However for a card that wasn’t very good to begin with, for it to combo well with just one or 2 cards, still isn’t good. Mostly because if you were playing a random game those cards showing up together is a once in a hundred chance. So no it just doesn’t really work out that way. If a card is going to have synergy it needs to have synergy with at least one card in the same expansion. Explorer does not have synergy with any card in seaside. Which is why dark ages is one of the best expansions because almost every card in that expansion has synergy with other cards in that expansion. Check out this video to see the synergy I speak of. ua-cam.com/video/ywEt1IE1YRs/v-deo.html
No I haven’t. I know that whistle mountain is popular and viticulture is very popular, but I don’t much about Tuscany either. None of my friends own those games (one friend has Maracaibo and a lot of other complex euros) but I tend to be more interested in board games with aliens or animals and animalfolk. And for awhile I only plan to buy games with those themes. If I can afford them. Ark nova, lands of galazyr, wild Serengeti, Great Plains, meadow, creature comforts and many others. It’s not like publishers give me games for free. Although byrn smith did save zoo-ography for me to buy. (When pretty much everyone else who owns had to back it on Kickstarter, I’m one of the few who own who didn’t back it on Kickstarter) In fact byrn smith told me about his game zoo-ography on Facebook when I posted my thoughts on New York zoo, because he liked what I said about it. So then I looked up zoo-ography and I asked how I could get it since I missed the Kickstarter by a year. So he saved a copy for me, he most likely set one aside just for me to buy. So that’s really cool. And he even told me I explain how to play zoo-ography really well and asked if I could post it on board game geek. Which I of course was happy to do. So I most likely will get the next expansion for zoo-ography before even ark nova. Although Ryan laukat game me some ideas of how I could fix something for city of iron, so that my friends would want to play it when I finally bought it.
@@fightingkitchen7960 yes both and while I’m interested in caverna I already have Agricola which I’ve has for 2 years and still haven’t bothered to play it, I guess I should say wild animals I’m not a huge fan of domestic animal games just wild animal games
About Cutpuse... Ask anybody if Militia is a powerful card. Well, there you have your verdict about the Cutpurse. Sure, Militia it is not, and hardly anybody will argue that Cutpurse is notably weaker, but it is still comparable. And I totally don't buy into your no-coppers-in-late-game argument. I have played well over 20 000 games of Dominion and those where all coppers get trashed are very, very rare. Yes, it's a sweet goal and occasionally a kingdom will let you do that -- in which case, obviously, Cutpurse is not a dud, but mostly rubbish -- in most kingdoms however, the deck trimming process takes a long time and is often not completed until the end of the game. Cutpurse is mostly an early game card, and a very good one at that point, since it really slows your opponent down. It also works well in virtual money decks as a relatively cheap payload with a stacking attack effect (if your opponents haven't been able to trash their coppers).
Yeah of course you usually can’t get rid of all your coppers. But as far as attack cards go I just didn’t like cutpurse. If were comparing all attack cards together there are very few attack cards lower on my list then cutpurse.
How is Treasury super-powerful?! Okay, yes, I understand, you're guaranteed a couple of coins' worth at each turn, as long as you don't buy Victory Cards, but it costs 5! How many 5's do you want to invest in a rotational copper when at this price you can get a very powerful attack, a very strong draw or a nifty utility card like the Count or the Courtier? And when you buy your first Victory Card, your Treasury mini-engine breaks into pieces which, individually, don't really bring you much benefit.
Well I don’t know about you but the way my friends play is they use treasury to fill their decks with golds and then when they do buy a victory card, they have so many golds then it doesn’t matter if they don’t have treasury. Also when treasury is in the game it becomes a big money strategy and I hate big money strategies. Which is one the reasons why prosperity is my most hated expansion. And dark ages is one of my favorites. And another issue we have is most of friends are still new to dominion and don’t like mixing expansions. And we’re always playing with new players to dominion. And some of friends have analysis paralysis in a big way, which isn’t super problematic because we consider ourselves casual gamers. In fact I’ve had more fun losing at dominion than winning. So when you factor all that in I have a unique perspective on dominion. Which most like yourself would find strange. I also play tons of other board games, which I love way more than dominion. So it’s not like we play it all the time, maybe once a month at most.
@@Animal_board_gamer Oh, okay, gotcha :). ... Still, seeing as you know the game better than most of your friends, you should be able to beat them really often when all they do is go for BM and indulge in cards like Treasury. I don't mean to say it's a bad card -- especially when you want to build your cards around virtual money rather than treasures. All I'm saying that a 5-cost card should do something more to you than just be a cantrip with +1 coin and a limited-time recurrence.
@@barsorrro I used to beat them at dominion all the time. But that became problematic, because they were losing interest in the game. So now I don’t play dominion to win and try out different combos. I’m just happy to get together and play a board game. I own like 100 board games, so there other games I enjoy more than dominion (like everdell) right now though we only get together once every 2 weeks. Oh yeah if you’re interested I created my own dominion expansion called snowline. I posted videos explaining the cards I made on my UA-cam channel. So type in dominion snowline not official and you should find the videos. If you’re interested.
@@Animal_board_gamer Yeah, I kind of understand better now where you're coming from. Mine is obviously a very different perspective, because I only play online and that's a very different, highly competitive environment. Also, I have a friend I'm playing with -- also online -- and he is a very competitive person by nature and somebody with a knack for all logic/strategy games: he's pushing me really hard in Dominion: plainly speaking -- he's much better than me :D. So, I can't help but be critical about cards which are slow or ineffective. But I understand that in your playing environment it's not about eeking out every drop of efficiency, but more about enjoying the various combos. I really dig that, although it's unlikely that I will get to play like that myself.
It does seem like Rio Grande likes their theme more than their balancing in these slightly older expansions. The embargo is a perfect example, you are basically playing with a 9 kingdom card game if you play with Embargo, but for history and theme, it is a well-made card, having an embargo on something does make people not get that card more often than if you didn't play with it. I played an Empire only game where my opponent's engine was built around gaining one million silvers and getting provinces after he had most of the silvers (like 95%) and if I had embargos you would bet that I would put them on that silver. But this underlines the main problem in my experience and opinion of Embargo, it has that, "When a player buys" and that hurts the card in a multi expansion game. Many engines build around gaining for free and using said gains to mill out their own deck to get the real cards they want or for any other reason, and if they ever buy the card that they gain, then that is a wasted buy in most cases. I agree that MOST people hate Embargo, (I am one of them) and I understand why you think it is an eh card, but I just am not convinced by your reasoning although I respect it.
I'm not quite sure if I can fully follow your argument, but to sum up what I think about Embargo: it's just super, super weak. You rarely don't want a card your opponent wants and it's rarely that they wouldn't buy it just because it was embargoed (if it's a really powerful card). You basically have two scenarios there: either you embargo a pile of expensive, powerful, usually terminal action cards, in which case your opponent only needs one or two copies and -- if they have brains :) -- they will buy those two copies anyway; or, alternatively, you want to embargo a pile of cheap, useful, easy-to-play-cards (like Ironmongers), in which case your opponent will just leave it alone, as will you, and the game will go on as if the pile was never there. In any case, you had spent a buy on getting and an action on playing what is effectively a Silver. I don't hate this card. I just think it's not meaningful.
@@barsorrro I completely agree and also believe the same thing that you said is accurate, I wanted to get to something, though, that isn't often talked about. Sure, the things you mentioned are accurate, but I don't hear many times the, "Buy only" thing that happens with cards like curses. If you were allowed to put it on curses then the card would be a little more useful (provided that gaining and buying are interchangeable which we both know isn't true). Take an example where you place two tokens are the curse pile and then place one on a card that can be bought, if the opponent then buys a copy of that card then they would also get a curse and then because they gained a curse and there are tokens on the curse that player would get two more, but we both know this scenario is not going to happen because of the gain being different than the buying of a card. What I am trying to say here is that if Embargo was again, rather than a buy, said, 'Gain", the card would be more useful and maybe, in some cases, the card could shine in 1 in 1000 games. As it sits though, it isn't by any means a viable card and doesn't work with anything, I love to have control over my actions, and Embargo, by its very nature, is not controllable. :)
@@gamelandmaster3680 Oh, yeah, now I get you! Yes, you're totally right! Making "gain", rather than "buy", the trigger action for embargo effect would, indeed, vastly improve it. Also, the idea that you present, namely: that you could embargo a curse, effectively creating a curse-multiplier effect, is very, very interesting. I'm not exactly sure it would turn Embargo into a decently good card, but it would certainly make it an interesting choice to consider under some circumstances (basically: whenever there were another effective curser-card in the kingdom). I guess that the reason they didn't go for that might be the question of the theme that you yourself also mentioned before: thematically speaking, embargoing something like a curse (or a Ruin) doesn't make much sense, in real life you embargo goods, and only the desirable ones. Also, they may have actually tested the scenario of "gain-embargoing" curses or ruins and they may have come up with a judgement that this would unbalance the game too much -- the more I think about it, the more I see it as a potential OP play.
Your recommendation about Treasure map is partly right, partly wrong, in my opinion. You can basically have two approaches to this. Either you go for it in the early game and, just as you say, you prioritize it over other things, or, indeed, you go for it a bit later. In the first scenario, you want to get your 4 Golds early, because you can do it on the cheap -- 2 Maps are cheaper than 4 Golds. And, of course, these 4 Golds will sort of be wasted, because you don't really want to buy Provinces at that stage of the game, but you can just treat it as an investment: it's very likely you will not need any more Treasures for the rest of the game. It's a somewhat reasonable, although risky, approach to a general Big Money strategy -- all you're interested in is loads of payload and some draw. The downside, obviously, is that you need some luck for those maps to collide early, because the more you dilute your deck with anything else -- for example, the powerful terminal draw cards you will need later, the more difficult it is to get the maps together in one hand. As for the second scenario, and I admit it wouldn't be a common thing to go for, you might still want to go for maps at a later stage of the game, if you had dedicated your early game to trashing rubbish and getting good draw. Yes, if your deck is already effective, then perhaps it's easier to actually buy the Golds (especially as you probably don't need 4 of them necessarily), but too much gold rarely hurts, especially if there are contingent factors like some good trashing for benefit (there's no pleasure equal to trashing a Gold for Victory Points! :D).
Yeah what you say is definitely logical. Its a good big money strategy for sure. I’m sure most people like big money strategies, But I’m not a big money strategist. I don’t have as much fun with big money strategies. I like scrounging my way from the bottom and working my way up. Just like dark ages is likely to provide that for me.
@@Animal_board_gamer I'm totally with you on that. That's why I don't think Treasure Map is particularly good. It's below average for me -- much below average, in fact, since it only works with BM, and BM is neither fun (for me) or exceptionally powerful. I was mostly about pointing out that TM can work also in later stages of the game -- you simply need means to make the maps collide. Innovation project is a killer in TM kingdom, cause all you need is a Map in hand and 4 coins in your buy phase (or, even better, a gainer for 4-drops).
I think getting a few Treasure Maps into your Deck early is also a lot easier if you're also playing with Workshop. Meanwhile, digging two Treasure Maps out of your deck and putting them into into your hand could also be done with draw cards like Cellar, Warehouse, or Library. Deck manipulation cards like Explorer (or Lookout) also could be used to look at the top 5 cards of your deck and if none of them are the Treasure Map(s) you're look for then you can discard all five of them and then potentially play a draw card to dig deeper. I'm just brainstorming some ideas for how you could make a Treasure Map strategy work.
Spencer! My goodness! How can you rate Salvager below Embargo!? Salvager is a critical card! It can help you win the game over one turn toward the end! Yes, it's not great for trashing coppers, just as a Chapel is not designed for trashing for benefit. The fact that you can get rid of your Estates profitably already makes it a worthwhile card even for the early game, which is certainly not where it really shines.
I’m not a huge fan of trashing cards. And I’m a big fan of attack cards. And the fact that embargo isn’t an attack all the more better, but similar. I also love I’ll gotten gains from hinterlands. So yeah I love embargo and just think salvager is so-so. Sure trashing cards is very important and there are some from dark ages I absolutely love. But the trashers from seaside are just not as interesting. So maybe I’ll do a review of dark ages next.
Also winning isn’t everything. I don’t play dominion to win. Most of the time I’m teaching the game to someone anyway, and if the teacher is always winning than the student will lose interest. So I enjoy playing different strategies and have had a lot of fun losing. Sure I do like to win. But I’m a very good sport.
@@Animal_board_gamer I highly respect that. Games are meant to have fun with them. I do have to admit I take Dominion a bit too competitively, but that's in part due to circumstances I'm playing it. Also, that's all a bit ridiculous, because I don't have a natural talent to be good at a game of this type -- I'm like pretty good among the average or very average about the moderately good :).
Not to mention that Rats and Salvager is a really and I mean REALLY good combo in its synergy. You play Rats in the early game you get a relative cheap Salvager and you trash the Rats, not only do you get 4 coins for the Salvager but you get a card from Rats and you get a buy. I would say that these two cards are the best Rats + trashing cards combos in the game thus far (as of 2/5/2022).
Well that’s fine too. But remember they got rid of 6 cards and then added 7 cards to both the bace game and intrigue. So they might do it similar. Also the only thing I remember is they said they will get rid of some of the cards and add 9 cards.
@@fightingkitchen7960 exactly! So what did you think about the cards I liked the most, do you hate any of them? Or do you really like some of the cards I hated or I thought was just so-so. Also would you be interested if i reviewed other expansions? Any in particular?
@@Animal_board_gamer Well, I actually don’t have any Dominion expansions so I can’t be certain but I do think the treasure map feels cool when you actually have 2 in your hand. I don’t think you did a Renaissance review yet right?
@@fightingkitchen7960 yes I didn’t do renaissance. However I don’t actually have that expansion or intrigue. But I have everything else. Also if you don’t have the expansions, I do have other videos where I explain the cards in detail. They are called what’s in the box. I also created my own dominion expansion called snowline, so you can take a look at that if you’re interested.
Your reasoning about Haven is very, very strange to me. You're trying to present Dominion as that primitive classic cards' game of War (or Battle): you draw a card from the the top of your deck, hardly knowing beforehand what it might be, and now you decide what to do with it -- and if you don't get anything tangible in return that very same turn, then that's all no good.. Well, that's not exactly Dominion, is it? :) It's a deck-building game -- you put cards into your deck with some plans in mind and some ideas about what proportions of various cards you should have in order for your deck to work. Haven is a very good 2-drop, because it lets you overextend slightly on your terminal action cards -- especially those that do something else than draw. It simply helps you relieve collisions of terminals you can't play in one turn because of the shortage of actions. Also, for some specific cards in specific situations, they may require specific conditions to be played at a profit, so it can be beneficial to postpone their play even if you have actions to do it this turn.
Yeah it’s okay. I just prefer gear to haven. Once again my opinion on haven is contingent on who I play with. My friends with gear and with haven have almost never set aside cards, because they don’t see the point in it. The extra text for them is a waste of space. At least with gear there’s a possibility that they will set aside cards. That never happens with haven though because of the extra action. Which is why i rate it lower than most. You have heard the expression you are what you eat right? In much the same way, the way I view certain cards is who I’ve played them with.
Yeah, to me, Embargo is very much a kingdom filler card and I would be very happy if it were to get axed and replaced by something actually meaningful for a game. You could compare it to a Duchess in how you would normally never buy it, unless you only had two coins for your buy and didn't want to just forfeit them. I find it really difficult to imagine a situation where there is a card that you totally don't want and which your opponents wants badly (and probably more than one copy of). This just doesn't happen. (Unless, perhaps, you're playing Lord Rattington online, and you want to make him pay for his appetite for golds, while you can build an engine which capitalises on virtual money; but even then, it's probably a waste of time and investment.) So, all in all, you're buying a one-use silver that requires a full action spent on getting its effect. How good is that? Well, it's just incredibly bad :).
Yeah many people don’t like embargo. But I love it. There was one game where I knew I was going to lose. Thanks to pirate ship constantly trashing every silver before I got a chance to use, plus I lost a couple of coppers. And we had no other trasher. So misery loves company, so i decided to embargo the province pile. I embargoed it 3 times. And thanks to that the other 2 opponents each tied with me for last place. It was an epic match, it was the most fun I ever playing seaside. Can’t say the two guys who also lost had as much fun, but the person who won the game, it was their first time winning dominion, so at least 2 of us had a lot of fun. But I’m not surprised you don’t like it.
I have a question about Prosperity and Renaissance: If Prosperity is all about being rich won’t that break the game and make it easier since you can afford cards left and right? How much tactics and strategy will there be? Same thing with Renaissance, if you can save money and actions from turn to turn, won’t that break the game because if I have like 5 actions to use then it might make cards with +actions useless in that turn. I am interested in both of these expansions, I think they are interesting but I was also wondering if the mechanics they add break the game or make it too easy that there would be not much strategy and tactics.
@@fightingkitchen7960 tell you what I’ll do a review on prosperity next. So that should answer your question hopefully as far as prosperity is concerned. But I will say that prosperity comes with colony (VP10) with a 11$ cost. And platinum that’s worth 5$ but costs 9$ to buy. So while it is easier to buy provinces it still takes a while before you can buy colonies left and right. Also there are no actions that cost 2$ and only 3 cards that cost 3$. So that does even it out a little bit. Wait for my review to get the full picture.
@@fightingkitchen7960 as far as renaissance is concerned while I don’t have it. There only 2 village variants, and while mountain village is good. Hideout can be a little awkward at times. While you get a card and +2 actions, you also must trash a card from your hand and if you trash a victory card you gain a curse. So it’s not an action card you’ll be playing over and over again. As far as getting villagers is concerned. As you get them you can save them from turn to turn and can only use them when your out of actions. So technically the villagers won’t always get utilized, you might have leftover villagers at the end of game. But that does happen too often. Plus it’s not always easy to get a villager. Lackeys only gives you 2 villagers when you gain it. When you play it you only get 2 cards if you didn’t play a village before it you may find yourself using a villager. So can disappear pretty fast. Acting troupe gives you 4 villagers when you play it and then you have to trash the card, so a one time use just like embargo. Patron gives you +2 treasure and a villager when you play it. If you didn’t play a village beforehand than you might be using your villager right away. Silk merchant when you gain or trash it you get +1 coffers and +1 villager. When you play it you get +2 cards and a +buy. Recruiter gives you +2 cards when you play it and then you must trash a card from your hand and you gain villagers per the cost of the trashed card. So trash a silver get 3 villagers basically. Sculptor you gain a card costing up to 4$ if you gained a treasure card then you gain a villager. And there’s only like 3 of the 20 projects that give villagers. Since you can only play with 2 max you won’t likely be playing with the 3 that give villagers often. So there’s only like 6 cards that give out villagers and often times when I play I still have turns where I have action cards I can’t play.
Explorer seems like it would combo well with Merchant potentially.
However for a card that wasn’t very good to begin with, for it to combo well with just one or 2 cards, still isn’t good. Mostly because if you were playing a random game those cards showing up together is a once in a hundred chance. So no it just doesn’t really work out that way. If a card is going to have synergy it needs to have synergy with at least one card in the same expansion. Explorer does not have synergy with any card in seaside.
Which is why dark ages is one of the best expansions because almost every card in that expansion has synergy with other cards in that expansion.
Check out this video to see the synergy I speak of.
ua-cam.com/video/ywEt1IE1YRs/v-deo.html
I know this is a random question, but have you played Whistle Mountain & Viticulture + Tuscany? I’m curious.
No I haven’t. I know that whistle mountain is popular and viticulture is very popular, but I don’t much about Tuscany either. None of my friends own those games (one friend has Maracaibo and a lot of other complex euros) but I tend to be more interested in board games with aliens or animals and animalfolk. And for awhile I only plan to buy games with those themes. If I can afford them. Ark nova, lands of galazyr, wild Serengeti, Great Plains, meadow, creature comforts and many others. It’s not like publishers give me games for free. Although byrn smith did save zoo-ography for me to buy. (When pretty much everyone else who owns had to back it on Kickstarter, I’m one of the few who own who didn’t back it on Kickstarter) In fact byrn smith told me about his game zoo-ography on Facebook when I posted my thoughts on New York zoo, because he liked what I said about it. So then I looked up zoo-ography and I asked how I could get it since I missed the Kickstarter by a year. So he saved a copy for me, he most likely set one aside just for me to buy. So that’s really cool. And he even told me I explain how to play zoo-ography really well and asked if I could post it on board game geek. Which I of course was happy to do. So I most likely will get the next expansion for zoo-ography before even ark nova. Although Ryan laukat game me some ideas of how I could fix something for city of iron, so that my friends would want to play it when I finally bought it.
@@Animal_board_gamer Ok.
@@Animal_board_gamer Ok, have you heard of Caverna & Agricola? They both have animals.
@@fightingkitchen7960 yes both and while I’m interested in caverna I already have Agricola which I’ve has for 2 years and still haven’t bothered to play it, I guess I should say wild animals I’m not a huge fan of domestic animal games just wild animal games
@@Animal_board_gamer Have you heard ofThe Isle of Cats? It’s a tile laying game that has cats & has pretty good reviews.
About Cutpuse... Ask anybody if Militia is a powerful card. Well, there you have your verdict about the Cutpurse. Sure, Militia it is not, and hardly anybody will argue that Cutpurse is notably weaker, but it is still comparable. And I totally don't buy into your no-coppers-in-late-game argument. I have played well over 20 000 games of Dominion and those where all coppers get trashed are very, very rare. Yes, it's a sweet goal and occasionally a kingdom will let you do that -- in which case, obviously, Cutpurse is not a dud, but mostly rubbish -- in most kingdoms however, the deck trimming process takes a long time and is often not completed until the end of the game.
Cutpurse is mostly an early game card, and a very good one at that point, since it really slows your opponent down. It also works well in virtual money decks as a relatively cheap payload with a stacking attack effect (if your opponents haven't been able to trash their coppers).
Yeah of course you usually can’t get rid of all your coppers. But as far as attack cards go I just didn’t like cutpurse. If were comparing all attack cards together there are very few attack cards lower on my list then cutpurse.
How is Treasury super-powerful?! Okay, yes, I understand, you're guaranteed a couple of coins' worth at each turn, as long as you don't buy Victory Cards, but it costs 5! How many 5's do you want to invest in a rotational copper when at this price you can get a very powerful attack, a very strong draw or a nifty utility card like the Count or the Courtier? And when you buy your first Victory Card, your Treasury mini-engine breaks into pieces which, individually, don't really bring you much benefit.
Well I don’t know about you but the way my friends play is they use treasury to fill their decks with golds and then when they do buy a victory card, they have so many golds then it doesn’t matter if they don’t have treasury. Also when treasury is in the game it becomes a big money strategy and I hate big money strategies. Which is one the reasons why prosperity is my most hated expansion. And dark ages is one of my favorites. And another issue we have is most of friends are still new to dominion and don’t like mixing expansions. And we’re always playing with new players to dominion. And some of friends have analysis paralysis in a big way, which isn’t super problematic because we consider ourselves casual gamers. In fact I’ve had more fun losing at dominion than winning. So when you factor all that in I have a unique perspective on dominion. Which most like yourself would find strange. I also play tons of other board games, which I love way more than dominion. So it’s not like we play it all the time, maybe once a month at most.
@@Animal_board_gamer Oh, okay, gotcha :). ... Still, seeing as you know the game better than most of your friends, you should be able to beat them really often when all they do is go for BM and indulge in cards like Treasury. I don't mean to say it's a bad card -- especially when you want to build your cards around virtual money rather than treasures. All I'm saying that a 5-cost card should do something more to you than just be a cantrip with +1 coin and a limited-time recurrence.
@@barsorrro I used to beat them at dominion all the time. But that became problematic, because they were losing interest in the game. So now I don’t play dominion to win and try out different combos. I’m just happy to get together and play a board game. I own like 100 board games, so there other games I enjoy more than dominion (like everdell) right now though we only get together once every 2 weeks. Oh yeah if you’re interested I created my own dominion expansion called snowline. I posted videos explaining the cards I made on my UA-cam channel. So type in dominion snowline not official and you should find the videos. If you’re interested.
@@Animal_board_gamer Yeah, I kind of understand better now where you're coming from. Mine is obviously a very different perspective, because I only play online and that's a very different, highly competitive environment. Also, I have a friend I'm playing with -- also online -- and he is a very competitive person by nature and somebody with a knack for all logic/strategy games: he's pushing me really hard in Dominion: plainly speaking -- he's much better than me :D. So, I can't help but be critical about cards which are slow or ineffective. But I understand that in your playing environment it's not about eeking out every drop of efficiency, but more about enjoying the various combos. I really dig that, although it's unlikely that I will get to play like that myself.
It does seem like Rio Grande likes their theme more than their balancing in these slightly older expansions. The embargo is a perfect example, you are basically playing with a 9 kingdom card game if you play with Embargo, but for history and theme, it is a well-made card, having an embargo on something does make people not get that card more often than if you didn't play with it. I played an Empire only game where my opponent's engine was built around gaining one million silvers and getting provinces after he had most of the silvers (like 95%) and if I had embargos you would bet that I would put them on that silver. But this underlines the main problem in my experience and opinion of Embargo, it has that, "When a player buys" and that hurts the card in a multi expansion game. Many engines build around gaining for free and using said gains to mill out their own deck to get the real cards they want or for any other reason, and if they ever buy the card that they gain, then that is a wasted buy in most cases. I agree that MOST people hate Embargo, (I am one of them) and I understand why you think it is an eh card, but I just am not convinced by your reasoning although I respect it.
I'm not quite sure if I can fully follow your argument, but to sum up what I think about Embargo: it's just super, super weak. You rarely don't want a card your opponent wants and it's rarely that they wouldn't buy it just because it was embargoed (if it's a really powerful card). You basically have two scenarios there: either you embargo a pile of expensive, powerful, usually terminal action cards, in which case your opponent only needs one or two copies and -- if they have brains :) -- they will buy those two copies anyway;
or, alternatively, you want to embargo a pile of cheap, useful, easy-to-play-cards (like Ironmongers), in which case your opponent will just leave it alone, as will you, and the game will go on as if the pile was never there.
In any case, you had spent a buy on getting and an action on playing what is effectively a Silver.
I don't hate this card. I just think it's not meaningful.
@@barsorrro I completely agree and also believe the same thing that you said is accurate, I wanted to get to something, though, that isn't often talked about. Sure, the things you mentioned are accurate, but I don't hear many times the, "Buy only" thing that happens with cards like curses. If you were allowed to put it on curses then the card would be a little more useful (provided that gaining and buying are interchangeable which we both know isn't true). Take an example where you place two tokens are the curse pile and then place one on a card that can be bought, if the opponent then buys a copy of that card then they would also get a curse and then because they gained a curse and there are tokens on the curse that player would get two more, but we both know this scenario is not going to happen because of the gain being different than the buying of a card.
What I am trying to say here is that if Embargo was again, rather than a buy, said, 'Gain", the card would be more useful and maybe, in some cases, the card could shine in 1 in 1000 games. As it sits though, it isn't by any means a viable card and doesn't work with anything, I love to have control over my actions, and Embargo, by its very nature, is not controllable. :)
@@gamelandmaster3680 Oh, yeah, now I get you! Yes, you're totally right! Making "gain", rather than "buy", the trigger action for embargo effect would, indeed, vastly improve it. Also, the idea that you present, namely: that you could embargo a curse, effectively creating a curse-multiplier effect, is very, very interesting. I'm not exactly sure it would turn Embargo into a decently good card, but it would certainly make it an interesting choice to consider under some circumstances (basically: whenever there were another effective curser-card in the kingdom). I guess that the reason they didn't go for that might be the question of the theme that you yourself also mentioned before: thematically speaking, embargoing something like a curse (or a Ruin) doesn't make much sense, in real life you embargo goods, and only the desirable ones. Also, they may have actually tested the scenario of "gain-embargoing" curses or ruins and they may have come up with a judgement that this would unbalance the game too much -- the more I think about it, the more I see it as a potential OP play.
Your recommendation about Treasure map is partly right, partly wrong, in my opinion. You can basically have two approaches to this. Either you go for it in the early game and, just as you say, you prioritize it over other things, or, indeed, you go for it a bit later. In the first scenario, you want to get your 4 Golds early, because you can do it on the cheap -- 2 Maps are cheaper than 4 Golds. And, of course, these 4 Golds will sort of be wasted, because you don't really want to buy Provinces at that stage of the game, but you can just treat it as an investment: it's very likely you will not need any more Treasures for the rest of the game. It's a somewhat reasonable, although risky, approach to a general Big Money strategy -- all you're interested in is loads of payload and some draw. The downside, obviously, is that you need some luck for those maps to collide early, because the more you dilute your deck with anything else -- for example, the powerful terminal draw cards you will need later, the more difficult it is to get the maps together in one hand.
As for the second scenario, and I admit it wouldn't be a common thing to go for, you might still want to go for maps at a later stage of the game, if you had dedicated your early game to trashing rubbish and getting good draw. Yes, if your deck is already effective, then perhaps it's easier to actually buy the Golds (especially as you probably don't need 4 of them necessarily), but too much gold rarely hurts, especially if there are contingent factors like some good trashing for benefit (there's no pleasure equal to trashing a Gold for Victory Points! :D).
Yeah what you say is definitely logical. Its a good big money strategy for sure. I’m sure most people like big money strategies, But I’m not a big money strategist. I don’t have as much fun with big money strategies. I like scrounging my way from the bottom and working my way up. Just like dark ages is likely to provide that for me.
@@Animal_board_gamer I'm totally with you on that. That's why I don't think Treasure Map is particularly good. It's below average for me -- much below average, in fact, since it only works with BM, and BM is neither fun (for me) or exceptionally powerful. I was mostly about pointing out that TM can work also in later stages of the game -- you simply need means to make the maps collide. Innovation project is a killer in TM kingdom, cause all you need is a Map in hand and 4 coins in your buy phase (or, even better, a gainer for 4-drops).
I think getting a few Treasure Maps into your Deck early is also a lot easier if you're also playing with Workshop. Meanwhile, digging two Treasure Maps out of your deck and putting them into into your hand could also be done with draw cards like Cellar, Warehouse, or Library. Deck manipulation cards like Explorer (or Lookout) also could be used to look at the top 5 cards of your deck and if none of them are the Treasure Map(s) you're look for then you can discard all five of them and then potentially play a draw card to dig deeper. I'm just brainstorming some ideas for how you could make a Treasure Map strategy work.
Spencer! My goodness! How can you rate Salvager below Embargo!? Salvager is a critical card! It can help you win the game over one turn toward the end! Yes, it's not great for trashing coppers, just as a Chapel is not designed for trashing for benefit. The fact that you can get rid of your Estates profitably already makes it a worthwhile card even for the early game, which is certainly not where it really shines.
I’m not a huge fan of trashing cards. And I’m a big fan of attack cards. And the fact that embargo isn’t an attack all the more better, but similar. I also love I’ll gotten gains from hinterlands. So yeah I love embargo and just think salvager is so-so. Sure trashing cards is very important and there are some from dark ages I absolutely love. But the trashers from seaside are just not as interesting. So maybe I’ll do a review of dark ages next.
Also winning isn’t everything. I don’t play dominion to win. Most of the time I’m teaching the game to someone anyway, and if the teacher is always winning than the student will lose interest. So I enjoy playing different strategies and have had a lot of fun losing. Sure I do like to win. But I’m a very good sport.
@@Animal_board_gamer I highly respect that. Games are meant to have fun with them. I do have to admit I take Dominion a bit too competitively, but that's in part due to circumstances I'm playing it. Also, that's all a bit ridiculous, because I don't have a natural talent to be good at a game of this type -- I'm like pretty good among the average or very average about the moderately good :).
Not to mention that Rats and Salvager is a really and I mean REALLY good combo in its synergy. You play Rats in the early game you get a relative cheap Salvager and you trash the Rats, not only do you get 4 coins for the Salvager but you get a card from Rats and you get a buy. I would say that these two cards are the best Rats + trashing cards combos in the game thus far (as of 2/5/2022).
I think they said they were going to get rid of 9 cards and replace them with 9 cards.
Well that’s fine too. But remember they got rid of 6 cards and then added 7 cards to both the bace game and intrigue. So they might do it similar. Also the only thing I remember is they said they will get rid of some of the cards and add 9 cards.
@@Animal_board_gamer I guess, well, we’ll really find out when it’s released.
@@fightingkitchen7960 exactly! So what did you think about the cards I liked the most, do you hate any of them? Or do you really like some of the cards I hated or I thought was just so-so. Also would you be interested if i reviewed other expansions? Any in particular?
@@Animal_board_gamer Well, I actually don’t have any Dominion expansions so I can’t be certain but I do think the treasure map feels cool when you actually have 2 in your hand.
I don’t think you did a Renaissance review yet right?
@@fightingkitchen7960 yes I didn’t do renaissance. However I don’t actually have that expansion or intrigue. But I have everything else. Also if you don’t have the expansions, I do have other videos where I explain the cards in detail. They are called what’s in the box. I also created my own dominion expansion called snowline, so you can take a look at that if you’re interested.
Your reasoning about Haven is very, very strange to me. You're trying to present Dominion as that primitive classic cards' game of War (or Battle): you draw a card from the the top of your deck, hardly knowing beforehand what it might be, and now you decide what to do with it -- and if you don't get anything tangible in return that very same turn, then that's all no good.. Well, that's not exactly Dominion, is it? :) It's a deck-building game -- you put cards into your deck with some plans in mind and some ideas about what proportions of various cards you should have in order for your deck to work. Haven is a very good 2-drop, because it lets you overextend slightly on your terminal action cards -- especially those that do something else than draw. It simply helps you relieve collisions of terminals you can't play in one turn because of the shortage of actions. Also, for some specific cards in specific situations, they may require specific conditions to be played at a profit, so it can be beneficial to postpone their play even if you have actions to do it this turn.
Yeah it’s okay. I just prefer gear to haven. Once again my opinion on haven is contingent on who I play with. My friends with gear and with haven have almost never set aside cards, because they don’t see the point in it. The extra text for them is a waste of space. At least with gear there’s a possibility that they will set aside cards. That never happens with haven though because of the extra action. Which is why i rate it lower than most. You have heard the expression you are what you eat right? In much the same way, the way I view certain cards is who I’ve played them with.
Yeah, to me, Embargo is very much a kingdom filler card and I would be very happy if it were to get axed and replaced by something actually meaningful for a game. You could compare it to a Duchess in how you would normally never buy it, unless you only had two coins for your buy and didn't want to just forfeit them. I find it really difficult to imagine a situation where there is a card that you totally don't want and which your opponents wants badly (and probably more than one copy of). This just doesn't happen. (Unless, perhaps, you're playing Lord Rattington online, and you want to make him pay for his appetite for golds, while you can build an engine which capitalises on virtual money; but even then, it's probably a waste of time and investment.) So, all in all, you're buying a one-use silver that requires a full action spent on getting its effect. How good is that? Well, it's just incredibly bad :).
Yeah many people don’t like embargo. But I love it. There was one game where I knew I was going to lose. Thanks to pirate ship constantly trashing every silver before I got a chance to use, plus I lost a couple of coppers. And we had no other trasher. So misery loves company, so i decided to embargo the province pile. I embargoed it 3 times. And thanks to that the other 2 opponents each tied with me for last place. It was an epic match, it was the most fun I ever playing seaside. Can’t say the two guys who also lost had as much fun, but the person who won the game, it was their first time winning dominion, so at least 2 of us had a lot of fun. But I’m not surprised you don’t like it.
I have a question about Prosperity and Renaissance:
If Prosperity is all about being rich won’t that break the game and make it easier since you can afford cards left and right? How much tactics and strategy will there be?
Same thing with Renaissance, if you can save money and actions from turn to turn, won’t that break the game because if I have like 5 actions to use then it might make cards with +actions useless in that turn.
I am interested in both of these expansions, I think they are interesting but I was also wondering if the mechanics they add break the game or make it too easy that there would be not much strategy and tactics.
@@fightingkitchen7960 tell you what I’ll do a review on prosperity next. So that should answer your question hopefully as far as prosperity is concerned. But I will say that prosperity comes with colony (VP10) with a 11$ cost. And platinum that’s worth 5$ but costs 9$ to buy. So while it is easier to buy provinces it still takes a while before you can buy colonies left and right. Also there are no actions that cost 2$ and only 3 cards that cost 3$. So that does even it out a little bit. Wait for my review to get the full picture.
@@fightingkitchen7960 as far as renaissance is concerned while I don’t have it. There only 2 village variants, and while mountain village is good. Hideout can be a little awkward at times. While you get a card and +2 actions, you also must trash a card from your hand and if you trash a victory card you gain a curse. So it’s not an action card you’ll be playing over and over again. As far as getting villagers is concerned. As you get them you can save them from turn to turn and can only use them when your out of actions. So technically the villagers won’t always get utilized, you might have leftover villagers at the end of game. But that does happen too often. Plus it’s not always easy to get a villager.
Lackeys only gives you 2 villagers when you gain it. When you play it you only get 2 cards if you didn’t play a village before it you may find yourself using a villager. So can disappear pretty fast.
Acting troupe gives you 4 villagers when you play it and then you have to trash the card, so a one time use just like embargo.
Patron gives you +2 treasure and a villager when you play it. If you didn’t play a village beforehand than you might be using your villager right away.
Silk merchant when you gain or trash it you get +1 coffers and +1 villager. When you play it you get +2 cards and a +buy.
Recruiter gives you +2 cards when you play it and then you must trash a card from your hand and you gain villagers per the cost of the trashed card. So trash a silver get 3 villagers basically.
Sculptor you gain a card costing up to 4$ if you gained a treasure card then you gain a villager.
And there’s only like 3 of the 20 projects that give villagers. Since you can only play with 2 max you won’t likely be playing with the 3 that give villagers often.
So there’s only like 6 cards that give out villagers and often times when I play I still have turns where I have action cards I can’t play.
@@Animal_board_gamer Ok, thank you for replying!