Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: Commodore Chuckles on June 14, 2018, 09:32:06 pm
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This is the one thing in the game that I literally have no idea what to do with. How much is 8 non-dead VP usually worth? Does it make a difference whether you're ahead or behind? What other sorts of conditions change your bid?
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Measure it in turns not coins.
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I always bid a non-integer, non-fraction number. People think I'm irrational when I do it.
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I always bid a non-integer, non-fraction number. People think I'm irrational when I do it.
I bid a non-real number. People say that's way too complex for them.
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This is the one thing in the game that I literally have no idea what to do with. How much is 8 non-dead VP usually worth? Does it make a difference whether you're ahead or behind? What other sorts of conditions change your bid?
It depends. You can read Mountain Pass as a singular card that is either a Great Hall that is worth 8VPs or as something between a Province and a Colony that comes with an additional Lab. So in and of itself this is usually worth more than a Colony but whether you want that is highly situational. Suppose the other player plays BM and bought a Province while you are building up your engine; then the question is whether you can really afford to miss some turns. Or more generally, are there no alternative sources of VPs so you have to really fight for the extra 8VPs?
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I always bid a non-integer, non-fraction number. People think I'm irrational when I do it.
I bid a non-real number. People say that's way too complex for them.
I bid a negative number. People think I'm being unnatural.
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I always bid a non-integer, non-fraction number. People think I'm irrational when I do it.
I bid a non-real number. People say that's way too complex for them.
I bid a negative number. People think I'm being unnatural.
I bid a quaternion. People think I'm being non-commutative.
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Sims for pure big money suggest bidding 17
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So I think the presence of Mountain Pass often means that coin payload/production matter more. You don't want your opponent getting too big of a lead. If he takes the first province, while you're still planning to boost your engine, you can't afford taking a lot of debt (unless you have gainers). So it's a little bit like a counter to building too much. And that's a great addition to the game I think.
So get a coin payload/production lead and get those VPs as cheap as possible.
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Another strategy would be to amass enough Gold or Gold gainers with enough remodels to reap Provinces to get enough VP to win while still in debt. (Untested.) In this case, even a bid of $40 would not be too high.
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It’s a little like Tournament - you buy a Province a little too early so your opponent is forced to bid before they’ve built up enough economy to pay off a good bid. If you put them in a position where they would have to take more than 2 turns to pay off a bid 14 or lower, get the Province right away and you can either overwhelm them with two extra turns of building, or get a substantial point lead early on that’s hard to come back from.
In a pre Rebuild or Governor game, usually bid 40.
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Another strategy would be to amass enough Gold or Gold gainers with enough remodels to reap Provinces to get enough VP to win while still in debt. (Untested.) In this case, even a bid of $40 would not be too high.
The more common method I’ve seen after bidding 40 is to use your gainers to drain piles fast enough to pileout before the opponent can score more. Usually this means you just have one turn.
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Another strategy would be to amass enough Gold or Gold gainers with enough remodels to reap Provinces to get enough VP to win while still in debt. (Untested.) In this case, even a bid of $40 would not be too high.
Tested. Works well with Governor.
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I always bid a non-integer, non-fraction number. People think I'm irrational when I do it.
I bid a non-real number. People say that's way too complex for them.
I bid a negative number. People think I'm being unnatural.
I bid a quternion. People think I'm being non-commutative.
I bid a potion cost. People say I'm partially ordered.
It’s a little like Tournament - you buy a Province a little too early so your opponent is forced to bid before they’ve built up enough economy to pay off a good bid. If you put them in a position where they would have to take more than 2 turns to pay off a bid 14 or lower, get the Province right away and you can either overwhelm them with two extra turns of building, or get a substantial point lead early on that’s hard to come back from.
In a pre Rebuild or Governor game, usually bid 40.
In games where you don't bid 40, Mountain pass favours the player with more coin output who is able to bid more for the same amount of time to pay off the debt. Also, consider bidding just enough so that you can still buy a useful 0-cost or 1-cost event on the turn you expect to pay off the debt.
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So, there are definitely cases where bidding 40 is optimal. There are also cases where bidding 0 is optimal (when your opponent got the Province and you can pileout the next turn). BM wants to bid 17, and engines usually a bit less (generally speaking, the more megaturn-y the engine, the less you bid).
But are there any cases where a bid in the 20s and 30s is optimal?
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So, there are definitely cases where bidding 40 is optimal. There are also cases where bidding 0 is optimal (when your opponent got the Province and you can pileout the next turn). BM wants to bid 17, and engines usually a bit less (generally speaking, the more megaturn-y the engine, the less you bid).
But are there any cases where a bid in the 20s and 30s is optimal?
I suppose if you know that your deck will produce $X next turn, and you need $Y to pile out with a lead, you would bid $(X-Y), which might be in the 20s or 30s.
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In a simple two player game, I don't think this such a big decision as long as you know a ballpark figure. It's a bit like thinking whether to buy another gold instead of a province apart from you need to look at both decks. The occassions where it gets more interesting are when
- A player is trashing down to build an engine but hasn't much income yet. Taking a lot of debt might cut off deck development unless the engine can gain cards directly.
- Certain kingdom cards are less effective when you are paying off debt. For example, if you can get hagglers into play each turn then you are losing gains each time you pay off debt instead of buying stuff. There's a big variety of cards like this such as peddler, buying stonemasons, black market, and plenty others.
- The decks are not similar. This can be different strategies or it can be different stages in deck development. For example, if both players are planning to trash down and use windfall to add income, a player who gets ahead might have a chance to buy a province and force the mountain pass bid when they have the golds and the opponent doesn't.
As another example, if one player is a using an advanced treasure deck and the other is trying to make a bridge troll engine, the player using bridge trolls probably has little income. If they have to pay off big debts over a number of turns they are probably missing out on buying many cheap cards. Here the treasure player probably wants the engine player to take the debt and can aim to buy the province at the worst time for the engine player. However, if the engine player is building a bridge troll megaturn deck, which will sweep up on the final turn, the treasure player still needs to plan for getting 50% of the points before the megaturn and that might include mountain pass points.
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Sims for pure big money suggest bidding 17
Out of interest, this was BM vs BM, right?
But engine vs BM there are two possibilities. If BM gets Province first, what does engine bid, and vice versa?
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Sims for pure big money suggest bidding 17
Out of interest, this was BM vs BM, right?
But engine vs BM there are two possibilities. If BM gets Province first, what does engine bid, and vice versa?
If the engine gets the Province first, then BM likely has already lost.
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If there are Baths, may as well be reaping an additional 2pts per turn paying off that Debt!