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[DaveColMD]

I'm beginning to not like these 2nd editions. The trend seems to be removing attack cards. While this may appeal to more casual players to make the game "friendlier", it removes some of the challenge of more experienced players of how to effectively counter attacks with the given kingdom.

I also believe it's going to turn more games into money chases where big money rules. Boring stuff meaning whoever gets luckiest with money, wins. There needs to be ways to counter big money, and attacks were a key way to do that by slowing them down by making them discard cards or junking up their hand, giving you a chance to get an engine going.

I speak from experience here. I regularly play 4 person games and 2 of them like to start greening as soon as they get $8 or $11(colonies). With 2 people doing that it is very difficult to get an engine going with nothing to slow them down.

In these 2nd editions, 3 very effective attack cards were removed Ghost Ship (seaside), Montebank(prosperity), and Goons(prosperity).
Goons was especially good because not only did it slow them down, but it gave an extra buy and VPs as well. So losing Goons is a triple whammy.

[Awaclus]

I speak from experience here. I regularly play 4 person games and 2 of them like to start greening as soon as they get $8 or $11(colonies). With 2 people doing that it is very difficult to get an engine going with nothing to slow them down.

The obvious solution here is to play 2p games instead.

[spineflu]

Nothing is stopping you from using those cards in your own games, whether that's paper/irl, the TGG client, or the ShuffleIT client.

[Cuzz]

Nothing is stopping you from using those cards in your own games, whether that's paper/irl, the TGG client, or the ShuffleIT client.

Coppersmith is on ShuffleIT?

[spineflu]

Nothing is stopping you from using those cards in your own games, whether that's paper/irl, the TGG client, or the ShuffleIT client.

Coppersmith is on ShuffleIT?

OP's talking about Seaside + Prosperity 2E, friend. but Coppersmith is on TGG.

[DaveColMD]

On ShuffleIT there is a new "set" under "Select Kingdom Cards". It is "Deprecated Cards" on the far right. It has the 17 cards removed from Seaside and Prosperity. It does not have the old V1 cards from Base and Intrigue.

[csa]

I think your concern is exactly misplaced.

1. Ghost Ship, Mountebank, Ambassador, and Sea Hag (to a lesser extent) were removed because they were oppressive attacks that didn't let anyone see their deck, regardless of strategy. But their variable effect was to punish engines much harder than Big Money. Smithy Big Money can more than eat the flood of Coppers from Mountebank and Ambassador, for instance, but a Smithy-Village engine will quickly choke.

2. The second editions added attacks that still bite hard, just not so much that it forces the game into an unavoidable slog for everyone. Sea Witch, for instance, is about on par with Witch as an attacker--no one's idea of a weak attack. And Corsair might be the strongest attack published for hurting Big Money. It's not that effective against an engine player who has better payload than Gold, but a Corsair in play every turn will crush basically any BM+X strategy around.

3. Goons is the exception here as a strong payload card for engines, but the attack was not the reason Goons was strong. And in it's place, Collection rewards engine builders more heavily, so I'm not sure what was lost other than the mistaken assumption that Goons was an expensive Militia with some extra text at the bottom.

[Commodore Chuckles]

I don't think removing Attacks appeals to casual players. I get the impression that casual players are the ones who like Attacks the most, while more serious players are more likely to dislike cards that can destroy their carefully built engines.

[Imrahil3]

Definitely agree it’s the competitive crowd who doesn’t like attacks. From my experience, I don’t think the idea of “not seeing your deck” that was a strike against Ambassador and Ghost Ship could really carry much weight with casuals who never draw their deck anyways. My friends definitely get frustrated when they draw two curses and an estate for their next hand, but they weren’t going to do much more than play two horses and a Workshop anyways, so it’s not hampering them nearly as much as someone who would’ve drawn deck otherwise.

It would make sense that casuals complain about attack more often in the sense that competitive players are more likely to be able to deal with the attacks well, but it is definitely the competitive players who complain about slow games. The casuals play slow games by default.

Source: am a casual, play with super-casuals, bummed about the attacks leaving.

[LastFootnote]

Definitely agree it’s the competitive crowd who doesn’t like attacks. From my experience, I don’t think the idea of “not seeing your deck” that was a strike against Ambassador and Ghost Ship could really carry much weight with casuals who never draw their deck anyways. My friends definitely get frustrated when they draw two curses and an estate for their next hand, but they weren’t going to do much more than play two horses and a Workshop anyways, so it’s not hampering them nearly as much as someone who would’ve drawn deck otherwise.

It would make sense that casuals complain about attack more often in the sense that competitive players are more likely to be able to deal with the attacks well, but it is definitely the competitive players who complain about slow games. The casuals play slow games by default.

Source: am a casual, play with super-casuals, bummed about the attacks leaving.

Your assertions about competitive players don't ring true to me. Also, "casual players" are far from a monolithic bloc.

Expert players are much better at playing around harsh Attacks. They're less affected by them. And I'm surprised at how easily you brush off your friends' frustration. That's exactly what these changes are trying to fix. Being frustrated like that sucks!

[Imrahil3]

Thank you for catching me, I definitely over-generalized.

I don’t know, though, it seems to me that the majority of the laments over the lost cards are coming from more casual players. Most of the complaints beyond “I’ll miss the card” seem to consist of “It (Pirate Ship) was a strong card!” or “It was more fun than (the replacement card),” and the people offering rebuttals clearly have a better understanding of the game. Even here, the first response on this thread is a veteran player snarkily telling someone not to play with more than 2p.

I should’ve phrased my friends’ experience differently: they weren’t at the point of “Gosh this game sucks,” more of a “jokingly-frustrated.” (I rarely instigate attacking - it’s no fun to have the resident Dominion guy pound you into the dirt on your second game). They just accept that Attacks are part of the game. And because they aren’t building thin engines the attacks don’t have a lot of room to really make their hands worse; a player who drew Copper x2, Curse x2, Estate would have otherwise drawn Copper, Workshop x3, Estate. Witches probably hit harder than Mountebanks because they weren’t bummed about having 7 Copper in their deck anyways and it’s probably best they get the extra Coppers to space out their over-terminated decks a little more.

[Awaclus]

From my experience, I don’t think the idea of “not seeing your deck” that was a strike against Ambassador and Ghost Ship could really carry much weight with casuals who never draw their deck anyways.

That's exactly the reason why it carries much weight with casuals. If you buy a Silver and it takes 8 turns before you get to see that Silver because your deck is full of junk and you only get to see three new cards every turn, and then it takes another 8 turns before you get to see it a second time, it feels like you are making hardly any progress at all (and the feeling isn't entirely inaccurate either), which is the casual player experience with Ambassador and Ghost Ship. Expert players can still generally draw their deck every turn despite Ghost Ship and Ambassador, so it's not that bad.

[Holger]

I expect many casual players don't even get the idea to open double Ambassador to aggressively get rid of your starting cards, because they tend to underestimate deck-thinning.

And not making any progress can easily happen with remaining cursers like Witch - I hate to remember my base-only 4 player games where everyone bought a Witch or two early. A friend of mine accidentally played 2 player games with all 30 curses in the pile (!), and didn't mind it much.

From my own casual plays with friends, Contraband was quite popular with them, even though they unintentionally made it even weaker by playing it after their other treasures...
The replacement sounds better for "good" players, but for casual players the original might be more fun IMO. It feels more interactive than many attacks to be able to prevent an opponent from buying a Province (or a Gold or a cheaper card), without knowing which card they want or can afford..

[Imrahil3]

I’m not arguing that competitive players have it worse objectively, I’m arguing that they have it worse relative to what they want out of a Dominion game.

I also want to clarify I’m specifically thinking of casual vs casual games or competitive vs competitive, not “cross-bracket.” Nobody thinks it’s fun to play one Workshop per turn while your opponent hands you the Copper pile with 5 Ambassador plays per turn and buying three Provinces at a time.

Competitive players are better at dealing with attacks but also have their game expectation impacted more. A player who wanted a deck-drawing engine and ended up with a Mountebank slog is much more disappointed than the player who bought nothing but Silver, Estates and Gardens and ended up in a Mountebank slog.

Casual players who buy Silver and have to wait 8 turns to play it are definitely confused and a little frustrated, but someone who plays like that will put themselves in that position whether they are being attacked or not because they don’t thin their decks and they over-terminal.

The casual players get hit harder by attacks, definitely, but it’s the competitive players who have the game “spoiled” for them. Mountebank turns a competitive engine board into a competitive slog board. Mountebank turns a casual slog board into a casual slog board with curses.

[LastFootnote]

Even here, the first response on this thread is a veteran player snarkily telling someone not to play with more than 2p.

Awaclus is a prolific jerk. There's not much the rest of us can do about that, sadly.

[grrgrrgrr]

As good as Dominion is, it has two major weaknesses:
a) It is pretty bad at scaling with the amount of players.
b) This weakness is especially true when Attacks are involved.

The casual crowd rarely plays with two players, but with 3-4 players. Meanwhile, the core crowd plays the vast majority of times with 2 players.

Another thing is that simple minded people get triggered when something is removed, no matter how good the replacements are.

[Aureustgo]

Echoing the point of casual vs. competitive players.

I think whether competitive players handle attacks better or not seems irrelevant. The point that matters is whether or not they want them. If they don't want them, and it is seems the push to remove them is coming from the competitive community, then it must mean there's some other aspect to attacks that obviates that consideration.

I can think of a few:

1. While it is true competitive players build engines that can handle attacks better, the disruption of an engine (however great) seems to upset the perfectionist mind more than a social one;

2. Competitive players seem to dislike a slog or big money approach to the game, which may feel more simple or luck oriented;

3. Related to (2), competitive players seem to want to play lots of games (accumulating wins, moving up and down ladders, and all that). Casual players often just want to hang out. Attacks delay completing games, generally speaking;

4. Competitive (or at least, online) players don't seem to game for the interactive element. While Dominion does have player interaction, it can very easily feel like solo play to casual players. Attack cards increase player interaction, if only to introduce additional antagonism and delay to the proceedings.

[Donald X.]

The game has plenty of strong attacks still. There's strong, and then there's Mountebank.

I got a lot of data from players when making the decisions as to what to cut. The best players did in fact like the strong attacks more than other players. Mic Qsenoch for example - who has won the league many times - defended the strong attacks and did not want them to go. He does not dislike slogs. (And I personally like slogs more than most players.)

For competitive players, the game is more interactive than it is for casual players; just, any set of 10 cards, right away, it's more interactive. There is no respect in which they are trying to cut down on player interaction; that's an absurd idea.

[vidicate]

Can we define Casual player? Maybe not. But a lot of the discussion here sounds like we’re talking about Beginner or Novice player. Would beginners be a vocal group on here/Reddit/Discord? I guess the casuals are the ones active here, but haven’t really moved much past novice on the skill curve…? Either willfully or unwillingly. Anyway, I’m not sure if I had a point. Just random musings lol

I will say I would miss cards that are fun to play with casuals. As the Dominion guy of my group (friends/brothers and our spouses/kids) I usually want to keep it light and have fun interactions.

So for casual games I will miss Contraband, Loan, Pirate Ship, Ghost Ship, and Pearl Diver—in addition to Chancellor, Spy, Secret Chamber, Scout, and Tribute. Luckily I have 1E Intrigue and Seaside for those Tribute and Pirate Ship feels, though we mostly play online.

For non-casual games I will miss Ambassador, Explorer, Counting House, and Mountebank.

I will miss Talisman for both casual/non. (I love that DXV wanted to keep this too, but then went up to the 9-card swap.) Luckily all the new cards look better designed and/or more interesting, especially for Prosperity—which has been my least favorite set for a while.

PPedit: I started writing this at work before the last 4 comments.

[Honkeyfresh]

I speak from experience here. I regularly play 4 person games and 2 of them like to start greening as soon as they get $8 or $11(colonies). With 2 people doing that it is very difficult to get an engine going with nothing to slow them down.

The obvious solution here is to play 2p games instead.

except that the same logic applies there too.  Absent good attacks in even some very good engine boards straight up Big Money with a modicum of lucky can outrun engines. Multiple players doing it just compounds the problem.

I agree with the first post theoretically and I will miss goons/mountebank a lot, ghost ship not all as i had it banned anyway.  But both Goons and Mountbank in a draw lacking draw or trashing can make for some of the most annoying and painful slogs, so I am not as torn up about it either.

[Honkeyfresh]

I don't think removing Attacks appeals to casual players. I get the impression that casual players are the ones who like Attacks the most, while more serious players are more likely to dislike cards that can destroy their carefully built engines.

Or relish in the idea that they are laying waste and throwing wrenches in the cogs of their opponents carefully built engines.

Some people love to build something wonderful But some people just like to watch the world burn ...

[Honkeyfresh]

Nothing is stopping you from using those cards in your own games, whether that's paper/irl, the TGG client, or the ShuffleIT client.

ooh!  I thought they were just side forums, I didnt know there were alternate clients to play on

Some one should see how bad a board could be using only banned/retired cards.

Scout-Adventurer-stash-wood cutter-ghost ship-lookout-embargo-Chancellor-thief-talisman game might be too brutal for words.

[Honkeyfresh]

Even here, the first response on this thread is a veteran player snarkily telling someone not to play with more than 2p.

Awaclus is a prolific jerk. There's not much the rest of us can do about that, sadly.

This made me think of the name as Awful Claus and conjured up an image of the Evil Robotic santa Claus from futurama.

[Awaclus]

except that the same logic applies there too.  Absent good attacks in even some very good engine boards straight up Big Money with a modicum of lucky can outrun engines. Multiple players doing it just compounds the problem.

If straight up big money can outrun engines, either it's not a very good engine board or it's not a very good engine player playing the engine. Like, yes, sometimes Goons took a board from a meh engine board to a very good one, but so does Collection.

[Honkeyfresh]

except that the same logic applies there too.  Absent good attacks in even some very good engine boards straight up Big Money with a modicum of lucky can outrun engines. Multiple players doing it just compounds the problem.

If straight up big money can outrun engines, either it's not a very good engine board or it's not a very good engine player playing the engine. Like, yes, sometimes Goons took a board from a meh engine board to a very good one, but so does Collection.

agreed. I haven't even played more than 1 game with collection and as it went it didnt fit my payloads right so that by the time I wanted to buy it was too late to be relevant as it only incentives actions.  In retrospect I probably should have prioritized it earlier.  As a big fan of alt vp games/stratagems i think I will like it too.

But I think OP's post could be summed up as " big money sux and they like attacks that can punish/gum up these boring "engines" ergo the lamentation that 3 of the arrows have been removed from their quiver.