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[werothegreat]

The past few days have been a little slow on here, so I went over to BGG to try and get my Dominion chatter fix.

My mistake.

I guess I'm so used to talking to people who either own all the expansions or are familiar with them and can appreciate them.  Reading how people avoid Alchemy and Cornucopia because of how complicated they are puzzles me.  Also, I think my heart broke when someone said they were disappointed by Hinterlands.  I just wanted to shove Fool's Gold in their face, but not in a mean way.

And whenever people ask about which expansion to get first (which just gets so old), I can't help but look to my own experiences with teaching people Dominion.  It really, really depends on the person.  Some people need to play the First Game setup fifty times before they can even be shown, happenstance forbid, Chancellor, or their brains will break.  Other people I've shown Hinterlands and Dark Ages on their second game and they don't even bat an eye.  One person I showed it to, who had MTG experience, was bored and disappointed by the First Game setup, so I threw Hinterlands and Dark Ages at him just to show him how much variety there was.  He really enjoyed Ill-Gotten Gains and Cultist.  Like, a bit too much.  I'll most likely be playing Dominion with him again, but the base set will be left at home.

Anyway, that's my whatever this is.

[pingpongsam]

The correct answer is to have all of the expansions and make a merry mix from all of them.

People afraid of complexity can find better games to play.

[Kuildeous]

Yeah, I don't even read BGG forums about Dominion anymore. I still go there for other games, but I just can't bear to read comments from the hoi polloi when I can get my Dominion fix here.

I'm sure other games have their own dedicated forums, which would be better than what's posted on BGG.

[theory]

I'm sure other games have their own dedicated forums, which would be better than what's posted on BGG.

Sadly, I don't think this is the case.

[Davio]

I'm sure other games have their own dedicated forums, which would be better than what's posted on BGG.

Sadly, I don't think this is the case.

Doesn't your Twilight Strategy blog have a forum?

[werothegreat]

Also - why are several users sporting fancy octagonal avatars?  What are they from?

[Grujah]

It's for the Cosmic Encounter forum game.

[jonts26]

The correct answer is to have all of the expansions and make a merry mix from all of them.

People afraid of complexity can find better games to play.

There are better games than Dominion?

[theory]

I'm sure other games have their own dedicated forums, which would be better than what's posted on BGG.

Sadly, I don't think this is the case.

Doesn't your Twilight Strategy blog have a forum?

It doesn't.  I've thought about setting one up.  (At one point I considered making a subforum here rather than creating a whole separate forum, but worried that that would be too unwieldy.)

More generally the only other sites I know that analyze board games in depth are HereIStrategize.com and SettlersStrategy.com

[Beyond Awesome]

The past few days have been a little slow on here, so I went over to BGG to try and get my Dominion chatter fix.

My mistake.

I guess I'm so used to talking to people who either own all the expansions or are familiar with them and can appreciate them.  Reading how people avoid Alchemy and Cornucopia because of how complicated they are puzzles me.  Also, I think my heart broke when someone said they were disappointed by Hinterlands.  I just wanted to shove Fool's Gold in their face, but not in a mean way.

And whenever people ask about which expansion to get first (which just gets so old), I can't help but look to my own experiences with teaching people Dominion.  It really, really depends on the person.  Some people need to play the First Game setup fifty times before they can even be shown, happenstance forbid, Chancellor, or their brains will break.  Other people I've shown Hinterlands and Dark Ages on their second game and they don't even bat an eye.  One person I showed it to, who had MTG experience, was bored and disappointed by the First Game setup, so I threw Hinterlands and Dark Ages at him just to show him how much variety there was.  He really enjoyed Ill-Gotten Gains and Cultist.  Like, a bit too much.  I'll most likely be playing Dominion with him again, but the base set will be left at home.

Anyway, that's my whatever this is.

I feel for you. It really annoys me how many people hate Alchemy. I actually think it's a pretty good set. I think the problem with Alchemy though is that Familiar is not costed correctly. And, I know some people don't like Possession. But, otherwise, it's a solid set and adding potion to the mix adds an extra level of strategy that I like. And it is also sad that some people on BGG are disappointed by Hinterlands. It's a very solid set.

[greatexpectations]

I feel for you. It really annoys me how many people hate Alchemy. I actually think it's a pretty good set. I think the problem with Alchemy though is that Familiar is not costed correctly. And, I know some people don't like Possession. But, otherwise, it's a solid set and adding potion to the mix adds an extra level of strategy that I like. And it is also sad that some people on BGG are disappointed by Hinterlands. It's a very solid set.

i think that familiar's cost is pretty solid. the real issue is the effect that $2P and potions missing the shuffle can have.  and as donald pointed out here, possession is a love/hate sort of card, and those sorts of cards function better in full sized sets. if you like it you will use it just as often, but hating it means that a sizable chunk of your new expansion is now worthless.

[dondon151]

Alchemy games are super long x_x

[Kirian]

I'm sure other games have their own dedicated forums, which would be better than what's posted on BGG.

Chess.  Probably Go.  I can only imagine Bridge might.  Very few games have a rabidly dedicated strategic following.  Certainly among Eurogames, only Dominion and Settlers do.

[eHalcyon]

Wow, how much strategy is there to Settlers?  I'll go check that out later.

[werothegreat]

I mean, once you've discovered the "Wood for Sheep" joke, you've really exhausted all there is to Settlers of Catan.

[Kirian]

Also, I think MTG and possibly other TCGs with strong followings probably have dedicated forums.

Wow, how much strategy is there to Settlers?  I'll go check that out later.

(For the record, I find Settlers distasteful but have helped Mayfair run Setters tournaments at Origins and GenCon)

As I understand it, there are two levels of Settlers strategy.  The first level is fairly basic.  Certain numbers are better than others, which means certain intersections will be better than others.  If you don't diversify numbers and resources, you're going to be screwed unless you get extremely lucky.  Resources that are better in the early game (Clay, Wood) may not be great in the endgame (Ore, Wheat).

The second level of strategy, however, is entirely political, which means it's something Dominion completely lacks.  This strategy involves who to trade with, when, and how much.  It involves determining whether a given trade is advantageous.  It also involves who to hit with the robber and when.  For both of these, you have to be counting cards accurately, and in order to play at the tournament level, well, you have to be willing to make enemies.

[O]

Mtg, yugioh, settlers, every MMORPG, chess, scrabble, go, poker, Sims, starcraft, etc.

[AJD]

I mean, once you've discovered the "Wood for Sheep" joke, you've really exhausted all there is to Settlers of Catan.

That's not true. Since you need Ore and Wheat to get a City, there's also the "We built this city on rock(s) and roll(s)" joke.

[Gherald]

My next family game of Settlers just got a little more interesting..

[eHalcyon]

Just took a spin over settlers-strategy.com.  Everything posted seems fairly obvious to me.  Maybe I've just picked up a lot of it from experience, since Settlers was the first Euro game I owned.

He keeps saying Rock when I'm used to Ore, so that throws me a bit.

I disagree a bit with his reasoning for placement decision in the Placement Guide.  I agree that the first position chosen is the best but the major reason is that Brick is going to be rare.  He doesn't mention Brick scarcity at all in his rationale.  3/4 Brick tiles are terrible, the 8 is great.  Given where that 8 tile is, choosing the 8-5-10 position makes it unlikely for anyone else to try to horn in on the only productive Clay tile.  Another nice bonus is that the Brick port is very close.  While it is not at all a priority, it can be a nice port to grab opportunistically because then you are even less reliant on trading away Brick.  It's really nice having a (relatively) decent Sheep tile and the good Wood tile, but the Brick is the dealmaker.

I suppose one bit of strategy that I hadn't considered was the danger of overvaluing hexes that have conflicting resources.  That is, Ore/Wood doesn't have any synergy.

[Octo]

Settlers seems to get a really bad rep on this forum. Personally it's a game my group regularly plays (though pretty much always at someone else's request). The thing about it is we have 5 players. Dominion is shit with 5 players. Settlers is not (and is arguably better with 5 than with 3-4 players). The thing about it that many games are missing (dominion included) is that in a group setting is that it keeps you fairly well involved even though it's not your turn, even more so in 5-6 players as you can build in between turns. With many strategic games the waiting between turns can be really tedious, and in fact it's waiting like that that's often a key factor that makes a lot traditional/classic boardgames such utter rubbish - far too much waiting. With Settlers you're watching the dice roll every turn and then trying to trade, and then perhaps building. Sure, it's not particularly heavyweight, and that can make it dull, but then I don't always want heavyweight (and my mates rarely do) which is why games like King of Tokyo are really good. Heavyweight games that are as slick, intuitive and deep as Dominion though are very rare - many big strategy hitters just bog you down in shit loads of rules and stuff and can take a long time with crap loads of AP, and I think we are very spoiled with Dominion, it's simply that good.

Note: I've spiced Settlers up by designing and printing my own set of custom development cards that are a lot more varied and wide-ranging - that keeps it a little more interesting for sure. I should probably whack them up on BGG or something, but they use loads of pinched art from dominion and citadels and such like.

[Tombolo]

Settlers used to be our go-to game!

I, uh, am not sure I've played it since we got into Dominion, though.

[Schneau]

I've probably played more games of Settlers than any game besides Dominion and Chess. Probably at least 500 games of it. I loved it for a long time, but eventually realized that A) there's actually not a ton of strategy besides opening moves, B) there's too much politics for my liking, and C) almost every time I play it, someone gets mad or annoyed and everyone ends in a worse mood than we started in. Anyway, now I flatly refuse to play it with certain people, and otherwise try to avoid it.

[Tombolo]

My main problem with settlers is that my buddy wins about 80% of the time, no matter who else is playing.  I have that problem with most games, actually- I can take about 45% games off of him in 1v1 Dominion, but anything else he beats me the vast majority of the time and it eventually stops being fun.

Well, that and the "we could just play Dominion instead" problem that all other games face.

[greatexpectations]

I've probably played more games of Settlers than any game besides Dominion and Chess. Probably at least 500 games of it. I loved it for a long time, but eventually realized that A) there's actually not a ton of strategy besides opening moves, B) there's too much politics for my liking, and C) almost every time I play it, someone gets mad or annoyed and everyone ends in a worse mood than we started in. Anyway, now I flatly refuse to play it with certain people, and otherwise try to avoid it.

but why make a distinction between point A and point B? settlers has quite a bit of strategy, it just so happens that most of the strategy is related to the politics.

and to be honest, point C will happen in just about any game out there, especially as the game goes longer. people don't like losing.