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26

Dominion Articles / Re: Dominion Academy* 1.1: Alternative VP

« on: January 14, 2013, 12:57:33 pm »

You guys are right -- an engine crushes any sort of Treasure based strategy. What honestly surprised me about this board, and the reason why I posted it (maybe it's obvious to player 5 levels above me?), is how it does it. Like DStu, I thought that it was a bit of a tough call and may have been on the fence about whether or not to go with Vineyards.

Certainly, if a modified board like the one below had appeared (maybe I should have OP'd with this board instead of the one I actually played):

cards in supply: Bureaucrat, Crossroads, Envoy, Gardens, Inn, Jack of All Trades, Market, Moneylender, Village, Watchtower

(substitute Vineyard -> Gardens, Farmland -> Jack of All Trades)

I would have said, to heck with an engine, I'll play this as Jack/Jack, no questions asked. If some crazy person tries to build an engine and go for Gardens, I'll just swallow a couple of them as a spoiler and keep on rolling with the Provinces because Jack is very resilient to added victory cards. (Would ANY of you have played this as engine? If so, please teach me because it is still so counter-intuitive.)

For that matter, if you had substituted Vineyard -> Great Hall in the original board, I would have said, Big Money/Envoy all the way. BM/Envoy will race past you to 4 provinces, and there's not enough added points in Farmland and Great Hall, and not enough power cards like Grand Market in order to beat the point deficit.

At this point, though, and as dondon pointed out, there's a very strong "victory engine" here that would beat Big Money/Envoy even without the power of Vineyards, and even if a strong BM option like Jack were to be available. The key components are

1) Moneylender for weak copper trashing, so that your deck is mostly actions + victory + a few silvers
2) Crossroads-Envoy -- as shark_bait says, if they keep green with Envoy it still helps you, and the first +3 Actions from XR helps a ton
3) Bureaucrat as a mild attack to slow down the opponents and to generate cash of your own

Individually these are all fairly weak cards, but together they are unstoppable.

This was my first attempt playing this board solitaire, though I had the experience of playing the actual game before once. By turn 17 I was able to get double Provinces without even trying for it, because I played this for Vineyards. If this had been a Gardens board with Jack on the opposite side, then by turn 17 I would have expected the Jack player to have 5 Provinces + 3 Gardens in the absolute, best case scenario considering that he will be Bureaucrated most turns and it takes 14 turns to get to 4 Provinces anyway. Meanwhile, the victory engine player could easily have scooped up 5 Gardens/3 Provinces and win by a reasonable margin. If something goes wrong, there's still plenty of endgame control with Duchies.

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201301/12/game-20130112-184617-65d03233.html

With the addition of Watchtower to topdeck Village/Envoy, a crossroads-based victory engine deck will -- unlike most engines -- be even more resilient to greening than BM/Jack, and in some respects its drawing power will only become stronger.

When I think of Alt VP of the Silk Roads/Gardens variety, I typically think of either slogs or rushes. This board presents a third alternative, a victory engine, that I would never have thought about if someone hadn't pointed me out. In the context of Vineyards it was easy enough to try it out and find it, but I never would have expected it to still translate off into Gardens or SR so well.

27

Dominion Articles / Re: Dominion Academy* 1.1: Alternative VP

« on: January 14, 2013, 03:26:24 am »

My first thought while skimming over this board was that it was a relatively weak kingdom.

"Power cards" -- this board doesn't really have any. It features an extremely weak attack (Bureaucrat) and a primary card draw (Envoy) that most people consider inferior to Smithy's +3 cards for the purpose of building an engine and just about comparable for big money decks. None of the other cards seem particularly relevant. Trashing is very weak (Moneylender -- I don't think Farmland really counts). Watchtower could be used as draw-to-X but it's hard to see how that will help us much.

The benchmark strategy is big money. The best pairing for straight treasure here would be Envoy, and Big Money + Envoy is expected to get to 4 provinces within 14 turns. It's hard to see an engine doing much better than that, so if any engine works, it'd have to work through Alt VP.

An Alt VP strategy that centers around Vineyards, though, seems like it might not be fast enough. You don't have a cheap way of gaining actions, your +Buy costs $5, you don't have actions that produce money, card draw doesn't seem that strong ... so my first impression on this board is that big money envoy would be the best way to play it. Open Silver/Envoy, gain treasure, and watch to see what your opponent does. If he's copying you, race to Provinces, and maybe get one more Envoy later on (but not too early). If he's trying some kinda fancy engine around Vineyards, then be cautious and build up with more treasure (unfortunately Markets are more likely to be dead draws because of Envoy) before taking the plunge to empty out the Provinces yourself.

Things get different if you use other Alt VP cards:

1) Duke (http://dominionstrategy.com/2012/02/13/intrigue-duke/). One of the most powerful Alt VPs in the game, Duke would undoubtedly change the landscape and shift it away from Provinces. You definitely should expect a mirror against a skilled opponent. The most important card here is probably Bureaucrat, which is weak in Province games but very strong in Alt VP because it gives you treasure to offset green card bloat.

Open Silver/Bureaucrat, pick up another Bureaucrat early on, and build up a bit of economy (not too much) before pouncing on the Duchies. You're in for the slog so it helps to sustain a healthy treasure base, but you must get at least 4 Duchies -- and if you get 5, then you're in great shape.

A Duke strategy should crush a treasure strategy gunning at provinces here.

2) Gardens. This seems like a bad choice, because there isn't like an Ironworks/Workshop to support you. Previous students and teachers in the Dominion Academy and other schools have outlined two basic approaches to alt VP, the rush and the slog:

http://dominionstrategy.com/2012/08/27/a-guide-to-alternate-victory-points/

Without helpers cards, the rush is simply outta the question, so we're back to the slog. But in a slog, it'll be hard to get enough points to beat Envoy/Big Money when he depletes the provinces.

If you DO face an opponent going for Gardens on this board, then your best strategy is probably to let them. Let them take 4-5 of the Gardens, and then try to get a few of them, maybe two, as a spoiler for them without hurting yourself too much. But focus on the provinces, because that's where it will really come from:

Original Gardens article: http://dominionstrategy.com/2010/12/16/dominion-gardens/

3) Silk Road. I hardly feel qualified to write about Silk Road because I read WW's article about it, tried it out multiple times, and always find myself losing with them. Still, the same basic principles of Gardens applies here. Silk Road definitely has more potency in a slog, so the opposing player should try to get a couple of them, maybe 3, because otherwise if the Silk Road player grabs them all up and then eats a bunch of estates and duchies and maybe some Farmlands, it's over for the other player even if they get all the Provinces. Still, it seems like Silk Roads would probably be a supplement to Provinces here and not an end to itself. If you do decide to do Silk Roads, Bureaucrat will again be useful, in both generating income for you and also in slowing the opposite player a tiny bit.

4) Great Hall. This isn't really considered Alt VP, so I would have written this off entirely -- if at some point while doing Big Money I get $3 after I already have a province or two, grab a GH as a tiebreaker.

In summary, I would have expected this board to be Big Money Envoy with all the Alt VP cards except for Duke, in which case it becomes a cookbook Duke contest with Bureaucrat being the only important card in play. I'm curious to see if the more experienced players read this board any differently.

28

Dominion Articles / Dominion Academy* 1.1: Alternative VP

« on: January 14, 2013, 03:00:02 am »

Welcome back to the Dominion Academy! Professor -Stef- isn't with us for this first session, but as your teaching assistant I'm here to give you an extra study session. Huh? This isn't the Dominion Academy you're looking for? Hey, there's an asterisk there. I hope you read the fine print before you signed up and paid tuition, right?

A little bit about my credentials: I'm around level 37 on the isotropic leaderboard, so I consider myself a reasonably skilled player, but I don't claim to be the best of the best by any means. Alternative VP is not my strong suit, so I'm writing this in a bit of a modified format. Instead of giving you "the answer" upfront, I'll first give you the problem and my first impressions. Then I'll have you all chime in and share your thoughts. Later on, I'll summarize the discussion and contribute my own findings.

Here's the board. This is a three-player game I played over the weekend:

cards in supply: Bureaucrat, Crossroads, Envoy, Farmland, Inn, Market, Moneylender, Potion, Village, Vineyard, Watchtower

Questions to you:

1) How do you assess this kingdom? Which strategies would be viable? What are the key cards?

2) The topic of the day is Alternative VP. How would your answer change if we swapped out the Vineyard for:

-- Duke
-- Gardens
-- Silk Road
-- Great Hall

My thoughts have changed since I first saw the board. I'll post my first impressions of the kingdom in the next post as a starting point, and I'll give you my revised answer, along with a summary of the discussion, within 48 hours.

* not sponsored or affiliated with the Official Dominion Academy

29

Game Reports / Re: When not to go Horse Traders-Duke

« on: December 29, 2012, 02:59:08 pm »

I think this board could be played using Horn of Plenty as a linchpin. Here was my first try at it, but I think you could do better:

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/29/game-20121229-114329-cdb85971.html

With a human opponent it'd be different, of course. In the time it takes the Duke player to pick up e.g. 6 Duchies, the engine player could pick up 4 cities and 2 duchies plus 1-2 smithies probably. Once the duchies are emptied it'll be off to the races and you could draw most of your deck, Expand out useless components or Trader copper to improve reliability, buy Dukes and expand them to deny you, and finish off with a HoP megaturn.

30

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.

« on: December 11, 2012, 01:47:02 pm »

As you add more cards you get more options but the game is harder to play, especially when you're new. Of course at a certain point you aren't increasing options much anymore because cards displace other cards for you.

Originally I had ten cards and decided to just put them all out. We could cope with ten so it stayed ten.

At one point I played with eight for a while. It worked fine but was not as good. I never really considered twelve because ten is already too many to remember them all (and I didn't consider odd numbers). There's the neat trick of, it's my first game ever, man I'm not reading all these, I have $4, what costs $4, I'll read those. But ten cards is still a lot.

I've found this to be true too. These days when I explain Dominion to a set of non-gamer friends I only use five cards instead of ten. It all fits in memory that way. For their second game, I roll out a full set of ten cards. Of course if you have an experienced boardgaming audience then you can start with ten to begin with.

I've sometimes thought that the official First Game set should be less than ten cards for this reason.

31

Dominion Articles / Re: Playing engines - Stalling

« on: December 11, 2012, 11:37:19 am »

I'm not often a contributor to these forums, but I had been toying with the idea of writing an article along similar lines, in comparing money to engine strategies. I think the basic principle here (and one that I would nominate for your title) is:

Engines Need Time

Creating time by avoiding provinces, embargoing gold/province, etc., building up to an attack per turn, is an important facet of creating an engine. You really *want* and *need* the other player to stall (this is different from "Playing engines - Stalling" because it sounds like the engine player is stalling). At the same time, you want another source of points besides provinces. Otherwise, once the treasure player reaches 6 provinces, you are usually (certainly not always) toast. You cover both these points in your article.

For the same reason, Colonies are a great enabler for engines.

If "Engines Need Time" is too broad for you, you could go with:

Playing Engines -- Prolonging the Game [Davio, I think adding "the Game" makes it sound better]

Engines Versus Money -- The Stall [since your article seems to basically cover this matchup? Engine vs Engine plays by different principles in my mind]

Playing Engines -- Stalling for Time [is fine by my ear too]

32

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Coding a Randomizer in Excel // How to Deal with YW & BM?

« on: October 29, 2012, 05:02:16 pm »

Hm, here's how I would have done it:

Column A: card name
Column B: boolean variable, 1 if the card is $2 or $3, 0 otherwise
Column C: random number from 0 to 1

-------------

Sort the table by table by Column C, the random number, from largest to smallest. The first ten cards are your kingdom and they'll be randomly chosen.

If BM is in the kingdom, then cards 11 to (10 + N) are in the BM deck, where N is the size of the BM deck.

If either YW is in the kingdom or YW is in the BM deck and BM is in the kingdom, then the first card from card #(11 + N) to the end which satisfies Column B == 1 is the bane card. There are a couple of ways I think you can do this, but I'm sure you can come up with one.

(If there are no $2 or $3 cards in the remainder of the deck ... uhh ... throw an error and try again, I guess)

33

Game Reports / Re: wandering star owns me with Mint

« on: September 26, 2012, 04:59:42 pm »

At the time, I think I had drawn my entire deck (or perhaps my entire deck minus a few cards), so Watchtower wasn't an option. Actually, right after I minted coppers, I ran out of money and did the same trick with silver:

... ... and plays the King's Court a third time.
... ... ... and plays a Mint.
... ... ... ... revealing a Silver and gaining another one.
... ... ... ... ... revealing a Watchtower.
... ... ... ... ... putting the Silver on the deck.
... ... ... and plays the Mint again.
... ... ... ... revealing a Silver and gaining another one.
... ... ... ... ... revealing a Watchtower.
... ... ... ... ... putting the Silver on the deck.
... ... ... and plays the Mint a third time.
... ... ... ... revealing a Silver and gaining another one.
... ... ... ... ... revealing a Watchtower.
... ... ... ... ... putting the Silver on the deck.
... and plays the King's Court a third time.
... ... and plays a Native Village.
... ... ... getting +2 actions.
... ... ... drawing a card and placing it on the Native Village mat.
... ... and plays the Native Village again.
... ... ... getting +2 actions.
... ... ... drawing a card and placing it on the Native Village mat.
... ... and plays the Native Village a third time.
... ... ... getting +2 actions.
... ... ... drawing a card and placing it on the Native Village mat.
wandering star plays a Native Village.
... getting +2 actions.
... picking up 3 cards from the Native Village mat.
wandering star plays 4 Silvers.
wandering star buys a Platinum.

The Platinum trick was used the turn after that.

34

Game Reports / Re: wandering star owns me with Mint

« on: September 26, 2012, 04:45:00 pm »

Happened to have the game cached so I'll put it up here (as my first post ever?):

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201209/26/game-20120926-125058-1be765bf.html

For reference:

cards in supply: Bazaar, Colony, Fairgrounds, Harvest, King's Court, Margrave, Mint, Monument, Native Village, Nobles, Platinum, and Watchtower

We both took very similar strategies, which was something to the effect of:

1) Open with a Watchtower-like engine with native village support to boost us through the early stages of the game
2) Buy a Mint to help clear our deck of coppers, and also buy a Margrave, which sort of works counter to the Watchtower
3) Transition to some hybrid money-KC deck which draws a lot of cards, plays a lot of actions and mints a lot of Platinums

I thought about annotating the game like theory's old articles because I used to find it so amazing to watch back in the day, but our strategies are very similar so I'm not sure it'd be that informative.

ycz6 bought his mint fairly early on and trashed 3 coppers with it; I waited until I could draw more cards and bought a few more engine parts. With that said, I thought I was pretty dead in the middle too and just stuck around long enough to make a comeback. I'm not sure how much luck played a role at the end in being able to consistently reach big turns.