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51

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: MIT Mystery Hunt Dominion Puzzle

« on: January 17, 2012, 03:04:18 am »

Took me forever to recognise just Harvest, Moneylender and Jester (which is a pain to distinguish from Swindler), although Trader was easy to spot. After a while I just searched CouncilRoom for the game log.

To those who have solved this, how do you recognise Festival without referring to the game logs? Seems impossible.

52

Dominion Articles / Re: Deck Archetypes

« on: January 17, 2012, 01:44:31 am »

Things I don't see inside but I think might be good to include:
(1) Horn of Plenty decks
(2) Goons as example of Bridge?-type deck. I think this category should be renamed somewhat, as the second example doesn't even have a Bridge.
(3) Torturer pin!
(4) Possession (Durdle?)
(5) Fool's Gold is kind of big money, I guess.
(6) HT-Duke mentioned
(7) Deck-draw: No mention of Scrying Pool is funny
(8 ) Transmute decks (definitely Durdle)
(9) Chancellor-Stash
(10) Double tactician decks

53

Help! / Re: Was I a victim of BM?

« on: January 15, 2012, 08:54:36 pm »

Spy/Silver is okay if your strategy makes Spy better than Silver quite soon, but you better know what you're doing since it's a level -1 opening (Silver/Silver is level 1).

54

Help! / Re: My Witches vs my opponent's Pirate Ships...where did my sorcery go wrong?!

« on: January 14, 2012, 08:01:30 pm »

2. You have 4 terminal actions in deck. Plus all of them draw cards! And on top of that - Pirate Ship is making the deck smaller!!! That is just too much. Definitely Tactician over Wharf.

3. I am not sure about the Silverbuying when you are facing Pirate Ship.

So you don't want to buy drawing terminals, and you don't want to buy Silvers, what are you buying with $4 may I ask? Estate? Potion?

55

2011 / Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four

« on: January 14, 2012, 05:07:32 am »

In the final 8 so far, all matches have been won by the person listed nearer the top. I'm going with olneyce.

56

Dominion Isotropic / Re: Decline of civility on isotropic?

« on: January 14, 2012, 05:05:57 am »

What's with revealing the Trader 3 times?

57

Dominion Isotropic / Re: delaying games on purpose, how to handle?

« on: January 14, 2012, 05:03:47 am »

Yariv: apologising for not seeing it (being able to end the game) might have been the best way to get your opponent to speed up.

58

2011 / Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four

« on: January 14, 2012, 05:00:47 am »

WW is extremely solid, but the final games will be hand made kingdoms that will probably not favor Big Money (although I believe at least a few should be included). If I would still be in the tournament I wouldn't like my chances  I seem to remember WW saying BM is his specialty...

WW is good at Big Money, but he's even better at alternate green cards.  Gardens, Duke, Silk Road games are his real specialty.

I would agree with this. Before our quarterfinal match, I searched out a few of WW's posts on those cards, specifically to shrink the gap between us in that area. I got lazy though and didn't look very hard, but I definitely had the same thought as you.

And Copper. Don't forget Copper.

59

Help! / Re: Is Embassy the only winning strategy here?

« on: January 14, 2012, 04:58:00 am »

Hoard also synergizes with Embassy; Embassy/BM prefers if the coins in your deck are "lumpy", and Golds + VP cards are exactly what the doctor ordered.

Small things like your Apprentice missing the first shuffle and opponent getting a Turn 5 Hoard while triggering a reshuffle; from one game it's hard to say which strategy is better.

60

Help! / Re: My Witches vs my opponent's Pirate Ships...where did my sorcery go wrong?!

« on: January 14, 2012, 04:26:55 am »

Turn 4 or Turn 5, you might consider getting an Oracle; you're losing due to dumb luck already, might as well try more swingy strategies and keeping some good coin out of his ships' reach.

But try not to read too much into this game; while there are things you might have done differently, sometimes the better strategy loses. You just have to move on.

61

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Scout/Great Hall - what makes it worthwhile?

« on: January 13, 2012, 10:27:53 pm »

Yeah the Secret History mentions that Scout was added when moving Intrigue from 20 to 25 cards, but not the sentiment that Scout is weak outside of Intrigue

62

Help! / Re: Pretty new - Didn't see this spanking coming

« on: January 13, 2012, 09:31:32 am »

Because Mean Mr Mustard's a contrarian, that's why. Here's Bridge instead of Chancellor:

Opening 5/2 : http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201201/13/game-20120113-062135-6df767a8.html
Opening 4/3 : http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201201/13/game-20120113-062634-7d931505.html

The subtle differences between Chancellor and Bridge: Chancellor has the potential to bring you a full turn earlier, if you draw Chancellor + 3 coppers on Turn 3 (immediate reshuffle for Apprentice). Bridge's +buy has more mid-game and late-game potential, where you can do things like buy Apprentice + Lighthouse, Apprentice + Silver, Hoard + Lighthouse, or even Province + Duchy. I would say that Chancellor has the opportunity to be slightly faster, but Bridge explodes bigger and has slightly more control towards the end.

(If you try this solitaire a few times, note how screwed you get if you don't pick up Apprentice on your first reshuffle.)

63

Help! / Re: Pretty new - Didn't see this spanking coming

« on: January 12, 2012, 09:30:14 pm »

Not an easy board. It's clear that Apprentice will play a part somewhere, but it's not obvious where.

The run-down is this: Hoard + Apprentice is awesome. Hoard + Bridge is good. Hoard + Apprentice + Bridge is probably still better. Inn + Bridge sucks as Inn doesn't draw. Inn + Apprentice + Bridge might work. Inn + Apprentice + Bridge + tactical CHANCELLOR can guarantee a megaturn. The issue is, can you really set up a Inn + Apprentice + Bridge + 1 Chancellor + Hoard megaturn? (With Hoard it won't be a mega-megaturn, more of a mini-megaturn where you trigger just when you have enough to buy out to guarantee a win, either by 3-piling or buying more than half of the remaining VPs available. Keep in mind both players may have been feeding VPs to Apprentice.)

It's difficult to say, since the timing of buying Inns (and what to shuffle in) is very tactical. If you're somewhat new to Dominion, I would advocate the "simpler" Hoard + Apprentice + Bridge (get only 1 or 2 Bridges, no more) combo. I say "simpler", but it's still not simple - how many Apprentices, how many Hoards, when to trash what, buy Duchy or two Estates......

64

Help! / Re: I finally dip my toes in the Isotropic waters...how to improve on this game?

« on: January 12, 2012, 07:33:42 am »

The other thing that stands out is that you bought a Province on turn 8 with one Gold in your deck.  This isn't always a bad idea but in the cursing situation you were in your economy wasn't nearly robust enough to start greening.  Indeed, after buying a second Province on turn 13 you had a very long stretch before you could begin to try to close out the game, and this tells me that you started greening too early.

I would have bought that Province on Turn 9 like OP did. I don't agree that the greening is too early, just that after Turn 9 there were maybe a few more missteps along the way.

For example: Turn 10, since you'd started greening, buy that Silver. Turn 11, hard to say, but usually Militia is a better play than Smithy especially with your deck composition what it is. Might be a tricky decision if it doesn't get you to $5?

Nearer end-game: Turn 17, okay now you've gained Gold a few turns in a row, consider Laboratory or throw in a single Market now... Turn 18, ditto.

65

Dominion Articles / Re: Crossing The Lvl 30 Barrier

« on: January 12, 2012, 12:05:51 am »

On that same game, just because you can Remodel your Curse into an Estate doesn't mean you should. You can remodel it into copper too!

Edit: also, things like Turn 20: Copper, Estate, Estate, Watchtower, Remodel, what do you do? Instead of playing that Watchtower and hoping to draw $2 in 2 cards, surely a better play is Remodel (Estate to Remodel), reveal WT to place on deck.

66

Simulation / Re: Treasure Map play rules

« on: January 11, 2012, 11:12:32 pm »

This leaves open the question what happens if you have more than 1 TM in your deck (say you bought 4 and have already cashed in two of the maps). It's non-trivial, because a really aggresive trashing strategy might want 8 Golds?

67

Dominion General Discussion / Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $4 cards Part 2/3 posted

« on: January 11, 2012, 10:34:47 pm »

So apparently there's one card not in this bottom third which got a last-place vote, and I am racking my brain trying to think what missing card could conceivably be considered that bad.  I'm kinda hoping someone gave JoaT a last-place rank just for the lulz, but I fear it's going to be something criminally underrated like Cutpurse.

My guess is Throne Room. Alternatively, I've seen someone repeatedly play Mining Village -> trash -> play 2/3 coppers -> buy a Mining Village, so if he submitted a ranking...

68

Dominion Articles / Re: Crossing The Lvl 30 Barrier

« on: January 11, 2012, 09:55:27 pm »

For example the score is your opponent 28 VP vs your 24 VP and you're both heavily in the greening stage with the same type decks, you have $6. You could buy a Duchy here, getting to 27 VP, but how does that help you really?

You buy that Gold, opponent buys a Duchy, and now you can't even buy that Province to win (suicide). Bad example?

69

Dominion Isotropic / Re: Decline of civility on isotropic?

« on: January 11, 2012, 02:54:31 am »

But with King's Courts, you don't need non-terminal draws to achieve the magic combo.

70

Dominion Isotropic / Re: Discuss: etiquette for leaving games early

« on: January 10, 2012, 11:44:32 am »

Well, I assume you at least got to see "who needs green cards" pop up on isotropic.

71

Help! / Re: Fool's Gold/Remake or Remodel

« on: January 10, 2012, 10:27:25 am »

My opponent went for the Bridge strat. I won the FG battle 7-3 with the remake.

Eh what? Any turn he draws the Bridge gets him 2 FG's... so if he opens Bridge/FG, I really don't see him ending up only at 3 FG's when you opened Remake.

72

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Most Skill-Intensive Cards

« on: January 10, 2012, 08:02:24 am »

Governor & Horn of Plenty top my list. The first is both difficult to plan and difficult to play, while Horn of Plenty (barring an easy all-cantrip board) takes some planning to get use out of.

I would follow this up with Island - on many boards you can't blindly buy Islands, yet a 2VP lead can't be ignored on boards with no alternate VPs. Finally 2 cards that take almost no skill to play - Royal Seal and Apothecary - but need management of your deck in order to get the full power out of them. Royal Seal is in the elite $5 level so you better have a good reason for buying it, while Apothecary requires the investment into Potion.

I'm quite surprised to see Apprentice and Salvager appear here; if you follow the 3 rules of "1. never use them on Coppers unless you draw it with 4 coppers, 2. always use them with Estates whenever possible, and 3. when you start greening just use Apprentice on the highest card you can afford to give up & Salvager on whatever gets you to a breakpoint" you'll be playing them at I'd say near 80-85% efficiency.

73

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Free points!

« on: January 10, 2012, 01:27:48 am »

Your deck is going to be incredibly slow with 4 Provinces though. You now have 7 coin, all in coppers, spread among 14 cards (i.e. your first 3 turns). If there are no $2 cards in the kingdom, you're in for a long game of doing nothing for most of your turns (is Copper a good buy in this situation? I suspect so.) until you get some of your treasure together.

74

Dominion Articles / Re: Alchemy: Apothecary

« on: January 09, 2012, 09:01:17 pm »

We all know how much it hurts to have engine cards get swindled into something useless (duchy, garden, chancellor), but apothecary can only be swindled into a university. This leaves you immune (up until the apothecaries run out of the supply) to losing engine cards.

Scrying pool too.

75

Dominion General Discussion / Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $4 cards Part 2/3 posted

« on: January 08, 2012, 11:30:01 pm »

Cache shines in situations where $/card is not the most helpful thing, possibly because selective drawing is in play. For instance, Hunting Party might find your Cache and skip your Coppers.  Tunnel is much better in those situations because Tunnel is not a treasure, so if you're working with Venture, Adventurer, Farming Village, Scout, Crossroads, Cartographer it might be totally worth it to have some early Gold at the expense of extra green.

You seem to be saying that both Cache and Tunnel are good when selective drawing is in play? But earlier you said the comparison is superficial...