to use for a reasonable challenge. I try not to zap bots down all the way to equal starting hands unless I have to; I played the Base, Dark Ages, Alchemy and Cornucopia adventures using only about 5-10 (non-free) zaps per expansion. I'm now working on Hinterlands, which I expect to take >100 zaps; Act 2 is already insane. I haven't tried Intrigue or Prosperity yet...

how... many zaps? i always zap everything, start with 7 silver and buy provinces. it takes long enough that way, i can't even imagine doing it with equal hands. what a gigantic waste of time.

e: well, that is, unless you enjoy playing against bots...

[dondon151]

You might need a better imagination.

[silverspawn]

i guess. it's just that i find it so much more fun to play against people than bots, and pretty much everyone i know does too. and it's not like you can finish adventure mode in a few hours, it's sooooooo tedious. even if you zap everything and play with autopilot, it takes forver.

don't want to spoil the fun for anyone though, if you do enjoy the adventures, go ahead.

[Awaclus]

You might need a better imagination.

Who?

[Beyond Awesome]

I must admit that my strategy was pretty much to zap everything, and like SilverSpawn has stated, that was still tedious and took FOREVER to get just 3 promos. Obviously, I bought the other two.

[Holger]

i guess. it's just that i find it so much more fun to play against people than bots, and pretty much everyone i know does too. and it's not like you can finish adventure mode in a few hours, it's sooooooo tedious. even if you zap everything and play with autopilot, it takes forver.

don't want to spoil the fun for anyone though,  if you do enjoy the adventures, go ahead.

Obviously Dylan does enjoy them, and I rather like them too (at least those that don't take dozens of zaps to be playable; and of course they could be much better).
For me, it would actually be a "gigantic waste of time" to "zap everything and play with autopilot" hundreds of games just to get three promo cards. But everyone to his taste...

[silverspawn]

i guess. it's just that i find it so much more fun to play against people than bots, and pretty much everyone i know does too. and it's not like you can finish adventure mode in a few hours, it's sooooooo tedious. even if you zap everything and play with autopilot, it takes forver.

don't want to spoil the fun for anyone though,  if you do enjoy the adventures, go ahead.

Then why did you make your above post, just for calling them "a gigantic waste of time"?  Obviously Dylan does enjoy them, and I like them too (at least those that don't take dozens of zaps to be playable;  of course they could be much better).
For me, it would actually be a waste of time to "zap everything and play with autopilot" hundreds of games just to get three promo cards. But everyone to his taste...

alright, sorry. i was just so shocked that someone would do that... it just came out... in fact I still am... all that precious time </3

[Holger]

i guess. it's just that i find it so much more fun to play against people than bots, and pretty much everyone i know does too. and it's not like you can finish adventure mode in a few hours, it's sooooooo tedious. even if you zap everything and play with autopilot, it takes forver.

don't want to spoil the fun for anyone though,  if you do enjoy the adventures, go ahead.

Then why did you make your above post, just for calling them "a gigantic waste of time"?  Obviously Dylan does enjoy them, and I like them too (at least those that don't take dozens of zaps to be playable;  of course they could be much better).
For me, it would actually be a waste of time to "zap everything and play with autopilot" hundreds of games just to get three promo cards. But everyone to his taste...

alright, sorry. i was just so shocked that someone would do that... it just came out... in fact I still am... all that precious time </3

It's alright; I was already removing the rhetorical question, didn't want to make this personal...

[DylanAM]

i guess. it's just that i find it so much more fun to play against people than bots, and pretty much everyone i know does too. and it's not like you can finish adventure mode in a few hours, it's sooooooo tedious. even if you zap everything and play with autopilot, it takes forver.

don't want to spoil the fun for anyone though, if you do enjoy the adventures, go ahead.

I respect that opinion, but like I said, I would rather play Adventures > Play Bots > Multiplayer and avoid human opponents whenever possible.  The AI games are better contested.  Human players are apt to either destroy me or be destroyed by me, whereas my 55.8 win% has shown me that the AI has a strength comparable to mine, or ever so slightly lower.  The AI also plays consistently quickly, unlike players who sometimes play slowly or even drop out/resign unfinished games. 

A player resigning a game frustrates me a lot more than something I know is going to be a long project, something where even though I may be armed with a rockhammer to chip through a solid rock wall, I have the comfort of knowing that inevitability is on my side, and that I have just given myself something to fill my time with over the next few months..

And real-life Dominion with real people I know and like >>>>>>>>> Adventures in the first place. 

[Awaclus]

I respect that opinion, but like I said, I would rather play Adventures > Play Bots > Multiplayer and avoid human opponents whenever possible.  The AI games are better contested.  Human players are apt to either destroy me or be destroyed by me, whereas my 55.8 win% has shown me that the AI has a strength comparable to mine, or ever so slightly lower.  The AI also plays consistently quickly, unlike players who sometimes play slowly or even drop out/resign unfinished games.

I assume that your rating is relatively low right now. That means that a human player with a rating close to yours could be a clueless noob who has just gotten lucky a couple of times or a very good player who just hasn't played enough games to reach a higher rating. As you get better in Dominion, the amount of clueless noobs at your level will decrease, as will decrease the amount of players who are a lot better than their rating suggests, so that problem isn't really a problem if your rating is, say, 5500 and you only play against human opponents with a rating of 5500 too. And better players play very quickly too (though, they often spend more time analyzing the kingdom at the beginning of the game), and are less likely to resign games.

And a good way of getting better at Dominion is playing against human opponents who are better than you.

[shark_bait]

@DylanAM  I offer you a challenge.  Look through your last week of play at the druken sailor site and record your record vs. bots.  Then go play with humans for a week.  After your week of player vs. player go back and play bots again.  I am willing to bet that your record vs. the bots will have increased significantly. 

The bots are good at playing BM strategies but when it comes to innovative winning strategies, the bots will fall short.  By seeing other players beat you you will gain a much greater insight into the game of dominion.

And also, IRL Dominion is by far the best. 

I'm Wishing Well your Venture into the Cornucopia of Dominion. 

[DylanAM]

Well, I've been playing Dominion habitually (and improving at it) since Seaside released.  I put a lot of time into Isotropic, which provided a lot of strong human opponents, and my Goko rating is currently a 3706.  I even had the pretty unique fortune of playing the #1 player on the ladder at the time, Obi Wan Bonogi, and getting smashed by KC-KC-Possessions.  Nine of my turns taken by him later, the slaughter was hilariously over.

So while I have a ways to go, I've been around the block.  My objective isn't to become the best Dominion player I can be, as quickly as possible, though.  Don't take my slog as a complaint, I'm enjoying the time I'm putting in.

That was the point of my report, to provide a passionless control to the experiment, for others' comparison.  For people to see what a default run through the Adventures slog would be like, and to give stats for my run.  I'm probably one of the few people that doesn't see it as a drag.

Nevertheless, I appreciate the advice, guys - I know you don't mean to be condescending.

[flies]

So while I have a ways to go, I've been around the block.  My objective isn't to become the best Dominion player I can be, as quickly as possible, though.

I think most people on this board are here because they don't share this perspective, myself included, but I totally get this.  Games are supposed to be fun, and you know best what's fun for you.  I could tell you why what you're doing wouldn't be the most fun for me; i mean, I might imagine that my fun is somehow "deeper" than yours and so justify an atttempt to convince you to change your ways, but that would be a pretty pompous attitude for me to take, and I think it's bullshit anyhow.  Enjoy the game however you want.

[pingpongsam]

I think the nearly incomprehensible message coming from DylanAM is that Dominion is only enjoyable to him in that special way only obtained via Goko.

[GeoLib]

I think the nearly incomprehensible message coming from DylanAM is that Dominion is only enjoyable to him in that special way only obtained via Goko.

That seems rude.... and not true. He specifically said that he prefers playing IRL. It seems to me that he hasn't had a great experience playing real people online. Personally, I much prefer real players, but to each his own.

[ashersky]

I even had the pretty unique fortune of playing the #1 player on the ladder at the time, Obi Wan Bonogi, and getting smashed by KC-KC-Possessions.  Nine of my turns taken by him later, the slaughter was hilariously over.

I think I know why you don't like playing strangers on the Internet.

[pingpongsam]

I think the nearly incomprehensible message coming from DylanAM is that Dominion is only enjoyable to him in that special way only obtained via Goko.

That seems rude.... and not true. He specifically said that he prefers playing IRL. It seems to me that he hasn't had a great experience playing real people online. Personally, I much prefer real players, but to each his own.

Weird, I remember him specifically stating he didn't play IRL at all. If what you say is true then I retract my statement.

[Witherweaver]

I actually play bots almost exclusively.. though the main reason is that I just want to get some (really) quick games in if I get bored at work, or have a few minutes of spare time here and there.  I also like the (concept of the) adventures, because they are specifically designed kingdoms that are made to see the interactions of certain strategies.  I just want to play balanced versions of them (without the dumb zap things).

[DylanAM]

Weird, I remember him specifically stating he didn't play IRL at all. If what you say is true then I retract my statement.

It is weird how you remember that, considering it was crystal clear five posts before you expressed your charming opinion.

[pingpongsam]

Right, I missed the hyperbolic greater than expression at the end and apparently too broadly interpreted the bit at the beginning where you stated, "avoid human opponents whenever possible".

[Awaclus]

Previously, I couldn't log in from the Mac computers at school. Now I was depressed enough to try it out again and it actually works!