I was going to post this on the main blog directly, but decided I'd give the community a chance to comment first and hopefully add some example games and/or more strategy:
How’s about some multiplayer?A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.
The three laws by Asimov
How’s about an introA few months ago I decided to try a little experiment so I activated my second nick on isotropic. The plan was to prove it’s possible to reach level 20 by playing like a robot whose programming only allows it to play Big Money variants. The nickname “I, Robot” seemed appropriate (I meant no harm). I would stick to buying one action card, then money and green for the rest of the game. Once I, Robot reached level 20 I’d write an article where I prove that big money is really that good…. Wow, did that fail!! Lower level isotropic players are actually quite smart. Even level 0s beat me to a pulp by playing a decent albeit far from optimal engine. I abandoned the experiment to conclude pure big money is only viable at the kitchen table with your mum and sister who felt sorry for you and ok, we’ll play ONE game of Dominion, Kevin, now stop making that puppy face….
My poor little robot was put on the shelf to rust until I saw one of WanderingWinders videos playing multiplayer (TODO: add link). It looked like fun so I rebooted my mechanical friend and anxiously clicked the 3 and 4 player boxes. I waited and waited, but eventually played a few 3 player games and fun was had.
How’s about some strategy now, Geronimoo…Let’s move on to actual multiplayer strategy and how it differs from two player Dominion. Most of what you learned on this blog about two player Dominion still holds true for multiplayer. Wharf is still bah-roken, Jack will still lead to boring games and King’s Court-King’s Court-Bridge-Bridge-Bridge is still going to end the game right now. But there are a few subtle things that will make you a better multiplayer player if you’re aware of them. I’m not going to go into mechanical details like Tribute and Smugglers not targeting the same player, you’ll figure that out yourself. Let’s get to it!
The best defense is a good offense
Vs
The best weapon against an enemy is another enemy
I’m going to illustrate this with a simplified and very artificial game where players open $5/$2 and are only allowed to open Witch and/or Moat.The rest of the game they may only buy money and VP. This game can be played close to perfection by the simulator. In the two player game it’s obvious that going pure defense with Moat/Moat is awful because your opponent’s Witch/nothing opening will eventually get a few Curses in your deck while suffering no downsides himself. So both players are going to open Witch/Moat because any other choice will hurt their win rate.
The 4 player version of this game is a very different beast. The pure defense option is good for two reasons: fending off an attack is huge, no Curses instead of 3, and the attackers are being attacked themselves even if you don’t have a Witch. The simulator shows that if three players open Witch/Moat, the fourth player will dominate with a Moat/Moat opening! On the other hand if three players go Moat/Moat (not bloody likely) the fourth can safely open Witch and dominate. So, one attacker dominates three defenders and one defender dominates three attackers. Further simulations show two attackers will dominate two defenders. This results in the following optimal strategy for the player in the first seat: open Moat/Moat!! The second player can’t open Moat because player 3 and 4 will open Witch to dominate player 1 and 2. So player 2 goes Witch and this means player 3 and 4 will need to open Witch as well or get dominated. The other scenario where player one opens Witch is not optimal because it will result in player two playing the dominant strategy of being the only defender (player 3 and 4 will be forced into Witch to avoid getting dominated). Does this mean you should open Moat/Moat in a real multiplayer game of Dominion? Maybe not, but this artificial game shows that pure defense is very strong if all the other players are attacking. In this isotropic 3-player game (TODO: add link) I just buy Libraries while the two other players try to get something going with Torturer. These were low level players playing pretty terrible strategies, but it should be obvious that a few Big Money Torturers will get dominated by Library Big Money.
Ignore the elephant in the room
Vs
Man, that’s a lot of faeces, give me a bigger shovel
It’s close to optimal to get a Gold and then start greening for a Smithy big money strategy because it’s your fastest route to 5 Provinces to win the split. If your single opponent is a Village idiot, you’ll probably need to buy all 8 Provinces and one Gold, then green is no longer optimal. But it won’t matter because you’re going to win anyway so you can stick to your strategy if you wish and basically ignore the elephant in the room. In the three player game ignoring the Village Elephant can cost you the game. It becomes very important to build up the economy some more before greening because you’re no longer aiming for 5 Provinces, but 7 and the Smithy player who builds up a little more, like one or two more Golds, is going to be in better shape to get to 7 before choking.
Kings and beggars
Vs
All are created equal
Quite often one card or combination will dominate an entire kingdom in a two player game. eg Minion and Fool’s Gold will cause a race to win the split. On the other hand there are cards that never get bought like Thief, Pirate Ship and Saboteur because they are just very weak in two player Dominion. Compare this to the 4 player game where winning the Minion split is hardly going to be decisive (3 Minions, whee) while Pirate Ship can be very strong because the odds of missing are close to zero. In multiplayer the cards are more balanced and the entire kingdom is more likely to play. This better balance is probably one of the reasons 3 is the recommended number of players on BoardGameGeek (TODO: add link). This is only true if the skill levels are close together. Minions are still going to dominate if you’re the only one who knows how strong they are.
Aim for the moon
Vs
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush
Two player games will mostly end with “All Provinces are gone” and it’s probably wise to build your deck/economy to reach for those big scoring green cards. Multiplayer games often end on piles and you must take that into account. This is especially true on engine boards where players are collecting multiple components. Piles are going to run out very fast and you might need to transition to greening instead of building up to a mega turn. This makes engine multiplayer games more complex than their 2-player counterpart. As if engines weren’t hard enough already! (TODO: really need some example games here)
It’s not easy being green
Vs
Green is the new Red
Here’s a game (TODO: add link) where a player opens Cache/Estate and pretty much goes green the entire game. I literally lol’ed when I saw it, but look at the final score. She almost won! In a two player game greening this fast will choke you up far before the the game is over, but in multiplayer games three pile endings are much more common and (extremely) aggressive greening can pay off. ehunt used this strategy with success in the multiplayer portion of the Isodom tournament (TODO: add link)
Me, myself and I
Vs
Follow the leader, leader, leader
You’re in a two player game and you’re the better player. Your opponent opens Moneylender. You know Moneylender is ok, but Baron is better, so you open Baron. Nothing special here, moving on. Now imagine you’re in a 4-player game. You’re still the best player and you know it. The first three players open Moneylender. Everyone’s staring at you. Groupthink starts to play and did that Moneylender suddenly blink at you seductively!? Depending on your personality you might give in to it. City is another card where groupthink is very likely to play, but while you can safely ignore the City idiot in a two player game, you’ll turn out to be the mentally challenged if two or three players empty the Cities and you don’t participate. So be aware of groupthink, but mostly try to be confident of your plan and stick to it! I’ll admit it, groupthink has gotten to me before, but then I’m a shy little bunny…
Pursue, kill, and completely destroy them
Vs
Give, and it shall be given to you
Being the fourth in player in an attacking game can be brutal. Now imagine you’re the starting player and play Swindler. You have a chance to turn the poor fourth player’s Copper into yet another Curse. You might want to give him a break and replace it with a Copper instead. He’s no threat to you, so when the end game comes around and the fourth player has a chance to finish the game on piles you might be able to persuade him not to do it so you get an extra turn to win. This won’t come up often and it might even cost you games, but it’s something to keep in mind.
Mind collision
Vs
Mind collusion
Multiplayer games can suffer from collusion, but it’s far more difficult in Dominion because the game is not that interactive. Attacks for instance don’t target single players (you can be selective with Spy, whoopie…). Kingmaking can occur, but it’s always at your own expense as in the previous chapter. Certain boards will allow multiple players to conspire against a single opponent. Here’s an example: player one opens Smithy to go Big Money. The three other players can now open Woodcutter aiming to rush Gardens and outrace the Smithy player on piles despite Woodcutter/Gardens being easily dominated in two player. All in all, collusion in Dominion is never going to be as big an issue as it is for other board games (Here’s a debate about it on the forum
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=2443.msg38189#msg38189)
How’s about ending thisIf you’ve ever played multiplayer on isotropic, on purpose or not, you might have been put down by any of these: multiplayer players are weak, MPPs are slow, MPPs disconnect for no apparent reason, MPPs will buy the last Province to finish last and say “oops” which is even more annoying if you had a chance to win, MPPs just aren’t there and you start a two player game against Geronimoo out of desparation…
Despite all that I’m asking you to give it another try! If enough decent players do, we might have some fun with this multiplayer game called Dominion!
)
After the game I tell him how Bank works and he's like, oh, I never played with any of these cards before except Village. Ouch, ego crushed...
