Author Topic: Dominion (card game)  (Read 15347 times)

Offline Vasja

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Re: Dominion (card game)
« Reply #20 on: December 20, 2011, 02:18:23 PM »
The witch is arguably the second most powerful card in the core set, and remains near the top of the non-core sets. Forcing an opponent to gain a curse is huge, especially in a game with multiple players - buy a Witch round 1, and you are guaranteeing you play it three or more times in the game. This means every other player has to buy a Duchy just to keep up - not to mention that they'll be getting less money and their action engines will be less effective.

In a 1v1 game, it's equally powerful. If you buy one and your opponent doesn't, just 1 or 2 [+2 Actions] cards and your opponent is looking at 7-8 curses in his deck by the end of the game. It absolutely shuts down the basic Big Money strategies and puts a wrench in any Engine that doesn't have a way to burn through those curses quickly. Familiar is good, but you have to spend two shuffles just to purchase it.

@Bloody Initiate: [+2 cards] isn't great on it's own, but in an engine that has excess actions it's just as free as the other cards. Filling an opposing deck with curses is the key.

Militia is a solid card, though not as effective vs. engines as big money. It also requires an extremely action-heavy engine to be used well. The spy is free and useful, but isn't that great compared to just buying a silver. Bureaucrat is weak - it's worse than a silver in most cases, and late-game it just ends up clogging your deck.

Certainly it matters what the opponent is buying. If he's got a chapel and a moat in his deck, buying a witch isn't useful. But if he's running big money, you will absolutely destroy him with the Witch.

ps. In addition, if we're talking about Militia, Torturer is strictly a stronger card. Most engines can use any card that nets +3 of cards or actions, in any combination, and forcing your opponent to discard or gain curses is even better.

Offline Vasja

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Re: Dominion (card game)
« Reply #21 on: December 20, 2011, 02:19:34 PM »
Figured this deserved its own post: check out http://dominion.isotropic.org/

It's the place to play Dominion online - log in for free or link your google/yahoo account to it and it will keep track of your stats as well.

Offline RobbyPants

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Re: Dominion (card game)
« Reply #22 on: December 20, 2011, 03:01:50 PM »
The witch is arguably the second most powerful card in the core set, and remains near the top of the non-core sets.
What's the most powerful? I'm guessing the Chapel.


Figured this deserved its own post: check out http://dominion.isotropic.org/

It's the place to play Dominion online - log in for free or link your google/yahoo account to it and it will keep track of your stats as well.
Thanks. This might be a way for me to get to play more often.
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Offline Vasja

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Re: Dominion (card game)
« Reply #23 on: December 20, 2011, 03:08:51 PM »
Yup - Chapel is likely the most powerful card the game has or will ever see.

Also, I take that back about familiar being good - it's great. Toss-up if it's better than the witch - it's A/C free, but draws less. It's cheaper, but requires a potion.

Edit: I have to think before I type. I double-takeback O.o The potion part is actually pretty prohibitive. Buying it late-game isn't useful because you won't send enough curses to matter. Buying it early means you're less likely to hit $5 or more in the first couple turns, which is critical. It screws with engines essentially, and doesn't really help big money. If you can trash, it's OK, but... meh.
« Last Edit: December 20, 2011, 03:11:16 PM by Vasja »

Offline RobbyPants

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Re: Dominion (card game)
« Reply #24 on: December 20, 2011, 10:15:15 PM »
The potion is a big pain in the ass. At a minimum, it's a sunk buy just to get it. However, if the set has Alchemist in it, I don't mind too much. If you're running a thin enough deck, a few Alchemists and a Potion can let you chew through most of your deck pretty frequently. But without it, I don't like buying a Potion.

Yeah, Chapel is totally rad. It combines really nicely with Adventurer. There are a few things that can cut it down, like the Thief. It gets really risky to run a lean Chapel deck if someone has a Thief.
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Offline darqueseid

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Re: Dominion (card game)
« Reply #25 on: December 21, 2011, 05:55:59 PM »
never run a chapel strategy if there's a thief out there.  Generally, any attack cards that mess with your draws is bad with the lean chapel strat.  You just don't have the sink of low value cards to withstand lots of attacks.  That being said, it is a strong card

Out of alchemy I think posession is one of the strongest cards.  In two player, it becomes a game of who can get it off first.  in multiplayer it hinges on how powerful the person to your left's deck is.  If they are running big money or a strong action deck you can get great benefits by buying what they would have gotten.   Additionally, you can choose not to play some of the most powerful actions for the opponent you control, effectively neutralizing thier strongest plays or using them for yourself. 
Even if the opponent has a mediocre deck, you can generally get your own buy, plus whatever they can get for you, effectively doubling your turns.
-lets just say that my group doesn't use posession anymore because its so broken, and annoying.
 

Offline Bloody Initiate

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Re: Dominion (card game)
« Reply #26 on: January 08, 2012, 09:14:24 PM »
Been playing with some of the expansions. While some of my favorite cards are attack cards I think those included in "Intrigue" go beyond even my bloodlust. I don't actually enjoy robbing other players of their pleasure, and nothing does that like a Saboteur. I have never been as impressed with curses or cursing cards as the rest of you seem to be, but just fucking TRASHING people's cards? That's unbelievably nasty.

I have noticed that the cards that do their job best frequently tend to do it way too well. Saboteur is the nastiest attack card I have ever seen, and although I love attacking people, I found myself preferring not to use it. It's one thing to mess with their deck a bit and their card order, that will be repaired in a turn. Just destroying their cards is really going back and erasing their efforts from previous turns. Time is a very valuable and treasured investment, and erasing the time they spent is just a bit more of an asshole than I like to be. The Swindler isn't quite so bad, you get to replace their cards with one of equal value, so horrible cards like the Minion replace useful cards like Markets and Festivals.

Also Crossroads (Not sure where it's from, I think Hinterlands) is just a bit too good at getting a deck cycling. The turns become enormous multi-minute affairs that require you to shuffle every other time and the other person just sits bored watching. I never liked deck builds that turn the game into solitaire, sadly it's something that they really went after when designing a lot of the cards in Dominion.

I do like a lot of the cards in Intrigue though, the cards that have multiple types (Victory + Action) especially are refreshing.
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Offline Vasja

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Re: Dominion (card game)
« Reply #27 on: January 09, 2012, 12:14:33 AM »
True that about Saboteur. It's a nasty card, and extremely frustrating. I'd say it's likely the least-liked card in all of Dominion, and I've seen more than one person just quit because of it.

On the other hand, I disagree with some of your hand valuations. Minion is actually a very solid card, but it doesn't synergy well with the usual +cards/+actions engines. It's better played with basic non-terminals (Festival is actually quite good), but it works best with extra Minions itself. The attack part is also not too shabby.

Crossroads is solid, but not the end-all-be-all. With any sort of trashing, you're going to be getting rid of almost all your estates very early, thus leaving nothing for you to draw with Crossroads. It's solid end-game, when you have Provinces + Duchies to draw through. It really shines with hybrid cards - something like Nobles, where you can pull a crossroads for something like +3 actions/+3 cards, then kick off 3-4 nobles for +3 cards each. It's great, but it's also a pretty edge case, so I'd say it's not too scary. Honestly, though, I've rarely seen any sort of mega-turns with Crossroads. What other cards were in play for that game?

Offline Bloody Initiate

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Re: Dominion (card game)
« Reply #28 on: January 09, 2012, 08:06:59 AM »
You don't trash your Estates with Crossroads because they cycle freely and keep going. THe entire point of Crossroads is to make it so Victory cards are no longer dead cards, thus you don't bother trashing them because they no longer cause any problems in your deck. Even with NO Victory cards at all in your hand Crossroads gives you three more actions. It's a solid EARLY game card because you're guaranteed to be drawing those three Estates. You will also be able to afford it immediately no matter what because it costs 2.

So you get Crossroads, inevitably you will have it because it's too cheap not to. Later if you get another, you reveal a hand with victory cards. You then draw your other Crossroads, you have not discarded those Victory cards, they are still in your hand, so THAT Crossroads triggers off the same cards and any more you drew. Each one is either as good as the last or better, and if you have any other +action cards in available you intersperse with the Crossroads so you don't risk running out (The 3 actions you get from Crossroads only count once, which isn't really a drawback at all since it's an enormous amount of actions for a card that costs 2).

The above alone doesn't break the game or anything, I'm just explaining why it gets you very long turns. That DOES break the game in the same sense long turns always do, and for the same reasons every other card that adds a lot of card movement damages the fun. I have not played every expansion, I have only played Cornucopia, Intrigue, and Hinterlands, and of those I have never seen a single card that gets a deck moving better than Crossroads, and the ones that come close tend to cost a lot more. You also have to have more of them. +3 actions for one card is superb, it doesn't matter that you only get it once per turn. Then you USUALLY have Victory cards in your hand, because it isn't a problem at all if you do, so you keep drawing (You still don't go buying Estates, the only time I've seen that work is with Gardens), and you can start buying Victory cards earlier than normal because once again, they're not a problem. Throw in new Victory Cards from different expansions that actually DO stuff, and you just ARE NOT going to have a problem going through most of your deck every turn.

I played a few games with Crossroads. The one with the longest turns had Crossroads, Spy, Wishing Well, Harem, and I think one other special Victory card, though I can't remember which. I didn't gain massive strategic advantage by having turns that took five minutes, I just completely destroyed the fun for my opponent, which was funNY but not actually that satisfying. That's usually what +action and +card builds do, but Crossroads is better at it as a single card than anything I've ever seen (We later played a game that had three types of Villages as well as other +action +card cards, but that required LOTS of cards to do the same thing, I got by with 2, and would have actually been more effective with just Crossroads). The problem is that due to the low cost it's very easy to go overboard with Crossroads, and ANY other +action cards will have you literally playing one turn for minutes at a time.

My problem with the Minion is that you don't have a choice, which actually goes against the entire jist of the Intrigue expansion. Not every card in that set gives you a choice, but a card like Minion, for the amount you pay for it, should have. Whenever I hit people with the Swindler and got rid of their useful 5s, it was a Minion that I replaced the 5s with, and they were worse off for it every single time. The only time I could do worse with a 5 is giving people Dukes, and they can actually turn that on you if there's enough time left in the game.
« Last Edit: January 09, 2012, 08:12:32 AM by Bloody Initiate »
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Offline Vasja

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Re: Dominion (card game)
« Reply #29 on: January 09, 2012, 12:20:21 PM »
The issue with Crossroads is more than just that - you're actually very unlikely to be drawing two estates with your crossroads (1/11). You're usually going to draw it with one other estate, and that means it's essentially a dead card (as you're just replacing it). It works well with solid hybrid victory cards and decently well in end-game (if you have the time to buy it) - take a gander at rinkworks assessment, as he puts it way better than I can.

Edit: Also, compare to Warehouse in any 4/3 opening. Or Cellar in 5/2.

And as far as time is concerned - multi-draws don't seem like a big deal to me. Sure, shuffling the discard if you've drawn your deck take a little bit, but it shouldn't be too bad. I guess it all depends. I've been playing more of my games online recently, so big draws don't bother me. I can see how it would be annoying in a live game.

I'm not sure what you mean with 'no choice' on the Minion. At worst, it's a non-terminal Silver, which isn't bad at all. In a game where you can't get to a two-Province buy, that's just fine. At best, it lets you skip past your bad cards to get to your good ones. In that case, it also forces your opponents to play with 4 cards instead of 5, which is an added boon. Not to mention that if you have cards like Tunnel to play with (ones that grant you big bonuses by discarding), it gets even better.
« Last Edit: January 09, 2012, 12:26:20 PM by Vasja »

Offline Bloody Initiate

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Re: Dominion (card game)
« Reply #30 on: January 09, 2012, 05:32:11 PM »
It's difficult to explain how things end up working in practice when people just haven't seen it. You can calculate the odds all you want and said "this is what will happen," but you're basically guaranteed to draw those estates with a Crossroads. More than once. I think I prefer Shanty Town or Farming Village for getting my deck going early, just because they don't NEED the Victory cards to draw, but having played many turns with Crossroads I promise the card does what I say it does. At the very worst you spent 2 to buy a card that also guarantees you can play all the other action cards in your hand, more often than not you're playing a card that is +3 actions and at least +1 card. For 2 that's pretty incredible.

By the way, I don't mean to sound like I think Estates are awesome with Crossroads, just saying that Crossroads ends up working as an early game card and you don't bother trashing your Estates because of it. I would much prefer to have better Victory cards in hand, like upgrading those Estates into Great Halls for example, but when those options are absent, the Estates don't get in the way because you WILL draw them with Crossroads.

I have never played a game in which people raped with the Chapel or the Witch. This does not cause me to disbelieve that other people have. I can see HOW the Chapel would become a problem, in my very first game of Dominion the most experienced player explained that strategy, but none of the people I play with has ever gone for it. Crossroads is an obscenely good card as far as +action +card cards go.
« Last Edit: January 09, 2012, 05:37:16 PM by Bloody Initiate »
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Offline Vasja

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Re: Dominion (card game)
« Reply #31 on: January 09, 2012, 06:10:31 PM »
I don't see how you're 'basically guaranteed' to draw three estates with a crossroads when the odds of drawing just the 3 estates together on turn 3 is 1/22. The odds are the same for drawing the crossroads and two estates together.

Speaking of in practice, I've seen enough of Crossroads to know it doesn't work. It's not that it's a bad card - it's not - but it's sub-par in a majority of games.

About Chapel/Witch. I'm surprised no-one's gone for either, given how powerful they are. I'd advice you to try buying them when they're around - you will quickly see your win rate increase.

Offline Bloody Initiate

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Re: Dominion (card game)
« Reply #32 on: January 10, 2012, 08:18:17 AM »
Our ignoring the Witch is more of a gentlemen's agreement and a shared dislike of the card. The not going for the Chapel probably has more to do with the preferred play styles of the people with whom I play. It ends up being similar to the reason we don't use the Witch, except we don't dislike the Chapel, we just don't enjoy using it that way. Generally when we get a Chapel it's used occasionally to dump Copper and Estates, as well as old action cards who have served their purpose. We like keeping our decks clean and trim, but not anorexic.

We also always set the game up by random draws of the Action cards. We put them all together, shuffle them, and then draw 10. As a result we don't usually end up with sets that are "ideal" for specific strategies and we tend to rely on things that are generally effective (Basic wealth-building engines, or long turns that let you spend the same treasure more) or our own versatility (I'm not as good at the versatility, but a buddy of mine is great at switching his strategy mid-game and pulling a win out whenever the cards set him behind using the popular methods).

As for the Crossroads thing, I never said you were guaranteed to draw 3 Estates in a turn (Although the odds aren't as bad as you suggest due to the amount of times you draw cards in an average game. For the same reason a 5% chance to lose kills you in D&D, a 5% chance is basically a sure thing in Dominion). The only time I said you'd draw "three Estates" I was just referring to the three you start with and not suggesting that you'd have them all on one draw of 5 cards, since you won't be buying any more and you won't really need to trash the ones you have (You will think you'll want to, but you'll find they just don't get in the way any more. Upgrading them is totally cool if possible though). You don't need to draw them all in one turn, you just need to draw them with Crossroads. THAT IS a guarantee. You will also very likely eventually draw it with at least two Victory cards, if not three. It's not nearly as unlikely as you seem to think.

The thing about the card is that it feeds itself and gets stronger with new iterations. The first one gives you +3 actions, then you draw 1-2 cards. If you have another Crossroads by that point you play it was well, and it draws 1-2 cards or more if you drew Victory cards. You end up with a card that behaves similarly to the Village only it's cheaper and can explode. You don't get as many actions out of it in total, but you'll get enough.

Another card I was surprised by was "Cache," I knew getting a gold for 5 was going to be awesome, but all of us were surprised by how much the added copper wasn't a problem. In every game where we played with Cache there was a copper-trashing card (Moneylender, Spice Merchant). In every game those cards got purchased by the people purchasing Caches. In every game they found themselves not spending as much time trashing Copper as they intended. The damn card just fills your deck with Treasure, and instead of having too much Copper to buy anything you find yourself with too few buys to use all your money. A deck filled with Copper and Gold isn't nearly as bad as it sounds. We'd still trash the Copper whenever it was convenient, but a lot of the time you had better things to do with your actions (Of which you didn't have many, your deck is full of treasure after all). Like I said I knew the card was going to be good, I just didn't realize its drawback wasn't going to be as much of a drawback.

« Last Edit: January 10, 2012, 08:31:02 AM by Bloody Initiate »
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Offline Vasja

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Re: Dominion (card game)
« Reply #33 on: January 10, 2012, 09:30:28 AM »
As for the Crossroads thing, I never said you were guaranteed to draw 3 Estates in a turn (Although the odds aren't as bad as you suggest due to the amount of times you draw cards in an average game. For the same reason a 5% chance to lose kills you in D&D, a 5% chance is basically a sure thing in Dominion). The only time I said you'd draw "three Estates" I was just referring to the three you start with and not suggesting that you'd have them all on one draw of 5 cards, since you won't be buying any more and you won't really need to trash the ones you have (You will think you'll want to, but you'll find they just don't get in the way any more. Upgrading them is totally cool if possible though). You don't need to draw them all in one turn, you just need to draw them with Crossroads. THAT IS a guarantee. You will also very likely eventually draw it with at least two Victory cards, if not three. It's not nearly as unlikely as you seem to think.

Ah, I see. Sorry, I assumed you meant drawing it with three Estates as that's when it really does shine.

Still, the problem is that most of the time, you'll draw it with 0 or 1 estates - and then it's really weak, especially early-game. And this issue is that in mid-game, by turn 8 or 9, your odds of drawing them together have dropped dramatically - from 1/22 with 12 cards to around 1/57 with 20. Practice supports these odds, as well: check those games I linked.

In 10 games and 374 turns (187 by each player), here is what happened:
- total times drawn: 83 (22.2%)
- times drawn with 2 or more estates: 8 (2.1%)
- times drawn with 1 estate: 32 (8.6%)
- times drawn dead: 43 (11.5%)

Sure; when you do draw it with two estates, and then again manage to hit another Crossroads, it's certainly nice. But that's two buys I've wasted on the card - buys that could have been spent on Silvers or Havens or Warehouses. Things that would have accelerated my deck faster and more consistently. Not to mention all the times it ends up as a dead card, giving me a weak +3 actions to an engine already overflowing with them.

---

Cache is really nice, especially with cards like Spice Traders. It's decent end-game, but by then it's a toss-up - spend buys here and hope to fill up dead spots with coppers, or ride out the wave with a bit more density but betters odds of a $8. Quite a solid card.

Offline RobbyPants

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Re: Dominion (card game)
« Reply #34 on: January 13, 2012, 03:56:40 PM »
Cache is really nice, especially with cards like Spice Traders. It's decent end-game, but by then it's a toss-up - spend buys here and hope to fill up dead spots with coppers, or ride out the wave with a bit more density but betters odds of a $8. Quite a solid card.
Is cache the one where you gain two coppers and the card itself is worth $3 (and costs $5)?

I could see that being handy on its own the early game (especially on a 5/2 split) where gaining three treasures would nicely offset the three Estates, and having a $3 treasure early makes it easier to get Gold. By mid-game, it seems like you're more likely to flood your deck with coppers, and you'd want a way to get rid of them. I used it with Spice Traders before, too. I'm not so sure about the late game. If it's late enough, you might want a Duchy. If it's mid-late, I'd be afraid of adding two coppers that I likely wouldn't be able to dump.
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Offline Bloody Initiate

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Re: Dominion (card game)
« Reply #35 on: January 14, 2012, 03:21:36 PM »
Yes, Cache is the 5 cost Gold that comes with two coppers.

Cache is definitely more of an early-game card for multiple reasons. The most obvious of which is that there are only 10 of them available, so if people are buying them they'll lose that option before long. You also do end up with plenty of money, and you'll have turns where you COULD buy another Cache, but you can just as easily buy a Gold, and when you have the choice between the two the Gold is usually better. Cache's awesome is housed predictably in its price tag. While the extra copper is basically harmless, when you can afford to skip it, you do. However if you invested a lot in trashing cards you might prefer Cache until the Caches are gone just so you can keep fueling those.
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Offline Bloody Initiate

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Re: Dominion (card game)
« Reply #36 on: January 25, 2012, 07:58:31 AM »
I think I might dislike every card with a potion in it's cost. It's like they were designed for online play only, for which they often work fine, but stuff like Philosopher's Stone would be a nightmare if you were playing it tabletop. Counting your cards every time you play it? Who thinks of something so terrible and then prints it? They have a lot of deck searching too, which is often a pain the ass in RL play. I suppose with the massive +action +card engines it's not really a new thing for the creators of Dominion to give people obscenely long turns that give everyone else time to grow to old age, but they didn't seem to get better at it. I don't know why people think it would be fun to get together with friends to all play solitaire though. Cards like Possession, which are obviously really horrible balance-wise, are yet another example of "looks good on paper, doesn't work in practice" because having someone take TWO turns to every one of yours is exactly the kind of nightmare that can really hurt a game. Why didn't someone realize how much fun it ISN'T to sit and just watch someone take their turn for multiple minutes of gameplay?

I think I like Seaside very much though. IRL I've only played with it online but I like the duration cards. I like setting upcoming turns up, and it covers against those inevitable bad draws a bit.

Prosperity is a bit disappointing in places, bigger isn't always better, but it's not un-fun like a lot of Alchemy. It's just that a lot of the stuff didn't feel different enough. Otherwise they're nice cards that are nice to have.

Black Market makes things interesting. Not sure what else to say about it. I like it, but its value isn't always obvious. It can be lots of fun to use, but then you realize you could have spent that action winning...

I also don't think the game improves with more layers of complexity. To me one of Dominion's biggest selling points is its simplicity, and developers often don't realize that. Cards like Trade Route and Native Village that have a "mat" are just kinda dumb, and stuff like Embargo, Monument, and Bishop that I imagine bring "counters" to the game are also less welcome in my mind, but people seem to like them so I suppose I can't argue with what works.
« Last Edit: January 25, 2012, 08:01:59 AM by Bloody Initiate »
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Offline RobbyPants

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Re: Dominion (card game)
« Reply #37 on: January 26, 2012, 10:07:16 AM »
I think I might dislike every card with a potion in it's cost. could have spent that action winning...
I hate it just because of the opportunity cost you need to get that Potion in the first place. I really only like it if I can get the Alchemist, which is already a copy of one of my favorite core cards (Laboratory), and also makes that Potion in the deck useful. A favorite tactic of mine is to pick up several (up to five) Alchemists and several Apprentices (possibly sped up with University, if available) to try to narrow my deck down to the above-mentioned cards, two Golds, a Silver, and the Potion. With two or three Apprentices, you can always have $8 in your hand for quite a few turns (four or five, at least). You just can't take too long to set this up...


It's like they were designed for online play only, for which they often work fine, but stuff like Philosopher's Stone would be a nightmare if you were playing it tabletop. Counting your cards every time you play it? Who thinks of something so terrible and then prints it?could have spent that action winning...
Yeah, it really does slow the game down. I saw it and thought OMG Broken! It is pretty nice as time goes on, but it is a pain in the ass to use. Although, if you're playing with a friendly group who trusts each other, you can get away with only counting some times. For example, if you were at 20 the last time you used it and you know you haven't acquired five or more cards, then you know it's still worth the same amount.


Cards like Possession, which are obviously really horrible balance-wise, are yet another example of "looks good on paper, doesn't work in practice" because having someone take TWO turns to every one of yours is exactly the kind of nightmare that can really hurt a game. Why didn't someone realize how much fun it ISN'T to sit and just watch someone take their turn for multiple minutes of gameplay?could have spent that action winning...
Well, it's "balanced" in that everyone can use it, but it's annoying in that if only one guy is using it, then the other players either have to get on board, or hope that they can win fast enough to not be out-paced. It's kind of like Chapel in that regard. Although, this and Saboteur are two cards we almost never play with.


I think I like Seaside very much though. IRL I've only played with it online but I like the duration cards. I like setting upcoming turns up, and it covers against those inevitable bad draws a bit.could have spent that action winning...
I like Seaside a lot, too. It actually took me a while to warm up to it (I really liked Intrigue at that point). When I came back to it, I liked it a lot more. It took me a while to see the use in Haven, which can be a lot of fun to use.


Prosperity is a bit disappointing in places, bigger isn't always better, but it's not un-fun like a lot of Alchemy. It's just that a lot of the stuff didn't feel different enough. Otherwise they're nice cards that are nice to have.could have spent that action winning...
I really enjoyed Prosperity when it first came out, but I haven't played it in about a year, now. It's a real game changer in many ways, but so many of the cards are just +3 cost versions of core cards that the feel of the game isn't different. Before that, each edition had it's own feel, which was a lot of the fun, to me.

On a related note, there is a pretty cool five-card combo in Prosperity that lets you pick up +9VP a round while maintaining a five-card deck (so you have the same hand every time). Granted, if someone has attacks, this could mess it up real quick. But you need:
  • Bishop
  • 2 Monuments
  • 2 King's Courts
Each turn, you get +9VP and +$15, but you don't spend the $15 until near the end because you want a constant five-card deck.


Black Market makes things interesting. Not sure what else to say about it. I like it, but its value isn't always obvious. It can be lots of fun to use, but then you realize you could have spent that action winning...
I haven't used it yet, but it does look like fun. My only complaint is that some cards really are better than others, and if you can get the only one copy of it in the game, it could seal the deal right then and there. Technically everyone has an equal opportunity before you start drawing into the black market deck, but afterwards, all bets are off.
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Offline Bloody Initiate

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Re: Dominion (card game)
« Reply #38 on: January 27, 2012, 08:25:24 AM »
I hate it just because of the opportunity cost you need to get that Potion in the first place. I really only like it if I can get the Alchemist, which is already a copy of one of my favorite core cards (Laboratory), and also makes that Potion in the deck useful. A favorite tactic of mine is to pick up several (up to five) Alchemists and several Apprentices (possibly sped up with University, if available) to try to narrow my deck down to the above-mentioned cards, two Golds, a Silver, and the Potion. With two or three Apprentices, you can always have $8 in your hand for quite a few turns (four or five, at least). You just can't take too long to set this up...

Yeah Alchemist is a nice card, and I find I probably resent it and Vineyard least among those cards, just because it doesn't include a lot of deck searching or anything else that would wreck tabletop play. I like Vineyard for the simple reason that I like having multiple ways to win the game.

I also like the other similar Victory cards, watching my buddy run Gardens is fun because he'll explode a gold into silvers with the Trader just to fatten his deck up. He also beat me with Dukes late one game when my Province engine got going faster than his did, he had to throw out his initial strategy to keep up and he ended up winning by a lot. A lot of the time playing with people who know what they're doing can be less fun because they move somewhat robotically, so having those other choices about how to build a deck just makes the game better imo. Otherwise you just watch everyone make the same decisions and the person to go last is just plain screwed.

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Yeah, it really does slow the game down. I saw it and thought OMG Broken! It is pretty nice as time goes on, but it is a pain in the ass to use. Although, if you're playing with a friendly group who trusts each other, you can get away with only counting some times. For example, if you were at 20 the last time you used it and you know you haven't acquired five or more cards, then you know it's still worth the same amount.

I actually like what Philosopher's Stone WOULD do for the game if it worked. Online you can see people screwing it up because they don't understand that cards in play are not in the discard or the deck. Against one guy I was dropping $9 Philosopher's Stones and he started buying them in an attempt to catch up, but he had a big +card +action engine and his Philosopher's Stones weren't worth a damn, which must have been so frustrating for him, lol. So online it works fine because it allows for another kind of deck, but offline I can't imagine going through the trouble of counting your deck, discard, and then any cards you have in play if it's a consequential amount. Counting isn't a slow process for most human beings, but it's still adding a step to people's turns.

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Well, it's "balanced" in that everyone can use it, but it's annoying in that if only one guy is using it, then the other players either have to get on board, or hope that they can win fast enough to not be out-paced. It's kind of like Chapel in that regard. Although, this and Saboteur are two cards we almost never play with.

Right on. I probably would never call it "balanced" in any sense, but otherwise agree 100%
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I really enjoyed Prosperity when it first came out, but I haven't played it in about a year, now. It's a real game changer in many ways, but so many of the cards are just +3 cost versions of core cards that the feel of the game isn't different. Before that, each edition had it's own feel, which was a lot of the fun, to me.

On a related note, there is a pretty cool five-card combo in Prosperity that lets you pick up +9VP a round while maintaining a five-card deck (so you have the same hand every time). Granted, if someone has attacks, this could mess it up real quick. But you need:
  • Bishop
  • 2 Monuments
  • 2 King's Courts
Each turn, you get +9VP and +$15, but you don't spend the $15 until near the end because you want a constant five-card deck.

While I have no desire to belittle your offered strategy, I find there aren't many set-ups that don't explode nicely with the inclusion of a few King's Courts. I had a guy beat me 101 to -1 online yesterday morning because he managed to get a King's Court loop going. I couldn't even feel too much like I'd been beaten, because his turns were so long and ridiculous that it stopped looking voluntary. He definitely outplayed me, but it was a minor difference in strategy that could have been reversed completely had I drawn as well after I bought mine as he did after he bought his. We both set up for awhile with me taking the lead, and then in 2-3 turns he bought all the Colonies and Provinces as well as gave me every single Curse in the game. During those 2-3 turns I couldn't draw anything or escape what was happening because there were about 4-5 attack cards in that game (I remember Margrave, Torturer, Ambassador, Jester) and he was playing all of them on me between 3 and 9 times a turn. It wasn't fun at all. I wanted to feel like I'd fucked up hugely somewhere, but when I looked back on it it was just an oversight really. All magnified by King's Courts.

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I haven't used it yet, but it does look like fun. My only complaint is that some cards really are better than others, and if you can get the only one copy of it in the game, it could seal the deal right then and there. Technically everyone has an equal opportunity before you start drawing into the black market deck, but afterwards, all bets are off.

I've gotten in the habit of playing in veto mode all the time online, and IRL we just know what's broken so we wouldn't make it available (Although we don't have Black Market). Having that bit of veto power helps you head off a lot of the problems that could arise from Black Market. For example, I veto cards with a potion in their cost, not because they're all broken (in fact online many of them work just fine), but because it removes the potion from the treasures available (thus no one will have it and certain cards that might cost $6 and a potion are not available in any way).

I haven't seen people gain huge advantages from Black Market because you only gain one copy of the card. Even in situations where you might bring that card out a lot, people tend to have gained a compensating edge from the same place you did. You also get plenty of draws from Black Market that don't impress at all.
« Last Edit: January 27, 2012, 08:27:41 AM by Bloody Initiate »
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Offline RobbyPants

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Re: Dominion (card game)
« Reply #39 on: January 27, 2012, 10:43:30 AM »
A lot of the time playing with people who know what they're doing can be less fun because they move somewhat robotically, so having those other choices about how to build a deck just makes the game better imo. Otherwise you just watch everyone make the same decisions and the person to go last is just plain screwed.
I know what you mean. I'll be more likely to try stuff other than variations of Big Money if I'm playing against someone less experienced. The Apprentice/Alchemist/University combo I mentioned worked well against someone newer because he didn't get a fast Province engine going.


I haven't seen people gain huge advantages from Black Market because you only gain one copy of the card. Even in situations where you might bring that card out a lot, people tend to have gained a compensating edge from the same place you did. You also get plenty of draws from Black Market that don't impress at all.
Chapel could be a good one to have if you're the only one, but it might not be that strong since you wouldn't be buying it on your first turn. Other veto cards could be nasty, like Possession or Saboteur. But you don't have a lot of control over what you get, so it's not likely to be an overpowered card. It's just a really random card with that looming potential.
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