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[Tables]

I see this mentioned a lot nowadays, that Big Money is becoming less and less common, engines are now viable on more and more boards etc. All I can really ask is the simplest question: Why?

Is it to do with the newer expansions (Dark Ages and Guilds) having more cards which regularly enable engines far more than old sets (and with those two expansions covering close to 1/4 of the card pool, they'll often appear)? Or is it more related to the top level players simply getting more and more experienced at building engines in places people would have never thought it possible, and finding they're able to beat big money approaches more and more? Those would be my top two guesses, but what else is causing it? I haven't played much Dominion since Dark Ages came out (perhaps roughly 100-200 or so games, many of which were against the AI) so I'm not so experienced with the cards in those sets, nor the strategic development of the metagame (if you can call it as such).

[Robz888]

It's mostly those two things.

I mean, the premiere Big Money enablers still allow very good player to beat decent-and-below players. But now the top, top amazing players can pretty much always execute a just outstanding engine that can beat very good Big Money.

On top of that, Dark Ages basically added a bunch of cards that weaken Big Money, and only a few that help it (Rebuild, Scavenger, and Feodum were WW's suggestions, and I agree). The biggest blow to Big Money might actually be the major weakening of Junking attacks, which is something of a Dark Ages phenomenon. DA added several very top notch trashers that more than hold their own against Junkers. You can't just say, "Eh, I'm going Witch/BM," nearly as often as you used to. Forager, Junk Dealer, Count, and Hermit all have something to say about that--in addition to the fact that top players better understand the power of Upgrade, Remake et al, now.

Guilds follows the same trend, and between the two, they have added 2 excellent enginey villages (Minstrel and Plaza), and the coin token dynamic, which also makes you want to engine (because coin tokens allow you to store up money, delaying Greening).

[popsofctown]

But Catacombs

[Mic Qsenoch]

I have a conspiracy theory involving onigame's set generator.

[DG]

The later expansions have more trashing and fewer terminals. Play with the base set and you'll get the same games that you used to do.

[jamfamsam]

Maybe it's because Big Money just isn't that much fun to play.

[AHoppy]

I also tend to see a lower concentration of big draw cards (eg: library, smithy, council room, torturer).  Sure, Dark ages added Hunting Grounds and Catacombs, and guilds has journeyman, but they added so many other cards that are more geared towards the engine and not the BM.  So for me, I just see fewer boards with the necessary draw to go BM

[Mic Qsenoch]

Maybe it's because Big Money just isn't that much fun to play.

I love a board with a healthy number of useful terminals and no villages. I think they are more likely to have interesting strategic decisions, the turns are shorter which makes it feel more like I am playing rather than watching, and the games don't last very long so I get to see the outcome and move on to the next game quickly. I don't have any desire to play another Hamlet engine ever again.

The only thing that bores me more than a tedious engine mirror is playing my non-engine deck vs. a tedious engine, so maybe you're onto something, but for me at least, engines are not more fun (in general).

I also tend to see a lower concentration of big draw cards (eg: library, smithy, council room, torturer).  Sure, Dark ages added Hunting Grounds and Catacombs, and guilds has journeyman, but they added so many other cards that are more geared towards the engine and not the BM.  So for me, I just see fewer boards with the necessary draw to go BM

Really though, the draw cards also favor engines, even if they also have ok BM strategies. I think they always have, but the support cards are generally better now, so you build the engine because your draw can actually be used consistently thanks to Forager/Wandering Minstrel/Whatever.

[popsofctown]

Dominion with all engines and no BM is like painting in blue and white with all blue and no white.  Whether or not blue is your favorite color.

I'll never convince anyone of it, but I think the "pay an action - rebate" system is a flaw that keeps BM dead draw from being as interesting as it could be. BM decks based on a nondrawing terminal like Merchant Ship are free to mix in nonterminals, and use sifters to swap between terminals and plenty other cool stuff.  Then instead of handling collisions with village smithy stack you have options like Haven, trash for benefit, etc.  Or Walled Village, that card Google invented.

[Beyond Awesome]

BM boards still exist. They just aren't as common. Sometimes, you even get a BM/engine hybrid board where neither strategy is the best and going for something in-between is the correct call. I played a board like that not too long ago.

[Awaclus]

Masterpiece makes BM a viable (and interesting) alternative to an engine quite often.

[DStu]

The later expansions have more trashing and fewer terminals. Play with the base set and you'll get the same games that you used to do.

I did this at the end of isotropic with a sample size of 2 against my brother, and can't confirm.

[Zappie]

The different starting hands of DA favouring engines haven't been mentioned yet i think.

[-Stef-]

I think this shift is almost exclusively about people getting better at dominion.
'it's the new sets' is just a very understandable excuse from people that don't want to admit they used to be wrong.

For me personally, the percentage of boards I try to build an engine hasn't significantly increased with dark ages / guilds. In fact, it decreased 2 years ago when I met the online community. I played a lot of games before that with base/intrigue, but I never figured out on my own why you would actually *want* a Gardens or Duke in your own deck. We just used to laugh when Swindler allowed us to put one of those over-sized curses into opponents deck. Off course I was wrong too back then, but not by that much. At no point in Dominion history BigMoney has been good at more then 30% of the boards.

[DStu]

Also as people like to say that trashing has gotten better with expansions: http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Chapel

[Awaclus]

Also as people like to say that trashing has gotten better with expansions: http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Chapel

Chapel has gotten better with expansions.

[Co0kieL0rd]

I love a board with a healthy number of useful terminals and no villages. I think they are more likely to have interesting strategic decisions, the turns are shorter which makes it feel more like I am playing rather than watching, and the games don't last very long so I get to see the outcome and move on to the next game quickly. I don't have any desire to play another Hamlet engine ever again.

The only thing that bores me more than a tedious engine mirror is playing my non-engine deck vs. a tedious engine, so maybe you're onto something, but for me at least, engines are not more fun (in general).

I can only agree. While building engines and making them soar can be a lot of fun and practise of your skill, short games where you have to choose between several good terminals can be just as interesting. And sometimes, simple Big Money is great because the game is so much faster.

I started playing Dominion with Intrigue, and then Hinterlands and Dark Ages. I did not play with the Base Set IRL until a friend bought it and we used only base cards so as not to scare off his sister from her first game with too complicated cards. My friend and I bought Lab and TR and stuff, built engines... and nearly forgot to buy any money. So we drew our whole decks and my friend at least had $8 every time - until my sister Thief'd his only Gold. She won^^
I knew Big Money was the original dominating strategy in Dominion in the beginning, but I never bothered with it until recently. So yeah, Dark Ages really wants you to do crazy stuff, anything but BM really. If you haven't played Base Set only in a long time (or ever) - try it out. It's a whole different experience

[SCSN]

Toddlers stop crawling as they learn to walk.

[Mic Qsenoch]

It's not like it can't be a combination of things, both the changing card pool as well as increasing player skill. It's idiotic to imply that non-engine strategies are for children though, since they can be quite complex and difficult to master.

Anyone who claims that engines were as strong in the Base set as they are now is kidding themselves, but it does ratchet up quickly with the first few expansions.

[DStu]

Anyone who claims that engines were as strong in the Base set as they are now is kidding themselves, but it does ratchet up quickly with the first few expansions.

Didn't want to imply this, just that the usual board in Base is more than enough to play an engine when you know how you can exploit it.

Of course there are much meaner attack after Base that strengthen engines, and more exploding payloads like Bridge, HoP, Goons etc.

[flies]

Some boards really don't like engines.  Here's a game where i beat Stef playing ironmonger/money http://gokologs.drunkensailor.org/static/logprettifier.html?20140319/log.50b20dc3e4b0c9ce0cf27eb3.1395257116796.txt  so it's rare, but it does happen.  (On this board, I wonder how different it would have been if he'd gotten a marauder earlier...  I wouldn't be surprised to hear that we both played this one badly...)

Here's another (same run of a few games) where the only village is ironmonger/city, no gains (city), and no attacks (thief). http://gokologs.drunkensailor.org/static/logprettifier.html?20140319/log.50b20dc3e4b0c9ce0cf27eb3.1395244802811.txt

I think in both cases, my focused BM play and unimaginative choices helped me win.

More often than not, tho, I lose to stronger players when I go for money.

[Davio]

Maybe our definition of BM is shifting as well and maybe there are just more and more support cards that don't really classify as BM enablers, but just all-around utility cards.

There are a lot of games where I build neither an engine nor a classic BM deck, but something in between. And it may have to do with players getting better. $6 is no longer an automatic Gold for me, I try and judge every card for its worth as good as I can which often leads me to getting something other than Silver or Gold.

I'm really trying to get away from that polarized thinking and the strategies that I derive from it and make every decision situational. Maybe this why I've finally cracked the 6000-barrier again, man that was harder than it was a couple of months ago.

And I agree with Stef, I don't think the number of engine boards has gone up all that much with the latest expansions, it's just that we the players are continuously getting better and better.

Look at it this way: Say a board has Butcher on it, so you could go Butcher-BM. Almost every time there will be at least one other action card of interest. Are you still playing Butcher-BM in that case? What if you add two other action cards, three, etc...?

[Awaclus]

Look at it this way: Say a board has Butcher on it, so you could go Butcher-BM. Almost every time there will be at least one other action card of interest. Are you still playing Butcher-BM in that case? What if you add two other action cards, three, etc...?

As long as your strategy is mostly based on Treasure cards and not, for example, drawing your deck every turn or buying Victory cards early and ending the game on three piles or triggering Market Squares with your Butchers and Butchering the Golds to Provinces, you're playing BM.

[Mole5000]

I've been trying to work out a 'trick' board that looks like it should have something interesting to play but secretly Big Money-X is the dominant strategy (where BM-X is defined as buying only standard Treasures, standard VP cards and any number of one other Kingdom card).

[SCSN]

I've been trying to work out a 'trick' board that looks like it should have something interesting to play but secretly Big Money-X is the dominant strategy (where BM-X is defined as buying only standard Treasures, standard VP cards and any number of one other Kingdom card).

Much looking forward to falling for your trap and beating you with it anyway