Some games are just fast-ending non-games due to the 3-pile rule. Particularly games with both ruins and curses. They would play out as much more interesting proper games if they didn't end by the 3-pile rule.
So that's why it would be great if this rule could be adjusted in the advanced options, or even better in the autoplay options. There could be multiple options: extend to 4-pile or 5-pile instead of 3-pile, end only by provinces running out, or just give an exact number of turns and then the game ends at that point (I'll bet experts would have fun crafting challenge games with that option). I can think of some more cool options but I think I'll leave it at that now for brevity.
I surmise that the 3-pile rule was originally made to accommodate the base game, which didn't have so many powerful cards, and on top of that to accommodate the game as experienced by new players. Because, for new players, they could reasonably both build dysfunctional decks, and no one's deck would have been strong enough to buy provinces often, except through the occasional lucky hand. And so in that case the game would have just dragged on and on, so it needed an alternate end condition in the 3-pile rule. If new players experienced the game dragging on and on while failing to be able to buy provinces, it would've seemed like the game didn't "work", which could be a thing to cause bad reviews, so I surmise that the 3-pile rule was important when Dominion was still a new game.
But today, Dominion is very established and popular, and the conditions of playing online are different from playing with cards in so many ways. We have tons of expansion sets with more powerful cards on average than the early sets, and this makes it much more rare that the board is so weak that tedium occurs before all 8 provinces get bought.
Do people agree with my assessment? Even if you don't agree perfectly with it, would you still prefer if there was a way to turn off the 3-pile rule or select other options that cause the game to end?
I think the 3-pile rule adds greatly to the variability of games. Without it every game would be about building an engine (or accumulating sufficient treasure if that's not possible) to buy Provinces. With it there's scope in some kingdoms to get into an early lead and then clear three piles before your opponent's engine is working.
Wow, I disagree greatly. Every engine is wildly different, wherein the game's variability lies. A game ending by 3 piles always has the same essential formula for it to come into play: curses and cards that gain cards, like ironworks for instance. Just because you can get an early lead and then pull the same trick as every other time it was pulled, does not mean you're increasing the game's variability. And this is all assuming the trick was pulled intentionally, which it so often isn't. I see so many game in which people don't even realize they could end the game by 3-pile rule, and I'm rated 51.7, so I'm not largely playing new players. Every time the 3-pile rule happens it's very similar to the last game in which it happened. Had the 3-pile rule not existed and the game was played out fully, it would have been a far more dissimilar game to the last full game, compared to whatever slight variation there is between this curse/ironworks situation and the last one.
Plus: how are you even talking from a point of view of "variability", when I'm the one talking about increasing options, and I'm not talking about ending the 3-pile rule as the main option, assuming you like it. It's like if you said: "We can't add extra flavors to the ice cream shop, because vanilla can taste a bit different at the top of the container vs. the bottom."
It's like maybe one fifth of the time when there's a 3-pile rule ending that it's because someone actually strategized to make it happen as fast as possible. Four fifths of the time it's more like an incidental and premature event. It's especially bad in 3 player games.
Well, maybe most players don't start their strategy to go for a 3-pile ending, escpecially as their seem to be few cards geared to that (maybe Ill-Gotten Gains). But in the course of the game, when contested piles run out/low, it may be possible to pivot to that.
Or rather, players can anticipate that certain piles will be contested, so they build their deck around gaining multiple cards per turn to take advantage of that. Of course, if opponent does not contest those piles, then they can build a very strong engine with it and win by buying Province/Colony.
As you noted, piles are much more contested in 3/4-player games, so one could argue that not being prepared for a 3-pile ending in those games just means you are overlooking an option to win the game.
Of course, I can still understand your wish to have an optinal game mode to remove 3-pile endings, it just means some slogs will take forever.
I'd rather have some games that go longer (take forever is a huge exaggeration) than have the very common scenario we now have:
All three players are building decks (what a deckbuilding game is supposed to be about). Incidentally the piles get low. Whoever was lucky enough to receive the least curses and keep the most estates (even though it's actually smart to trash them, but hey, luck turned that into an advantage) decides to deplete the 3rd pile. Whoops, game over!
Honestly, think back to all the times the 3-pile rule meant "Whoops, game over!" and notice each time it happens from now on. It's nearly all the times the rule happens. Yeah, you can pivot to exploiting the 3-pile rule, but it's mainly chance that put you at having a bit more VP than the opponent(s) so that you happen to be the one who can use that pivot. The 'deckbuilding' element of the game gets diminished when a tiny differential in VP early on becomes the more important thing.
One of the important things about trashers is that they can offset the luck involved in how many curses people get early and how much those curses hinder their hands. But that balance plays little role when the game just ends early from the 3-pile rule.
I really just think having an option to extend the 3-pile rule to a 4-pile rule would be so huge. A mode that ended only from provinces disappearing would be nice also, but I 'd be satisfied with just a 4-pile rule. At 4 piles the winner would definitely be who built the better deck, it would rarely be "whoever has the vp edge at the fortunate moment".
You make it sound like the depletion of piles is an event that is not in the players'control, but it very much is, and in fact is one of the main fields of player interaction in Dominion.
Knowing when you can afford to lower the piles to dangerous levels and when you can't is an important skill in Dominion, just like knowing when you should go for piles and when you should go for points. Then there is the whole topic of finding the tricky 3-pile endings, which is often a very satisfying puzzle onto itself.
That said, a 4-pile game would be an interesting change in pace once in a while (eg, at about the same frequency as colony games happen), but I'll leave it to Donald to introduce that to official Dominion if and when he sees fit.
Play with 5 people then four piles need to be empty. Those are the rules of Dominion. You can also make the game much more interesting with the extension bloom time
In SOME games piles being aware of pile depletion is an interesting skill. In just as many or more, it turns what would have been a skill game into "who draws a big hand first at the key moment". Of course it's not completely devoid of skill, but who has a small vp edge when piles get low is objectively less skill-driven than the factors that would have determined a game that played out longer.
It's SO common to be in a situation where you go "I'm ahead in VP and so I'll buy the second to last card in the final pile, allowing me to end the game the turn after, but then whoops, my opponent draws a big combo hand with additional buys to barely pull in front AND take the final card. Damned if I did, damned if I didn't."
Most replies on this thread have just amounted to "These are the games rules, therefore I will call them good".
So inevitably I'll get just as uninspiring replies saying "You coulda bought a duchy, you coulda bought something else!"
Of course, it's a game with many options, each has possible upside and possible downside, and that's the nature of any complex game. If you had bought a duchy maybe you would have won, or maybe the opponent would've used his big combo hand to buy provinces, and then the game goes longer and your duchy weighs down your deck for less value, you just don't know.
Of course you can't perfectly predict the opponent's hand and your upcoming hands. But the shorter the game is, the more it will tend to turn on what randomly comes up at the right time and the less it will be balanced by good hands and bad hands. THAT is undeniable.
And I do like the puzzles that pile endings can add sometimes, so some generic praise of them does not really refute what I'm saying. I just think 3-pile is too fast for today's game with all expansions, sucking skill out of the game more than putting it in. 4-pile would certainly be more of a skill game.
So I'm not denying that if the game had been originally designed with provinces as the only way to end things, then yes it would've been less good than the way it actually was designed.
But just think back to how the game played out when it was only the base game.
Compare the impact that the 3-pile rule had on the game back then, vs the impact it has now.
Now, just for instance, you have ruins, you have ironworks, which you can play one after another without the aid of a village like you'd need with workshop, you have a random cheap things that will deplete or be depleted fast like magpie, lackeys, and lurker. You have more cards that work with multiples from its own pile like cultist and sauna.
What were the most fast-ending things from the base game? Witch? Workshop and gardens? You've got to be kidding if you think that's comparable to the way the game is now.
The 3-pile rule was in the sweet spot to make a workshop-gardens strategy fun, but when you look at the current game with all expansions and tons of powerful cards, 4-pile would absolutely make for a better game. It would not hurt to have a bit more time to build your deck and piece together card interactions before you get the conundrum of how to play around the last 1 or 2 cards in the last pile. For most boards 4-pile would improve the level of strategy compared to 3-pile, it would feel a lot more like how the base game felt.
I think you make very good points, but I doubt you'll get anybody to agree with you here. Most people are too invested in the way it works now to consider that the game could be improved in any way. Even if you're just talking about giving more options, most people don't want to hear it. This is also because most people who reply here are fairly high-level players who have learned to play the game as it is and take advantage of the exact thing you're describing.
But in any case, there are so many features missing from the implementation, that Stef for sure will not include this option any time soon (and rightly so, because many things are more important). And furthermore, I highly doubt Donald would agree to significant variants such is this.
What kind of features are missing?
I for one think that the Dominion base game 1st edition had a pretty unfortunate (slow, weak, clunky) mix of cards, and am very happy with how the game has sped up a fair bit since seaside or so.
Pizza, I've been discussing (and criticizing) Dominion cards and rules - and coming up with my own - for a few years now. I'm not defending 3-piles due to lack of imagination, I defend that rule because it works and I like it.
Quote from: Pizzaelemblast on 20 August 2019, 06:18:29 PM
What kind of features are missing?
Almost all of these are still missing: http://forum.shuffleit.nl/index.php?topic=512.0
Add to that all the bugs that aren't fixed.
Oh I've seen this on other game forums: "There's so many more important things that need to be implemented!" then link to a list of things that have already been implemented or don't relate to gameplay.
(cross-outs have already been implemented)
Top priorities in 2017:
Add retrievable gamelogs, rating, leaderboard
Finish implementing cards
Improving AI
Adding Campaigns
Adding German, Russian and Japanese support
Card animations: animating all card moves
Expanding on friend list
Create an IOS and Android app
Adding features for Kingdom selection, e.g. to help new players learn cards gradually
Adding tournament support (very well supported on discord)
Further improvements on AI
Offline client
Smart timing rules
Autoplay features
Add logsearch
Stuff like retrievable gamelogs and an offline client... I can't think of the perfect word for it but it would be something like "interface expansion". All of that shouldn't just be behind the issue of quick non-games, and improving the level of strategy, but behind anything gameplay related.
The earlier sets were just more about deckbuilding, and less about 'whoops, game over'.
And yeah this forum is just a whole lot of high-ranking experts who have something against growing the appeal/customer base of the game. Maybe if it wasn't for all those 'whoops, game over' games vs less experienced players their rank would drop or something.
They don't think from the point of view of someone trying the game out, would not expect developers and designers to think the same way.
The forum is at the momet a slow-burner, nothing much hapening from day to day. I have no idea if mostly high level players lurk here, or who does. Usually I would assume that engaged players would look in here semi-regularly. Players of all skill levels can be engaged, maybe there is some overrepresentation of experienced, good players, simply because if you loose constantly, you might not play much more.
Pizzaelemblast, you made some good points about a variante that, in your opinion, would improve the game.
However, this online game is closely linked to the IRL game, which it does not control. This is a blessing (game is already familiar to many people) and a curse (no way to generate itself new content, like an expansion).
And to be frank, once you argue
Quote
And yeah this forum is just a whole lot of high-ranking experts who have something against growing the appeal/customer base of the game
in the context of
your proposal to include a variant, you have left the way of a reasonable argument, IMO.
I don't deny that "growing the appeal/customer base of the game" is a worthy goal, but I totally deny that your variant is going to be any significant part of that.
Half the items you crossed out are not done.
Card animations - still not complete and I don't think it has been worked on since the list was made in 2017
Expanding on friend list - not sure what this refers to, but it doesn't seem like much has changed since 2017
Create an IOS and Android app - I don't think these exist, do they?
Adding features for Kingdom selection, e.g. to help new players learn cards gradually - Is this done?
Adding tournament support - not done in the client, which is the point
Then there are many important things that many of us have been asking for from the start, but are not on that list. Like not having to use the log to play the game(!).
Ingix, I just don't see any other reason for ppl to oppose something that would be optional, not forced upon them. Dominion has always been a highly customizable game. With the tabletop game, there is so much variability depending on what expansions you have. And now on the client we can ban cards and create custom kingdom setups. So seeing how these options have been fine, if specific people had opposed them, you probably would have said they were against 'growing the appeal of the game'. Very much the same if you're going to oppose my idea for a variant, which would only be optional and totally would make the game fit better with how the early sets were designed.
Perhaps I am exaggerating to say that this forum is all high-ranking experienced players, but I can at least say that genuinely inexperienced players are not gonna be highly represented here. That's just the nature of a game forum, people don't feel comfortable making posts on them if they're inexperienced players. And it's the inexperienced players who really suffer from the downsides of the 3-pile rule, in today's Dominion with tons of powerful cards. We've all seen inexperienced players often who just completely don't realize the game's about end. I see it happen a lot, sometimes newer players play turn upon turn upon turn, not noticing at all that they could've just won by depleting the last pile. And I see them leave quickly, one can assume frustrated, when someone uses the 3-pile rule to get a tricky win against them and they were quite clueless.
About the development list from 2017, jeebus:
Card animations - I'm not sure what this is or what it would add
Expanding on friend list - I agree, not sure what it refers to, and I don't see a need
Create an IOS and Android app - I have played on my cellphone before. So it's Android friendly, though perhaps
that's not the same as an app
Adding features for Kingdom selection, e.g. to help new players learn cards gradually - This was just recently done,
with the cardlists feature, plus the familiar cards feature has existed for a while
Adding tournament support - I don't think it's highly needed in the client, since it's being done well on discord
Are you saying you'd want an option to turn the log off entirely? I guess for those who want it, I see that as decently important thing at this stage, unlike the stuff on the outdated list. Personally I don't find much lacking in the client at this point. The only thing I'd want besides what this thread is about is better notification when an opponent trashes one of your cards, like through swindler. I wish it made a unique sound or was written in the log in a color that really stands out. That's the only other improvement I've felt need for and otherwise I think the client is great.
I mean, basically you've said "I don't get why anyone wouldn't agree with me, therefore yall must be high level players hoping the game doesn't do well commercially". That's like, just not a good faith engagement with the people who disagree with you. Have you considered that maybe people genuinely think this aspect adds more strategic depth, interest and fun to the game than you do?
There has been so much written about this stuff (before people starting giving up that it ever would be implementet), so I suggest you start looking at some of the old feature requests. There are a lot of actions and events that are not animated, you only understand what the hell happened by checking the log. (Your idea about coloring trashed cards in the log is just a remedy which would not be needed if animations were fully implemented.) And clicking in the log is a horrible idea. The log should be for information only, like a... "log". These things do not kill the experience for experienced players, but they are very serious when it comes to new players. Another important thing missing is the option to search for and retrieve text logs without starting a new game against a bot.
Pizzaelemblast, what your posts come down (to me) is that you wonder why nobody is implementing your idea, when this would be a relatively short endavour and (as you said) optional.
The reality is that lots of proposals for various enhancements have been made, you also looked at the one posted by the developer himself. So, one kind of reaction to your wonder would be "Get in the line for all the people who proposed changes, at the back."
Another fact is that there is only one developer, who has help from a very few number of people when it comes to actually writing code for the client (aka what runs in your web browser). Even something that is easy needs to be done, and it always is more complicated than one thinks.
Third, while in theory an option is just an option and doesn't need to be taken, to many options are bad because nobody can at a glance understand them all and how they interact. If variants are implemented, then it would not make sense to only have one.
Recently there was a discussion if emptying Provinces should trigger the game end in Colony games. Then there are players who want everybody to have the same number of turns, so the game continues until before the starting player would take their regular turn again. Then there is a subset of those that want to put 'imaginary Provinces' in the Province pile, so in the turns after Provinces were depleted, the other players can buy them as well.
What I want to show is that an idea never exists in isolation, and often has consequences for other things. Even then banned/liked/disliked card lists had to be disregarded for 'base only' automatched games, because banning 25% of all existing cards was deemed to much of an opportunity to game the system.
"Have you considered that maybe people genuinely think this aspect adds more strategic depth, interest and fun to the game than you do?"
Of course I have, lmao. I'm actually aware that it's fair for different people to have different preferences about various things, not just even just games.
Which is why I obviously haven't proposed removing the traditional way to play. That's what optional means. You on the other hand, as well as others on this thread, are a blowing a gasket and acting like the sky is falling about someone else, me, having a different preference in the game and, heaven forbid, ask, with admittedly "good points" as you folks said yourself, for the option that I see as better, which would not impede on your experience of the game at all
Daavor Have you considered that maybe someone genuinely thinks 4-pile would add more strategic depth, interest and fun to the game than you do?
Jeebus, I wasn't saying coloring the pictures of trashed cards, I was saying the logtext saying swindler or knight, etc., trashed one of your cards, should be in a unique color or in italics. There are many unique colors in the logtext already, but oddly enough there's nothing that really makes that stand out, which would be a big help. Or, alternatively a unique sound plays when the swindler/knight trashes your card. Either playing a sound or having it stand out in the log would be much better than animations, plus would not wear on the servers like animations probably would.
Because, with people sometimes going idle for a while, it's nice to play while also checking out something else in another internet tab or just to look somewhere else as you wait for your opponent. People don't play with their eyes locked on the screen for animations, because there are gonna be pauses when the opponent is thinking or maybe they aren't thinking maybe they went afk for a while, you have no idea how long they will take. So the log or a sound would be much better for this issue. Animations seem to me like not really a way to improve the game, plus a way to make the servers work less well. But I do agree with you that a logsearch capability would be really nice.
"Recently there was a discussion if emptying Provinces should trigger the game end in Colony games. Then there are players who want everybody to have the same number of turns, so the game continues until before the starting player would take their regular turn again. Then there is a subset of those that want to put 'imaginary Provinces' in the Province pile, so in the turns after Provinces were depleted, the other players can buy them as well."
First of all, just because you identified that someone else had ideas to improve the game which were bad, does not mean all ideas to improve the game must necessarily be equally bad and get shot down, or sandbagged, or never implemented.
And it's pretty clear, while still a matter of opinion, that these two ideas aren't comparable to mine. There's a huge difference between changing the length of a game (thankfully, when a game just ends by way of cultist pile, ruins pile, and curse pile) vs these ideas, which are just about players griping about the number of points they had at the end of the game. Changing the length of the game adds a longer game experience, it adds more gameplay. It can turn a game that 'wasn't a game' into a game. This affects new players a LOT. But these ideas you're trying to compare to mine are just about modifying who has more VP at the end of what was essentially the same game. This variant would have basically no more gameplay than the original game, it just maybe would be more fair at picking the winner. There might be a bit a less luck in who wins, but there was just the same amount of strategy on the way there. But a game that doesn't get off the ground due to the 3-pile rule does lessen the amount of strategy over the course of the game while it also increases the role of luckily timed hands. You can praise the coolness of different possible outcomes to the puzzle of what to do when the third pile is close, yeah sure you can. But all that coolness would STILL be there when 4-pile is played, it's just that you'll actually have some more time to actually pick other cards and craft other combinations before the game reaches that point.
I also think these aren't sound ideas because 'who went first' doesn't warp the game so strongly. For instance there are also advantages to being player 2 in seeing what player 1 does first and essentially having more time to make your decisions.
But it's even possible that Donald had the people with gripes about the final turn count in mind when he designed the card 'Fleet', or that he shared their viewpoint somewhat. Obviously opinions about what would make the game better do help and deserve to be listened to. I mean the people on this thread opposing my idea even said I have a good point on what I'm proposing. So it's odd why I'm getting such angry blowback. It might speak to just how much 4-pile would improve the game over 3-pile. I've made very clear that it ought to be optional, so I can't understand why you guys are so threatened. Maybe you're afraid because if this was implemented, maybe you think everyone would just start selecting the 4-pile option and then the old version of the game you've gotten so good at would be harder to find automatches in. Who knows. The way I'd implement it if it were me, would be that if both players were fine with any version, for it to pick randomly between 3-pile and 4-pile. I can't foresee much downside to 4-pile, because these days the cards are so strong on average that the game almost never reaches a tedious state before all 8 provinces are gone (it sometimes would get this way in just the base game). So with all today's expansions, things are far from erring on the opposite side, of the game getting too tedious before it ends if played as 4-pile instead of 3-pile.
Quote from: Pizzaelemblast on 22 August 2019, 02:28:15 AM
Even so, it looks like Donald might have listened to these people when he designed the card 'Fleet'.
Fleet wasn't me listening to anyone; it was an idea I had and then I tried it out and well you know it was iffy, but some people liked it and there it is. I can go further and say, it was inspired by a similar idea I'd had for Kingdom Builder, the silos in the 4th expansion. Could I do something like that for Dominion? I could and it was Fleet.
Stef isn't going to go over my head here and implement something I say no to. That would not work out for him, and he's no fool. So to get this feature you would need to convince me.
You have not convinced me. We will not be having this feature. IRL feel free to play by whatever variants you want. Online we are only including variants I specifically endorse. The bar is high there.
I rarely check these forums, so if you want to say something where I might read it, I recommend dominionstrategy, where you first posted this thread and I guess thought you could ignore the answer, or discord.
Ok, great Donald, have a game with less strategy. Ignore the people on this thread who oddly enough said I have a good point while being against my point (says a lot).
And wow, dude, thanks for shooting some thanks to people who literally gave you free in-depth feedback, whether you agree or not. That's really thoughtful of you to take a resource that you didn't ask them for, and hold it in perspective. Wow.
I also just now checked your reply at http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=19847.0, where the first replier was someone telling me it was the wrong forum for this kind of feedback who told me to post it here. Replying to my guesses about the base game, you said,
"The rule was originally there to make sure there's a way to end the game, when Provinces are harder to come by, e.g. in games with Curses and no trashing. It has worked out to be a significant part of play though."
So you've basically confirmed my guess that it wasn't designed for the purpose of dominion as it exists today with all the expansions. The 3-pile rule isn't terrible by any means, but you have confirmed for me that it was designed so that you could definitely end the base game. It wasn't designed with it even in mind that it should be a significant part of play, it just turned out to be. And it's not surprising that it may not be the most optimal for today's game with all expansions. Most repliers on this thread somehow believe that just because they can regurgitate some positive aspect of how the 3-pile puzzle works, that's it's adding so much strategy, that's it's the best of all possible versions of the game, as if it was designed for today's game.
It wasn't designed for today's game, it was designed for the base game, to make sure it could end, and it's really a matter of whether the designer and devs find it worthwhile to go about providing more options.
Why?
So, some games are short. The 3-pile rule is absolutely integral to strategy in 3- and 4-player games, where attention to it, especially if there are curses and/or ruins, provides an advantage over the inattentive, letting one seize a victory early.
I think you need to step back and consider what you're trying to achieve here. You did all you could do, argued extensively in favour of your variant and now know that it's being considered by the only person who can do something about it (in case it had never been considered before, which I highly doubt).
What does not help you is insulting him and the other people who are arguing with you. You're also misrepresenting his and our words, turning expressions of reasonability and patience into support for your idea and admissions that 3-pile is bad.
I suggest you try banning cultist, ill gotten gains, ironworks and whatever card enrages you, and try to play on? Consider also this: page and peasant (and spirits) are essentially engine component piles that break the 3-pile rule! So your idea has already been implemented, how good is that?
Wow, more people admitting my point so hard that they're just suggesting other solutions. But hey, it's the game's rules, so they're 'absolutely integral' (created back when chancellor and woodcutter were in the game, to make sure all games would always reach an ending). Strategy games are supposed to be about 'attentiveness', aren't they? Otherwise how can we 'seize victory' from those unwanted new players, who were expecting something closer to deckbuilding and further from egyptian ratscrew...
Accatitippi, I'm not so crazed about this shortcoming that I'm gonna ban all the many cards that play into it. I just didn't expect this thread to fill so fast with so many fools who would see a good optional improvement and literally say "seems like a good point, I gotta call it absolutely unacceptable!" Too much to ask, my bar is too high lolol.
Quote from: Pizzaelemblast on 22 August 2019, 03:25:11 AM
the people on this thread who oddly enough said I have a good point while being against my point (says a lot).
I was the only one who said that you have a good point, but I did not say I was against it. I did say that I think there are many features and fixes that we have been waiting for from the start, that are more important than optional variants. (I also said that Donald would almost certainly not approve of this variant.)
Yeah... and the 'more important' stuff we settled on was just logsearch and better text colors in the log... Nothing else convincing...
Quote from: Pizzaelemblast on 22 August 2019, 08:40:59 PM
Yeah... and the 'more important' stuff we settled on was just logsearch and better text colors in the log... Nothing else convincing...
You settled on, you mean.
I am surprised and dismayed to see how the thread has, in part, devolved into name-calling. Let's all take a deep breath, okay? :)
I thought Pizza made mostly good points. So I'm not gonna jump down his throat for expressing them. I will thank him for making clear and detailed arguments.
I thought lots of people gave good counter-arguments, and I appreciate those as well. And I am glad that the game's creator took the time to post here as well.
Given what Donald X feels, I would make a suggestion to Stef: If someone posts with an idea and it is vetoed by Donald X; please take 30 seconds out of your day to post something like the following. "Your idea to _______ was interesting. The online version of Dominion will never implement something that is vetoed or nixed by the game's creator, and he has done so in this case. Of course, feel free to use your variant in any of your IRL games."
See? Easy. Someone has made a request, and has received a definitive response. End of issue. :-)
Since posting about this I've been observing more closely how this would work. Here's some of what I've noticed.
Firstly, I'll preface that there are basically two kinds of games that end by 3-pile rule, ones that end very fast (what I'm critical of) and one's that take a significant length of time yet end by 3-pile rule (what I'm not critical of).
I've noticed that in 3-pile rule games that take a significant length of time, often at time of ending there will be a fourth pile that is very close, at something like 2 cards left. These games will take only 2-4 turns longer as 4-pile games than they would have taken as 3-pile games. I gotta say to the people gushing about the deep strategy of 3-pile endings, that as a 4-pile game these game will have just the same amount of strategy involved. Maybe after more observing of specifically the games which went pretty long but ended by 3-pile, I can come up with a percentage that had a fourth pile which was also close, but so far it feels like roughly 60-80%.
On the flip side, when you look games that end very fast by the 3-pile rule (think things like cultist, magpie, or any number of things depending on number of players and how they like they to play) these games are made dramatically better when played as 4-pile. When you look at games on the short end of the spectrum, there's no denying that extending the length shortest games by 15-25 turns would add a ton of strategy to games that had a disappointing lack of it.
Quote from: Donald X. on 22 August 2019, 03:05:47 AM
I rarely check these forums, so if you want to say something where I might read it, I recommend dominionstrategy, where you first posted this thread and I guess thought you could ignore the answer, or discord.
Since you didn't want me to read your post, I'll do you a favor and not read it. No don't thank me; it's what I'm here for.
Come on Donald. You're better than that. You're not a spoiled 8 year old brat--you're the bloody creator of this great game. If you are going to take the time to read threads and to take the additional time to write a response; please fewer of the passive-aggressive comments and more of the productive and kind-hearted ones, okay?
Lots of people here are trying to create a culture of politeness and--when there is not agreement--civil discussions. Please do not intentionally poison your own well by makings posts that you know will do nothing to make things better . . . and could very possibly make things worse.
Only my 2 cents, natch. :-)