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1

Help! / Posting losses in an attempt to get better.

« on: January 20, 2018, 04:39:26 am »

In the past in this section I noticed some people have posted a series of losses in order to improve, so I thought I would give it a go and see if it helps me get better. I posted a couple of threads recently and had some interesting responses.

Since deciding to give this a go, I came unstuck on the following board.




The game was Provinces/Estates. There were no events or landmarks.

The game id is 10805340

I forgot to copy the log first time around, so I went back into the game against the bot to copy it. This though transposed the users, so it shows me as my opponent (the winner) and Lord Rattington as me (the loser).

Code: [Select]

Game #10805340, unrated.
S starts with 7 Coppers and 3 Estates.
L starts with 7 Coppers and 3 Estates.
S shuffles their deck.
S draws 5 Coppers.
L shuffles their deck.
L draws 5 cards.

Turn 1 - SG252
S plays 5 Coppers.
S buys and gains a Margrave.
S draws 2 Coppers and 3 Estates.

Turn 1 - Lord Rattington
L draws 5 cards.

Turn 2 - SG252
S shuffles their deck.
S draws 4 Coppers and an Estate.

Turn 2 - Lord Rattington
L plays 5 Coppers.
L buys and gains a Margrave.
L shuffles their deck.
L draws 5 cards.

Turn 3 - SG252
S plays 4 Coppers.
S buys and gains a Salvager.
S draws 3 Coppers and 2 Estates.

Turn 3 - Lord Rattington
L draws 5 cards.

Turn 4 - SG252
S plays 3 Coppers.
S buys and gains a Silver.
S shuffles their deck.
S draws a Copper, 2 Estates, a Salvager and a Margrave.

Turn 4 - Lord Rattington
L plays a Margrave.
L shuffles their deck.
L draws 3 cards.
S draws a Copper.
S discards a Copper, an Estate and a Margrave.
L plays 5 Coppers.
L buys and gains a Tournament.
L shuffles their deck.
L draws 5 cards.

Turn 5 - SG252
S plays a Salvager.
S trashes an Estate.
S plays a Copper.
S buys and gains a Silver.
S draws 4 Coppers and a Silver.

Turn 5 - Lord Rattington
L plays 4 Coppers.
L buys and gains a Salvager.
L draws 5 cards.

Turn 6 - SG252
S plays a Silver and 4 Coppers.
S buys and gains a Hireling.
S shuffles their deck.
S draws 3 Coppers, an Estate and a Salvager.

Turn 6 - Lord Rattington
L plays a Tournament.
L draws a card.
L plays a Margrave.
L shuffles their deck.
L draws 3 cards.
S draws a Copper.
S discards 3 Coppers.
L plays 4 Coppers.
L buys and gains a Tournament.
L shuffles their deck.
L draws 5 cards.

Turn 7 - SG252
S plays a Salvager.
S trashes an Estate.
S plays a Copper.
S buys and gains a Silver.
S draws 3 Coppers, an Estate and a Margrave.

Turn 7 - Lord Rattington
L plays a Margrave.
L draws 3 cards.
S draws a Hireling.
S discards a Copper, an Estate and a Hireling.
L plays 5 Coppers.
L buys and gains a Vault.
L draws 5 cards.

Turn 8 - SG252
S plays a Margrave.
S shuffles their deck.
S draws 2 Silvers and a Hireling.
L draws a card.
L discards 2 other cards and a Copper.
S plays 2 Silvers and 2 Coppers.
S buys and gains a Gold.
S draws 4 Coppers and a Salvager.

Turn 8 - Lord Rattington
L plays a Tournament.
L shuffles their deck.
L draws a card.
L plays a Tournament.
L draws a card.
L plays a Vault.
L draws 2 cards.
L discards a Salvager.
S discards 2 Coppers.
S draws an Estate.
L plays 3 Coppers.
L buys and gains a Gold.
L draws 5 cards.

Turn 9 - SG252
S plays a Salvager.
S trashes an Estate.
S plays 2 Coppers.
S buys and gains a Silver.
S shuffles their deck.
S draws 3 Coppers, a Silver and a Gold.

Turn 9 - Lord Rattington
L plays a Margrave.
L draws 3 cards.
S draws a Copper.
S discards 3 Coppers.
L plays 4 Coppers.
L buys and gains a Tournament.
L shuffles their deck.
L draws 5 cards.

Turn 10 - SG252
S plays a Silver, a Gold and a Copper.
S buys and gains a Gold.
S draws 2 Coppers, a Silver, a Salvager and a Margrave.

Turn 10 - Lord Rattington
L plays a Tournament.
L draws a card.
L plays a Tournament.
L draws a card.
L plays a Gold and 4 Coppers.
L buys and gains a Province.
L draws 5 cards.

Turn 11 - SG252
S plays a Margrave.
S draws 2 Silvers and a Hireling.
L draws a card.
L discards 2 other cards and a Vault.
S plays 3 Silvers and 2 Coppers.
S buys and gains a Province.
S shuffles their deck.
S draws 3 Coppers, a Silver and a Margrave.

Turn 11 - Lord Rattington
L plays a Salvager.
L trashes an Estate.
L plays a Copper.
L buys and gains a Gladiator.
L shuffles their deck.
L draws 5 cards.

Turn 12 - SG252
S plays a Margrave.
S draws a Copper, a Silver and a Salvager.
L draws a card.
L discards 2 other cards and a Copper.
S plays 2 Silvers and 4 Coppers.
S buys and gains a Province.
S draws 3 Coppers, a Silver and a Gold.

Turn 12 - Lord Rattington
L plays a Tournament.
L draws a card.
L plays a Tournament.
L draws a card.
L plays a Tournament.
L draws a card.
L plays a Gladiator.
L reveals a Gold.
S blocks with a Gold.
L plays a Gold and a Copper.
L buys and gains a Province.
L draws 5 cards.

Turn 13 - SG252
S plays a Silver, a Gold and 3 Coppers.
S buys and gains a Province.
S shuffles their deck.
S draws a Copper, a Silver, a Gold, a Province and a Hireling.

Turn 13 - Lord Rattington
L plays a Margrave.
L draws 3 cards.
S draws a Silver.
S discards a Copper, a Silver and a Province.
L plays 4 Coppers.
L buys and gains a Tournament.
L shuffles their deck.
L draws 5 cards.

Turn 14 - SG252
S plays a Hireling.
S plays a Silver and a Gold.
S buys and gains a Duchy.
S draws a Copper, a Silver, a Gold, a Province and a Margrave.

Turn 14 - Lord Rattington
L plays a Tournament.
L reveals a Province.
L discards a Province.
S reveals a Province.
L gains a Trusty Steed.
L plays a Margrave.
L draws 3 cards.
S draws a Copper.
S discards 2 Coppers and a Province.
L draws 5 cards.

Turn 15 - SG252
S starts their turn.
S draws a Copper (Hireling).
S plays a Margrave.
S draws a Copper, a Silver and a Province.
L draws a card.
L discards 2 other cards and a Copper.
S plays 2 Silvers, a Gold and 2 Coppers.
S buys and gains a Province.
S shuffles their deck.
S draws 2 Coppers, a Gold, a Province and a Salvager.

Turn 15 - Lord Rattington
L plays a Tournament.
L reveals a Province.
L discards a Province.
S reveals a Province.
L gains a Duchy.
L draws 5 cards.

Turn 16 - SG252
S starts their turn.
S draws a Gold (Hireling).
S plays a Salvager.
S trashes a Province.
S plays 2 Golds and 2 Coppers.
S buys and gains a Province.

It's your buy phase, you may...
• buy cards.
The only non-terminal actions in the supply are Tournament and Groundskeeper. I did think gaining Trusty Steed  (the only village) would be important as that might help enable something with the alt-vp available on this board. My opponent went for a money strategy and beat me quite comfortably.

I do think I played quite badly, as I wasn't fully convinced that my strategy was right and reacted to some of my opponents buys and I had too many terminals which resulted in bad hands. With hindsight I think early on I should have limited myself to a single terminal early on and gone harder for Tournament. I am unsure though as to whether that terminal should have been Salvager to get thin or Margrave mixed with some money for economy.

My gut feeling is that there is something better than the money strategy that my opponent played, but what is it?

2

Help! / Battlefield and Distant Lands but no draw

« on: January 05, 2018, 05:09:48 pm »

Hi. I would like some advice on how this kingdom should be played.

Starting with Provinces/Estates




My thoughts on the board

The interaction that jumps out at me here is Distant Lands and Battlefield. Battlefield tries to reward you for greening early (or trick you into greening too early) and Distant Lands allows you to green early because it removes itself from your deck. Also, by the time it is on your tavern mat, a Distant Lands with Battlefield points is worth the same as a Province without. It seems to be that you need a compelling reason not to go for it and I cannot see one here.

The board also offers payload options for potentially gaining and playing Distant Lands on the same turn, which can keep your deck nice and clean. You can gain a card with Ironworks which can be Butchered or Upgraded into a DL. The big problem for an engine though is the lack of draw. The only way you can draw more than one engine component is with an activated Shanty Town or by calling Royal Carriage on one of the cantrips.

I can see several possible ways to play this.

1) The engine
The lack of draw doesn't mean the engine is impossible, but it does make it weaker. You still have trashing, a village and payload. This board also features several options for sifting and deck re-ordering. Can this help compensate for the lack of draw and aid reliability?

2) Apothecary
A simple Apothecary deck should be able to quickly and reasonably reliably pick up a Distant Lands on most turns whilst playing the one bought on the previous turn. The main problem here is that you also have to make the deck be able to do something else for when the Distant Lands are gone.

3) A Butcher, Ironworks money strategy.
A money strategy using Ironworks as a Silver gainer and Butchering Silvers into Distant Lands.

4) I don't think it is a feasible option, but a golden deck is possible here.
Given that the simplest deck that can gain and play a Distant Lands each turn consists of Ironworks, Upgrade and Shanty Town, it is possible but I don't think it is realistic. I think trashing down to it would take too long and like the Apothecary deck, it also needs to be able to do something else when the DLs are gone.

Playing the game

I tried playing the engine  and it didn't work as I would have hoped. I opened Ironworks/Silver and planned to use Upgrade for my trashing. The problem I found was that you have to get really thin for the engine to start to work and by then it was too late. Apologies, but this was a real life game and I cannot remember much more about what I did. If anyone does think the engine is viable I would like to hear how you would go about it. I am wondering if you should open Ironworks/Trade Route on a 4/3 as this negates the need for an early Silver which is adding an extra stop card in your deck. You can always gain a Silver later on to start hitting 5 once the deck can take it.

Interested to hear any thoughts or ideas on this board.

3

Help! / Would like to hear thoughts on this board

« on: October 02, 2017, 03:27:21 pm »

Hi, I recently played the following board in a couple games at a games club. I found it quite interesting and I would like to hear how people here would approach it.

The Board

Provinces/Shelters

- Beggar
- Raze
- Hermit
- Advisor
- Pirate Ship
- Bridge Troll
- Rogue
- Sentry
- Hireling
- Peddler

Event - Ferry
Landmark - Labyrinth

My thoughts and analysis of the board.

The first thing that jumped out at me was the combination of Madman and Bridge Troll and whether or not there is a potential mega turn (or turns) seeing as Bridge Troll is a duration. I thought about what such a deck would look like and thought you would probably need Bridge Trolls that you wouldn't have the terminal space for until you fire off the mega turn(s). Maybe there are some tricks in setting this up that I missed, but I discounted this idea.

All the engine components are here.
- Trashing (Raze, Hermit, Sentry)
- Draw (Advisor, Madman)
- Villages (Necropolis, Madman)
- Payload (Bridge Troll, Peddler and possibly Rogue or Hermit).
Villages are the interesting component on this board. There are limitations with both Necropolis and Madman so you still have to think about your terminal space. I think that some sort of engine is the right way to go.

Rogue allows you to retrieve Hermits from the trash. This means an infinite number of Madmen could potentially be played on this board. However there is an anti-synergy here with Bridge Troll. If a Bridge Troll has already been played or was played on the previous turn, Rogue can no longer gain Hermit. In my opinion Bridge Troll is the best payload card on this board and therefore the Rogue/Hermit/Madman interaction can be ignored.

I think Hermit is a stronger card here than it usually is. Labyrinth means it can score you points early on. There are also two sources of cost reduction so it can gain cards it is normally unable to.

What I did

The strategy I decided to go for was an engine that used Necropolis to play 2 Bridge Trolls each turn, meaning I have 4 in play at any one time. I went about it as follows.
- In the early stages use Hermits to gain Ferried Advisors whilst scoring Labyrinth points and trashing Overgrown Estates and Hovels.
- If I can afford to buy a Bridge Troll do so, otherwise buy Advisors.
- Once I have a Bridge Troll pick up a couple of Razes to trash Coppers, Hermits (once Advisors are out) and lastly themselves.
- Buy Bridge Trolls until I have 4. Use additional buys on Peddlers.

The Problem

This engine has horrible potential for choking when you start to green, I assume a risk associated with using Advisors for draw. If you don't manage to get two Bridge Trolls in play on a turn the problem snowballs. Not only does this hurt the current turn, but the next one as well. The unplayed Bridge Troll can also be a potential dead card for the next turn.

As I said, I would be really interested in how people better than me would approach this.

*By the way, how can you post images of kingdoms now we don't have Goko Salvager any more?

4

Help! / Is the engine the best strategy here and if so, how should you build it?

« on: November 27, 2016, 07:11:43 am »

The link to see the kingdom doesn't seem to be working but here is an example log.

http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?http://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20161126/log.0.1480158609632.txt

The kingdom is

• Provinces/Estates
  Duchess
  Squire
  Doctor
  Smugglers
  Tunnel
  Duplicate
  Envoy
  Jack of all Trades
  Rats
  Artificer
  
  Events - Ferry

This board came up in a physical game. I lost to a variation of Envoy Big Money. Although there are some strong money options there is an interesting engine and my gut feeling is that if played correctly the engine is stronger, the problem is though how to play it correctly?

I have tried several bot games on this board to see if I can get the engine to work (an example log is linked) but most of the times I lose to the bot's money game. On the couple of occasions I did win I got very lucky with my early shuffle luck. I would appreciate any thoughts on how what the optimum strategy might be and how to play it. I look forward to hearing people's thoughts.

A few thoughts I have after my games.

One of the weaknesses the engine has is that the draw is not very good. Squire/Envoy for your village/draw combo is worse than Village/Smithy. I don't think it is possible to put together an engine that can reliably draw your deck and the engine can begin to choke when you start to green.

As I do not draw my whole deck one of the awkward decisions is when to discard a useful card to Artificer and when to keep that card to play it. I think I am making a lot of bad decisions here.

Squire is interesting on this board as it is the only village and the only plus buy. If both players go for the engine it will be important to win the split. You can make the mistake though of going too heavily for Squires at the expense of other engine components. I feel if your opponent does this you might be better off leaving them to it and switching to a money strategy.

What do you do with Duplicates here? They are very useful, probably critical, for pile control in the end game, but do you want them earlier?

Do you want Tunnel earlier on as discard fodder for Artificer? I think one or two, yes as a small number of golds in your deck is good for economy.

I think Ferrying Artificers is a given, but do you want to Ferry anything else? If so, what? I keep changing my mind on this one.

5

Dominion General Discussion / Mint/Page Opening

« on: September 10, 2016, 07:50:29 am »

I was wondering what peoples thoughts are on a Mint/Page opening. I hadn't thought about it until I saw it come up on a board I had a 5/2 start on recently.

Mint's on gain clause was the only trashing. That was my main reason for going for it. It would allow me to get through the Traveller line very quickly. In this respect it worked, I played Page on turn 3, Treasure Hunter on 4 and Warrior on 5. This opening does destroy your early economy, but I don't think this is likely to be a real problem as Treasure Hunter kick starts it and if you need a further boost you could potentially Mint the Silver that Treasure Hunter gave you.

There are two possible counter arguments that I could see.
1) If there are other strong trashers available are they better that Mint at accelerating your way through the Traveller line?
2) If you have bad shuffle luck and playing Treasure Hunter is delayed by a couple of turns, will the damage done to your early economy potentially leave you too far behind?

6

Dominion General Discussion / At what point should you resign?

« on: May 18, 2015, 06:28:46 pm »

I was wondering how far behind people think you need to be for it to be the right thing to resign.

I was playing a game on Goko where my opponent afterwards accused me of not resigning against an obviously better player and just dragging the game out in the hope he would resign out of boredom.

The game was long and drawn out but considering the board included Swindler, Marauder and no trashing I think that is inevitable. He also only beat me by 12 points and ended the game by buying the last province, which meant at the start of his last turn he was 6 points up.

I will admit he was most likely to win at that stage but it is not inconceivable that he could have only had 3 or 4 to spend and bought an Estate, with me Swindling one of his Duchies and picking up the last Province myself. In which case I would have won.

7

Introductions / New member saying hello

« on: March 24, 2015, 03:38:30 pm »

Hi,

I have just signed up so I thought I would say hello. I have been lurking for some time so I thought I would join.

Looking forward to having some fun here and learning lots (which I need to do).