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Messages - Tahtweasel

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26
Dominion Isotropic / Re: Most Vetoed Card?
« on: February 09, 2012, 05:28:12 pm »
I'm surprised this hasn't been discussed here, but my first target for veto is actually Secret Chamber if there are attacks on the board.

27
Dominion Isotropic / Re: Most Vetoed Card?
« on: February 09, 2012, 05:15:25 pm »
The rare games where Possession actually can be played regularly >1.0 times per turn, all normal game logic goes out the window. You have to get yourself down to 0 treasure, and fast. I've even Chapeled Bazaars in a Possession game.

28
Dominion Articles / Re: Is develop REALLY that awful?
« on: February 08, 2012, 11:33:42 pm »
I thought about it, but in a game where Mountebank exists, I can't see myself ever purchasing Develop.

29
Dominion General Discussion / Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« on: February 08, 2012, 05:37:54 pm »
 
Had to go back and reread your posts from that thread, and if you did say I'm probably right, I'm still not seeing it. In any case, it was only a joke, sorry if I offended.

Hm, it appears the closest I got was:

But Goons is really incredibly strong too, you make a good case for it deserving the #1 spot, and I'd be very disappointed if it wasn't at least #2.  They're both certainly miles better than Grand Market.

The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that you were right, I was wrong, and Goons>KC, though I do still think it's pretty close.  I tend to find CR stats pretty convincing in these sorts of discussions, though not necessarily the be-all and end-all.
The problem with CR stats is that there are biases against cards that are used poorly by beginners - such as Coppersmith.

Are we mistaken in leaving Coppersmith off this list?

Not at all.

Anyone who posts here knows exactly when to use Coppersmith. You use him, for example, when there are powerful draw engine cards like Wharf, Village, and King's Court, but no trashing. That's a perfectly reasonable situation for him to be used in, and he's extremely powerful.

He is bought in about 23% of games on isotropic, and his win rate with is miserable (0.80, fifth worst.)

But if you look at elite players, they purchase him a little bit less frequently (4 to 16% of games, maybe) and they do just fine with him, because they're using him correctly. Fabian actually has a 1.56 win rate with Coppersmith.


30
Dominion General Discussion / Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« on: February 08, 2012, 03:58:52 pm »
chwhite, play a simple base game with Gardens and Thief. I realize that's not a sexy or interesting board, and it's not as cutesy as using Transmute, but you can't possibly believe that Thief is worthless there.

31
Dominion General Discussion / Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« on: February 08, 2012, 03:06:41 pm »
Thief is excellent in certain high-trashing but still money-dependent games. Chapel + Platinum, for example. It's also frequently excellent when Gardens is available, since playing it usually results in a net cards change of +2 for you relative to your opponent. (Better than Ironworks, for example.) It can be excellent when Harem is in the game.

Lastly, as crazy as this sounds, a Kings Court+Engine+Thief strategy can completely lock down a strategy with no virtual money. Easily, even. The only reason you don't hear about it as often as KC-Goons-Masquerade is that the latter combo is based on three power cards everyone always look for.

Even a softer version of the lockdown can totally screw up a greening Big Money player. Sample Game with a victory over a top-ranked player.

I have a win rate of 1.67 with Thief, as high as Followers. It's by no means a good card, which is why I purchase it only in one game out of every 30. But at least it's reasonably acceptable.

I accept Transmute, Counting House, Adventurer, and Scout as the actual worst cards, but I understand that Thief is misplayed worse than any of those.

32
Game Reports / Re: Mutually Assured Destruction
« on: February 06, 2012, 05:48:37 pm »
The lesson is that the game gets very weird once someone hits the threshold of >1.0 possessions played per turn.

It's possible to have an endless game with, say, Farming Village/Chapel/Possession.

33
Situation: Open Festival
What you think you've done: Opened with a powerful $5 card
What you've actually done: Opened with Woodcutter
What you think you've done: Made a good post on this thread.
What you've actually done: Ignored the longer-term benefits of a Festival opening.
:)
Depends on what terminals are available. If there aren't any useful terminals, Festival = Woodcutter.

34
Situation: Open Tunnel/Silver
What you think you've done: Bought the Tunnel early so you can combine it with a later Embassy
What you've actually done: Decreased your chance to actually buy that Embassy during the next shuffle.

Generally: Get the discarder first, then the Tunnel.
I've seen people open Tunnel/Potion to try to get a Golem/Tunnel deck going. It didn't work so well.

35
Dominion Articles / Re: Is develop REALLY that awful?
« on: February 06, 2012, 01:35:56 pm »
Develop is a very poor copper-trasher, and a rather poor estate-trasher (essentially it's a half-Remake.)

To use it well, you have to have a plan to trash the more expensive cards.

An ideal Develop play is something like this.

Develop Ill-Gotten Gains into Border Village and Smithy, gain an Ill-Gotten Gains from Border Village. You've just cursed your opponent and gotten yourself a guaranteed village-smithy combo for your next turn.

Or:

Develop Gold into King's Court and Hunting Party and put them on your deck.

36
I'd just like to quickly point out that Highway/Salvager is not so weak. Highways love trashing and +buy, both of which are provided by Salvager.

The "smart" analysis says that Salvager's coin income decreases from each Highway played, so Highway weakens Salvager. But the most likely target for Salvager in a Highway deck is Copper.

37
Game Reports / Re: Dear My Opponent: I am Sorry
« on: February 03, 2012, 11:00:15 pm »
Dear Wandering Winder,

I am sorry that I flipped your Sea Hag three consecutive times with my own Sea Hag, and played mine for seven consecutive turns. May you never experience that again.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120129-145224-624d2d23.html


38
Dominion General Discussion / Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards
« on: February 03, 2012, 10:30:00 am »
Phil Stone and Herbalist are hilarious together. I think it's even a viable strategy if you have to open $5/$2 without decent $5s. The likely optimal play for this combo is very interesting:

-open Potion/Herbalist (and you'll only want one Potion)
-buy Phil Stones over Gold
-buy as many Herbalists as you want (over Silvers!)
-buy Coppers with your leftover buy (!)
-buy Duchies extremely early

this should beat a player going Smithy/- on a $5/$2 opening!! Here's a bot:
Code: [Select]
<player name="Philosopher's Stone/Herbalist"
 author="Geronimoo"
 description="Get a bunch of Stones and Herbalists and they'll do beautiful things together. ">
 <type name="Fun"/>
 <type name="BigMoney"/>
 <type name="Combo"/>
 <type name="Bot"/>
 <type name="TwoPlayer"/>
 <type name="Province"/>
 <type name="UserCreated"/>
   <buy name="Province"/>
   <buy name="Duchy">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="6.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Estate">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="3.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Philosopher$s_Stone"/>
   <buy name="Gold"/>
   <buy name="Potion">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Potion"/>
         <operator type="smallerThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="1.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Herbalist"/>
   <buy name="Silver"/>
   <buy name="Copper"/>
</player>

The Herbalist will always put Gold back over Phil Stone so in your current version of the simulator this bot will not beat Smithy (there will be a fix in the next release of the simulator).
Try telling it to buy two Apothecaries first, and then prioritize Phil stone after that. :) That combo is just begging for it.

39
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Card idea: Grant
« on: February 01, 2012, 01:20:14 pm »
It doesn't trash, which makes it a completely different card from Upgrade. Upgrade is best used early, while this card would best be used in the mid-late game.

Edit: the best comparison would probably be Smugglers.

40
Game Reports / Re: First win: I had read that Garden was a game-changer
« on: January 31, 2012, 01:21:30 pm »
WW, I think you're a little bit more biased against Alchemist than you should be. My jaw dropped when you didn't go for it in the game we had recently with Outpost in it.

41
Game Reports / Re: A Minion/Bridge engine
« on: January 31, 2012, 11:58:22 am »
There are some cards that are much stronger at synergizing with Minion than an additional Minion is. For example, think about how much better hand of Festival-Festival-Minion is than a hand of 3x Minion.

42
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Ill-Gotten Gains - bad for the game?
« on: January 27, 2012, 11:38:44 am »
Of course, one problem with viewing IGG as overwhelmingly dominant is that is can cause you to put on blinders and fail to recognize when it's a bad option:

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120125-000429-2133d9d9.html

Yeah, there are definitely situations where IGG is a bad option in a way that other curse-givers aren't.  I'm particularly ashamed of this one:

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111116-180516-5779b4ec.html

Don't let the close score fool you, this was an utter bloodbath.
I'm not completely convinced that you did anything wrong, at least early on. It feels like OBB might have had better shuffle luck than you did.

43
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Getting use out of Chancellor
« on: January 25, 2012, 09:21:36 am »
Short answer:

Yes, Chancellor/Potion with a powerful alchemy card is one of the absolute best uses of Chancellor.

44
41. Its magical power is not much different to Farming Village's, which barely made it into the top half of the $4 cards... Then when we compare the non-magic parts of the card's, we're comparing Copper vs. Village. A free card vs. a $3-cost.
Wrong. It's Peddler vs Village. You're double-counting the drawing power of farming village, while counting the draw power of venture only once.

45
Let's have a look at the "money density" talked about by WW in his article. If you add a venture to your deck you are adding one coin to the total value. You will (typically) be adding no more cards to the bottom line since the venture will draw a replacement for itself into play. So far this is no different to adding a bazaar or market. You will also however skip all the non-treasure cards before the next treasure card and this is where the additional value comes.
That's a great way of thinking about it, but let's be clear that the "additional value" is huge. Most importantly, it allows you to green earlier than you otherwise would in Big Money, because you know that the "dead card" losses will be much lower.

If you are playing BM against heavy cursing, maybe. But Venture can also skip right over your key action cards, which FV doesn't do. The real value in Venture comes from chaining them, which generally requires decent trashing (of coppers at least), minimal silver purchases and multiple ventures.
Venture cycles you around faster, with some randomness. It can also skip a bunch of dead cards and lead you to your key action faster.

46
I am a bit WTFed at the Venture hate.

Suppose I open moneylender/silver, and manage to trash some coppers. Let's say that in my draw deck, there are three coppers, a silver, a gold, and four ventures.

A venture in hand at that point is worth 3.27, better than gold.



The first part of its value is the 1 coin I get from playing it.
The second part of its value is that it will draw me 4/9*(1+3/8*(1+2/7*(1+1/6))) = 2/3 of an additional venture, on average, before getting to a regular money card that ends the chain.
The final card will be worth (3+2+3)/5, or 1.6 on average.
In total, the value of my venture is (1+.67+1.6) = 3.27.

47
Rabble is very, very strong. Play it in massive numbers in the mid-late game and watch your opponent stagnate as you continue to build up your deck and eventually steamroll him.

48
Game Reports / Re: My fastest win so far ...
« on: January 23, 2012, 10:37:25 am »
I think protracted ambassador wars will produce the slowest optimal game.
A key is no trashing, so that the same bad cards get sent back and forth over and over.



The other edge case of ridiculously long games with optimal play are ones with, say, Farming Village, Golem, Chapel, and Possession. This sort of game results in you playing your opponent's hand more often than you play your own. Both players trim down to 0 treasure and the game can go on indefinitely.

49
Help! / Re: jack/duke or alchemist? (live 3-player)
« on: January 19, 2012, 12:17:49 pm »
Everyone in the thread is zeroing in on the correct answer.

Your mistake was in buying too much money and provinces, instead of focusing entirely on the (correct) strategy you picked out.

Your strategy is suited to long games. Why did you shorten the game by buying Provinces?

1. You produce money continuously, so your deck doesn't stagger under the weight of extra green cards.
2. Your Dukes become more and more valuable the more Duchies you buy. Your strategy is designed around accumulating Dukes worth 6 or 7 VPs. If the game lasts long enough for you to get there, your Dukes are worth more than Provinces and they cost less.

Given this, why would you shorten the game?

You actually hit on the most damning proof that province-buying is bad, and you just did the numbers wrong.

Quote
A superficial analysis - if I don't buy Provinces I lose 18 points (22) but gain 14 (36) from Duchy/Duke/Duke and the game is not over, my enemies probably split them.

You actually end up with a score of 38, not 36, with a switch to Duchy/Duke/Duke. You'd have 6 Duchies at 3, and 3 Dukes at 6, plus the two Estates.

Behind 41-38, you're in excellent shape. If your top opponent buys 2 Provinces and a Duchy, and you buy a Duchy and two Dukes, you win. Opponent finishes with 56. You finish with seven Duchies at 3, five Dukes at 7, and two Estates. 58.

Of course, this is a static analysis. The more important part is that you bought treasures over Duchies, and got yourself up to the point where you could buy multiple Provinces - something you never wanted to do in the first place.

Turn some Silvers or Golds into Duchies and this game isn't even close.

50
Dominion General Discussion / Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $4 cards
« on: January 17, 2012, 03:16:57 pm »
Wow, checking my list, I've seen how much I learn between when I sent my list and now. Now, I totally disagree about my 4$ card list.
I mainly underrated :

- Remake : The biggest mistake for me. My point of view about remake was a "worse remodel", since you should have 2 cards to trash, and coppers can't be transformed into another card. Now, I really understood this card and I buy it very often.
The fact that coppers can't be transformed into another card is a feature, not a bug.

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