Messages

Hi Gloures,

to have a quick overview of all kingdom cards in play (including hexes and boons) please feel free to install the Google Chrome extension "King's Courtier" from Icehawk.
It might not show you which hexes/boons have been played and which ones might come up next - but for overviewing the new (nocturne) cards and their instructions during the game, it helps me a lot.

You will find some more information in the link below.

http://forum.shuffleit.nl/index.php?topic=1380.msg


Have fun
Rachmaninoff

Stef, thank you very much for the previews - I definitely realized that the complexity of this game will not diminish. By the way, this was certainly a good trial run to kill a few bugs before going live.
And thanks also for Donald for the nice teasers on Dominionstrategy - that was really a successful addition.
I'm looking forward to the rest of the Nocturne cards.

Have fun
Rachmaninoff

Hi Ingix,

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your excellent support. Your analyses for reported bugs and special cases and your always helpful and brilliantly structured answers and tips are a real enrichment for this forum.
I assume, you are doing all this on a voluntary basis and having a lot of fun with it - really good moderation performance - thx a lot.

Have fun
Rachmaninoff

Adam, Icehawk's approach is at least much more than nothing.

The initial post was from d.Thomas as a newbie - who made his first post here - so I can assume that he never heard before from the King's courtier plug-in - so I am sure it might help him a lot more rather than waiting for the perfect solution.

Hi,

to have a quick overview of all kingdom cards in play please feel free to install the Google Chrome extension "King's Courtier" from Icehawk - it helps me a lot.
You will find some more information in the link below.

http://forum.shuffleit.nl/index.php?topic=1380.msg

Have fun
Rachmaninoff

I can't judge about the "plain English meaning of the description of the effect of inheritance" – I am not the native speaker to give advices for that ...
But from my perspective there is a very distinct separation to make between

a) an inherited Crossroads
(an Estate only gets the ability of the crossroads card - the Estate card is still an Estate)
so first time played it is still an Estate and will give no actions, but 1 card per green

b) an overlorded Crossroads (similar with Band of Misfits)
(which really makes the Overlord being a Crossroads card)
so first time played will give 3 actions plus 1 card per green

Have fun
Rachmaninoff

I think resetting the leaderboard after a period of time is out of discussion – and as some others here I am unclear about the purpose of this thread (in regards to "twink" accounts and all that stuff).

However, most of us love stats, and why not adding some other playfully views on the leaderboard as well (like we have it in the Breppert tool with the "Champion belt").

Top players might see this as a needless thing, because they are visible in the ranking within the top 100 all the time and will get noticed in the leaderboard anyway. But there are some 1.000 other players never having the chance to get there – why not providing an additional statistics platform to give every player a chance to be "the king for one day". Please don't underestimate the ambition of players only to be listed awhile in a public board and to gain a kind of "trophy".

I am aware that all these lists can be misused – and indeed they shouldn't be taken too seriously, but as long as it keeps the community playing, it is good business. Only some thoughts without any demand to be implemented in the next future ..., but ok, give it a try some day.

Per day / per 7 days / per month?

- Top 10 Shooting stars
  (highest climb up of levels)
- Top 10 Scary Monsters
  (most victories as a level <50 player against level >60)
- Top 10 HighScorer
  (highest VP-scores in one / or 10 rated games)
- Top 10 players per home country
  (given the premise that the country can be added in the player account)
- Top 10 win streak
  (most wins in one row – only rated games)
- Make the bingo on discord more public
- ...

The list could be continued with many other ideas – but again, the current leaderboard should be seen as the one and only in regards to matchmaking, showing skill levels and highlighting the real champions - but to be honest, it is at the end a very academic ranking which allows a significant identification for the top players only. Facing Dominion as a fun game for some thousand people (what it is !) may justify the addition of fun rankings as well – could be a value-add for the community.

[rating]

The initial question was about "what's a good rating" – and of course there is no fixed red line to say: these are the good and those are the poor players in the leaderboard. Nevertheless the view on the Top 200 (which is level 55+) might indicate the pool of excellent strategists, league-proofed winners and some mathematical wizards. I would say beyond 55 all players can beat each other – below 55 the ratio tends to be more and more the David and Goliath story – and the component of additional fortune becomes more important to get a lucky punch.

But again, being in the level 50s shows the Top1000 of the Dominion world, that's about the top 10% of our community, which deserves the tag of a "good rating" as well.

Changing the initial question to "what's a good player", this becomes much more relative – so here I am with Stef saying, this really depends from your perspective, because it should try to fade out all the ranking stuff as the one and only benchmark.

I like playing the piano, my family says, I am a good pianist – ok, that's nice to know and makes me happy. Compared to the stars in Carnegie Hall I am nothing more than a little piece of shit ... - ok, let's say, I am a little piece of shit playing the piano quite well.

I leave it up to you to transfer this example to Dominion – but being level 50 can say, I am the best Dominion player in my home town, and perhaps I am in the Top50 of Germany – anyway, who cares about that? However, there are not so many things coming into my head of which I am sure being within the Top50 from the whole of Germany. This alone might be nice to know as well and can make you happy, but finally in our nice leaderboard you end up somewhere as a little piece of ...

By the way, "good player" implies to me being supportive to other players, not being an arrogant nerd due to my better ranking, having some decency in the chat by saying Hello and avoiding all that stuff, of which this forum is more and more flooded with complaints and bans.

The main thing is, to be aware of yourself with an open mind set for all the "off-leaderboard" things , this community is offering to you. Have you ever played an unrated game with others ? – it's unbelievable, but it can be very recreational. I am assuming, that "good players" are great in balancing out the fun factor versus their burning ambition to climb up the leaderboard - bad players show some gaps with that by having poor sportsmanship, and there might be some of them even in the top 1000.

So finally, I am still playing my piano in my Carnegie Hall living room at home – and I am still playing the Dominion daily, even though I am aware that the global ranking says, you are nothing more than a little piece of ...

But I am happy with that – so have fun
Rachmaninoff

I have no special channel or link for the YouTube stuff ... -

but you will get tons of matches by searching within YouTube for
"Dominion League match"

and you can filter it down to special players like
"Dominion League Stef"
"Dominion League Qvist" or just
"Dominionstreams" and many others

Most games are streamed from the league matches taking place since several years now and there is also a community here on Shuffle IT playing live matches with live streaming and live comments.

Perhaps I am not the correct person to give any recommendations on that, but here in forum there a some players who can give good advice how and when it is worthy to participate as a spectator.

Have fun
Rachmaninoff

I think, everything what's written here is correct – so the interesting analysis about what's making the difference between a level 60-player and a level 55-player is really hitting the point.

As a level 50-player I am quite aware how difficult (one can say nearly impossible) it is to beat a player >55 due to their described capabilities (better opening, better mid-game, better end-game) – there is something within those higher levels which could be pictured as a mixture of broad experience (some 1.000 games), mathematical genius and some kind of pure magic.

You can have a look in several Youtube videos with the experts playing –and you might understand, what strategic possibilities the kingdoms are offering, you never ever would have detected. I am convinced that above 55 the region starts where many players never can step in – because this is the region of real talents paired with the ability to play everyday for several hours with raising passion and having a network of other experts to discuss about their strategies.

Important to say, that the component of luck, which is often mentioned as an essential element of dominion games, is more and more powered off in these higher levels – so top players even win against a (weaker), but lucky drawing opponent – their skills are trained enough to mostly turn the tide.

On the other hand the 55+ players are about 250 persons – which shows a 2% portion of the whole player range on this platform. With the 50+ players there are additional 650 persons – so it might be good to know that everyone playing in the big pool of the remaining 90% is having a chance to get into the Top1000, but only with ambition, some talent and some time.

Nevertheless you can say being at level 41 is much better than the overall average here, so I am a good player ... - so finally everyone should follow his own targets to get happy, that's the main thing.

Have fun
Rachmaninoff

I just saw (after writing my text here), that Markus has replied in the meanwhile, and SirDagen said thank you, but let's try to explain those maths stuff once more from a layman to a layman perspective ...

As Stef stated in his initial thread, when the leaderboard was announced in the first week of April, there are 3 essential parameters, which influence our ratings. At the very end, the cumbersome result of this formula is translated into the levels we all can see in our daily leaderboard (currently from 68 down to 0).

The (Mu) is your estimated and dynamic Dominion skill – we all had started with a Mu = 0. As you can see in the leaderboard in the meanwhile the top players mostly have a (Mu) >2. The majority of all players is around 0,5 to 0 – some others are far below 0.
Why is this ? – The (Mu) is recalculated after every game – it depends on the skill levels of your opponents and of course it depends on the game results (win or loss) against those opponents. Let's say it like this (from layman to layman), the new (Mu) is calculated based on your own (Mu) versus the opponents (Mu), which implies a calculated win probability. So the (Mu) will go up by beating good players and will go down by losing against weaker players. If you always win against much weaker players it will go up, but very slow. You can only get up in the leaderboard significantly by beating better players – and as I know the biggest fear of the top players is a loss against a much weaker player.

There is a second parameter called (Phi) - which is identified as your deviation. This might be the most difficult part to explain here (and this is mostly the part Markus wants to change in the current formula). This (Phi) had started for all of us with 2 and is supposed to go down and down to be close to 0 (in theory). It shows more or less your consistency of playing – and the more often you are playing, the more the system knows about your predictability and the probability, how the next game will end (considering the skill level of your opponent). So if you are a top player and you played some hundred games with a quite good consistency (eg. you won 70% of your games), your (Phi) went down to 0,2 (for instance) – and a loss against a weaker player doesn't destroy your whole ranking, it's more like a statistical outlier. If you haven't played many games so far (let's say only 5 games) - and all these games ended up alternating with losses and wins, your (Phi) might be still very high – and the system didn't get a good profile of your gaming consistency yet. And finally there are also some players with 5 rated games, and they won all of them – so their (Phi) is medium low and their (Mu) can be really high (even after only 5 games). I assume this is the effect Markus describes in his thread, that a newbie with 5 (accidental) wins in his first 5 games can show up in the top20 (which is mathematically correct but not the intended result to be shown in the leaderboard) – normally with the first loss this newcomer statistically will be brought back down to earth, and I guess, Markus has suggested some adjustments with the initial (Phi) to get rid of those one-day shooting stars.

The third parameter is relatively unimportant called (Sigma) – this is your volatility which shows how often and regular you are playing – this is only relevant for players doing a break for some weeks or months to make sure, that they don't remain in the top 100 forever. Their ranking will fall down due to the sinking (Sigma) the longer you are not playing. Even if you are not playing for a few days the (Sigma) changes very slightly your rating – so being an active player is rewarded or the other way around being a lazy player with big intervals of inactivity is penalized.

Hopefully this helps for your understanding – and hopefully my explanation was correct ...

Have fun
Martin

DomWiki says this:

Once in play, Overlord is the thing it copied, rather than an Overlord; for example Colonnade will produce VP if you buy a copy of that card, but not if you buy an Overlord.

So your thoughts are correct - you acted overlord as a trading post, but didn't buy another trading post in your turn  - so 0 VP from colonnade.

There is a little question mark next to "Find a game" - with a link to the explanations for the matching tab.
But maybe this is too comprehensive to get quick questions and answers.

Nevertheless, reading that is helpful, but maybe this could be enhanced with a little mouse-over-info-box saying "only rated games / doesn't respect unfamiliar cards".

Have fun
Rachmaninoff

[Current fault in bold]

I did some extra work to check the German text written on the kingdom cards - mostly only little typos, but this should be corrected in one of the next releases to leave back a more professional impression for the translation.

Current fault in bold / correction is underlined

Maskerade (Masquerade) - keine Karten auf der Karten auf der Hand – keine Karten auf der Hand

Trickser (Swindler) - Jeder andere Spielern – Jeder andere Spieler

Verwandlung (Transmute) - Entsorge einer Karte – Entsorge eine Karte

Quacksalber (Mountebank)- Jeder andere Spielern – Jeder andere Spieler

Wegkreuzung (Crossroads) - pro aufdeckter Punktekarte – pro aufgedeckter Punktekarte

Orakel (Oracle) - die obersten beiden Karte – die obersten beiden Karten

Graf (Count) - oder lege eine Handkarten – oder lege eine Handkarte

Marktplatz (Market Place) - Markplatz – Marktplatz (falscher Kartentitel)

Raubzug (Pillage) - Nimm Dir 2 Beuten vom Beute-Stapel – Nimm dir 2 Karten vom Beute-Stapel (Plural von Beute existiert nicht im Deutschen)

Ratten (Rats) (bitte Text von der deutschen Papierversion übernehmen)
Nimm dir eine Ratten-Karte. Entsorge eine Karte aus deiner Hand, die keine Ratten-Karte ist. (Decke deine Handkarten auf, wenn du nur Ratten auf der Hand hast). ----  Wenn Du diese Karte entsorgst +1 Karte.

Kunsthandwerker (Artificer) - Nachziehstapel nehmen, die die genau – Nachziehstapel nehmen, die genau

Ausrüstung (Gear) - Lege bis zu zwei Karte – Lege bis zu zwei Karten

Elster (Magpie) - Karte deines Nachziehstapel auf – Karte deines Nachziehstapels auf

Kurier (Messenger) - Wenn dieses der erster Kauf – Wenn dieses der erste Kauf

Wanderzirkus (Travelling Fair) - Wenn in diesem Zug eine Karte nimmst – Wenn du in diesem Zug eine Karte nimmst

Stadtviertel (City Quarter) - Pro aufgeckter Aktionskarte – pro aufgedeckter Aktionskarte

Zauberin (Enchantress) - jedes anderer Spielers – jedes anderen Spielers

Ingenieurin (Engineer) - Du darfst die Ingeneurin entsorgen – Du darfst die Ingenieurin entsorgen

Why not taking the original text from the German paper card version for "Rats" ?

"Nimm dir eine Ratten-Karte. Entsorge eine Karte aus deiner Hand, die keine Ratten-Karte ist. (Decke deine Handkarten auf, wenn du nur Ratten auf der Hand hast). ----  Wenn Du diese Karte entsorgst +1 Karte.