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Hi, I'm wondering why the game is supposed to end when provinces/3 piles run out instead of ending on the last player's (the last player to start) turn after those criteria are met. Even with the official tiebreaker, the player to go first seems to have a huge advantage. If the game were to end on the last player's turn instead, then it would be a small trade-off between having more power to control the game end (for the later players), and the ability to play action-attacks on earlier turns of other players (for the earlier players). Of course I can play this way anyways as long as everyone agrees, but am I missing something?
Thanks!
EDIT: Oh and forgot to mention that earlier players also have the advantage of more opportunities to buy cards that eventually run out.
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Robert Ell
United States
Emeryville
California
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There have been many discussions about this. Your inclination is right, that equal turns makes the game more fair. So do phantom provinces (ie, players taking their last turn after game end can still buy a province).
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joewtwins
United States
Des Moines
Iowa
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Some play this as a variant.
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Fred Snertz
United States
Mountain View
California
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This comes up a lot and you can find other threads discussing it. For what its worth, my group always plays an equal number of turns. I'm not a fan of house rules and this is the only one we consistently use across all board games. If all the provinces are gone, the last players are still at a slight disadvantage. Others are going to tell you that the game is short enough that everyone can have a turn going first.
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Thanks for the responses! I had expected that this would have been brought up already, but I didn't spot the threads when I looked earlier. I saw on Rio Grande's website that there are Dominion tournaments. Do they use the official rules on this? Seems like it could be quite imbalanced depending on how fast the game is.
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Paul W
United States
Eugene
Oregon
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Well, in the (online) tournaments I've participated in you play matches of about 7 games, which greatly reduces the turn order bias. Of course, there's enough luck in the game that you really want to play multiple matches if you're trying to determine the "better player" anyway. For some perspective on the size of the effect, my overall win rate in online games is about 68% when I go first and 56% when I go second.
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Jeff Wood
United States
Davis
California
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Bear in mind also the effects of cards like Outpost, that gives players additional out-of-sequence turns. This where the # of turns tie-breaker really comes into play.
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Paul W
United States
Eugene
Oregon
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Cinnibar wrote: Bear in mind also the effects of cards like Outpost, that gives players additional out-of-sequence turns. This where the # of turns tie-breaker really comes into play.
Hm? To the best of my knowledge (and as implemented on Isotropic), extra turns such as those from Outpost or Possession have no bearing on the tie-breaker.
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Robert Ell
United States
Emeryville
California
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fizzmore wrote: Cinnibar wrote: Bear in mind also the effects of cards like Outpost, that gives players additional out-of-sequence turns. This where the # of turns tie-breaker really comes into play. Hm? To the best of my knowledge (and as implemented on Isotropic), extra turns such as those from Outpost or Possession have no bearing on the tie-breaker.
This is correct. You don't have to keep track of the turn total from Outpost and Possession just in case the game ends in a tie. That would be absurd.
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brian
United States
Cedar Lake
Indiana
Mourning the end of the Manning era.
Welcome baby brother Toby James, 03/24, 8 lb. 15 oz.
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Elltrain wrote: fizzmore wrote: Cinnibar wrote: Bear in mind also the effects of cards like Outpost, that gives players additional out-of-sequence turns. This where the # of turns tie-breaker really comes into play. Hm? To the best of my knowledge (and as implemented on Isotropic), extra turns such as those from Outpost or Possession have no bearing on the tie-breaker. This is correct. You don't have to keep track of the turn total from Outpost and Possession just in case the game ends in a tie. That would be absurd.
It is counted this way in Androminion as well. They are "turns" and nothing in the rules say you do NOT count them as such.
But tracking these extra turns in a face-to-face game just isn't practical (unless you want to use some token to mark them) and best left to computers to do that for you.
In my experience, ties are pretty few and far between, and sometimes number of turns breaks the tie, but most times it doesn't.
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'The Completist'
United States
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As far as I am concerned if your opponent was crafty enough to get extra turns and tie you, you don't deserve to win.
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Tim Stellmach
United States
Arlington
Massachusetts
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fizzmore wrote: Cinnibar wrote: Bear in mind also the effects of cards like Outpost, that gives players additional out-of-sequence turns. This where the # of turns tie-breaker really comes into play. Hm? To the best of my knowledge (and as implemented on Isotropic), extra turns such as those from Outpost or Possession have no bearing on the tie-breaker.
Possession does not give you an extra turn anyway.
ColtsFan76 wrote: It is counted this way in Androminion as well. They are "turns" and nothing in the rules say you do NOT count them as such.
Except for the part in the Alchemy rulebook that explicitly says Possession does not give you an extra turn. I have no dispute to offer regarding Outpost, though.
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James Newton
United Kingdom
Wiltshire
In the interest of giving credit where credit is due, my avatar is a scan of a hand-drawn caricature by cartoonist Jim Naylor which was done at my company's 20th anniversary dinner.
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ColtsFan76 wrote: They are "turns" and nothing in the rules say you do NOT count them as such.
Ahem ...
Alchemy Rules (on Possession) wrote: Possession turns (and other extra turns) do not count for the tiebreaker.
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brian
United States
Cedar Lake
Indiana
Mourning the end of the Manning era.
Welcome baby brother Toby James, 03/24, 8 lb. 15 oz.
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churchmouse wrote: ColtsFan76 wrote: They are "turns" and nothing in the rules say you do NOT count them as such. Ahem ... Alchemy Rules (on Possession) wrote: Possession turns (and other extra turns) do not count for the tiebreaker.
Ahem...
Outpost says no such thing. Outpost is counted as an extra turn in Adrominion.
I am not sure how Possession is counted because Possession doesn't work as it is supposed to anyway in that application. I make no such claim to Possession and was referring to the original post in my quote which was only talking about Outpost.
But I guess they retroactively ruled Seaside from Alchemy.
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Ryan McLelland
United States
Draper
Utah
Don't touch me!!!
Hi! How are you?!?
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Since Isotropic is used to beta test the sets and it carefully watched I would assume how it has it implemented is the "official" ruling. I like Androminion, and play it on occasion, but to elude to a non-official version of a game as being any kind of official rules bastion is silly.
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Jonathan Harrison
United States
Fisher
Illinois
South Quarter Independent Games
Firp! ding! blast!
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ColtsFan76 wrote: But I guess they retroactively ruled Seaside from Alchemy.
Yes. This. I'm aware of nothing at the time of Seaside's release that gave this ruling. In fact, our first game of this was won because my wife tied, on points, with another player who had used Outpost once.
See below.
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Paul W
United States
Eugene
Oregon
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Also, as far as ties...my experience in two players games is that true ties happen about 1 in 50 games. The tie breaker does come into effect with some regularity in my experience, but I don't have any numbers of that.
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Jonathan Harrison
United States
Fisher
Illinois
South Quarter Independent Games
Firp! ding! blast!
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DStu wrote:
donaldx wrote: SevenSpirits wrote: Technically, it sounds like we need to track extra outpost turns for the tiebreaker at the end. But that's not how it's supposed to work, right? Extra turns from Outposts do not count for the tiebreaker. I totally knew this had to be in the rules, and totally missed putting it in. It would be bad to count them for the tiebreaker, since they just represent how you went about trying to win, as opposed to getting an extra turn due to the turn order. And of course it would be bad to have to track them.
Wonderful. Can't believe I've missed that all these years. Thanks!
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Posted Tue Jan 31, 2012 12:59 am
