Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Game Reports => Topic started by: rspeer on June 19, 2011, 05:14:22 pm
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First of all: You may have seen me logging on with something called BuyBorg. This is the first implementation of the Dominion AI I'm developing at http://github.com/rspeer/golem. It's called "BuyBorg" because it only decides what to buy, and needs a human to decide everything else. It's not necessarily that good yet.
Anyway, I'm playing a test game against BuyBorg and it opens Potion/Warehouse. The only Alchemy card on the board is Apothecary. I sigh at the bot's incompetence, assuming it's going to leave itself floundering with ineffective hands full of copper in a colony game. For myself I open Silver/Warehouse.
Second time through its deck, it buys an apothecary and another warehouse.
Third time through, it buys another apothecary and a gold. Fourth time, it buys a platinum. Soon it's drawing enough money to get a platinum or a colony on every turn, and it's got something like three colonies by the time I finally buy a platinum.
So getting my ass handed to me by my own glitchy bot has shown me that Apothecary/Warehouse can apparently be a strong enough combo to open with, something I hadn't thought of before.
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Resistance is futile.
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The apothecary can be a very strong card. It is underestimated sometimes even by the top players on isotropic. The main problem is that it delivers big hands early and then peters out, giving 4 extra coppers to buy an alchemist on turn 6, and then giving 1 copper and a potion on turn 14 when you want to buy a province.
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The apothecary can be a very strong card. It is underestimated sometimes even by the top players on isotropic. The main problem is that it delivers big hands early and then peters out, giving 4 extra coppers to buy an alchemist on turn 6, and then giving 1 copper and a potion on turn 14 when you want to buy a province.
Overall, its usefulness does decline, but it still can deliver big hands by helping you with draws, and cards that use knowledge of what's coming next.
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Now try adding Counting House and Scout!
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I like Apothecary, probably too much for my own good actually.
Apothecary/Coppersmith can get to five provinces surprisingly fast. Open Potion/something non-terminal (Warehouse is really good here), get one Coppersmith and a few Apothecaries, and don't bother buying any money.
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I've been crushed a couple of times by people who open with a potion just for apothecary. The card is amazing early, and helps stop chains from stalling out later.