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[popsofctown]

eh, most games do more to weather first turn advantage using the rules than Dominion does.  In MtG, second player draws an extra card.  In Dominion second player gets curses and militia'ed purchases in earlier reshuffles and the only compensation is that they win if the winner ties taking more turns.

[blueblimp]

While we're finding flaws, here are some I see.

There's no mitigation for under-spending.

When you spend less than the maximum amount on a turn, you're (usually) strictly worse off than if you had simply drawn less treasure on that turn, because you aren't going to see that treasure again this shuffle. An extreme example is how drawing $9 then $7 is enormously worse than $8 then $8. Another example is $6/$4 vs $5/$5 on T3/T4 when some $5 card is better than gold (such as IGG in some kingdoms).

Cards like Courtyard and Haven help to mitigate this, because they can save extra money for a future turn. In most kingdoms, though, you're put at a significant disadvantage.

Gold is a little bit too good.

• If gold weren't available, you'd need a bit more creativity to buy a province. To buy provinces without kingdom cards, you usually need gold. In my experience, the $8 will mostly come from hands like GGCC, GSSC, GSCCC, while SSSS and SSSCC are quite unusual. The problem is that it's not very interesting to buy a province using only basic cards (unless you did something clever like using a kingdom card to flood your deck with silver).
• $5 kingdom cards compete with gold. It's not uncommon to play a game where you rarely hit exactly $5, and in these games, gold is often a better buy than the $5 kingdom cards. I'd prefer to buy something more interesting, but it's hard to compete with non-terminal $3 you never draw dead.

[GendoIkari]

or by limiting the moves available to whoever goes first (as in checkers).

What are you referring to here? I'm not aware of any rule in Checkers that treats player 1 differently.

[theory]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_draughts

In tournament English draughts, a variation called three-move restriction is preferred. The first three moves are drawn at random from a set of accepted openings. Two games are played with the chosen opening, each player having a turn at either side. This tends to reduce the number of draws and can make for more exciting matches. Three-move restriction has been played in the United States championship since 1934. A two-move restriction was used from 1900 until 1934 in the United States and in the British Isles until the 1950s. Before 1900, championships were played without restriction: this style is called go-as-you-please (GAYP).

[toaster]

There's no mitigation for under-spending.

When you spend less than the maximum amount on a turn, you're (usually) strictly worse off than if you had simply drawn less treasure on that turn, because you aren't going to see that treasure again this shuffle. An extreme example is how drawing $9 then $7 is enormously worse than $8 then $8. Another example is $6/$4 vs $5/$5 on T3/T4 when some $5 card is better than gold (such as IGG in some kingdoms).

Cards like Courtyard and Haven help to mitigate this, because they can save extra money for a future turn. In most kingdoms, though, you're put at a significant disadvantage.

I think the game would be considerably less interesting if there was some sort of compensation of underspending.  Knowing when underspending is worth it is one of the things that I feel really separates skill levels in Dominion.

[blueblimp]

There's no mitigation for under-spending.

When you spend less than the maximum amount on a turn, you're (usually) strictly worse off than if you had simply drawn less treasure on that turn, because you aren't going to see that treasure again this shuffle. An extreme example is how drawing $9 then $7 is enormously worse than $8 then $8. Another example is $6/$4 vs $5/$5 on T3/T4 when some $5 card is better than gold (such as IGG in some kingdoms).

Cards like Courtyard and Haven help to mitigate this, because they can save extra money for a future turn. In most kingdoms, though, you're put at a significant disadvantage.

I think the game would be considerably less interesting if there was some sort of compensation of underspending.  Knowing when underspending is worth it is one of the things that I feel really separates skill levels in Dominion.

I half agree. Yes, it helps separate good players from okay players. But among good players, it adds a significant luck factor. (Familiar is another example, in a different sense: you're underspending a 2P hand by not using the potion.)

Compensation for underspending could be done in a way that doesn't eliminate player skill. For example, maybe at the end of each turn, you'd be allowed to put an unplayed treasure on top of your deck. You still need to know which card you really want.

[shMerker]

Has anyone tried playing with "pie rule" openings? This is where one player plays the opening move, and then the other player decides whether to accept that opening and take over that seat or to challenge it by playing as player 2. The player who opens has an incentive to make a good move, since he may be forced to continue with it, but also to not do anything that might be unbeatable, since then he will get pushed into the other seat and have to deal with the consequences from the wrong side.

Top-decking unplayed treasure during cleanup sounds like a potentially interesting reaction or while-in-play effect. Not exactly a +buy, but still a way to avoid wasting a hand with lots of treasure.

[popsofctown]

There's no mitigation for under-spending.

When you spend less than the maximum amount on a turn, you're (usually) strictly worse off than if you had simply drawn less treasure on that turn, because you aren't going to see that treasure again this shuffle. An extreme example is how drawing $9 then $7 is enormously worse than $8 then $8. Another example is $6/$4 vs $5/$5 on T3/T4 when some $5 card is better than gold (such as IGG in some kingdoms).

Cards like Courtyard and Haven help to mitigate this, because they can save extra money for a future turn. In most kingdoms, though, you're put at a significant disadvantage.

I think the game would be considerably less interesting if there was some sort of compensation of underspending.  Knowing when underspending is worth it is one of the things that I feel really separates skill levels in Dominion.

10$ Provinces and 7$ Golds is what I think is being considered bad uncompensated overspending.  I don't think anyone is saying people should get bonuses for buying 5$ Ambassadors.

As for Gold being too good, if dead draw is involved it dovetails with my opening post..

[blueblimp]

There's no mitigation for under-spending.

When you spend less than the maximum amount on a turn, you're (usually) strictly worse off than if you had simply drawn less treasure on that turn, because you aren't going to see that treasure again this shuffle. An extreme example is how drawing $9 then $7 is enormously worse than $8 then $8. Another example is $6/$4 vs $5/$5 on T3/T4 when some $5 card is better than gold (such as IGG in some kingdoms).

Cards like Courtyard and Haven help to mitigate this, because they can save extra money for a future turn. In most kingdoms, though, you're put at a significant disadvantage.

I think the game would be considerably less interesting if there was some sort of compensation of underspending.  Knowing when underspending is worth it is one of the things that I feel really separates skill levels in Dominion.

10$ Provinces and 7$ Golds is what I think is being considered bad uncompensated overspending.  I don't think anyone is saying people should get bonuses for buying 5$ Ambassadors.

As for Gold being too good, if dead draw is involved it dovetails with my opening post..

I disagree actually that $5 Ambassador should receive no bonus, since that usually happens when one player draws 5/2, and on most boards that player will be at a disadvantage compared to 4/3.

[popsofctown]

You know what I meant.  Ambassador/Lighthouse doesn't care.

[blueblimp]

You know what I meant.  Ambassador/Lighthouse doesn't care.

In the case of Ambassador/Lighthouse, the 4/3 player is overspending too. I guess I'm not really seeing why spending $9 on a Province vs $5 on an Ambassador are fundamentally different. In both cases, you're at a disadvantage because you drew more treasure than you needed.

[popsofctown]

I can't even remember what that tangent started about.

[shMerker]

There's a pretty large subset of the cards in the game as it exists that work as tools for solving the "too much treasure" problem. Mostly the ones that give you extra buys, but there are a few that explicitly let you set something aside for the next turn somehow.

What is it you're actually trying to fix?

[blueblimp]

There's a pretty large subset of the cards in the game as it exists that work as tools for solving the "too much treasure" problem. Mostly the ones that give you extra buys, but there are a few that explicitly let you set something aside for the next turn somehow.

What is it you're actually trying to fix?

I'm not explicitly trying to fix anything. I don't know whether it can be fixed within the rules of Dominion. I'm just saying that this aspect of the game introduces one of the more annoying luck factors.

Anyway, I agree that set-aside cards are great. Courtyard+BM is one of the most fun (and strongest) BM+X's.  But there really aren't that many of these cards. Courtyard, Haven... and in some sense Mandarin's on-gain effect? If there were a card like CY or Haven in every set, that would be great. But in the vast majority of kingdoms, if you have too much to spend on a turn, you simply accept your disadvantage and that's that.

+buys are not a solution to the overspending problem, since $9 and 2 buys still just gets a province, $7 and 2 buys only gets two FVs if you're building FV-Wharf, etc. Also, they do nothing about the opening split, and are usually not relevant on T3/T4. It's true they do mitigate massive overspending in mid- to late-game. In my opinion, the main purpose of +buys is to make building an engine possible and worthwhile.

[popsofctown]

Puzzle Strike's pig mechanic is neat for overspending.  It lets you keep a card in your hand during the discarding step, essentially, havening one card at the expense of one draw for your next turn. 

Since Haven reduces your hand size to 4, I guess they are both similar.  So Puzzle Strike has Haven effects running rampant I guess.

[shMerker]

I'm not explicitly trying to fix anything. I don't know whether it can be fixed within the rules of Dominion. I'm just saying that this aspect of the game introduces one of the more annoying luck factors.

I think if you want to eliminate "annoying luck factors" focusing on something like "sometimes I have too much treasure" is missing that it's a game where you blindly draw cards from a shuffled deck. It's pretty unlikely that you're going to make an interesting game that uses that mechanic and doesn't have some shuffling orders be more optimal than others.

[popsofctown]

There's high variability games and low variability games.  You can make changes to increase and decrease that, and it's plausible there is some medium between high and low that he's looking for.

[blueblimp]

There's high variability games and low variability games.  You can make changes to increase and decrease that, and it's plausible there is some medium between high and low that he's looking for.

Yes. Also, in the dominion downer thread, variations on having-the-wrong-amount-to-spend total around 47% of the votes, so I don't think I'm the only one who feels this way.

[popsofctown]

Unprint Alchemy and maybe that drops in half

[Davio]

There's high variability games and low variability games.  You can make changes to increase and decrease that, and it's plausible there is some medium between high and low that he's looking for.

Yes. Also, in the dominion downer thread, variations on having-the-wrong-amount-to-spend total around 47% of the votes, so I don't think I'm the only one who feels this way.

Just played a game with Wharf where I had 2 $8 turns (3x Silver, 2x Copper) on my 3rd and 4th shuffle and never a perfect $5. Of course I had the amazing $4/$4 on my 2nd shuffle.
The horrible part about this kind of grouping is that your other turns are going to be awful and then you're faced with a real decision: Should I buy Wharf/Nothing on my $2 hand or grab a Gold or even an early Province (without having as much as a Gold or a Wharf)?

I wonder if using a simple counter (a d20 will suffice) can reduce money variance? Everytime you underspend, just up the counter. Everytime you want to overspend, just reduce the counter. This doesn't help the problems of your action cards of course.

[DStu]

Just played a game with Wharf where I had 2 $8 turns (3x Silver, 2x Copper) on my 3rd and 4th shuffle and never a perfect $5. Of course I had the amazing $4/$4 on my 2nd shuffle.
The horrible part about this kind of grouping is that your other turns are going to be awful and then you're faced with a real decision: Should I buy Wharf/Nothing on my $2 hand or grab a Gold or even an early Province (without having as much as a Gold or a Wharf)?

I wonder if using a simple counter (a d20 will suffice) can reduce money variance? Everytime you underspend, just up the counter. Everytime you want to overspend, just reduce the counter. This doesn't help the problems of your action cards of course.

I wouldn't say all these ideas are terrible, but kind of you will end up with a completely different game, as theory already noted on page 1 somewhere. The cards are balanced given their downsides, if you now can't draw Villages dead, or if you can influence the distribution of your money per shuffle you increase the value of some cards (Village-Smithy / money) and decrease the value of others Cellar/Warehouse/Scheme. And you change the speed of the game, when you always get what you want.
And where do we end? Once we get rid of these "problems", do we end up complaining that the KC never find it's action, or the Treasure Map the TMs? Do we want a game where we always start with an "average" hand?

I've seen enough crucial cards hiding in the last card I couldn't draw this round, so I think I could really like a Dominion that has a little bit less chance, but I don't think there is an easy fix to without completely rebalancing the game.

[popsofctown]

I DO NOT see dead draw as a variance problem.  I see it as a design flaw in that it cuts down on the flexibility of how a BM/dead draw deck can be designed.  It's still a deck, and still depends on variability a lot (you can't draw Market dead, but now that Smithy costs 6$ you have to hope it doesn't miss reshuffles).  The difference is you can throw in Markets and Lookouts and what have you. 
I think most decks would not combine Smithy and Village, that makes the deck less efficient in that it's hard to ensure you end turns with exactly 0 actions remaining, full use of resources.  I think dead draw + money + cantrips would be common, creating a choice of which cantrips to use, and in a minority of boards adding villages would be worthwhile and would be a meaningful decision.

[WanderingWinder]

I DO NOT see dead draw as a variance problem.  I see it as a design flaw in that it cuts down on the flexibility of how a BM/dead draw deck can be designed.  It's still a deck, and still depends on variability a lot (you can't draw Market dead, but now that Smithy costs 6$ you have to hope it doesn't miss reshuffles).  The difference is you can throw in Markets and Lookouts and what have you. 
I think most decks would not combine Smithy and Village, that makes the deck less efficient in that it's hard to ensure you end turns with exactly 0 actions remaining, full use of resources.  I think dead draw + money + cantrips would be common, creating a choice of which cantrips to use, and in a minority of boards adding villages would be worthwhile and would be a meaningful decision.

They'd not only be common, they'd be overwhelmingly powerful. Like, in almost every game, you just play the biggest draw with the best cantrips. Now, you could redesign which cards do what, what cards are printed, costs and whatnot to compensate, but now you're just playing a totally different game. I wouldn't call one way or the other a flaw, for sure. They're just different.
I'm not sure which is better or more fun. But I do know that I really really like Dominion the way it is, even though the variance can be frustrating at times.

[popsofctown]

Yes, it would be a different game, one I think I'd like slightly more.

When that's my biggest Dominion complaint besides Treasure Map it means Dominion is a pretty good game.

[yudantaiteki]

There's high variability games and low variability games.  You can make changes to increase and decrease that, and it's plausible there is some medium between high and low that he's looking for.

Yes. Also, in the dominion downer thread, variations on having-the-wrong-amount-to-spend total around 47% of the votes, so I don't think I'm the only one who feels this way.

But the dominion downer thread was not "Which downers do you think should not exist", it was just which is your least favorite to experience.