Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Game Reports => Topic started by: Euphemism on September 24, 2011, 01:45:27 pm
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I started playing Dominion two weeks ago, and starting playing on Isotropic a week ago (before I started playing on Isotropic, I read most of the articles on theory's blog... ¬.¬)
I thought it would be a good idea to look over all the games where I lost and try to figure out where and why I lost. Some of them are more confusing to me than others. I've provided summaries so that you don't have to read the game log, unless you want to see pretty graphs.
1: Alchemist, Fairgrounds, Ghost Ship, Hamlet, Hunting Party, Militia, Mining Village, Potion, Rabble, Vault, and Village (http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110917-193729-47ae324d.html)
Wherein I learn that Hunting Party by itself is not a sufficient draw engine. And furthermore that militia is an effective counter against Hunting Party. And that I should really, really pay attention to what cards my opponent are buying. And that alchemist is quite excellent when combined with Hunting Party.
Summary: I hit 5 provinces by turn 18, my Hunting Party draw engine chokes on the provinces and militia attacks and can't get me up to $8, I buy random cards that do not help, I fail to notice my opponent buying up fairgrounds, and continue to fail to notice until he's got a sizable lead over me. I resign in shame.
2: City, Fishing Village, Harem, Mining Village, Monument, Scout, Torturer, Upgrade, Watchtower, and Wharf (http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110918-112246-2d143c33.html)
Wherein I learn that Wharf is the best card advantage card ever, especially in the presence of Fishing Village. Or maybe that I need to learn to recognize the kingdom sets in which City is obscenely powerful. I'm not sure I really learned much from this game.
Summary: I have no idea what I'm doing, or which cards I'm supposed to be buying. So I started out copying my opponent somewhat. Over turns 7 through 15 or so, I pursue the BM strategy by mainly focusing on gold and provinces, while my opponent advances his draw engine. I notice around that point that he's got the majority of the wharfs and cities and panic and try to buy up some. It doesn't help.
Question: When do you get monument? How important was monument in this set, for instance? Was wharf/village/city the optimal strategy to pursue?
3: Adventurer, Apprentice, Council Room, Counting House, Haven, Mining Village, Quarry, Secret Chamber, Swindler, and Throne Room (http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110920-174628-d6cf90d2.html)
Wherein I delay my purchase of the swindler due to a 5/2 split, fail to count VP, and lose by 2 points.
Summary: Pretty much the above.
Question: How powerful is swindler in this set? I opened Apprentice/Haven, should I have opened Swindler/Haven instead?
4: Adventurer, Hamlet, Harvest, Mine, Moat, Monument, Salvager, Steward, Tournament, and Young Witch ( Cellar♦ ) (http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110920-215231-90a9dfb7.html)
Wherein I was under the misconception that Young Witch was a weak curser and tried to power through the curses without even buying the bane. It goes badly.
Summary: Curses clog up my deck and though I don't seem to do too badly, I lose.
Question: I was (and still am) under the impression that Cellar is not a particularly good card. When you should you buy it?
5: Apprentice, Bazaar, Counting House, Hamlet, Mining Village, Nobles, Remake, Salvager, Talisman, and Tournament (http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110921-154245-4588bfee.html)
Wherein I discover the might of the Tournament and especially(?) the Talisman.
Summary: My opponent goes for Talisman. This gets him to a province on turn 6, 4 tournaments on turn 7, and a steed on turn 8. The win probability graph says I pretty much lost by turn 6.
Question: Should you get a Talisman pretty much any time there are good 4-cost cards that you want multiple copies of?
6: Caravan, Conspirator, Lighthouse, Mint, Moat, Pawn, Pearl Diver, Sea Hag, Steward, and Village (http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110921-171039-199e8a08.html)
Wherein I am completely confused.
Summary: My opponent opens Lighthouse. I get Sea Hag. He proceeds to buy out the entire stack of lighthouses. I am confused. The sea hag slips in one curse that prevents me from losing the game (it ties instead). I go for caravans and gold, he hits the provinces earlier than I do and I spend the entire game trying to catch up.
Question: It seems like lighthouse is a silver that spends half as much time in your deck. It also repels attacks, which was important in this game. Was it the correct move for my opponent to buy out the entire stack, using lighthouse money instead of silver? Given that my opponent had more than enough lighthouses to prevent the sea hag from landing, what strategy should I have gone for?
7: Bank, Baron, Black Market, Chancellor, Contraband, Forge, Goons, Militia, Pirate Ship, and Young Witch ( Wishing Well♦ ) (http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110922-173237-4d01a153.html)
Wherein witches vs. pirates ends up in a tie.
Summary: My opponent goes for pirate ship, I go for young witch. He trashes my coin, I flood his deck with curses. I use a chancellor to try to increase the rate at which I draw witches. I have problems reaching $8, and towards the end the pirate ship's income begins to kick in. He catches up and manages a tie.
Question: Was there something else I could have done? There certainly were no action sources of money I could have invested more in.
8: Colony, Embargo, Festival, Mint, Monument, Pawn, Platinum, Shanty Town, Smugglers, Spy, Talisman, and Tournament (http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110922-182459-8d18f6d2.html)
Wherein I buy tournament in a Colony game, and for the first time experience the power of Monument.
Summary: Tournament turned out to be a foolish choice, so I decided to copy my opponent in pursuing monuments, managing to split them 5/5. I lacked the villages that made them effective, however, and so slipped behind in the points standings.
Question: To reiterate from game 2: In what kind of situation should you pursue a monument based deck?
9: Alchemist, Bureaucrat, Contraband, Cutpurse, Lighthouse, Lookout, Navigator, Potion, Treasure Map, Upgrade, and Village (http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110922-183228-809a5381.html)
Wherein I, overenamored of draw engines, pursue alchemists, tie the score and lose the game. And probably lost the game due to not doing anything at three points in time when I could have bought a card.
Summary: My opponent goes for treasure map; I go for alchemist. I get fairly regular draws of my potion, but my engine suffered overall from a lack of cash. On turn 1 and turn 3 I fail to buy anything; I think now I should have probably gotten a lighthouse in one or both instances. On turn 17 I had $5 in hand but failed to buy anything; I'm pretty sure I should have bought a duchy there.
Question: Is lighthouse good enough to buy in the absence of (powerful) attack cards? On the other hand a smaller deck here may have allowed me to draw my potion more often and buy alchemists more consistently, at the cost of wasting two turns.
10: Black Market, Coppersmith, Hoard, Library, Moneylender, Potion, Rabble, Thief, Transmute, Wharf, and Workshop (http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110922-191940-02d4df22.html)
Wherein I... notice now that I completely forgot to transmute an estate at one point. And it would have won me the game... if I had drawn the cards a turn earlier.
Summary: Fairly boring, we transmute estates to gold, I try to get more wharves while my opponent gets much more gold through use of his hoard (12:4 by the end of the game). It was a fairly close game.
11: Bridge, Chapel, Colony, Farming Village, Fortune Teller, Hoard, King's Court, Navigator, Nobles, Platinum, Shanty Town, and Venture (http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110923-160111-01459ff9.html)
Wherein my opponent buys all 8 provinces in a single turn, whereas I am sitting on top of a train rushing towards the cliff edge and all I can do is watch.
Summary: My opponent goes for villages/bridges/KC. I go for money. The money fails. It was a colony game.
12: Apprentice, Cellar, Laboratory, Lookout, Moneylender, Nobles, Potion, Shanty Town, University, Upgrade, and Witch (http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110923-175522-d7b05a6e.html)
Wherein my opponent starts off with a 5/2 split, and gets the witch.
Summary: My opponent gets the witch. I try to catch up in order to play witches of my own. He grabs a potion and a university while I'm trying to catch up on the witch end. Then he constructs laboratories within his university. I'm pretty sure I've lost and so I resign.
Question: Should I have opened potion to try to snag the university faster in response to his witch? Also, he seemed to make use of cellar somewhat effectively, especially given the preponderance of curses. When should you buy a cellar?
13: Alchemist, Apprentice, Conspirator, Council Room, Golem, Goons, Hunting Party, Laboratory, Moat, Philosopher's Stone, and Potion (http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110923-182742-5a1b51c1.html)
Wherein I win only because my opponent's connection drops before I can resign.
Summary: Wow, look at all those engine cards! Blinded by the flashy cards, I completely miss seeing the goons and focus on building a hunting party/alchemist deck. I really should have vetoed those goons...
Question: When you play goons, should you buy copper whenever you can to get that victory point? Other than KC, what cards will generally enable a Goons deck? Here it was primarily golem, which either played the goons or generated extra actions to play the goons, combined with massive card draw. My hunting party based draw could pull out a single copy of goons consistently, but would be pretty much unable to play more than one copy.
Finally: I'm sure I will lose badly to a bishop based deck at some point. Any suggestions on how to handle a bishop in the kingdom?
I hope that was interesting and I apologize if this isn't the right place to post this.
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This is way too many games for one post. String them out over time, the discussion will get way too fragmented and hard to follow in here.
So, looking at your first game:
- Hunting Party is indeed a plenty good draw engine on its own.
- The issue here is that in a long game Alchemist is going to very strong. The presence of Fairgrounds means your opponent has the option of just letting you try to get all 8 Provinces, which will delay the game long enough that he'll be in a good position. That's going to be somewhat hard to fight. The best bet with your HP's is to get a Vault ASAP. Those will synergize nicely, as HP pulls it into hand often while giving it a near lock to score 8. edit: And while it takes some foresight, you'd actually want to minimize different cards to increase the chances of Vault pulls.
Second game:
Torturer + Fishing Village is going to be super nasty, and since that will run at least the curses out, City will be very strong too. Wharf is a nice card but it's probably the 3rd best 5 out there given this particular setup. edit: Once you've got the Torturer engine running, I'd grab a Wharf before I grabbed a City just to get some +buy. But that's mainly so that I can snap up Cities faster, as I expect them to be very important on this board. This is going to end quickly on piles, usually.
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For game #2, Torturer + Village-type is almost always dominant if both of those parts are present. Fishing Villages are the best type of Village you could get for that engine because they reduce the odds of drawing a Torturer with no +Actions. I would think getting enough Wharfs would be too difficult if you're getting tortured on a regular basis.
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Question: I was (and still am) under the impression that Cellar is not a particularly good card. When you should you buy it?
It's 2 cost card. It doesn't have to be that powerful. It's essentially a good card when you have a lot of cards in hand and have a big choice of cards to throw away. It can also be good if you have a specific card like a tactician that you want to play and you're willing to discard any number of other cards to draw it sooner. It's a bad card when all of deck your is much the same (copper+silver), your have small hands with 3 or 4 cards, you're using it with other cards that need big hands (forge), or your good cards need rubbish in hand (moneylender). Labs+cellar = good. Militia+cellar = bad.
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I agree that one game per topic would be better, unless there is something specific that ties them together.
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I agree that in the first game, the key-card is Fairgrounds. Many (exclude Nobles, Harems, Island, Great Halls) alternative Victorycards give you much more time to build up an engine, as you can let your opponent get 4-5 Provinces without much worries. (Edit: Gardens itself of course usually make the game too fast itself, but anyway it discourages rushing the Provinces with its own means.) Do this without an alternative source of points, and you have some problems. Alchemist profits very much from this. On "normally fast boards", say, yours without the Fairgrounds, Alchemist usually is too slow. But if you have time to get them working, they get very very strong, especially if you can buy them uncompeted and get >>5.
So in this cases, if your opponents builts up a stronger engine, you either need a very good plan to deal with many Victorycards, which in this case Vault/HuntingParties might really do. Or you go for some 3-pile, which on this board with diverging strategies does not seem to be an option.
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Thanks for the responses, and sorry for dumping all my games into one thread. Since I'm fairly new to the game and especially the card interactions, it feels like sometimes I'm just seeing half the potential in the kingdom cards, and either I switch midway through the game to copy my opponent a bit because he has an obviously superior engine, or I continue pushing with gold/draw engine and lose anyway.
For game #2, Torturer + Village-type is almost always dominant if both of those parts are present.
Haven't played or had torturer played against me yet so far, thanks for the information. In the absence of +actions, I guess it's a little bit less effective than militia? In the absence of a village, is there any other time you'd want more than a single copy - TR or KC maybe?
Cellar
I've been reluctant to buy this card because of the risk that it will sit in the hand useless. So, in the absence of handsize-reducers, curses, laboratories (anything that makes it particularly good or bad), would it be good or bad to buy it on a 5/2 split or otherwise a draw of $2 with no alternatives?
And I'd like to ask the same question of lighthouse, while I'm at it.
Finally, the games in the list were in chronological order, and I'm most interested in the later games. So, any comments on the last game? Using golems to play multiple goons was interesting to see.
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In the absence of a village, is there any other time you'd want more than a single copy - TR or KC maybe?
TR and esp. KC can often emulate a Village by being played on +1Actions, in this cases of course. But depends on the rest of the setup if you can afford a high actiondensity for the TR/KC. Without them, note that BM-Smithy is fast, and the Torturer is a better Smithy. While the Torturer is a little more difficult to get, starting Silver/Silver it's more or less guaranteed in shuffle #2, with the bonus of a small attack, so that might be worth considering if there is nothing interesting beside that.
Cellar
I've been reluctant to buy this card because of the risk that it will sit in the hand useless. So, in the absence of handsize-reducers, curses, laboratories (anything that makes it particularly good or bad), would it be good or bad to buy it on a 5/2 split or otherwise a draw of $2 with no alternatives?
And I'd like to ask the same question of lighthouse, while I'm at it.
Usually it's worth it at 5/2. The advantage is the acceleration of your deck. When you start 5/2, you have, beside the '2', 1 very strong card, 7 weak cards and 3 very weak cards. With the Cellar, you can dump 3-4 (very) weak cards, draw 3-4 (very) weak cards for not much loss, and play your strong card more often. Think about (more or less optimal) having a Mountbank there. But take care for the reshuffle, you don't want to trigger an reshuffle when your '5' is in play, as in this case you will not see it the next round.
tldr, in many cases you should dump Coppers in the Cellar just for the effect of acceleration, to see your good cards more often.
If I drew say Mountebank, Cellar, 3xCopper and could buy a Hunting Party I would maybe not cellar the Coppers, but buy the Party, but in any other cases, esp. if you have at least 1 Estate just dump the whole crap.
Lighthouse is I think after Pawn the card for 2 which is most difficult to overbuy, because it is almost an Silver and is a very good defender. So usually 5/2 I would take one, if I take more depends, but there are many situation where Lighthouses fit into the strategy (Minions, Libraries, Menangeries...)
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Game 7: Bank, Baron, Black Market, Chancellor, Contraband, Forge, Goons, Militia, Pirate Ship, and Young Witch ( Wishing Well♦ )
I can't see what's in the Black market deck, but I suspect there's two things I would consider in response to opponent's switch into Pirate Ships: (1) dive into the Black Market to get village-like cards. You have no lack of +$ actions on this board (Black Market, Militia, Goons, maybe Baron) but you need more than one in a turn and Villages could help with that. (2) alternatively, if BM deck looks bad, I would go with Forge. Forge is a pretty good moneyless strategy, especially when your existing deck is loaded with $2 & $3 cards (allows you flexibility in what to Forge).
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Game 12: Apprentice, Cellar, Laboratory, Lookout, Moneylender, Nobles, Potion, Shanty Town, University, Upgrade, and Witch
5/2 is CLEARLY the weaker opener on this board! Just look at the embarassing riches at $5: Apprentice, Laboratory, Upgrade, Witch. When this occurs, University is absurdly strong. This is especially so if your opponent opens 5/2 Witch (i.e. no Silver or Potion in his first reshuffle).
With 4/3, open Potion/Silver or Potion/Lookout (I prefer Lookout), go Universities, use Universities to gain all the juicy $5 cards, pummel him with long action chains while giving yourself a slim deck... no WAY you should have lost this one. To elaborate:
Lookout - early cycling for more uses of Potion & Universities, and gets rid of dead coppers/estates/curses. Late on you don't want to play this, but then:
Upgrade - turns obsolete cards like Potion into a $5, Lookout into Moneylender, and gets rid of residual coppers/estates/curses with more control. Late on, can turn other $5's into Golds and Nobles
Witch - impt to curse your opponent back so you slow him down - in this deck nobody should finish the game with a single curse in their deck. Also comes with a useful +2 Cards
Laboratory - it's Lab. What card does your opponent gain with his Universities? Lab.
Apprentice - during Greening stage, helps get rid of obsolete Upgrades for +5 cards - not that you need any more +card actions on this board.
I wouldn't bother with Moneylender here. The first two $4's are better spent on Potions; the university gains are better spent on $5 actions. And if I'm playing right, my coppers should be gone very quickly anyway.
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Game 11: Bridge, Chapel, Colony, Farming Village, Fortune Teller, Hoard, King's Court, Navigator, Nobles, Platinum, Shanty Town, and Venture
I think you are mistaken as to the board. The board is actually:
Bridge, Chapel, Colony, Farming Village, King's Court, Nobles, (Shanty Town)
Edit: interesting, your opponent bought Golds? What was he thinking...
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Game 12: Apprentice, Cellar, Laboratory, Lookout, Moneylender, Nobles, Potion, Shanty Town, University, Upgrade, and Witch
5/2 is CLEARLY the weaker opener on this board! Just look at the embarassing riches at $5: Apprentice, Laboratory, Upgrade, Witch. When this occurs, University is absurdly strong. This is especially so if your opponent opens 5/2 Witch (i.e. no Silver or Potion in his first reshuffle).
With 4/3, open Potion/Silver or Potion/Lookout (I prefer Lookout), go Universities, use Universities to gain all the juicy $5 cards, pummel him with long action chains while giving yourself a slim deck... no WAY you should have lost this one. To elaborate:
Lookout - early cycling for more uses of Potion & Universities, and gets rid of dead coppers/estates/curses. Late on you don't want to play this, but then:
Upgrade - turns obsolete cards like Potion into a $5, Lookout into Moneylender, and gets rid of residual coppers/estates/curses with more control. Late on, can turn other $5's into Golds and Nobles
Witch - impt to curse your opponent back so you slow him down - in this deck nobody should finish the game with a single curse in their deck. Also comes with a useful +2 Cards
Laboratory - it's Lab. What card does your opponent gain with his Universities? Lab.
Apprentice - during Greening stage, helps get rid of obsolete Upgrades for +5 cards - not that you need any more +card actions on this board.
I wouldn't bother with Moneylender here. The first two $4's are better spent on Potions; the university gains are better spent on $5 actions. And if I'm playing right, my coppers should be gone very quickly anyway.
Gotta disagree. Your argument is sorta persuasive.... actually it's really persuasive, which is why I think 5/2 here only has a reasonable-but-not-unbeatable advantage.
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Game 9: Alchemist, Bureaucrat, Contraband, Cutpurse, Lighthouse, Lookout, Navigator, Potion, Treasure Map, Upgrade, and Village
Yep, you were right, Turn 1 should have been a Lighthouse buy. Turn 3 too, probably. But there's something I really want to ask: why Bureaucrat with $5 on Turn 9? It's such a poor card even at $4, and here Upgrade is almost certainly better.
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Game 3: Adventurer, Apprentice, Council Room, Counting House, Haven, Mining Village, Quarry, Secret Chamber, Swindler, and Throne Room
Apprentice/Haven is okay as an opener. The basic idea, against your Swindler-heavy opponent, is to go for basic money cards, and get rid of any deadweights your opponent tries to place in your deck. You were pretty okay there, as these Swindler games are so unpredictable.
But I would hesitate to do what you did on Turn 3. Judging from the fact that you played 2 coppers only, I would guess that just after drawing the card on Haven, your hand was 2 Estates & 3 Coppers? Here I think these are the 2 choices I would consider:
(1) Haven an Estate and buy a Silver or a Swindler.
(2) Haven a Copper and buy a Secret Chamber.
Reason for (1): The Silver/Swindler goes immediately into the next shuffle, which is triggered at end of Turn 3 for you. That tempo is potentially huge.
Reason for (2): Opponent has suggested that he might go Swindler-heavy (opened Mining Village/Swindler), so Secret Chamber is a great mitigator (sure, I'll just put an Estate on top). A second Haven isn't really doing all that much if it's just moving Coppers from one hand to another.
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Game 4: Adventurer, Hamlet, Harvest, Mine, Moat, Monument, Salvager, Steward, Tournament, and Young Witch ( Cellar♦ )
Actually, I thought ignoring the bane isn't too unthinkable here. But I think a simple improvement you can make here is to open Tournament/Steward, not Tournament/Silver. Get rid of some of the junk in your deck, including incoming curses. (Young Witch isn't that weak. Perhaps one reason why you didn't do too badly is that your opponent's YW missed turns 3 & 4?)
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Game 5: Apprentice, Bazaar, Counting House, Hamlet, Mining Village, Nobles, Remake, Salvager, Talisman, and Tournament
Not much one can conclude here about strategy, because you didn't play Remake on Turn 4 despite drawing it. Even if you badly want that Tournament and still want your Silver, a better play is Remake (Silver to Tournament, Estate to Silver), buy Hamlet. I would personally play Remake (Copper to nothing, Estate to Silver), buy Hamlet or Silver. Sorry if this comes across badly, but this single misplay is serious enough to invalidate your Remake opening entirely.
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Game 8: Colony, Embargo, Festival, Mint, Monument, Pawn, Platinum, Shanty Town, Smugglers, Spy, Talisman, and Tournament
I don't see that Tournament is a foolish choice at all. If you had seen it through (hint: two Tournaments are enough, you don't need to buy any more after opponent Embargoes it), I think you would have a good chance of winning.
Problem is that you deviated by going Talisman, when the Tournament strategy asks that you barrel straight for your first Province. With Mint, you can then duplicate Golds and Platinums, and you also probably have a monopoly on prizes (presumably opponent isn't going to start buying Embargoed Tournaments). I would have favoured the Tournament player over the Shanty Town/Monument player on this board with no trashing except Mint.
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http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110921-171039-199e8a08.html (http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110921-171039-199e8a08.html)
Game 6 offers a lot of different ways to cut down and rebuild a deck. The steward can trash, the lighthouse and moat can defend, the pawn has extra buys, the mint can remove coppers, the villages can provide extra actions, the caravans increase your draws, and once you're in control of the deck the conspirators can bring in money. Pearl divers might find a place too to ease the deck along. In light of that, experienced players will use their different styles to mould this deck however the key features would probably be to
- use a steward to trim down the deck while using caravans to increase the drawing power.
- attack an opponent with a sea hag if they haven't got control of their deck size.
- grab a pawn for an extra buy.
- once you can draw most/all of your deck each turn, look to expand the deck with quality using conspirators (or minted gold).
- maintain the drawing of the deck until it is strong enough to cash in for repeated big turns.
If the deck continues to draw strongly then the steward can continue to trash curses easily. To be honest, if you haven't been playing Dominion for long you probably won't have the insight, deck balance, or deft card play to get the most from this kingdom. There are a lot of half-way strategies though and your opponent found one of those: take some lighthouses for defence, take some caravans for drawing, add some gold, plus a steward for trash 2 cards or +2 coins.
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Game #1 you don't need to do much different except finish off with a vault and/or mining villages. These create the little extra spending in a green deck to claim the last provinces. The militia is a reasonable attack against hunting parties btw. Normally a hunting party will draw past all the bad cards in the deck since there's already one in hand, but as soon as those cards are discarded to the militia the hunting party can find them again. The militia also hurts an opponent who is stacking a lot of alchemists back onto the deck each turn.
I was also thinking that your draws were incredibly bad after turn 17, however you created these yourself on turn 18! You played all your hunting parties so these found all the unique cards into your hand and the duplicates went into the discard pile. You then played a hamlet and these duplicates formed a new draw deck of copper, estates, and provinces. In your clean up phase the hunting parties and gold went into the discard pile and were not seen again for two turns.
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http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110921-171039-199e8a08.html (http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110921-171039-199e8a08.html)
Game 6 offers a lot of different ways to cut down and rebuild a deck.
I think DG summed it up pretty well. My first instinct here was to open Mint/Something with a 5/2 - which generally isn't a good idea - so I thought I'd better not comment on this board until someone else chimed in. :D
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Game 9 - http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110922-183228-809a5381.html (http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110922-183228-809a5381.html). There is an alchemist deck in there but it requires a lot of work. There's countless other ways to play this depending upon a players style so there's no other obvious place to start to talking about the kingdom, even if it is convoluted.
The lighthouse is fine since the cutpurse is good at cutting 3+potion hands down to 2+potion wasted hands. The upgrade is the key friend of the alchemists in this kingdom so you needed to grab it on turn 2. What you could then look to do is upgrade the estates out to villages and lookouts while buying a potion and alchemists. With the deck thinning out and becoming fluid you can repeatedly draw enough copper to buy alchemists. Getting the alchemists to draw the whole deck is vital, but once you can do that you can upgrade the lookout(s) to treasure maps, use them to provide gold, and continuously buy one province a turn while continuously drawing the deck. You could even refill the deck using a bureaucrat to provide 4 silver rather than cashing in two treasure maps for 4 gold since you only have one buy.
That's pretty complicated stuff and not at all sure to work. A lighthouse/upgrade still seems by far your best opening anyway. You're still free to pursue any strategy you like after turn 3 and can upgrade your estates to silver, villages, or lookouts to support whatever you're doing.
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I think that we also like Lighthouse in Alchemist decks because an Alchemist deck is really just looking for $3 at the beginning. This is one of the rare cases where "two hands with moderate amounts of money are better than one hand with more money." If you're going to go Alchemist, you're going to spend $4P, and probably $5P, on a $3P Alchemist anyhow. I'd rather have the consistency of Lighthouse to the swinginess of Silver. And I won't sob when Lighthouse misses a shuffle and consequently makes it easier to draw my Potion and recycle my Alchemists, too.
But yeah, the key mistake in that deck is the weird hybrid draw engine/BM thing that was going on there. 4 Alchemists, 5 Silvers, 3 Golds? What? And two Potions, too.
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Game 11: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110923-160111-01459ff9.html
What?
Okay, first of all: never open Farming Village. Particularly never open Farming Village/Silver. The +2 Actions from Farming Village are obviously not going to do you any good at all in your first reshuffle, as you're guaranteed not to have an Action to play them with. So what does it do? Probably +1 card, less likely skips some Estates? Not worth one of your opening buys.
Second of all: On a board with King's Court, Bridge, and Nobles, neither of you opened Chapel? Really? Really, really?
Nobles: is kind of a terrible draw engine on its own, but in an ultra-thin deck will be sufficient to draw your entire deck, easily.
King's Court: Makes Nobles a lot better. Just wins the game with Bridge, straight up. Forget KC-KC-Bridge x 2+ shenanigans, just being the first person to KC a Bridge probably wins you the game (Equivalent to $9 if you just make two buys that turn! Just two buys!).
This is a game where the clear dominant strategy is, "Trash away your opening cards while buying up to $7 buying power and getting a Bridge or two. Buy KC's and Bridges, and maybe a Noble or two, until you win."
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Game 11: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110923-160111-01459ff9.html
What?
Okay, first of all: never open Farming Village. Particularly never open Farming Village/Silver.
I wouldn't be quite so extreme. Sometimes - particularly Torturer Boards - you need to start accumulating Villages straightaway.
However, this board to me was always going to be Bridge/Chapel, no matter whether I open 5/2 or 4/3.
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I wanted to say thanks again for all the analysis going on here - lots of concepts I've seen my opponents used, but haven't internalized for the most part. Why not upgrade? At that point, I didn't really understand when to get that card and what to use it for. I still don't completely 'get' the upgrade-type cards.
I kind of get the point about half-way strategies - I tend to focus on a small set of cards, generally getting multiple copies, and recently I've been noticing that maybe I've been getting too many to the point where I'm falling behind my opponent in getting other critical cards and then simply being a step behind in the province race afterwards.
I don't know why I picked up farming village in Game 11 and I have no excuse :P
Is there an old discussion thread somewhere maybe that discusses silver? I tend to buy silver on Turn 1 or 2 if I'm not sure what other cards will benefit me, and again on Turn 3/4/5 if I have $3 with nothing pressing in the 2/3$ slots. I assume you can't put off buying silver too late, even if you get some $2 terminals, and my first impulse if I open with non-silvers is to get a silver or two. Or maybe I should look through the councilroom openings lists as consideration for which cards may be important enough to delay silver...
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Here is a great article about Silver:
http://dominionstrategy.com/2011/01/17/beyond-silver/
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Is there an old discussion thread somewhere maybe that discusses silver? I tend to buy silver on Turn 1 or 2 if I'm not sure what other cards will benefit me, and again on Turn 3/4/5 if I have $3 with nothing pressing in the 2/3$ slots. I assume you can't put off buying silver too late, even if you get some $2 terminals, and my first impulse if I open with non-silvers is to get a silver or two. Or maybe I should look through the councilroom openings lists as consideration for which cards may be important enough to delay silver...
Basically, in terms of Silver, you want to look at what your strategy is.
If it's a modified Big Money strategy in a Province game, you can't really go wrong buying Silver.
If you're buying some kind of Action-heavy strategy, you want to look at what Actions you need to get, and how much buying power those Actions will provide before your deck comes together. If they're $5 (or more), then you'll probably want a few Silvers, quickly. If the ones you want to buy a LOT of are $4 or less, you'll probably want only 1 or 2 Silvers. You can get away with fewer Silvers if your Actions provide you with some buying power.
You want to remember that it's very possible to sink any cards/action engine (whether single-card like Lab or multi-card like Village/Smithy) by buying lots of Silver. You're almost always going to have the opportunity to buy Silver, almost every turn. You can really inflate your deck quite quickly with it, and if you're trying to chain together +cards actions, it'll be easy to draw a bunch of Silver (and opening cards) instead.
Silver is worse in Colony games and better in Province games. It's better in games where you aren't going to try to chain together mega-buys.
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I tend to focus on a small set of cards, generally getting multiple copies, and recently I've been noticing that maybe I've been getting too many to the point where I'm falling behind my opponent in getting other critical cards and then simply being a step behind in the province race afterwards.
Actually, in a few of your games you doing ok and then seemed to jump onto your opponent's strategies rather than keep your own deck on an even keel. A few times you bought hamlets because other people were doing nice things with them, when your deck would have performed better without the hamlets but with gold and silver. Generally, if you've started with a money strategy then it's quite difficult to shift to an action strategy, not least because your deck will be too big for actions to get played very often. You're looking for actions to help you in the endgame rather than something that helped your opponent in the mid game.