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[LordGoon]

Just wondering if anyone has any opinions on the best expansions for Dominion tournaments.

Essentially, the problem is this: due to costs and logistics of transporting expansions, only two sets can be used for our tournament. We're going to use the Base set, but which set to match it with? The tournament is made up of five rounds of 4 player games, followed by a 4 player final. A kingdom is randomly selected for each round, and all tables have the same kingdom.

The two main sets I'm debating between are Intrigue and Prosperity.

Intrigue - because it's the other set that players are most likely to own and feel comfortable with. It also has a great set of cards that are interesting, but don't necessarily dominate games. It's a set that very few people "hate"... but then again, not that many will list it as their favourite either.

Prosperity - because it's leagues different to the Base set. By mixing up Base and Prosperity games you can be assured of some BM and some Engine games. Also, by having some games with Colonies, then you'll have some longer games. It will also make sure players have to adjust their strategies during the day.

I guess the biggest question is really this: If you were considering registering for the tournament, would seeing that it was Base-Intrigue or Base-Prosperity impact your decision to take part? In what way?

[serakfalcon]

Personally I find Prosperity to be more interesting, (or even Prosperity/Intrigue) though if you can take two sets you can probably make a modified storage solution that could fit all of them in.

On another note, to make the logistics easier, you could make the kingdoms random but select them in advance so that the cards don't overlap too much, and have the 5 rounds rotate through the kingdoms, which would reduce the cards needed (if you're doing a round-robin type thing)

[Davio]

Base - Prosperity is definitely more fun!

The cards aren't that much harder to understand, but they open up a lot of other strategies.
Colonies and Platinums make engines more viable (there's more time to come back as there are more points available), VP tokens make for strategies of their own (Goons and Bishop mostly, Monument a bit) and King's Court makes everything craaaazy!!

And then you have your other fun cards like City and Grand Market and your attack cards Mountebank and Rabble.

[LuciferousPeridot]

I know you say base as one of the sets, but I have found random from Intrigue + Dark Ages to consistently create interesting kingdoms. I play with co workers every week and rotate the sets now and again. The Intrigue + Dark Ages combination has stayed for a couple of months now.

[silverspawn]

intr + dark ages. if you insist on base set, base + dark ages. if you insist on one of the 2 options, base+prosperity.

but even that cant save the broken nature of 4 player games.

[Davio]

I find that with real life play 3 is the perfect number.

There is a bit more interaction than with 2, but not a pure Province sprint as with 4.

[Beyond Awesome]

Prosperity and something else will most likely work best for a 4-player tournament. I am not sure what expansion to best combo it with, maybe Hinterlands.

[BraveBear]

Seaside + Dark Ages!

Durations, insane trashing, engine and big money strats what more can you ask for!

[heron]

Don't forget that you can actually use all expansions pretty easily, if you buy 1 of each expansion and 17 packs of the base cards you can play 19 games with all expansions.

[LastFootnote]

Don't forget that you can actually use all expansions pretty easily, if you buy 1 of each expansion and 17 packs of the base cards you can play 19 games with all expansions.

A kingdom is randomly selected for each round, and all tables have the same kingdom.

[LordGoon]

Thanks for the thoughts.

Of the two sets mentioned, it sounds like Prosperity is the more popular choice (that was my thinking too), so we'll probably go with that.

I did consider Dark Ages. Personally, Base + Prosperity + Dark Ages I think would give the most interesting tournament with three sets. Unfortunately, when considering only two sets, I had to take into account that Dark Ages can be quite complicated for less experienced players and I think a more accessible tournament would be better.

Also, as a personal choice, I would prefer 3 player matches in real life too. Unfortunately, the tournament director is adamant that it's four players because it's more social. He has a point, but yeah, it does make the games go very fast... Potentially even detracting from the social element!

serakfalcon: I like the idea of pre-selecting the kingdoms. That would certainly help with the amount of cards to lug around and also maybe the speed of play on the day.

[Awaclus]

Thanks for the thoughts.

Of the two sets mentioned, it sounds like Prosperity is the more popular choice (that was my thinking too), so we'll probably go with that.

I did consider Dark Ages. Personally, Base + Prosperity + Dark Ages I think would give the most interesting tournament with three sets. Unfortunately, when considering only two sets, I had to take into account that Dark Ages can be quite complicated for less experienced players and I think a more accessible tournament would be better.

Also, as a personal choice, I would prefer 3 player matches in real life too. Unfortunately, the tournament director is adamant that it's four players because it's more social. He has a point, but yeah, it does make the games go very fast... Potentially even detracting from the social element!

serakfalcon: I like the idea of pre-selecting the kingdoms. That would certainly help with the amount of cards to lug around and also maybe the speed of play on the day.

Dark Ages isn't too difficult. There's more text to read, and the strategies and tactics can get more complicated, but I would assume that everyone can read and that less experienced players will play suboptimally regardless of the sets you use.

[JW]

Do you need all of the players to play the same kingdom at the same time? What if the players just all end up playing the same kingdoms over the course of the day?

If you can relax that constraint, you could buy fewer sets for the number of games played.

Inspired by duplicate bridge: each table has its own kingdom.

Number the tables 1... N. At each starting table two players are "increase" and two players are "decrease."  The "increase" players go to the table with number 1 higher at the end of each round, and the "decrease" players go to the table with number 1 lower.

Downside: each player will play with one other person the same each round. To the extent that you're willing to have different players play different kingdoms, you can easily reset in the second half of the day to different starting groups and different starting kingdoms.

Upside: you no longer need a copy of Base + a copy of Prosperity for each table. You only need a copy of the base cards for each table. This also lets you mix more sets together as you don't have to be able to make each kingdom multiple times at once.

[KingZog3]

I find that with real life play 3 is the perfect number.

There is a bit more interaction than with 2, but not a pure Province sprint as with 4.

I totally agree with this. 3 players opens up new dynamics with choosing strategy based on what other people are doing, and the increased VP piles changes the strength of rushes and slogs. It's pretty cool. The only thing that is worse are cards like Possession, Tribute, and Contraband, since they only affect 1 player, not the other. Contraband is really bad, because skill of the 3rd player matters so much.

[shark_bait]

In the couple of tournaments I've gone to rather than have the same kingdom for each round there were a set number of tables each with its own selected kingdom.  Players were then moved between tables such that they never played the same kingdom twice. 

[Beyond Awesome]

In the couple of tournaments I've gone to rather than have the same kingdom for each round there were a set number of tables each with its own selected kingdom.  Players were then moved between tables such that they never played the same kingdom twice.

I think this is probably the best thing to do. It's also a better monetary investment because you aren't buying duplicates of the same expansion over and over.