Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Warfreak2]

Then how is it better than getting 1VP out of them? Each of your options improves your score by some amount in the long-run, otherwise there is no such thing as the minimax strategy. If an option is better than getting 1VP out of them, then it must get more than 1VP out of them. An extra Gold which later buys you two Provinces instead of Duchies, overall has improved your score by 6VP; a Duchy now, instead, would improve your score by 3VP. I don't know how else you can say that one choice is better than another - OK, you can talk about which move has a higher probability of winning, but comparing point values of different plays is hardly a controversial way of deciding which option is better, and is much easier to measure.

[SCSN]

No. The opportunities to exchange coin tokens for >1VP/token are so rare that getting more tokens than you can exchange this way (and spending those tokens in far more liberal ways) is much better overall, despite them ultimately contributing less than 1VP/token.

[WanderingWinder]

I appreciate you taking the time to fill in your rankings, WW, but don't you think a numbered list from 1 - 200+ is a bit silly?
I mean, how do we compare #154 to #166? If I were to do a ranking like this - and I might at some point if I'm really bored - I think I would just create 5 groups maximum and maybe do a top 10 of the first group only.

Top Tier: Cards that absolutely dominate most of the kingdoms they're in (King's Court, Goons, Mountebank, etc...)
Second Tier: Cards that are very useful on a high number of kingdoms (probably some good Villages, trashers, etc)
Third Tier: Cards that you could take or leave most of the time (think Great Hall or something)
Fourth Tier: Cards that are generally bad and need a rare and specific kingdom to shine (Counting House)
Fifth Tier: Scout

A plausible argument. Please feel free to ignore them.

[Davio]

This is probably somewhere in the 16 pages, but how DO you actually compare them?

Do you generate random kingdoms and look at which cards would be decent?

[Witherweaver]

I appreciate you taking the time to fill in your rankings, WW, but don't you think a numbered list from 1 - 200+ is a bit silly?
I mean, how do we compare #154 to #166? If I were to do a ranking like this - and I might at some point if I'm really bored - I think I would just create 5 groups maximum and maybe do a top 10 of the first group only.

Top Tier: Cards that absolutely dominate most of the kingdoms they're in (King's Court, Goons, Mountebank, etc...)
Second Tier: Cards that are very useful on a high number of kingdoms (probably some good Villages, trashers, etc)
Third Tier: Cards that you could take or leave most of the time (think Great Hall or something)
Fourth Tier: Cards that are generally bad and need a rare and specific kingdom to shine (Counting House)
Fifth Tier: Scout

I think it might not be silly.  The final list itself may not be particularly useful, but the analysis WW and others are doing when trying to figure out how to make this list involves a good amount of thinking about the game and strategy, I would think.  So probably it's one of those "journey, not destination" things. 

Plus I think people here just like making lists.

[Schneau]

...

Plus I think people here just like making lists.

We should make a list of all the lists.

[Witherweaver]

...

Plus I think people here just like making lists.

We should make a list of all the lists.

It's going to be hard to put that list on the list.

[AJD]

...

Plus I think people here just like making lists.

We should make a list of all the lists.

It's going to be hard to put that list on the list.

Well, that's fine, then; just make it a list of all lists that do not list themselves.

[Gveoniz]

...

Plus I think people here just like making lists.

We should make a list of all the lists.

It's going to be hard to put that list on the list.

Well, that's fine, then; just make it a list of all lists that do not list themselves.

We can just make a list of "list of all list"

[SCSN]

...

Plus I think people here just like making lists.

We should make a list of all the lists.

It's going to be hard to put that list on the list.

Well, that's fine, then; just make it a list of all lists that do not list themselves.

[Kirian]

...

Plus I think people here just like making lists.

We should make a list of all the lists.

It's going to be hard to put that list on the list.

Actually, it won't be:

1. This list.
2. ...whatever else.

Bam. Done.

[Just a Rube]

Little known fact: Bertrand Russell was actually a dinosaur.

[WanderingWinder]

This is probably somewhere in the 16 pages, but how DO you actually compare them?

Do you generate random kingdoms and look at which cards would be decent?

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=8693.msg263449#msg263449

[dondon151]

I think you guys are missing the point wrt VP vs. coin tokens. VP tokens provide an alternate route to victory. Coin tokens just help you get Victory cards faster. They're not exactly comparable that way.

[GendoIkari]

I think if I were to rank the cards, it would simply be based on this one question:

We're playing a Dominion variant (one that's been somewhat discussed around here before), in which we "draft" cards that we are going to use.. that is, only the player who drafted that Kingdom card ever gets to buy or gain it. You get to go first... what card do you draft? There's your number 1. Now pretend that your number 1 is already taken... so what card do you draft? There's your number 2. And so on.

And so that this doesn't depend on the Kingdom at all, we're talking about drafting from all the cards, not just for 1 game. Then you play a bunch of games where 5 of the Kingdom cards are randomly picked from your draft, the other 5 are randomly picked from your opponent's draft. Dunno how to handle Young Witch.

[gman314]

My 2 cents on chips vs. tokens:
Imagine the following (likely boring) card:

Alt-Monument
$? Action
+$2
Take a coin token.

Now, how do we price this card? It's been discussed elsewhere that a terminal Gold would probably cost $5. This is a terminal Gold with a bonus. So, it could probably fit in at $5 or $6.

This is not supposed to be the be-all-end all of this discussion, but I think that this suggests that coin tokens are better than chips.

[JacquesTheBard]

Yikes. In a draft, I guess I'd pick chapel first, and if the other guy picked chapel I'd probably go masquerade. Then again, maybe both of us could lose to a Rebuild guy. That's an interesting way to think about things.
Although, I do think it skews things somewhat. A board of guaranteed power cards really benefits King's Court, which more than anything else seems to get stronger the more power cards are present on the board.
So actually, I guess the guy who picked King's Court would be in best shape. Even if his opponent gets some absurdly strong cards, just a couple of the top 20-top 10 in a kingdom with King's Court probably makes all the difference.
Goons is even more frightening than usual. Because only one person can go for it, the other player must find some way to severely impair the opponent via strong attacks or win the game before the Goons guy gets a lead. Once the Goons player is, say, 100 points up, there's nothing the other guy can do to catch up. Maybe Monument or Bishop, but those aren't as fast.
I actually think cursing is less intimidating here. The opponent can strike back with either Masquerade or Ambassador, both of which counter curses quite neatly.
Any other thoughts? Frankly, I suspect that some sort of nightmarish combo would emerge in a format like this.

[GendoIkari]

Yikes. In a draft, I guess I'd pick chapel first, and if the other guy picked chapel I'd probably go masquerade. Then again, maybe both of us could lose to a Rebuild guy. That's an interesting way to think about things.
Although, I do think it skews things somewhat. A board of guaranteed power cards really benefits King's Court, which more than anything else seems to get stronger the more power cards are present on the board.
So actually, I guess the guy who picked King's Court would be in best shape. Even if his opponent gets some absurdly strong cards, just a couple of the top 20-top 10 in a kingdom with King's Court probably makes all the difference.
Goons is even more frightening than usual. Because only one person can go for it, the other player must find some way to severely impair the opponent via strong attacks or win the game before the Goons guy gets a lead. Once the Goons player is, say, 100 points up, there's nothing the other guy can do to catch up. Maybe Monument or Bishop, but those aren't as fast.
I actually think cursing is less intimidating here. The opponent can strike back with either Masquerade or Ambassador, both of which counter curses quite neatly.
Any other thoughts? Frankly, I suspect that some sort of nightmarish combo would emerge in a format like this.

I didn't mean for this to create "power boards".. because you would keep drafting until ALL cards have been drafted. So you wouldn't be picking Kingdoms out of your top 10... you'd be picking Kingdoms out your top 205. (Well 5 of the cards from your top 102, 5 of them from your opponent's top 103).

[dondon151]

This is not supposed to be the be-all-end all of this discussion, but I think that this suggests that coin tokens are better than chips.

Or imagine Greedy Bishop, which is almost like a worse Salvager. Does this suggest that VP chips are better than coin tokens?

Again, VP chips mainly serve as an alternate way to victory. Monument isn't that strong because it only gives +1 VP per play, but it's a huge threat in an engine that can play up to 3-4 of them every turn. Bishop and Goons are incredibly strong when there are ways to churn out points. You can't really compare VP chips to coin tokens. Yes, coin tokens help you get Victory cards faster, but VP chips help you get VP that isn't in the supply.

[SCSN]

My 2 cents on chips vs. tokens:
Imagine the following (likely boring) card:

Alt-Monument
$? Action
+$2
Take a coin token.

Now, how do we price this card? It's been discussed elsewhere that a terminal Gold would probably cost $5. This is a terminal Gold with a bonus. So, it could probably fit in at $5 or $6.

This is not supposed to be the be-all-end all of this discussion, but I think that this suggests that coin tokens are better than chips.

While I do think that this card is too strong for $4 (yeah, I've come around on that one), I think changing it to "Take a coin token at the end of your turn" makes it decidedly weaker than Monument.

And what makes VP tokens absurdly strong is not that a single token does a ton for you, but, as dondon noted, that they provide an alternative road to victory. The presence of Goons, Bishop and sometimes even Monument can often enable decks that don't need to buy a single green card. This puts tremendous pressure on conventional strategies that now need to aim for 8 Provinces instead of 5. So while I'd generally prefer to have 1-3 coin tokens over having 1-3 VP tokens, the ability to generate VP tokens is far more game-changing than the ability to generate coin tokens, and that is what ultimately makes them stronger.

[cluckyb]

My 2 cents on chips vs. tokens:
Imagine the following (likely boring) card:

Alt-Monument
$? Action
+$2
Take a coin token.

Now, how do we price this card? It's been discussed elsewhere that a terminal Gold would probably cost $5. This is a terminal Gold with a bonus. So, it could probably fit in at $5 or $6.

This is not supposed to be the be-all-end all of this discussion, but I think that this suggests that coin tokens are better than chips.

Alt-CM (+1 Action +1 Buy gain a VP token) be at least a $3 given that it has the +buy, and once you see it twice its better than an estate for your deck.

Alt-Baker (+1 Action +1 Card +1 VP Token), would, by the same reasoning, be at least a $4 given its superiority to GH. But given monument's big weakness is that its hard to spam, I think these both would be worth a lot more.

Alt-Plaza is a bit harder to say -- its not as strong as alt-CM or Alt-Baker but its still better than a village so worth at least $4 to match and again as its non-terminal VP gen I'd say stronger than Plaza.

all that shows is there are cards which are better with +VP and cards which are better with +Coin Tokens

[AJD]

I think if I were to rank the cards, it would simply be based on this one question:

We're playing a Dominion variant (one that's been somewhat discussed around here before), in which we "draft" cards that we are going to use.. that is, only the player who drafted that Kingdom card ever gets to buy or gain it.

Smugglers comes in last in this ranking, I take it?

[Warfreak2]

Alt-Baker would be game-breakingly powerful, in a very boring way. I've played 4xBishop+4xFortress a few times, when I thought it was the best thing on the board, and I'm glad there aren't many degenerate games like that.

I think it's not surprising that the coin token producers would become much better if they straight-up produced VP chips; many are non-terminal, so they're able to produce coin tokens in quantities far beyond what you can expect to convert to VP. It's OK if it's possible to stockpile a bajillion coin tokens because that's usually a waste of time. By contrast, VP chip producers are all terminal, because you can't have too many VP chips.

[scott_pilgrim]

Comparing coin tokens and victory tokens is like comparing +cards with +coin.  Sure, in the most general sense, you can probably say that coin tokens are a little "better" than victory tokens, just like +cards are generally "better" than +coin.  Eventually, you turn your coin tokens into victory points, kind of like how you eventually you turn the cards you draw into coin that you spend.  But your ability to do that (in both comparisons) varies hugely depending on the situation, so it's difficult (if not impossible) to decide how much better one is than the other.  Furthermore, there will be games in which you can't manage to get 1 victory point per coin token, just like how there are games where you can't manage to get 1 coin per card you draw, so just leaving it at "coin tokens are better" is not helpful.  What you need to consider are the cases in which coin tokens are better, and then how does that synergize with the rest of the text on the card?

I believe someone else pointed out earlier in the discussion: Monument with a coin token instead of a victory token would be too strong for $4; but Baker with a victory token instead of a coin token would be too strong for $5.

[Robz888]

Yeah, I don't really get this whole "let's compare coin tokens and VP tokens" thing. I mean, it's fine to compare them, we can compare any two things (what's better, +1 Card or Harem?), but they aren't really related things.

The coin tokens are of course good, but I think we are falling for how shiny they are. VP token generation is really, really powerful.