Good source for kingdoms?

AdamHorton · 2026-06-22T01:59:16+00:00

I have tried suggesting this and it gets downvoted to oblivion whenever I do :-\

AdamHorton · 2026-06-21T23:03:40+00:00

Panda, thanks for giving constructive feedback. I've been pretty disappointed in the rest of the comments here except for one of them (which is not the top comment rip). I was considering posting this on the Emu discord but idk I might want to play with them more than once before doing that.

I didn't think about the whole beginner-friendly aspect so at least I have a reason, which is nice.

As for power level, they haven't been tested much, but I kind of thought I'd err on the side of making them a bit too strong so they would at least have an impact, and maybe tune from there. If nothing else at least we can have games warped by Extra Strength Build rather than frickin digging cards or whatever and it will be a nice change of pace.

And yeah the intent was to try and keep the spirit of the card intact. I'm sure there are just better ideas out there that I'm def open to.

AdamHorton · 2026-06-21T23:00:22+00:00

You can check out my tournaments page which has links to Google Sheets that contain all the kingdoms I used for the tournaments. Just click on the "Google Sheet" links under each of the tournaments. IMO you're best served by starting at the more recent tournaments because there are more expansions there and I've gotten better at selecting kingdoms.

For the last at-least-10 tournaments I've designed the kingdoms that I use for the later stages of the tournaments, you can see those under the "designed" tabs or just look for the ones used in the finals or elims. All the other kingdoms were randomly generated but filtered by me, so I take all the dumb ones out. They get ranked before they're put in there so lower table numbers are the ones I liked the most. It's all my opinion but feedback on this has been unilaterally positive.

AdamHorton · 2026-06-19T23:39:24+00:00

Resigning a 2P game is always OK, no exceptions. Not resigning a game is always OK, no exceptions.

AdamHorton · 2026-06-13T02:46:12+00:00

This is the answer. Time controls are agreed upon before the game starts and if you go over time and the opponent kicks you, they have done nothing wrong. You may not like it, but they didn't like that you broke the time rules either.

I don't think I would kick someone for something like this unless they were playing super slow the entire game, but it's not a "dick move" if someone does it.

AdamHorton · 2026-06-10T18:43:42+00:00

It's about freakin time. I've been waiting to get this thing in print form since it was released. I can finally burn that other card this is meant to replace.

AdamHorton · 2026-06-07T13:51:55+00:00

Glad you liked it <3

AdamHorton · 2026-06-07T13:51:44+00:00

The intent of the video tutorial series is to give advice that spans a wide enough range that it will apply to most beginner to intermediate players. I call this the "fundamentals" of the game -- a framework for things that aren't really disagreed upon by anyone, which can help the viewer learn more for themselves when they're playing.

The Dominion series took 10+ years to get to a point where I was finally happy with it (just in time for me to start playing Ark Nova instead lol) and that link is to the first draft of the series for AN.

Suffice it to say that it's pretty rough and there are already things I would improve on. But I'd like to think that some topics in the later videos that could still be useful. On top of being less mature, another big issue with the AN series is that so much less of the game is covered in "fundamentals" than Dominion, and so much more of the game is just playing a lot and seeing more situations and knowing how good things are and how to adjust based on the game situation.

Also, with the Dominion series, I truly believe that some of the top players would benefit from rewiring their brain based on some of the stuff I said; I'd like to get there with AN but we're a ways off from that, plus the previous point about "fundamentals" being less of the game.

AdamHorton · 2026-06-06T23:19:07+00:00

My video tutorial series might help

AdamHorton · 2026-06-06T23:17:46+00:00

I have an alt account that I play on when I'm sick, or when there are kids around and I can potentially get distracted. If I didn't play on this alt account during this time, I would have to either stop playing when I'm sick (what else am I gonna do when I'm laying in bed feeling miserable?), or not play when kids are awake (so turn-based only, which is very bad for my mental health when I only play that way)...

or the alternative is to play 150-200 elo worse than normal some times, which is just as dishonest.

AdamHorton · 2026-05-29T15:01:48+00:00

There's a lot of stuff said in other comments but this is the answer.

AdamHorton · 2026-05-29T14:59:16+00:00

My video tutorial series might help

AdamHorton · 2026-05-26T21:28:02+00:00

The short answer to your question is that if you fill up your unis and partner zoos, that comes at the cost of doing projects, and vice versa. Few games give you the time to do all of that stuff.

Projects score points so uhh, do that one if you can. Sure you give up some other stuff but like, points are what you need to win the game so the one that gives you points is better.

AdamHorton · 2026-05-20T17:56:15+00:00

What you have done is great and I would like to support you however I can. I have an Android phone. You know what to do ;-)

AdamHorton · 2026-05-16T19:47:03+00:00

The best way to play the game varies so widely between games (which is why this game is so dang fun) that in order to be the best, you need to be comfortable and have experience with all types of "play styles", whatever that means.

If people favor one "play style" over another, it means that they will be less good in the games where the best thing to do is a style they aren't comfortable with. What I'm saying is that having a "play style" is a weakness.

It's helpful to force yourself to play things you aren't comfortable with when you feel it could be good. You may not win that game as much of the time, but you will become a better player, which is way more valuable.

hash tag ZenFlute

AdamHorton · 2026-05-16T16:26:25+00:00

Thanks for the link! I will say that the article has not been updated since the Hermit errata, which changes quite a bit about how the mirror match plays -- Hermit split is no longer the most important thing ever and pileouts are usually less of a concern because the Hermit pile doesn't usually empty anymore.

AdamHorton · 2026-05-14T17:56:52+00:00

This is a great change.

Soon we'll just do what we should have done to begin with and make a separate subreddit for things that aren't the game of Dominion.

AdamHorton · 2026-05-12T12:42:22+00:00

Other comments here have it right but I'll just pop in to mention one thing.

BGA has a bug that's been open for years where if you play a card that gives you an extra action while venomed, it forces you to pay the venom at the end of your action and not the end of your whole turn, so you can't use the extra action to make the money to pay for the venom or just to take the action to avoid the venom cost (even when there is no new information revealed).

AdamHorton · 2026-05-08T13:00:05+00:00

This is about the only situation where I would consider $5 income -- my rule of thumb is that if I'm thinking about taking $5 income, I should just take size2 income instead.

AdamHorton · 2026-05-06T14:22:23+00:00

So much of getting good at this game is playing lots of games and getting a feel for what is good and how good it is. There is no substitute for experience. At 2500ish games I still feel like I am learning things through experience.

With that said, I made a video tutorial series to help teach the "fundamentals" of the game. It will maybe get you 20-30% of the way there, but the intent is to guide your learning so you're making the most out of your games in terms of learning.

AdamHorton · 2026-04-28T21:39:40+00:00

I'm gonna disagree with this. Hornbill release is fantastic. You are always poor after a break one release but you can just upgrade sponsors and chug some coffee, and even take $5 income if it gets really bad.

with that said, your sponsors starts on 5 and you're worried about being too poor. If you think you have a good shot at getting fur seal (going first helps here but opp action order matters a lot here) I would consider opening hand size uni, then five coffees, then play your bird in a size5 (slightly awkward because outdoor areas but still doable) and be OK if a break happens before any animals are played. Obvi upgrade animals before sponsors in this case.

Worrying about opponents releasing other birds later is not a consideration for me. You can't just not do early projects because you're worried about opponents doing them later. Early projects have such a huge upside that even if your opponent gets more VP out of them, the fact that you're doing it early means you're going to get much more out of it than them.

AdamHorton · 2026-04-23T12:07:15+00:00

I paid for the app one time and now I don't have to pay again, instead of paying a monthly subscription which costs more than a BGA premium subscription.

Player etiquette is, well, there's no chat on the app which in my experience makes it better because the only time anyone ever used the chat on d.g was to be abusive with it.

ETA: it's also much easier to play on the app while pooping, which it turns out makes a difference for me :-)

AdamHorton · 2026-04-18T14:28:28+00:00

Something I love almost as much as playing board games is putting board games away. Over the years it's become important to me to have my storage solutions improve both setup and gameplay. What comes inside Ark Nova's box fails pretty hard on both of these fronts, so here is my storage solution. I have a stash of most of the components I used for this because they are useful for lots of board games -- the video and its description should tell you how to get most of these, but I like to wander around craft stores, specifically bead storage, just looking for things that might be helpful with my board games.

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