agree about the treasure card thing -- my first dozen or so games I didn't realize and was just clicking the +treasure card button thinking I was getting everything, but was losing miserably.

Board Game Geeks moaning about point counting. They think it's unfair and bring up a variety of arguments against automatic point counters, some of them pretty laughable.

For the record I have never used one and have only played ~15 games of Dominion, but these guys seem to think that if the game is not exactly as it is played in paper it is not longer the same game, or even a game at all. They also don't like players that are too competitive. I am guessing they have never dipped their toes into the waters of online poker.

At the risk of turning this into a live vs online Dominion debate I've never played Dominion live, only online. I've been playing Dominion casually on brettspielwelt for maybe six months (?) and isotropic for only a couple days. I've never taken the game very seriously and I'm pretty much a fish. While there are obvious practical reasons for it in live play, online counting points just is not at all fun particularly when cards like Gardens are in play. I wasn't even aware HUDs were available for Dominion until right now, but I strongly believe (online) Dominion would be a much better game if points were counted automatically.

Obviously there is an edge to be had there if you're a meticulous counter vs someone who doesn't give a crap and if there was real money Dominion I'd be all about exploiting the edges too. But this is a game for fun and ultimately you're competing to see who's the better accountant not who's the better player. Which sucks.

lol. personally I always remember what I buy because in most cases I'll never buy estates or duchy's unless I'm trying to accumulate bulk points at the end, so really all I'm worried about is remembering how many provinces I have bought, which will also tell me how many provinces my opponent has. only time it becomes moderately difficult is with stuff like Gardens, but whining about point tracking is just ridiculous -- do they whine about it in games like Settlers?

Ah, haha, so that explains this...

12:34 kurosh: I heard you're a rager
12:35 ddubois: http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/1...0676ig4dl3.jpg
12:36 kurosh: I haven't seen that before

I also think they are really silly for whining. I don't think the reason that instant point counts aren't available in paper is because it's some deep skill or to add an element of memorization to the game. It's because you can't have people going through their decks to count points. Turning that into a dogmatic reason why a point counting device shouldn't be allowed is short sighted. From that thread it seems like some of those players are competing to be the best point counting robot, and don't like to see that threatened. And g-bebe, yeah, it's mostly useful in games that have alternate victory point conditions.

I've used the point counter on isotropic since it was made available a month ago or whenever it was. FWIW, I feel like it's a pretty big edge compared to how I was doing before I had the point counter (I tended to keep track manually in a txt document, which was pretty cumbersome and definitely wasted energy). Granted, part of that edge probably comes from having improved in general, as well. The point counter also keeps track of deck size, which I feel is pretty good information to have even though I'm not sure exactly how much it influences my decisions while playing (mostly useful in Chapel games in my experience). It also keeps track of action cards for Vineyeard, and unique cards for Fairgrounds, etc. Definitely helps.

I can understand why you'd be against an automatic point counter, but coming from an online poker background I'm obviously not really buying into it myself.

Yeah Im totally addicted to this game

http://councilroom.com

this site tracks your record and games, you can also review game logs


I actually d/l chrome just so i could use the point counter, its so clutch for pretty much every reason Fabian stated.

I would love to hear more about what cards you value, and how often you feel there are multiple paths to victory. Many times when I see a game's pool of cards I decide immediately what I will or won't buy. Some games I see the pool and honestly feel as though there are a few different routes that could lead to victory...either because they are equally powerful cards, or because it depends on my opponents purchases.

How often do you feel you could go multiple directions with your purchases and possibly win? Related: which cards do you always buy if they are in a pool? To me it seems as though Goons, tournament and possession seem to always be cards to buy, which has actually led me to pass on games where they show up.

I'm interested in fabian's answer, but I'd also like to hear anyone else's thoughts.


This is true; I think it's also true that newer players overrate most action cards. I know I did.

This site is nice...I like the rankings of opening purchases.

i wont *always* buy those cards you mentioned, but 9/10 i will.

for me, chapel labratory and pirate ship are the only cards i buy everytime i see them and only pirate ship because people seem to under value it. you can buy pirate ship and silver and win quick

i almost wanna add wharf and tactician to my list but like tournament and goons i can see games where i wouldnt use them (any deck with pirate ship, for example)

Tactician is the kind of card that I struggle with a bit, because it's very good. It helps me realize I could be better at playing the game since I don't always know (a) when I should buy it (especially when there are other cards like laboratory) and (b) when I should play it, for those turns early in the game when I end up with like 4-6 coin but also have the tactician.

(b) is usually a bigger issue for me. I do like to end up with 2 tacticians, and alternate playing them one per turn, but of course this relies on the pool of cards, too, and having +coin on cards.

I can see not buying goons in games where there's not +2 action possibilities, and/or games where you cannot trash cards. However, I'll buy tournament even in games with colony/platinum, since followers is such an amazing card.

I should add that I mostly think about these in regards to 2 player games. With friends we're almost always playing 3+ players, and everything changes then...I probably wouldn't buy tournament in a 3+player setup.

My former roommate got me into this game a few weeks ago, I've been playing a lot on isotropic since then.

Nah, Pirate Ship seems pretty bad in 2p games. If you look at the council room stats for "win with" vs. "win without", it's one of the worst cards there is. Multiplayer it's a complete nightmare, I assume, because a) it'll almost always hit somebody, and b) your treasures get boned much faster when everybody else is playing them. There are certain sets where it's strong - King's Court and an absence of good +$ actions might be a good spot, for example, or maybe Fishing Village with good draw. But I think those are exceptions.

Lab is probably a 100% buy for me when it's out, Chapel nearly so. For me, other always buys: King's Court (you have to work hard to come up with a board where this card isn't dominant - a situation with no +buy and viable Big Money accelerators, for example; EDIT: or a winning Gardens strategy is viable), Hunting Party, Caravan, Fishing Village, Ambassador, and probably Mountebank. There are lots of other great cards that I'd buy most of the time, but don't quite rise to always buys. (Witch is the most notable exception here, but I feel like slightly more often you're facing Masquerade or Ambassador and it's not necessarily a net win.)

You can instead rush to Province and then back up and grab Tournament. You can usually get there a little faster if your opponent has started grabbing Tournaments, and you have the added bonus of shutting them down some chunk of the time because you now have the stopper. I'd imagine that's very important multiplayer (though I have basically zero multiplayer experience.) Tying in with the first part of your post, I find Tactician is often a good way to do that.

EDIT: re: Possession, I've decided that's one of the few cards I really don't understand. It feels to me like it just adds a ton of variance, especially if both players have it. Who gets the better turns with each deck? That person wins. Making a crappy deck with Possessions keeps you from giving stuff up, but then your opponent is getting more use out of their turns. Attacks and VP token cards make Possessing you less attractive, but often need some support to be winning on their own. EDIT 2: I guess if there are tons of Durations out that's a good approach too.

I don't have time right now to talk about possession, but I wanted to say that if possession and ambassador end up in a game together it can be very fun. Although your opponent keeps cards you trash, you can return their provinces/colonies to the supply pile and give them to yourself.

Related, ambassador is a card I buy 100% in a 2p game.

edit: also, I'm "z1pst3r" on isotropic. Working to bring my ranking up, slowly but surely .

well from my experiences, I disagree. Ive only come across two people that even attempted to counter it and when you dont counter it, you can lose ugly. first guy stopped buying treasures when he realized i was only buying silver/pirateship (and ill occasionally buy some +2 action card, farming village is excellent) and the other guy bought a ton of moats and won, actually they both did. most ppl just ignore what im doing and pretend like my 7 +6 pirate ships arent going to rape their face.

with that being said, i havent/wouldnt played that strat against the higher rated ppl (30+).

What rank is everyone? Im a 12.



How often do you buy cards based on what the other person buys? I dont really like a couple of the curse cards and will avoid buying them unless my opp does (early in the game, late game not as much)

I'm a 30, but I feel like I must have a number of leaks because ever time I've played against somebody ranked in the 40s, I've gotten destroyed.

Almost all of the cursing cards are really strong and are close to must buys. Its really difficult to win if you have most/all of the curses.

very fun game, i sucked my first couple of times.

How do you find out your rank?

when you request auto match, do people get to use bias selection towards...?

How do you get the 1 with the downward arrow for more vp at the end of the game.

There are some cards that give you VP tokens (which is what those are.) I believe the three that do are Bishop, Goons, and Monument. Bishop and especially Goons are often very strong cards.

I would say that when I play against other strong players, we use the same overall strategy at least 80% of the time, and probably more, but individual buys definitely differ quite a lot. What constitutes a different strategy might be tough to define exactly when you have similar, but not identical, decks, so take that number with a grain of salt. It's definitely rare that you play complete mirror matches in my experience, anyway, the only time I can think of where that happens regularly is in Chapel games.

My feeling about when multiple strategies are viable is that in almost all games, there exists a strategy which gives you a very high winrate (let's say 60%+) against any other strategy, with optimal play from both parts. I don't think those strategies are necessarily found though, even by very strong players, and this might be of more academic interest than anything else. In practice, I think even very strong players make plenty of suboptimal choices, and I think there's often room for at least some differentiation in the decks, without one player's winrate necessarily reaching 60+%.

As for which cards I like, there shouldn't be many big surprises. I think the strongest cards to open with given that the opponent doesn't open with them are Chapel, Ambassador and Sea Hag. All those cards are almost always insane if the opponent doesn't have a very good counter strategy in mind (which most often involves Sea Hags or Ambassadors on their own). Games where Masquerade is also involved can often be exceptions though, as that card is pretty good both at disrupting a Chapel player (who won't have weak cards to pass, and will receive more weak cards than he wants to handle) and countering Sea Hag/Ambassador (especially Sea Hag).

I would say the three cards mentioned above are the ones I pretty much auto-open with when they're available, with the exception of Sea Hag when Ambassador and/or Masquerade is available. Something like that.

Other extremely strong cards would be most of the curse attacks, as someone else mentioned. Witch and Mountebank are very often the best choice when they're available.

I wouldn't consider Laboratory or Goon must-buys, like the discussion in this thread would suggest. If I was to venture a guess on what good, but not great, players' most common mistake is, is they don't realize how fast a game of 2p Dominion is. Buying things like Laboratory and Goons will sometimes be too slow in a Province game. I looked at my councilroom stats after writing this, and realized I buy Goons in 92% of my games, which I definitely wouldn't have guessed. I guess I like it a lot after all? Laboratory, at least, was at a more reasonable 78%. I'm also guessing that the Goons buy% would be lower if filtered for non-Colony games, but that might be wrong too.

Possession, at least, I think is often too slow for Province games. It depends on the rest of the setup of course, sometimes you can gain Possessions quickly while also trashing away junk, and you will crush an opponent who tries to finish the game quicker. Other times, attempting that will backfire. The same is true for King's Court actually; while capable of ridiculously powerful things, if you're not building towards something very good (like KC'd Bridge or Goons or something), you will often not have time to catch up to an opponent who just bought a Silver, a Smithy, a Lab and Golds/Provinces. By the time your engine kicks into full gear, 6 of the Provinces might already be gone. Being aware of, and controlling, the tempo of a game is probably what strong, but not very strong, players need to practice and get a feel for, most.

Amusingly, after this I went and looked up my own stats and found that Lab was at 74%. Apparently I don't buy it as often as I think! I guess the other possibility is that the amount I buy it has changed as I've learned the game and it would be a lot closer to 100% for me recently. (Caravan, Fishing Village and Ambassador were all near 100% though, along with . . . Island. That surprised me.)

I hear what you're saying, and that's definitely a frequent weakness of mine in gauging strategies at this point. The data seem to loosely suggest that Lab is itself one of the better speeders-up (in province games, the only cards that lead to faster ends are Caravan, Wharf, Chapel, Council Room and Fishing Village), which makes sense to me. It seems like the sort of thing where grabbing two of them when you're stuck at 5 anyway as an alternative to Silver might still be a Big Money improvement.

A couple questions:

- What do you think of Remake as an opener? I find myself reaching for it a lot, especially if there's no other medium/strong trashing. I'm looking forward to when councilroom includes Cornucopia cards for openings.

- Any cards you think are overpowered? I find myself increasingly sick of Minion in Province games.

I haven't played much in recent weeks, and I don't feel qualified to say much about the new cards. I've also reached for Remake quite a bit, and have often been underwhelmed. Sample size is like 5 games though, so it's nothing more than an initial feeling. To me it feels like another decent enough card, which is sometimes worth buying, sometimes not. So pretty much like 90% of all cards

"Overpowered" is a tricky term in Dominion, and it will probably depend on how you define it. I don't think cards costing $5 or more can be overpowered; sure, their effect is very strong, but you pay through the nose for it, and you can't guarantee getting it on turns 1 and 2. I think Ambassador, Chapel and Sea Hag are the overpowered cards in this game, based on how every game where one of those cards is available will be warped around that card. I don't think the same is true for powerful $5 cards like Witch, Mountebank or indeed Minion. They're both extremely powerful, but they also don't start coming down on turn 3 like Sea Hag.

Generally games that do not involve action cards are ones where I do quite well -- I aggressively purchase money and most action cards I'll use will be with the aim of trashing my weak treasures.

Mainly I just get satisfaction from building decks that become very powerful in terms of purchasing power. Nothing better than getting rid of every damn copper and replacing them with silvers and golds. Additionally I think Upgrade is an insanely great card. It's kind of annoying that you MUST gain a card (however trashing coppers you won't gain anything obv) but it's handy in that you can trash action cards in the midgame and still be able to get something useful in return.

Possession most annoying card ever. I think in the half-dozen or so games I've played with it, I've gotten owned by it so hard every time.

I guess my beef with Minion is that it is not only game-warping, but it warps the game into a very particular channel, usually. Chapel and Witch are also difficult to ignore, but they aren't complete strategies unto themselves like Minion is. It seems pretty rare to find Province sets where there's a sufficiently fast alternative to make conceding Minions viable. So the game turns into a Minions race and gets excessively coinflippy.

There have been a few games I've seen where there's been some room for subtlety in terms of buying nice synergistic actions to go along with Minions. Maybe I'm missing more of that and once I play with it some more I'll like it better (e.g. I hated Tournament at first, now I don't really mind it).