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76

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Common strategic misconceptions

« on: December 18, 2012, 11:20:45 am »

That's exactly what I was saying though. If I could somehow manage in those games to get 5 bishops, it would mean my opponent would only get 3, and in the long game, I would win. That's the only case I can think of though where I would want to buy ALL THE BISHOPS. Oh, the other case might be in a possession battle, where I want to trash everything good in my deck and three pile somehow. But that would be later in the game.

If my opponent tries this strategy of "buying out" the bishops, I would do one of the following, depending on the board:

Build an awesome engine with the free trashing: if there are villages and draw, I will be able to play multiple bishops if I want, and buy at least a province a turn, possibly more if there's +buy. Or even better gain free things to trash.

Or:
Use the fact that my opponent is playing bishops every turn to trash down to the "golden deck". I'll be trashing provinces every turn, while my opponent will be trashing bishops/silver.

So yeah, its pretty rare I'd want to buy out bishops. Maybe with fortress though... just to keep my opponent from gaining too many of them, I'd only need like 4 (assuming no draw).

4 Bishops/4 Fortress nets 12VP a turn. Much better than the Golden deck. Also, easier to setup.

77

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Common strategic misconceptions

« on: December 18, 2012, 11:17:05 am »

Addition/clarification: Of course, sometimes your engine really don't want silver, and there are other ways of trashing estates, and you don't want jack. I just think a lot of people think it NEVER goes in an engine.

78

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Common strategic misconceptions

« on: December 18, 2012, 11:12:24 am »

"Double jack is the best option when there is no strong engine"

Double jack is strong, but there are almost always slight adjustments to be made. Sometime its buying 1 jack and then a terminal draw card or two, sometimes its buying a warehouse and a festival because they combo well.

"Jack of All trades is a boring card and never goes in engines"

Jack does a lot of things. Don't discount them. If there is no other way to trash estates, jack can do that for you, and replace them with silver. If building an engine, you can use trash for benefit later to get rid of the jack. If you have a way to trash copper, like spice merchant, it can be nice to build up your economy with the silvers...

Jack can even be an engine component itself. With disappearing villages or hamlet, it does draw up to 5. I played a game with fishing village and ambassador, and this was quite amazing and fast. Jack+hamlet can make a weird sort of money/engine hybrid that is definitely faster than double jack alone.

Engine building is tricky with jack around, because you have to be fast(<15 turns for the whole game often), and attacks are going to be less effective, and stalling is going to be less effective, because Jack doesn't suffer much from greening. Still, if you're clever, there's a lot of interesting things to do with Jack.

79

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Common strategic misconceptions

« on: December 17, 2012, 10:47:15 am »

If my opponent tries this strategy of "buying out" the bishops, I would do one of the following, depending on the board:

Build an awesome engine with the free trashing: if there are villages and draw, I will be able to play multiple bishops if I want, and buy at least a province a turn, possibly more if there's +buy. Or even better gain free things to trash.

Or:
Use the fact that my opponent is playing bishops every turn to trash down to the "golden deck". I'll be trashing provinces every turn, while my opponent will be trashing bishops/silver.

So yeah, its pretty rare I'd want to buy out bishops. Maybe with fortress though... just to keep my opponent from gaining too many of them, I'd only need like 4 (assuming no draw).

80

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Common strategic misconceptions

« on: December 16, 2012, 06:26:27 pm »

Oh yes, HP + bishop is strong, I just would open silver/silver for it. The particular board I'm thinking of had hoard on it, so I knew I could catch up on points, but I THINK its right to open silver/silver even for plain bishop+HP. Not 100% sure.

81

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Common strategic misconceptions

« on: December 16, 2012, 06:18:50 pm »

I wrote an article about this, saying essentially the same thing. Bishop is usually a bad opener.

I got a lot of resistance to this, and I think this resistance comes because people think of it as a trasher, and want to buy it right away. I don't think people think to buy bishop turns 3-6. Because of that, most of peoples experience is games where one person buys bishop and the other doesn't. In a lot of games bishop is really good. Its just better when you don't start with it.

One additional reason other than what WW stated is just the opportunity cost of not having an additional silver. When there are awesome 5 cost things out, you want those as early as possible, and opening bishop hurts that goal. I've seen people open bishop/silver when Hunting party or wharf was on the board. Don't do it.

Bishop is a generally good opener.


Bishop is generally TERRIBLE as an opener (there are exceptions), yet people do it ALL THE TIME.

Can you explain this more?

the main downside here is that bishop offers your opponent an option to trash as well. they can then focus on building their engine and playing other action cards while still thinning out their deck just as fast as you. this boost is often enough to offset the marginal difference in VP chips in the early game.

Yeah, so this is basically correct, but I would like to expand on this more.
So if you look at trashing an estate with it, and your opponent does the same, you come out with 1 more money and 2 more points, whereas he has a, let's say silver in his deck (the opportunity cost). This is a pretty decent trade.
You trash a copper and he does the same. You end up with 1 more coin, and 1 more point. Not so worth it. Now overall, we look at BM-bishop opening with bishop being best, and it beats other options... but only very slightly.
More important, you are going to have a 5 card hand, one of which is bishop, which gives you 4 more cards to trash from. Your opponent has 5 cards to trash from. So he has extra chances to trash what he wants than you do, and he has extra cards to do something with after he trashes, and you've used a terminal action.

Now, bishop is by no means a bad card overall, for a few reasons. So why? Well, basically it is at it's best in the golden deck (this is of course a special case big exception to my generality), or in an engine, later on. (Bishop-BM is like, I think it's even worse than chancellor? It's really bad, almost never optimal - very many things let your opponent win the province split, and you have a very hard time hanging in the duchies, or getting 12 points from chips in time...).
Why is it better later? Well, there's a couple really big reasons. First, it's less likely that your opponent can just trash something without hurting their next hand in a significant way, which takes a way a huge portion of the drawback. Moreover, you are often reaping LOTS of points in such an engine (trashing 1-2 golds and re-buying them every turn is really good, and a really good way to crush a BM player to death, for instances), and perhaps most important, you just have more cards in your hand to be able to trash exactly what you want.

82

Game Reports / Re: Is Workshop+Vineyards a "Thing"

« on: December 14, 2012, 03:18:31 pm »

Workshop + vineyard is definitely thing, in the same way workshop + gardens is a thing.

In both cases you'd much rather have ironworks, but sometimes you get what you get. The difference is that vineyards tends to favor the long game much more than gardens. (its nearly impossible to get your deck up to 70 cards, for example). So yes, on a slow board like the one in question, vineyard is quite good.

I've seen much better boards for it (say with caravan), but good actions are less important than the speed of the game. If you get most of the vineyards and the game is slow, you win.

83

Game Reports / Re: Hunting Party/Counting House

« on: December 13, 2012, 08:30:45 am »

Okay, I'd buy that, but I still think its better than HP+Navigator (or duchess, or counting house with no extra buys). Also, why would you even compare it to monument, since you'd just want to go HP+monumtent.

84

Game Reports / Re: Hunting Party/Counting House

« on: December 12, 2012, 08:53:34 pm »

I recently played a game where the +X in HP+X was just harem. I opened silver-silver, and didn't bother getting the harem until WAY into the game. I'm now not really convinced you even need the +X if you get enough hunting parties. I mean, if you have silver gold estate copper HP, well, you are going to draw an extra card for every HP in your deck, and that will assuredly be enough to buy a province, just by random coppers (and maybe a silver).

I mean, if you have something spicy like militia or baron, or possibly even something OK like chancellor, go for it, but I think with navigator, or with counting house without extra buys, I'd just play money + HP.

85

Help! / Re: How do you defend against a Black Market?

« on: December 10, 2012, 11:21:37 am »

Also, the +gold/+silver option on Gov is amazing for you here, I would have used it nearly all the time, as it dilutes the special cards your opponent is getting, and makes your montebank(s) more likely to hit. It makes it harder for your opponent to use chapel, as they don't really want to trash the silver, and if they do they might not be able to buy anything.

I probably would have just tried to keep buying one Gov a turn whenever I could, but only using +cards when I couldn't buy another gov. I might have bought one more montebank, but I'm not sure about this, as there didn't seem to be a very good time for this.

86

Help! / Re: How do you defend against a Black Market?

« on: December 10, 2012, 11:15:01 am »

In addition to some play mistakes with governor, I also think you dipped into colonies too early, before your deck was powerful enough. I think you should have contested the govenors more, as they were what really let your opponent take off.

For example, turn 12, you bought a colony, however, that turn, instead you could have used your governors to trash two of your silvers into governors, and then buy the last governor. Then you would have split the governors 7-3 in your favor, instead of 6-4 in your opponents favor.

Your opponent having the only tournament IS rough though, as it is amazing in the long game.

87

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What helps you play?

« on: December 09, 2012, 01:03:56 pm »

I think you improve the most when you play actual games against an opponent. I think solitaire games aren't that useful because attacks are so important in Dominion. I mean, playing a bunch of solitaire games with Goons won't tell you much about how those games play out with opponents. Solitaire is nice for practicing some engine building.

I'm mostly opposed to solitaire because it misses out on what I feel is a key aspect of Dominion strategy: in a game of Dominion you are NOT playing one deck, you are playing X decks, where X is the number of players. It just so happens that you have the most control of your own deck. Attacks and interactive cards highlight this aspect, but it applies even in Big Money mirror matches. Every decision you make should depend on all the decks involved in the game. You can't develop this kind of intuition playing solitaire.

The help threads can be useful, if you know who to listen to. Two people who respond a lot, and I think give really great advice are DG and dondon. Also, -Stef- isn't as prolific, but he is the best Dominion player in the world, so I usually listen to him. There are lots of others too (jonts, Rabid, HME), I can't make a comprehensive list. Don't believe everything you read in a help thread.

Don't waste too much time looking at game logs. Not very useful unless you replay the whole game turn by turn in your mind. You could just be playing another game of Dominion.

I don't play a ton of solitare games, I play more real games. But sometime you hit a new opening like Trader-Chapel, or Loan-Trade Route with peddler on the board, and you want to know how good it actually is after one game. Taking a break from grinding out matches to test that question can be really useful. Solitare goes really fast, and 5 or 10 games can give you a much better idea of how an opening plays out than just one.

On the same topic, having people you can play REAL test games against can be really useful.

88

Help! / Re: Possession & Alchemist

« on: December 07, 2012, 11:07:31 pm »

Alchemist + Possession boards are very hard to come back from. The first person to play a possession can keep the other player from replaying the Alchemists, and on this board, he can empty you NV, etc. Not very fun.

89

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What helps you play?

« on: December 07, 2012, 01:37:11 pm »

- solitare and simulations ARE really useful -- especially when you get some cool interaction or something that works better or worse than you expect. Its important to answer whether the interaction was due to luck or poor-play, or can it be repeated.
- I always have a plan (well, at least when I play my best). Try to identify the key strategies on the board before you buy anything. How will you beat your opponent if they go for a similar strategy? If they go for a different strategy? Roughly after each reshuffle, reevaluate the game. Is it going how you expected?
- Pacing- How long is the game going to go? Are you going to win the long game or the short game, and if so how do you speed up or slow down the game ending?
- Visualize the endgame BEFORE you get there - Is it going to come down to trading provinces? A long slog, grabbing all the points you can get? A megaturn, grabbing one province and piling out? Figure out what will give you an advantage at that point - perhaps extra buys if there's megaturn potential, or buying a province a bit earlier than normal if there are no extra buys.

I try to talk to my opponents about strategy as well. I'm often a little disappointed that many don't seem to be interested in this, but I find its great when I can get others' perspective.

90

Dominion Articles / Re: Bandit Camp

« on: November 26, 2012, 01:30:02 pm »

Re: Bandit Camp with BM: The delayed gold is really how I want to look at it. So, delayed gold is actually pretty good for BM, not so much for terminal draw but really good for something where you have non-terminals good for BM. So this looks like Merchant Ship, but of course they conflict on $5, so probably it's more true for things like monument and bridge.
The other thing you want to note is that you don't always have to play the spoils. Of course this is useful in those cases where you won't be spending the extra cash anyway, which doesn't happen too often in big money, but definitely helps push you in PPR/duchy dance scenarios. But more important, I would guess that at some points anyway, with $3-4 and a spoils, you should buy silver and bank the spoils; with 6-7, keep the spoils, buy a gold. Finessing out exactly when this is right is the tricky bit.

You don't mean non-terminals, you mean non-drawing terminals.

I played a game with courtyard recently where I was BM + courtyard + BC. I hit 5 twice and decided BC looked good. It played quite nicely with the courtyard, and I bought the 5th province turn 13.

91

Dominion Articles / Re: Bishop

« on: November 21, 2012, 08:00:58 pm »

Since when did we assume that Wharf was in every kingdom?

We are talking about power $5s here that make Bishop a poor open. Not all games have power $5s. I can maybe think of Mountebank, Witch, Wharf, HP, and Governor as the definitive $5s for which I would not open Bishop, almost ever. Some others, it depends on whether there is an engine present or not. But, for example, unless you can steamroll the opponent, you're at a loss if you don't open Bishop because you'll frequently be down at least ~6 VP from a sparsely played Bishop due to your Estate trashes.

I agree that we are not talking about all games, but I have seen people open bishop with all the examples you cited. I would add other cards that might make me avoid opening bishop: Kings Court, Goons, tournament, colony, excellent trashers such as remake or ambassador. And bridge combos. I just think it adds up to wanting to open bishop infrequently (maybe 25-30% of games with bishop).

Also, I if you manage to buy a bishop by the second reshuffle, you should only be behind by ONE bishop play, which will be 2VP (1 VP if your opponent is unlucky). If you buy by the third reshuffle, it will be 2-4 VP behind. I don't know why you are coming up with 6VP, unless you are assuming you buy your bishop VERY late.

I absolutely agree that in some games, that ~3 points might be enough to make the difference. Of course it it depends on the kingdom. But I find the better the engine, the easier it is to make up that loss, and the less important it is to open bishop. Of course, if there is no +buy, it makes opening bishop much more attractive, because splitting the provinces 5/3, or picking up extra duchies, is really tough without extra buys.

Yeah, this should really be added to the article. The question of whether to open bishop is very subtle, and I was probably too simplistic in my presentation. I just see people open bishop on an Hunting Party board and it made me want to write this article.

92

Dominion Articles / Re: Bishop

« on: November 20, 2012, 10:53:21 am »

In most cases, I'm not arguing to ignore bishop, just not to open with. I would say silver/silver is better in many cases.

I doubt there are that many cases of Silver/Silver being better. Bishop is definitely not a high-priority opener even for strategies centered around Bishop, but if you're going for Bishop, it has to usually be better to get one at the opening instead of a second Silver. One Silver still gives you some buying power, and the marginal benefit of the second Silver is often not as good as getting the extra VP or two out of the Bishop.

And while I also agree that it's not a good trasher, I don't think you can completely ignore that aspect of it. Even though the maximum potential trashing is equal for you and your opponent(s), it's not equivalent to not trashing at all. You have to consider who benefits more from the trashing. It is often your opponent, but sometimes, as in the case of the basic golden deck, it's you. Another example is if you're eventually going to be going for Bishops, having yours early to get points from your Estate while your opponent trashes his for no points makes a difference (which is why I think Bishop/Silver is often going to be better than Silver/Silver).

Okay, good points you made:
1. in the long run the silver will be worse than a bishop (in many games)
2. the effect of the trashing is not always equal

However, I maintain that you will hit $5 less often turns 3-5 with your bishop/silver opening. I would rather risk having fewer bishops early than having fewer Wharfs early. If there are no amazing 5s but still an engine, or you are going for the golden deck, I can see opening bishop/silver. As you say, having a good 4 can make it even easier to not open bishop though (caravan).

But if you open with a bishop, you obviously don't want 2 wharves Turn 3 and 4 anyway.  And in the case of Minion, the early thinning is important enough that you want to start ASAP.  And HP?  An HP deck doesn't need trashing anyway, so that example's false.  And lab?  Early labs aren't that strong anyway.

I really can't think of a case where I want a Bishop, but I don't want it turn 1/2 because I want two 5's turn 3 and 4.  So the fact that you can't reach 5 both turn 3 and 4 isn't a big deal.

wharf -- sure, IF you open bishop, you don't want two wharfs, but I wouldn't open bishop, because I'd rather be playing wharfs early, not bishop. I'd buy a bishop later, exactly when being determined by whether I'm playing wharf/engine or wharf/money

minion -- you are falling into the same trap as usual, the trashing helps your opponent just as much as you, so you can't think of that as a benifit. In fact, with minion, it helps them MORE, because they have the option to use minion to draw 4 new cards AFTER using your bishop to trash. You might not have that option if you don't have a village.

Also, opening bishop lowers your chance of getting ANY 5's turn 3 and 4:
http://dominionstrategy.com/2011/06/21/opening-probabilities-part-ii/

You have 34% chance of getting NO 5's with bishop/silver, as opposed to only 8.8% of missing 5's both turns with silver/silver.

That is roughly 20-25% of games where I will get a wharf early, and you won't. I WILL win the majority of those games. The question is whether you will win enough of the other games to make up for it.

I would argue I would also win most of the ~15% of games where I get two early wharfs, and you have a bishop and a wharf.

I would guess that all other games you might have a 55/45 advantage, which is not enough to make up for the other lost games. These are complicated questions, but I can't believe that you would never consider opening silver/silver and waiting to buy bishop.

93

Dominion Articles / Re: Bishop

« on: November 20, 2012, 09:50:38 am »

In most cases, I'm not arguing to ignore bishop, just not to open with. I would say silver/silver is better in many cases.

I doubt there are that many cases of Silver/Silver being better. Bishop is definitely not a high-priority opener even for strategies centered around Bishop, but if you're going for Bishop, it has to usually be better to get one at the opening instead of a second Silver. One Silver still gives you some buying power, and the marginal benefit of the second Silver is often not as good as getting the extra VP or two out of the Bishop.

And while I also agree that it's not a good trasher, I don't think you can completely ignore that aspect of it. Even though the maximum potential trashing is equal for you and your opponent(s), it's not equivalent to not trashing at all. You have to consider who benefits more from the trashing. It is often your opponent, but sometimes, as in the case of the basic golden deck, it's you. Another example is if you're eventually going to be going for Bishops, having yours early to get points from your Estate while your opponent trashes his for no points makes a difference (which is why I think Bishop/Silver is often going to be better than Silver/Silver).

Okay, good points you made:
1. in the long run the silver will be worse than a bishop (in many games)
2. the effect of the trashing is not always equal

However, I maintain that you will hit $5 less often turns 3-5 with your bishop/silver opening. I would rather risk having fewer bishops early than having fewer Wharfs early. If there are no amazing 5s but still an engine, or you are going for the golden deck, I can see opening bishop/silver. As you say, having a good 4 can make it even easier to not open bishop though (caravan).

94

Dominion Articles / Re: Bishop

« on: November 19, 2012, 10:47:14 am »

I would comment, that if something breaks the symmetry of trashing between you and your opponent, it does make bishop better, specifically cards that depend on estates.

If your opponent buys trader/baron/salvager/remodel, they are looking to trash estates. This does make opening bishop slightly better, assuming I don't want any of those other cards. Of course this doesn't really work for remake/steward/ambassador, because they probably aren't going to buy anything the turn they draw those cards, so the copper trashing is still free.

95

Dominion Articles / Re: Bishop

« on: November 19, 2012, 10:41:15 am »

Bishop silver gives you a good chance of hitting 5 first, especially if your opponent does take the advantage to trash. With a strong 5 card like minion I'd say it's worth opening with.

Opening Bishop/Silver is worse for hitting 5 than opening Copper/Silver.

Thank you, finally another voice of reason. Not to mention that you have almost no chance of getting TWO fives turn 3 and 4, which what, maybe 10-15% of games if you open silver/silver? To get two fives with bishop-silver, you need to draw them together along with one estate and two copper, have a hand of five copper, and have the two estates in your last two cards. That's got to be sub-percent level.

What 5's are you really going to want to pick up 2 of turn 3 and 4, if you also wanted to open a Bishop?

Plus, that's no different than say... remake or any other trasher.  ALL of those cards give up slight early buying power in order to have superior buying power later.  Here, while the "trash" benefit might be equal, the pay off benefit between the two players isn't.  If your opponent has SCCCC when you play your bishop, sure they can trash a copper, but then they give up gold.  So, it's not as simple as "You won't get two 5's"

I DON'T want to open bishop. I don't even care if I pick it up till turn 6 in many cases. And you CANNOT compare bishop to other trashers, because it also lets your opponent trash. Opening with it DOES NOT give you better buying power (than your opponent) later. Steward lets you trash 2 cards, for instance, which is completely different than trashing 1 estate, and letting your opponent trash an estate too (and 2 VP). For the first one I'm willing to take a hit in the number of 5's I hit, for the second, I'm not. Opening bishop gives you VP advantage, NOT deck advantage.

5's where I would want 2 of, turns 3 and 4: Wharf, Minion, Stables, Laboratory, Hunting party. I'm sure there are others, but those come to mind. Particularly with something like wharf, the extra buys will make it easy to buy a bishop later.

Sometimes I'll even just skip the bishop for a good 4: say ironworks is on the board, I'd rather start with ironworks for cheap engine pieces, and then use the ironworks later to gain a bishop, then bishop fuel. Or start caravan, trying to hit 6 for hoard, buying bishops later.

I just think getting your engine going is often more important than the few piddly points you gain from a bishop opening.

I'm not saying its always clear cut. To be honest, a case like minion - with no other trashing, and say a village as well, and no extra buys: its a close call. I just still think, even in that case, that opening silver/silver is ever so slightly better.

Mostly I think people just go on autopilot and open bishop, and its wrong much more often than people think.

96

Dominion Articles / Re: Bishop

« on: November 18, 2012, 11:14:16 pm »

Bishop silver gives you a good chance of hitting 5 first, especially if your opponent does take the advantage to trash. With a strong 5 card like minion I'd say it's worth opening with.

Opening Bishop/Silver is worse for hitting 5 than opening Copper/Silver.

Thank you, finally another voice of reason. Not to mention that you have almost no chance of getting TWO fives turn 3 and 4, which what, maybe 10-15% of games if you open silver/silver? To get two fives with bishop-silver, you need to draw them together along with one estate and two copper, have a hand of five copper, and have the two estates in your last two cards. That's got to be sub-percent level.

97

Dominion Articles / Re: Bishop

« on: November 18, 2012, 01:45:35 pm »

Interestingly, Fortress+bishop is the only combo I know of that doesn't require you to buy/gain cards to gain a large number of points. Which means you could conceivably get into get into a situation where nether player wants to buy any other cards to disrupt their combo, but the score is close... sort of a chess-draw.

If this occurs, the leading player can buy the remaining fortresses, then another draw card, preferably something like spy, and then cross their fingers and pile the bishops.
However, this is difficult to pull off, especially if fortress is the only village, and harder if it's the only cantrip.
It's also a bit risky, and one might want to just call it a draw.

If there are cards like caravan, market, or lab on the board, this situation can still proceed toward the endgame.

Although everything I just said may be totally incorrect, I think it would be very rare that fortress/bishop would leading to an unending game.

I think you are right that its rare, but its the first case in dominion I know of where something like that being possible.

98

Dominion Articles / Re: Bishop

« on: November 18, 2012, 10:56:01 am »

Bishop will antisynergize with Highway because you'll likely have to play some to get Bishop + trashed card in hand. Also probably true for some, but not all, Bridge strategies.

The Golden Deck definition in the article is really narrow. In general, a deck that relies on Victory cards for scoring will decline in potency as the game drags on during the greening phase. Bishop lets you avoid that, either by providing you a means to victory without Victory cards or by supplementing your score without clogging your deck.

You also don't need to have a 5-card deck to have what is effectively a Golden Deck. You just need to be able to draw your deck (or enough of it) every turn, Bishop a green card, and buy it back.

If you notice, I mention two other "golden decks" that don't have 5 card hands.

However, there is a good question here: if you draw your whole deck, say with smithies and villages, gain some stuff with ironworks, and then trash it with bishop, is it a "golden deck" ? With most draw decks, there is some chance of "missing". I think what makes "golden decks" unique is that there is NO chance of missing. So I would call Fortress x 4, bishopx4 a golden deck, but I wouldn't call the following "golden", because you could "miss" Fortress x 6, bishop x 6, village x 2, smithy x 2.

Or is it just the fact that you don't need to buy VP what makes it "golden"?

Probably I should add some discussion of this in the "golden deck" section. "Almost golden" decks and draw decks that utilize bishop in a similar manner are important.

Interestingly, Fortress+bishop is the only combo I know of that doesn't require you to buy/gain cards to gain a large number of points. Which means you could conceivably get into get into a situation where nether player wants to buy any other cards to disrupt their combo, but the score is close... sort of a chess-draw.

99

Dominion Articles / Re: Bishop

« on: November 17, 2012, 12:37:15 pm »

EDIT: I just added mention of Fortress, and some analysis by DG. I also more cleanly organized the article.

100

Dominion Articles / Re: Bishop

« on: November 17, 2012, 11:58:00 am »

I think its interesting that the most frequent times to NOT buy bishop are terminal draw situations where there is no engine, and very powerful engines. The exact opposite ends of the spectrum.

Let me start from the premise that I don't play Bishop well.

The biggest struggle for me is that, if I don't open Bishop, there doesn't seem to be a good opportunity to get one later. If I pass on Bishop, I usually hit $5 in the next shuffle, and I can't justify passing on a power $5 for a Bishop. Getting the early $5 seems especially important because Bishop is slowing my opponent's deck-building at first, so I want to press that edge. But then, I never get a Bishop and lose on VP chips.

So, how should I think about this balancing act?

Well, I think that the ideal solution to that is to have multiple buys or other gainers to get your bishop, perhaps along with a cheap engine component. I find an unlucky 4 happens pretty often between 3-6 anyways. But sometime you need to make tough choices. That's what makes dominion interesting.