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[WNxTyr4el]

So should I always trash when there's a bridge setup?

What if there's no form of trashing?  My big question is how you all pick the same thing consistently with each other but there could be multiple ways to win lol. Unless in the games I've posted there hasn't really been more than one way

[Warfreak2]

You should usually trash when setting up any sort of engine - any strategy which aims to play a lot of action cards every turn. Your deck starts with 10 cards which actively stop you from playing more action cards - they aren't action cards themselves, and whenever you might draw more action cards to play, you might instead draw one of those 10 cards and your chain ends. If you get as many of those 10 cards out of your deck, then you'll find your action cards chaining together a lot more often.

Other times you won't play for an engine, but some trashing can still assist the strategy.

[WNxTyr4el]

You should usually trash when setting up any sort of engine - any strategy which aims to play a lot of action cards every turn. Your deck starts with 10 cards which actively stop you from playing more action cards - they aren't action cards themselves, and whenever you might draw more action cards to play, you might instead draw one of those 10 cards and your chain ends. If you get as many of those 10 cards out of your deck, then you'll find your action cards chaining together a lot more often.

Other times you won't play for an engine, but some trashing can still assist the strategy.

So when is something considered an engine?  That would be my next question lol. I read the article on it but I don't understand when something is considered an engine. Maybe I didn't read well enough though lol

[yed]

So when is something considered an engine?  That would be my next question lol. I read the article on it but I don't understand when something is considered an engine. Maybe I didn't read well enough though lol

When you are building deck which aims to draw large part of itself or even the whole deck.

EDIT: Or shifts through it (for example with Warehouse).

[WNxTyr4el]

So when is something considered an engine?  That would be my next question lol. I read the article on it but I don't understand when something is considered an engine. Maybe I didn't read well enough though lol

When you are building deck which aims to draw large part of itself or even the whole deck.

Very simple, thank you.  That will help me know when to trash then from now on.

In terms of trashing, I know you said that when playing an engine, trashing is generally the way to go.  But what about when not playing an engine.  When will trashing help you out?  Or will it just always be helpful in some form or another?

EDIT: I know adventures aren't really that great but there's Bridge, Village, Workshop, Festival, Conspirator, Witch, Adventurer, Pawn, Steward, and Library and I really wanted to try the Bridge engine here but got beaten pretty badly by the computer lol.  I really want to get off the engine successfully and learn how to do it but with all the different combos I never really know if it's the best idea or not.  Would it not be a good idea here due to not having Throne Room or King's Court?  Does the Bridge engine pretty much require one of those two cards?

I'm also having a hard time getting the right amount of terminals and non-terminals with money.  Is there some kind of "rule" for that?  Or is it kinda just that you gotta' feel it out?

[markusin]

Can trashing be useful when you're not going engine? The short answer is yes. Even Big Money decks like having a little bit of trashing , particularly to trash Estates. What cards provide "a little bit of trashing?" In Base+Intrigue you have Masquerade, Upgrade, and possibly Steward and Moneylender.

You know, Bridge is not a key card in every game it's in. Sometimes, it's not worth getting at all. In the board you provided above though, it can be used to support a Festival/Library/Conspirator deck that uses Steward for trashing and Village and Pawn for  additional reliability.

[WNxTyr4el]

Can trashing be useful when you're not going engine? The short answer is yes. Even Big Money decks like having a little bit of trashing , particularly to trash Estates. What cards provide "a little bit of trashing?" In Base+Intrigue you have Masquerade, Upgrade, and possibly Steward and Moneylender.

You know, Bridge is not a key card in every game it's in. Sometimes, it's not worth getting at all. In the board you provided above though, it can be used to support a Festival/Library/Conspirator deck that uses Steward for trashing and Village and Pawn for  additional reliability.

Awesome answer!  Thank you!  That really helps.  Is there a method to analyzing the board and seeing which strategy would be most beneficial?  So far I've been going with what I know and what makes sense to me or is easiest to pull off.  But I'd like to pull off some harder strategies that require more cards or something.  Thoughts on this?

[jsh357]

Can trashing be useful when you're not going engine? The short answer is yes. Even Big Money decks like having a little bit of trashing , particularly to trash Estates. What cards provide "a little bit of trashing?" In Base+Intrigue you have Masquerade, Upgrade, and possibly Steward and Moneylender.

You know, Bridge is not a key card in every game it's in. Sometimes, it's not worth getting at all. In the board you provided above though, it can be used to support a Festival/Library/Conspirator deck that uses Steward for trashing and Village and Pawn for  additional reliability.

Awesome answer!  Thank you!  That really helps.  Is there a method to analyzing the board and seeing which strategy would be most beneficial?  So far I've been going with what I know and what makes sense to me or is easiest to pull off.  But I'd like to pull off some harder strategies that require more cards or something.  Thoughts on this?

It comes with experience.  When I'm thinking about an engine I usually look for a few things: 1. Cursing (or Looting or Ambassador) attacks 2. Trashing options, 3. +Buy or a card that gains other cards, 4. Some form of card draw, 5. How I'm going to afford Provinces/Colonies/goal cards.  You can make engines that work without these parts, but they tend to have weaknesses and will rely more on money than actions in some cases. The cursing attacks are often crucial to take note of, as they can potentially ruin an engine or require that you get certain card to counter them. They also allow you to stop an opponent's deck from improving. Having card draw is something you really don't want to overlook (I used to all the time).  You can't make a deck that consistently plays the cards it needs to unless you draw them. The most helpful tool for me learning how to recognize good engines was watching WanderingWinder's videos back when he started, though that might not help everyone.

I guess the way I like to think of engines in general is: Remember when you started playing Dominion and were fascinated by all the ways cards could interact and wanted to try everything in a kingdom?  Engines are like doing that, but with a clear plan. As a man with an English degree, it reminds me a lot of William Blake's cycle of innocence and experience...

[shark_bait]

You've just asked to be able to do something that even the best players have difficulty doing at times.

The biggest answer to you question is experience.  Play some Dominion and lose a lot of games against better players.  You need to understand the limits and capabilities of each card which means you need to play numerous games with the different cards.  By playing against better players and analyzing their play you will begin to see faster for yourself what certain cards are capable of.

There are multiple levels of playing a game of dominion correctly. 

First, you need to be able to look at the board and determine the optimal strategy.  This requires an intimate knowledge of each card. 

Second, you need to understand how to implement your strategy.  In engine games this often requires knowing the correct order to buy cards. 

Thirdly, you need to know how to win.  This means a deep understanding of the end-game conditions, both Province/Colony and 3-Pile.  You need to take your implemented strategy and find a way to win.  Understanding the mirror match-up (where your opponent plays the same strategy) is crucial as they are more likely to end in 3-Pile with few VP bought.  Know when to start greening and when to break the Penultimate Province Rule are crucial for BM match-ups.

You've just asked for a lot that no amount of text can provide.  Go out and play some Dominion.  Lose and then figure out why you lost.  That's honestly the best thing you can do to improve your play.

[WNxTyr4el]

You've just asked to be able to do something that even the best players have difficulty doing at times.

The biggest answer to you question is experience.  Play some Dominion and lose a lot of games against better players.  You need to understand the limits and capabilities of each card which means you need to play numerous games with the different cards.  By playing against better players and analyzing their play you will begin to see faster for yourself what certain cards are capable of.

There are multiple levels of playing a game of dominion correctly. 

First, you need to be able to look at the board and determine the optimal strategy.  This requires an intimate knowledge of each card. 

Second, you need to understand how to implement your strategy.  In engine games this often requires knowing the correct order to buy cards. 

Thirdly, you need to know how to win.  This means a deep understanding of the end-game conditions, both Province/Colony and 3-Pile.  You need to take your implemented strategy and find a way to win.  Understanding the mirror match-up (where your opponent plays the same strategy) is crucial as they are more likely to end in 3-Pile with few VP bought.  Know when to start greening and when to break the Penultimate Province Rule are crucial for BM match-ups.

You've just asked for a lot that no amount of text can provide.  Go out and play some Dominion.  Lose and then figure out why you lost.  That's honestly the best thing you can do to improve your play.

That's totally acceptable.  I had to ask though to see if there was an answer that could be written with text.  It appears that there is not.  That's totally fine .  I'm all for playing games against better players.  If you all see me online sometime @ WNxTyr4el, feel free to message or type in chat to me or something.  Make a game with my name in it and I'll join lol. 

Can trashing be useful when you're not going engine? The short answer is yes. Even Big Money decks like having a little bit of trashing , particularly to trash Estates. What cards provide "a little bit of trashing?" In Base+Intrigue you have Masquerade, Upgrade, and possibly Steward and Moneylender.

You know, Bridge is not a key card in every game it's in. Sometimes, it's not worth getting at all. In the board you provided above though, it can be used to support a Festival/Library/Conspirator deck that uses Steward for trashing and Village and Pawn for  additional reliability.

Awesome answer!  Thank you!  That really helps.  Is there a method to analyzing the board and seeing which strategy would be most beneficial?  So far I've been going with what I know and what makes sense to me or is easiest to pull off.  But I'd like to pull off some harder strategies that require more cards or something.  Thoughts on this?

It comes with experience.  When I'm thinking about an engine I usually look for a few things: 1. Cursing (or Looting or Ambassador) attacks 2. Trashing options, 3. +Buy or a card that gains other cards, 4. Some form of card draw, 5. How I'm going to afford Provinces/Colonies/goal cards.  You can make engines that work without these parts, but they tend to have weaknesses and will rely more on money than actions in some cases. The cursing attacks are often crucial to take note of, as they can potentially ruin an engine or require that you get certain card to counter them. They also allow you to stop an opponent's deck from improving. Having card draw is something you really don't want to overlook (I used to all the time).  You can't make a deck that consistently plays the cards it needs to unless you draw them. The most helpful tool for me learning how to recognize good engines was watching WanderingWinder's videos back when he started, though that might not help everyone.

I guess the way I like to think of engines in general is: Remember when you started playing Dominion and were fascinated by all the ways cards could interact and wanted to try everything in a kingdom?  Engines are like doing that, but with a clear plan. As a man with an English degree, it reminds me a lot of William Blake's cycle of innocence and experience...

Lots of good things to look for.  Thanks for bringing those to my attention.  I'll try looking for those from now on. 

Again - WNxTyr4el on Goko.

[Mic Qsenoch]

An important thing to see on both this board and the other Bridge game you posted is that treasures are actively bad for the best strategy. Yes, even Gold(!) is an awful card on both of these boards, which is a little strange, but it's true. Adding treasures to your deck will make it much harder to play your action cards.

Since treasures are bad you want to: trash as many Coppers as you can with Steward, buy no more than one Silver (the Silver is only to help you buy your first couple $5 action cards), and don't buy Gold at all. The rest of your purchases should be action cards.

Note on Library - one of the main reasons to avoid treasures. Library can refill your hand with cards after you've played action cards, but you can't get rid of treasure from your hand on this board, so every treasure you draw makes it harder to play more actions and draw more cards.

[WNxTyr4el]

An important thing to see on both this board and the other Bridge game you posted is that treasures are actively bad for the best strategy. Yes, even Gold(!) is an awful card on both of these boards, which is a little strange, but it's true. Adding treasures to your deck will make it much harder to play your action cards.

Since treasures are bad you want to: trash as many Coppers as you can with Steward, buy no more than one Silver (the Silver is only to help you buy your first couple $5 action cards), and don't buy Gold at all. The rest of your purchases should be action cards.

Note on Library - one of the main reasons to avoid treasures. Library can refill your hand with cards after you've played action cards, but you can't get rid of treasure from your hand on this board, so every treasure you draw makes it harder to play more actions and draw more cards.

Lol, whoops.  Messed up on that just now.  I bought Silver and Gold and ended up with -6 due to curses, lol.  Horrible.  I'll try adding in Library and at least 1 Witch to throw off the AI.  I'm terribad haha.

[flies]

Here are my thoughts on what an "engine" is.

Slogs aim to draw the game out and play few actions per turn.  rushes aim to get the cards they need quick and then pile out.  Big Money (BM) buys few actions, mostly money, and aims for provinces, then duchies. 

Combos and Engines are what remain.  Combos are basically each in their own category, so we'll ignore them. (A learning player like yourself needn't concern yourself with these relatively exotic decks, but if you enjoy just reading about the game, you can look up chancellor/stash, hermit/market square (especially challenging to pull off), native village/bridge, native village/apothecary, to see what I'm talking about.)

Basically, an engine is a deck where you play a lot of actions that work together to become more than the sum of the parts. 

A draw-to-X engine (library or watchtower) is a good example of how deck synergy works.  Festival is good but lacks draw.  Library is good, but playing several in a row doesn't help you.  However, if you can play lots of festivals (and/or other cards that produce $$ and reduce hand size, e.g. bridge, oasis) in between libraries, then the library draws a crap ton.  When you play a lot of actions that synergize, that's an engine.  (Drawing your deck is kind of a side-effect in my view.)

I guess a village and smithy don't really "synergize" particularly by themselves, but then by themselves they make for an "engine" that will consistently lose.  You need other cards (generally some combination of attacks, trashing, +buy, and alt-vp) that make the village/smithy interaction worth setting up, and that's synergy.


A beginning player like yourself can learn a lot by mastering the basics of big money.  Once you get a feel for the strength of big money (that is, when you look at a board, you should have a feel for how strong BM will be on that board), you can begin to get a sense of where engines are worth building.  Note that really weak Big Money support is another reason to go engine.

[WNxTyr4el]

Holy wall of text, Batman!

That was a good read. Thanks for that. That really helped actually. I actually played a quick adventure earlier of Prosperity and won by a landslide due to the engine I had going. Labs/Village/Market/Witch/Monument (the board was shit for anything else). Took all the colonies I think lol. But that made me think of some questions.

1.) when there aren't any +money cards in play, is an engine still viable and would that mean you take more money from the piles?
2.) if trashing is available do you only trash estates or coppers too?  Or do you only trash coppers if you have a way of recovering that with a silver or better?

[flies]

Holy wall of text, Batman!

That was a good read. Thanks for that. That really helped actually. I actually played a quick adventure earlier of Prosperity and won by a landslide due to the engine I had going. Labs/Village/Market/Witch/Monument (the board was shit for anything else). Took all the colonies I think lol. But that made me think of some questions.

1.) when there aren't any +money cards in play, is an engine still viable and would that mean you take more money from the piles?
2.) if trashing is available do you only trash estates or coppers too?  Or do you only trash coppers if you have a way of recovering that with a silver or better?

pardon my pontification.  procrastination is my god.

2 is easy.  Trashing copper is nearly always good, the main exception being the opportunity cost of getting a trasher instead of treasure (e.g. sometimes you'd rather have a silver than the steward you'd be getting to trash copper and estates). 

regarding 1, actions that directly provide money are not necessary to an engine.  They are nice, especially when they're doing more than just giving $$.  it's hard to make treasure synergize with your actions, hence the preference for actions, but gold and platinum have their uses.  The "what's good for engines?" section of WW's article on the engine ( http://dominionstrategy.com/2013/01/23/the-five-fundamental-deck-types-the-engine/ ).  I'd add "some form of draw" to his list: you'll note that five of the six types of engines he lists are defined by the kind of draw they use (I'm including double-tactician, which is debatable, but close enough for these purposes), while a mega-turn engine also needs some sort of draw. 

None of these "what's good" items is necessary by itself (engines lacking some gainer/+buy can be viable), but you'll almost always need many of them. 

It's worth noting that most kingdoms will have at least a few items off the list, so building some kind of engine is usually possible, but often the engine is hard to see and hard to build; plus once you see the possibility, you have to assess whether it's the best thing going.

[WNxTyr4el]

Holy wall of text, Batman!

That was a good read. Thanks for that. That really helped actually. I actually played a quick adventure earlier of Prosperity and won by a landslide due to the engine I had going. Labs/Village/Market/Witch/Monument (the board was shit for anything else). Took all the colonies I think lol. But that made me think of some questions.

1.) when there aren't any +money cards in play, is an engine still viable and would that mean you take more money from the piles?
2.) if trashing is available do you only trash estates or coppers too?  Or do you only trash coppers if you have a way of recovering that with a silver or better?

pardon my pontification.  procrastination is my god.

2 is easy.  Trashing copper is nearly always good, the main exception being the opportunity cost of getting a trasher instead of treasure (e.g. sometimes you'd rather have a silver than the steward you'd be getting to trash copper and estates). 

regarding 1, actions that directly provide money are not necessary to an engine.  They are nice, especially when they're doing more than just giving $$.  it's hard to make treasure synergize with your actions, hence the preference for actions, but gold and platinum have their uses.  The "what's good for engines?" section of WW's article on the engine ( http://dominionstrategy.com/2013/01/23/the-five-fundamental-deck-types-the-engine/ ).  I'd add "some form of draw" to his list: you'll note that five of the six types of engines he lists are defined by the kind of draw they use (I'm including double-tactician, which is debatable, but close enough for these purposes), while a mega-turn engine also needs some sort of draw. 

None of these "what's good" items is necessary by itself (engines lacking some gainer/+buy can be viable), but you'll almost always need many of them. 

It's worth noting that most kingdoms will have at least a few items off the list, so building some kind of engine is usually possible, but often the engine is hard to see and hard to build; plus once you see the possibility, you have to assess whether it's the best thing going.

That helps a lot, thank you.  Just played a game and lost .  It's really hard to know what to pick against actual players.  I need more practice.  Here's the game for comments:

http://dominionlogs.goko.com//20140115/log.516f1b58e4b082c74d7dd36d.1389829219644.txt

[jsh357]

Don't have time to read the whole log right now, but: when you're being attacked by Saboteur, it's typically better to take nothing instead of gaining Copper (I noticed you had 20 Copper at endgame and was trying to see why) unless you are running Counting House or something.  The extra copper will prevent you from drawing other more useful cards.  That board looks fairly challenging and a bit swingy too. 

[WNxTyr4el]

Don't have time to read the whole log right now, but: when you're being attacked by Saboteur, it's typically better to take nothing instead of gaining Copper (I noticed you had 20 Copper at endgame and was trying to see why) unless you are running Counting House or something.  The extra copper will prevent you from drawing other more useful cards.  That board looks fairly challenging and a bit swingy too.

It was.  I didn't know you could take nothing.  How do you take nothing?  I thought you had to lol.

Here's another: http://dominionlogs.goko.com//20140115/log.516fdd73e4b082c74d7e3400.1389830058939.txt - I wanna post this one because it makes use of cellar which I just do not understand the use of or when to use it or what to discard when you do use it

Lol my FIRST win against someone!  Woo - http://dominionlogs.goko.com//20140115/log.50d378d7e4b0b3b44c66f2bb.1389830817319.txt - I figured out how Cellar works but still could use some examples/clarity on my questions above.

[flies]

Re saboteur: At right below the kingdom cards is a "take nothing" button.

Just wanted to add that the bots play money strategies much more competently than they do anything else, so if you can beat them at this then you're doing pretty well.

[WNxTyr4el]

Re saboteur: At right below the kingdom cards is a "take nothing" button.

Just wanted to add that the bots play money strategies much more competently than they do anything else, so if you can beat them at this then you're doing pretty well.

Thanks!

Those were real people lol. Or are u just saying that I can play bots to get better?

[ConMan]

The main things to consider when playing with Cellar are:

1. It reduces your hand size by 1
2. It works best when you've got something in hand you want to discard, and something in your deck you want to draw

Both of these together mean that it does its best work when you can increase your handsize a little, but still need to filter through your deck to find key cards - so it's not great at the start of the game (where you don't really have many key cards and are likely to see them regularly enough anyway), and often still not fantastic mid-game (unless there's no good trashing, so you need to sift through your deck to find the good cards). It can be good late-game, when you've started to green and may need to filter through those to get to the good cards, and especially if you've been faced with a junking attack and can't trash all the junk away. It's also a middling-good Tunnel enabler, and definitely one of the cheapest.

[jsh357]

If you are playing a deck that draws a bunch of cards but has junk in it (like estates, coppers, curses, etc) it's handy to have a Cellar so you can discard those and draw more.  That said, Cellar is usually a pretty weak card that you should probably only buy when you would see yourself benefiting from it.  It's especially poor against handsize attacks like Militia or Torturer, since Cellar does you a lot less good when you have 2 cards left in your hand.  It tends to be better late in the game after you start buying victory cards.

[WNxTyr4el]

If you are playing a deck that draws a bunch of cards but has junk in it (like estates, coppers, curses, etc) it's handy to have a Cellar so you can discard those and draw more.  That said, Cellar is usually a pretty weak card that you should probably only buy when you would see yourself benefiting from it.  It's especially poor against handsize attacks like Militia or Torturer, since Cellar does you a lot less good when you have 2 cards left in your hand.  It tends to be better late in the game after you start buying victory cards.

The main things to consider when playing with Cellar are:

1. It reduces your hand size by 1
2. It works best when you've got something in hand you want to discard, and something in your deck you want to draw

Both of these together mean that it does its best work when you can increase your handsize a little, but still need to filter through your deck to find key cards - so it's not great at the start of the game (where you don't really have many key cards and are likely to see them regularly enough anyway), and often still not fantastic mid-game (unless there's no good trashing, so you need to sift through your deck to find the good cards). It can be good late-game, when you've started to green and may need to filter through those to get to the good cards, and especially if you've been faced with a junking attack and can't trash all the junk away. It's also a middling-good Tunnel enabler, and definitely one of the cheapest.

Thank you both for your responses.  I'm hoping to play more games and learn more as I go on.  I have Prosperity, Intrigue, Alchemy and Hinterlands now so that's a good list of expansions to play with.  Lots of learning to do. 

Any tips for those expansions?  Just general ones, not really card related.  Or do those general tips sort of stay the same throughout?

[shark_bait]

For Prosperity:  Colonies add a total of 80 VP Points to the game.  In a two-player game with solely Provinces there are 84 total points.  The presence of Colonies almost doubles the amount of points available.  This gives more credence to engines that take longer to build up but that have a greater payload later in the game.

[WNxTyr4el]

For Prosperity:  Colonies add a total of 80 VP Points to the game.  In a two-player game with solely Provinces there are 84 total points.  The presence of Colonies almost doubles the amount of points available.  This gives more credence to engines that take longer to build up but that have a greater payload later in the game.

Good tip, thank you.  So basically that means engines that take longer are more viable when colonies are out on the board?