Dominion | BoardGameGeek

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: News:: Re: Avaliable at CoolStuffGames Today!

quixotequest — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:44:05 +0000

by quixotequest

ohbalto wrote:
Just got an email from Cardhaus.com that my long ago pre-order has shipped.

Sweet.

Ditto that. Cool!

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: News:: Re: Avaliable at CoolStuffGames Today!

ohbalto — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:14:28 +0000

by ohbalto

Just got an email from Cardhaus.com that my long ago pre-order has shipped.

Sweet.

Reply: Dominion:: Strategy:: Re: Top 3 Game Slowing Cards

Gwash — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:59:32 +0000

by Gwash

chrisjwmartin wrote:
Gwash wrote:
Maybe you could make a new denomination like 50 money cards... or not be so sarcastic.

Hi, and welcome to the internets. It's an exciting land of hope and wonder, but unfortunately its population is afflicted with chronic sarcasm.

The bright side is that it is catching, and once you have it you're much less likely to suffer from persistent twisting of knickers. Fortunately your "50 money cards" comment suggests that you have contracted the disease: soon you will be a full-blown carrier.

You're one of us now.

Well... as long as there is cake... I'm in.

Reply: Dominion:: Strategy:: Re: Top 3 Game Slowing Cards

chrisjwmartin — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:54:12 +0000

by chrisjwmartin

Gwash wrote:
Maybe you could make a new denomination like 50 money cards... or not be so sarcastic.

Hi, and welcome to the internets. It's an exciting land of hope and wonder, but unfortunately its population is afflicted with chronic sarcasm.

The bright side is that it is catching, and once you have it you're much less likely to suffer from persistent twisting of knickers. Fortunately your "50 money cards" comment suggests that you have contracted the disease: soon you will be a full-blown carrier.

You're one of us now.

Reply: Dominion:: Strategy:: Re: Lots of Simulations; Village is Bad

Alexfrog — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:52:53 +0000

by Alexfrog

While 'several villages + a number of action cards' is too slow if you just acquire 1 card per turn, it can be a superior strategy when you are acquiring cards throug hextra buys and/or workshops.

Workshop and Village clearly go well together, as the Village allows the play of workshop + other cards, and the workshop gets the many action cards you need to combine with the village.

Village isnt always awesome, but there are card sets where it is awesome.

I guess its not awesome in a cardset of only money, point cards, village and smithy, based on the simulation. That doesnt mean that its not good when combined with some other action cards.

Reply: Dominion:: General:: Re: Any suggestions for which 10 Action Cards to use?

chrisjwmartin — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:49:51 +0000

by chrisjwmartin

Don't use the "recommended" sets: they're kind of arbitrary, really. Play with random cards and win or lose as the Fates decree.

Reply: Dominion:: Strategy:: Re: Frustrated!

chrisjwmartin — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:44:30 +0000

by chrisjwmartin

I sometimes wonder if they should have inserted a "beginner game" in which there are no action cards available, and all you can do is buy money, just to teach people that money is valuable.

Reply: Dominion:: Strategy:: Re: Defending the Village

chrisjwmartin — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:35:59 +0000

by chrisjwmartin

JovenShadowcaster wrote:
I hate it when people call Village a NOOB card. It is not a NOOB card, nor is Chapel or Laboratory broken cards, or Chancellor or Thief underpowered cards. They are all fun cards to play. In a game such as this, one should be welcome to play however they see fit, and Village is a LOT of fun to play, because it lets you do a lot more cool stuff with your turn (and it's easier to get than Festival).

I hate it when people call it "FOOL's Mate". It is not FOOLish. It is a fun way to play. In a game such as chess, one should be welcome to play however they see fit, and Fool's Mate is a LOT of fun to play, because it lets you get in a lot of games since you lose so quickly and reliably.

Reply: Dominion:: General:: Re: Provinces as Soon as Possible?

Stunna — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:27:03 +0000

by Stunna

theright555J wrote:
David, you're probably right as I'm a relative noob at Dominion and I'm convinced from your prior posts that you are an expert :)

However, with small deck size at the outset of the game I'm not sure adding another VP card (i.e. province) is that much of a drag. And with Baron, 3 estates, and 9 coin in the deck at this point, getting reasonable draws into the 4-6 coin range in the next several turns is highly likely. This allows for purchase of more coin and deck cyclers, and quickly more provinces.

When I buy an early province, the usual outcome is that I am up 2 or even 3 provinces to zero and my opponent is still building an engine. The intrigue cards (even the paltry 5 offered on BSW) really allow for improved deck cycling which makes the concept of early, aggressive VP buying--a strategy that works quite well in the base game--even more attractive.

I really love adding a remodel to this, getting up to 3 provinces, and then starting to trash them :devil:

That seems more like your opponent is being slow than anything. Although, I will say that with province remodeling, that is probably a wicked good strategy. Being up 2-0 with 4 left is much different than being up 2-0 with 6 or 8 left.

Being up 3-0 in provinces is normally good, but it can turn around quickly if you lucked your way there and don't have much of a deck left. If you have 14 cards and get a province, it's clogging up 1 in 3 of your hands, and it's really hard to be able to still afford one if you still have the basic deck, for the most part. This is true for both coppersmith and baron, I'd think. If I was sure to get a 3-0 lead, I'd still take that chance... but you don't know that when you get that first province.

Reply: Dominion:: General:: Re: Provinces as Soon as Possible?

chrisjwmartin — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:26:39 +0000

by chrisjwmartin

You want to buy Provinces at some point anyway, so the Province buy isn't a wasted turn as such. The problem is that it slows your deck down. Let's say that it slows you down by a whole two turns while you restock. These two turns at the end of the game are turns where you may or may not have been able to buy a Province. If it's a four-player game, you just made a third of the Province buys you need to get your fair share of Provinces, and you're only three turns into the game. All in all, I don't think that buying a turn three Province is as unconscionable as everyone is making out.

Reply: Dominion:: Strategy:: Re: Top 3 Game Slowing Cards

Gwash — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:22:53 +0000

by Gwash

Maybe you could make a new denomination like 50 money cards... or not be so sarcastic.

Reply: Dominion:: Strategy:: Re: Top 3 Game Slowing Cards

chrisjwmartin — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:13:51 +0000

by chrisjwmartin

I found that games went much quicker once we took out Coppers. We start with seven Silvers now and it's so much faster. It's been such a success that we're thinking of moving to Gold: that way we could maybe get a hundred games in over lunch!

Reply: Dominion:: Strategy:: Re: Top 3 Game Slowing Cards

Gwash — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 19:44:16 +0000

by Gwash

Gardens slow the game down for us because of our random card draws and the fact that when you see someone pick a garden up, you or other players pick them up too so that the one guy doesn't have all 12.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Strategy:: Re: Harem: the Province Test

LexH — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 19:36:40 +0000

by LexH

cheepicus wrote:
LexH wrote:
I would be curious to see what happens if you modify both strategies to buy a Duchy instead of a Harem after a certain number of turns.

I ran it with the strategies shifting towards a pure-Victory buy at time N. As you might expect, the Gold/Victory deck absorbs the Victory cards better, and it makes up a lot of ground to where it's only about a point behind a Harem/Victory deck.

Is your simulation complex enough to include a Cellar? If so, this would allow some comparison of the high variance (Cellar) versus low variance (Big Money) strategies.

- Lex

Reply: Dominion:: Strategy:: Re: Top 3 Game Slowing Cards

Stunna — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 19:36:00 +0000

by Stunna

Gardens does nothing directly to slow the game down. Even if you count the extra buys, the rate of shuffling is reduced as well.

Village is only annoying if people are slow about it. Play them all at once, and draw the cards all at once.

I don't play with promo cards.

The slowest card is witch; it probably adds 50% to the average game, if not more. It does far more to inhibit someone's deck than the other attacks, at least over time.

The other slow cards are militia and thief. Militia reduces hand size and thus the rate of buying provinces, and thief reduces money and thus the rate of buying provinces. The cumulative effect can be staggering. Militia also requires people to make tough decisions about what to discard.

Honorable mention for the spy, which wastes time similarly to the thief but is less devastating to deck composition than the thief and less devastating to a hand than militia.

Short version would be all attacks, but the bureaucrat is pretty easy to execute and isn't more devastating than the thief.

Reply: Dominion:: Rules:: Re: I think we're playing Dominion wrong—help!

Stunna — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 19:26:16 +0000

by Stunna

edelen wrote:
Thanks, all of you. This was helpful. We will rethink how we are playing and the strategy. Maybe this will cut the length of games down, too. It's been taking us 75 minutes on average to play a round.

Wow, 75 minutes? I would not play this game if it took 75 minutes, and I happen to like this game.

Reply: Dominion:: Strategy:: Re: Lots of Simulations; Village is Bad

afcgamer3 — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:34:15 +0000

by afcgamer3

I agree with you Robert. As an engineer who does research, it is nice to play a relaxing game and leave the numbers at work. With that being said it is a ton of fun to keep track of numbers and the statistics and beat someones pants off at a game like this

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: General:: Re: "Dominion Expansion" rooms on BSW

Sonja — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:20:37 +0000

by Sonja

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/420769/page/1

New Image for Dominion

skeil — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:15:48 +0000

by skeil

My 5th custom card, WALLS. It is similar to MOAT. I used the great wal...

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New Image for Dominion

skeil — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:06:45 +0000

by skeil

My custom WIZARD expansion. 8 magic item cards. 1 of 2

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Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: News:: Re: Will there be more new Intrigue cards on BSW?

Sonja — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:58:10 +0000

by Sonja

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/3597405#3597405

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: News:: Re: Will there be more new Intrigue cards on BSW?

Broccoli — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:29:16 +0000

by Broccoli

Sonja wrote:
I'd happily pay $30 a year to play the full Dominion with all possible expansions and cards on BSW.

I'd happily pay the same to play the full Dominion with all possible expansions and cards ANYWHERE. I currently have and play BSW, but it's Dominion I love, not BSW.

Reply: Dominion:: General:: Re: Has any thought been given to making a XBLA version of Dominion?

jrescan — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:03:44 +0000

by jrescan

It would be nice to download the demo first, see if I like it, then delete it from the HD, and go to buy the board game. I'm still not sure this game will appeal my taste.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Strategy:: Re: Harem: the Province Test

cheepicus — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:41:30 +0000

by cheepicus

LexH wrote:
I would be curious to see what happens if you modify both strategies to buy a Duchy instead of a Harem after a certain number of turns.

I ran it with the strategies shifting towards a pure-Victory buy at time N. As you might expect, the Gold/Victory deck absorbs the Victory cards better, and it makes up a lot of ground to where it's only about a point behind a Harem/Victory deck.

File: Dominion:: Dominion Tabbed Dividers for trading card box storage

happycamper — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:33:03 +0000

by happycamper

Dominion Tabbed Dividers for trading card box storage for Board Game: Dominion ]]>

Reply: Dominion:: Strategy:: Re: Defending the Village

spags — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:18:57 +0000

by spags

Good points. I've played hundreds of games now on BSW, and I've won a number because people loaded up on Villages, but never bought significant $$$. SO, all those cards in one's hand for ... what? It's a classic (n00b?) mistake.

However, I wouldn't call Village a beginner's card. Multiple actions are tough to come by, esp. when playing random sets. SO, people do gravitate towards the card, because it's a superior card, esp. when compared to most other 3 cost cards (Workshop, Woodcutter, Chancellor). The introduction of something like the Swindler will reduce the Village's frequency of use, imho, just like other new cards will (hopefully) reduce the usage of things like Witch.

Speaking of n00b cards ... I'd say attack cards in general are pretty simple, due to their blunt efficiency. Yes, Militia and Witch, I'm looking at you. At least some of the newer attack cards (Minion, Torturer) offer some choice. However, couldn't the same be said of most of the new set?

Reply: Dominion:: Rules:: Re: I think we're playing Dominion wrong—help!

edelen — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 13:48:39 +0000

by edelen

Thanks, all of you. This was helpful. We will rethink how we are playing and the strategy. Maybe this will cut the length of games down, too. It's been taking us 75 minutes on average to play a round.

Reply: Dominion:: Strategy:: Re: Defending the Village

cheepicus — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 13:35:51 +0000

by cheepicus

yaron wrote:
The simplest pure-money strategy (just get Silver, Gold and Provinces), in the absence of attacks, averages 4 Provinces in 16.9 turns. So no matter the card mix (barring attacks, of course), there's no reason for an experienced player to take 20 turns.

Well, this is true only so far as you think "getting 4 Provinces" is the same as finishing the game. Which it usually is, but it will lose to a strategy that gets say, 3 Duchies instead of 1 Province, or a pure-money deck that favors Harems over Provinces. The pure-money deck gets 5 Provinces, but the game takes longer, and it loses.

Also considering Attacks, I don't think it's quite right to hold up the "bot-time to 4 Provinces" as some fundamental rule of real Dominion play.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Reviews:: Re: An Expansion Always Does Expand Things...Right?

Mythdracon — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 13:02:19 +0000

by Mythdracon

Yeah, It's a pity people are so defensive about this when there is a chance for valid critical discussion and hopefully implementation.

Game designers value constructive criticism (which some deem "negative") quite valuable, and I'm sorry to observe that some of their fans don't see it quite the same way. :S

More like a generic counter to criticism of a specific card or group of cards. If you got a pool of 50 cards to use, how hard is it to just remove the ones you do not like completely? In this area Intrigue do add a lot as you can remove a quite some cards before you get as few to really limit variety.

Yes, we could remove the +action +card cards, but that might upset some people who have just learnt the game and like their combos. All I'm saying is that it might be nice to implement a "pro" start and a regular start. A pro start might add action limits or something, to limit spamming.

Frankly, I prefer intelligent games to simple ones. There is fun in both, but asking for a more intelligent game isn't always asking it to be less fun (as some of the prior posters seem to think I'm suggesting it is).

Reply: Dominion:: Strategy:: Re: Defending the Village

yaron — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 10:17:35 +0000

by yaron

filovirus wrote:
Experienced players of Dominion should be able to complete a game by turn 20, assuming there are no game slowing cards in the current ten (Militia, Witch, Swindler, etc.). That means that each player should be able to acquire at least 3 provinces by turn 20, if not sooner, when playing a four player game. So on the outset, a person vying for the Village strategy needs to gain the provinces at a faster rate. I have found that by turn 15, a person with the Village strategy can have up to 4 provinces in their deck. Only a few other strategies can boast of this speed (Chapel comes to mind). But Chapel players will have discarded their initial Estates, and the Village player will still have theirs.

I think your benchmarks are several turns off.

The simplest pure-money strategy (just get Silver, Gold and Provinces), in the absence of attacks, averages 4 Provinces in 16.9 turns. So no matter the card mix (barring attacks, of course), there's no reason for an experienced player to take 20 turns.

With Smithy in the set, you can average 14.74 turns (get one Smithy a.s.a.p., and another after your 3rd shuffle. Everything else is Silver, Gold and Provinces).

(This is based on computer simulations. Some are reported in http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/400371, others in http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/420032).

Smithy is in the cardset you are analysing, so any elaborate strategy needs to compete with consistent turn 15 wins (producable by simple money+Smithy). In testing (using Market as the source of +buys, and Cellar for extra consistency), I found that your strategy can win on turn 15 (or even earlier, using +buys to get multiple Villages/Smithies in one turn), but it usually will not. Here are two major things that can go wrong:

1. Late Gold. Without Silver, it's very hard to get Gold. You might make several passes over your Village/Smithy/Copper/Estate deck before you manage to hit that crucial 6. Ironically, my fastest game (4 Provinces in turn 13) was the one in which I was lucky enough to hit 6 early, then hit 6 multiple times (courtesy of the original Gold), and just started getting Provinces. I only got one Village and Smithy that whole game (so it would have been even better if the Village was a Silver).

2. No Village hands. Of course, any turn in which you start with Smithies and no Villages is a dead turn. I made an effort to balance the number of Villages and Smithies in my decks (getting Village with 4 if I had too many Smithies), but it still happened a lot, causing quite a few games to go to turn 18 or 19.

Reply: Dominion:: Rules:: Re: I think we're playing Dominion wrong—help!

coolpapa — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 09:34:05 +0000

by coolpapa

Or think of it this way. You have a "bank". At the start of your turn, it has 1 action and 1 buy in it. In the A phase, you may spend one action from your bank to play one action card. When you play a Market, suddenly your bank gets 1 extra action in it, you draw a card, your bank gets another buy, and your bank gets another coin. You don't have to spend those things right away - that's what the bank is for. You keep playing action cards as long as you have actions in the bank that you want to spend. Then you move onto the B phase, and play as many treasure cards to add to the coins in your bank, and you may spend 1 buy and the appropriate number of coins to gain a card, as long as you have buys and coins you want to spend. Then in the C phase you clean up and your bank resets to 1 action and 1 buy.

New Image for Dominion

skeil — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 09:10:34 +0000

by skeil

My 4th custom card, BISHOP. It is similar to CHAPEL. I used the bishop...

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Reply: Dominion:: Rules:: Re: I think we're playing Dominion wrong—help!

baba44713 — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 08:02:44 +0000

by baba44713

For the OP:

Think of +Action and +Buy bonuses as coupons. You may opt to use them, or you may opt not to use them. If you use them, you have to do it during that turn, but not IMMEDIATELY - the coupons are redeemable when the correct time for it comes. For "+Action", it is when you have completely resolved the previously played Action card. For "+Buy" it is after you have completely finished with the Action phase altogether.

Also, I didn't gather from your post whether you think you have to use all the Buys or not. Extra Buys are optional - you may use them, but you are not obligated to.

Edit: I suggest you also look up some of the tutorial videos floating around the web or try out a few online games on BSW. They will help clear out any possible issues you might still have.

Reply: Dominion:: Rules:: Re: I think we're playing Dominion wrong—help!

anomander64 — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 07:17:51 +0000

by anomander64

We find it good practice to always speak out loud the number of actions and buys available each turn.

So if you play a Village, we always say; "Two actions left".

If you then play a Smithy, we say "One action left".

If that is then followed by a Market, we say; "One Action left" and two buys and plus one coin.

This makes sure everyone is aware where the play is up to and prevents any confusion.

Try playing on BSW and see how the actions and buys chain together.

Reply: Dominion:: Strategy:: Re: Defending the Village

JovenShadowcaster — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 07:03:55 +0000

by JovenShadowcaster

Well, yeah, I agree, but even when I was new, I bought Villages in equal quantity with Moats and a few Council Rooms. I did pretty well in my first game, only a few points behind the guy running the demo (who won).

If you can't see the waste in having nine actions and no action cards to play, that's not N00Bish. That's just st00pid. That's little better than buying Throne Rooms when there aren't any other actions in your deck.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: News:: Re: Avaliable at CoolStuffGames Today!

JovenShadowcaster — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 06:27:50 +0000

by JovenShadowcaster

Kaacee wrote:
I've been itching to play both games, and my local gaming store is going to have Intrigue on Friday. I can wait a few days, that's fine, but I'll probably skip the preorder next time if it takes longer.

Well, most of the time, you get a pretty good deal to preorder online -- a discount (some were as low as $28 before shipping), or in my case, 500 free euro card sleeves from Mayday. The entire package -- Intrigue, sleeves, plus shipping and handling, cost $50.10, which would be about $15-20 less than paying for Intrigue and all those sleeves, plus tax, in my area. I'm a cheapass, and $20 is worth a few measly extra days to me.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: General:: Re: Careful playing Bureaucrat on BSW ...

GregF — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 06:16:15 +0000

by GregF

It is fixed. I was playing on BSW just now and Bureaucrat affected Nobles just like the other Victory cards.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: News:: Re: Will there be more new Intrigue cards on BSW?

Sonja — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 04:49:09 +0000

by Sonja

I'd happily pay $30 a year to play the full Dominion with all possible expansions and cards on BSW.

Reply: Dominion:: Rules:: Re: I think we're playing Dominion wrong—help!

the_pirate — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 04:48:08 +0000

by the_pirate

edelen wrote:

Okay, but what else would I do with that +1 Action then if I didn't play another Action card right at that point? Could I choose not to play another Action card and just go into my Buy phase?

Most definitely.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: General:: Re: Careful playing Bureaucrat on BSW ...

Sonja — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 04:42:42 +0000

by Sonja

Why not report this in the BSW forums so they can fix the bug? Maybe they have already?

Reply: Dominion:: Rules:: Re: I think we're playing Dominion wrong—help!

jeffwolfe — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 04:40:32 +0000

by jeffwolfe

"+1 Action" does not mean "play an Action card immediately" it means "you add one to the number of Action cards you may play this turn" but you must fully resolve one Action before you play the next one.

Similarly, "+1 Buy" does not mean "buy a card immediately" it means "you may add one to the number of cards you may buy this turn" but you must wait until the Buy Phase to buy them.

So, if I play Market, Market, Festival, it would be resolved like this:

Action Phase: I may play 1 Action

Play Market
+1 Card: Draw a card immediately
+1 Action: I now may play 2 Actions on this turn
+1 Buy: I now may perform 2 Buys on this turn
+1 Coin: I now have 1 Coin available to spend

After the first Market:
Actions: I may play 2, I've played 1, I have 1 more available
Buys: I may buy 2 cards during the Buy Phase
Coins: I have 1 Coin available

Since I have an Action available:
Play Market
+1 Card: Draw a card immediately
+1 Action: I now may play 3 Actions on this turn
+1 Buy: I now may perform 3 Buys on this turn
+1 Coin: I now have 2 Coins available to spend

After the second Market:
Actions: I may play 3, I've played 2, I have 1 more available
Buys: I may buy 3 cards during the Buy Phase
Coins: I have 2 Coins available

Since I have an Action available:
Play Festival
+2 Actions: I now may play 5 Actions on this turn
+1 Buy: I now may perform 4 Buys on this turn
+2 Coin: I now have 4 Coins available to spend

After the Festival:
Actions: I may play 5, I've played 3, I have 2 more available
Buys: I may buy 4 cards during the Buy Phase
Coins: I have 4 Coins available

I still have 2 Actions available, but I am out of Action cards, so I move to the Buy phase.

Buy Phase: I may buy 4 cards
I have 4 Coins available from the Action Phase
Suppose I play a Silver and a Copper, giving me 3 additional Coins for a total of 7

With 7 Coins, I might Buy a Duchy and an Estate, and I would probably decline to use the other 2 Buys, although I certainly could Buy two Coppers.

Edit: I started this post before Donald made his first reply, but it still seems to answer your question.

Reply: Dominion:: Rules:: Re: I think we're playing Dominion wrong—help!

edelen — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 04:34:29 +0000

by edelen

donaldx wrote:
edelen wrote:
So if I lay down a Market, I take a card. I move onto the next item on the Market card, which is +1 Action. At that point I lay down another Market. I guess I take another card. That also gives me another Action play.

No.

+1 Action means "the total number of actions you can play this turn is increased by one." It does not mean "play another action card right now."

Okay, but what else would I do with that +1 Action then if I didn't play another Action card right at that point? Could I choose not to play another Action card and just go into my Buy phase?

Reply: Dominion:: Rules:: Re: I think we're playing Dominion wrong—help!

donaldx — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 04:28:31 +0000

by donaldx

edelen wrote:
Also, I'm not sure why the random Kingdom cards (the ones with the different colored backs) exist. If you are just using them to determine which 10 sets to play, why not just choose from the sets of regular cards? We're using them as placeholders--when it is the final card in a Kingdom card stack, that stack is considered empty. Or are we missing something?

You could just use one card from each stack for a randomizer deck, and then return it to the randomizing deck after the game. It's slightly nicer to not have to do that, so we've included the randomizer cards (with a different back) for the people that want to use them.

Reply: Dominion:: Rules:: Re: I think we're playing Dominion wrong—help!

donaldx — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 04:25:43 +0000

by donaldx

edelen wrote:
So if I lay down a Market, I take a card. I move onto the next item on the Market card, which is +1 Action. At that point I lay down another Market. I guess I take another card. That also gives me another Action play.

No.

+1 Action means "the total number of actions you can play this turn is increased by one." It does not mean "play another action card right now."

When you play Market:

- you draw a card.
- you increase the number of actions you can play this turn, without actually playing another one yet.
- you increase the number of buys you'll be able to use in the buy phase, without actually buying anything now.
- you increase the amount of money you have available to spend, for when you finally get a chance to spend it (normally in the buy phase).

You can only play an Action card after everything the previous Action card did has been done. As it happens some of the +'s just increase what you can do on your turn, they don't make you do stuff right then in the middle of the card. So doing them right then just means increasing your mental count of actions/buys/coins.

Reply: Dominion:: Rules:: Re: I think we're playing Dominion wrong—help!

edelen — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 04:02:27 +0000

by edelen

So if I lay down a Market, I take a card. I move onto the next item on the Market card, which is +1 Action. At that point I lay down another Market. I guess I take another card. That also gives me another Action play.

Now I lay down a Festival, which gives me another 2 Actions (if I have them, then I play them). My Action round completes.

Now, I sum all the Buys on all the action cards I laid AND sum all the coins on those same cards, and then I Buy, combining the Action cards' +X coins and any Coins I play. I can also split my Buys and Coins based on how many total Buys and Coins I have available.

Okay, if that's how it's done, then I'm not really resolving all the items on the first Action card alone but on all the Action cards taken together. That seems to run afoul of the rule of resolving all the items on a single Action card, as you are resolving them on all the played Action cards at once.

Thanks for the explanation.

Also, I'm not sure why the random Kingdom cards (the ones with the different colored backs) exist. If you are just using them to determine which 10 sets to play, why not just choose from the sets of regular cards? We're using them as placeholders--when it is the final card in a Kingdom card stack, that stack is considered empty. Or are we missing something?

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: News:: Re: Avaliable at CoolStuffGames Today!

Kaacee — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 03:57:12 +0000

by Kaacee

JovenShadowcaster wrote:
Kaacee wrote:
I preordered this to ship along with Smallworld from Maydaygames. Has anyone else ordered from them, and heard when they are shipping?

I did. I was a bit of a prick to their head honcho a few days ago; when their website said they had sold out of sleeves and Intrigue orders would not ship until the end of the month because of it. He assured me that orders prior to the sellout had already gotten set aside, and that I should get my copy of Intrigue on schedule.

He told me he was expecting them to come in Thursday or (at the latest) Friday, and that he'd get them sent out within the same business day.

Good to hear, I think... I've been itching to play both games, and my local gaming store is going to have Intrigue on Friday. I can wait a few days, that's fine, but I'll probably skip the preorder next time if it takes longer.

Reply: Dominion:: Strategy:: Re: Defending the Village

djgutierrez77 — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 03:56:25 +0000

by djgutierrez77

But to be fair...buying a bunch of villages with no complementary actions and then playing them all in a row to end up with 4 treasure in hand is, quite literally, the kind of play a newbie to the game makes. Of course Village is a fine card, in a set with no extra actions I will almost always get one. One. Maybe two. Not seven.

Reply: Dominion:: Rules:: Re: I think we're playing Dominion wrong—help!

tlnordin — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 03:45:22 +0000

by tlnordin

Extra coins and buys only come into play after you complete your actions. So you don't have to pay attention to extra coins or buys while you are still playing cards, with the exception of if you have the black market to deal with. So play all the action cards you want/can, and only worry about whether or not you have stored up actions. After all your actions are complete, then take care of added coins or buys.

Reply: Dominion:: Rules:: Re: I think we're playing Dominion wrong—help!

Karlsen — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 03:44:06 +0000

by Karlsen

ABC means do all your A's before moving on to the B phase and then the C.

So Market means you draw another card and you have an extra action. Another Market means draw another card and you have another action. Playing the Festival means you can play two more Action cards (assuming you have any left) before moving on to the Buy phase. When you reach the buy phase you have one buy plus any buys or coins that you picked up when you where playing your action cards.

So:

A - Play as many action cards as you can [which is 1 unless you play a +X Actions card] (possibly accumulating buys and coins)
B - Do your buy(s) possibly using stuff accumulated in A
C - Cleanup.

Reply: Dominion:: Rules:: Re: I think we're playing Dominion wrong—help!

dkeisen — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 03:38:55 +0000

by dkeisen

+1 action merely means "add 1 to your supply of actions this turn". It does not mean perform an action.

Similarly with +1 buy.

Thread: Dominion:: Rules:: I think we're playing Dominion wrong—help!

edelen — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 03:32:29 +0000

by edelen

Got Dominion recently and had great fun playing it, but I think we were playing it wrong. To me, some of the rules seems to contradict each other.

For instance, we are told to do the ABC phase, but also told to resolve an action card all the way through before proceeding to another action card.

Let's say I play the Market card. As the first item on the card is +1 card, I draw another card. I then proceed down the Market card to +1 action, so for this added action, I lay down another action card, Festival (+2 Action, +1 Buy, +2 Coin). I don't do anything with that card, though, until I do 2 Buys because of the Market card. That same card gave me +1 Coin for my 2 Buys.

Then I go to The Festival card and resolve it all the way through.

But doing it that way seems to bust up the simplicity of the ABC phase, as you are playing A & B on every Action card before finally doing C.

So I suspect we are playing wrong.

Thanks for helping.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: News:: Re: Avaliable at CoolStuffGames Today!

Mr_Nuts — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 03:29:45 +0000

by Mr_Nuts

I've had Intrigue on preorder from CoolStuffInc since May. I'll be getting Space Alert and Cleopatra and the Society of Architects along with Intrigue. I tried to add Small World to my order when it went on sale there, but my order had already been boxed and placed in the warehouse. :(

FWIW, Cory said I should be getting my order Monday or Tuesday. I'm in Michigan.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: News:: Re: Avaliable at CoolStuffGames Today!

markandmel — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 03:04:17 +0000

by markandmel

Mine shipped from LoTech games on Monday. Got email notice from pre-order in the morning, made payment, had tracking number in the afternoon, should be here Friday. Two orders from them with very good service.

Reply: Dominion:: Strategy:: Re: Defending the Village

JovenShadowcaster — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 02:30:05 +0000

by JovenShadowcaster

I hate it when people call Village a NOOB card. It is not a NOOB card, nor is Chapel or Laboratory broken cards, or Chancellor or Thief underpowered cards. They are all fun cards to play. In a game such as this, one should be welcome to play however they see fit, and Village is a LOT of fun to play, because it lets you do a lot more cool stuff with your turn (and it's easier to get than Festival).

Village is probably my favorite card because it makes for awesome combos, like Council Room & Militia, Spy & Thief, Chapel & Library, Secret Chamber & Library, et-cetera.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: News:: Re: Avaliable at CoolStuffGames Today!

JovenShadowcaster — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 02:06:18 +0000

by JovenShadowcaster

Kaacee wrote:
I preordered this to ship along with Smallworld from Maydaygames. Has anyone else ordered from them, and heard when they are shipping?

I did. I was a bit of a prick to their head honcho a few days ago; when their website said they had sold out of sleeves and Intrigue orders would not ship until the end of the month because of it. He assured me that orders prior to the sellout had already gotten set aside, and that I should get my copy of Intrigue on schedule.

He told me he was expecting them to come in Thursday or (at the latest) Friday, and that he'd get them sent out within the same business day.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Strategy:: Re: Let's talk about starting combos

Riken — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:45:42 +0000

by Riken

Ironworks/Great Hall: Use the Ironworks to buy more Ironworks and Great Halls, and once both of those decks are gone drain the estates. Win by ending the game really quickly, before a slower deck has a chance to get started.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: General:: Re: So, does any store in the US already have the game?

GregF — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:08:28 +0000

by GregF

I just got the shipping confirmation from CCG Armory (where I'd preordered online) - still "Billing Information Received", so UPS doesn't have it yet, but target date Wednesday the 15th, conveniently right after my Tuesday game night. :soblue:

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: News:: Re: Avaliable at CoolStuffGames Today!

Kaacee — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:58:07 +0000

by Kaacee

I preordered this to ship along with Smallworld from Maydaygames. Has anyone else ordered from them, and heard when they are shipping?

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Reviews:: Re: An Expansion Always Does Expand Things...Right?

baba44713 — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:56:51 +0000

by baba44713

Mythdracon simply stated that newbies often buy +action/+card Action cards because they perceive them (and long combos in general) to be more valuable then they really are. This is really not a "complaint" per se, but rather an observation. Pretty valid one, I might add.

Countering this with "I don't understand your complaints, this is a very customizable game." seems like that guy doesn't really care about what the discussion actually is nor wants to add anything meaningful except being contrary for the sake of being contrary. Hence, my comment.

Thread: Dominion:: Strategy:: Defending the Village

filovirus — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:49:51 +0000

by filovirus

OK. Village is one of those cards that are taking a hard hit on BGG. People are starting to assign its name the “Village Idiot” and are associating it with new players. This may be true that new players see it as a fun card and are quick to buy up many of them. What they don’t realize is that the true way to win at Dominion is in buying power. However, underneath the newbie charm is a card that is strong enough to have it’s own strategy, which when used correctly, can defeat even the most experienced Dominion player.

Experienced players of Dominion should be able to complete a game by turn 20, assuming there are no game slowing cards in the current ten (Militia, Witch, Swindler, etc.). That means that each player should be able to acquire at least 3 provinces by turn 20, if not sooner, when playing a four player game. So on the outset, a person vying for the Village strategy needs to gain the provinces at a faster rate. I have found that by turn 15, a person with the Village strategy can have up to 4 provinces in their deck. Only a few other strategies can boast of this speed (Chapel comes to mind). But Chapel players will have discarded their initial Estates, and the Village player will still have theirs.

So how does one employ the Village strategy? The first requirement is to realize that Village is a means to an end, and not a fun card that gives the player multiple actions. It is a free card (a card that replaces itself) and gives one additional action to use. That is all it is! So by itself, it is not a particularly strong card. What the player needs to realize is that they need to put that additional action to good use.

That said, the object of the village strategy is to cycle through your deck every turn and have enough of the real power, money, to buy victory points. Ultimately, a player should be able to do a double province buy at least once, and sometimes twice during a game of Dominion.

In order to cycle through your deck, you will need some big draw cards. The best one for the money is Smithy. It draws three cards and pairs nicely with Village for a total of four new cards every time they are paired, with an action left over. One of the cards drawn must be a Village, and the other a Smithy, or you must have an extra one of these in hand if you had bad luck. Moat doesn’t work as a strong draw card because you won’t be able to cycle through your whole deck quickly enough.

You will also need buying power, specifically at least 16 coins. Amazingly enough, three golds paired with seven coppers gives exactly 16 coins, enough for two provinces. And the player is lucky enough to start with seven coppers, more than enough to purchase the first gold needed to increase buying power. The need of the Village and Smithy is have enough draw power to get six of the seven coppers for the first gold buy. After that, buys will come a lot easier.

Finally, the player will need one card that gives an extra buy, preferably one that provides money in order to attempt a second double province buy.

The cards you will need to put the Village to good use, which you can buy in any order are:
Seven coppers
Three estates
Three golds
Five villages
Five smithies
One + buy card

Five Villages and five Smithies will be exactly enough to get you through your entire deck at this point, with one action left over to cap off your turn with a +1 buy card. At one buy a turn, you will have a double province buy at turn 15. But to add insult to injury, if you get that plus one buy card early enough, you can perform one or even two double buys getting to that stage in the game, allowing you to do a double province buy at turn 13 or 14. Wow. Now if Woodcutter, is your plus one buy card, you have two extra coins to work with on your next turn, netting you at least one province, and sometimes two. If Baron is your plus one buy card, you have a very good chance to netting a double province buy twice in a row. After that, your engine will be running on fumes, but you should still have enough draw and money power to crank out a Province or two, or a few Duchies and even Estates as needed.

Here are other cards that I would consider to mix and match, substituting one for the other.

Mining Village is even better than Village in that you can get rid of them in the end game to increase your disintegrating buying power. I would recommend against Festival because it does not have the extra draw.

Both Torturer and Council Room are very good replacements for Smithy. Specifically you can be playing three Torturers every turn, really messing with other player decks. Nobles can also substitute for Smithy, but I wouldn’t use it for Village.

The best plus buys too use would be Woodcutter, Council Room, Baron, Bridge, and maybe Market if there were no other plus buys with money.

Does this strategy work every time? Of course not. It all depends on the interest in Villages and Smithies between all players. But this strategy holds up very well to most attack cards, and if you allow me to get five Villages you better get to those Provinces faster than I can.

Reply: Dominion:: News:: Re: Donald X Vaccarino....your first time design wins SDJ ....are you for real?

Ponton — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:46:17 +0000

by Ponton

Ponton wrote:
I think we need some microbadges for the two fronts:

1 for "I believe in Donald X"

and

1 for "I'm a Donald X atheist"

And here they are:

]]>

and

]]>

When does the mircobadge mod return?! :D

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Strategy:: Re: Harem: the Province Test

LexH — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:17:42 +0000

by LexH

DaviddesJ wrote:
LexH wrote:
There are two effects of having infinite Provinces with equal turns:

Well, playing to equal turns effectively lengthens the game, by something like 3/8 turns on average in a 4-player game (i.e., in a 4-player game where the 12th Province is bought by someone on turn N, every player will get N turns, while with the standard rules the average player would get something like N-3/8 turns). So I can see the argument that this slightly longer game tilts the balance slightly toward investing rather than buying VPs in the early turns. But it seems to me it's not a qualitative change, it just shifts everyone's strategy (including yours) slightly in that direction. I guess one could trigger the ending at 11 Provinces, or something, to compensate. If one cared.

If all turns were equal then 3/8th of a turn would not be an issue. In practice you get your VP's in the later turns and the earlier turns build towards VP's.

I have gained a few wins by using this against players who focus too heavily on the later game. That last 3/8th of a turn carries a fairly high VP count in the many games that are decided by only a few VP. So for me it is an important consideration.

Tactically the only real adjustment would be a slight shift towards investment and away from grabbing VP a bit early. I have developed a willingness to snag an fairly early Province (turn 4-5) based on a gamble that I can sustain a high enough pace that my early lead gives me the win (if I go early) or prevents an opposing win (if I go later). I would be less inclined to do this in an equal turn game. If I am going early my opponent(s) is/are going to get more turns than otherwise and if I am going late I don't need to snatch them quite as quickly to prevent a loss. But overall this would be a small change.

- Lex

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: News:: Re: Avaliable at CoolStuffGames Today!

Trump — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:08:28 +0000

by Trump

Boards & Bits ( http://www.boardsandbits.com/ ) expects it in stock Thursday and shipping on friday.

Reply: Dominion:: Strategy:: Re: Top 3 Game Slowing Cards

sisteray — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:01:42 +0000

by sisteray

The Thief really slows the game down for us, because no one will buy gold.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Strategy:: Re: Harem: the Province Test

DaviddesJ — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:59:56 +0000

by DaviddesJ

LexH wrote:
There are two effects of having infinite Provinces with equal turns:

Well, playing to equal turns effectively lengthens the game, by something like 3/8 turns on average in a 4-player game (i.e., in a 4-player game where the 12th Province is bought by someone on turn N, every player will get N turns, while with the standard rules the average player would get something like N-3/8 turns). So I can see the argument that this slightly longer game tilts the balance slightly toward investing rather than buying VPs in the early turns. But it seems to me it's not a qualitative change, it just shifts everyone's strategy (including yours) slightly in that direction. I guess one could trigger the ending at 11 Provinces, or something, to compensate. If one cared.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: News:: Re: Avaliable at CoolStuffGames Today!

monkeyboy157 — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:51:23 +0000

by monkeyboy157

My pre-ordered copy will be coming in on Friday to my FLGS. Friday can't come soon enough.

Reply: Dominion:: Strategy:: Re: Top 3 Game Slowing Cards

Gwash — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:48:29 +0000

by Gwash

HappyProle wrote:
Militia, Spy, Bureaucrat and Thief can all slow the game down because you often have to wait for your opponents to shuffle.

This is true, but in general I have noticed that the top three cards that slow down the game for us are the ones above.

A side note for Gardens: When you see someone start buying these, you probably should buy at least one or two as well lest you allow them to have all of them unless you can end it swiftly (which is a gamble). This makes the game slower.

Reply: Dominion:: Strategy:: Re: Top 3 Game Slowing Cards

filovirus — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:47:22 +0000

by filovirus

I've found witch to a game slowing experience, expecially with no moat in play. Second is probably militia until people start to finally have enough to buy golds.

Reply: Dominion:: Strategy:: Re: Top 3 Game Slowing Cards

HappyProle — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:39:36 +0000

by HappyProle

Militia, Spy, Bureaucrat and Thief can all slow the game down because you often have to wait for your opponents to shuffle.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: News:: Re: Avaliable at CoolStuffGames Today!

joshp — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:38:19 +0000

by joshp

I ordered Dominion: Intrigue and Race for the Galaxy: Rebel vs Imperium from Coolstuffinc. It shows my order as In Queue, so it should be shipping soon.

Reply: Dominion:: Strategy:: Re: Top 3 Game Slowing Cards

HappyProle — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:27:49 +0000

by HappyProle

In my experience Gardens can often make for the very fastest games.

Witch with no counters can slow the game down.

A set with no additional actions can slow the game down.

Thread: Dominion: Intrigue:: News:: Avaliable at CoolStuffGames Today!

SVan — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:14:30 +0000

by SVan

I just ordered mine and it being in my backyard (but still too expensive to drive there compared to shipping), it should be in my hands on Friday.

Everyone needs to do the same! Well all of us Dominion lunatics at least!

I haven't checked any other stores yet.

New Image for Dominion

Gwash — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 20:57:56 +0000

by Gwash

English Gardens card - no single one available

]]>

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Strategy:: Re: Harem: the Province Test

LexH — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 20:53:51 +0000

by LexH

DaviddesJ wrote:
LexH wrote:
If I am playing a 'sputtering deck' and I am early in the turn order then I will buy the last Province if I can.

Of course. If you have any deck and you're at any position in the turn order you will buy the last Province if you can.

You still have the issue that, as you've described it, your opponents are buying more Provinces than you are at the end of the game, so they are more likely to deny you extra turns, than the reverse.

I agree with your statement.

But I am less concerned with me getting an extra turn than giving them an extra turn.

If I am way ahead I don't care either way. If they are way ahead I don't care either way. This strategy is designed to be ahead more than behind going into the late rounds.

My strategy has deliberately given up the possibility of a big round late in order to get a series of good rounds early.

There are two effects of having infinite Provinces with equal turns:

One, it gives the opponent access to more Province cards then would normally be available in supply.

Two, it gives them an one last buy to win the game.

Both conditions favor the player who is peaking late. They potentially can buy 2 Provinces in one turn when I otherwise could have left them with only 1 Province available. With 1 Province available the opponent does not get the full advantage of having 16 Coin on that last turn.

Even though me getting the last turn gives me a chance to catch up if they end the game this is not as useful to me as my opponent. I am less likely by design to be able to take advantage of that ability.

If I buy the last Province and they lose that last turn it is more likely they could have used it to catch up than if my opponent buys the last Province on their turn and I try to catch up. My deck is not designed to buy a lot in one turn so I can't use this ability. At best I can buy 6 VP, while they potentially could buy 12+ VP.

If they end the game going earlier and are ahead by 1-2 VP then I want that last turn to buy a Duchy. If they are ahead by 4 or more VP then I am wishing I had that last turn if I had 8 Coin. If they are ahead by more than 7 VP then it doesn't matter.

But if I am ahead by any amount I am glad the game is over before their turn. Even a 10 VP lead is not safe. So I feel it favors me for the game not to have extra turns if I try this strategy.

- Lex

Reply: Dominion:: News:: Re: Donald X Vaccarino....your first time design wins SDJ ....are you for real?

pusboyau — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 20:48:40 +0000

by pusboyau

pusboyau wrote:
lopsided wrote:
There have been questions and, as the original poster pointed out, this has only fueled them.

http://www.spotlightongames.com/list/sdj.html

Sorry about this but I would like to call Mr Heli to the witness stand;).

Nick

...the chair in the witness stand shuffles......(and shuffles again....and again)

http://www.spotlightongames.com/muse/39.html

(I like to state here - before another thread starts - that I receive no payment from Mr Heli for the links I have submitted of his excellent website - all about boardgames since 1997, and apologies for any added pressure I have inflicted on Rick, as if he doesn't have enough to do with a long list of upcoming reviews to add:D).

Nick

Reply: Dominion:: Variants:: Re: Post your favorite play set ideas and give them names

Born-of-Ashes — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 20:40:38 +0000

by Born-of-Ashes

jebry wrote:

I'm going to guess the throne room.

Yep, I knew it was obvious.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Strategy:: Re: Harem: the Province Test

DaviddesJ — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 20:27:05 +0000

by DaviddesJ

LexH wrote:
If I am playing a 'sputtering deck' and I am early in the turn order then I will buy the last Province if I can.

Of course. If you have any deck and you're at any position in the turn order you will buy the last Province if you can.

You still have the issue that, as you've described it, your opponents are buying more Provinces than you are at the end of the game, so they are more likely to deny you extra turns, than the reverse.

Reply: Dominion:: Strategy:: Re: Top 3 Game Slowing Cards

Gwash — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 20:24:49 +0000

by Gwash

locusshifter wrote:
In my experience no cards really slow the game down in the long term.

What do you mean by "in the long term?" If you are talking about after all of the players are experienced then I would have to disagree. We have been playing Dominion for a while now at lunch and BM or Gardens cards can throw about 10 mins. or more onto the game time (which is a lot if you are trying to maximize your hour).

godfeather wrote:
Then you will have Saboteur to slow the game down with. The fastest game I have played with was probably with workshop, throneroom and gardens.

I haven't had the luxury of playing with the Intrigue cards yet, but from the looks of Saboteur it will definitely slow things down.

Reply: Dominion:: Strategy:: Re: Top 3 Game Slowing Cards

stoneman — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 20:22:27 +0000

by stoneman

Mr_Nuts wrote:
Village is a nice card and all, but he wound up with a big long combo and little to show for it at the end.

That's the part the frustrates me the most. Usually these turns end with - "...and with my three coppers... I'll buy another village."

aaaaagh.

Reply: Dominion:: Strategy:: Re: Top 3 Game Slowing Cards

Gwash — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 20:18:10 +0000

by Gwash

Mr_Nuts wrote:
Village, Village and Village.

My very first time playing the game, my opponent (who was also new) was obsessed with Village. His turns went something like this: "Village. Village. Smithy. Village. Cellar. Village. (I go off and make a sandwich at this point.)

Village is a nice card and all, but he wound up with a big long combo and little to show for it at the end.

I agree with Black Market slowing the game down too. I'm close to taking it out of the rotation. I will probably do so when I finally receive Intrigue next week.

Oh yeah... Village would have also been on the list for sure, but I usually play with a group of 4 (sometimes 5) well versed players who realize that too many of them just plain suck. For beginners though village must seem like a great deal or something because they usually end up buying a ton of them.

Reply: Dominion:: Strategy:: Re: Top 3 Game Slowing Cards

locusshifter — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 20:16:27 +0000

by locusshifter

In my experience no cards really slow the game down in the long term.

Reply: Dominion:: Strategy:: Re: Top 3 Game Slowing Cards

godfeather — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 20:15:28 +0000

by godfeather

Then you will have Saboteur to slow the game down with. The fastest game I have played with was probably with workshop, throneroom and gardens.

Reply: Dominion:: News:: Re: Donald X Vaccarino....your first time design wins SDJ ....are you for real?

Twinge — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 20:14:34 +0000

by Twinge

Golux13 wrote:
pusboyau wrote:
Listen, people! This is critical. THEY are outside. I haven't got much time. You may never hear from me again. I need you to get word out. It's all a lie! THERE IS NO DONAL

I love how kidnappers are always nice enough to click submit before they take you away.

Reply: Dominion:: Strategy:: Re: Top 3 Game Slowing Cards

Mr_Nuts — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 20:10:29 +0000

by Mr_Nuts
Village, Village and Village.

My very first time playing the game, my opponent (who was also new) was obsessed with Village. His turns went something like this: "Village. Village. Smithy. Village. Cellar. Village. (I go off and make a sandwich at this point.)

Village is a nice card and all, but he wound up with a big long combo and little to show for it at the end.

I agree with Black Market slowing the game down too. I'm close to taking it out of the rotation. I will probably do so when I finally receive Intrigue next week.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: General:: Re: So, does any store in the US already have the game?

Marty S — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 20:05:12 +0000

by Marty S
Just got an email from my FLGS saying he would have SOME copies in on Friday, but he did not get the full number that he had ordered ; supply is expected to be tight til August. Luckily I had reserved one .

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: General:: Re: Is there room for Promo cards in the Intrigue box?

AlricTheMad — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:55:39 +0000

by AlricTheMad
I definitely have issues getting all my cards in the box with the original game using the Mayday premium sleeves. The action cards are ok, if a bit tight. The money and curse cards have some stacked in the center.

I'm trying to get the regular sleeves to see if they make a difference.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Strategy:: Re: Harem: the Province Test

LexH — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:41:44 +0000

by LexH

DaviddesJ wrote:
LexH wrote:
If my 'sputtering deck' strategy is working then I can usually snag a late Province buy to end the game.

How is that possible? You say you're buying Provinces only rarely in these late turns, while your opponents are presumably buying them more frequently. You don't have anything you can do to make a Province buy more or less likely on any particular turn, it's just the luck of the draw. So, if their Province-buying probability is higher than yours in the endgame turns, they must be more likely to end the game than you are.

Okay, best to clarify.

If I am playing a 'sputtering deck' and I am early in the turn order then I will buy the last Province if I can. They may be out of the running or not, but if they had infinite Provinces they could potentially catch up on their turn by buying 2 Provinces to my 1. I don't want them to have that turn.

If I am late in the turn order then I am trying to buy the last Province merely to prevent them from getting a last turn. I can't benefit from the turn order so I am trying to essentially deny them extra time.

The thing is, I would rather deny my opponents that last turn going first (since they are likely to catch up) than get that turn myself if going last (since I am less likely to catch up if behind). That is the only reason the strategy is weakened by this variant.

If my 'sputtering deck' is going the way I want I should have at least as many Provinces as my opponents and a few more Duchy cards. If I will never be able to buy another Province then I feel my strategy was a failure. I am mostly just trying to snatch Provinces whenever I can before the engine gives out entirely (I am merely sputtering but still functional). So I would expect to buy a Province, just slower than my opponents by this point. My goal is to be ahead on points before this point. The sooner the game ends, the better.

- Lex

Thread: Dominion:: Strategy:: Top 3 Game Slowing Cards

Gwash — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:35:49 +0000

by Gwash
So, you're trying to play a quick game of Dominion, huh? Well, you may want to avoid these three cards as they can add a great deal of time to your games - especially games with higher numbers of players.

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1. Black Market
Black Market is one of the biggest time wasting cards around. I mean, even if you don't plan to buy from the Black Market deck, you still have to look just to put them in the order that you want on the bottom - plus would you really not look even if you could leave them on top of the deck? Yeah, yeah... it's a fun card that can add a pretty good twist to overall game play, but it can seriously slow it down too. I try to put together fast games during my lunch hour at work so that our usual group can get 2 or 3 games in at the least. If we turn up the Black Market card (unless we haven't played with it in a while), we toss it right back out.

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2. Gardens
Gardens is another time waster that should be avoided if you plan to play a quick game. A Gardens deck is a lot of fun (mostly because it goes against all other strategies and you end up with a huge deck), but that fun comes at the expense of usually having to draw out 3 or 4 stacks instead of just the province pile.

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3. Militia
Militia, for obvious reasons, can slow the game down too - especially if you are not playing with the moat. Discarding down to 3 cards can be frustrating unless you have a well constructed deck. Multiple Militias right from the beginning can be a killer too. Militia may not be as bad as the top two, but it is one of the most game slowing attack cards available - especially with no moats.

Remember: This list is only for streamlining the game. If you don't have a time limit to work with, then you should definitely shuffle the demo cards and draw 10 random ones to keep and play with - no matter what they are. Leaving these cards out, however, allows you to play more games of Dominion during a given time period and is especially useful for those of us who like to play Dominion during a lunch hour at work for example.

Have any better ideas for game slowing cards? Post them below...

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: General:: Re: So, does any store in the US already have the game?

Mateui — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:29:02 +0000

by Mateui
I got an e-mail from FunGamesCafe that it should ship out on the 13th. :cry:

Reply: Dominion:: News:: Re: Donald X Vaccarino....your first time design wins SDJ ....are you for real?

dietevil — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:26:23 +0000

by dietevil
Anyone who is ANYONE in boardgaming has their existence challenged by BGG users...

Right, Valerie? :)

Reply: Dominion:: Variants:: Re: Post your favorite play set ideas and give them names

jebry — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:22:35 +0000

by jebry

Born-of-Ashes wrote:
I like making extreme concept and theme combos, but a well honed play set can be very exciting as well.

I will include the cost to remind less familiar players of the cost spread.

So share your play sets and/or get ideas you never thought of. I'll start with mine.

"Upgrading"
Secret Chamber - 2
Courtyard - 2
Cellar - 2
Shanty Town - 3
Swindler - 3
Throne Room - 4
Bridge - 4
Remodel - 4
Upgrade - 5
Mine - 5

"Deck Hands"
Courtyard - 2
Cellar - 2
ShantyTown - 3
Chancellor - 3
Envoy - 4
Throne Room - 4
Library - 5
Council Room - 5
Festival - 5
Nobles - 6

"The Hurt"
Village - 3
Swindler - 3
Mining Village - 4
Scout - 4
Thief - 4
Militia - 4
Tribute - 5
Saboteur - 5
Torturer - 5
Witch - 5

"Go-Go Gadget Actions"
Cellar - 2
Wood Cutter - 3
Shanty Town - 3
Village - 3
Conspirator - 4
Throne Room - 4
Mining Village - 4
Festival - 5
Laboratory - 5
Nobles - 6

1 G-Au to first person to guess what my favorite card is?

I'm going to guess the throne room.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Reviews:: Re: An Expansion Always Does Expand Things...Right?

Havoc — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:11:35 +0000

by Havoc

Mythdracon wrote:
Likewise. I think perhaps it's just a general counter to any criticism of the game (though my complaint was pretty specific, I think).

More like a generic counter to criticism of a specific card or group of cards. If you got a pool of 50 cards to use, how hard is it to just remove the ones you do not like completely? In this area Intrigue do add a lot as you can remove a quite some cards before you get as few to really limit variety.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Strategy:: Re: Harem: the Province Test

DaviddesJ — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:57:04 +0000

by DaviddesJ

LexH wrote:
If my 'sputtering deck' strategy is working then I can usually snag a late Province buy to end the game.

How is that possible? You say you're buying Provinces only rarely in these late turns, while your opponents are presumably buying them more frequently. You don't have anything you can do to make a Province buy more or less likely on any particular turn, it's just the luck of the draw. So, if their Province-buying probability is higher than yours in the endgame turns, they must be more likely to end the game than you are.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Strategy:: Re: Harem: the Province Test

LexH — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:51:46 +0000

by LexH

cheepicus wrote:

I also ran DumbHarem(N) variants where Golds were preferred over Harems from turns 1..N. In terms of average point scores, they were better, but only negligibly so (< 0.5vp).

Interesting results.

I would be curious to see what happens if you modify both strategies to buy a Duchy instead of a Harem after a certain number of turns.

- Lex

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Strategy:: Re: Harem: the Province Test

LexH — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:40:02 +0000

by LexH

DaviddesJ wrote:
LexH wrote:
I note that you play with an infinite Province variant that removes some of the benefits of this strategy.

We do generally play with equal turns. But I would think that helps the strategy you're describing. The effect of the standard ending is to effectively give an extra bonus to the player who manages to end the game on their turn (because that player gets more turns, on average, relative to the opponents, than if the game had ended on someone else's turn). If you're pursuing a strategy where you're more likely to buy Provinces earlier and less likely to buy them later, then you're less likely to end the game on your turn, so you're going to be relatively better off with equal turns.

I have never thought of it that way but that might be true.

If my 'sputtering deck' strategy is working then I can usually snag a late Province buy to end the game. What I am trying to avoid is my opponents using the last few turns to snag a bunch of Provinces.

In essence, I am using high variance to try to peak a bit faster than my opponents before the low variance deck they have been building gets up to 8 coin. Since low variance at 8 expected coin will beat high variance at 6-7 expected coin given enough time I am trying to finish the game and deny them needed turns. At least that has been the thinking at the time. I would have to experiment to see if it helps.

One of the things I like about Intrigue is it changes the game enough to create a larger range of viable strategies.

- Lex

Reply: Dominion:: Variants:: Re: Post your favorite play set ideas and give them names

masonlouie — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:29:18 +0000

by masonlouie

kithkill wrote:
"For Victory!" Based on some of the interesting interactions in the new Intrigue cards - Scout out your Harems for coins or Nobles for cards/actions. Thief your opponent's VPs or action cards. Mine Silver into scantily clad concubines (neat trick!). And wrap it all up with Tribute, which goes mental with that number of dual-role cards.

This set needs a Great Hall.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: News:: Re: Will there be more new Intrigue cards on BSW?

jschlickbernd — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:14:02 +0000

by jschlickbernd
I would like to see them open up their own Dominion server that would either be pay to play or ad driven. At least this way they won't feel like they are paying BSW to lose sales.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Strategy:: Re: Harem: the Province Test

DaviddesJ — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:04:54 +0000

by DaviddesJ

LexH wrote:
I note that you play with an infinite Province variant that removes some of the benefits of this strategy.

We do generally play with equal turns. But I would think that helps the strategy you're describing. The effect of the standard ending is to effectively give an extra bonus to the player who manages to end the game on their turn (because that player gets more turns, on average, relative to the opponents, than if the game had ended on someone else's turn). If you're pursuing a strategy where you're more likely to buy Provinces earlier and less likely to buy them later, then you're less likely to end the game on your turn, so you're going to be relatively better off with equal turns.

Reply: Dominion:: News:: Re: Donald X Vaccarino....your first time design wins SDJ ....are you for real?

brafman — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:51:09 +0000

by brafman

Golux13 wrote:
donaldx wrote:
GamesOnTheBrain wrote:
- He also wrote THE VOICE HARP COMPOSER (1986) for the Apple, Atari, and Commodore computers, a program that let you create music by whistling or humming. Then, you can edit the music, correcting any notes.

http://www.downloads.reactivemicro.com/Public/Apple%20II%20I...

It's something that that manual has survived.

I originally wrote a funny manual for that program. And they laughed and laughed but said, well obviously this joke and this joke have got to go. So I edited them out and made whatever other changes and they proofread it again and said, oh hey we can't really have this joke or this joke. After four or fives passes of this I went through and removed all of the jokes. They were sad and the manual was done.

I think it was very clever for Dale and Valerie to start planning this whole "Donald X. Vaccarino" persona 23 years ago. After all, you never know when you're going to need backup for a pseudonym you used to develop a SdJ game, or for some other nefarious purpose.

I did the same thing with "William Henry Gates III" some time back, and it's been wildly successful.

Posts like the one above make me wish you can give a post more than one thumb.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Strategy:: Re: Harem: the Province Test

cheepicus — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:42:10 +0000

by cheepicus
So who thinks which of these two strategies wins?

DumbGold:
$0-2 : Nothing
$3-5 : Silver
$6-7 : Gold
$8+ : Province

DumbHarem:
$0-2 : Nothing
$3-5 : Silver
$6-7 : Harem
$8+ : Province

I wrote a little script to run 10,000 trials for each separately, averaging the results per turn.
[o]After turn 19, on average 7.7 Provinces have been bought, and the DumbHarem deck is ~5 points ahead.[/o]
I also ran DumbHarem(N) variants where Golds were preferred over Harems from turns 1..N. In terms of average point scores, they were better, but only negligibly so (< 0.5vp).

Reply: Dominion:: News:: Re: Donald X Vaccarino....your first time design wins SDJ ....are you for real?

Larry Levy — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:32:14 +0000

by Larry Levy

Great Dane wrote:
One question still remains: why did Rick write that information in the first place?

Yup, that's what I'm wondering. Was it a sly practical joke that was unexpectedly taken seriously? Did he honestly believe Donald X was fictional? Sadly, we may never know.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Strategy:: Re: Harem: the Province Test

LexH — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:24:14 +0000

by LexH

yaron wrote:

However, except for the early game (in which we all agree Gold is the way to go), your expected value should usually around 8, or slightly lower. This is because of the self correcting nature of the game: if you can score Provinces often, you will, lowering your expected value. If you can't, you'll get Gold and other useful cards, raising your expected value.

One of the things I have experimented with is playing decks that tend to be lower than 8 expected coin. This is usually a Gold heavy deck with Cellars and other cycling cards. In this strategy I am not buying Provinces every turn but instead every 2-3 turns, but I get them early and I use the other turns to buy Duchy and Estate cards to pad for the win.

This assumption that the late game will have expected coin around 8 does not always apply to the approaches I take. This is particularly true in a Curse game or a game missing lots of chaining effects. In this kind of game I use cards like Smithy/Envoy or other +3 or +4 card effects to induce variance and if I can the Chancellor to control this favorably.

- Lex

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: News:: Re: Dominion: Seaside expansion!!!

mariners95 — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:23:51 +0000

by mariners95
Thanks for the news about Seaside. Plus I just wanted to post something.

New Image for Dominion: Intrigue

deacondavid — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:23:41 +0000

by deacondavid

Wooden chip version of Dominion: Intrigue made by some friends
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Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: News:: Re: Will there be more new Intrigue cards on BSW?

Broccoli — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:19:54 +0000

by Broccoli
Well, to offer another perspective. I have several friends that I regularly play Dominion with. In addition, when several friends visited for New Year's this past year, they played Dominion with me. I live in Texas, and 2 of said friends live elsewhere (one in New York, and another in California).

I don't view BSW as another outlet for my Dominion fixation. I don't EVER go on BSW and play random games with whoever is on. I specifically, and only, play BSW as a means to play Dominion with specific people I know that happen to not live near me. I would PREFER to play FTF with them, but it's just not feasible.

I think BSW serves quite well in that regard, but I also admit, I feel kind of cheated by the fact that BSW will not offer all of the Intrigue cards. I have already pre-ordered my copy of Intrigue, and I plan to use it extensively for FTF games that I play with people I know locally, but I won't be able to share the full Intrigue experience with my friends that live elsewhere.

So like I said, a slightly different perspective. I prefer FTF games over BSW, but I also view BSW as a valuable tool for playing with people that I simply can't play FTF with.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Strategy:: Re: Harem: the Province Test

LexH — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:16:08 +0000

by LexH

DaviddesJ wrote:
drunkenKOALA wrote:
I agree with Lex that the different variances may have very significant effects on how frequently one will hit a certain mark.

Well, it's not a matter of "may". Either it does or it doesn't. I'm saying that in general it doesn't. There are mathematical reasons for that, which the next poster describes pretty well.

My own analysis of the game mostly agrees with what you are saying. In the early part of the game the fact that your hands are not independent (and in fact are highly negatively correlated) also combines with the benefits of getting early Gold and specific cards to make an early high variance strategy work. Later in the game this effect is dampened to the point where I don't focus on it that much (though if I have a high variance style I am willing to go Treasure thin).

I often play a strategy based upon ramping up very quickly, snatching up Provinces and winning by Province exhaustion with 4-5 Provinces. I note that you play with an infinite Province variant that removes some of the benefits of this strategy. Your variant gives later players a better chance of catching up (I don't know how often you play this but it would affect my strategy). I have won a portion of my games knowing that if my opponents had just one more turn I would lose.

Because I focus so heavily on the opening of the game, when negative correlation is important and the expected coin is far less than 8 this is a very important consideration in the type of game I play. By the time my deck has an expected coin of 8 I have either won or am likely not going to win.

- Lex

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Strategy:: Re: Harem: the Province Test

LexH — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:09:21 +0000

by LexH

yaron wrote:

Higher order cumulants like skew and kurtosis (or quantiles, which are another way of looking at the same thing) are essential for analysing heavily skewed distributions. For example, they are used when analysing income distributions, which can have some people making 10 or 100 times as much as the average, and the average can be double the median (as it is in Israel, regretfully).

The distribution of card values in a Dominion deck isn't anything like that. Your best card (typically Gold) is usually worth about twice as much as your average card. Laboratories (another great card) is worth double your average card, almost by definition. Sometimes you'll have cards exceeding that, but not by much. So your best card deviates from the average about as much as your worst card (Estate/Province). This means that the skew, while non-zero, is rather small, and we can safely neglect it.

Not often I hear anybody use the word cumulants instead of moments.

The thing that I have observed in Dominion is that focusing on the expected value of the card ignores that the hand is what you are working with. The expected coin is based upon a sum, not an average, and is therefore exposed to increasing variability as hand size increases. A gold may only be worth 3 times as much as a Copper but the hand consists of however many Gold you can get.

I don't normally focus that much on the kurtosis but it is of interest when dealing with the behavior of some of the Chapel deck strategies. I don't exactly have nice little formulas to calculate them in practice I admit. In general I focus on the variance (I tend to ignore the skew entirely). The variance is affected by a finite population correction due to the limited deck sizes.

In speed games I often go with decks that have average expected coin closer to 6 or 7 rather than 8. The time it takes to get expected coin to 8 is sometimes not something I focus on. Some of my Chancellor deck strategies (particularly Chapel/Chancellor) may have no more than 8 Coin in the entire deck, with the expected coin sitting more around 7.

- Lex

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Strategy:: Re: Harem: the Province Test

drunkenKOALA — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:54:42 +0000

by drunkenKOALA
When I don't know the answer to something, I don't pretend that I do.

And in my experience, Moneylender > Militia > Bureaucrat > Moneylender. I ascribe that precisely to the effects of variance. In fact, the OP himself believes in the effects of the variance.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Strategy:: Re: Harem: the Province Test

DaviddesJ — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:09:41 +0000

by DaviddesJ

drunkenKOALA wrote:
I agree with Lex that the different variances may have very significant effects on how frequently one will hit a certain mark.

Well, it's not a matter of "may". Either it does or it doesn't. I'm saying that in general it doesn't. There are mathematical reasons for that, which the next poster describes pretty well.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: General:: Re: So, does any store in the US already have the game?

lttlkng — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:45:37 +0000

by lttlkng
I was just notified that the copy of Dominion I pre-orderd was available. I live in AZ, but I ordered from a store in Texas (cheapest price). So it's should be available.

Reply: Dominion:: General:: Re: Provinces as Soon as Possible?

theright555J — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:22:00 +0000

by theright555J
David, you're probably right as I'm a relative noob at Dominion and I'm convinced from your prior posts that you are an expert :)

However, with small deck size at the outset of the game I'm not sure adding another VP card (i.e. province) is that much of a drag. And with Baron, 3 estates, and 9 coin in the deck at this point, getting reasonable draws into the 4-6 coin range in the next several turns is highly likely. This allows for purchase of more coin and deck cyclers, and quickly more provinces.

When I buy an early province, the usual outcome is that I am up 2 or even 3 provinces to zero and my opponent is still building an engine. The intrigue cards (even the paltry 5 offered on BSW) really allow for improved deck cycling which makes the concept of early, aggressive VP buying--a strategy that works quite well in the base game--even more attractive.

I really love adding a remodel to this, getting up to 3 provinces, and then starting to trash them :devil:

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Strategy:: Re: Harem: the Province Test

drunkenKOALA — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:02:58 +0000

by drunkenKOALA

1. As is almost cliche by now, a pure-money strategy gets to 4 Provinces in ~17 turns. In that time, it makes about 6 passes through the deck. Effective variants of that strategy will get there a little earlier, but might churn a little faster (due to Smithy, Cellar, etc.), so we can take 6 passes as a number-of-thumb (I'll qualify that later for different sorts of decks).

2. What are the benefits of getting Gold over a Province? Each time you draw that Gold later in the game, it might get you a Province. However, if that is the case, it means you have 5 coins in your hand other than that Gold: if you don't have the Gold (due to having bought a Province over it), you can always get a Duchy (or something better). So the Gold isn't giving you more than 3 points every time you draw it. That means you have to draw it at least 3 times to justify taking it over a Province.

Taken together, these two points mean that I would take Gold on the 2nd and 3rd passes through the deck, switching to Province after your 3rd reshuffle. According to the OP's logic, this is also the point I should start taking Harem over Gold (if I can't have the Province). So I'm only taking Harems during the 4th and 5th passes (on the 6th pass, of course, I take Duchy over both of them).

That shows that Province is better than Gold starting on the 4th pass.

And a Gold may still be better than a Harem even on the 4th and 5th pass. Because it could still theoretically get you 2 or 1 more Provinces. But according to the OP, Harem > Gold whenever Province > Gold. But that is clearly not always the case. When Province > Gold starting on the 4th pass, Gold may still be better than Harem.

And a pass 1 Harem over Gold. That could cost you 5 Provinces, or none.

All you have shown is that a pass 4 Province over Gold could cost you at most 2 Provinces, or 6 points relative to Duchies. And it is worth 6 points at least.

A pass 3 Harem over Gold: it is worth 2 points itself. How many Provinces is it going to cost you? Anywhere from 0-3, or 0-9 points. Can you say for certain how many?

A pass 3 Province over Gold: it is worth 6 points itself. How many Provinces is it going to cost you? Anywhere from 0-3, or 0-9 points. The chances of missing Provinces are a lot higher now though: everytime you get 5-7 coins instead of 7 with everything else.

What if the chances of hitting 5-7 is 6 times as likely as the chances of hitting exactly 7? Say the chances of hitting exactly 7 is 1/6 per pass, so on the final 3 passes it will cost you 3/2 or 1.5 points. Then the chances of hitting 5-7 is 1 (or 99.99%) per pass, so 9 points on the final 3 passes. So with Harem, you are getting 2 points at the cost of 1.5 points, and with Province, getting 6 at the cost of 9.

Of course, the chances of hitting 7 versus 5-7 might not be as lopsided as 1:6. But do you know what the exact ratio is? Gold over Harem may very well be worth it, (since I need to spell this out: when one would also favor Gold over Province), but it's not because of a linear relationship.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: News:: Re: Will there be more new Intrigue cards on BSW?

sandblack — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:46:29 +0000

by sandblack
I love dominion both FTF and on BSW. However there are so many great games to play FTF that i gues i have 20 or so plays to my name. However i have nearly 300 on BSW. It is a great interface, works really well and is at lest twice as fast as FTF. So plusses and minuses both ways round. And i dont know why people complain about the german thing. There are english prop files and everyone speaks english anyway.

But having said all that I have bought intrigue becuase i play it so much on BSW. And i am thus addicted. I know i proabably wont get more that 10 plays FTF and this would have put me off buying it if i wasnt suhc a hard core fan on BSW ( so i "had" to but it anyway).

So i think putting the cards up or not makes little difference to theri financial decision but i think would increase the numbers of those who are addicted and perhaps in time those players will introduce more FTF gamers to it and thus more sales.

See now i've talked myself into it being good for Domionion to be on BSW!

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Strategy:: Re: Harem: the Province Test

drunkenKOALA — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:37:49 +0000

by drunkenKOALA

The OP is saying: get Harem over Gold whenever you would get Province over Gold. So the question is: when would you get Province over Gold?

I knew that.

New Image for Dominion: Intrigue

mill1 — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:28:50 +0000

by mill1

a lot of cards
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New Image for Dominion: Intrigue

mill1 — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:24:57 +0000

by mill1

What's inside the german version
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Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Strategy:: Re: Harem: the Province Test

yaron — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 12:41:11 +0000

by yaron

drunkenKOALA wrote:
So instead of 3 Gold, you get 3 Harems. During the game, that's effectively getting 3 Silvers instead of 3 Golds. How many Provinces do you think it will cost you? Might be more than 1 to make up for the 6 VPs, but the reasoning isn't as simple as: always trade in 2VP for 1 coin.

Consider 3 Harems, 1 Gold, and 1 Province, versus 3 Gold and 2 Provinces. Same number of VP, same expected return of coins. But the variance is different. I agree with Lex that the different variances may have very significant effects on how frequently one will hit a certain mark. In mid game, when your average income is slightly higher than 8, I'd argue that it is better to have a lower variance. Depends on the type of deck you are building too. Again like Lex said, if your deck is all about chaining together action cards so that you draw your entire deck, then average coins is irrelevant, you just need 2 Gold and a Silver. You wouldn't want the extra Silvers that may decrease your chances of chaining together the action cards.

I think you're attacking a straw man here. No one suggested getting Harems before getting any Gold, or after only getting 1 Gold. Actually, if we spell out the results of the OP's logic, I think you'll find them quite reasonable.

The OP is saying: get Harem over Gold whenever you would get Province over Gold. So the question is: when would you get Province over Gold?

1. As is almost cliche by now, a pure-money strategy gets to 4 Provinces in ~17 turns. In that time, it makes about 6 passes through the deck. Effective variants of that strategy will get there a little earlier, but might churn a little faster (due to Smithy, Cellar, etc.), so we can take 6 passes as a number-of-thumb (I'll qualify that later for different sorts of decks).

2. What are the benefits of getting Gold over a Province? Each time you draw that Gold later in the game, it might get you a Province. However, if that is the case, it means you have 5 coins in your hand other than that Gold: if you don't have the Gold (due to having bought a Province over it), you can always get a Duchy (or something better). So the Gold isn't giving you more than 3 points every time you draw it. That means you have to draw it at least 3 times to justify taking it over a Province.

Taken together, these two points mean that I would take Gold on the 2nd and 3rd passes through the deck, switching to Province after your 3rd reshuffle. According to the OP's logic, this is also the point I should start taking Harem over Gold (if I can't have the Province). So I'm only taking Harems during the 4th and 5th passes (on the 6th pass, of course, I take Duchy over both of them).

How many times am I going to get 6 or 7 coins during those two passes? Two? Three? So we're only talking about 2-3 Harems, and even that, late in the game, after getting some Gold. It seems a very sound progression to me.

Now, in an engine deck (especially a well-trimmed one), I go through most of my deck every turn. That means that up until the very end, I expect to see each acquisition several times. Naturally, that inclines me to take Gold over Province for quite a while - perhaps getting to the point where I get all my Provinces in 2-3 final killer turns. Until those turns, I would not be inclined to take Harems, but that also follows from the OP's logic: I would not be inclined to take Provinces, either (and in those last turns, I'm taking Provinces and Duchies anyway, so the question is moot).

Reply: Dominion:: General:: Re: Ending the game as a loser

DaveCole — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:54:31 +0000

by DaveCole
In one of my early games I was pretty sure I was going to lose and went ahead and depleted the third pile. This was shortly after Chapel became the "in" card. Everyone else had Chapeled away all of their vp allowing me to win with 3 points.

Reply: Dominion:: General:: Re: Ending the game as a loser

Obidiah — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:40:41 +0000

by Obidiah
I guess it depends what your game playing aims are really.

Is the only result that matters a win?
In which case I can understand letting the game drag out and going for that very slim chance of a 1st place which will be more likely to backfire and make you finish deadlast.

The thing is to a lot of players margin of victory and placing are important

To some finishing just a few points behind the winner is semi satisfying and better than risking coming miles behind the winner.
Especially if they know they're not the strongest player in the group and know they're not going to win all that many games, some people are going to want to find other ways to derive a sense of achievement than first place.

There's not really a right or wrong here.

There's also the chance of players who haven't bothered at all to keep track of people's victory points and are therefore just trying to get the largest number of victory points that they can for that turn.

Making assumptions that someone else isn't going to end the game is probably not the best mentality, it'll lead to frustration if they do, and can even lead to some bad play decisions if you don't take into account the possibility at all.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Strategy:: Re: Harem: the Province Test

yaron — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:29:17 +0000

by yaron

LexH wrote:
Expected coin is not the only way to judge value in Dominion. In my view, Dominion strategy should focus more on the quantiles (i.e. the probability of getting certain Coin values) and less on the center of the distribution.

Harem+Harem+Harem is often not equal to Gold+Gold+Province. They have the same expectation but very different variance and kurtosis. Which is better depends very heavily on if your strategy favors this approach or not. I am a fan of high variance decks, particularly with the base set but I am not as sure with the newer cards.

Higher order cumulants like skew and kurtosis (or quantiles, which are another way of looking at the same thing) are essential for analysing heavily skewed distributions. For example, they are used when analysing income distributions, which can have some people making 10 or 100 times as much as the average, and the average can be double the median (as it is in Israel, regretfully).

The distribution of card values in a Dominion deck isn't anything like that. Your best card (typically Gold) is usually worth about twice as much as your average card. Laboratories (another great card) is worth double your average card, almost by definition. Sometimes you'll have cards exceeding that, but not by much. So your best card deviates from the average about as much as your worst card (Estate/Province). This means that the skew, while non-zero, is rather small, and we can safely neglect it.

[if you find the time to calculate the kurtosis of a typical Dominion deck, and more specifically how it is affected by the Gold/Harem decision, and how that affects the Province acquisition rate, that could be illuminating.]

Negligble higher order cumulants, however, don't mean that everything is linear. You are correct in pointing out that the 2nd cumulant - variance - plays an important role. Specifically, as we are mainly concerned with the 8-coin threshold, we want higher variance when our expected value is below that threshold, and lower when it is above.

However, except for the early game (in which we all agree Gold is the way to go), your expected value should usually around 8, or slightly lower. This is because of the self correcting nature of the game: if you can score Provinces often, you will, lowering your expected value. If you can't, you'll get Gold and other useful cards, raising your expected value.

Given that the expected value of coins produced is not very far from 8, variance doesn't play a big role, either. And this means that the OP's linear approximation is rather a good one.

[You are, however, correct in pointing out that card-selection does make variance a good thing. You mention Cellar and Chancellor, to which I would add Militia. In the presence of these cards, I would be less likely to buy Harems. But see my next post for a qualification of that statement.]

Reply: Dominion:: General:: Re: How do I convince my parents in playing Dominion?

Obidiah — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 10:48:57 +0000

by Obidiah
Is the problem with Agricola that there are a lot of different things to chose from with each action?
That's much less of a problem with Dominion. Normally your choice will be to buy a new card at around the cost of the number of coins you have generated that turn.

My brother seems to be getting more and more prone to analysis paralysis. To the point that some games like Agricola he takes long enough over his turns now that we don't want to play them when he's around.

Dominion is game we're happy to play with him though.

Caylus is much more of an Agricola style game than Dominion.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Strategy:: Re: Harem: the Province Test

drunkenKOALA — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:26:37 +0000

by drunkenKOALA

DaviddesJ wrote:
drunkenKOALA wrote:
But there might be a diminishing return for each coin that you add on. Not all coins are worth the same. The first coin might be worth 3VP, the second 2VP, the third 1.5VP.

No, it's pretty much linear.
It is linear if you are talking about expected return on coin value per hand. In Dominion, VPs aren't scored by adding up your total coins every turn. But you knew that.

It's not as simple as Gold is better than Province, therefore Gold must be better than Harem also because Harem is in between the two.

So instead of 3 Gold, you get 3 Harems. During the game, that's effectively getting 3 Silvers instead of 3 Golds. How many Provinces do you think it will cost you? Might be more than 1 to make up for the 6 VPs, but the reasoning isn't as simple as: always trade in 2VP for 1 coin.

Reply: Dominion:: News:: Re: Donald X Vaccarino....your first time design wins SDJ ....are you for real?

Great Dane — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 07:14:35 +0000

by Great Dane
One question still remains: why did Rick write that information in the first place?

Reply: Dominion:: General:: Re: Has any thought been given to making a XBLA version of Dominion?

sniprpenguin — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 07:12:54 +0000

by sniprpenguin

Gwash wrote:
You can always make your own XBLA games with this software from Microsoft... provided you know C#.

Granted, this allows you to create games that will be playable on the 360, but will not offer full XBL support. Recently, they published a bunch of XNA creations- and only one did mediocrely. :soblue:

Also, achievements are a back-end thing- i.e., you can program achievements into the game, but the console needs to have the data for the achievements separately.

If you haven't figured it out yet, I have experience with the programming studio linked above. I could possibly be up for programming a Dominion game- except any sort of online interaction is the bane of my skills. :yuk:

Off-topic, but would an AI program work with Dominion?

Reply: Dominion:: Variants:: Re: Post your favorite play set ideas and give them names

kithkill — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 07:11:08 +0000

by kithkill
"Bloat". An archetypal "how many ways can you win with a massive deck?" combination. Gardens rewards stacking a lot of cards, Baron and Duke both need you to pick up a lot of green cards. Witch just adds more cards for everyone, Thief can be a big card drawer in 3-4 player games. The rest just to get people through the bloat.

Gardens
Duke
Baron
Coppersmith
Witch
Cellar
Council Room
Thief
Festival
Throne Room

"Cheapskate". Bridge and Coppersmith, both of which can be Throned, which should make for either a lot of buying with low denominations, or chained with the Festival for buying multiple Provinces in a turn. Pawn, Conspirator and Nobles to keep the deck moving and set up some fun combos.

Duke
Moat
Conspirator
Pawn
Bridge
Throne Room
Coppersmith
Militia
Festival
Nobles

"For Victory!" Based on some of the interesting interactions in the new Intrigue cards - Scout out your Harems for coins or Nobles for cards/actions. Thief your opponent's VPs or action cards. Mine Silver into scantily clad concubines (neat trick!). And wrap it all up with Tribute, which goes mental with that number of dual-role cards.

Scout
Nobles
Harem
Chapel
Thief
Tribute
Ironworks
Masquerade
Bureaucrat
Mine

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Variants:: Re: 8 Players at 1 Table

jeffwolfe — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 06:50:56 +0000

by jeffwolfe

stoneman wrote:
French Taunter wrote:
If one game has the Chapel in play, players in the other don't have a chance.

could you please elaborate on this? I have never seen a good reason to buy the chapel unless the witch is in play. Any ideas on strategy here would be great.

The Chapel Deck strategy has been out there longer than the game has been available. See http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/340508.

Reply: Dominion:: Variants:: Re: Post your favorite play set ideas and give them names

Born-of-Ashes — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 06:39:44 +0000

by Born-of-Ashes
The upgrading idea came from a 2p game I played earlier where we each openly picked cards from each set. He picked 2 base and 3 Intrigue and I picked 3 base and 2 Int. I used 4 picks on the upgrades and my opponent got all the lucky shuffles while I was cursed with magnetic throne rooms :angry: What I set up, he ran away with.
I really want to try it with 4+ players.

OK, last one before bed:

"Royal Flush"
Great Hall - 3
Chancellor - 3
Gardens - 4
Scout - 4
Ironworks - 4
Bridge - 4
Throne Room - 4
Duke - 5
Harem - 6
Nobles - 6

File: Dominion:: Dominion Inlay for sleeved cards (without promos)

gschmidl — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 05:54:54 +0000

by gschmidl
Dominion Inlay for sleeved cards (without promos) for Board Game: Dominion ]]>

File: Dominion:: Dominion Inlay for sleeved cards (with promos)

gschmidl — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 05:54:26 +0000

by gschmidl
Dominion Inlay for sleeved cards (with promos) for Board Game: Dominion ]]>

New Image for Dominion

josephc4 — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 05:16:33 +0000

by josephc4

Houston Boardgames Meetup - Cafe Express - Meetup.com
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New Image for Dominion

josephc4 — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 05:04:16 +0000

by josephc4

Bay Area Games Night - Webster,TX - Cafe Express - Meetup.com
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Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Strategy:: Re: Harem: the Province Test

LexH — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 05:01:58 +0000

by LexH

DaviddesJ wrote:
LexH wrote:
Expected coin is not the only way to judge value in Dominion. In my view, Dominion strategy should focus more on the quantiles (i.e. the probability of getting certain Coin values) and less on the center of the distribution.

In small decks (e.g., if you use Chapel to shrink your deck to 8 cards), there can be a significant difference. In large decks (i.e., toward the end of a game when you have 20-25 cards) there's no significant difference.

This is where you and I simply disagree.

Even with 30 cards I think quantiles should be emphasized over expected coin in many cases. If you reshuffled after each hand, and your samples were drawn with replacement I would agree.

The Central Limit Theorem doesn't apply in this case, since each hand is not independent. If it did I would agree that with even 5 cards the distributions are similar enough. But since much of the game you are dealing with 20 or less cards this isn't the case. Without a nice bell curve for the distributions you get longer tails that create many hands that vary heavily from the expected mean. (It certainly doesn't hurt to improve your expected coin, but the quantiles would reflect that too).

More importantly, the presence of cards such as the Cellar and Chancellor allow for selective removal of unwanted cards that bias the results in favor of Gold over Silver in many cases. Building decks towards high variance can create systematic advantages if the cards are right.

I simply don't have the time right now to prove or disprove this I tend to rely on empirical evidence from direct play only. I may be completely wrong on this.

- Lex

New Image for Dominion

sightreader — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:56:01 +0000

by sightreader

Dominion and the Noobs!
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Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Strategy:: Re: Harem: the Province Test

LexH — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:50:44 +0000

by LexH

DaviddesJ wrote:
LexH wrote:
I for one think the Silver Test is really a false trail

If the "Silver Test" is, "Don't buy a card costing $3 or more if buying Silver would be better," how can that be false? Are you advocating for buying a card costing $3 or more even when Silver would be better?

No, that isn't exactly what I am advocating.

I basically stopped looking at Silver as the default buy awhile back. There are situations when I will refuse to take a Silver even if available. For example, if I am playing a chaining deck I will at times focus entirely on getting Gold and chaining cards. For that kind of deck Silver is something I am trying to avoid.

I agree that Silver is often worth having, but the value of Silver varies so much that I no longer use it as the baseline. I apply a more general test that says 'Should I even buy a card? If so, what should I buy?'. The answer is sometimes Silver, but I no longer compare a card directly against Silver.

- Lex

Reply: Dominion:: Variants:: Re: Post your favorite play set(s) and give it a name

sightreader — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:37:28 +0000

by sightreader

Born-of-Ashes wrote:
Well, the forums clock it at 15 min after, but yeah still pretty close - weird.

Oh, that's because it took me a good 15 min or so to develop my post. The notification for your post showed up as I was doing some editing, but I didn't bother to read it, thinking it couldn't possibly be related...

Reply: Dominion:: Variants:: Re: Post your favorite play set(s) and give it a name

Born-of-Ashes — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:31:29 +0000

by Born-of-Ashes
Well, the forums clock it at 15 min after, but yeah still pretty close - weird.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Strategy:: Re: Let's talk about starting combos

yaron — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:25:57 +0000

by yaron

DaviddesJ wrote:
French Taunter wrote:
Shanty Town should be best with other + Action cards. The best opening Intrigue combo I can see is Shanty Town / Scout. If you get both, play the Scout to suck up the Estates, then play the Shanty Town. You're guaranteed to draw two Coppers.

Playing two action cards to gain $2 hardly seems like a great combo. You could have just bought Silver.

I agree that's it not an amazing combo, but it does do more than draw into +2 coins - it also churns through some useless Estates.

In general, Shantytown seems to be good in conjunction with +1 action cards. If you draw several actions, you can play the other cards first, and get your +2 cards from Shantytown. You never get to use Shantytown's +2 actions (because everything gives you +1 action anyway), but you do get to use one of those actions (if you draw into something with Shantytown). Shantytown is effectively a Laboratory in this situation, except it costs 3 (and except you don't want too many of them - if you draw several together, all but the last will not draw cards).

Reply: Dominion:: Variants:: Re: Post your favorite play set(s) and give it a name

sightreader — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:24:34 +0000

by sightreader

LOL! I suggested the following competition at the very moment you submitted your post!

- Who can come up with the most interesting mix of ten Kingdoms?

How's that for groupthink!

Reply: Dominion:: General:: Re: Any suggestions for which 10 Action Cards to use?

sightreader — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:19:56 +0000

by sightreader

Hey, let's try a competition:

- Who can come up with the most interesting mix of ten Kingdoms?

I don't know how to set up a vote, so maybe we'll just go with Thumbs?

Thread: Dominion:: Variants:: Post your favorite play set(s) and give it a name

Born-of-Ashes — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:04:45 +0000

by Born-of-Ashes

I like making extreme concept and theme combos, but a well honed play set can be very exciting as well.

I'm abbreviating most cards for ease of entry, but will include the cost for clarity and to remind less familiar players of the cost spread.

So share your play sets and/or get ideas you never thought of. I'll start with mine.

"Upgrading"
S. Chmbr - 2
Crtyd - 2
Cellar - 2
ShanTwn - 3
Swind - 3
Thr. Rm - 4
Bridge - 4
Remdl - 4
Upgr - 5
Mine - 5

"Big Hands"
Crtyd - 2
Cellar - 2
ShanTwn - 3
Chanlr - 3
Envoy - 4
Thr. Rm - 4
Libry - 5
Conl. Rm. - 5
Fest - 5
Nobles - 6

"The Hurt"
Vill. - 3
Swind - 3
Mn. Vill - 4
Scout - 4
Thief - 4
Mltia - 4
Trib. - 5
Sabtr - 5
Tortr - 5
Witch - 5

"Go-Go Gadget Actions"
Cellar - 2
WdCttr - 3
ShanTwn - 3
Vill. - 3
Consp - 4
Thr. Rm - 4
Mn. Vill - 4
Fest. - 5
Lab. - 5
Nobles - 6

1 G-Au to first person to guess what my favorite card is?

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: General:: Re: Evolution of a BSW Village Idiot: Noble Idiot

Golux13 — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 03:44:47 +0000

by Golux13

I believe I've noted elsewhere that the term ought to be "Noble Fool."

Please, don't shatter my dreams.

Reply: Dominion:: General:: Re: Has any thought been given to making a XBLA version of Dominion?

rhpenland — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 03:40:04 +0000

by rhpenland

That was really cool. Something like that would be perfect.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: General:: Re: Shanty Town Card Art

Daddy-O — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 03:15:34 +0000

by Daddy-O

K P Impsta wrote:
This isn't Dominion!!!!!!!!

This is The Simpsons!!!!

Very Poor.

Maybe that one slipped out from the upcoming "Dominion: The Simpsons Expansion" featuring such cards as:

"Sleep on the Couch"
Artwork: Homer is pictured melded to the sofa.
Card cost: three coins
Effect: Minus one coin (d-oh! damned couch!) but gain three actions.

"Slingshot up the Wazoo"
Artwork: Bart is pictured targeting Principal Skinner with a slingshot.
Card Cost: six coins
Effect: Not including the active player, the player with the highest total value of treasure cards in hand must trash the single highest valued treasure card.

"Bully"
Artwork: Nelson is strangling Bart at the neck.
Card cost: five coins
Effect: Make a wish for an Action card of your choice; if someone has it in their hand, you may pay them two less than it's printed cost.

Reply: Dominion:: News:: Re: Donald X Vaccarino....your first time design wins SDJ ....are you for real?

Golux13 — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 03:11:44 +0000

by Golux13

pusboyau wrote:
Last word goes to Rich

http://www.spotlightongames.com/list/sdj.html

which now renders this thread obsolete.

What? Just because they're trying to cover up what was obviously an inadvertent leak of The Truth? Now that they've changed the web page, the whole scandal disappears down the memory hole, and we go on blithely forgetting the past three days? Oh no, sir, not me. You can drink the Kool-Aid, you can put on your blinders, but I will not! I will continue to speak out about this. I will -- wait a second, someone at the door.

Listen, people! This is critical. THEY are outside. I haven't got much time. You may never hear from me again. I need you to get word out. It's all a lie! THERE IS NO DONAL

Reply: Dominion:: News:: Re: Donald X Vaccarino....your first time design wins SDJ ....are you for real?

bombcar — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 02:59:20 +0000

by bombcar

It's starting to look like we need a special edition - perhaps "Donald X Vaccarino Totally Really Exists Card Game"?

Reply: Dominion:: News:: Re: Donald X Vaccarino....your first time design wins SDJ ....are you for real?

sshawmd — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 02:54:08 +0000

by sshawmd

Obsolete or not, his name is clearly an anagram for: Card Anvil Ax Condo, suggesting that the game will continue from basic production through the condominium era, or (if you exclude the "x") Anal Card Con Void, suggesting that if you furtively withhold cards for the purposes of "holding out," that you will fail miserably. Clearly, he does not exist!!

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Strategy:: Re: Harem: the Province Test

DaviddesJ — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 02:39:35 +0000

by DaviddesJ

LexH wrote:
I for one think the Silver Test is really a false trail

If the "Silver Test" is, "Don't buy a card costing $3 or more if buying Silver would be better," how can that be false? Are you advocating for buying a card costing $3 or more even when Silver would be better?

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Strategy:: Re: Harem: the Province Test

DaviddesJ — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 02:38:07 +0000

by DaviddesJ

LexH wrote:
Expected coin is not the only way to judge value in Dominion. In my view, Dominion strategy should focus more on the quantiles (i.e. the probability of getting certain Coin values) and less on the center of the distribution.

In small decks (e.g., if you use Chapel to shrink your deck to 8 cards), there can be a significant difference. In large decks (i.e., toward the end of a game when you have 20-25 cards) there's no significant difference.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Strategy:: Re: Harem: the Province Test

LexH — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 02:17:03 +0000

by LexH

You mention pro-variance but what you are really getting at is that Dominion tends to favor high variance early (when your expected coin per turn is low) and low variance middle to late (when your expected coin is high), with some strategies having a drop late in the game as the VP cards begin to lower the expected coin.

I for one think the Silver Test is really a false trail, but your proposed Province Test really seems to me to be more of a Gold Test. I think a Gold Test really is an important aspect of Dominion with regard to the 6 cost cards.

The problem with the Harem is that in exchange for 2 VP you give up 1 Coin each time you draw the card. If Dominion was not a game of breakpoints this would often not be an issue. This can cost you 3 or more VP late in the game if you hit 7 instead of 8 Coin (you lose 3 when you buy that Duchy instead of that Province but you also allow your opponent(s) a chance at 6 VP).

Expected coin is not the only way to judge value in Dominion. In my view, Dominion strategy should focus more on the quantiles (i.e. the probability of getting certain Coin values) and less on the center of the distribution.

Harem+Harem+Harem is often not equal to Gold+Gold+Province. They have the same expectation but very different variance and kurtosis. Which is better depends very heavily on if your strategy favors this approach or not. I am a fan of high variance decks, particularly with the base set but I am not as sure with the newer cards.

- Lex

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Variants:: Re: 8 Players at 1 Table

stoneman — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 01:58:04 +0000

by stoneman

French Taunter wrote:
If one game has the Chapel in play, players in the other don't have a chance.

could you please elaborate on this? I have never seen a good reason to buy the chapel unless the witch is in play. Any ideas on strategy here would be great.

French Taunter wrote:

If one game has a lot of + Draw, + Action cards, players in that game will be at a disadvantage unless no one buys those cards.

Gardens and Dukes would give one game an unfair disadvantage over the other.

I agree

I really do think that it should be a partnership, not a one person victory. Also, I think you must have two sets of treasure cards because you will run out very quickly (especially if moneylender is in play.

Reply: Dominion:: General:: Re: Has any thought been given to making a XBLA version of Dominion?

kerred — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 01:56:29 +0000

by kerred

I already have the layout :D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvpTAoEBRgo

I have an achievement list too, its basically when you gain levels in the achievements sections (over 200 different things to do an accomplish)

I also thought of adding an option where you can wager on if you will win the game before you play it to add to your personal stats.

Reply: Dominion:: General:: Re: Provinces as Soon as Possible?

DaviddesJ — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 01:20:08 +0000

by DaviddesJ

theright555J wrote:
Actually, you nailed it. The baron was available in each of those games and I opened Baron/Silver each time.

If you played the Baron, you have two buys. To use $8 to buy a Province on turn 3, if you have only one buy, is inferior. To use $8 to buy a Province on turn 3, if you have two buys, is insane.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Strategy:: Re: Let's talk about starting combos

DaviddesJ — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 01:14:12 +0000

by DaviddesJ

French Taunter wrote:
Shanty Town should be best with other + Action cards. The best opening Intrigue combo I can see is Shanty Town / Scout. If you get both, play the Scout to suck up the Estates, then play the Shanty Town. You're guaranteed to draw two Coppers.

Playing two action cards to gain $2 hardly seems like a great combo. You could have just bought Silver.

Reply: Dominion:: General:: Re: Provinces as Soon as Possible?

jcaraway — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:46:33 +0000

by jcaraway

theright555J wrote:
baba44713 wrote:
theright555J wrote:
Much easier to have this happen with Intrigue. I played about 5 games on BSW (yes, intrigue is now on BSW!!) and achieved this in 3 of those games. I bought the province every time.

Highly unlikely.

On BSW you only have Swindler, Baron, Minion, Upgrade and Nobles. Only the first four you can buy in the first two turns, and only Baron will give you a Province - IF you had a Silver/Baron opening AND your third hand is 2,1,1,Estate,Baron.

So please elaborate how the hell did you succeed in getting a third turn Province in your 3 out of 5 BSW games, because I'd like to acquire that skill myself. Thanks.

Actually, you nailed it. The baron was available in each of those games and I opened Baron/Silver each time.

I've hit this a few times as well

Reply: Dominion:: General:: Re: Has any thought been given to making a XBLA version of Dominion?

Doc Robot — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:45:28 +0000

by Doc Robot

rhpenland wrote:
I was just reading a post about playing Dominion on BSW and it got me to thinking what a great Xbox Live Arcade title this would be.

Just wanted to throw out the idea, although I realise it would involve a lot of work (legal stuff, programming, dealing with Microsoft, etc). I know I would buy it :D.

Sure!

Just as soon as MS/Sierra delivers on that "promise" to publish more XBLA Carcassonne expansions first!

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: General:: Re: When when when when when (english)

elkabong — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:43:09 +0000

by elkabong

Knock Knock... is this thing on? July 10th??? July 10th??? Seriously the Australians are beating us by the better part of a month!?! Have you guys LOOKED at a map lately? Australia is really just in the MIDDLE of a GIANT OCEAN. They have their game!

/Rant

;) I just needed to get that off my chest

ps.. nothing personal to my Aussie and Kiwi friends of course. But really.. the middle of the bloody ocean.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: News:: Re: Will there be more new Intrigue cards on BSW?

elkabong — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:33:14 +0000

by elkabong

Hey Bruce, just before I say anything more, I'm not disagreeing with you just to be miserable, even though sometimes it comes across that way :)

In this case though, I am thinking of the Interface as the "medium". The portal through which we can play Dominion. I don't think it's very good, in a few words, Because It's Mostly German with a Bit of English Translation.

You seem to be referring not to the Interface as much as just the fact that you like being able to play online. The things you like are part of Dominion Online, not part of BSW. It does eliminate the constant shuffle, and the setup/tear-down time is pretty much eliminated too. This would, of course, be part of any Dominion implementation online.

I do feel for your position man. I can't imagine playing online, with no-one to play F2F. Luckily for me, I'm in a situation where most of my friends and family groups will take up Dominion for a few hours at just the slightest suggestion. Not a bad problem to have, and it leaves me less "needing" BSW than you do at this time.

Still though, have you ever played Ticket To Ride online? I just can't help imagining the RGG and HIMG guys putting some money into creating a site like that for Dominion. If you haven't tried TTR online, give it a shot. I think you'll better understand why I'd rather they spent money on a good proprietary site of their own than plowing money into BSW.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: General:: Re: Evolution of a BSW Village Idiot: Noble Idiot

theright555J — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:23:59 +0000

by theright555J

The really nice thing about nobles is that they give you nearly all the benefits of a festival/smithy combo without the uncertainty of whether you'll draw those two cards together in your initial hand. Plus you get 2 points per card, which makes it an attractive combo.

I agree wholeheartedly that a noble chain must include coin to be effective and even to propagate...awfully hard to build a chain of 6-cost cards without coins! I tend to buy a noble with my first 6 coin, then a gold, then two more nobles, then...a remodel. The cycling power of the nobles helps bring the remodel around quicker (in my last game, my deck was small enough and contained lab/council room so it came up every turn) and with four 6-cost cards, that's your province quota. I feel that's a reasonable (read: not abusive) use of a chaining strategy that's fast enough to punish a lab/village/noble idiot.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: News:: Re: Will there be more new Intrigue cards on BSW?

brucewig — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:14:01 +0000

by brucewig

I speak English only, but far from being a "broken meduium," I think that the interface on BSW for Dominion is outstanding. I enjoy getting twice as many games played in the same amount of my gaming time. I enjoy not having to sort the cards after every game. I enjoy not having to shuffle the cards.

I'm not saying BSW or other on-line gaming sites are better than face to face; they're just different. Because of the time factor, I myself prefer doing most of my gaming online, with some ftf gaming on special occasions.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Variants:: Re: 8 Players at 1 Table

French Taunter — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:02:16 +0000

by French Taunter

Steerpike wrote:

1. There are two 4-player games each with it's own set of 10 Kingdom cards. However, the Victory, Treasure and Curse cards are common between the two games. If one game reaches a game ending condition, both games stop and the winner of the 8 player game is the person with the most VPs. This encourages people to play fast, as it's no good winning your 4-player game if the other game has nicked most of the Provinces!

Problems with this...

If one game has the Chapel in play, players in the other don't have a chance.

If one game has a new player, he'll slow the game down for the guys he's playing with.

If one game has a lot of + Draw, + Action cards, players in that game will be at a disadvantage unless no one buys those cards.

Gardens and Dukes would give one game an unfair disadvantage over the other.

A couple guys I sometimes play with are just slower than other players. I don't want to play a game that makes me hate my friends.

Attack cards would need to be apportioned equally between both games. In fact, some attack cards slow the game dramatically more than others, so that may not be fair either.

Reply: Dominion:: General:: Re: Provinces as Soon as Possible?

theright555J — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 23:38:01 +0000

by theright555J

baba44713 wrote:
theright555J wrote:
Much easier to have this happen with Intrigue. I played about 5 games on BSW (yes, intrigue is now on BSW!!) and achieved this in 3 of those games. I bought the province every time.

Highly unlikely.

On BSW you only have Swindler, Baron, Minion, Upgrade and Nobles. Only the first four you can buy in the first two turns, and only Baron will give you a Province - IF you had a Silver/Baron opening AND your third hand is 2,1,1,Estate,Baron.

So please elaborate how the hell did you succeed in getting a third turn Province in your 3 out of 5 BSW games, because I'd like to acquire that skill myself. Thanks.

Actually, you nailed it. The baron was available in each of those games and I opened Baron/Silver each time.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Strategy:: Re: Let's talk about starting combos

French Taunter — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 23:35:46 +0000

by French Taunter

chrisjwmartin wrote:

I'm totally with you on listing Baron / Silver first: this is the one that I've decided can be added to the Pantheon of Opening Fours. But I have to take issue with your closing Shanty Town comment. Too many people seem to think that "just not playing" an Action card isn't too big a deal, because hey, you couldn't have played a different action card either, right? Right, but also so so wrong: that Shanty Town could have been a Silver, and it turns out that Silver can be used usefully alongside almost every action card you can think of.

Shanty Town should be best with other + Action cards. The best opening Intrigue combo I can see is Shanty Town / Scout. If you get both, play the Scout to suck up the Estates, then play the Shanty Town. You're guaranteed to draw two Coppers.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Strategy:: Re: Harem: the Province Test

DaviddesJ — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:52:59 +0000

by DaviddesJ

Peristarkawan wrote:
Really? So in a set with no extra buys, you would buy a card with 20 gold and 1 VP rather than a card with 8 gold and 2 VPs?

The value of money is pretty much linear in the range of 1 to 3 money per card, in a large deck that gets shuffled so that the increment in expected money per card or in the likelihood of accumulating any particular amount of money is pretty much linear in the value of the card.

No, I wouldn't buy a card with 1 million gold and negative 100,000 VPs on it. That's silly.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: News:: Re: Will there be more new Intrigue cards on BSW?

elkabong — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:50:53 +0000

by elkabong

I am afraid the BSW experience is much different (better) for people who speak German.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Strategy:: Re: Harem: the Province Test

Peristarkawan — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:42:54 +0000

by Peristarkawan

DaviddesJ wrote:
drunkenKOALA wrote:
But there might be a diminishing return for each coin that you add on. Not all coins are worth the same. The first coin might be worth 3VP, the second 2VP, the third 1.5VP.

No, it's pretty much linear.

Really? So in a set with no extra buys, you would buy a card with 20 gold and 1 VP rather than a card with 8 gold and 2 VPs?

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: News:: Re: Will there be more new Intrigue cards on BSW?

Werbaer — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:35:22 +0000

by Werbaer

elkabong wrote:
The other half of my point was that BSW is nigh unusable for the "average joe", who might be converted into a Dominion-lover. I have "sold" several copies of Dominion for Rio Grande from the dozens of people I have played with F2F. I can honestly say that of the dozens of people I set up with BSW accounts - TWO of them have current accounts - and I am one of the two.

You "average joe" seems to be somebody who already knows about Dominion, and wants to try it before he buys.

The are many thousand people on BSW (especially german ones) who aren't BGG regulars. People who actually didn't hear about Dominion before they saw it on BSW. The point is moot now that Dominion won SdJ - now even casual gamers will get to know the game. But if i look at Säulen der Erde (Pillars of the Earth), i think BSW played a big role in making it widely known.

Regarding the expansion, i think it was a good strategy by Hans im Glück / RGG. It shows people who already like the game that there is an expansion with new interesting card types; but to get to know all the cards, (average) people will have to buy the game.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: News:: Re: Will there be more new Intrigue cards on BSW?

elkabong — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:22:08 +0000

by elkabong

Bordgamer wrote:

If your point is the interface could be better and might increase sales if it was, I agree. Though on the BSW scale it's not that bad.

If your point was BSW as it is was generating little interest or sales, I think you're waaaaaaaaay off. Based on what people were saying at Origins, playing it on BSW was making people looking forward to buying Intrigue even more.

I see Bruce Widgor's thinking, but for every person like him, I think there's a lot more who can't get enough.

LOL.. I am afraid you are making MY point! People who visit Origins, People who are BGG regulars - these are people who already will own Dominion. There is little to be gained by offering them more on BSW.

The other half of my point was that BSW is nigh unusable for the "average joe", who might be converted into a Dominion-lover. I have "sold" several copies of Dominion for Rio Grande from the dozens of people I have played with F2F. I can honestly say that of the dozens of people I set up with BSW accounts - TWO of them have current accounts - and I am one of the two.

Why promote on a broken medium? I'd personally rather they save the money they would spend on BSW and consider building their own Dominion server. I think this game could be great online - it just ISN'T great the way it sits, and I'm not sure I see why they would pay to put more of Intrigue online in the current form.

Reply: Dominion:: News:: Re: Donald X Vaccarino....your first time design wins SDJ ....are you for real?

pusboyau — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:15:06 +0000

by pusboyau

Last word goes to Rich

http://www.spotlightongames.com/list/sdj.html

Though if there are still doubters out there, the only real proof I can think of is if the official SDJ website carries a photo of Donald holding his poppel winner a la Reiner Knizia and his Keltis (as he was late to attend the ceremony)

Nick

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Strategy:: Re: Harem: the Province Test

DaviddesJ — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 21:59:05 +0000

by DaviddesJ

drunkenKOALA wrote:
But there might be a diminishing return for each coin that you add on. Not all coins are worth the same. The first coin might be worth 3VP, the second 2VP, the third 1.5VP.

No, it's pretty much linear.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Strategy:: Re: Harem: the Province Test

drunkenKOALA — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 21:46:21 +0000

by drunkenKOALA

But there might be a diminishing return for each coin that you add on. Not all coins are worth the same. The first coin might be worth 3VP, the second 2VP, the third 1.5VP.

If we wrote return in VPs as a function of the ratio of coins versus VPs in a card, it might not be monotonically increasing. As in, it could be a curve instead of a straight line. If it is a dome-shaped curve, the peak would be somewhere in between pure VP and pure coin. If it were a straight increasing line, then yes the peak would be at the rightmost end where it is pure coins.

Now that may very well be the case (that the function actually is monotonically increasing). But we can't just automatically assume that that is the case. It might not be.

Tommy wanted to pay $3 for an ice cream. We can't just automatically assume that he will want to pay another $3 for another ice cream on the same day, right?

Not to mention that by adding different sources of VPs and viable end condition into the game might alter the whole equation altogether. You need gold precisely for Provinces. Not so much for Gardens, right?

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: News:: Re: Will there be more new Intrigue cards on BSW?

brucewig — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 21:28:40 +0000

by brucewig

>But just so I understand your logic - if BSW did have all the Intrigue cards, then you'd be more likely to buy a physical copy?

Yes, that is my logic, as illogical as it seems, for reasons I mentioned above.

This backwards logic is similar to my decision to purchase Valley Games's remake of Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage. Valley Games could have been greedy and changed the game in hopes of making everyone buy it all over again. But they would have ruined a classic game had they done that. Instead, they did a service to the hobby and kept the game almost exactly the same.

I didn't want this excellent decision by Valley Games to hurt their sales, and therefore decided to buy the game, precisely because they didn't force me to do so.

So my game buying is somewhat quirky, but there is a method to the madness. :-)

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Variants:: Re: Making 8 Players More Interesting

Trump — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 21:15:49 +0000

by Trump

voidstate wrote:
At the weekend we played an eight player game with two 4-player games, as suggested in Intrigue. The two games were described as the A league and B league, and after each game the winner of the B League was promoted and the loser of the A league was demoted.

Although both games started with the same 10 action cards, each person who moved was allowed to switch one card out.

And it was surprisingly good fun. On the top table especially, there was suddenly a new strategic element, in that you were trying not only to win but also not to lose, which made it very nail biting in some games.

Since then I've been pondering how to improve on this. In particular, to try and solve three things.

* How to score everyone for the evening's play.

* The B League ended up with the slower players on it, meaning the other table always had to wait for their game to finish.

* What would be a fair way to work out which league everyone starts (we did it randomly).

Any ideas?

I'd abandon the idea of one table being better than the other to start. To alter what you've already got :

Set up the two tables with the 10 cards chosen. In random order, let players choose which table they'd like to sit at until they both fill.

Winner of a game picks one of the 10 action cards just used and KEEPS it, removing it from play.

Once both games are done, randomly reassign the 10 cards for each game again, NOT using the two cards removed by the two winners. Now everyone has to choose a table all over again. The players choose in this order : Last place player from the table that ended first, last place player from the table that ended second, next to last player from table that ende first, etc etc.

Keep doing this until you've all played a set number of games. You COULD play 15 times, 16 if you have the promo cards. But maybe you don't have the time for that and you'd like to set the number of games lower. Anyway, whoever has kept the most cards is the Grand Dominionator or whatever.

So if you do as I suggest, players can always have some control over who they're playing and which cards they're playing with. No complaining when the Big Winner is eventually chosen! :)

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: News:: Re: Will there be more new Intrigue cards on BSW?

brucewig — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 21:14:27 +0000

by brucewig

I've been showing Dominion to anyone who will play it with me, Pete. My "ftf group" would best be described as some friends and family who will every now and then play a game with me.

One glimpse of hope is that my brother really liked it when I showed it to him. We played it twice, and afterwards, just as I was ready to pack the game up, he asked if I wanted to play it again.

My brother's reaction is a great sign, but unless we start playing the game regularly, there isn't much reason for me to buy Intrigue. The only reason I really have for buying the game is to be consistent with my principle of owning any game I play regularly on line.

Reply: Dominion:: News:: Re: Donald X Vaccarino....your first time design wins SDJ ....are you for real?

baychang — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 21:03:31 +0000

by baychang

UnknownParkerBrother wrote:
Did he look more like Valerie, or Dale? ;)

Or perhaps he looked like this:

I think we have our answer.

]]>

Reply: Dominion:: General:: Re: Has any thought been given to making a XBLA version of Dominion?

Gwash — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 21:02:33 +0000

by Gwash

You can always make your own XBLA games with this software from Microsoft... provided you know C#.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: News:: Re: Will there be more new Intrigue cards on BSW?

Bordgamer — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 20:50:26 +0000

by Bordgamer

brucewig wrote:
>I have no problem if BSW delays adding the new cards to promote early sales of the physical copy of the game. But if they're never going to do them, I probably won't be buying my own copy, unless my ftf gaming friends (who are not as serious about boardgames as I am) really become hooked on the basic game.

Bruce, maybe I'm missing something, but if I had a ftf group who wasn't as serious about boardgames, I'd be showing them Dominion ASAP. I would think this is something they would go for.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: News:: Re: Will there be more new Intrigue cards on BSW?

Bordgamer — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 20:42:48 +0000

by Bordgamer

elkabong wrote:
Bordgamer wrote:

On the contrary, I think that Dominion on BSW is so good (no shuffling, no action or money counting, etc.) that it makes perfect business sense to limit what cards go on there.

If you want a taste you can play it on BSW, if you want the full experience well you're going to have to buy something.

I never said the game itself on BSW was horrible. I was saying that the interface is ~~an abomination~~ ~~total shite~~ poor, and that it does very little to generate interest (or sales) from the general population.

Not shuffling .. I don't mind the shuffling, but I can see where you might not like it. On the other hand, while I am willing to concede that shuffling is a bit of a drawback, many BSW supporters seem unwilling to admit that it is a *FAR* inferior gaming experience when compared to the Face-to-Face game, which is simply stellar.

Which leads me to ask this : Why would the developer spend time and money on this interface, when it isn't going to give players a great experience, and make them want to buy the game? Promotion has to achieve an end - Sales, increased interest in the GENERAL GAMING PUBLIC etc.. I think that the 20,000 posts in Dominions BGG forums tell us that there is no need to generate interest or sales amongst us hard-core games :)

If your point is the interface could be better and might increase sales if it was, I agree.

If your point was BSW as it is was generating little interest or sales, I think you're waaaaaaaaay off. Based on what people were saying at origins, BSW was making people looking forward to buying Intrigue even more.

I see Bruce Widgor's thinking, but for every person like him, I think there's a lot more who can't get enough.

Thread: Dominion: Intrigue:: Variants:: Making 8 Players More Interesting

voidstate — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 20:35:55 +0000

by voidstate

At the weekend we played an eight player game with two 4-player games, as suggested in Intrigue. The two games were described as the A league and B league, and after each game the winner of the B League was promoted and the loser of the A league was demoted.

Although both games started with the same 10 action cards, each person who moved was allowed to switch one card out.

And it was surprisingly good fun. On the top table especially, there was suddenly a new strategic element, in that you were trying not only to win but also not to lose, which made it very nail biting in some games.

Since then I've been pondering how to improve on this. In particular, to try and solve three things.

* How to score everyone for the evening's play.

* The B League ended up with the slower players on it, meaning the other table always had to wait for their game to finish.

* What would be a fair way to work out which league everyone starts (we did it randomly).

Any ideas?

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: General:: Re: Is there room for Promo cards in the Intrigue box?

Salt-Man Z — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 20:06:27 +0000

by Salt-Man Z

I was able to fit my promos in the original box, but I had to remove the blanks and VP/$$$ placeholder cards entirely. (With Trash and Kingdom placeholders stored in the same slot.)

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Strategy:: Re: Harem: the Province Test

yaron — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 20:03:31 +0000

by yaron

drunkenKOALA wrote:
I am not sure I understand your logic. Are you saying that because Gold is better than a Province, then by the same logic Gold should also be better than a Harem? I am not sure it's as simple as that.

I think that's exactly what he's saying:

If, at a certain point in the game, you're not willing to trade 3 coins for 6 vp (i.e., take a Province over Gold), you probably shouldn't be willing to trade 1 coin for 2 vp (i.e., take a Harem over Gold) - it's the same 2 vp for 1 coin rate.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: News:: Re: Will there be more new Intrigue cards on BSW?

ejcarter — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:36:16 +0000

by ejcarter

But just so I understand your logic - if BSW did have all the Intrigue cards, then you'd be more likely to buy a physical copy?

Reply: Dominion:: General:: Re: Spy: You Spy Yourself, Right?

jeffwolfe — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:10:28 +0000

by jeffwolfe

baba44713 wrote:
official rulebook wrote:

"+X Action(s)" – the player may play X number of additional Actions this turn. +X Action(s) adds to the number of Actions that can be played in the Action phase. It does not mean play another Action immediately.

This is not in the first edition of the rules. The other two sections you quoted are there.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: News:: Re: Will there be more new Intrigue cards on BSW?

brucewig — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:03:38 +0000

by brucewig

>Your statement sounds like the king of thing someone would say if they had no intention of buying the game under any circumstances.

This isn't true. I own the original copy of Dominion. I even paid a premium for the copy since the game is out of print (I think about $60-$70.

I program boardgame translations myself similar to BSW but for more complex games (generally wargames: www.wargameroom.com), so I believe very strongly in purchasing a copy of a game if you play it on line regularly. I believe in supporting game companies who allow their games to be translated.

As for BSW vs. ftf, I think they both have advantages. I really like the quickness of BSW and the elimination of set up and take down. I don't feel the game suffers on BSW at all. On the other hand, ftf play is in some ways more fun; just being in the same room as the other players and getting to use the components is quite enjoyable.

But the bottom line is that I have played more than 100 games of Dominion on BSW and fewer than 10 ftf. Most of my gaming is done on line. It would not be worth it for me to buy Dominion: Intrigue if I'm only going to play it ftf, because my ftf gaming partners have many plays of the basic game to play before they move on to the Intrigue cards, which are apparently a bit trickier. I might never use Intrigue ftf, but I would nonetheless buy it if I were playing regularly on BSW. Again, I believe we should support the game companies that are tolerant with respect to on-line translations.

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: Rules:: Re: Scout - revealed Harem - question

Peristarkawan — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:45:20 +0000

by Peristarkawan

Born-of-Ashes wrote:
Hopefully Seaside has an Action - Treasure card.

It's probably not worth the rules confusion, by which I mean if you play the card for its action, do you still get its treasure value that turn?

Reply: Dominion:: General:: Re: Provinces as Soon as Possible?

Mateui — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:06:17 +0000

by Mateui

Buying an early Province may be advantageous if lots of Swindlers are being played. You'll have an early Province lead and if it gets swindled that's one less Province for the other players to be able to pick up.

Reply: Dominion:: General:: Re: Has any thought been given to making a XBLA version of Dominion?

rhpenland — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:06:00 +0000

by rhpenland

HappyProle wrote:
Yeah, I can't wait to be verbally abused by XBLA miscreants any time I play an attack card.

You have a point, there. And that is one of the reasons I don't play a tremendous amount of online versus people I don't know, and I tend to be tight with my friends list. I will say that the folks I have played with in the current XBL board games seem, as a general rule, *vastly* better behaved than the ones I play against on say, Halo 3, for example.

Reply: Dominion:: General:: Re: Spy: You Spy Yourself, Right?

crunchduck — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:51:34 +0000

by crunchduck

Thanks! I want to confirm this, but I have a suspicion that this clarification of rules is not in the first edition of the rulebook I have.

Reply: Dominion:: News:: Re: Donald X Vaccarino....your first time design wins SDJ ....are you for real?

chrisjwmartin — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:55:31 +0000

by chrisjwmartin

statonv wrote:
My name isn't Valerie M. Putman. I'm really not sure where Eric (otherwise flawless leader of mine over at BGN) got the M from. My middle name is Wing.

As in a Star Wars X-Wing? :wow:

Reply: Dominion:: General:: Re: Has any thought been given to making a XBLA version of Dominion?

ohgeetee — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:44:46 +0000

by ohgeetee

you can say that again >:)

Reply: Dominion:: General:: Re: Has any thought been given to making a XBLA version of Dominion?

robcannonsoftware — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:41:44 +0000

by robcannonsoftware

I think Lost Cities was "lost" because the parent company was sold and the license did not go with it. Board Games have done fairly well on XBLA, but not as well as some of the mega-hits.

Reply: Dominion:: General:: Re: Has any thought been given to making a XBLA version of Dominion?

crunk_posby — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:36:56 +0000

by crunk_posby

apotheos wrote:
I think after Lost Cities was one of the few games to be removed from the Arcade due to the poor sales of it, there is a logical caution towards developing additional eurogames for Live Arcade.

Wow, I didn't even know Lost Cites was on there at one point. I could see Lost Cities not appealing to the Xbox crowd.

Dominion, however, would be perfect on Xbox. I would probably play it constantly. I would probably pay more than 800 points for it too. (I would have paid more for the Magic game too, if they had done it right, with full deck editing/construction - as is, 800 points is fine.)

Race would be cool, but might be a bit hard for Xbox. It would be the hardest board/card game on there by far...

Reply: Dominion: Intrigue:: News:: Re: Will there be more new Intrigue cards on BSW?

elkabong — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:35:45 +0000

by elkabong

Bordgamer wrote:

On the contrary, I think that Dominion on BSW is so good (no shuffling, no action or money counting, etc.) that it makes perfect business sense to limit what cards go on there.

If you want a taste you can play it on BSW, if you want the full experience well you're going to have to buy something.

I never said the game itself on BSW was horrible. I was saying that the interface is ~~an abomination~~ ~~total shite~~ poor, and that it does very little to generate interest (or sales) from the general population.

Not shuffling .. I don't mind the shuffling, but I can see where you might not like it. On the other hand, while I am willing to concede that shuffling is a bit of a drawback, many BSW supporters seem unwilling to admit that it is a *FAR* inferior gaming experience when compared to the Face-to-Face game, which is simply stellar.

Which leads me to ask this : Why would the developer spend time and money on this interface, when it isn't going to give players a great experience, and make them want to buy the game? Promotion has to achieve an end - Sales, increased interest in the GENERAL GAMING PUBLIC etc.. I think that the 20,000 posts in Dominions BGG forums tell us that there is no need to generate interest or sales amongst us hard-core games :)

Reply: Dominion:: General:: Re: Has any thought been given to making a XBLA version of Dominion?

HappyProle — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:32:42 +0000

by HappyProle

Yeah, I can't wait to be verbally abused by XBLA miscreants any time I play an attack card.

New Image for Dominion

Maras — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:10:15 +0000

by Maras

Playing at club meeting in Poland Gazeta Cafe Płock

]]>

Reply: Dominion:: General:: Re: Ending the game as a loser

DaviddesJ — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:04:24 +0000

by DaviddesJ

HappyProle wrote:
If there's even a slim chance you could win shouldn't you take that chance?

It's up to the player. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. It depends how slim I think the chance is, and on other factors. This comes up in lots of games, most people don't seem to think that there's a moral imperative to pursue any nonzero chance, no matter how small.

Reply: Dominion:: General:: Re: Provinces as Soon as Possible?

djgutierrez77 — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 15:55:51 +0000

by djgutierrez77

No way. I never buy a province before I'm satisfied with the amount of buying power I have in my deck. I would much rather have a turn 3 gold than a turn 3 province anyway.

New Image for Dominion

skeil — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 15:47:42 +0000

by skeil

My 3rd custom card, WAREHOUSE. It is similar to CELLAR. I used the imp...

]]>

Reply: Dominion:: General:: Re: Ending the game as a loser

monkeyboy157 — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 15:46:07 +0000

by monkeyboy157

I don't see it as a huge issue. Are they really giving the game to some random player? Or are they giving the game to whoever has done the best up to this point?

I can see a couple of reasons the loser might end the game, first is that they know they are out of it and have no hope to catch up. In this case they end it so they can just start over and play again. The other is that maybe they don't know they are losing. I've had times where I thought I was behind, so rather than ending the game I buy a duchy with an estate or some combo of points that won't end it just to find out when it does end that I would have won. Then the opposite as well, I've ended it thinking I was ahead only to find out I am a few points short.

If somebody is doing this often maybe I would get annoyed by it, but I haven't seen too many times where somebody just ends it fully knowing they've lost. Usually our games are close enough that just isn't the case.

Reply: Dominion:: General:: Re: Provinces as Soon as Possible?

monkeyboy157 — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 15:40:23 +0000

by monkeyboy157

banyan wrote:
baba44713 wrote:
You buy a Province. Not because it's optimal, but because you can tell afterwards how you bought a Province in your 3rd turn.

Seriously, how often do you think THAT happens?

This actually happened to me once on BSW. Smithy + Silver on first two turns. Turn 3 I could get a Province. I knew it was probably a bad idea, but I just couldn't turn it down.

I've run into the same situation several times. Now I normally just skip on the smithy early because it's just too hard to turn down that province.

Reply: Dominion:: General:: Re: Has any thought been given to making a XBLA version of Dominion?

apotheos — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 15:39:43 +0000

by apotheos

I think after Lost Cities was one of the few games to be removed from the Arcade due to the poor sales of it, there is a logical caution towards developing additional eurogames for Live Arcade.