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[enfynet]

I think the real difference is adding 100% more cards instead of 12% more cards. As much as I'd enjoy more cards, I haven't hardly used the ones I have.

[ipofanes]

The total number of possible sets of 10 isn't a good measure of how much variety you have. As someone once said, a lot of those variations involve swapping Feast with Scout or what have you.

If a new expansion would mean more variations of Feast and Scout it would add little to variety and I would also see no need releasing one.

[Donald X.]

The total number of possible sets of 10 isn't a good measure of how much variety you have. As someone once said, a lot of those variations involve swapping Feast with Scout or what have you.

If a new expansion would mean more variations of Feast and Scout it would add little to variety and I would also see no need releasing one.

I'm not sure why you're saying this; do you think I would be likely to make such an expansion? I'd like to think I've learned a thing or two over the years. Anyway your post isn't an actual argument against my point, that's my point. Hooray, my point stands (the previous one, not this one, but give it a chance, it could be fine).

[Donald X.]

I am going to take a break from the interview. I'd almost answered everything anyway. The remaining answers were: I'm not sure, maybe 120 or so; I can't tell you until Guilds comes out; and it seemed kind of interestingly different at the time, and there were the Throne Room and Workshop combos, but obv. in the end it has not proven to be so interesting. You get better as you go along.

[ipofanes]

The total number of possible sets of 10 isn't a good measure of how much variety you have. As someone once said, a lot of those variations involve swapping Feast with Scout or what have you.

If a new expansion would mean more variations of Feast and Scout it would add little to variety and I would also see no need releasing one.

I'm not sure why you're saying this;

pulling a leg here.

do you think I would be likely to make such an expansion?

No, I think you are unlikely too release any further expansion, as I would think you'd stand by your words.

I'd like to think I've learned a thing or two over the years.

The new card rankings testify to that, cards from the latest expansions tend no to be ranked at the very top or bottom.

Anyway your post isn't an actual argument against my point, that's my point. Hooray, my point stands (the previous one, not this one, but give it a chance, it could be fine).

I think we can agree over that. My point is any of the recent expansions avoids kingdom cards being exchangeable or irrelevant. Of course a Squire looks sorry with no attack on the board and Rats withour TfB or Watchtower would likely be ignored, but that's nowhere near Feast without $5 cards or Scout without multicolour VP cards. Even Tunnels without discards get grabbed at the end of the game with an extra buy.

Thanks very much for your long string of answers in this thread. This was enlightening and entertaining, yet I also think we get diminishing returns from questions and answers (while I'd still be curious what species of tree you'd prefer to be).

[cactus]

Thanks Donald.

You've been more than generous. I think I can speak for everyone here and say we really appreciate the amount of time and effort you put into answering questions from the community.

[eHalcyon]

Of course a Squire looks sorry with no attack on the board and Rats withour TfB or Watchtower would likely be ignored, but that's nowhere near Feast without $5 cards or Scout without multicolour VP cards. Even Tunnels without discards get grabbed at the end of the game with an extra buy.

Squire is good even without attack cards!  And having attack cards on the board doesn't make Squire better -- depends on the attacks and if there is a way to trash Squire... and if they're expensive enough to go to the trouble of trashing Squire for them.

[Davio]

I'd like to think that if I were to release a fantastic game such as this, I would be patient enough to wade through 35 pages of interview questions, often repeated because people didn't want to read back 30 pages and often plain silly or uninteresting. But I don't think I would.

So I tip my hat to you, sir.

I'm looking forward to Guilds as is anyone here to see your final tricks up your sleeve and a lot of "I didn't know you could do that with a card" moments!

Good luck with your future Dominion-esque spinoffs!

[enfynet]

What's your favorite Guilds card?


..


(I suppose this answer won't appear for a few months.  )

[Watno]

I am going to take a break from the interview. I'd almost answered everything anyway.

How long will that break be?

[Stealth Tomato]

What percentage of luck and skill would you estimate goes into winning a game of Dominion?

It depends on the board.

Let's say a board involving Familiars and Tournaments 

There's a thread you can look up that will tell you the effect each card has on your ability to predict the winner using trueskill. Wait I'll look it up for you. http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=2798.msg47781#msg47781

By that measure it turns out that Familiar and Tournament are better-than-average predictors, meaning higher-skill.

Of course luck and skill aren't opposites. Dominion overall is high-luck high-skill, like poker.

There is an important thing to note here: This includes games between relatively low-skill players. It's not surprising that a middling player would thrash a newbie with Goons. I would love to see this list split into games between players in the 30-50 range vs. the 10-30 range (throwing out the 0-10 entirely because they are either new or objectively bad at Dominion).

[rrenaud]

The code and the data is there.  If you'd love to see it that much, make it happen!

[werothegreat]

I actually have a great question for whenever Donald X decides to start answering again:

Why did you decide to let Scheme be Throned, but Herbalist not?  Was it too powerful for its cost to be able to put two Treasures on your deck from one Throned Herbalist?

[LastFootnote]

I actually have a great question for whenever Donald X decides to start answering again:

Why did you decide to let Scheme be Throned, but Herbalist not?  Was it too powerful for its cost to be able to put two Treasures on your deck from one Throned Herbalist?

If Scheme activated when you discarded it, like Herbalist, it couldn't be used on itself. That might have something to do with it.

[SirPeebles]

I actually have a great question for whenever Donald X decides to start answering again:

Why did you decide to let Scheme be Throned, but Herbalist not?  Was it too powerful for its cost to be able to put two Treasures on your deck from one Throned Herbalist?

He's alluded to this in the past.  He looked for the simplest wording.  Scheme was released later than Herbalist, and it had the added issue of needing to behave nicely with Duration cards (Herbalist didn't need to since there are no Duration-Treasure cards).  If Scheme had the same wording as Herbalist, then you would be able to topdeck a Duration card before it's finished with its role of reminding you to do something next turn.  Probably, all things being equal, Donald X. would have preferred that the wordings sync up, but Scheme needed a more careful wording.  In particularly, it doesn't seem that Donald X. spent much time worrying about whether Scheme was eiher thronable or self-schemable.

[werothegreat]

Well, I mean, Herbalist, as worded, cannot have its effect Throned.  It could have been "at the start of Clean-up this turn, put a Treasure in play on top of your deck."

[SirPeebles]

Well, I mean, Herbalist, as worded, cannot have its effect Throned.  It could have been "at the start of Clean-up this turn, put a Treasure in play on top of your deck."

Yeah, and I don't think that was intentional.  I'm pretty sure he just had the rough idea "this card let's you put a treasure back on top to use again next turn" and experiment with the precise phrasing to make it as simple as possible.

I feel like those of us who spend every day contributing to a forum on dominion strategy, write code to simulate and refine strategies, and pore through the accumulated data of million of recorded logs for insight -- well, we generally don't value clear wording and simplicity as much as your average Dominion player.  For instance, we might be tempted to think that Donald avoided letting Scheme topdeck a fresh Duration card because the increased likelihood of a Duration missing a reshuffle is integral to the game's balance.  Nah, I'm pretty sure it's just because having the Duration card present is useful for tracking purposes when playing the physical game.  The reshuffle business is rather esoteric, and way beyond the scope of your average Dominion player's experience or interest.

But hey, this was a question for Donald, not for me.  I just thought it could be fun to discuss while waiting for Donald to return to the interview.  I hope you don't mind me responding.

[michaeljb]

(I read this thread as it developed, and don't remember seeing this question answered here or anywhere else, so if it has been I would appreciate being pointed in the right direction; if not I'll just leave this here in case Donald revisits the thread)

Did cards like Village ever say something other than +2 Actions? Like, for instance, +2 Mana? Or even just +2 Action Points? Was there ever any concern that people might intuit that "+X Action" meant "play X other Actions now, before finishing the rest of this card," or should those people have just RTFM'd?

[sudgy]

(I read this thread as it developed, and don't remember seeing this question answered here or anywhere else, so if it has been I would appreciate being pointed in the right direction; if not I'll just leave this here in case Donald revisits the thread)

Did cards like Village ever say something other than +2 Actions? Like, for instance, +2 Mana? Or even just +2 Action Points? Was there ever any concern that people might intuit that "+X Action" meant "play X other Actions now, before finishing the rest of this card," or should those people have just RTFM'd?

I remember him saying at one point that it used to say "You may play two more actions this turn."  Later, when they made coin symbols, they thought of making all vanilla bonuses have symbols.  They just settled with +Cards, +Actions, and +Buys.

[Synthesizer]

In the rules forum it was noted that some of the rules were mistranslated. I asked a question about that but it got snowed under, and perhaps it is better here.

Sometimes stuff gets mistranslated - I think it's a bad thing (who doesn't) but hey, people are people and mistakes happen.

But in some game translations, entire sections of rulebooks are altered, removed and/or added. Not just for Dominion, but I remember seeing it for other games as well.
Donald, could you tell us a bit about how the translating business works? I can't imagine that game designers such as yourself rejoice in translators changing the rules; but this has to balance with you probably not being able to verify the translations yourself (simply because it is impossible or at least impractical for you to learn every language in existance) and publishers probably simply not having the resources to explore every nook and cranny of game-rulesets. Who OK's the translations? etc. etc.

I tried to leave the question as non-judgemental as I could on purpose, to open up the possibility for you to share as much as you can without pissing off the game publishers your income depends on

[Davio]

I don't know how it actually works (I'm not in the business), but I expect it is as follows, at least for the Dutch versions:

1. A game designer makes an English game and proposes it to an English (American) publisher
2. The publisher likes and publishes the game
3. The game becomes popular and a Dutch publisher is now interested
4. The Dutch publisher contacts the original publisher about obtaining a license to make the game available for the Dutch market
5. The original publisher says "sure", they draw up a contract and pay some money, either a fixed amount or a per-copy amount
6. The Dutch publisher, through its licensing rights, translates the game and may use the original art to resell it to their target audience

What I'm curious about is how far the influence of the game designer reaches. Does it stop at the original publisher or does it overflow to the local publisher?

[Mr Anderson]

I would be interested in the design of the very first ten dominion cards (the cards you used in your first game). Do you have any pictures of the cards or do you have any similar files?

[LastFootnote]

I would be interested in the design of the very first ten dominion cards (the cards you used in your first game). Do you have any pictures of the cards or do you have any similar files?

This is probably close to what you want:

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5905.0

[Mr Anderson]

Thank you, I already read the article.

[SirPeebles]

Hey Donald,

Did you request from the artists that Guilds feature so many bald people, or was that a coincidence?

Also, did you request from Jay that the Guilds rules use feminine pronouns?