Dominion Strategy Forum

Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: MattLee on April 11, 2018, 12:46:01 am

Title: Would you trash an estate worth 2VP?
Post by: MattLee on April 11, 2018, 12:46:01 am
Just a though experiment...

If your starting estates were worth 2VP would still chapel them? What if they were worth 2.5VP? or 3VP? Obviously it would depend on the board, but in an average game at what point would you not trash them?
Title: Re: Would you trash an estate worth 2VP?
Post by: AJD on April 11, 2018, 01:04:55 am
People still often trash their Estates in Shepherd games—even in the presence of good Victory-card sifting (i.e., Shepherd). Not always, but often.
Title: Re: Would you trash an estate worth 2VP?
Post by: sudgy on April 11, 2018, 01:28:47 am
Personally, I think if the estates were provinces it would still be the best move to trash them a significant portion of the time.
Title: Re: Would you trash an estate worth 2VP?
Post by: Holunder9 on April 11, 2018, 03:20:47 am
The best example that comes to mind is getting Duchies via Swindler. Even in the middlegame you rarely ever want them so in the opening you would want Duchies even less.
So my guess is around 4 or 5 VPs. Estates being Provinces seems like too much.
Title: Re: Would you trash an estate worth 2VP?
Post by: ackmondual on April 11, 2018, 03:44:51 am
Personally, I think if the estates were provinces it would still be the best move to trash them a significant portion of the time.
It's especially fun to do via Bishop.  You're only coming out 1 pt behind, but your deck is one card thinner.   It's like a "reverse Curse"
Title: Re: Would you trash an estate worth 2VP?
Post by: terminalCopper on April 11, 2018, 08:09:24 am
So my guess is around 4 or 5 VPs.
This is just incredibly board-dependent, therefore my guess is between 0 and 10 VP.
Title: Re: Would you trash an estate worth 2VP?
Post by: Screwyioux on April 11, 2018, 08:27:46 am
Agreed, it is super board-dependent, some score margins are tighter than others.

In any case, it's worth remembering VP don't do anything until the end of the game, so not trashing them needs to weigh the points against the points they cost you by having a worse deck.

A thought experiment in the same vein would be, if you could choose to start with 2 provinces in your deck (in addition to the estates), would you?

Again, board-dependent (usually the answer is absolutely not).
Title: Re: Would you trash an estate worth 2VP?
Post by: Awaclus on April 11, 2018, 09:16:00 am
If someone Swindles your $5 into a Duchy in the early/mid game, you should probably trash the Duchy.
Title: Re: Would you trash an estate worth 2VP?
Post by: theblankman on April 11, 2018, 11:49:20 am
I frequently still trash starting estates with Inheritance on the board, or when I intend to use Baron as payload later. Getting rid of a stop card early is usually that helpful.
Title: Re: Would you trash an estate worth 2VP?
Post by: Dingan on April 11, 2018, 12:39:54 pm
But would you trash your Coppers if they were each worth 1.5 VP?
Title: Re: Would you trash an estate worth 2VP?
Post by: Commodore Chuckles on April 11, 2018, 01:24:10 pm
But would you trash your Coppers if they were each worth 1.5 VP?

Such a question is surely a Fountain of interesting discussion.

But yeah, you should probably still trash them.
Title: Re: Would you trash an estate worth 2VP?
Post by: ackmondual on April 16, 2018, 10:39:41 pm
The best example that comes to mind is getting Duchies via Swindler. Even in the middlegame you rarely ever want them so in the opening you would want Duchies even less.
So my guess is around 4 or 5 VPs. Estates being Provinces seems like too much.
Interestingly enough sucking down 3 to 4 Curses via Embargo is about when Provinces "get expensive"
Title: Re: Would you trash an estate worth 2VP?
Post by: Chris is me on April 16, 2018, 10:44:33 pm
You’re not trashing the Estates early just because or even mostly because they aren’t worth enough points. It’s the wrong time of the game for them to be in your deck.
Title: Re: Would you trash an estate worth 2VP?
Post by: DG on April 17, 2018, 09:14:07 am
Just a though experiment...

If your starting estates were worth 2VP would still chapel them? What if they were worth 2.5VP? or 3VP? Obviously it would depend on the board, but in an average game at what point would you not trash them?

I believe that trashing is essentially the same decision as 'not buying'. In a big money game the simulations show that you shouldn't buy a duchy if you are going to draw it more than once. You shouldn't buy an estate if you have more than a 50/50 chance of drawing it. You could set up similar simulations for tunnel quite easily but it will fall into a similar range.

Those stats ignore end game competition, of course.
Title: Re: Would you trash an estate worth 2VP?
Post by: Aleimon Thimble on April 17, 2018, 09:59:47 am
Personally, I think if the estates were provinces it would still be the best move to trash them a significant portion of the time.
It's especially fun to do via Bishop.  You're only coming out 1 pt behind, but your deck is one card thinner.   It's like a "reverse Curse"

If you started with Provinces instead of Estates, any TFB would become insane. Imagine playing a Salvager for $8 on turn 3. Or just remodeling into Prince or something.
Title: Re: Would you trash an estate worth 2VP?
Post by: Awaclus on April 17, 2018, 11:03:16 am
You have to use a lot of zaps for that.
Title: Re: Would you trash an estate worth 2VP?
Post by: pacovf on April 17, 2018, 11:11:09 am
Just a though experiment...

If your starting estates were worth 2VP would still chapel them? What if they were worth 2.5VP? or 3VP? Obviously it would depend on the board, but in an average game at what point would you not trash them?

I believe that trashing is essentially the same decision as 'not buying'. In a big money game the simulations show that you shouldn't buy a duchy if you are going to draw it more than once. You shouldn't buy an estate if you have more than a 50/50 chance of drawing it. You could set up similar simulations for tunnel quite easily but it will fall into a similar range.

Those stats ignore end game competition, of course.

It’s not the same as not buying, in the sense that, say a province or a duchy are usually competing against some power card during your buy phase. When trashing, they are competing against nothing. It doesn’t seem as clear cut to me.
Title: Re: Would you trash an estate worth 2VP?
Post by: LastFootnote on April 17, 2018, 12:09:24 pm
Just a though experiment...

If your starting estates were worth 2VP would still chapel them? What if they were worth 2.5VP? or 3VP? Obviously it would depend on the board, but in an average game at what point would you not trash them?

I believe that trashing is essentially the same decision as 'not buying'. In a big money game the simulations show that you shouldn't buy a duchy if you are going to draw it more than once. You shouldn't buy an estate if you have more than a 50/50 chance of drawing it. You could set up similar simulations for tunnel quite easily but it will fall into a similar range.

Those stats ignore end game competition, of course.

It’s not the same as not buying, in the sense that, say a province or a duchy are usually competing against some power card during your buy phase. When trashing, they are competing against nothing. It doesn’t seem as clear cut to me.

Also you have to put forth effort to trash them. I bet it's often worth it to trash a Duchy that starts in your deck, but not a Province.
Title: Re: Would you trash an estate worth 2VP?
Post by: Screwyioux on April 17, 2018, 12:37:28 pm
I think it almost always would be.

Having a Province in your deck while you're trying to build will normally cost you more than 6 points.
Potentially a lot more.
Title: Re: Would you trash an estate worth 2VP?
Post by: LastFootnote on April 17, 2018, 01:38:53 pm
I think it almost always would be.

Having a Province in your deck while you're trying to build will normally cost you more than 6 points.
Potentially a lot more.

If you can use e.g. Salvager to get $8 worth of value out of your Province(s) in order to kick-start your deck, then sure. Totally trash those Provinces. But if you're trying to claim it's smart to Chapel away Provinces on turn 3 or 4, I don't believe you.

Do you usually trash your Heirlooms in Keep games?
Title: Re: Would you trash an estate worth 2VP?
Post by: Screwyioux on April 17, 2018, 11:51:30 pm
I think it almost always would be.

Having a Province in your deck while you're trying to build will normally cost you more than 6 points.
Potentially a lot more.

If you can use e.g. Salvager to get $8 worth of value out of your Province(s) in order to kick-start your deck, then sure. Totally trash those Provinces. But if you're trying to claim it's smart to Chapel away Provinces on turn 3 or 4, I don't believe you.

Do you usually trash your Heirlooms in Keep games?

If the heirloom is doing for my deck about what a Province would, then yes, absolutely. This is pretty board-dependent, but I promise you more often than not you can derive more than a single Province's worth of game advantage by having another slot in your deck early on.
Title: Re: Would you trash an estate worth 2VP?
Post by: LastFootnote on April 18, 2018, 12:29:47 am
Well let’s put it this way. Say we each start with three Victory cards in our deck that each cost $2 but are worth 6 VP. Are you contending that it’s usually best to trash all three of those cards?
Title: Re: Would you trash an estate worth 2VP?
Post by: Oyvind on April 18, 2018, 05:59:54 am
Just a though experiment...

If your starting estates were worth 2VP would still chapel them? What if they were worth 2.5VP? or 3VP? Obviously it would depend on the board, but in an average game at what point would you not trash them?

I believe that trashing is essentially the same decision as 'not buying'. In a big money game the simulations show that you shouldn't buy a duchy if you are going to draw it more than once. You shouldn't buy an estate if you have more than a 50/50 chance of drawing it. You could set up similar simulations for tunnel quite easily but it will fall into a similar range.

Those stats ignore end game competition, of course.

It’s not the same as not buying, in the sense that, say a province or a duchy are usually competing against some power card during your buy phase. When trashing, they are competing against nothing. It doesn’t seem as clear cut to me.

Also you have to put forth effort to trash them. I bet it's often worth it to trash a Duchy that starts in your deck, but not a Province.

Well, for what it's worth: We used to have an adventure mode where starting with three or more Provinces (while you started with three Estates) didn't seem to help the bot...
Title: Re: Would you trash an estate worth 2VP?
Post by: cascadestyler on April 18, 2018, 06:52:55 am
Situation in which this kind of question actually occurs:

At what point would you stop swindling an opponent's Peddler into a Province, and start giving them back a Peddler (if you could?) I'd probably give people Provinces instead of Peddlers until I think they will start to green on their following turn, in which case I'd prefer to give them a Peddler (though I probably wouldn't have the choice). If it were pretty early on (buying a peddler on T3/4 isn't particularly difficult, so swindling one on T5/6 will happen from time to time) then I'd give them a Province for sure, barring some odd edgecases.
Title: Re: Would you trash an estate worth 2VP?
Post by: Screwyioux on April 18, 2018, 08:51:41 am
Well let’s put it this way. Say we each start with three Victory cards in our deck that each cost $2 but are worth 6 VP. Are you contending that it’s usually best to trash all three of those cards?

I want to say probably? I'd want to think about that, but it's pretty board dependent (isn't everything amirite).
Title: Re: Would you trash an estate worth 2VP?
Post by: LastFootnote on April 18, 2018, 01:44:23 pm
Well let’s put it this way. Say we each start with three Victory cards in our deck that each cost $2 but are worth 6 VP. Are you contending that it’s usually best to trash all three of those cards?

I want to say probably? I'd want to think about that, but it's pretty board dependent (isn't everything amirite).

It's an 18-VP lead you'd have to overcome. And there's only so much VP on the board. The player who didn't trash those cards could just play BM-Ultimate and crush you on all but the most ridiculous of megaturn boards.
Title: Re: Would you trash an estate worth 2VP?
Post by: GendoIkari on April 20, 2018, 03:07:57 pm
So a long time ago I made a thread about a variant where you could simply choose to add some Provinces to your deck before the start of the game. WW ran some sims and found that each Province you add increases your chances of wining; at least for BM games. Simulators aren't going to help as much with comparing to an engine.

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1384.0
Title: Re: Would you trash an estate worth 2VP?
Post by: markusin on April 20, 2018, 03:43:23 pm
So a long time ago I made a thread about a variant where you could simply choose to add some Provinces to your deck before the start of the game. WW ran some sims and found that each Province you add increases your chances of wining; at least for BM games. Simulators aren't going to help as much with comparing to an engine.

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1384.0

It seems that discussion assumed the extra provinces were taken from the supply. Is that correct? Do these conclusions still hold if you still have 8 Provinces available in the supply regardless of how many Provinces you start with?
Title: Re: Would you trash an estate worth 2VP?
Post by: GendoIkari on April 20, 2018, 03:56:20 pm
So a long time ago I made a thread about a variant where you could simply choose to add some Provinces to your deck before the start of the game. WW ran some sims and found that each Province you add increases your chances of wining; at least for BM games. Simulators aren't going to help as much with comparing to an engine.

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1384.0

It seems that discussion assumed the extra provinces were taken from the supply. Is that correct? Do these conclusions still hold if you still have 8 Provinces available in the supply regardless of how many Provinces you start with?

Yeah the original post was about Provinces from the supply, though the idea of Provinces from the box was briefly discussed. Clearly Provinces from the supply is a lot stronger.