I'm taking the plunge and posting a potential article. This is certainly a rough draft, so feel free to give any kinds of feedback you want.
In particular I'm concerned about these things at the moment:This article is a little different than the kinds of stuff that normally gets posted here, so I'm curious if anybody thinks stuff like this is worthwhile. Additionally, I'm curious if people think the different "plateaus" I've identified are distinct and useful? I know that many people's actual experience with Dominion may not match one-to-one with what's described here, but is this close enough to a general experience? And more importantly, do you think these tiers of Dominion mastery are useful to consider? Is this too long?
Ultimately, I'm writing this to encourage people to continue in their mastery of dominion regardless of their level and to give people a potential roadmap for that development. Do you think this does that?
Common Skill “Plateaus” in Mastering Dominion
Dominion is a deep game, but a lot of that depth isn’t always evident when you first start, or even as you start becoming better. This a great quality for a game, but it can also lead some people to never fully appreciate everything this game has to offer.
The purpose of this article is to describe common skill “plateaus” that people often progress through as they become more skilled at Dominion. I’m calling them plateaus because it seems like many players’ progression is marked by a number of significant breakthroughs and then a period of time where they fixate on that breakthrough, before moving on. I think this is common, natural, and even useful for learning the game.
To be clear, I don’t see this progression of plateaus as a bad thing. In some ways, I actually think it’s a necessary experience. By moving through these plateaus, players tend to develop knowledge and techniques important for strong Dominion play in isolation, before moving onto new elements. That being said, not everyone’s experience is going to be exactly the same as what I present here, nor does it have to be. Ultimately, I just want to give players (mostly beginning to intermediate players) a sense of what they might know or be good at and where they might go next in their mastery of Dominion.
One potential downside of this plateau-like progression is that sometimes players reach a plateau and assume, “Well, I guess I got this all figured out. I’ve solved Dominion!” For example, there’s countless stories of people who felt this way when they discovered “big money.” This happens because each breakthrough can lead to you crushing your peers who have yet to make that same breakthrough, and the next breakthrough might take you a while to recognize. As a result, I hope this article can help those who think they’ve “solved” Dominion. If that describes you, hopefully this can show you how there’s still more to consider before you’ve “mastered” this game. Or, if that describes someone you know, I hope this can help you encourage them to stick with the game. I think very few games can continue to be as rewarding to play for as long as Dominion.
Sea Level – Just buying stuffWe all got to start somewhere, and I think the best (only?) way to learn Dominion is to just buy stuff and see how it works. At this point, people just buy cool cards, often the most expensive cards they can afford and aim to have the most points when the provinces run out. I don’t think many people stay at this level for too long (very quickly people run into problems with having more actions in hand than you can play (terminal collision), or getting stuck with small amounts of money, and learn that they need some semblance of a plan) but some people will already give up on the game here. At this stage, the game can feel really luck based. And sure, there always will be some luck in Dominion, but the first hurdle to overcome is to start trying to figure out how to minimize that luck. In other words, to steal Adam Horton’s phrase, you need to start to “make your own shuffle luck.”
One other thing I want to note is that just because people often start at this point, don’t assume that new players who do this aren’t having any fun. Try to keep in mind how much you enjoyed the game even when you were at this point. Buying stuff is fun. Playing that stuff is fun. Seeing what’s going to happen is fun. Take solace in this fact, and don’t force people to climb these plateaus faster than they want to.
1000 ft – Big MoneyOne of the easiest ways to mitigate terminal collision or lack of money is to just buy lots of treasure. Trying this leads to the discovery of what many call “big money.” This strategy involves buying mostly treasure, non-terminal actions, and only a couple terminal actions. It’s not usually the best strategy, but it is a strategy. In other words, it will crush those playing at “sea-level.” This level is especially dangerous because even though it can be fun to start winning more, it means many games will play out in the same way (you buy silver, then gold, then provinces). The good news is that this level can start giving people a taste of plateaus to come. For example, greening too early can make a big money deck fall apart, so it can serve as the basis of considerations of tempo.
Although some people find big money boring, there’s 3 things I want to note. First, as you get better, big money will rarely be the best strategy on the board. In other words, you eventually won’t be playing big money that often. Second, as you begin to understand finer strategic and tactical considerations, you start to recognize that even big money games often require important decisions. And it can feel really good when you recognize those rare moments where big money is the best strategy. Finally, just because you might find big money boring, some people still find it fun. For example, one of my nephews loves nothing more than buying and playing Golds and Platinums; and I have a suspicion that Tom Vassal is a big money lover (check out his favorite Dominion cards for evidence).
3000 ft – Knowing the Power Cards and CombosEventually people will start to realize that some cards are just stronger than others, whether that’s always the case or only in specific situations. I think it’s at this point that many people discover dominionstrategy.com, whether that’s through the wiki, the many single card articles, or Qvist’s annual power rankings. People start thinking, “If Mountebank is on the board I need to get one as soon as possible,” “I should open Chapel and trash all my starting cards as quickly as possible,” “Wait, Pirate ship isn’t amazing?” etc.
I think this is one of the most important stages for people’s Dominion development. It’s when people start learning the ins-and-outs of each card, common card archetypes, and how some card synergies can end up being crazy. But it also carries its own dangers. People might think that the game just comes down to memorizing various combos or card power levels, and following the right script every time those cards show up. But like big money, even though these rules-of-thumb will beat people below “3000 ft,” these strategies will often flounder against players thinking on a higher plateau. [thinking about putting a link to the game where Counting House beat Mountebank, anybody have a link?]
5000 ft – EnginesThe next step is to start putting all the pieces together to build what people call an engine. Engines often use multiple different cards that serve different roles to eventually be able to draw one’s whole deck (or lots of it anyway) and produce high buying and gaining power. At this plateau players don’t look at cards individually, but rather as card archetypes or card categories (e.g. village, trasher, +buy, draw, payload, etc.) Then they fit these different archetypes together. These decks often start buying victory cards much later than big money decks, but buy them much more quickly once they do. Furthermore, they can often gain multiple cards, so they can force a three pile ending much more easily, giving them great endgame control. As a result, engines are the best deck to be built for most Dominion kingdoms.
This is the level where I find that Dominion really shines. Unlike big money, each engine plays out a little differently, can use a wide range of cards, and can produce really powerful interactions. That being said, this plateau offers its own dangers as well. Building a strong engine is hard, so players can become discouraged. I also see players who can get too caught up in this stage. When you first start playing engines it often makes sense to build a lot longer than you normally would, but sometimes players build for too long so that by the time they start buying victory cards they can’t catch up quickly enough. Additionally, even though engines are often the best thing to do on a board, they aren’t always. Try to start recognizing the times when a big money deck or something else is actually the better choice.
7000 ft – Tactical AwarenessDominion is sometimes criticized as being a multiplayer solitaire game. In other words, people think each player is just playing by themselves until the game ends. But even when there are no cards with explicit player interaction (attacks, council room, etc.), good players always need to pay attention to what other players are doing. Over time, players start becoming aware of little tactical considerations such as winning splits, PPR, endgame control, shuffle control, deck tracking, deck tempo. Each of these considerations has the potential to increase a player’s win-rate.
This “plateau” isn’t as monolithic as the others. In my experience, people tend to pick these different principles up here and there as they are learning the game, but it’s these fine-tunings can make the difference at higher levels of play. I also wanted to highlight this “plateau” to challenge those who do think of the game as multiplayer solitaire. At higher levels of play, that’s should never be the case.
10000 ft & counting – The Holistic Perspective (or “it depends on the board”)The final stage of one’s dominion development is to bring all of these things together and to recognize that each subsequent “plateau” is not always better than another one. Sometimes, big money will be best, sometimes an engine, sometimes you’ll find a new synergy that you have never experienced, and often the best strategy on a board will not fit into any neat category or deck type. Every principle or rule of thumb in Dominion can prove to be wrong depending on the cards on the board. There’s always an edgecase. As a result, allow yourself some flexibility, continue updating your assumptions about dominion strategy, and always ask yourself what could I have done differently? This doesn’t mean throw everything you learned in previous “plateaus” out the window, but open up some space for creativity, for experimentation, for having some fun.
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