Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: ehunt on August 03, 2019, 11:06:16 am
-
I don't really know how you're supposed to play Defiled Shrine, especially early in the game where it's pretty common for the pile to be worth 5 or 6 while you're still in your second shuffe and a curse (and the opportunity cost of building your deck) really hurts. While there are some clear heuristics (e.g. it's better to take the curse if there's trashing and there's not a key card to buy), I'd like to see some numbers. Has anyone studied this?
-
markus has some stats. If I remember correctly, it wasn't until there was 8 VP on the pile that taking it first is correlated with winning on average.
-
Really?
What am I missing? Isn't Defiled Shrine with 7VP on it a $0 Province?
-
Really?
What am I missing? Isn't Defiled Shrine with 7VP on it a $0 Province?
You're missing the fact that you would much rather buy an engine component than a $0 Province in the early game.
-
Really?
What am I missing? Isn't Defiled Shrine with 7VP on it a $0 Province?
You're missing the fact that you would much rather buy an engine component than a $0 Province in the early game.
More so if you don't have +buy.
-
What about if you only have $1 or $2 and there's nothing good at that price? Still not worth it?
-
What about if you only have $1 or $2 and there's nothing good at that price? Still not worth it?
It's more appealing when you don't have any money, if only because the opportunity cost is lower, but my intuition is something like "buy it 1-2 VP sooner than usual" if your hand sucks. It's like how if you hit $3 and the Actions you want to buy cost $4+, you don't have to buy that Silver.
-
I often prioritize getting a +Buy early in Defiled Shrine games. If I’m not sacrificing buying something else, I’ll usually take it at 5 or 6 VP.
Though I am not a top player.
-
All I know is I keep playing people who buy it at 4-6 VP with a single buy and a decent hand and I keep beating them.
-
Without extra buys, you're basically wasting a turn. (not even counting the added junk) So the opportunity cost is roughly how many points you expect your deck to make per turn when you green, as you will have one more of those turns if you don't buy it. If you expect to consistently get Province/Duchy, then that's 9 VP.
-
markus has some stats. If I remember correctly, it wasn't until there was 8 VP on the pile that taking it first is correlated with winning on average.
I don't think that the statistics are particularly useful in the case of a Landmark which is incredibly Kingdom-sensitive. Are there trashers or sifters, are there extra Buys, does it tactically-situationally make sense to buy the Curse when you could only buy a weak $2/$3 or a Silver instead, how much further is the VP pile on Shrine likely to rise and meta-issues like, how do you think that the other players do evaluate Defiled Shrine (that is only feasible if you play IRL and with people you know and can "read").
-
markus has some stats. If I remember correctly, it wasn't until there was 8 VP on the pile that taking it first is correlated with winning on average.
I don't think that the statistics are particularly useful in the case of a Landmark which is incredibly Kingdom-sensitive. Are there trashers or sifters, are there extra Buys, does it tactically-situationally make sense to buy the Curse when you could only buy a weak $2/$3 or a Silver instead, how much further is the VP pile on Shrine likely to rise and meta-issues like, how do you think that the other players do evaluate Defiled Shrine (that is only feasible if you play IRL and with people you know and can "read").
It's an average. It doesn't mean you should always buy it at 8 but it does mean that if the conditions are less ideal than average, you should not buy it any sooner than that, which is a particularly useful thing to know.
-
markus has some stats. If I remember correctly, it wasn't until there was 8 VP on the pile that taking it first is correlated with winning on average.
Sure, but part of that is undoubtedly something I have faced where I just get a crappy shuffle and I have nothing better to buy. For instance not too long ago I had a Bandit fort/Mountebank game. Silver was the only thing to buy at $5. Buying a 5 or so VP curse was the least bad option I had after missing $5 and drawing a T4 $3. Likewise, on board with trashing and no good $5s you may be facing something like a T4 "$0 Distant lands". Your opponent has instead bought a Village/Smithy.
There are many times where the Cursed VP competes against literally buying nothing and those are more often if you get the short end of the shuffle. In those circumstances you may be moving your odds from a 20-80 against to a 30-70 shot. Still correlated with losing, but only because it is confounded with having a crappy early shuffle somewhere.
Sometimes you have to make the best of bad situation and often that means doing something you otherwise wouldn't (e.g. bidding weird on Mountain Pass). Weird things are normally correlated with losing on their own so I can quite easily say that you buying cursed VP is both the move that most increases your odds of winning on some hands, but is also the move that is most correlated with losing.
-
My strategy is to just don't buy it.
-
I just played a colony game with Labyrinth (second card you gain in a turn gives you 2 VP); Guide; Defiled Shrine; Catapult and Trading Post as trashers; Old Witch, Seer, Menagerie, and Catacombs as draw; and Worker's Village as the only village and only +buy. I picked up Worker's Village early on and first took a curse when the pile was at 6 points I believe--my opponent picked up an Old Witch shortly after, which I somewhat luckily was able to trash a couple of curses with. My opponent took fewer curses through defiled shrine, and we both ended up nearly drawing our deck consistently the same turn. My opponent won the Worker's Village split 6-4. I ended up winning the game, although looking back at it, I still don't know if taking the curses was optimal--at least the way our game went, I don't think it was the deciding factor. Being able to trash them for silvers (which I could draw with Seer) and trashing them to Old Witch plays was pretty useful, though; having guides to discard bad hands helped a good amount, too.