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Messages - arflutter

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Further up thread there was a discussion about the mechanics of Star Chart and whether it makes the new shuffling rule (if you can't fulfill the entire draw instruction then shuffle before you draw any cards) genuinely different from the old one. The conclusion seemed to be that it didn't, but I slightly disagree.

Sticking with the example of Patrol, I play Patrol with six cards left in my deck. First I draw three cards (no problem there). Now I don't have enough left in my deck to fulfill the next instruction so I shuffle my discards, using Star Chart to choose what to put on top, and put the newly shuffled deck under the three cards left in my old draw deck. Finally I draw four cards (guaranteeing to draw what I put on top). Under the old rule it would have been identical except that I would have drawn those extra three cards before shuffling, meaning I would have been able to examine what they were before I chose which card to put on top of my deck. Granted I theoretically knew what those cards were anyway, but in practice maybe I don't remember whether I have one or two more terminals and hence whether I should be top decking my Village.

I'm not saying whether I prefer the old rule or the new one, merely that here for the first time the difference does actually change the game.

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Dominion: Renaissance Previews / Re: CSM and Ducat
« on: September 27, 2018, 01:38:40 am »
The cards in the "Variety" section do not really make them play differently though, they just make it so when both are in the kingdom, you are incentivized to get both.
Menagerie plays differently because when you have multiple CSMs in hand you can play some to get rid of the duplicates.

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Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Beat the Bot #2
« on: October 18, 2017, 11:48:55 am »
Any love for a Crossroads / Storeroom / Silk Road rush here?

That was my first thought. Was about to try it but I get an error when I try to paste the bot XML. Worked fine last week but now I get "Bot creation failed. Make sure you have valid XML in your clipboard." Anyone else get this problem?

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Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Beat the Bot #1
« on: October 12, 2017, 05:02:45 pm »
So it opens Militia / Vassal. Is that the right thing to do? I played one game against it, opened Militia / Silver, and won fairly easily despite going second when the bot failed to hit $5 on Turn 3 or 4 because its opening buys collided. Obviously that won't happen every time but the choice of opening buys makes it much more likely to miss $5 on the first shuffle.

It also doesn't buy Witch. Perhaps with all those Sentries it expects to keep on top of the Curses, but I bought Witch after I'd got two Throne Rooms so that I could play Militia and Throne a Witch every turn, and it finished the game with Curses still in its deck.

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Let's Discuss ... / Re: empires: donate
« on: July 05, 2017, 09:50:12 am »
I found it interesting to consider the baseline Donate + kingdom money performance.
Turn 1: Buy Silver
Turn 2: Buy Donate, trash all but Silver + 4 Copper.
Turn 3: Pay off debt.
Turn 4: Buy Gold.
Turn 5: Buy Gold.
Starting on turn 6, you should be able to alternate on Province + Gold buys to reach 5 Provinces by turn 14.

I have a couple of variations to suggest to this strategy for playing Donate-BM.

The first works if you have $4 or $3 on your first turn:

Turn 1: Buy Silver
Turn 2: Buy Donate, trash all but Silver + 2 Copper.
Turn 3: Pay off debt.
Turn 4: Buy Silver.
Turn 5: Buy Gold.

Now your deck is GSSCC, versus GGSCCCC with your suggestion. Either way you just buy Golds and Victory cards for the rest of the game (perhaps silver if you miss $5 or have exactly $5 and don't want a Duchy at that stage). My version has a slightly higher money density after Turn 5 (1.80 versus 1.71) but your version will hold up slightly better as you start to green. Not sure which is better.

My other variation is to play as you suggest until Turn 5, but then to forgo a Gold buy on (say) Turn 6 and buy another Donate instead, trashing 4 Coppers and keeping just 2 Golds and 1 Silver. You'll have at most 2 debt left after doing this so you're guaranteed another Gold buy on Turn 7. If you want, you can then buy Provinces on all of the next three turns, to leave yourself with a deck of 3 Provinces, 3 Golds and 1 Silver after Turn 10. Absent attacks, this is 100% guaranteed as soon as you are dealt at least $3 on Turn 1, and you're about 40% to reach 5 Provinces in 12 turns. Passing up a Gold to trash 4 Coppers obviously improves your money density overall, and having just a single Silver plus Golds and Victory cards means you never find yourself with the dreaded $7, so the density you have is slightly better focused towards Provinces and Golds (and eventually Duchies). This seems clearly better than either of the options that doesn't buy a second Donate.

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