Dominion
Build 2365 - Small Patch
Patch 2359
Async Matchmaking
Automated Moves work in multiplayer
Bans respected in matchmade games
Other fixes and improvements
Plunder Release
Plunder is the 15th expansion to Dominion. It has 500 cards, with 40 new Kingdom card piles. There are Traits that will modify piles, Loot which is a new Type of treasure and enduring Durations.
"Across the sea, they have so much stuff. And it's so much better than your stuff. Finer
craftsmanship. Better quality materials. Shinier. They have crowns, tiaras, and diadems - and that's
just the hats. It's time to get some of that stuff. You want an easy life, and you're prepared to work
hard for it. So you've rounded up some old salty dogs, plus a sourpuss and a bitter goldfish. And
set sail. The sea is a harsh mistress, but a good cook, at least if you like everything really salty. There
are red skies tonight, so they'll be making a batch of Sailor's Delight, which you understand to have
tuna fish in it. And soon you'll be attacking merchant ships and taking their treasure. But the real treasure is the happy memories you'll be making." - Donald X. Vaccarino
New Build 2303
Improves Japanese text layout for some cards
Other fixes and improvements
Unfortunately Spy and Oracle seem to crash and the fixes didn't make this build. Suggest banning them until next patch.
New Patch 11/8
Big text rework to support translation
Some machine translations for German/French. Check Discord to help us improve translations!
Other fixes and improvements
Matchmaking & Daily Dominion
Summary
Daily Dominion
- Take one shot to win on a shared Kingdom vs the Hard AI
- Compare your wins over the past 7 days
Matchmaking
- Simplest implementation for this first iteration
- Single pool: 2 player / Unranked / 30 minute timer (will be 'Realtime' next patch)
- Kingdom setup uses both players' owned expansions
- Bans from both players respected (will migrate this feature to all multiplayer shortly)
Other fixes and improvements
Developer Notes
Daily Dominion
The Daily Dominion is one unique game that all players around the world can try their hand at on the same day, and then compare their results. Jump right in from the Title Menu.
You're playing against the Hard AI, which is no easy feat to defeat! On top of that, you have one try, so make it count. We're inspired by our morning crossword puzzle addiction, so this is our take on a ritual daily puzzle.
We'll be tracking a bunch of stats for players who want to see how they rank among their friends and among the global community.
Leaderboard
When you win, you earn a crown, and these show up on your Daily Dominion page. This page is where you can track your stats. On the right is a leaderboard. This is where you see how well you're doing among your friends. It tracks how many wins each friend has over the past week. If you've got seven wins, that's a perfect score for the week! But if not, don't worry, the Daily Dominion refreshes each day at midnight Pacific time, so you can always try again tomorrow.
Histogram
On the left is a graph that shows how many wins all players across the world have been able to crank out in the past week. From this example, most players have achieved two wins this week. The line shows your individual progress in the context of the global community. In this case I have achieved two wins this week. A little room for improvement there!
More Stats
How many times you've attempted the Daily Dominion, win or lose, is tracked. How many times you've won in total is also tracked. We also show your average win rate in a week, so you can try to improve your rate over time. Your current streak of wins and your longest streak of wins are shown for those of you streak-happy folks.
Feedback
As a beta feature, we want to hear your thoughts as we evolve our designs. What do you think of the Daily Dominion? What would you change? Please drop feedback here on Steam, our Discord, or in our inbox info@TempleGatesGames.com.
Matchmaking
We are beginning our roll out of matchmaking. As we ramp up this feature, we'll be adding more and more bells and whistles, but we want to build on the basics and make them super solid before frilling it up.
Configuration
In this implementation we offer a single pool of players. Games are always two player games. Games are unranked. There is a thirty minute timer, so expect to play in real-time with focused attention on the match. The Kingdom is determined once players are matched for a game, and our algorithm uses a union of both player's owned expansions to determine the pool of cards to draw from.
Banned cards
Similarly the algorithm honors both player's banned cards when determining the kingdom cards, so you won't have to worry about playing with a card you just don't care for. Banning a card has a bit of a roundabout flow, please pardon our dust as we work to make this a smoother process in the future. To ban a card, open the Create Game UI and click the '...' button to open the Card Picker. Right click or long-press on a card to open the ban UI. You can then leave the Create Game menu to join a matchmade game. Banned cards remain banned across your games including matchmade ones until you unban them.
--Theresa Duringer
Hinterlands Second Edition Release
How does first edition / second edition work?
All expansions, including Hinterlands, come with the up to date content on purchase. To play with these new cards, buy Hinterlands. If you're itching for that nostalgic game, Hinterlands First Edition cards are still being supported as a standalone pack. This pack includes the nine cards that have been since removed. If you already owned Hinterlands before we published this revision, you lucky duck, you now own both. We do this so we aren't scooping anyone's favorite card out from under them. If you own both Hinterlands and Hinterlands First Edition you can choose which you want to play with or combine them together.
Notes from Donald included below.
"Hinterlands 2E! What were the odds. But here it is.
As with the other two sets, I had no specific objective for Hinterlands beyond... actually, you know what? This set could use more of a theme. I love having lots of when-gain cards, but it's just a bit invisible. What about... Reactions? The set already has three of them. Yeah, let's go with that. A Reactions subtheme. And then, just taking out bad-to-print cards for good-to-print ones.
Mandarin is very weak. You heard it here. Good rules of thumb: never get involved in a land war in Asia; don't buy Mandarin.
Weaver has no relation to it; Mandarin was doing nothing for the set. Weaver is a Reaction, starting in on that new subtheme. It's a Workshop, and you can play it when you discard it. Also fitting Hinterlands' other invisible theme, which is filtering.
Embassy is dull but okay; it lost out on numbers. It was a borderline card that people really didn't need to exist.
Wheelwright is unrelated. You discard a thing to gain a thing. Another way to discard those Tunnels and Weavers. And note that it's the second new way to gain cards, for the set where cards do things when you gain them.
Oracle isn't weak or strong really, but it's crazy slow. It's the bane of playtesting; they endlessly flip over the card you actually wanted to playtest. I haven't played with it in years, except for one game to make sure I really wanted to get rid of it. I did.
Witch's Hut again ties into the filtering theme. It's both the new Embassy and the attack that replaces Oracle.
As usual, the preview cards will be playable on dominion.games; in fact for those of you who aren't subscribing, previews will include all of Hinterlands.
Nomad Camp is basically a Woodcutter with a penalty; you don't tend to want it to be gained onto your deck. Woodcutter is already not a very good Woodcutter.
Nomads, now there's a sweet Woodcutter. So often there is some cute trick it can do.
Duchess had to be weak, since you could take one for free with a Duchy. It was still too weak. Man, it could at least have only looked at your own top card, without letting your opponents do it too.
Guard Dog has no connection, and is another new Reaction. Okay so. If they play say Witch, you can react to play your Guard Dog. If they play say Militia, don't react, just save Guard Dog for your turn, and then you'll draw 2 extra cards. Of course there are also all the other ways you can get the 4 cards. It's another one that plays into the filtering theme.
I like Cache, except for it being bad. If only I could move the +Buy from Margrave onto Cache (and from Wharf onto Merchant Ship). But I can't. And I mean. It's bad.
Souk is unrelated, beyond being another when-gain card. It rewards a small hand size, such as you might have after playing some filtering cards. And it gets in another when-gain trigger.
Noble Brigand is a fixed Thief, and yet still too weak. Bandit turns out to be the actual fixed Thief.
Berserker is another Attack that attacks right away. But the Attack is more meaningful, and it comes with more stuff.
Ill-Gotten Gains is a cute concept, but in practice makes for bad experiences. It was hard to even try to make a replacement along the same lines; I don't want games to be about emptying a certain pile that also empties the Curses, plus the Duchies.
Cauldron isn't tied to gaining Cauldrons, so it doesn't empty its own pile, just the Curses, and it's not even great at emptying those. But it's a Silver with a +Buy so it doesn't have to always Curse them. And it ties into the when-gain theme, being better with cards like Border Village.
Silk Road was another borderline card. The experts were sure they didn't have to see it any more. I couldn't just replace it with another Victory card though - they take two extra cards, and the update pack just had room for one extra card. Hinterlands is no longer the set with 3 Treasures, 3 Victory cards, 3 Reactions; now it's, 2 Treasures, 2 Victory cards, 6 Reactions.
Trail is such a thing of beauty. It's like the most Hinterlandsy Hinterlands card. It plays into both the when-gain and filtering themes, and is a Reaction. You can imagine a board where there's no combo for it, but really it never happens.
Three cards got errata. As you know, I was avoiding this-turn and also when-buy. So. Farmland is now when-gain. To avoid loops with Fortress, it can't gain Farmland. That was just the simplest fix. Haggler is this-turn; now you can Throne Room it. It still cares about bought cards, because it had to, but it triggers on gains like everything else. And then Highway is also a Throne-able this-turn." - Donald X. Vaccarino
Build 2162
Other fixes and improvements
Prosperity 2E Release
Japanese translations for Seaside 2E
Unlimited local bans
Other fixes and improvement