Dominion Strategy Forum
Meta => News and Announcements => Topic started by: theory on December 27, 2011, 10:07:57 am
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Here is our page intended for those who received Dominion as a Christmas gift, or anyone else new to this game: http://dominionstrategy.com/new-to-dominion/
What do you think we should add?
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Added a short bit on Big Money.
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That's the big thing I thought it needed. I was going to write a little thing up, so I'm glad you did.
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Pics to make it nice and colorful ;D
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Maybe it's also worth mentioning in the big money article that money got relatively worse with future expansions. Big money is more important in the base game, and you tend to get penalized more for trying to chain things in base. The solution to big money is dominant and boring is not just to get better and buy a smithy, but it's also to buy more expansions. The diminishing viability of big money has two causes, power creep with actions and cards like fishing village and king's court that really enable engines. Sure, maybe hinterlands cooled this trend, but it's been there for awhile.
(Some of this involved cheating with the data [stables omitted the lab graph, for instance], but I think the trend is still true)
3 (or 4 for base) cost spammables
http://councilroom.com/win_weighted_accum_turn.html?cards=Silver%2CSpy%2CWishing%20Well%2CMenagerie
4 cost cards that trash one card for benefit
http://councilroom.com/win_weighted_accum_turn.html?cards=Silver%2CRemodel%2CSalvager
5 cost spammables that (probably) increase hand size
http://councilroom.com/win_weighted_accum_turn.html?cards=Silver%2CLaboratory%2CHunting%20Party
Villages
http://councilroom.com/win_weighted_accum_turn.html?cards=Silver%2CVillage%2CFishing%20Village
5 cost 'draw to X'
http://councilroom.com/win_weighted_accum_turn.html?cards=Library%2CMinion
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Added a sentence. I think the simple mathematics of more Actions almost inherently pushes down Big Money, at least as it's defined by the "Dominion sucks" crowd. I don't want the impression that "the way to beat Big Money is to spend more money on Dominion".
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The way is see is that, yes, base Dominion is a kind of boring exercise in self restraint, big money* is indeed too good, and the game gets better and more interesting with future expansions.
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I think somebody who is truly new to Dominion can learn a lot from the base game even after discovering Big Money, by trying to work out incremental improvements on it (like adding a Witch or a Smithy). Though certainly, I agree that viable true engines are very few and far between on boards limited to the base set, assuming there is at least one expert-level player at the table who is well versed in Big Money variants.
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When I was first getting started, the constant references to BM and BMU were pretty confusing. You might want to specifically define Big Money Ultimate in your Big Money article - it tends to be referenced as a baseline more than BM itself.
My other comment about the BM article is that it goes to great lengths to use only base card sets, but includes a throw-away reference to Bridge in the description of the mega-turn. Unfortunately, I don't know that there is a good core set analog.
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Also, the lexicon thread could be useful as a separate resource. The other hurdle I encountered as a newb was getting my head wrapped around the game-defining cards outside the base set (goons, king's court, grand market, etc.)
Of course, that could be a solid article on its own - identifying the cards that tend to warp the board whenever they are present and knowing how to play them (or, in rare instances, when to avoid them).
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When I was first getting started, the constant references to BM and BMU were pretty confusing. You might want to specifically define Big Money Ultimate in your Big Money article - it tends to be referenced as a baseline more than BM itself.
I'm tempted to just create a Glossary page on the site and link to that.
My other comment about the BM article is that it goes to great lengths to use only base card sets, but includes a throw-away reference to Bridge in the description of the mega-turn. Unfortunately, I don't know that there is a good core set analog.
My thinking exactly ... well you know some people are weird and start with Intrigue instead of base.
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My thinking exactly ... well you know some people are weird and start with Intrigue instead of base.
I actually bought someone Intrigue as a gift rather than the base set because of the increased interactions available in Intrigue. We played a dozen 3-4 player games with the set and it was fascinating. With Intrigue only, the dual victory cards really shine due to synergies with cards such as Tribute and Scout (which in turn synergizes with Baron). I really enjoyed playing with a single large expansion, and would recommend it to others.
Plus, your best trasher is Steward and your best reliable curse giver is Torturer (with only two villages in the set (not counting Tribute)), which is also an interesting experience.
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Added a main Glossary page on the site and linked it to the New to Dominion page.
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I was also working on a Big Money article, but am struggling for a good definition. Smithy+Money is still big money, but is Hunting Party+Money also Big Money? It looks like it, but you're buying Hunting Parties over Golds so I guess it's an engine. And what about Mountebank+Money? Isn't that Big Money as well?
So here's my guess at what it means to go big money:
Every purchase you make does one of three things:
-increase your deck's average $-output in the near future as much as possible (buy Golds, buying the first Smithy)
-decrease your opponent's average $-output as much as possible (buy Mountebanks)
-start buying green cards over anything else as soon as your average $-output has reached certain treshold(s) (Get Provinces over Gold when you have a Gold)
This means you don't buy Lab over Smithy if you open $5/$2, it also means no pure trashing (Chapel, Lookout) and of course no mega-turns or alternate victory conditions.
If you're doing something else during a game, you're probably not doing big money...
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Minor comment on the glossary: In the definition of DoubleJack, you might want to spell out Jack of all Trades instead of referring to it as Jack. I hear that the spring 2012 expansion will center around breeding, herding, and weaponizing jack rabbits, and confusion could ensue...
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I always defined Big Money the algorithm to be buy nothing but Treasure and Victory, and Big Money in spirit to be a deck that primarily derives its strength from Treasure instead of Actions. Of course, that's subjective, but definitions always struggle with edge cases.
In your examples: HP/money is an engine, because its buying power comes from HP, not the Treasures; Mountebank/money is money, because its buying power doesn't come from the Mountebank.
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Another way of looking at it is that if you're going for a Big Money-like strategy, you're expecting and/or hoping to never draw two actions at once; a single turn might be one play of smithy, or maybe one play of mountebank, and if two collide that's bad. In Laboratory-BM, it's okay for labs to collide, but if you're buying labs with 4-5 and golds with 6, the collisions aren't necessary for you to do well and you're okay if they never happen.
Whereas in the Hunting Party deck, you're expecting/hoping for a typical turn to involve drawing and playing multiple hunting parties.
That's the difference that I've always thought. BM+X is a strategy where you expect to play zero to one X per turn (besides treasures), whereas an engine would be where you expect to play multiple actions every turn.
The rest sort of flows from that.
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If I open Sea Hag/Lighthouse and my opponent Sea Hag/Silver, it's quite possible the game ends with Lighthouses, Curses and Duchies emptied without me ever having bought a Silver or Gold while it was still a Big Money game in my mind. Yes?No?
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I don't think that would be a Big Money game. Big Money is pretty awful against Cursing attacks, so if you tried to actually play Big Money you'd likely just lose.