Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Broken Loose
Dec 25, 2002

PROGRAM
A > - - -
LR > > - -
LL > - - -

goodness posted:

What are some basic strategy's/beginners tips to learn while starting out Dominion.

Broken Loose posted:

Step 1: Buy Silver.

No, really. There's a lot for me to say (and I'm going to say it, so buckle the gently caress up), but the first big takeaway is that you're not grasping the economy of the game with respect to how you actually win. You WIN at Dominion by having the most points when the game ends (3-pile or emptied Provinces), and the best way to accomplish this 80% of the time is by buying more Provinces than your opponent. Make sense so far?

A lot of beginners (I'm assuming you do this) don't buy enough money. The reaction to playing Dominion is that there are Action cards, they look interesting, I wanna try them all now while they're available because they might not be there next game. Well, that's actually quite harmful. Any action card that does not provide +Action is what we call a Terminal Action, which means that it will terminate your Action Phase upon being played (outside of gigantic action engines, which aren't nearly as good as they sound). A hand of Smithy + Smithy + Silver + Copper + Estate is actually worse than Smith + Curse + Silver + Copper + Estate, the reason being that one of those Smithies has been wasted the moment you drew it next to the other. Not only is that card wasted, but since buying that Smithy took you an entire turn to do so (most of the time), you wasted the turn buying that Smithy. Imagine if you had bought a Silver instead-- that turn would be AMAZING, because you could purchase a cost 5 outright or play the Smithy to practically guarantee buying a Gold.

Eventually, you will buy more actions. When you choose to do so is up to you-- there's no "solution" for how much money:actions you need to make a perfect deck, which is part of what makes Dominion still such a good game. The point of actions is to get you enough money in hand to buy a Province whenever you have the chance. I can only give you a ballpark like "Buy an action for each 3 or 4 treasure you buy," but that doesn't account for the individual actions and what their abilities are.

Once you get used to how helpful Silver is, you'll realize that Copper is one of the worst cards in the game. You'll understand why Provinces are preferred over the other victory cards. You'll start a game by focusing on a couple actions that you think work well together instead of splattering the whole Kingdom into a single deck. There's a bunch of other stuff like Chapel (which I won't spoil) and alternate victory conditions, but you can learn that later on.

Step 2: Don't buy Village.

Village is a really bad card. On the surface, it looks okay; it's not a Terminal and it gives some cool stuff. But buying Village costs you something more-- turns are a resource. Village, at its base nature, is +1 Card +1 Action (in Magic terms, a Cantrip). It's actually +2 Actions, but we'll get into that in a minute. Village, when played, draws a new card and replenishes the action used to play it. If you never bought that Village, you would have drawn that new card in your hand anyway a turn ago, and you wouldn't have spent that action in the first place. In other words, it does absolutely nothing. Cards that do nothing aren't inherently bad, but what it really implies is that you wasted a turn buying nothing. Silver costs as much as Village, and the benefits of Silver are immediate, obvious, and almost never disappoint.

What about the +2 Actions? In order for Village to actually serve its purpose, you need to have a bad deck. Your deck should be flooded with Terminal actions to the point where it's mathematically likely that you'll draw a Village and 2 Terminal Actions in the same hand at once (or Village, Terminal, and have the second Terminal immediately within drawing distance). If this sounds kind of advanced, it is! Village tricks new players into thinking poo poo is happening (so many cards are being moved!) but it's only useful in high-end engine decks. Not to say that Village isn't useful, but for now it's a good practice to just imagine that it's useless until one day you come up with this really cool idea that absolutely needs Villages to work.

Wow, I've said a lot. I'm gonna stop here. I hope this was helpful.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Bobby The Rookie
Jun 2, 2005

Got to bring out old pal Space Alert tonight after too long an absence and taught three newbies the whole thing, who were all into it by the time we beat our first standard mission. Game's too good, gimme five people every game night.

BioTech
Feb 5, 2007
...drinking myself to sleep again...


Yeah, I've been trying real hard to keep my gamenights at 5 players just so we can do Space Alert every time. It is just so drat fun.

Azran
Sep 3, 2012

And what should one do to be remembered?
While we're on the topic, what are the best deckbuilding games out there right now? I've never played Dominion, but I have played Ascension and Star Realms I think it was called. I've heard about the complaints levered towards Ascension, but the main thing keeping me away from Dominion is the theme.

Bobby The Rookie
Jun 2, 2005

Azran posted:

While we're on the topic, what are the best deckbuilding games out there right now? I've never played Dominion, but I have played Ascension and Star Realms I think it was called. I've heard about the complaints levered towards Ascension, but the main thing keeping me away from Dominion is the theme.

Broken Loose posted:

gently caress theme. Play Dominion. You're welcome.

Rumda
Nov 4, 2009

Moth Lesbian Comrade

Azran posted:

While we're on the topic, what are the best deckbuilding games out there right now? I've never played Dominion, but I have played Ascension and Star Realms I think it was called. I've heard about the complaints levered towards Ascension, but the main thing keeping me away from Dominion is the theme.

The bigest problem with deck building games that are not Dominion is they are trying to be Not-Dominion.

Chekans 3 16
Jan 2, 2012

No Resetti.
No Continues.



Grimey Drawer

Azran posted:

While we're on the topic, what are the best deckbuilding games out there right now? I've never played Dominion, but I have played Ascension and Star Realms I think it was called. I've heard about the complaints levered towards Ascension, but the main thing keeping me away from Dominion is the theme.

Puzzle Strike.

QnoisX
Jul 20, 2007

It'll be like a real doll that moves around and talks and stuff!

Thanks! Thinking about instead of just proxying the extra 10 or so cards I might make a BSG version. Baltar would make a good Lancelot. Excalibur could be a Cylon detector? Yeah, think so. Merlin is...I dunno Adama? He didn't know who the Cylons were, but he was almost assassinated. When he wasn't in charge things took a really bad turn for the humans. Boomer's role would be obvious there. If not Adama as Merlin then whom? If you used someone else, then Boomer and Athena could be the Lancelots I suppose... Yeah, might not the best retheme.

Oh, duh. Lady of the Lake would be the Cylon detector. Hmm...

Funso Banjo
Dec 22, 2003

Azran posted:

While we're on the topic, what are the best deckbuilding games out there right now? I've never played Dominion, but I have played Ascension and Star Realms I think it was called. I've heard about the complaints levered towards Ascension, but the main thing keeping me away from Dominion is the theme.

Please don't get Dominion. I can't think of a game with less inspirational art and theme, and the player interactions are equally weak and uninspiring.

It sounds as though you're fairly new to the hobby. The last thing you want is to buy a game with strong rules (Dominion is undeniably a good game) but that leaves you un-thrilled. If you have first time gamers in your friend pool, it isn't the game that's going to capture their imagination. On the other hand, if your group is made up of serious gamers, well those guys can often get past the dullness and see the very interesting game (though imo there are certainly better deck builders out there) that's underneath.

Contrast that with Ticket To Ride, which I know people recommended you a page or two ago as a gateway game. People often think "Pfft, trains, really?" but once new gamers sit down to it, their game pieces aren't wooden pawns or card tokens sat on a plastic stand, instead they get to play with awesome little train pieces, which have little wheels and windows and stuff! New people often say "Choo Choo" as they lay them down. The map is nicely illustrated and the cards are colorful. It isn't the most complicated game, but it has depth and works perfectly as a gateway drug. New people play it and want to come back and are then more willing to give the more dry games a try.

For me, Dominion isn't a game for a new group. Not to mention, while it was definately the genre leader once, it's now been surpassed by several newer games in terms of gameplay and mechanics. Better alternatives as a first deck builder are Marvel Legendary, Thunderstone Advance and (I can't stand this next game, because the theme is just gross, but there is no denying it's a stronger game at it's core than Dominion, which it is almost a re-theme of in some ways (Dominion is better once you add all its expansions in, I am talking just base games here)) Tanto Cuore. If you adore anime, you might give that last one a try, if not stay way.

Funso Banjo fucked around with this message at 11:06 on Jan 9, 2015

Fat Samurai
Feb 16, 2011

To go quickly is foolish. To go slowly is prudent. Not to go; that is wisdom.

Azran posted:

While we're on the topic, what are the best deckbuilding games out there right now? I've never played Dominion, but I have played Ascension and Star Realms I think it was called. I've heard about the complaints levered towards Ascension, but the main thing keeping me away from Dominion is the theme.

If you need theme and your friends are into superheroes, Legendary Marvel is pretty good, and I assume the alien one is good too, given that it seems basically the same. Note that I say Marvel. Do NOT get the DC one, I don't care if you all want to be Batman. I think someone said that Artic Scavengers was good, but that it needed the expansion (or optional cards? can't remember) to really shine.

Speaking of deckbuilders, someone say bad words about Shadowrun: Crossroads so I don't buy it.

Jedit
Dec 10, 2011

Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

Fat Samurai posted:

If you need theme and your friends are into superheroes, Legendary Marvel is pretty good, and I assume the alien one is good too, given that it seems basically the same. Note that I say Marvel. Do NOT get the DC one, I don't care if you all want to be Batman. I think someone said that Artic Scavengers was good, but that it needed the expansion (or optional cards? can't remember) to really shine.

Speaking of deckbuilders, someone say bad words about Shadowrun: Crossroads so I don't buy it.

It's Shadowrun and hence is poo poo.

Arctic Scavengers does require the expansion to shine, but the Rio Grande edition includes it. The game is also not so complex that you can't throw all of it apart from the buildings in straight away.

Fat Samurai
Feb 16, 2011

To go quickly is foolish. To go slowly is prudent. Not to go; that is wisdom.

Jedit posted:

It's Shadowrun and hence is poo poo.

Thanks :v:

Rexides
Jul 25, 2011

Funso Banjo posted:

Contrast that with Ticket To Ride, which I know people recommended you a page or two ago as a gateway game. People often think "Pfft, trains, really?" but once new gamers sit down to it, their game pieces aren't wooden pawns or card tokens sat on a plastic stand, instead they get to play with awesome little train pieces, which have little wheels and windows and stuff! New people often say "Choo Choo" as they lay them down.

The best thing about Ticket to Ride is just dropping your pieces on the board roughly in a sort of straight line, some of them laying on their sides, and watching the rest of the players rush in to "fix" them :allears:

Anyway, got Assault on Doomrock yesterday (along with Space Alert), and decided to play a bit of solo to get the hang of the rules before I break it out on my group. My first impression was bad because it comes with a billion cards and tokens, and other than the dice bag there are absolutely no other containers in the box, but whatever. Not any plastic toys either, but that's ok and you can definitely substitute the player tokens with figurines from other games if you'd like.

The game has two different alternating phases, the adventuring phase and the battle phase. The adventuring phase is sort of like the first phase in Betrayal, that serves mostly as a random character generator before the battle. You have some limited resources that will allow you to take certain risks that might give you useful rewards. The catch here though is that you take those risks and rewards as a team. As I said I played it solo, so I don't know how well that will work in a real game. The good thing is that, unlike Betrayal where you just open new cards and hope for something good, in this game you can actually make informed decisions depending on the options you are given, and can even mitigate risks. After some time (time is a resource) has passed, you might have ended up with some items or even a new level, and also with less HP and some disadvantages. That's when battle starts.

The battle phase is the real game in my opinion. It feels tactical without requiring a board, which is a huge plus for me. You are either next to someone, or you aren't, it's that simple but also surprisingly deep since that can limit or expand your options. The other thing I liked is that you can't always use your entire selection of abilities, so you don't end up doing the same thing over and over. Unlike, say, Descent where you choose your ability and then roll some dice to see if you actually managed to do anything that turn, you first roll your dice and the outcome tells you what you will be able to do that turn. And since you are allowed rerolls and have to choose how to assign the dice, it has a great sense of agency as well. I prefer it much better than the usual "decide on action -> see if it actually happens" model and I'd like to see something like that for actual RPGs.

Unlike Betrayal though, these two phases alternate, for a total of six phases for a game (three adventuring and three battle phases). This is great because even if you don't manage to kill the final boss, you can still have one or two solid achievements for that playthrough (unlike, say, in Ghost Stories or Pandemic where the result of the game is either Win or Loss).

I think that this game will be my first suggestion when someone says that they want "something like D&D, but a board game". Combat is far, far less swingy than Descent, and while it's not the deterministic puzzle of Mage Knight, it still very strategic (and also you fight with your friends than by yourself). It plays without a DM/Overlord, and the adventuring phase is fun and really reminded me of an overarching D&D campaign.

Broken Loose
Dec 25, 2002

PROGRAM
A > - - -
LR > > - -
LL > - - -
almost everything funso said was the opposite of the truth.

dominion is amazing for newcomers and only lacks player interaction if you're poo poo at the game. it is the absolute king of the deckbuilding genre. every deckbuilder except eminent domain is a hollow attempt to remake dominion except without learning any design lessons from dominion. even puzzle strike, which is the 3rd best deckbuilder only by virtue of being 99% dominion + 1% alternate scoring system.

buy and play dominion. everybody who i introduced to board gaming via dominion got addicted and enthralled. it's not just about building an engine; it's about making something out of a pool of legos and having it come to life in front of you. it's about 2,890,247,000,000,000 different possible game setups. it's about getting some rats to eat some of your garbage and it works but they keep multiplying and then you begin sacrificing those rat babies on an altar of a mysterious cult. it's about thematic interactions being more important than the word "cthulhu" or "zombie" being printed on a card. and you know? in the end, your friend who never played anything more than risk is now making engines because the process itself is so engrossing and enjoyable, and dominion gives you so many ways to reach that part of the game naturally.

Zveroboy
Apr 17, 2007

If you take those sheep again I will bury this fucking axe in your skull.

Rexides posted:

The best thing about Ticket to Ride is just dropping your pieces on the board roughly in a sort of straight line, some of them laying on their sides, and watching the rest of the players rush in to "fix" them :allears:

Any board game where players have their own pieces triggers everyone's latent OCD.

Also, what Broken Loose said. Just loving buy Dominion.

Broken Loose
Dec 25, 2002

PROGRAM
A > - - -
LR > > - -
LL > - - -
On a sidenote, if your average game of Dominion is 20 minutes long, if you start playing now and continue playing 24/7 back to back games, you can finish all the possible combinations in 1,099,036,963,670 years.

This does not account for things like Young Witch, Black Market, Knights, Ruins, and other cards that increase the amount of Kingdom variations outside of the 10 initially available cards.

Lichtenstein
May 31, 2012

It'll make sense, eventually.
So, uh, what's the proper way to seriously play Ticket to Ride? I mean, I'm not a big fan of ultra-light euros and only really play it when forced by a swarm of newbies at my friends house, mostly by waiting for a beer to cool and mindlessly popping down trains.

I get how one could treat, say, Carcassone more seriously by engaging in a vicious blocking game and shrewd min/maxing of controlled territory. TTR, not so much. I mean, you can kinda block someone sometimes when he telegraphs his route strongly and the stars align, maybe there's a possibility for some card denial? Still, the blocking potential in this game feels rather toothless most of the time.

The friend who owns the game and has played it a lot with family has a surprisingly effective habit of drawing new objectives like a madman in mid/late game, under assumption it's easy to find something that's accidentally completed or requires little effort to complete, outweighting dead draws.

So, please tell me about proper strategy pro players of illegal street TTR use to get all the chicks.

The End
Apr 16, 2007

You're welcome.
What Broken Loose said : anyone who thinks Dominion is skippable hasn't played enough Dominion. I know because had the same mistaken assumption, then played a bunch of Dominion and realised how wrong I was.

Fat Samurai
Feb 16, 2011

To go quickly is foolish. To go slowly is prudent. Not to go; that is wisdom.

Broken Loose posted:

dominion is amazing for newcomers and only lacks player interaction if you're poo poo at the game.

Or if you don't draw Militia and/or Witch in the base game. Which is bound to happen about 90% of the time if you're using random Kingdoms. I agree with the general spirit of the post, but the lack of interaction IS a valid complain for a new player.

What's your 2nd best deckbuilder, by the way? Temporium?

Zveroboy
Apr 17, 2007

If you take those sheep again I will bury this fucking axe in your skull.

Lichtenstein posted:

So, please tell me about proper strategy pro players of illegal street TTR use to get all the chicks.

From what admittedly little I've read of ~pro gamer~ tactics for TTR, the usual strategy at the World Championships (it's true, they exist, one guy even lost his prize after accusations of cheating arose after someone was watching it on a live stream and calculated a discrepancy between cards played and cards drawn) is to spend the first 20 turns or so just drawing cards. When you have half the loving deck in your hand you just go crazy laying trains.

For some slightly more amateur tactics, I can only really vouch for the European version, but there's really not that much to it. On the Europe board, the big 8-long tunnel from Petrograd to...somewhere cold, I can't remember...is worth so many points it can be worth going for even if it's not part of one of your routes. The longer routes (5 or 6 long) you should get as soon as possible, that way if you do have to take a detour it should only be shorter routes which are easier to get.

if you draw extra tickets late in the game make sure you actually have enough trains left to complete them.

Seriously though, it's not really a game worth overthinking unless you have a hyper-competitive grandma you often play it with or something. Draw pretty cards, argue whether it's "pink" or "lavender", put some trains down, piss everyone off when you put your trains down all wonky and not exactly inside the lines oh my god you loving bastard how hard is it to put your goddamn trains down straight

Broken Loose
Dec 25, 2002

PROGRAM
A > - - -
LR > > - -
LL > - - -

Fat Samurai posted:

Or if you don't draw Militia and/or Witch in the base game. Which is bound to happen about 90% of the time if you're using random Kingdoms. While I agree with the general feeling of the post, the lack of interaction IS a valid complain for a new player.

What's your 2nd best deckbuilder, by the way? Temporium?

Eminent Domain + Escalation. Escalation is absolutely required, because base EmiDo has little-to-no game-to-game variation and ends up being largely solvable in a handful of plays.

Eminent Domain is the only deckbuilder which took the basic concept of "use a deck while making it" and actually did something unique with it. Role-taking is a perfect use of multiple resources in such a game, and the emergent way that your deck gradually grows to fit your playstyle is so elegant I could write an essay on it. Escalation adds new technologies which actively provide alternate victory paths, Scenario cards which give players dramatically different starting positions in ways starting worlds couldn't even have dreamed, the new fleet mechanics give military players multiple tech trees, and all of this being available earlier in the game (thanks to Scenarios) means that you can actually have proactive and then reactive strategies you can take over a game. Holy poo poo Escalation is so goddamn good; it's like it was designed by people specifically reading my posts criticizing the base game.

It's kind of shocking how few games actually tried something genuinely new, and how many are just Dominion/Thunderstone*/Ascension** with a different backstory.

*Which was just a lovely clone of Dominion.
**Which was just a shittier clone of Thunderstone.


As far as "base lacks player interaction" complaints: I've addressed this time and again. Indirect interaction is key, otherwise the game would just be luck-based. Understanding what your opponent is taking, using their buys to risk 3-pile, simply avoiding bumping into their demands, or just racing them all count as interaction. Yes, it's at its weakest in base, but that does not mean it does not exist.

WhiteHowler
Apr 3, 2001

I'M HUGE!

Fat Samurai posted:

Speaking of deckbuilders, someone say bad words about Shadowrun: Crossroads so I don't buy it.
It loving sucks. I wrote a bunch of :words: for a review that will go up next week, but the gist is

WhiteHowler posted:

It loving sucks.

bobvonunheil
Mar 18, 2007

Board games and tea
Dominion is killed for me by people who don't understand how to loving play a few goddamn cards and what the available cards in the card pool do, gently caress.

Dominion should last 20 minutes, tops. When it takes over an hour I start pulling my hair out and never want to play it again. This is due to the people I play it with more than the game itself, mind.

Jedit
Dec 10, 2011

Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

Fat Samurai posted:

What's your 2nd best deckbuilder, by the way? Temporium?

Temporum is not a deck builder.

Broken Loose
Dec 25, 2002

PROGRAM
A > - - -
LR > > - -
LL > - - -
Honestly, while it's not a deckbuilder, Temporum feels a lot like a worse version of Dominion. It's nice to have on my shelf, but I don't see myself suggesting it when I have people over to play.

Fat Samurai
Feb 16, 2011

To go quickly is foolish. To go slowly is prudent. Not to go; that is wisdom.

Jedit posted:

Temporum is not a deck builder.

Haven't played it, BL had wrote some words about it recently and it kinda mixed together.

Broken Loose
Dec 25, 2002

PROGRAM
A > - - -
LR > > - -
LL > - - -

Fat Samurai posted:

Haven't played it, BL had wrote some words about it recently and it kinda mixed together.

It's an easy mistake to make. I compared Temporum to Dominion because DXV made both and Temporum feels a lot like Dominion without deckbuilding or universally available treasure cards. Temporum, however, is a "1-dimensional area control game" with a variable setup, and really not much else to it.

Aston
Nov 19, 2007

Okay
Okay
Okay
Okay
Okay

Now I've got a craving to play the 'minion.

Elyv
Jun 14, 2013



Bring back isotropic :(

Funso Banjo
Dec 22, 2003

Broken Loose posted:

almost everything funso said was the opposite of the truth.

When you get down to it, I was basically saying Dominion isn't the best deckbuilder in a single box. The guy's a new gamer buying a single product.

Do you actually believe it is best of the crop currently available? If you're buying just one box without expansions. Not saying you're wrong, but I honestly think the genre has moved on and improved on the base Dominion, or Intrigue.

Funso Banjo fucked around with this message at 13:49 on Jan 9, 2015

Sloober
Apr 1, 2011

Funso Banjo posted:

When you get down to it, I was basically saying Dominion isn't the best deckbuilder in a single box. The guy's a new gamer buying a single product.

Do you actually believe it is best of the crop currently available? If you're buying just one box without expansions. Not saying you're wrong, but I honestly think the genre has moved on and improved on the base Dominion, or Intrigue.

What deckbuilder do you recommend single box that's better than base dominion game? Out of the ones you'd mentioned I've played a couple of them, and they didn't feel as mechanically strong as Dominion. I regret trying tanto out but the host really wanted to play it and I still feel a bit goddamn creepy for it.

Sloober fucked around with this message at 14:31 on Jan 9, 2015

Broken Loose
Dec 25, 2002

PROGRAM
A > - - -
LR > > - -
LL > - - -
I want to hear your opinion on it, but I could make a very well-worded and lengthy argument that nobody has actually improved on Dominion. The genre as a whole could be photographed and placed in the dictionary as the definition of "cargo cult."

fozzy fosbourne
Apr 21, 2010

^^^ Edit: Dominion owns. Get wrecked, tanto cuore. The only better deck builder in a box might be Dominion: Intrigue :smug:. Some more casual people I play with get disproportionately fired up when we play thematic cooperative games though so those make it to the table for me. Hence my recent splurge.


Fat Samurai posted:

Speaking of deckbuilders, someone say bad words about Shadowrun: Crossroads so I don't buy it.

I bought this and I'm going to play it and you'll hear all about it, dammit! Also, it's "Crossfire", a tribute to the greatest game of all time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCwn1NTK-50
http://boardgamegeek.com/video/53092/shadowrun-crossfire/rahdo-runs-through-shadowrun-crossfire
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/6.862947-Escapist-Podcast-Tabletop-016-Get-Caught-Up-In-Shadowrun-Crossfire
http://boardgamegeek.com/video/49788/shadowrun-crossfire/dice-tower-reviews-shadowrun-crossfire-zee-garcia

Seems like the common criticisms are that its overly difficult, the deck building is more like Mage Knight than Dominion, and that it has progression in between games in the form of karma (exp) that makes it more appropriate for a consistent group. I'll have to see the difficulty myself and I've heard that you can just make 20 karma characters to begin with if you can't play a bunch of games with everyone and want to try the later missions.

I emailed Catalyst Game Labs and they said they would have news about an expansion in a month or so.

I have this and Legendary Encounters on the way, and own LotR LCG, so I'll compare them all eventually.



















"crossssssssFYyyyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh":sax:

fozzy fosbourne fucked around with this message at 14:46 on Jan 9, 2015

T-Bone
Sep 14, 2004

jakes did this?

QnoisX posted:

Thanks! Thinking about instead of just proxying the extra 10 or so cards I might make a BSG version. Baltar would make a good Lancelot. Excalibur could be a Cylon detector? Yeah, think so. Merlin is...I dunno Adama? He didn't know who the Cylons were, but he was almost assassinated. When he wasn't in charge things took a really bad turn for the humans. Boomer's role would be obvious there. If not Adama as Merlin then whom? If you used someone else, then Boomer and Athena could be the Lancelots I suppose... Yeah, might not the best retheme.

Oh, duh. Lady of the Lake would be the Cylon detector. Hmm...

I proxy Lancelot sometimes and just pick one of the basic evil/basic good cards and let people know before the game: this minion is good lancelot, this minion is evil lancelot, etc. Excalibur you can use whatever you have on hand, since it's just a token that's passed around.

Sloober
Apr 1, 2011

fozzy fosbourne posted:

Seems like the common criticisms are that its overly difficult, the deck building is more like Mage Knight than Dominion, and that it has progression in between games in the form of karma (exp) that makes it more appropriate for a consistent group. I'll have to see the difficulty myself and I've heard that you can just make 20 karma characters to begin with if you can't play a bunch of games with everyone and want to try the later missions.

I didn't feel like Crossfire was so much a deckbuilding game as it was a cooperative game wherein you and your friends have to waste a shitload of cards trying to save the low health elf or whatever it was called from the threat that can one or two shot them, and in exchange you get like two dollars which isn't enough to buy a new card for your deck that you will likely not even get to draw since A) the game is short and B) you cycle your decks very slowly unless you get the rare cards that let you draw more, and even then you have to be lucky enough to draw them in the maybe one shuffle you got the first playthrough. It really felt like it was missing like, draw +1 card on round two or whatever, because threats would take upwards of 3-5 cards just to do one point of damage to them, and you can't do partial damage. Difficulty was all over the place and completely dependent on draw luck for threats - I think it would be better if they had varying piles for threat difficulty and you drew based off round etc.

deadly_pudding
May 13, 2009

who the fuck is scraeming
"LOG OFF" at my house.
show yourself, coward.
i will never log off

Funso Banjo posted:

For me, Dominion isn't a game for a new group. Not to mention, while it was definately the genre leader once, it's now been surpassed by several newer games in terms of gameplay and mechanics. Better alternatives as a first deck builder are Marvel Legendary, Thunderstone Advance and (I can't stand this next game, because the theme is just gross, but there is no denying it's a stronger game at it's core than Dominion, which it is almost a re-theme of in some ways (Dominion is better once you add all its expansions in, I am talking just base games here)) Tanto Cuore. If you adore anime, you might give that last one a try, if not stay way.

Marvel Legendary was my first intro to Deck Builders, and it's still really popular with my group. It works really well for introducing people to the genre, I think due to its combination of recognizable theme and clear mechanics.

Especially in the base set, most of the characters do what you expect them to do in their cards. Wolverine does damage and heals wounds. Hulk hurts himself and others. Captain America is a team player. Spider-Man mostly fucks around.

The objectives are made clear by the elements on the board. There's a track that fills up with bad guys each turn, and it's "not good" if that track overflows. There's a big juicy target off to the side that you have to work up toward. The Scheme system creates an absolute mess of replay value once you take into account the masterminds and hero/villain combos, while still keeping the game fresh with varying side objectives.

The game is very teachable. The initial Hero HQ roster likely has all the card mechanics present, so you can explain how the symbols are also color-coded, and a symbol in the "effect" area means you get that ability if you combo off of that color from earlier in your turn. You can also see the Fight, Recruit, and Cost elements. Villain abilities you can easily explain as they appear. The only real hurdle is getting people to understand what Deck Building is- I find that most people, if they don't get it at first, figure it out immediately after they shuffle their discard for the first time. "Oh, I get the cards I bought after a short delay, and they stay with me and maybe build up on each other."

OmegaGoo
Nov 25, 2011

Mediocrity: the standard of survival!

Sloober posted:

I didn't feel like Crossfire was so much a deckbuilding game as it was a cooperative game wherein you and your friends have to waste a shitload of cards trying to save the low health elf or whatever it was called from the threat that can one or two shot them, and in exchange you get like two dollars which isn't enough to buy a new card for your deck since A) the game is short and B) you cycle your decks very slowly unless you get the rare cards that let you draw more, and even then you have to be lucky enough to draw them in the maybe one shuffle you got the first playthrough. It really felt like it was missing like, draw +1 card on round two or whatever, because threats would take upwards of 3-5 cards just to do one point of damage to them, and you can't do partial damage. Difficulty was all over the place and completely dependent on draw luck for threats - I think it would be better if they had varying piles for threat difficulty and you drew based off round etc.

So when you buy a card in Shadowrun: Crossfire, it goes to your hand.

fozzy fosbourne
Apr 21, 2010

How well does Eminent Domain scale with player count? Is it good with 2?

Azran
Sep 3, 2012

And what should one do to be remembered?
One thing to note is that I'm used to complex rules - I've played miniature wargames like Warmachine pretty regularly the last years, while picking up on new games pretty fast. Is any of the Dominion expansions "vital" or anything? I know that Intrigue gets talked a lot here.

What would be the ideal and top amount of players, by the way?

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Sloober
Apr 1, 2011

OmegaGoo posted:

So when you buy a card in Shadowrun: Crossfire, it goes to your hand.

Part of the problem with playing a game the day it's released at gencon is the owner doesn't go through the rulebook completely - that would make it a bit better.

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply