Recent Gaming - Dominion: Cornucopiua, Suburbia, Ticket to Ride: Europe and 7 Wonders

After a period of very little gaming (sometimes life just gets busy) we have had an opportunity to play a few games lately.

I received Dominion's Cornucopia expansion as a gift, and over the last couple of weeks we have been playing through the recommended card sets found in it's rules.  These are sets that pair with the original Dominion and the Intrigue set.  I recall seeing recommended sets in the rulebooks for some of the later expansions for pairing with Cornucopia, but I am not sure if we will play them.  With only 13 new kingdom cards, and each recommended set having 5 of them, I feel that we have had ample opportunity to see how they work.  Next is probably back to random sets, with the new cards included.

One of the recommended kingdom card sets from Cornucopia

New Year (2015) Gaming - Stone Age, Dominion and Suburbia

The beginning of the new year brought a mini-holiday for me and led to some much appreciated opportunities to play some of my newer games.

Stone Age continues to be a favourite in our household, and we were excited to try it 4-player with another couple who had invited us over for an evening of games.  Neither of them was familiar with Stone Age, or even worker placement games in general.  Part of what had attracted me to Stone Age was reviews I had read that recommended it as a good introduction to worker placement games; not overly complicated but still a lot of fun.  The other couple we played with play a fair amount of boardgames, so the combination of game and players seemed to work out well, as they picked up the concept within the first couple of rounds.  I was expecting the 4-player game to be very different than a 2-player game, but I found that it wasn't.  The removal of the restrictions imposed by the 2-player version on limiting placement actually seemed to make it easier to get the resources I was seeking, and seemed to make other players choices have less impact on me (as there was limited ability to "block").  The exception was the end game, where the huts and cards seemed to disappear very quickly.  I was also a little bit disappointed that the first three placements were always agricultural track, tool, extra worker until near the end; that being said I also didn't change it up as it seemed to be the smart play for me too.  Despite all my complaints above I really enjoyed the 4-player game and will continue to want to play both 2 and 4 player games.

I also had a chance in a 2-player game to try out a new strategy; I focused entirely on tools and tool-related cards, and then population when they weren't available.  The hope was that the increase to my rolls from the tools would offset the need to hunt more often.  In this particular game we met both end-game conditions on the same turn, with only 1 hut and 1 card not being bought, resulting in the highest total score yet.  My strategy didn't work so well and I lost badly, so it won't be used again.

Final turn of Stone Age with Tool Strategy

Despite having played Dominion a fair bit, almost all of my games have been 2-player.  We got to play a 4-player game the same evening as the Stone Age game described above.  We played one of the pre-made sets from the base game, and it was heavy on +action and +card.  Playing with four experienced players combined with the kingdom card set led to a very quick game, to the point that I had trouble keeping track of what everyone else was doing.  It was still a lot of fun, but I think I would rather play a little more of a relaxed pace next time (it was late, which may of contributed to the speed we played at).

With Suburbia I have only been playing one strategy so far; maximize income early and then work on reputation.  I think with the next few games I am going to try and diversify my strategies a bit just to see how it works out.  Having a high income means that I can afford pretty much any tile that shows up in the market, forcing my wife to either buy or bury any tiles that are really useful for me.

My "city" where I focused on income

With 2-Players each "stage" (A/B/C) uses less than half of the tiles, leading to games where only one PR firm or Casino is available.  I have found so far that these are really powerful, leading to an automatic buy (or bury when a player can't afford) as soon as it shows up on the board, and a huge leg up if it is bought.  I am thinking to possibly add a house rule to remove these tiles; eliminate some advantage based on the order tiles are revealed, and make it a little more challenging as the scores climb.  I am definitely glad I got this game, and am excited to teach a few other people and try a 3 or 4 player game.

My "city" with no PR Firm or Casino

As we get back to the normal "routines" I hope opportunities to continue to play these games keep presenting themselves.

Dominion - Session Report

My wife and I played a couple of games of Dominion last night.  As usual, we used a random set of kingdom cards from all of the sets we have (see list in Boardgame Collection).

Game 1

 

In the first game I planned to go for the treasure maps and use the cartographer to try and get them together.  The name synergy of using the cartographer to find the maps just an added bonus.  The problem I ran into is that by focusing on the maps I didn't have 5 coins to spend until it was too late, so the plan fell apart.  As well, my attempts at using the crossroads was hampered by us using the Dark Ages starting cards in place of the three estates.  My wife ended up using a couple of Goons and Death Carts to walk all over me.  Final score was 47 to 31.

 

 

Game 2

In the second game I used the trader to ditch my Estates and get Silvers instead, which worked rater well.  I then used Shanty Towns and  Spys to build towards Alters.  In the end the province split was 5-3, but I also had a bunch of Duchys gained through the Alters, which allowed me to win the game 42 to 28.

Dominion - Count Score During the Game?

One of the things that I struggle with while playing Dominion is how closely to keep track of the score during the game.  Knowing where I stand during the game can greatly affect my strategy, and the final outcome of the game as well.

During most games I keep track of exactly how many provinces (or colonies if they are being used) everyone has and keep a an eye on how many other point cards everyone has, without necessarily keeping an exact count.  Although I have played a few three and four player games, I have played many more two player games, which makes it easier to track everything.  I have done it enough times now that I know I am capable of keeping an exact count of the score in a two player game, but the extra effort needed means that I am not nearly as social as when I don't.  Because I play the majority of the games against my wife, the social aspect is important to me, and even more so to her.  So what is the right balance?

We played a game earlier this week, which highlights what happens when I don't even keep an eye on the points cards!

As usual, we played a random set (using the randomizer cards) from among Dominion (Original), Intrigue, Seaside, Prosperity, Dark Ages and Hinterlands.  The set was: Poor House, Sage, Fishing Village, Coppersmith, Feast, Pillage, Minion, Tactician, Nobles & Forge.

Dominion Kingdom Card Set, 19-Aug-2014

I started with a 2-5 split, which actually seemed worse in this set.  I took a Poor House, thinking that I might be able to get a couple, and then dump a bunch of coppers with Forge.  The problem is that I wasn't able to get anywhere near 7 coins until I was able to get a bunch of other cards.  In the end I think I used them maybe twice, and for 1-2 coin each time.  What ended up working for me was a combination of Fishing Villages and Tacticians; I would have the coins from the fishing villages each turn, and every other turn was a big one, and I could get a province on most of these turns.  However, by the time I got that up and running my wife was way ahead, and I (knowingly) split the provinces 4-4.  I had picked up a Nobles along the way, but had dumped my estates, and I thought this would be enough to squeak out the win.  When we added up the score though, I had lost 29-26.  Turns out my wife had kept her estates and had also bought a noble that I hadn't kept track up.  Had I known all of this I probably would of been very close to being able to buy a duchy per turn, and might of been able to get enough before she got the last province or two.  

In this particular game I simply didn't keep track since I was so tired (my wife is too, and new baby will do that), but it still comes back to how closely I want to track the scores during the game.  I am competitive, and want to win, but if it starts to seem like work it totally ruins the fun of playing for me.

Dominion - First Blogged Game

Dominion is one of my favourite games, and one my wife is willing to play with me fairly regularly.

When we play, we generally select a set of kingdom cards randomly using the randomizer cards, from among the expansions we have: Dominion (Original), Intrigue, Seaside, Prosperity, Dark Ages and Hinterlands. This gives us a huge variety of results, but I usually tweak them a bit before we play.  I want to make sure that there is a range of costs available (i.e. not just 2, 5 and 5+) and I also try to have some variety in the mechanics so that multiple strategies/combos are available.  Sometimes they end up working great, other times not so much.  We will play with platinum/colonies if the first one selected is from Prosperity, and with the alternate starting cards if the second card selected is from Dark Ages.

A couple of nights ago we played with the following set; Border Village, Duchess, Ghost Ship, Hermit, Ironworks, Mine, Native Village, Scavenger, Scout and Storeroom.  In this one we played with the Dark Ages alternate starting cards.

I was originally super excited, thinking that this would be a great set.  A couple of plus actions, a plus cards, a plus buy, and a bunch of cards that seem to naturally fit into combos (scout, native village, scavenger).  As we started to play, I just couldn't get my deck going.  I didn't hit 6 coins at all near the beginning, so all my plus actions were from the native village, and without a specific plan its ability is actually more frustrating than useful.  My wife managed to hit a couple of Border Village buys, which got her deck going pretty well.  As a result I started focusing on hermits, and managed to get a few madmen into my deck, which I was able to stack with a native village to pick up my whole deck a couple of times, each resulting in being able to buy two provinces.  That is the only thing that made me able to squeak out a win, 36 to 31 if I recall correctly.

This one was interesting enough that I might actually try playing with this identical set again sometime in the future, which would be a first for us (other than the pre-defined ones in the rulebooks).